Hard Cash by Max Allan Collins
Authors: Max Allan Collins
dry with a crushed-cotton towel and wrapped another towel, turbanlike, around her damp hair.
The bedroom was dark.
She slipped under the sheets.
She touched the side of his face and said, “Do it to me, honey.”
And let him.
And afterward she cradled him in her arms, patted him, soothed him. He was trembling. The sex hadn’t taken care of his trembling.
“It’ll be over soon, honey,” she said. “We’ll be together and there’ll be no sneaking around and no worries. Just you and me and all that money.”
“Is that . . . that all I am to you? Money?”
There was no bitterness in his voice; more like fear.
“How can you even think that?”
“Would you . . . nothing.”
“Would I what?”
“Would you want me, even if I didn’t have the money?”
“You don’t have the money, George.”
“I’m going to. We’re going to. But would you? Love me? Without money?”
Would you love me without my tits, you silly ass?
“Of course I would,” she said.
10
GEORGE RIGLEY’S HOME was two miles outside the city limits, on a bluff overlooking the winding blacktop road that a mile later connected with the highway to Iowa City. Rigley’s was one of a handful of homes on the three-mile stretch of blacktop, which was a thickly wooded, exclusive area whose beauty was matched only by its real estate value. A gravel drive ascended the bluff to the sprawling wood and brick ranch-style home, with its private tennis court, swimming pool, and separate garage the size of an average house.
Space and privacy. All the space and privacy you could ever want. The nearest neighbor a quarter mile away. Enough rooms to sleep a small army: three bedrooms, a den, a game room, huge living room, kitchen, dining room, TV room, assorted bathrooms. What sane person could want more?
And that was the problem. What sane person could want this much? Certainly not Rigley himself: he preferred the cozy, rustic (rustic compared to this, anyway) cottage. No. It took somebody crazy to want a secluded expanse of loneliness like this. Somebody crazy like Cora. His wife.
What else would you call it besides crazy, to want all this space when there was just the two of them. They had no children—hadn’t been able to—and the bloated house was designed mainly to satisfy Cora’s need for entertaining (but partially, he’d have to admit, to fulfill his own need for status), and if it wasn’t a cocktail or dinner party going on, it was relatives. Relatives meant a lot to Cora. He’d hate to think how many weeks out of an average year they shared with visiting relatives of hers. Rut then, he was in no position to complain, considering what Cora’s family had meant to his career.
Of course it’d been different, these last few years, with her parents dead (killed in a light plane crash, with Cora’s only sister). And with her beloved cousins and uncles and aunts snubbing Cora since her parents had snubbed them in their will. The flow of relatives had subsided somewhat.
But the flow of liquor hadn’t.
That flow had increased.
His wife had always been a drinker, but never a drunk really, not till the death of her parents and sister. She was not a loud drunk. Never a conspicuous drunk at all. Socially, her drunkenness didn’t cause any harm; at a party she just flirted with the men and flattered the women, in a playful sort of way that just seemed to make everyone like her all the more—everyone except Rigley himself, of course. And her drunkenness at home just meant she was asleep most of the time. On the couch in the TV room, usually. Sometimes in bed. He had to have a woman in to do the cleaning for her, but they could afford it. And he’d often come home and find no dinner ready, but they (or he, if she was especially tight) would go out to eat; they could afford that too. And if friends called, Cora would come around, shake off her drowsy drunkenness, and be her charming, if a bit blurry, self.
The bedroom was dark.
She slipped under the sheets.
She touched the side of his face and said, “Do it to me, honey.”
And let him.
And afterward she cradled him in her arms, patted him, soothed him. He was trembling. The sex hadn’t taken care of his trembling.
“It’ll be over soon, honey,” she said. “We’ll be together and there’ll be no sneaking around and no worries. Just you and me and all that money.”
“Is that . . . that all I am to you? Money?”
There was no bitterness in his voice; more like fear.
“How can you even think that?”
“Would you . . . nothing.”
“Would I what?”
“Would you want me, even if I didn’t have the money?”
“You don’t have the money, George.”
“I’m going to. We’re going to. But would you? Love me? Without money?”
Would you love me without my tits, you silly ass?
“Of course I would,” she said.
10
GEORGE RIGLEY’S HOME was two miles outside the city limits, on a bluff overlooking the winding blacktop road that a mile later connected with the highway to Iowa City. Rigley’s was one of a handful of homes on the three-mile stretch of blacktop, which was a thickly wooded, exclusive area whose beauty was matched only by its real estate value. A gravel drive ascended the bluff to the sprawling wood and brick ranch-style home, with its private tennis court, swimming pool, and separate garage the size of an average house.
Space and privacy. All the space and privacy you could ever want. The nearest neighbor a quarter mile away. Enough rooms to sleep a small army: three bedrooms, a den, a game room, huge living room, kitchen, dining room, TV room, assorted bathrooms. What sane person could want more?
And that was the problem. What sane person could want this much? Certainly not Rigley himself: he preferred the cozy, rustic (rustic compared to this, anyway) cottage. No. It took somebody crazy to want a secluded expanse of loneliness like this. Somebody crazy like Cora. His wife.
What else would you call it besides crazy, to want all this space when there was just the two of them. They had no children—hadn’t been able to—and the bloated house was designed mainly to satisfy Cora’s need for entertaining (but partially, he’d have to admit, to fulfill his own need for status), and if it wasn’t a cocktail or dinner party going on, it was relatives. Relatives meant a lot to Cora. He’d hate to think how many weeks out of an average year they shared with visiting relatives of hers. Rut then, he was in no position to complain, considering what Cora’s family had meant to his career.
Of course it’d been different, these last few years, with her parents dead (killed in a light plane crash, with Cora’s only sister). And with her beloved cousins and uncles and aunts snubbing Cora since her parents had snubbed them in their will. The flow of relatives had subsided somewhat.
But the flow of liquor hadn’t.
That flow had increased.
His wife had always been a drinker, but never a drunk really, not till the death of her parents and sister. She was not a loud drunk. Never a conspicuous drunk at all. Socially, her drunkenness didn’t cause any harm; at a party she just flirted with the men and flattered the women, in a playful sort of way that just seemed to make everyone like her all the more—everyone except Rigley himself, of course. And her drunkenness at home just meant she was asleep most of the time. On the couch in the TV room, usually. Sometimes in bed. He had to have a woman in to do the cleaning for her, but they could afford it. And he’d often come home and find no dinner ready, but they (or he, if she was especially tight) would go out to eat; they could afford that too. And if friends called, Cora would come around, shake off her drowsy drunkenness, and be her charming, if a bit blurry, self.