Free Fast Buck by James Hadley Chase Page A

worry about. I have all the responsibility. I’m the one who has to lie awake at night, making plans. All you have to do is to do what I tell you.’
    ‘I suppose you think it’s nothing to me to have to let that old roué make love to me just whenever he feels like it?’ Eve said hotly.
    ‘I wish you’d concentrate on the big things instead of the little things,’ Gillis said. ‘Don’t you realise this means a half a million? For heaven’s sake, don’t you think most girls would sleep with Kile for that money?’
    ‘No, I don’t!’ Eve flared. ‘That’s a beastly thing to say! We haven’t even got the money, and I don’t believe we ever will get it!’
    Gillis studied her; a sudden venomous look in his eyes.
    ‘Al right,’ he said, ‘if that’s the way you feel about it, there’s no sense in going on with it. There’s plenty of other girls who’l help me, and I dare say wil make a bet er job of it than you. I’l make other arrangements. You’d bet er tel Kile you want to go back to the Follies.’
    Eve felt a little chill run through her.
    ‘Don’t be angry, darling,’ she said quickly.
    ‘I’m not angry,’ he returned. ‘If you can’t carry on, then you’d bet er chuck it before you make a mess of it.’
    ‘If I went back to the Fol ies,’ she said slowly, ‘would you come and live with me again?’
    ‘If you go back to the Fol ies,’ Gil is said deliberately, ‘you’ve seen the last of me. I mean that, Eve.
    I’l have to find some other girl to help me. I’m not going to be cluttered up with two women. If you haven’t the guts to go through with this, I’l be damned if I ever want to see you again.’
    He saw the fear jump into her eyes. Long experience of similar scenes in the past made him confident of his whip-hand over her. Threats, arguments and made-up quarrels marked their lives like milestones along a dark, twisting road. He had only to threaten never to see her again for her to capitulate. The chain that bound her to him had been forged in the womb.
    ‘Please, Adam, don’t talk like that,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘Of course I’l go through with it.
    Forget what I said. I guess I’m feeling a lit le depressed tonight.’
    He was quick to meet her half-way, now he had won his point.
    ‘I do understand, Eve,’ he said. ‘It won’t be for much longer. I promise you that. If you’l only stick it for another month. After that you needn’t ever see Kile again.’
    ‘I hope not,’ she sighed, acutely aware of her defeat.
    He put his arm round her and pulled her to him.
    ‘Snap out of it,’ he said lightly. ‘Everything’s going to be fine and dandy. Think of the things I’m going to buy you when we get the money!’ His sudden good humour didn’t deceive her. She knew how untrustworthy, how shiftless and dishonest he was. There was nothing she could do about it. He was part of her: the Hyde to her Jekyll; something she was helpless to rid herself of. ‘You told Kile tonight? He knows now?’
    ‘Yes. I told him.’
    ‘How did he take it?’
    ‘Oh, he’s enthusiastic’ She felt the thin cloth of his suit. It had been pressed again and again. It was threadbare. Only he could have worn it and made it look something. On any other man it would have been a rag. ‘Didn’t you buy the suit, darling?’ she went on. ‘I was hoping you’d wear it tonight.’
    ‘Oh, yes, I bought it,’ he said glibly. ‘If I’d known you were going to be so late I’d have stopped to change.’
    She knew at once he was lying: that he hadn’t used the money she had given him to buy a suit. She knew from past sordid experience that the money had been spent on some woman.
    ‘But never mind the suit,’ he went on. ‘Is Kile going to approach Rico?’
    ‘Yes, of course. I told him Rico should be consulted. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’
    ‘Rico knows this chap Baird. If anyone can pul this off, Baird can. I’ve watched him for weeks now.
    He’s