Лестер Дент - Honey in His Mouth

“It’s real, I’m betting on that.”

She snatched the sheet from him and snapped it out shoulder height, guiding it to the floor with swaying motions of her upper body like a Bali dance. She dumped everything from both suitcases onto the sheet. Tissue paper, jewelry, cotton, everything. Her breath came and went in spurts past the tips of small white teeth. “I wish to hell we had something to stuff in the suitcases.”

Harsh shook his head. “There’s no time for that. They’re right on the beach. We can’t get much of a start as it is.”

Vera Sue nodded reluctantly. “The first thing this Miss Muirz is going to do when she gets back inside is open the suitcases to gloat over the jewels. I know bitches like her, and I know that’s what she’ll do. And when she does, she’s going to squall like a hill panther, and we had better be gone from here.”

“All right. Let’s go back to my plan. You take the sports car, Vera Sue. I’ll put the other two cars out of commission and knock out the telephone, then take off north. That will split them up.”

“The jewelry better go with me, Walter.”

He stepped to her and without warning swung his fist. It landed on the side of her face. She slid to the floor with one leg folded under her and the other stretched out in front of her.

Harsh leaned over her. “That’s to pay you for the goddamn greedy ideas I can see you’re getting. You listen to me, baby. You double-cross me, you just try it, and what you just got is not even a small sample of what you got coming.”

No more than the tips of small teeth showed between her lips. “It may be you just made a mistake, Walter.”

“Like hell I just made a mistake. You try to cut me out of this deal, and I’ll break your neck. Now listen. Go to a hotel in Miami. Register and wait for me. The way you pick a hotel, you look in the Yellow Pages. You look at the list of hotels and count down five from the first, and go to that one. If you can’t get a room there, you make sure you leave a note for me. Say in the note where you did get a room. Fifth hotel down in the phone book, register or leave me a note. Got it?”

She drew in the leg that was straightened out and put the tips of her fingers on the floor. “You brutal son of a bitch. What do you think I am, stupid? I’m smarter than you, Walter. Least I can read and write better’n a ten-year-old.”

“Okay. Okay, baby.” He seized the bundle made of the knotted sheet and jewelry. “You want to play that way, I can take this stuff myself.”

She jumped to her feet and snatched the bundle. “No, I’ll do it. You just distract their attention while I get away.” Her eyes glowed like angry garnets. “And I’ll settle with you later for slugging me.”

He opened the door and scouted the hall. “Come on.” They walked along the hall and down the stairs. Vera Sue hugged the bundle tightly. The jewelry made rich faint scratching noises inside the sheet as it rubbed together.

Harsh led the way to the front door. When he opened it a current of air came from under the leaded marquee bearing the fragrance of azaleas.

Moonlight was cream-colored on the driveway and black shadows lurked in the shrubbery. Their feet whispered in the cropped grass. The toes of their shoes became shiny wet with dew.

“You are sure you can drive this thing, Vera Sue?” The sports car was a low shape in the moonlight, a pale powerhouse, sleek and opalescent like a pearl. He pushed Vera Sue down alongside the car and crouched himself. “You wait here. Don’t let anybody see you sitting in the car. It will take a few minutes for me to disable the limousine and get that gate open. The gate will be the signal. When you see it open, take off. Cut loose and just keep going to Miami. I’ll handle the rest.”

“What about the station wagon, Walter?”

“I’ll fix it now.” He went over to the station wagon and opened the door and leaned inside. He did nothing but lean inside for a while, then went back to Vera Sue. “I tore the wires loose.”

“Okay. I’ll watch for the gate to open.”

He leaned over her. “A kiss for luck?”

“Yes, Walter, you do deserve something for luck.” She made a small hard fist of her hand and brought it against his nose, making the cartilage squeak like a pup’s rubber mouse. “There, you bully. With my compliments.”

He fell back and cupped his hand over his nose. “Okay. That’s the one shot you get for free, baby. You try to steal this jewelry, I’ll fix you good, Vera Sue. Let me be plain. You pull anything, you’d better sleep in a locked room every night after that, because the day you don’t I’ll find you and you’ll never wake up.”

“You’re a nasty son of a bitch, Walter.”

“You are so right. You just keep that in mind, baby.”

Harsh returned to the house. Instead of going upstairs, he entered the first floor study where there was a telephone. He held the instrument to his ear until he heard the dial tone to make sure it was an outside line, then he dialed the operator and told her he wanted the police. “The Highway Patrol. Emergency. Hurry, please.” There was a pack of cigarettes on the table and he shook one out of the pack and put it in his mouth, but took it out quickly when he heard a female voice on the telephone. That a woman’s voice should answer for the police surprised him. He was briefly confused, but recovered. “Highway Patrol?...Yeah, yeah, well listen. This is a tip-off. Two guys in a limousine. They got a body of a murdered man in the back. Black limousine, traveling south on the beach road right now. It will go west across the causeway, then south on U.S. 1. License plate’s seven-zero-F-eight-zero-one. A murdered body in the back. Get on it.”

“Who has been murdered?”

“He’s dead as hell.”

“Hold it a second.” Harsh could hear the woman relaying the information. “What is your name, please?”

“Never mind my name. You think I’m crazy enough to get mixed up in this?” Harsh dropped the handset on the cradle.

He wondered if, when he hung up at his end, that broke the connection in the dialing apparatus so the call could not be traced. He wished he knew. At the same time he hoped he’d never find out. The time had come to get that money out of the wall safe and haul out of here.

He left the study after a glance from the window assured him that Mr. Hassam, Doctor Englaster, Miss Muirz, and Brother were still on the beach. They were crouching around the portable radio with an attentive air, like setters on point. Listening to another news broadcast, no doubt.

He went to his room and closed the door. He ripped open the box which contained the slacks he had been wearing when he shot the cop and dug his hand into the pocket. He found the wall safe keys. The bits of metal felt strange in his fingers. He stood there a moment with the keys in his hand. He did not feel any immediate reaction to holding them the way he had supposed he would.

He went to the wall safe and swung the oil painting aside and worked the combination the first try. Got it first crack, what do you know, he thought, and he made a little celebratory ceremony of getting the two keys in the locks in the inner door before turning either. The inner door had no handle and the way it opened was by pulling on the keys after they were turned, he imagined. He turned the keys and tugged, bringing the door open. It was exactly level with his eyes. The money was there.

He was looking right at fifty thousand dollars, he thought, but he did not feel any particular elation. He felt very calm, except that his ears seemed to have started ringing. He drew out the money and divided it in two halves and put each half in a pocket, one half in one hip pocket and the other half in the other hip pocket. It was funny how calm he felt, except that ringing in his ears.