Hard Cash by Max Allan Collins Page B

was barely in the top ten percent of their small class. And to this day she was, in her way, the smarter of the two of them. The brains of the family, and the boss too, never letting him forget where the money came from. Never letting him forget that Daddy had pulled the strings to put George where he was today.
    Still, Cora wasn’t the loud-mouth, obnoxious woman most bossy women are. She was dominant, yes, but quietly so. Not a bitch, not even a nag; just a decision-maker. And he didn’t mind being dominated at home; after all, he was dominant at work, wasn’t he? He didn’t mind being second in Cora’s heart to Daddy (no, make that third—her mother came second), and he didn’t mind the way she planned his life for him: parties, vacations, and all. He was too busy at work, making the bank go, to have to worry about anything else in his life; let Cora handle it.
    Cora was easy to put up with, as long as the sex was good. And it was good for a long time.
    Until they found out, definitely, that they could have no children.
    Until she had her “female trouble” and the possibility of having a child (which had always been slim, because of his near-sterility, but still had been at least a possibility) became non-existent. After her “female trouble” (Cora never could bring herself to say “hysterectomy,” just as she always said “poop” instead of “shit,” never having outgrown her goddamned sheltered small-town conservative Iowa upbringing; thank God his parents had been liberals) sex gradually became something that happened only on special occasions, and then wasn’t particularly special for either one of them. Separate bedrooms came about for the stated reason that Rigley liked to read at night and Cora wanted the lights off, and the marriage became as sexually dead as their reproductive possibilities.
    Even so, the marriage still seemed okay, superficially. Cora seemed comfortable with him. She liked the security of their life, and now that her parents were gone, she seemed desperately inclined to cling to what remained, which was Rigley and their stagnant marriage together. She surely must have realized just how desperate a deadend it was they were both heading down, and that probably helped explain the drunkenness.
    But the possibility of divorce had never occurred to Cora, as far as Rigley knew. And he was glad. Divorce meant disaster to Rigley. He doggedly continued being nice to her. Complimenting the way she looked. Ignoring her drinking, as much as possible. Kissing her cheek goodbye in the moming and hello coming home at night And never, ever arguing with her.
    Maybe theirs had always been a superficial marriage. Maybe even before these sexually barren last five years, they had had an empty marriage. Who could tell? Rigly figured he certainly wasn’t the only guy who, with a wife who shared his marital apathy, went through the paces of marriage, putting in time like somebody who keeps at a job he hates in hopes of eventual retirement. He wasn’t the only guy who enjoyed brief, relatively meaningless affairs with the wives of friends. Surely a marriage like this one wasn’t anything out of the ordinary these days.
    In fact, the only thing he imagined was out of the ordinary where their marriage was concerned was the lack of arguments.
    They almost never argued.
    Because Rigley felt he couldn’t risk arguing with Cora.
    Divorce was something he did not want to even think about
    Not with a wife who was worth well over half a million dollars.
    Rigley excused himself with Jackson and walked over to the serving table and nibbled at some chip and dip and made himself a Manhattan.
    “You should be playing bartender, honey,” Cora said, coming up behind him.
    He turned and looked at her. Her large brown eyes were droopy with drink, but they were still attractive. Her lips were perfectly formed, lovely. The facial skin was smooth, and her low-cut hostess gown gave hints of a body that was still