Free Hard Case Crime: The Vengeful Virgin by Gil Brewer Page A

clearance was so close that once it went out, it would stay that way for good.
    I looked at him. He was staring at me.
    “Questions?” I said.
    He didn’t say anything, watching me.
    “No, Ruxton,” he said. “No questions.”
    I took another look at him, hoped it would be my last, and went into the living room. She was right there, showing me her skirt.
    “I can’t hang around,” I said. “We can’t take any chances. Right now is when it’s easy to slip up, make some damned fool mistake.”
    “Please, Jack—hold me.”
    Well, I held her. I held her tight, and looked over her shoulder at his bedroom door.
    I said, “Don’t call me unless something unforeseen comes up. Otherwise, I’ll read about it in the papers.”
    “This is it, isn’t it, Jack.”
    “Yeah, that’s for sure.”
    “I mean,” she said. “You know, it isn’t a bad feeling. I mean, it’s exciting. There’s so much to come.”
    “Let’s hope it’s all things we can handle. Don’t get cocky. Keep levelheaded.”
    “I love you, Jack.”
    “I love you, too.”
    “Say my name.”
    “Shirley.”
    “It shivers me,” she said. “It’s going to be rugged, not seeing you.”
    “That’s how it’s got to be.”
    “Jack, I’m all yours. All of me. I just want to be yours.”
    I said, “You know how it is. Neither of us would be worth a damn, without that money. That’s how it is.”
    “I’m not forgetting that.”
    I said, “You’re sure the money’s not tied up, so we can’t get at it.”
    “It’s like I told you. There’s that in the bank, in cash. He does have some invested, but everything’s negotiable. There’s not a thing to stew about, believe me.”
    “And you want to go through with this.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “Because now’s the time to say it.”
    “I want to go through with it. God, how I want that.”
    “Okay,” I said. “We’re on the way. This is it.”
    I left, then. And, well, there was a look in her eye. I got to thinking maybe it wouldn’t be long before I spotted the story on the obituary page. I sure didn’t want to see it on page one.
    Somehow I got through that first night. I kept hearing the phone ring. I would sit up in bed and stare at the dark, listening. There would be nothing. Once I got out of bed, tripped over a chair, scrambling for the phone, grabbed it up. “Hello—Hello!”
    It hadn’t rung. There was nobody on the line. It was just me. Dreaming.
    And the next afternoon, about two o’clock, I was in the store, changing some stuff around in the show window. I kept feeling this black shadow from the street. I’d felt it for quite a while, back and forth, but it hadn’t meant anything. I looked up and it was Shirley Angela, driving past in the black Imperial, her white face staring at me.
    She motioned for me to come out, when she saw me look.
    She was double parked, down a couple doors. “I’ve got to see you. Get in.”
    “No,” I said. “Is it important?”
    “Yes.” Her face told me that. It was as if somebody had been clubbing her, or something. Not marked up. I mean, behind the eyes, in the expression.
    “Meet me on the corner of Fourth and First,” I said. “Park the car and walk.”
    I turned away and went on down to the drugstore and bought cigarettes, then came back to the store. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was afraid to speak to anybody, for fear I’d just talk a lot of mishmash. I went straight through the store, and the shop, and out back to the parking lot. I took the car and drove downtown. I had asked her to meet me on one of the busiest corners in town. I parked the car, and walked fast over there. She was walking up and down, waiting, working her fingers on a shiny black purse, as if she were playing a piano.
    “Well,” I said. “I’ll be damned. You downtown, shopping?”
    “Don’t fool with me, Jack.”
    I shot it at her. “Make it seem like we met accidentally.”
    Pedestrians streamed past.
    “He wants to go to