A Hell of a Woman (Crime Masterworks) Read Online Free PDF

collection cards and cash on the counter and he checked one against the other.
    He was a little guy of about fifty, gray-haired, paunchy, sort of baby-mouthed. Back in the days when he was ringing doorbells, they'd called him The Weeper. He'd get on some poor bastard's doorstep or maybe call on him on the job, and then he'd howl and cry and carry on until they could hear him in the next county. He wasn't up to the rough stuff, so he'd pull that. And they'd have to come across to get rid of him.
    He talked kind of sissified, not with a lisp, exactly, although you kept expecting one. He finished the check, and smiled at me pleasantly. He removed his glasses, polished them slowly and put them back on again.
    "Frank," he said. "I'm disappointed in you. Very, very disappointed."
    "Yeah?" I said. "What's the beef now?"
    "Such clumsiness, Frank. Such preposterous ineptness. We did things much better in my day. Why in the world didn't you steal from the profit and loss file-the inactive p. and l.'s? If you were at all clever, you might have got away with it for years."
    He shook his head sadly, looking like he was about to cry.
    I forced a laugh. "Steal? What the hell you handing me, Staples?"
    "Oh, Frank, please!" He held up a hand. "You're making this very painful. Pete Hendrickson's employer called me yesterday; his ex-employer, I should say. It seems that he wasn't very favorably impressed with our way of doing business, and he felt constrained to tell me so."
    "So what?" I said.
    "Frank…"
    "All right," I said. "I borrowed thirty-eight bucks. I'll have it back for you by the end of the week."
    "I see. And what about the rest of it?"
    "What rest?" I said. "Who you trying to crap, anyway?"
    But I knew it was no use. He sighed and shook his head, looking at me sorrowfully.
    "I've only had time to spot check your accounts, Frank, but I've already found a dozen-uh-defalcations. Why not get it off your chest, my boy? Give me the total amount of the shortage. I'll find out, anyway."
    "I couldn't help it," I said. "It was the rain. It's cleared up now, and if you'll just give me a few weeks-"
    "How much, Frank?"
    "I've got it all written down." I took out my notebook and showed him. "You can see for yourself I was going to pay it back. Hell, if I didn't intend to pay it back I wouldn't have written it down, would I?"
    "We-el, yes." He pursed his lips. "Yes, I think you would have. I know I would have. It looks much better in such unpleasant eventualities as the present one."
    "Now, wait a minute," I said. "I-"
    "Three hundred and forty-five dollars, eh? Why don't you just dig it up, like a good boy, and we'll consider the matter closed."
    "I'll write you a check," I said. "For God's sake, Staples, if I had any money or if I'd been able to beg or borrow any, I wouldn't have taken this."
    "Mmm. I suppose so. What about your car?"
    "Who's got a car? Talk to the finance company."
    "Furniture?"
    "Nothing. I rent furnished. I'm telling you, Staples, I don't have it and there's no way Ican get it. All I can do is-"
    "I see," he said. "Well, that's certainly too bad, isn't it? Very depressing. The company isn't at all vindictive in these matters, but… I suppose you're familiar with the law of this state? Anything over fifty dollars is grand larceny."
    "Look," I said. "What's that going to make you? What the hell good is it going to do to have me slapped in jail? God, if you'll just-"
    "Well, it might do quite a bit of good," he said. "A man faced with a long prison sentence often thinks of resources he's previously overlooked. That's been our experience."
    "But I can't! I won't!" I said. "There's no one that will help me. I haven't seen any of my relatives in years and they're all poor as hell anyway. I don't have any close friends or-"
    "What about your wife?"
    "I'm telling you," I said. "There's just one way! can get that dough. Give me six weeks. Give me a month. Three weeks. I'll work seven days a week, sixteen hours a day until-You've