Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye by Horace McCoy Page A

almost fiercely, as if the answer to the success or failure of the operation could be found in my face. After a minute he looked at Reece again and jerked his head towards the bedroom. Fine! I thought. You two gents step into the conference room and talk it over, and then I remembered that Jinx was in there, in the closet; and that maybe the Inspector was not taking Reece in there to talk things over at all, that maybe he was suspicious and was going to shake down the place, that maybe he knew there was something funny about this and how could he help but know, an itinerant punk doesn’t make cold-blooded propositions like this to an Inspector of Police. Jesus, I told myself, you overplayed your hand this time, you didn’t need this, you had him nailed with the pay-off, but no, you and your talent, you and your genius, you and your sadism, you had to screw it up, you punk, you child; and I could feel that tremor coming at my stomach and bang! it hit and the color of it was pale thermal-red, and it spun and twisted my intestines the way a rubber band is twisted when you wind up a toy aeroplane. From the other end of the davenport Holiday gasped and the sound of that was dripping of fear, too. I heard the bedroom door being opened and through the vortex I realized that Jinx had to be warned that it was not I or Holiday who was opening the door but the Inspector and Reece. ‘Inspector, Inspector,’ I said, turning around. That stopped him. ‘You’ll have to excuse the appearance of the bedroom,’ I said, laughing. ‘The maid hasn’t come around yet.’ They went on in, closing the door.
    ‘Jinx!’ Holiday exclaimed, shoving herself to her feet. She was trembling all over. I pantomimed vigorously for her to sit down, thinking: Jesus, I hope that stupid son-of-a-bitch understands, I hope he’s got the closet door closed like I told him, I hope he’ll be still and quiet as a creep-mouse. There was nothing I could do about it now, absolutely nothing. It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, I desperately pantomimed to Holiday, trying to get her to sit down, making up my mind that the instant I heard any voices, any noises, I would rush for the hall door. Jinx had two guns in there for just such an emergency and I hoped he had the nerve to use them. It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, I pantomimed to Holiday, goddamn it, sit down and wait. Still trembling, she looked wildly at the bedroom door and again I wondered how anybody could shoot at people with a machine gun, and hit them, could get so frightened. There wasn’t one dame in a million who, her business suddenly interrupted could stroll out of the bedroom with the dignity and savoir-faire that she had exhibited. She was tremendous, all right, but at the wrong time and in the wrong places. This was the time and place for her to be tremendous; instead she was panicky. I was panicky too, but not that panicky. I could feel my intestines still being twisted, but, by God, I wasn’t shaking all over. I didn’t like to have these extraneous thoughts and I wished they wouldn’t come: I wanted to concentrate on being scared. I didn’t want anything to interfere with my listening for any kind of noise from the bedroom; I didn’t want extraneous thoughts interfering with my dive for the door when the time came to dive for the door. I leaned forward, raising my heels, cocking the muscles in my legs, ready to go, gesturing to her that everything was all right, all right, but she knew that I was merely hoping …
    ‘Oh, God, I knew this wouldn’t work, I knew it,’ she moaned.
    I jumped up and grabbed her, hugging her tightly, putting my lips against her ear. ‘Goddamn it, sit down!’ I whispered. I turned her loose, giving her a light push towards the davenport, and sat right back down where I had been sitting, tilting my head, straining my ears. Nothing. The only sounds in the room were the faint febrile exhausts of the steam shovel in