Cinderella

by Ed McBain

  "Cenicienta," Amaros said.

  "Would you spell that, please?" Ware said.

  ***

  The wire transfer took exactly seven minutes. It took longer | than that for Amaros to get Ernesto on the phone at the Sun-crest Motel to tell him that the money was on the way. It was raining in Calusa when the bank on First Street got the wired instructions. In fact, it was raining all over Florida that day. The hurricane season was supposed to be from July to October but people were beginning to say it was coming early this year. They said that every year at about this time.

  In his second-floor apartment at Camelot Towers, Vincent paced from sofa to rain-streaked windows to sofa and back again. It's a wonder he isn't wearing a track in the carpet, Jenny thought.

  He was very disturbed that this lawyer Matthew Hope had been here yesterday. He kept wanting to know exactly what she had said to this lawyer. She had to repeat word for word, as closely as she could remember, everything the lawyer had said and everything she had said to the lawyer. The last time she'd seen Vincent so upset was when he was talking about the man who came around with the picture of her, the one she figured Larkin had sent but which she didn't say because Vincent didn't even know Larkin existed. Or that she had a gold Rolex in a safety-deposit box at the Sheraton where she was registered as Julie Carmichael. She didn't worry about keeping things from Vincent. She suspected he kept a lot of things from her, too. Listen, they weren't joined at the hip, and after tomorrow she didn't plan to see him ever again.

  "We have to get out of this town as soon as possible," he said now. "We do the deal tomorrow, and we split. It's getting too hot here."

  She hated it when he tried to sound like a gangster. The words sounded ludicrous coming from his faggoty lips. Though she'd read someplace that homosexual murders were the most vicious of any murders committed anywhere. That sounded ludicrous, too. She could just imagine Vincent trying to shoot somebody, he'd probably shoot himself in the foot. Or stab him. Or anything.

  "What time are you supposed to meet them?" he asked.

  "Twelve noon."

  "Where?"

  "They're staying at a place called the Sunset Motel."

  "Where the hell is that?"

  "On the North Trail, near the airport, they said."

  "That's all motels, that stretch near the airport," Vincent said.

  "So what's wrong with that? There's nobody here this time of year."

  "I'm just saying." He kept pacing. He was wearing very tight jeans, you could see the bulge of his machinery there at the crotch. What a waste, she thought. "Are they expecting me?" he asked.

  "I didn't say anything about you. They're expecting four keys of cocaine is what they're expecting."

  "You told them cash?"

  "They know cash. If they're in the business, cash is all they know. I told them to bring two-hundred-and-forty thousand, five-hundred. That's the two-sixty less Klement's seven-and-a-half percent."

  "How?"

  "How what?"

  "What kind of bills?"

  "I didn't specify."

  "You should've told them hundred-dollar bills."

  "You should've been here instead of out sucking some guy's cock," Jenny said.

  Vincent shrugged.

  "They might bring thousand-dollar bills, something ridiculous like that," he said.

  "So what? They don't change thousand-dollar bills in Paris?"

  "Paris?"

  "That's where I'm going once we unload this shit."

  She had never told her dream to anyone before this moment. Well, she'd told Merilee that she'd be getting out of the country, but she hadn't mentioned Paris, the little house on the outskirts of Paris. She was afraid she'd get laughed at if she ever told that to anybody. But she was so close now, so close. Vincent looked at her for what seemed a long time, as if trying to visualize her in Paris. She was beginning to think saying it out loud had been a mistake. Not because Vincent was laughing at her, which he wasn't. But maybe God would take it away from her somehow. Steal the dream. Because she'd talked about it.

  "Amaros can find you in Paris the same as anyplace else," Vincent said.

  "Thanks, that's very reassuring. The son of a bitch gave me herpes, I hope he does find me. I'll cut off his cock, the little prick."

  "That's redundant," Vincent said. "And also grossly inaccurate."

  "Don't go fairy on me, okay?" Jenny said. "I hate when you sound like a fairy."

  "I am a fairy, darling."

  "Terrific. Go confess to your mother. Just don't mince your fucking words that way."

  "I'm heading for Hong Kong," Vincent said. "Let Amaros chase me there if he wants to. I'll hire two Chinese thugs to behead him."

  "You keep thinking Amaros is after us…"

  "Oh, please, dear, who else is sending around private investigators? And now a lawyer? Everything legal and aboveboard, oh, yes, until he zeroes in on us. Then we can expect a visit from a goon squad. He wants his nose candy back, Amaros does. He doesn't like us having stolen his nose-"

  "Me. I'm the one stole it. Never mind us, Kimo-Sabe."

  "The private eye came to this apartment. That makes it us. The lawyer came to this apartment. That makes it still us. And if the goons come it'll still be us. Which is why I'm going to Hong Kong."

  "How do you know he was a private eye?"

  "Who are you talking about, darling?"

  "The guy who came here with my picture."

  "He said he was a private eye."

  "That's not what you told me."

  "When?"

  "That day. When I came here that day. The day he showed you my picture."

  "I'm sure that's what I told you."

  "No, you said some guy had been here with my picture, and you were sure Amaros had sent him."

  "Is that what I said?"

  "That's what you said."

  "Well, who can remember so long ago? Anyway, just let him try to find me in Hong Kong."

  "I'm more worried about those two spies tomorrow than I am about Amaros," Jenny said. "I don't mind going to this shitty little motel they're staying at, I figure that may be safer than anyplace else, you know? We ask them to come here or over to the Sheraton, they may come back later, you know? Try to steal the money back, you know? This way, we give-them the stuff, we take the bread, and we disappear."

  "Exactly," Vincent said.

  "It's just who the hell knows who they are? They may be rip-off artists, drift into town, ask some questions about who's got dope, and then give you a bop on the head and take off."

  "Well, you never know who you're dealing with," Vincent said.

  "Is just what I'm saying," Jenny said. "In L.A., I had guys you'd go up to their room, fancy hotels, am I right? The Beverly Hills? The Beverly Wilshire? Even the Bel-Air, you can't get fancier than that. Or the Hermitage. You'd go up to their room, they'd get you in the room, big bastards some of them, like gorillas, you know, they'd lock the door, the bastards. I used to carry a single-edged razor blade in my bag, but some of these guys they'd beat the shit out of you before you could bat an eyelash, rape you, steal all your fuckin' money, throw you out in the hall…"

  "Oooo, that sounds marvelous," Vincent said.

  "Cut the fog shit, willya please? I'm trying to be serious here. That's why a lot of girls work with pimps, for protection against these fucking weirdos, you know? What I'm saying is suppose I go in there tomorrow and these two guys haven't even got carfare, never mind sixty-five a key? Suppose what they're planning is a plain and simple Smash-and-Grab? Smash me, grab the coke, and it's off to the races. That's what's worrying me."

  "Yes," Vincent said.

  "So here's what I think we should do," Jenny said.

  ***

  "The thing is," Jimmy Legs said to his brother, "I think she still has the watch, didn't try to hock it or nothing, leastways according to Harry Stagg, who knows every fence in this city and also there's only two pawn shops."

  "Yeah," Larki
n said.

  He was making the spaghetti marinara sauce he planned to use tonight. He had come home at noon today. Rainy days, he didn't know why it was, nobody came around shopping for boats. Also, what the hell, the owner of the place was entitled to half a day off every now and then, wasn't he? He was chopping onions, which made his eyes tear. Jimmy was sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter, sipping on a gin and tonic. The sliding glass doors that led to the deck were crawling with rain-snakes. Beyond the deck, the sky was gray and ominous.

  "Mama made the best marinara sauce in the whole world, may she rest in peace," Jimmy said.

  "Yeah," Larkin said. "So you think she's still got the watch, huh?"

  "Oh, yeah, no question."

  "Then maybe you oughta run over this condo."

  "What condo?"

  "On Hacienda Road there."

  "What about it?"

  "This shyster lawyer?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Matthew Hope?"

  "Yeah?"

  "He comes here, he tells me the dead guy was-"

  "Who, the P.I.?"

  "Yeah, Samalson. He tells me he tracked her to this condo. Place named Camelot Towers on Hacienda Road there, I forget the address."

  "So whattya mean? She's there? Is that what you're saying?"

  "Well, I don't know if she's there or not. That's an address she gave when she went to see this doctor. Samalson planned to go back Monday morning, but then, you know, he got boxed."

  "Yeah."

  Jimmy sipped at his drink.

  Larkin chopped onions and cried.

  "It was the garlic made it so good," Jimmy said. "She used to put in a lot of garlic."

  "Yeah, I'm gonna put in garlic," Larkin said.

  "Keeps the Angel of Death away, garlic," Jimmy said and burst out laughing. Larkin laughed, too, crying at the same time.

  "So what it was," Jimmy said, "he caught it before he had a chance to check it out, huh?"

  "Well, Sunday night."

  "Before he checked it out."

  "Yeah."

  "So you want me to run over there, show the picture?"

  "You still got the picture?"

  "Yeah, Stagg gave it back to me. His real name's Stagione, you know that?"

  "No, I didn't know that."

  "That's why no honest Italian should change his name," Jimmy said.

  "What do you mean?" Larkin asked, bridling.

  "Because everybody thinks only wanted desperadoes change their names. Or escaped cons. Them and Jewish movie stars. Paul Newman is Jewish, you know. You think that's his real name? Newman?"

  "I don't know," Larkin said. "It could be Jewish, Newman." He was still annoyed that his brother had brought up the fucking name change again.

  "So's Kirk Douglas," Jimmy said. "His real name is Israel something. Bob Dylan, too. And you remember John Garfield? The pictures he used to make? He was Jewish, too. I gotta tell you, for a Jew he was some fuckin' gangster. Bogart, too."

  "Bogart was Jewish, too?"

  "No, no, who said he was Jewish?"

  "I thought you-"

  "No, Bogart was a good gangster. It's Garfield who was Jewish. Jules Garfinkel was his name. Or Garfein. How'd you like a fuckin' name like that?"

  "Largura's no prize, either," Larkin said.

  "Papa just turned over in his grave," Jimmy said.

  "Then whyn't you just lay off the fuckin' name, okay?" Larkin said.

  "Don't get so fuckin' excited, okay?"

  "Okay," Larkin said.

  "Okay," Jimmy said.

  The men were silent for several moments, listening to the sound of the falling rain and the rattling palm fronds.

  "So you want me to run over there or what?" Jimmy asked.

  "Well, I don't think it'd hurt, do you? Run over the condo, ask around?"

  "No, no, it might be good."

  "So when you think you can do that?" Larkin asked.

  "Maybe tomorrow afternoon sometime, this rain ever stops. No, wait, it'll have to be Sunday, I got something to do tomorrow. Which reminds me."

  Larkin was dropping tomatoes into boiling water now.

  "What are you doing there?" Jimmy said.

  "Taking the peels off."

  "How is that taking the peels off?"

  "You'll see."

  Jimmy watched.

  "I don't see no peels coming off," he said.

  "You have to keep them in boiling water for a minute or so," Larkin said.

  "Then what?"

  Larkin was looking at his watch.

  "Fuckin' cheap Timex," he said, shaking his head. "I catch that cunt…"

  "So where are the peels coming off?"

  Larkin drained the hot water from the pot and put the pot under the cold water tap. Jimmy watched as he slipped the tomatoes out of their skins.

  "I'll be a son of a bitch," he said.

  "Mama used to do it over a gas jet," Larkin said. "She used to put a fork in the tomato and then turn it over the flame to loosen the skin. I only got an electric stove here, though, so I use boiling water."

  "I'll be a son of a bitch," Jimmy said again.

  He kept watching his brother's magic act, amazed and astonished, shaking his head.

  "You got any more of this gin?" he asked.

  "Yeah, in the cabinet there," Larkin said, gesturing with his head.

  Jimmy went to the cabinet, rummaged around, found an unopened bottle of Tanqueray.

  "Okay to break the seal on this?" he asked.

  "That's what it's for," Larkin said.

  Jimmy poured more gin into his glass. He poured tonic into the glass. He cut a key lime in half, squeezed it into the glass.

  "Where'd you get the key limes?" he asked.

  "Lady down the street grows them," Larkin said.

  "Salute," Jimmy said, and drank. "Ahhhhhh," he said, and drank some more. "These key limes are what make a good gin and tonic. Your regular limes suck." He drank again. "Tonight's the twentieth, you know," he said.

  "Yeah? So what's the twentieth?"

  "The boat."

  "Oh, yeah, I forgot."

  "One of the cigarettes, remember?"

  "I'll run you by the place later, you can pick one you want," Larkin said, "take the key from it."

  "Thanks," Jimmy said, and looked out over the water. "I hope this rain lets up," he said. "We got these two spies from Miami, we're layin' off six hundred thousand-"

  "I don't want to hear it," Larkin said.

  ***

  The rain showed no sign of letting up.

  Camelot Towers sat tall and gray and ugly on the bay side of Whisper Key, looking more like a federal penitentiary than anything anyone would want to live in-even at nothing down, no closing fees, and a nine-point-nine percent, thirty-year, fixed-rate mortgage.

  Matthew made sure he parked the Karmann Ghia in a space marked visitor, looked over the checklist of the apartments he'd already visited, and walked into the building. He studied the directory to the left of the mailboxes, wrote down names for the apartment numbers already on his list, and then wrote down names and apartment numbers for the other tenants in the building. He was walking toward the elevator when the doors opened and the redhead he'd talked to yesterday stepped out.

  She was not wearing sunglasses this time around.

  No mask, so to speak.

  Her eyes were as blue as chicory in bloom.

  Yesterday-in jeans and a tank top, the sunglasses hiding her eyes-he'd thought she was a teenager.

  Today-at three in the afternoon, wearing a short, shiny, fire-engine red rainslicker over a pleated white skirt and shiny red boots, a blue scarf over her short auburn hair-she looked twenty-three or four, all red, white, and blue in rehearsal for the Glorious Fourth yet two weeks away.

  "Hello," he said.

  The blue eyes flashed.

  "Matthew Hope," he said.

  "Who?"

  But she knew him; he knew she recognized him.

  "Yes
terday," he said.

  "Oh," she said. Curtly. In dismissal. "Yes."

  And walked out into the rain.

  16

  The wonder of it. Saturday morning. Rain beating against the windowpanes. Lightning flashing and thunder booming. And Susan in bed beside him.

  "Aren't you glad Joanna decided to spend the night with a friend?" Susan asked.

  "Yes," Matthew said. "What time do you have to…?"

  "Eleven."

  "Then we have-"

  "Hours yet."

  The sound of the rain outside.

  A car swishing by on wet asphalt.

  "How many women have been in this bed since the divorce?" she asked.

  "Not very many," he said honesty.

  "How come you didn't buy a motorcycle?"

  "A motorcycle would scare me to death. Besides, I couldn't afford one," he said.

  "Ah, poor put-upon," she said. "All that alimony. Is that why you're courting me? So you can stop paying-"

  "Courting you?"

  "Well, what? Dating me? God, I hate that word, don't you? Dating? It sounds like 'Happy Days.' Don't you hate grownups who say I've been dating So-and-so. Dating!" She rolled her eyes. "Courting is much nicer. Anyway, courting is what you've been doing. I looked the word up."

  "What do you mean? When?"

  "When you started courting me," she said solemnly.

  He almost burst out laughing. It was…

  He was…

  It was just that he felt so goddamn happy lying here beside her, listening to her talking nonsense about courting as opposed to…

  "I am not courting you," he said, and did burst out laughing.

  "Yes, you are," she said, and began laughing with him. "You are, Matthew, admit it. This is infinitely more serious-"

  "Oh, yes, infinitely," he said, laughing.

  "-than when we were kids. That was dating. This is courting. Now stop being so silly."

  "What was the definition?"

  "What def… oh. Well, it means 'to woo.' "

  "To woo? Oh my God," he said, and burst out laughing again.

  "That's not my definition, it's American Heritage's."

  "To woo?"

  "To woo, yes. Which means 'to attempt to gain the affections or love of.' "