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

got to, Staples! Just a few weeks, a-"
    "Oh, I couldn't do that, Frank!" He shook his head firmly. "I'd love to, but I honestly couldn't. – .Officer!"
    "For God's sake-_Officer?_"
    It was the guy I'd thought was a "just looking" customer. He sauntered up behind me, a toothpick bobbling in the corner of his mouth, and gripped me by the elbow.
    "Okay, Buster," he said. "Let's go bye bye."
    Staples beamed at him. He smiled at me. "I can't bear to say good-bye, Frank. Shall we just make it _au revoir?_"

6
    IT MAY SOUND funny, but it was the first time in my life I'd been in jail. That's the God's truth, and I'm kidding you not. I'd crisscrossed the country, been in every state in the union at one time or another; and some of the deals I'd worked were as raw as a tackfactory whore. But I'd never made the can. Guys all around me did. Guys working right across the street from me. But never me. I guess I just don't look like a guy who'd get out of line. I may talk and act that way, but I don't look it. And I don't, if you know what I mean, really feel it.
    It was about ten o'clock in the morning by the time they got me booked and locked up. I looked around the tank, the bullpen, and I'm not snobbish or anything, you understand, but I went over in a corner and sat down by myself. I just couldn't take it, somehow. I couldn't believe that I was part of this, that I was in the same boat with these other guys and a lot worse off maybe. Me, old Dolly Dillon, in the jug on a grand larceny rap? It was crazy. I felt like I was dreaming.
    I knew better, but all that day I kept thinking that Staples would soften up. He'd realize that I couldn't raise anything in here, and he'd withdraw the charge and let me work the debt off. I kept thinking that, hoping it, and I figured out just the proposition I'd make him. My rent was paid for the month, and I was paid up with the finance company. So I'd say, Okay, Staples, here's what I'll do with you. You buy me a few meal tickets and pay for my gas and oil, and everything over that…
    I remembered that the store owed me money. Two-two-and-a-half day's wages if they'd allow a half for this morning. So, hell, there was twenty-five dollars right there. All I actually owed was, well, call it three hundred in round numbers. That wasn't any money, for God's sake! I could make it up in no time, now that Joyce had pulled out.
    I knew Staples would get me out. I mean, I knew it.
    And I guess you know he didn't.
    The next day came and passed. And I began to think about other angles, other ways I'd get out. They were all as hopeless as the Staples deal, but I dreamed up one after another. Maybe some crew would hit town, and they'd know what I could do, and they'd all take up a collection-they'd find out where I was some way-and… Or maybe! had a big bonus coming from one of the companies I'd worked for and the check was just now catching up with me. Or maybe one of my kinfolks back east had passed on and I was down for the insurance. Or maybe Doris would pop up with a roll. Or Ellen. Or-or someone. Someone had to, dammit! Something had to happen.
    No one did, nothing did. And it was hard to take, brother, but it finally sank in on me that that was the way it was going to be. I was stuck. I couldn't kid myself any longer.
    I thought about Mona, how she was really the cause of the whole trouble. If I hadn't used Pete Hendrickson's money to pay for that silverware, Staples wouldn't have caught up with me. I called myself all kinds of a damned fool, and I cussed her a little, too, I guess. But I didn't really have my heart in it. I knew I'd have done the same thing all over again, and I wasn't sore at her that much. How could you be sore at a sweet, helpless kid like that?
    I sat off by myself in a corner of the bullpen, thinking about her and getting a nice warm feeling. She'd come right to me that day. Put her arms around me and laid her head against my chest. She'd stood there naked and shivering. And she'd