Джеймс Чейз - The Way the Cookie Crumbles

Bracing herself, Ira walked up to him.

‘Hello, Jess, so you’ve got here.’

For a brief moment, she could see by the blank expression in his eyes that he didn’t recognize her, then he did. He gaped at her, shaken by the change in her, but he quickly recovered.

‘Jeepers! Look who’s here!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’ve got yourself all tarted up for God’s sake, haven’t you?’

Ira had had no time to change out of her office clothes and she was aware that she looked too prim, too square and too everything that Jess despised. Her neat grey dress with its white collar and cuffs, her black nylon stockings and court shoes were the uniform of the class of people Jess hated most. ‘Creeps who boot-lick the squares,’ was his constant description of them.

‘This is an act,’ she said defensively. ‘Come on, Jess, I’ve lots to tell you, but let’s get out of here.’

‘Yeah? Suppose I don’t want to listen? What the hell do you mean by walking out on me the way you did?’ Jess’s thin face darkened. ‘I’ve a mind to poke you in the kisser here and now!’

‘Oh, grow up!’ she snapped, suddenly furious with him. ‘If you can’t, go home!’ She turned and walked quickly out of the building and over to where she had parked her T.R.4.

Startled, Jess gaped after her, then shouldering his bag, he went along. He joined her as she slid under the wheel.

She watched him look the car over, a bewildered, envious expression on his face.

‘This yours?’

‘It’s mine.’

‘Judas!’ He sucked in his breath. ‘What’s been going on? You really mean it’s yours?’ He now looked so stunned that Ira nearly laughed at him.

She opened the off-side door.

‘Get in, Jess.’

He moved around the car, slid in beside her and slammed the door. Now he was close to her she could smell the dirt on him and the stale sweat from his clothes. The smell brought back a vivid and frightening picture of her sordid home, her drunken father, the dirt and the bedbugs, and she shuddered.

‘Can you drive it?’ he asked, staring at the dashboard with round eyes.

‘Of course. I used to drive Joe’s car when he would let me and it was twice this size.’

Jess scratched his head, scattering scurf on his collar.

As Ira pressed the starter button, he said, ‘Where the hell did all that money come from you sent me?’

‘It’s a long story. It’ll wait,’ Ira said as she set the car moving. Jess’s sudden uneasiness and his loss of confidence pleased her. ‘And you, Jess? What have you been doing since I left?’

‘Doing?’ He became hostile again. ‘I’ve been doing what I like doing. Nothing!’

A stupid remark, she found herself thinking. You haven’t changed, Jess. It’s only now I can see what a lout and a layabout you are. You haven’t changed, but I have.

‘How’s the gang?’ she asked for something to say.

‘What do you care about the goddamn gang?’

‘I can ask, can’t I?’

‘The gang’s all right. What’s all this crap about anyway? I’ve got to get back. The gang can’t manage without me.’

‘Who cares? You can manage without them, can’t you?’

He moved uneasily.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, never mind. Why didn’t you get yourself some clothes, Jess? I sent you enough money.’

‘What the hell do I want clothes for?’

‘Paradise City isn’t New York. You can get picked up by the cops looking the way you do.’

‘Frig the cops!’

‘What did you do with all that money, lose it?’

‘I got some of it. What’s it to you? It’s mine, isn’t it?’

She shrugged her shoulders, dismayed that she was so bored with this lout. She was now on Highway 4A and she concentrated on her driving, effortlessly whipping the small car past the big Cadillacs, the Buicks and the Fords, but careful not to exceed the speed limit. She didn’t want a cop after her with Jess in the car.

‘Can’t you drive faster than this?’ he demanded, glad for a chance to criticize. ‘Let me take it. I’ll show you how to drive a car!’

‘It’s fast enough. The cops are hot here.’

He grunted, then asked, ‘Where are we going?’

‘Somewhere where we can talk.’

He stared uneasily at her, not sure how to handle her. This was an entirely new Ira to him. Baffled, he lit a cigarette and slumped into a surly silence.

It took them a little more than an hour’s fast driving to reach the beach cabin. By then it was dark and the beach deserted.

The cabin was a luxury three-room pine wood structure that stood in the shade of three palm trees and was set well away from the other beach cabins which were in darkness. It was Club night, and none of the regulars came to the beach this night.

‘Here we are,’ she said, getting out of the car. ‘Hungry?’

‘What do you think?’ He got out of the car and looked at the cabin, distrust and suspicion in his eyes. ‘You going to bust in?’

‘I have the key.’ She went on ahead, unlocked the door, switched on the light and motioned him in.

He walked into the big lounge with the suspicious movements of a cat, entering a strange room. Crossing to the windows, she quickly drew the curtains.

‘Well, what do you know!’ he exclaimed, staring around the room. ‘Quite a joint! Who does it belong to?’

‘That’s part of the story,’ she said. ‘Make yourself at home. I’ll get some food.’

While she was preparing a cold meal from the well-stocked refrigerator, she wondered just how much she should tell him. She knew it would be dangerous to let him know the amount of money Edris hoped to steal from the bank. This she would play down, but the rest of it, if he was going to help her, he had to know. She now regretted asking him to come out here, but she had to have help, and he was the only one available who might help her.

During the meal, she told him the whole story. He listened without interruption, savagely stuffing cold chicken into his mouth as if he hadn’t had a meal in days. When there was nothing more to eat, he lounged back in the chair, a cigarette hanging from his thin lips, still silent until she had finished her story.

‘Well, that’s it,’ she concluded. ‘I was crazy to have done it, and now I can’t get out of it. What am I to do?’

‘Why do you want to get out of it?’ he demanded.

‘I don’t need the money. I have everything I want now without taking any risk. Can’t you see that? If I go on robbing the bank, it’s bound to be found out and then I’m in trouble.’

‘How much is the bank job worth to you?’

‘About five thousand,’ she lied. ‘That’s what Edris promised me. At the time it seemed a fortune, but now... well, it wouldn’t last long and I would be on the run.’

A calculating expression came into Jess’s eyes.

‘What’s Edris getting out of it?’

‘Twenty thousand, something like that. I don’t know exactly how much.’

‘Yeah? I bet! Don’t tell me he would go to all this trouble for twenty grand. He’s fooling you. I bet every time Algir gets money out of that bank, it’s big money.’

‘He’s only taken one lot out and it was for five thousand, six hundred,’ Ira said, uneasy to see the greed that had lit up Jess’s face.

‘If he takes that out every day, it could soon mount up. No, they’re fooling you. The thing to do.’

‘I don’t care if they are fooling me!’ Ira broke in desperately. ‘I want to get out! I’m satisfied with what I’ve got! I want you to help me handle those two, Jess.’

He began to pick his nose, staring blankly at her. She could see he wasn’t listening to what she was saying.

‘Jess! Did you hear what I said?’