The Bitch by Gil Brewer

I’m asking you now—fast. We can go right now. We could get away. We could make it. Wouldn’t you like it—with me?”
    “Who wouldn’t?” I said. “Being frank in return, you would drive a monkey nuts.”
    “Then—”
    “Drive,” I said. “I’m married. Besides, I haven’t got the money—exactly, that is.”
    “What?”
    “Drive the God damned car,” I said. “That cop’s coming back. He might have thought that was a goodbye, or a hello, but he’ll never put up with us turning this into a hotel room. Get a move on.”
    She lunged the other way, as careless as ever, and started the engine and drove out into the street across oncoming traffic, in the wrong lane, going the wrong way. We nearly cracked up with a swooping pair of headlights. She drove through a red light on the corner, and then we were traveling along Ninth and there was little traffic at this time of the morning.
    “It’s a good thing that bar was open,” she said. Where would you have hidden?”
    “I wasn’t hiding.”
    “It’s a good thing,” she said. “They’re trying a new city law. The bars stay open till three. That cop’s there to see they close on time.”
    “How do you know all this?”
    “Johnny owns a couple bars.”
    “You calmed down now?”
    “Nope.”
    She was driving too fast. I didn’t want to tell her to slow down. She was the type who would only drive faster and laugh with her teeth in the wind. Her hair gushed back from her head and she really looked lovely and hellish there behind that wheel; and what she had said was very damned tempting and I’d had too much whiskey. Then the whiskey began to wear off, and all the rottenness swooped back down into me again. But the going fast part, in the car, helped some. It gave the illusion of running, I suppose, and that’s what was mostly in my mind.
    “You’d better think over what I said.”
    “Don’t you think Morrell thought of that? How come he ever sent you, I don’t know.”
    “He didn’t.”
    I cut a look at her, then back at the road again. She made a fast turn and we were already out of the business district, heading through peaceful residential streets.
    “Nope, he didn’t tell me. I heard it on the extension. So, while you were still talking with him, I was already on my way out back to get my car. That’s why I was in such a hurry. Anyway, he probably had Stewart drive, and Stewart’s slow as syrup.”
    “I see.”
    “I’m giving you the chance if you want it, darling. I’ll go right now. I’m for sale. I’ll stick by you, and that’s it. Cold and plain, but served up hot when you want it.”
    “A real bargain,” I said.
    “Don’t you think so?”
    “I’m not denying it.”
    “Well?” She turned and looked at me, arching one brow, the hair blowing and smiling just a little. She was very beautiful. She was anything you could possibly want. Only everybody would want her, and she sold it all too cheap. Or so it seemed. And, anyway, it would never work—because Morrell was after that money, and the cops were after me, and Thelma Halquist was the wife of one of the richest men in the state, and she was completely and absolutely scatterbrained.
    And there was Janet, waiting. My God, yes!
    “It’s no dice,” I said.
    She jammed the accelerator with her neat little foot. She rammed it and kicked it and the car bucked and lurched and gunned and slowed and gunned again.
    “Well, I’ll get mine, anyway,” she said.
    “That’s for sure, honey.”
    “I didn’t think it’d work,” she said. “But it was worth a try.”
    I didn’t answer her now.
    “Where is the money, Tate?”
    I laughed. “Ha-haha-haha.”
    • • •
    There was no laughter inside me. None at all. From now on I had a long row to hoe.
    She seemed to be headed for the beaches. I didn’t know anything about where Morrell lived, so I just sat there and let her have her head. The first time Morrell and I had talked had been in Thelma’s car. We had met