Cinderella

by Ed McBain

  On the way back to his place last night, she explained the plan.

  She'd show up at twelve noon. Cabin number three, as specified.

  She'd ask to see the money.

  She'd count the money.

  There was supposed to be $240,500, which was $260,000 for the four keys less KJement's seven and a half percent.

  If the money was all there and it didn't look like Monopoly money, she'd stay there in cabin number three with one of the buyers-and the money-while the second buyer went over to where Vincent would be waiting in cabin number five with the valise full of dope.

  Maybe they wouldn't want to test the dope at all, but Vincent doubted that. If you're paying sixty-five a key, you're going to test what you're buying.

  If the dope was okay, which of course it was, they would call on the phone-cabin five to cabin three-and Jenny would walk out with the money at the same time the buyer walked back with the dope.

  Trains that passed in the night.

  No opportunity for funny business.

  But just in case, Vincent had a. 38 Colt Detective Special tucked into the waistband of his jeans, under the windbreaker.

  ***

  The Suncrest Motel.

  That's what the sign outside the place read. TV, the sign further advised. Swimming pool. Units off road. Air-conditioned. Low rates.

  Another sign advised vacancy.

  The Toyota made a left turn across 41 and disappeared up the motel's gravel driveway. Matthew waited till the flow of southbound traffic eased, made the turn across the road and entered the driveway just in time to see the girl knocking on the door to cabin number three. A man opened the door. They exchanged a few words and then the girl stepped inside.

  Matthew pulled the Ghia up alongside a small amoeba-shaped hole in the ground that he guessed was the motel's swimming pool, and was looking toward the cabin again when the door to the office opened and a tall, burly man wearing a gray raincoat and rainhat stepped out and walked directly to the car. Matthew rolled down his window.

  "Help you?" the man said.

  "Uh… yes," Matthew said. "I'd like a room, please."

  ***

  In cabin number three, Ernesto was confused.

  The girl didn't look at all like the pictures they had got from her stepmother. In the pictures, the girl was very blonde and very sexy. Here in person, if this was the girl, she had short red hair that was very wet and sticking to her head from when she'd walked over from her car, no makeup on her face, not sexy at all in a red coat and red boots, looking more like Caperucita Roja than Cenicienta.

  She was all business.

  "I'd like to see the money, please," she said.

  "We would like to see the dope, please," Ernesto said.

  "The money first."

  Ernesto looked at Domingo.

  "You afraid I'll bop you on the head and steal it?" she said, and smiled.

  The smile made her look more like the girl in the pictures. The smile and the blue eyes.

  "So?" she said.

  Ernesto was just realizing she wasn't carrying any kind of bag. So where was the dope?

  "You don't have the dope?" he said.

  "It's coming," she said.

  "Coming?"

  "A friend is bringing it."

  "A friend?"

  "In a car. He's only a few minutes behind me."

  Ernesto went to the window, spread two Venetian blind slats with his fingers and looked out. He saw a tall, dark-haired man coming out of the motel office and getting into a tan, foreign-looking car. The car door closed behind him. The car started.

  "Is that him?" Ernesto asked.

  She went to the window, looked out. "No," she said, "he's driving a blue Ford. That's a Karmann Ghia." The car move past in the rain. She turned away from the window. "So?" she said. "Do I see the money, or do we forget the whole thing?"

  She was playing it very hard considering how badly she wanted this deal. She'd been waiting for this deal to come along ever since they arrived in Calusa at the beginning of April. Maybe she'd been waiting for this deal ever since she went to California to become a great big movie star. She would have turned free tricks for the entire Russian army to get this deal. Please God, she thought, don't let anything happen to screw up this deal.

  Ernesto was thinking if she isn't the girl, who needs the dope she's selling at sixty-five a key? We've got other people waiting who'll sell for only sixty a key.

  Domingo was thinking the same thing.

  "So what do you say?" she said. "Do we deal or do we just stand here staring at each other?"

  "Get the money," Ernesto said to Domingo.

  He wanted to study her face a little longer, make sure.

  He could always tell her later to take a walk.

  Matthew's cabin smelled of Lysol. There was a dresser with cigarette scars on it and a flaking mirror over it. There was an air conditioner in the window. There was a plaid cover on the bed. There was a telephone on a nightstand beside the bed. In the bathroom, there was a plastic glass on the sink, and a loop of paper on the toilet seat, telling him it had been sanitized. He went to the window and opened the Venetian blinds. He could not see cabin number three from here. All he could see was the asphalt rectangle where he'd parked his car. A red LeBaron convertible was parked there, too, alongside the girl's white Toyota.

  He was about to close the blinds again when a blue Ford pulled in alongside his car.

  Hollister.

  Carrying a valise.

  ***

  It was ten minutes past twelve by Vincent's watch.

  She had told him to give her a half-hour in there. That would be time enough to count the money. There was nothing they could take from her, so she didn't feel herself in any danger. If the money wasn't all there or if God forbid there wasn't any money at all, she'd simply say good-bye.

  Twenty minutes to go, he thought.

  He was in the cabin they had booked last night. Cabin number five. Booked it for two days, paid the man in advance. All she had to do after she counted the money was send somebody over to test the dope.

  The dope was in the valise on the bed.

  All Vincent had to do was wait.

  Which was the hard part.

  ***

  The money was in hundred-dollar bills, neatly stacked in a dispatch case. Jenny took the bills out of the case and began counting them. Vincent had been hoping for hundred-dollar bills, but this made the counting harder for her. All the while she counted, both men watched her intently. Not her hands riffling the bills as she counted them, but her face.

  Kept looking at her face.

  The bills were wrapped in narrow paper wrappers, supposed to be a thousand dollars in each stack, but Jenny wasn't taking any chances on being shortchanged. She was counting every bill in each wrapper. Two hundred and forty little stacks of bills, neatly wrapped with $1000 stamped on each wrapper. Plus five loose hundred-dollar bills, which she counted first.

  They kept watching her.

  One of them said something in Spanish to the other one. She kept counting.

  She had counted a hundred and five thousand dollars when the short one said, "Miss Santoro?"

  Her hands stopped.

  Her heart stopped.

  She looked up from the neatly wrapped bills on the table-top.

  The big one with the slick little mustache was standing there with an open switchblade knife in his hand.

  The other one had a photograph in his hand.

  "This is you, no?" he said.

  ***

  Twelve thirty-five by Vincent's watch and nobody knocking on the door.

  What the hell was going on in there?

  How long could it possibly take someone to count two hundred and forty thousand dollars? And some change. Had they brought the money in singles? Had they broken into someone's piggy bank?

  She had to be still counting the money in there because she'd told him she would simply leave if there was a
ny kind of hitch.

  So there had to be money in there and it had to be real money or she'd have split right away.

  So she had to be counting it.

  But what was taking her so long?

  "This one, too," Ernesto said, and showed her another picture.

  "No, that's not me, either," she said.

  It was her, all right. It was her in L.A. at that producer's party where she'd blown him later in the toilet for three hundred bucks. And the other picture was one taken on the beach at Malibu where a girlfriend of hers… where'd he get these pictures?

  "My name is Sandy Jennings," she said. "I don't know who this girl-"

  "And this," he said.

  Another recent one. At San Simeon when she'd gone up there with the same girlfriend who by the way was a hooker. She'd sent it to her mother last year sometime, dumb picture of her standing in front of-

  "None of those are me," she said.

  "They're you," Ernesto said.

  "Look, you want to deal dope," she said, toughing it out, "or you want to look at pic-"

  And Domingo cut her.

  ***

  When Vincent heard the scream, the only thing he thought was that his money was in jeopardy. He did not give a rat's ass about Jenny. All he cared about was the money they were supposed to get for the dope. He had already done quite a bit to protect the dope and the money he hoped to get for it, and he had not come all this way to have two Spanish gentlemen from Miami walk off with what he considered rightfully his own.

  He pulled the.38 from the waistband of his jeans, stepped out into the rain, and started running toward cabin number three.

  The owner of the motel was reading that morning's newspaper when he heard the second scream. His gray raincoat and rainhat were hanging on a wall hook to the left of his desk. There was a picture of Madonna in the nude hanging on the wall alongside a calendar. The owner had never heard Madonna sing.

  What he decided to do, he decided to ignore the screams.

  Because every now and then somebody would smack a girl around in one of the cabins and there was a lot of screaming and fussing but it all worked out later in the sack. One of the things you learned in the motel business was that everything sooner or later worked itself out in the sack. Which was why he never called the police when anybody started screaming or yelling.

  One of the switchboard lights popped on.

  Cabin number eight.

  The one he'd rented to the man with the Karmann Ghia.

  ***

  The first thing Vincent saw when he burst into the cabin- maybe the first thing he wanted to see-was the money on the table. Lots and lots of crisp green bills in little wrappers, the legend "$1000" on each of the wrappers. Open dispatch case beside them.

  The next thing he saw was Jenny.

  She was lying on the bed. She was bleeding very badly. Her face, her arms, her legs where her skirt was pulled back.

  A very big man was standing over her, his back to the door. He turned when Vincent came in. He had a very narrow mustache. There was a knife in his hand. The blade of the knife was covered with blood.

  Vincent thought I've come this far and shot the man between the eyes. The man toppled backward onto the bed, almost onto Jenny. The other man in the room was reaching into his coat. Vincent figured he was reaching for a gun, so he shot him, too.

  He went to the table and started packing the wrapped bundles of bills into the dispatch case. He closed the dispatch case.

  From the bed, Jenny whispered, "Help me."

  Vincent said, "Ta, darling."

  "Please," she said.

  But he was already gone.

  ***

  The last and only time Matthew was shot, Detective Morris Bloom gave him a piece of advice.

  "Matthew," he'd said, "never get in the way of a man with a gun. If you see a man with a gun coming toward you, move aside and let him go by. If you feel like being a hero, trip him as he goes by. But never get in his way."

  Matthew didn't particularly feel like being a hero.

  But he had heard the shots when he was talking to the police on the phone in his room, and the shots combined with the screams he'd earlier heard were enough to propel him out of cabin number eight, into the rain, and sprinting for cabin number three when he saw Hollister coming out of there with a dispatch case in one hand and a gun in the other.

  Hollister was running for one of the cabins further up the line.

  Matthew did just as Bloom had advised.

  He stepped aside to let Hollister go by.

  But even though he didn't particularly feel like becoming a hero, he tripped him.

  And when Hollister fell headlong onto the gravel, Matthew kicked him in the head.

  Which was something else Bloom had taught him.

  17

  It had started on a Sunday, and it was ending on a Sunday.

  But as Daniel Nettington had once pointed out, the cops in Calusa had no respect for Sunday.

  Matthew was in the pool when the doorbell rang at ten o'clock that morning. He got out of the water, went walking wet and dripping through the house, and opened the door on Detectives Hacker and Rawles, both wearing business suits and ties.

  "Okay to come in?" Rawles said.

  "Sure," Matthew said.

  They went out back and sat by the pool.

  The sun was bright. The three H's-Hot, Humid, and Hazy-were full upon them once again. The detectives sat sweltering in their clothing. Somehow their attire gave them a real or imagined advantage: business suits vs. swim suit, work vs. play.

  Nobody thanked Matthew for having called the police last night.

  All Rawles wanted to know was whether or not Hollister had said anything to him.

  "No," Matthew said.

  "Nothing, huh?"

  "Nothing at all."

  "Tell me again what happened," Rawles said.

  "I heard screaming from cabin number three," Matthew said, "and I immediately called the police."

  Nobody was yet thanking him for this noble action.

  "While I was on the phone, I heard shots. I ran out and was heading for the cabin when Hollister came out carrying a-"

  "You knew his name, did you?"

  "Yes."

  "How'd you happen to know his name?"

  "That's a long story."

  "I've got plenty of time," Rawles said.

  "I haven't," Matthew said. "If you want background…"

  "We have a right to know how you happened to be at that motel last night, where two men were killed and a woman cut, and another man kicked in the head."

  "I kicked him in the head."

  "Yes, that's what you told us. Why'd you kick him in the head?"

  "It's what Bloom said I should do if I ever tripped a man carrying a gun."

  Rawles looked at him.

  "Why'd you trip him?" Hacker said.

  "I was getting to that," Matthew said.

  "I want to know how you knew his name," Rawles said.

  "I'll be happy to tell you all that in a deposition," Matthew said. "But not here and not now."

  "When?"

  "You name it."

  "Tomorrow morning at nine," Rawles said.

  "I'll be there," Matthew said.

  Rawles nodded.

  Matthew nodded.

  Hacker looked at both men and shrugged.

  "You were heading for the cabin…" Rawles prompted.

  "Yes, when he came out carrying a dispatch case and a gun. He seemed to be heading for a cabin up the line…"

  "Cabin number five," Hacker said, and nodded.

  "Where the coke was," Rawles said.

  "Four keys."

  "High-grade shit."

  "I didn't know about that," Matthew said.

  "You just happened to be where a dope deal was going down, huh?" Rawles said.

  "I'll tell you all about how I happened to be there when you take the deposition," Matthew said.

  "Did
you know at the time what was in that dispatch case?" Hacker asked.

  "No."

  "Two hundred and forty thousand dollars and change," Hacker said.

  "So I've been told," Matthew said, though he didn't think of five hundred dollars as "change."

  "Did Hollister threaten you with the gun?" Rawles asked.

  "No."

  "And he didn't say anything to you?"

  "Nothing."

  "So why'd you trip him?"

  "It seemed like the right thing to do."

  "Did kicking him in the head seem like the right thing to do?"

  "Yes. Unless I wanted to get shot. Which I didn't."

  "Because he's claiming now we're the ones messed him up," Hacker said.

  "Well, that's easily refuted," Matthew said.

  "Didn't say a word to you, huh?" Rawles said.

  "Nothing."

  "Ain't saying a word to us, neither," Hacker said. "Asked for a lawyer right off, started yelling police brutality, and then clammed up."

  "On the face of it," Rawles said, "it looks like he's the one killed the two Miami punks, but we won't know for sure till we get a ballistics report."

  "How about Otto? Are you running a ballistics-"

  "Otto?" Rawles said. "You mean Samalson?"

  "That's what this is all about, isn't it?" Matthew said. "Somebody killing Otto?"

  "Oh, is that what it's all about?" Rawles said.

  "That's news to us," Hacker said.

  "What we thought it was all about was four keys of high-grade coke and two hundred and forty thousand plus dollars, that's what we thought it was all about."

  Matthew looked at him.

  "Detective Rawles," he said, calmly and levelly, "were any bullets recovered in Otto's car?"

  "One in the car," Rawles said, "the other still in his head."

  "Then compare them with a test-firing from Hollister's gun.