Cinderella

by Ed McBain

  "And that's what I've been doing, huh?"

  "Isn't it?"

  "Yes," he said.

  "Of course," she said. "Do you want to know the derivation?"

  "I can hardly wait."

  "It's from the Old French cort, from the Latin cohors, the stem of which is cohort"

  "Okay, now I get it. Cohorts."

  "Courtesan is from the same root."

  "What do you think of my root?" he said.

  "You're the dirtiest man I've ever met in my life, that's what I think."

  "You know something?" he said.

  "No, don't say it," she said.

  "What was I about to say?"

  "I don't know. Yes, I do. And I don't want you to say it. Not yet."

  "Okay," he said.

  They both fell silent.

  Rain plopped on the leaves of the palms outside.

  "Why won't you let me say it?" he asked.

  "Because maybe it's not me, not us, maybe it's… I don't know, Matthew, I really don't. Maybe it's the new haircut, maybe it makes me look like someone very different, and maybe you've fallen-"

  She cut off the sentence.

  "Maybe you've been attracted to someone who looks different but who's only the same person underneath and you'll be disappointed when you discover it's still only me after all."

  "I love you, Susan," he said.

  "Oh, shit," she said, "you had to go say it, didn't you?" and began weeping.

  He took her in his arms.

  "I love you, too," she said.

  Sobbing now.

  "I've always loved you."

  Tears rolling down her face.

  "Hold me."

  ***

  She had left ten minutes ago, and he could not stop thinking about her.

  But as he showered, he wondered if what she'd said wasn't perhaps true.

  Maybe it was only the haircut after all, a surface alteration, the same old Susan underneath, a woman who-by the time the divorce happened-was a stranger to the girl he'd married in Chicago. And a stranger to Matthew. And, by that time, a stranger he didn't very much like.

  So here was Susan in the here and now-not physically here, she was already on her way to pick up Joanna, but here in his mind-two years later, give or take, and not an hour ago he'd told her he loved her. He did not think he was the sort of man who used those words as cheap currency in an easy market. He had meant what he'd said, and he was bewildered now by his reaction to a woman he'd known and loved, later known and disliked, still later known and abandoned, and now knew (or did he?) and loved (or did he?) all over again.

  Maybe he was only in love with a goddamn haircut.

  Change a woman's hair, you change the woman.

  Cut it short, put her in a yellow dress, she'll come swinging out of church like a hooker.

  And yet, the same woman underneath. Had to be. You looked into those dark eyes, wet with teats not an hour ago, and you saw Susan, no one else. People who saw her every day of the week-the people who worked with her, for example- probably hadn't even noticed that she'd cut her hair and had it restyled. But someone like himself-well, look what had happened at the Langerman party. Hadn't recognized her at all until those dark eyes flashed, and there was Susan.

  The eyes were always the same.

  Cut your hair, paint your toenails purple, it didn't change you except for people who knew you only casually. To anyone else, the eyes were the clue to who you were and who you'd always be. The eyes. Brown, blue, hazel, green, it didn't…

  The eyes.

  Blue.

  ***

  He wished he had the photograph, but the photograph had been stolen when Otto's office was burglarized.

  He wished he could have it in his hand when she opened the door. Look at her face, look at those blue eyes, negate the short red hair, compare only eyes with eyes, nose with nose, cheeks with cheeks, face with face.

  Without the photograph, he would have to rely only on memory.

  It was eleven-thirty by his watch, still raining here on Whisper Key, the rain sweeping in over the bay and lashing the open corridor that ran along the outside wall of Camelot Towers. He knocked on the door to apartment 2C, knocked again.

  "Who is it?" a voice called.

  A man. The person she'd been visiting when he was here on Thursday.

  "Matthew Hope," he said. "You don't know me."

  Silence inside.

  He knocked again. "Hello?" he called.

  "Just a minute, please."

  He waited.

  The man who opened the door was wearing designer jeans and a long-sleeved red shirt, the sleeves rolled up onto his forearms. He was in his late twenties, Matthew guessed, with a pale oval face, hazel eyes, high cheekbones, and a pouting delicate mouth. Black hair swept high off his forehead in a sort of punk hairdo, was he gay?

  "Yes?" he said.

  One hand on his hip, extremely bored expression on his face.

  Was he?

  "I was here Thursday," Matthew said. "I spoke to a young woman-"

  "There's no young woman here," the man said.

  "She told me she was visiting-"

  "No, you must have the wrong apartment."

  "I'm sure it's the right apartment," Matthew said, and consulted the list he'd copied from the downstairs directory. "Hollister," he said, "2C. Are you Mr. Hollister?"

  "I am."

  "There was a girl here on Thursday-"

  "I'm sorry, you're wrong," he said.

  "A young girl with blue eyes and red hair. Short red-"

  "No."

  "Mr. Hollister…"

  "You're annoying me," he said, and closed the door.

  The nameplate was at eye level.

  HOLLISTER.

  Matthew kept looking at it.

  He debated knocking again. Instead, he went downstairs, walked slowly to the Karmann Ghia, looked up toward the second-floor corridor again, got into the car, and sat behind the wheel thoughtfully for several moments. At last he nodded, started the car, and moved it to a space that afforded a good view of both the staircase and the lobby entrance.

  He did not know whether or not the redhead was in there with Hollister right this minute.

  If so, he intended to wait here till she came out.

  He did not know if Hollister was expecting the redhead to visit him again today.

  If so, he intended to wait here till she arrived.

  The only thing he did know was that Hollister had lied to him.

  ***

  Each kilo of cocaine was packed in a brown paper bag.

  Last night, when Jimmy Legs saw the paper bags, he said, "You cheap fucks, you can't afford Baggies?"

  You could fit a kilo of coke in a gallon-size plastic Baggie and then tie it shut with a little blue plastic tie. Jimmy and Charlie were doing that now. Transferring the twenty kilos of coke to plastic Baggies from the brown paper bags the fucking farmers had packed it in.

  Last night it had taken the Excalibur exactly five minutes to get out beyond the three-mile limit where the ship was waiting. Panamanian registry. Rusting old hulk. Neither the ship nor the cigarette showing any lights, and besides they were out well past the limit. Anyway, if the Coast Guard showed, the cigarette-traveling at close to a hundred miles an hour- would leave them in the dust in a minute. Everybody on the ship was nervous as a cat. Amateurs, all of them. Two bearded guys looking like Castro and his brother. We wann to see d'money firs'. Hardly speak English. Greed in their eyes, fingers itchy. We wann to see d'money.

  Jimmy told them they'd get the money after the coke was tested.

  Both he and Charlie Nubbs were packing guns. Anybody got frisky here, there was going to be a lot of spies with holes in them. Besides there were three other guys down on the Excalibur where the money was.

  They went down to this cabin.

  The ship stunk. Of everything. Jimmy could hardly decide what stunk worst, the two bearded dope entrepreneurs or the ship. There were
five more guys down in the cabin. Bad odds there in the cabin, seven to two. Jimmy didn't like being way the fuck out here on the Gulf with seven guys who looked liked the bandidos in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. He was counting on them being new in the business, though, and trying to make a good impression on the big boys. They fucked up this time around, the next time they showed their asses it was adios, amigos. Also, they knew the million bucks was still on the Excalibur down there on the water with three guys packing Sten guns. If the coke tested good, they'd work out a step-by-step exchange that wouldn't put either the money or the coke or anybody involved in jeopardy.

  Twenty brown paper bags to check.

  They used three tests.

  Sometimes only one test for any given kilo, sometimes two, sometimes all three in combination. They wanted these raggedy-assed farmers from the wilds of South America to know they were dealing with professionals here.

  The first of the tests was the old standby cobalt thiocyanate Brighter-the-Blue. The chemical dissolved in cocaine leaving some kind of blue shit, and if it was a very deep blue, you had yourself very high-grade coke.

  The second test was with plain water.

  You scooped a spoonful out of the brown paper bag, and dropped a little of it in a few ounces of water. If it dissolved right away, it was pure cocaine hydrochloride. If any of the powder didn't dissolve, the shit had been cut with sugar.

  The third test was with Clorox.

  You dropped a spoonful of the powder in a glass jar with Clorox in it.

  If you got a white halo as the powder fell, the stuff was coke.

  If you saw any red trailing the powder, then man, the stuff was cut with some kind of synthetic shit.

  It took them quite a while to test the twenty bags.

  Satisfied that they were buying good coke, they shook hands with the bearded farmers, transferred the coke to the Excalibur and the money to the rusting tub, and went their separate ways.

  Today, Saturday, the twenty-first day of June, they were making some discoveries.

  They were discovering, first of all, that you couldn't be too careful when you were dealing with guys who looked like farmers that had never seen or used a toilet in their lives, which was why the ship stunk so bad. What you had to do- no matter how nervous and inexperienced any guy selling dope looked-was not take anything at all for granted in the dope business. Because, as they were just discovering, it was possible for certain fucking thieves to fill a bag with three-quarters coke and one-quarter sugar, the sugar wrapped in Saran Wrap on the bottom of the bag.

  It wasn't that the fucking farmers couldn't afford Baggies, it was that you could see through Baggies.

  Jimmy recalled now that they had dumped several brown bags of the shit on the tabletop there in the cabin. Show the farmers how careful they were being, take their test samples from anywhere in the pile there on the table.

  But Charlie Nubbs recalled it was the farmers who'd handed them the bags for testing, one by one. The first few bags, the ones they knew would be carefully tested, had contained coke right down to the bottom. Go ahead, dump it on the table, we're honest farmers.

  Jimmy and Charlie both recalled that after they'd dumped three, four bags on the table, they'd stopped doing that. You had twenty keys of coke, it made a hell of a mess you went dumping it all over the table. Besides, how could you not trust these two bearded dopes, bringing their coke up in brown paper bags and nodding and grinning while the tests were being made-thank you for testing our coke, thank you for dealing with such unworthy peasants, nodding, grinning, also smelling very bad.

  What they were discovering now was that only five of the brown paper bags were actually filled with coke down to the bottom. Fifteen of the bags ranged anywhere from sixty percent to seventy-five percent coke and the rest Saran-Wrapped sugar.

  So what had happened was they'd paid a million bucks for twenty keys of coke, but they'd only got something like sixteen keys for their money because the other four keys were Domino, man. So instead of paying $50,000 a key, they had actually paid $62,500 according to Charlie's pocket calculator. Moreover, they had agreed to sell ten keys to the two Miami spies for $60,000 a key, which meant they would be losing $25,000 on those ten keys.

  Jimmy said if he ever caught those farmers he would cut off their balls.

  Charlie wanted to know what they were going to do about the two Miami spies.

  "Pack the shit back in the paper bags," Jimmy said, "the way the farmers done to us. Only we go them one better 'cause we ain't farmers. With us, it'll be fifty-fifty separated by Saran Wrap. We'll be selling them five keys for the six-hundred K instead of ten keys, which means we'll be getting a hundred and twenty thou per key, and that ain't zucchini."

  Charlie agreed this was not zucchini.

  ***

  Hollister came down the steps at a run, still wearing the jeans and the red shirt, but with a yellow windbreaker over the shirt, partially zipped up the front, billowing slightly as he came out from the protection of the building and into the wind and the rain.

  In one hell of a hurry, Matthew thought, watching him as he ran toward a blue Ford parked in a space some six cars down and diagonally across from where Matthew was parked. He unlocked the door, got in, and started it at once. Matthew debated-but only for the instant it took him to turn the ignition key-whether he should follow him. Suppose the girl was upstairs in the apartment? The Ford moved past on the wet pavement, and Matthew immediately pulled out after it.

  Florida license plate.

  16D-13346.

  Matthew's dashboard clock read 11:40.

  Rain lashed the windows, clattered noisily on the roof of the Karmann Ghia. The windshield was fogging. He wiped at it with the heel of his hand, followed the Ford when it took a sharp left onto the southern bridge to the mainland. Over the bridge, not a boat on the water. Another left onto U.S. 41. Heading north into the rain. Just a shade over the speed limit. Headlights on against the rain. Taillights glowing red in the gloom. Passing the northern bridge to Whisper now, still heading north on 41. Steady at fifty miles an hour, five over the limit on this part of the Trail. Causeway to Flamingo Key and Lucy's Circle on the left now, the road to Three Points and the Cow Crossing on the right. Still heading north. Up ahead on the left, the Helen Gottlieb Memorial Auditorium and just past that the new Sheraton sitting on the bay.

  The Ford made a left turn.

  Matthew's dashboard clock read 11:52.

  He watched as the Ford pulled into a parking space.

  Hollister got out and walked swiftly toward the entrance to the hotel.

  Matthew parked the car some six spaces down from the Ford.

  ***

  At the Suncrest Motel, further north on the Trail, Domingo looked at his watch and said in Spanish, "It's five minutes to twelve, where's the girl?"

  "Don't worry," Ernesto said. "Sixty-five a key is very good money. I'm sure she'll be here."

  He had gone to the bank to pick up the money yesterday. When they asked him what they called the blonde girl in Spanish, he was confused at first. Was he supposed to say "ladrfrona," which meant "thief," which was what she was? Was he supposed to say "puta," which meant "whore," which was also what she was? And then he remembered his last conversation with Amaros, where he'd called the girl Cenicienta.

  He said to the bank manager, "Cenicienta."

  The bank manager smiled.

  "Yes," he said, pleased. "What does that mean in English?"

  "I don't know how to say it in English," Ernesto said, and shrugged. "Es un cuento de hadas."

  "Ah, yes, I see," the bank manager said, still smiling.

  He didn't understand a word of Spanish.

  Now, here in the motel, Domingo lying on the bed and looking up at the ceiling, the rain sweeping the windows, Ernesto wondered if the girl would turn out to be Cenicienta after all.

  As if reading his mind, Domingo said, "Well have to look at the pictures, verdad?"

  "Yes," Er
nesto said.

  ***

  She came out of the hotel wearing the same short, shiny, fire-engine red rainslicker she'd had on yesterday, this time over a blue skirt, same shiny red boots, nothing on her short red hair, no sunglasses, either, not on a rainy day, blue eyes flashing as she came down the steps and began walking toward where Matthew was parked.

  As she approached the car, he quickly turned his head away.

  She went right on by, striding into the rain, stopping at a white Toyota parked some four spaces to the left.

  Now what? he thought.

  Wait for Hollister to come out?

  Follow her?

  Yes. She was the one Otto had been tracking.

  He started the Ghia.

  As soon as she backed out of her space, he backed out of his. When she pulled out of the hotel parking lot, he was right behind her.

  The Florida license plate on the Toyota read 201-ZHW.

  A yellow-and-black Hertz #1 sticker was on the rear bumper.

  She made a left turn at the light and headed north on 41. Matthew was right behind her.

  A moment later, Vincent Hollister came out of the hotel.

  He was carrying a valise.

  The Suncrest Motel.

  Adorable.

  A ramshackle office. A swimming pool the size of a thimble. A gravel driveway leading to eight cabins spaced some ten feet apart from each other. Opposite the cabins, an asphalt rectangle with parking for about a dozen cars.

  There was a roadside joint some fifty yards up the road from the motel. It was Vincent's impression-and he'd expressed this to Jenny last night, when they'd booked the room-that the place catered to men and women who wandered over from the bar next door, booked a hot bed, and used it for an hour or two.

  Delightful.

  He told her he'd be afraid to touch anything here for fear he'd catch whatever dread disease was circulating these days. Remembering the herpes she'd caught from Amaros, he apologized a moment later.