LITMIR.BIZ

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she had me on the defensive, Mrs. Hollingsworth followed up her advantage. “You should be protecting Mary’s interests instead. She’s an employee of yours, and I’m not. A thoughtful boss would put her welfare ahead of an outsider’s. No wonder workers band into unions.”

      Mavis said eagerly, “It would only be a loan, Mr. Carter. John and I could pay it back, once he’s home and both of us are working. Lots of couples owe more than that on a home. Oh, please, sir, let her.”

      “Let me, fiddlesticks,” Mrs. Hollingsworth said. “I have sons older than your boss, child, and they don’t tell me what to do. I don’t need his permission. The matter’s settled.” She looked at me defiantly.

      I gave a resigned shrug. “As you say, it’s your money, Mrs. Hollingsworth.”

      “Hmph,” she said. “Am I also going to have to go to China and make personal arrangements, or will you deign to use your connections to get the bribe placed in the proper hands there?”

      Mavis looked at me appealingly. “You know what arrangements have to be made, sir. You’ll take care of it, won’t you?”

      With a rueful smile I raised my hands in a gesture of defeat. “I won’t argue any more. Mrs. Hollingsworth has placed me in the position of a villain trying to keep your husband imprisoned for some fiendish reason of my own. As long as she’s determined to put up the money, I’ll be glad to use my connections to have John freed. You understand, Mary, that I wasn’t trying to discourage the loan because I’m unsympathetic. It’s just—”

      “It’s just that Mr. Carter is a businessman,” Mrs. Hollingsworth interrupted. “He doesn’t understand that human values are more important than dollars and cents.” She added for my benefit, in case I thought she was being too harsh with me, “Not that I don’t like him. He’s really quite charming, and probably a good boss in most ways. Don’t think badly of him.”

      “Oh, I don’t,” Mavis said enthusiastically. “Tonight I think everybody is wonderful.”

      Again I was afraid she was going to overdo it, but she didn’t. She didn’t engulf Mrs. Hollingsworth with thanks. She acted as though she were too overwhelmed to express herself properly, which was a more effective thank-you than a lot of words would have been.

      When we left the Statler, the elderly dowager said, “We’ll drop you off at your hotel now, dear. You go on to your aunt’s tomorrow and enjoy your vacation. I’ll give Mr. Carter a check as soon as we get home, so he can start matters moving at once.”

      We dropped Mavis off in front of the small hotel she designated, and I drove back to the Beverly-Wilshire. Mrs. Hollingsworth asked me to stop by her room for a moment, wrote out a check for ten thousand dollars and handed it to me.

      “Better phone your bank in the morning and tell them it’s all right to cash this,” I advised. “I’ll want to exchange it for a cashier’s check and get it off to New York at once.”

      She did phone the bank the next morning, and I had no trouble exchanging it for a cashier’s check made out to myself.

      Immediately afterward I checked out of the hotel, picked up Mavis and we headed for Las Vegas.

      Mavis seemed strangely subdued. We were well on the way before I noticed it, though. When putting distance behind me after a job, I concentrate on the road ahead. We were fifty miles out of town before I grew conscious of her odd silence.

      “What’s the matter with you?” I inquired. “You ought to feel good. You did a beautiful job.”

      “I keep thinking about that old lady,” she said. “She was such a nice person, Sam. I keep wondering what she’ll think when she realizes we were crooks.”

      I frowned sidewise at her. “She won’t miss the money. She’s loaded. You know what the first major rule of this racket is?”

      “What?”

      “Never give a trimmed mark another thought. If you do, you won’t sleep nights. If you’re going to feel sorry for marks, you’re in the wrong racket. Want to mail your share of the take back?”

      “Oh, no,” she said quickly. Her expression turned dreamy. “All that nice money. How many things it can buy! Don’t worry about my conscience, Sam. As long as we can make money this easily, I’ll subdue it.”

      “You sure you can?”

      She gave a definite nod. “I promise I’ll never think of the old lady again. Or any other mark, after a job.”

      “What makes you think there will be any more jobs?”

      She gave me an anxious look. “Aren’t you going to keep me with you? You said I did a beautiful job.”

      “You want to form a permanent partnership?” I asked.

      “Oh, yes,” she said eagerly. “I want to stick with you. Can I, Sam?”

      “We’ll see when we get where we’re going,” I said noncommittally.

      We hit Las Vegas at two P.M. I converted the cashier’s check into cash, and then sold my car to a used-car dealer on the off-chance that Mrs. Hollingsworth might remember the license number. Two hours after we arrived in Las Vegas, we were riding a plane toward Denver under assumed names.

      We had dinner on the plane. When we landed, I had a taxi drive us directly to a small hotel on the outskirts of the city.

      En route I glanced at Mavis’s left hand, noted it was bare and asked, “What did you do with that wedding band and engagement ring?”

      “They’re in my bag,” she said. “Why?”

      “Put them on.”

      She gave me a puzzled look, but obeyed.

      At the hotel I registered as Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Kinn of Houston, Texas. Mavis said nothing until the bellhop had deposited our bags in our room and departed. Then she thoughtfully regarded the double bed with which the room was furnished.

      “Don’t I even get asked?” she inquired.

      I pulled a bottle of bourbon from one of my bags, set it on the dresser and phoned room service for soda and ice.

      When I hung up, she said, “Don’t I get answered either?”

      “Sure,” I said. “Didn’t you say you wanted this to be a permanent partnership?”

      “I was thinking of a business partnership.”

      “With me, it’s all the way or not at all,” I told her. “That’s the way it is. You can still walk out.”

      Her lower lip stuck out petulantly. “You could be a little more romantic about it.”

      “I know how to be romantic,” I assured her. “You’ll be treated like a queen. I’m starting us off this way on purpose.”

      “Why?”

      “Because I want you to have no doubt in your mind from the beginning about who’s boss.” I tapped my chest. “This guy is. In business, in bed, everywhere. I give the orders and you take them. You want to stay under my conditions, or take your cut and leave right now?”

      She studied me for a moment more. “Do you have to make it an ultimatum?” she complained. “Couldn’t you at least say you want me because I appeal to you as a woman?”

      “If you didn’t appeal to me as a woman, you’d be registered in another room.” I crooked a finger at her. “Come here.”

      She hesitated, then warily moved toward me.

      Pulling her against my chest, I wound my fingers in her black hair and jerked her head back. She put up a token struggle when I kissed her, but after a moment her arms slid about my neck. Her lips opened under mine and her body strained against me.

      She

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