Liz waggled down to the beach from the cabana. She wore a two-piece white swimsuit. Every time I looked at that shape, my throat went hoarse. She was a real beauty, what I mean, with a give of subtle sex that mushroomed inside you like a hell-bomb.
She bounced over to the edge of the blanket where I was flaked out, and stood straddle-legged, and winked at me.
“Hi, Jonsey.”
It was blinding. Not the Florida sunlight. Not reflections from the Gulf of Mexico. Just that shape, that sweet face, that long ash-blond hair, those eyes, those lips. Jesus.
“Hi, Liz. Where’s the sister?”
“Prissy?” She gave a short dirty laugh. “Back in her bedroom, naturally. Where else?”
“Why won’t she come for a swim, Liz?”
“Swim? Prissy, swim? Take off those black clothes and go swimming with the sun on her? Are you flipping, Jonsey?”
“Sit down, baby.”
She sprawled beside me on the blanket. She rolled against me, and our lips met, and that faint aphrodisiac perfume she sported engulfed me. Her body wriggled against me. She was hot and soft and full of panting.
“M-m-m-m-m-m.”
I felt myself sinking straight through the sand.
“Stop it, Jonsey. I’ve only known you a week.”
“That’s not what you said last night.”
She laughed again. We had a drink from the thermos of martini. And she began spoofing me some more.
What I mean, look. I’d been softening them up for a lot of years. I was hip to the pitch. I liked it, man. The day after we met we were in bed together, buzzing like bumblebees, and it was more than a sting. I mean, something. Only I knew a token came with the gift. Only what?
* * * *
It was close to the time to find out. You get to reckon timing on these things. You’ve been winding the clock yourself for so long.
Stoney, though? You know?
What I mean, listen. I was outclassed by an unsinkable margin. This one, Liz Baxter, was money. To the ear-lobes, where diamonds winked in the stardust of the evening. I didn’t have pot one. I lived in a shack on Shark Bayou. I’d met her in the Tarpon Bar down the beach, and she had been willing to wander. And now this. Very much this.
Liz and her sister, Prissy, were vacationing. They spent their lives vacationing, as far as I knew. Her sister wore black all the damned time, because she mourned for the loss of her year-dead husband. Her sister looked like a pig, anyway, what you could see through the draperies.
“Jonsey? I never asked you what you do for a living. Tell me?”
I looked at her and took my hand off her leg.
“I sponge off pretty women, like you.”
“I thought so.”
She smiled at me, and gave me a kiss, but rolled away when I made a grab for her.
“You must do something else,” she said. “I mean, for a change, at least. You don’t look as if you live on steak, Jonsey.”
“Well, I fish, too.” There was something about her. You knew it didn’t matter, so you told her the truth, and the hell with it. “I manage,” I said. “I don’t like to work, if you want the truth.”
“I figured that, too.” She rolled over against me. “Jonsey,” she whispered, her lips next to my ear. “You’re no damned good, did you know that?”
“Okay.”
“Jonsey?”
“Yes?”
“I’m in love with you. I can’t help it. I’m so much in love with you, I can’t stand it. Do you feel anything for me? I mean, honest to goodness?”
Well, naturally I loved her and I told her so.
“Jonsey?” She was breathing fast. “Let’s go back to my place. Prissy’s going shopping. We can be alone.”
* * * *
We went to her cabana. Prissy was in the kitchen doorway, wearing black like it was a sack, with a small black veil. She looked washed-out, with no lipstick, her hair hanging down. What a picture.
“Hello, Mr. Jones. How are you today?”
She spoke in such a low voice you could barely hear her. I told her I was okay and hoped she was, wishing she would leave.
“I think I’ll walk to the shopping center, Lizbeth,” she said. “I haven’t been getting much exercise.” She gave me a sickly smile and left.
Liz and I went into the bedroom and fooled around, then got down to business. It was a regular tournament. After a while, we lay there on the bed. It was getting along toward late afternoon, now.
“Jonsey?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How’d you like to see something that’ll knock your eyes out?”
“I’ve seen about all I can stand for today.”
Liz poked me and giggled, then jumped off the bed and bounced over to the closet. She reached up in back on a high shelf, and brought down a box. She carried the box to the bed.
“Look, Jonsey.”
It was a large, flat leather box, about a foot and a half long, a half foot wide, and four inches deep. The leather was polished. Liz lifted the top of the box. I looked in and stared.
“Isn’t it nice?”
It was packed solid with money. There were fives, tens, twenties, and several packs of hundreds. There must have been about twenty-thousand dollars in the box.
I couldn’t speak.
“This is her pin money.”
“What? Whose pin money? What the hell you talking about?”
Hate was in her eyes, and her fingers trembled. “My sister. Who else!” She grabbed the money from my hand, slapped it back in the box and slammed the lid. She stood up and put the money back in the closet, all the time muttering “Hers! Her money! Not mine. Her damned bloody money!”
“But I thought you... ”
“Sure. Naturally.” She came back and knelt on the bed, her mouth bitter. “Everything is hers,” she said. “Her husband left it to her. Everything. She carries that money with her on trips. But there’s tons of it in the bank, Jonsey. She’s so rich she stinks of it.”
“Oh.”
She leaned over me. “Jonsey. She won’t use traveler’s checks, see? And she won’t open a checking account. She just carries that with her, taunting me. What can I do? I have nothing. That’s why I stay with her, so I can have money. She gives me enough to live on, but that’s all. At least I don’t have to work for it.”
“But that’s not the point,” I said.
“No. It’s not. Jonsey. She’s made a will. If I’m married to someone she approves of at the time of her death, all that money becomes mine.”
“I see.”
“You don’t see for mud.” She slid down beside me, whispering it. “Jonsey. I want you to marry me and help me get rid of her. Don’t say yes or no yet. Think about it. I wouldn’t make such a bad wife, would I?”
I didn’t say anything.
“If I’m not married when she dies, then I don’t get any of the money. It all goes to charity.”
I still said nothing.
Her voice became louder and louder, and more shrill, and I began to realize what she’d been living with, and I knew she was right. She wouldn’t make such a bad wife, and that money looked good.
“How much is she really worth?” I said.
“Over a quarter of a million. And she just sits on it, taunting me with it.”
“What makes you think she would approve of me?”
“I already know. She thinks you’re swell, really. You should hear her. She keeps telling me I should get married and hinting how you would be just right for me. But actually, see, she knows you have nothing and she wants me to have nothing, too. Losing her husband went to her head. And she thinks I’m prettier than she is. She wants me to suffer, I know that’s what it is. Jonsey, will you?”
The kitchen door opened and closed.
“Lizbeth?”
It was Prissy.
Liz called. “I’ll be right there.” She started hurriedly dressing. “Get dressed and beat it out the side window, Jonsey. Don’t let her see you. She’s back from the store already. My, gosh, we’ve been here two hours.”
I got dressed.
“Think about it, Jonsey. We could work out a way, and we’d have each other, and everything.”
“Why me?”
“Why not you? It’s got to be somebody. And, besides, I love you.”
* * * *
Leaving by the window, I ran down along the beach. I got to thinking, maybe she really did love me. And I got to thinking about that money, too.
So that was the pitch. Liz Baxter knew what she was doing when she chose me. I had nothing much to lose, and everything to gain. I’d played along outside the law all my life, just missing taking a hiding all the way.
So now was the big chance.
But getting rid of her sister. It meant one thing. Kill her. I didn’t like to think about that.
But I did think about it. All the rest of the afternoon, into the evening, and I felt sure I could do it and stand doing it.
I’d have Liz. And I’d have the money. And what came after that, who cared? I decided to run over there and surprise Liz. I wanted to tell her I thought we might be able to do it, that we might try.
* * * *
When I knocked on the door, Prissy called from inside. “Come in, Jonsey.”
I went on inside. Nobody was around the living room.
“I’ll be right there,” Prissy called. “Liz went to an early movie. She said if you called, to keep you company till she got back.”
I sighed and sat in a chair. “Fine,” I said.
The bedroom door opened, and Prissy stood there, leaning against the jamb. She was naked, and I’d never seen anything like it in my life. She just stood there, staring at me, and she was so gorgeous my heart rocked. Liz didn’t compare. And she had kept all that covered up. I stared and I couldn’t stop staring. She was tall and voluptuously endowed with everything you could ever want. And she wore lipstick, now, and her hair was heavy with waves and rich and black, and there was a new perfume.
“Come here, Jonsey.”
I got up and went over to her.
She stood away from the bedroom door and motioned me in, not smiling very much about it, but looking so sexy it was crazy. I felt like a dream. She closed the bedroom door.
“Jonsey. I haven’t had a man in over a year.”
“That so?”
She spoke in that soft way she had and it would make your bones rattle.
“I’ll bet you didn’t think I was much under those clothes.”
I couldn’t speak. Her lips were red and damp and her eyes sparkled. She moved slowly toward the bed.
“Come here, Jonsey.”
I went along with it. What the hell could you do? I kept thinking, Liz wants me to help her get rid of her? Liz was nothing beside her sister, and Prissy proved that over and over again on the bed.
We lay there in the dim silence.
“You’re terribly weak, Jonsey.”
“Yeah.”
“Just like my husband. He was terribly weak, too. He made an awful lot of money, but he was so weak when it came to women. They could do anything to him. Just like you. You’re a regular fall guy, you know that, Jonsey? You’re so weak you don’t know what you’re doing half the time.”
I lay there, watching her. I could watch her forever. It was wide screen, believe me.
“I thought you—” I said. “I mean, I thought, the way you were, and all—the way you dressed, and from what Liz said, that... ”
“That I was like my name, maybe? Prissy? Well, Jonsey, you’ve got a lot to learn about women, believe me. Suppose I told Liz what we just did?”
“Suppose you didn’t?”
She rolled over toward me and knelt on the bed, looking down at me, just the way Liz had in the afternoon.
“Jonsey?”
I reached for her. She took my hands and held them on her long full white thighs. She was the most luscious creature I’d ever seen and there was so much of her it would never tire. There was always one more curve to go around. A never ending cycle of gorgeousness. And it had all been hidden under black drapes.
“I’m the one who has the money, Jonsey.”
I felt something and I didn’t like it.
“I heard what you and Liz were talking about this afternoon,” she said. “No, don’t speak. I heard everything. I want you to listen, Jonsey. Just imagine being stuck with Liz. You don’t know her. But I do, because she’s my sister. She’s selfish and vain and weaker than you are. She’d tire of you in no time. She’d find somebody else. All she wants you for is to get my money. I knew it would come eventually, it had to. If not you, somebody else. She said that herself.” She paused. “I heard everything, when I came back from the store. I just stood there and listened.”
“Oh.”
“And I got to thinking. I hadn’t had a man in over a year. And I want to live again. You’ve begun to make me live, Jonsey.”
We watched each other. I pulled her toward me and we kissed and I couldn’t get enough of her. I knew I’d never get enough of her. She thrust me away, laughing, and dodged off the bed.
“I’ve got to dress. You’d better, too. Liz’ll be home, and she’ll expect you.”
“How come she went to the movies?”
“I told her I wanted to talk to you alone, and see if you were really as good as she claimed. And you are, Jonsey—you really are.”
She got dressed.
“Jonsey?”
“Yes?”
“You’re terribly silent. Don’t you want to kill me anymore?”
“I wish you wouldn’t say that.”
“Then I’ll say this. Why don’t you turn the tables. Why not help me get rid of Liz? I don’t want her hanging on my neck anymore. And I can’t stop her, except in one way. Then, afterwards, we could be together.”
“Oh, great.”
“I mean it. You’re a lot like my husband. I loved my husband, even if he was a bum in many ways. I’ve found out I’ve got to have a man around. I think you’ll fill the bill. I might even get to love you. You couldn’t ever really love anybody, but that wouldn’t matter. You’d have the money.”
I looked at her and I knew I’d never want any other woman. Just this one. I knew I would go to hell for her. I would do anything for her.
And the money, of course.
“Well?”
“I think I might take your bid,” I said.
She chuckled. “You’re just like my husband,” she said. “Crude and a real bum.”
“Thanks.”
We went into the other room. And pretty soon, along came Liz. But before Liz came, Prissy and I agreed to have a talk on ways and means.
And as for my discussion with Liz? Well, I should just make believe I was going along with the original plan.
* * * *
That night I lay in bed and thought it all over. It kept getting off kilter, as if maybe I was going crazy, or something, out of control. In one day, two women had proposed that I help each one kill the other. Sisters.
I got up and turned on the bathroom light, and examined myself in the mirror. Not much, actually, and beat looking, too. A bum.
Somebody rapped on the door.
It was Prissy. She came in and we kissed, and stood there loving it up a little. She was on fire.
“I can’t stay. Liz might miss me and wonder where I am.”
“Please. Come on. Stay a while.”
“There’ll be plenty of time later on, Jonsey. I want to get away from Florida. It’s going to have to be tomorrow. I can’t wait.”
It was just like that.
We talked it over. She convinced me there was no use waiting. She was as bloodthirsty as they came, when speaking of her sister.
“In the morning,” she said. “I’ll have everything set. I fix breakfast. Liz stays in bed till I call her. All you have to do is come and take care of her. Then, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll put her in the trunk of the Imperial. My car. You can drive out in the country, and abandon the car. Then you come back to your place and go to bed. After a while I’ll report that my car’s been stolen and my sister is missing. That’s all there is to it.”
We talked for about fifteen minutes, and I thought it over, and it seemed all right.
After she left, I thought about it some more, and it still seemed all right. It seemed perfect. I didn’t sleep. But it still seemed perfect.
* * * *
“Liz?”
She was asleep.
Prissy was silent in the kitchen. I went to the bed and looked down at Liz. She looked good, but not as good as the money and Prissy combined.
She opened her eyes.
“Why, Jonsey?” Then she lowered her voice. “Where’s Prissy?”
“She’s in the kitchen,” I said.
“Does she know you’re here?”
“She knows.”
“But—”
“I hate to do this, Liz. But it’s the only way.”
I took her throat in both hands and closed my eyes and began to squeeze, thinking, what am I doing? I’m not even drunk. How can you excuse it?
I kept on squeezing. After a while she quit thrashing.
* * * *
“It’s all done.”
“Oh, what a relief.”
We kissed and I held Prissy there in the kitchen. She was wearing black, but you could feel all the vital wonder of her under the cloth.
“I wanted security,” she said. “Now I have it. I could never have it with Liz alive. No telling what she would do. We’d better not stall, now,” she said. “Better get it done.”
She helped me load Liz into the trunk of the big Imperial. It was black, just like her clothes. I was worried about getting it over with. I kept seeing cops everywhere I looked.
“Hurry, now,” she said. “Drive the car away from town, someplace. Ditch it, then go home, I’ll contact you. Don’t worry.” She smiled. “Then it’ll just be us, Jonsey.”
“Yeah.” I nodded and drove off.
* * * *
I drove through town, away from the beaches, and headed North on US 19. I kept thinking about it all and I didn’t like it now that it was done.
On the other hand, I’d had to take the chance, and Prissy was worth taking the chance for.
I figured to drive just outside of Palmdale and ditch the car, then hike it crosslots into the town and take a bus home. It would work perfectly, I knew that. Then later on Prissy would report the car stolen, and her sister missing.
I kept thinking about Prissy and how quick all of this had happened. And the money.
I never saw the roadblock till I was up to it. But they wouldn’t be looking for me.
“Howard Jones?”
I stared at the cop.
“Let’s see your license.”
“I forgot it.” I didn’t have a license.
“Get out of the car.”
“This is the car,” another cop said. “License number’s the same as she said, all right.”
They held a gun on me and searched me. Then they handcuffed me.
She had reported it too soon. It wasn’t going right.
“What you trying to do?” I said.
“Look, you may as well shut up, or spill it all, Jones,” one said. “Where’s the girl?”
“What girl?”
“Lizbeth Baxter. Her sister called in a half hour ago and said you’d stolen her car, and that you’d taken her sister with you. She was afraid you did something with her. Where is she, Jones!”
One of them opened the trunk.
“Here she is,” he said. “She’s dead.”
I didn’t wait, then. I told them everything, fast, implicating Prissy as much as I could. One of them snorted.
“You sure as hell are a fool,” he said. “You expect us to believe a yarn like that?”
I screamed it at them. I told them Prissy had figured it out. “Her own sister. I didn’t do this, you fools! She did it. Don’t you see?”
I kept telling them and telling them, all the way back to headquarters. They never did believe me, though.
* * * *
Prissy talked with me alone by my cell, the day before they sent me to Raiford where I would get the chair.
“Jonsey. Naturally I called them. I told you I wanted security. I couldn’t have it with Liz around. I’d never have it with you.”
I squeezed the bars, trying to get at her.
“You think they’d believe I asked you to kill my own sister? You marry me? You? And me in mourning and all?”
“I’ll make them understand,” I yelled at her. “Wait and see! They’ll believe me!”
“Now I’m all alone. I can mourn my husband properly,” she said. She winked and smiled slyly. “And I have enough money so I can mourn him all my life. Mourn him in my own way.”
She walked away. She was wearing black, but it was tight-fitting black, now. Believe me, there’s a difference.