A Horse’s Head

3. Merilee

It was nine o’clock on a Friday night, and all the gamblers were out.

Mullaney and the girl came down into the overspill uptown throng. He felt very much like a college freshman pledging for a fraternity, his trousers perhaps six inches too short, the cuffs riding high on his shins, his jacket sleeves reaching midway up his forearm, the jacket itself stretching tight to bursting across his shoulders, the big black buttons barely holding, the jasmine shirt ludicrously incongruous with the solemn burial garments. The fraternity brothers had given him the most beautiful girl in the world to carry on his arm and then had sent him into the clamor of Friday-night New York to get half a million dollars. There was no question that he already possessed both the money and the girl, so the secret now was to prolong this delicious suspense, to put off the moment of releasing — yes, that was the proper word — first the money, then the girl and himself. In the meantime, they walked idly down the street, he in his Ichabod Crane clothes, and she in her demure black velvet, laced at the throat, holding his arm with an intimate delicate-fingered knowledge — she too seemed willing to wait.

The gamblers, or more accurately the losers, were everywhere around them. They had saved their nickels and dimes to build their Friday-night stake, and now they were betting it on a single roll of the dice, the sucker bet supreme, a bigger sucker bet than even Kruger had laid. They hoped to win (he supposed) all the things he had hoped to win when he stepped out a year ago, but quicker and with a more dizzying sense of triumph, all of it on a single roll. Laughter awaited on the opposite side of that roll, dazzling good looks and keen intelligence, wealth unimaginable, luxury undreamt. So they all marched in their Robert Hall suits, and their heads swam with visions of cashmere lined with silk, expensive motor cars purring gently, Playmates of the Month spreading eager legs, the soft interiors of women they thought they had never known the likes of, all waiting, all beckoning, all belonging to the conqueror. Just a single winning roll and power would be theirs, lightning bolts to hurl, orgasms to waste, laughter to recklessly spend.

Mullaney had already won, had won in that apartment when he’d bluffed Kruger’s hand. The cash was his, as was the girl, whenever he wanted them. Everybody else was a loser.

“Do you have any money?” he asked the girl.

“No,” she said, and they both laughed.

“I have half a million dollars,” he said.

“Oh I know you do, baby.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“No, where is it?” she said, and laughed.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“First tell me where the money is.”

“No. First tell me your name.”

“Merilee,” she said.

“That’s very close to my name,” he said, “which is Mullaney.”

“That’s very close indeed,” the girl said.

“We are going to be very close indeed, Merilee.”

“Oh yes indeed,” she said, “we are going to be very close indeed.”

“We’re going to make love on a bed of five hundred thousand dollars. Have you ever made love on such a bed?”

“No, but it sounds like enormous fun,” she said. “Where is it?”

“Your ass will turn green,” Mullaney said, and laughed.

“Oh yes indeed it will. All that money will rub off on it, and I will absolutely adore the color of it. Where is it?”

“I wonder if it’s in tens, or hundreds, or thousands,” Mullaney said.

“Don’t you know?”

“I won’t know until I see it. I have a feeling, however, that it’s in largish bills.”

“A feeling?”

“Yes,” he said, “a warm, enveloping feeling,” and grinned at his inside joke.

“Do you know something?” she said.

“What?”

“We’re being followed. No, don’t look.”

“How do you know?”

“I know. George and Henry are following us.”

The girl was right; the twins were behind them. Mullaney caught a quick glimpse of them as he took her arm and led her onto Madison Avenue, and then spotted them again crossing the street near the IBM showroom on Fifty-seventh. He toyed with the idea of pulling something unexpected on the twins, playing some sort of fantastic trick that would leave them bewildered and lost, but he couldn’t think of anything clever enough or devastating enough. So he simply continued walking up Fifty-seventh Street, toward Fifth Avenue, and then turned left on Fifth, all the while trying to think of a really clever gimmick he could pull on Henry and George, who were right there behind him, ambling along the avenue like a double vision of Friday-night delight, dirty rats.

Mullaney’s poverty of invention was beginning to depress him. It seemed to him that someone in possession of half a million cool American dollars to warm the cockles of his heart, not to mention a rather beautiful young lady on his arm—

“How old are you?” he asked suddenly.

“Twenty-two,” she said. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-one,” he lied.

“That’s a lie,” she said.

“Right, I’m really thirty-three.”

“Oh boy, what a liar,” the girl said.

“I’ll be forty years old in August,” Mullaney said.

“You look older,” the girl said.

“That’s because I have half a million dollars. That kind of money can give a person worry lines.”

“Oh yes indeed I’m sure,” the girl said.

— someone in possession of such wealth and beauty and, yes, youth (she was only twenty-two, what a marvelous age to climb onto and into, all springtime taut and fresh), someone who owned all these things after a year of steady downhill plodding, well hell it just seemed impossible that someone so richly endowed could not think of a single solitary brilliant trick to shake those twins behind him.

“Listen,” he said, “are you game?”

“I am game for anything, baby.”

“No matter what?”

“Anything.”

“Would you, for example, do it on a Ferris wheel?”

“I would, for example, do it on a roller coaster,” she said.

“Then, sweetheart, let’s go!” he said, and he grabbed her hand and began running down Fifth Avenue. He glanced quickly over his shoulder and saw that he had taken the twins by surprise. The trick now was to maintain that element of surprise, lead them a merry chase around this fair Friday-night city, and then unleash all those crisp little mothers from where they were nestling so snug and warm, lay his shy blond beauty down upon the bills, hump her royally against a backdrop of cash, hang singles from her nipples, fivers on her navel, deck her halls with sawbucks and centuries, set her aglow with green like an April evening Christmas tree, humping her all the while, money and sex, winner take all, but maintain the element of surprise.

The first surprise was the Mercedes-Benz that stopped for a light on the corner of Fifty-fifth and Fifth. Mullaney pulled open the back door and shoved the girl onto the leather seat. To the driver, he shouted, “Get moving.”

“Crazy,” the driver said cheerfully, and stepped on the gas. “Did you just rob a bank?”

“Don’t tell him,” the girl said, and giggled.

“Lady, you arc gorgeous,” the driver said. “Where to?”

“Anywhere away from here,” Mullaney said.

“Crazy,” the driver said. “Let’s go to Philadelphia.”

“Except Philadelphia,” the girl said.

“You know the Philadelphia jokes, huh?”

“Every one of them.”

“None of them are jokes.”

“I know.”

“Lady, you are gorgeous,” the driver said.

“I do it on roller coasters,” the girl said, and giggled again.

“Front or back scat? There’s a big difference.”

“They’re behind us,” Mullaney said suddenly.

“Who?”

“Henry and George.”

“Don’t believe I know them,” the driver said thoughtfully.

“They’re killers,” the girl said.

“Yeah?”

“Oh yes indeed.”

“Lady, you are gorgeous.”

“Let us out on the next comer,” Mullaney said.

“Let you out? You just got in!”

“Surprises,” Mullaney said, “that’s the secret.”

“Of what?” the driver asked, but they were already out of the car. Behind them, Mullaney could see the twins’ cab pulling to the curb.

“Run!” he shouted to Merilee, and they began running again, laughing hysterically. He was suddenly afraid that the jacket would split up the middle. He tried to keep his shoulders back, to avoid putting a strain on the seam, but all the while he was certain the jacket would split.

“They’re still with us,” Merilee shouted. “Oh my this is fun!”

“We’ll have to think of something clever,” he said.

“Good,” she said, “think of something clever.”

“And unexpected.”

“Oh yes unexpected, I love the unexpected!”

“Let’s head for your apartment!” he said.

“Clever, clever,” she said, “they’d never expect us to go there.”

“Right!”

“Because I live with Kruger, you see.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

They had reached Sixth Avenue now and he paused for just a moment on the corner, holding her hand, wondering whether to proceed directly west toward the honkytonk movie theaters or to turn uptown toward the camera stores and hardware stores and Howard Johnson’s beckoning in the distance and beyond that Central Park and beyond that—

“Hurry!” she said.

“Yes, yes.”

“They’re coming!”

“Yes!”

“Can’t we go to your place?”

“No,” he said.

“Why not?”

“My landlady locked me out of it yesterday.”

“For God’s sake, hurry!” she shouted.

“The unexpected!” he said, and he tugged her hand and reversed direction and ran back toward Henry and George who were racing up toward the comer. There were a lot of people on the comer of Sixth Avenue and Forty-second Street, but not many of them paid too much attention to Mullaney and the girl, or even to Henry and George, who stopped dead in their tracks and then whirled about when they realized their quarry was heading in the opposite direction. Neither of the twins was exactly slim or svelte, and they were puffing hard and desperately out of breath as they once more took up the chase. Mullaney had another brilliant idea, which he planned to spring if things got too tight, and that was to run up Fifth Avenue again to the Doubleday’s on Fifty-seventh Street, where he would lock the twins into one of the listening booths with a Barbra Streisand LP in stereo. But that was his ace in the hole, and he planned to play it only if the Public Library had already closed, which he hoped against hope it hadn’t. He reasoned (correctly, he hoped) that the twins would never expect them to run into the Public Library, because who in his right mind would go into the Public Library on a Friday night?

“You’re crazy,” the girl said. “I love you you’re so crazy.”

He took a last look over his shoulder before running across the street, dodging traffic and coming once again onto Fifth Avenue. Pulling the girl along with him, he raced up the wide marble front steps of the library, past the MGM lions, and then ducked onto the footpath leading to the side entrance, and through the revolving doors and into the high hallowed marbled corridors, wishing he had a nickel for every encyclopedia he had sold to libraries all over the country (in fact he had once had even more than a nickel for every encyclopedia he’d sold). He caught from the corner of his eye a sign telling him the library closed at ten, and then saw the huge wall clock telling him it was now nine thirty-seven, which meant he had exactly twenty-three minutes to put his hands on the money, perhaps less if George and Henry found them first. He was fairly familiar with libraries, though not this one, and he knew that all libraries had what they called stacks, which was where they piled up all the books. This being one of the largest libraries in the world, he assumed it would have stacks all over the place, so he kept opening oak-paneled doors all along the corridor, looking into rooms containing learned old men reading books about birds, and finally coming upon a door that was marked STAFF ONLY, figuring this door would surely open upon the privacy of dusty stacks, convinced that it would, and surprised when instead it opened on a cluttered office with a pince-nezed old lady sitting behind a desk, “Excuse us,” he said, “were looking for the stacks.”

The stacks, he thought, would be symbolically correct for unleashing those stacks of bills, which he had been very close to all along, but which he was now very much closer to, actually within touching distance of, actually within finger-tingling stroking distance of, five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of unmitigated loot. The girl’s hand was sweating in his own as they went rapidly down the marble corridor, as if she too sensed that he was about to unlock that avalanche of cash, turn her backside green with it as he had promised, allow her to wallow in all that filthy lucre. He spotted another door marked personnel and tried it, but it was locked, so he kept running down the corridor with the girl’s sweaty hand in his own, the smell of money enveloping both of them, trying doors, waiting for the door that would open to their touch, open upon rows and rows of dusty books in soaring stacks behind which they would allow the bills to trickle through their fingers, floating noiselessly on the silent air, if only Henry and George did not get to them first.

And then, unexpectedly (the only way he was beginning to expect), one of the doors opened on more books than he had ever seen in his life, stacked from floor to ceiling in metal racks stretching as far as the eye could see. He closed the door behind them, and then locked it. Taking her hand, he led her between the columns of books, wondering if any of them were the very encyclopedias he used to sell before he took the gamble, the gamble which was now to pay off in half a million lovely dollar bills.

“Oh my,” the girl said, “but it’s spooky in here.”

“Shhh,” he said, and clung tightly to her sweating hand. In the distance, he could hear footsteps, a library page running to get another book on birds for one of the learned old gentlemen reading in one of the wood-paneled rooms. He led her away from the footsteps, led her deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of books, doubting he would ever be able to find his way out again, but not caring because the money smell hung heavy on the air now, mingling with the musty aroma of old books. The patter of feet disappeared in the distance. There was suddenly a cul-de-sac as private as a woodland copse, books stacked on every side of them, surrounding them, a dim red light burning somewhere over a distant exit door, their escape when they needed it.

“Are you going to lay me now?” the girl asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“First the money,” she said.

It galled him that she said those words because they were only the ancient words whispered in cribs from Panama to Mozambique, and he did not expect them from this girl who had said she would do it on roller coasters.

“I have the money,” he said.

“Where?”

“I have it,” he insisted.

“Yes indeed, baby, but where?”

“Right here,” he said, and kissed her.

He thought, as he kissed her, that if she still insisted on the money first, he would probably produce it because that’s what money was for, to buy the things you wanted and needed. He thought, however, as he kissed her, that it would be so much nicer if she did not insist on the money, but instead offered herself to him in all her medieval, black-velveted, delicate charm, offered herself freely and willingly and without any promises, gave to him, simply gave to him without any hope of receiving anything in return; that, he thought, would be very nice. He almost lost himself in that single kiss, almost produced the money the instant his lips touched hers because the money no longer seemed important then, the only important thing was the sweetness of her mouth. The girl too, he thought, was enjoying the kiss as much as he, straining against him now with a wildness he had not anticipated, her arms encircling, the fingers of one hand widespread at the back of his neck the way he had seen stars doing it in movies but had never had done to him even by Irene who was really very passionate though sometimes shy, her belly moving in against him, her breasts moving in against him, her thighs, her crotch, everything suddenly moving in freely and willingly against him, just the way he wanted it, “The money,” she whispered.

He pressed her tight against the wall and rode the black skirt up over her thighs. She spread her legs as he drove in against her, and then arched her back and twisted away, trying to elude his thrust, rising onto her toes in retreat, dodging, and giggling as her evasive action seemed to work, and then gasping as she accidentally subsided upon the crest of another assault. “The money,” she said insistently, “the money,” and tried to twist away as he moved in against her again, rising on her toes again, almost losing a shoe, only to be caught once more by a fierce and sudden ascent, her own sharp twisting descent breaking unexpectedly against him. “The money,” she moaned, “the money,” and seized his moving hips as though to push him away from her, and then found her hands moving with his hips, accepting his rhythm, assisting him, and finally pulling him against her eagerly. Limply, clinging to the wall, one arm loose around his neck, the other dangling at her side, she sank to the jacket he had spread on the floor and said again by tireless rote, softly, “The money, the money.” She was naked beneath her skirt now, its black velvet folds crushed against her belly. His hands touched, stroked, pretended, possessed. She stretched her legs as though still in retreat, protesting, trying to sidestep though no longer on her feet. Weaponless, in angry reprimand, she snapped her groin up sharply against his demanding hand, a short petulant whiplash, and then sighingly moved against him in open surrender, shaking her head, breathing the words once in broken defiance, “The money.” Lifting herself to him, she tilted groin and buttocks up, opened skirt and legs, funneled him toward her and onto her and into her, “Turn you green,” he whispered, “Yes yes turn me,” she said, “Spread you like honey,” he whispered, “Oh yes spread me,” she said, and he rushed deep inside her with a sureness he had dreamt long ago, and remembering she murmured, “Oh you louse you promised.”

He had not, of course, broken his promise. He had told her he would cause her to lay down in green pastures, and that was exactly what he had done, though not letting her in on the secret, even lovers had to keep their little secrets. But he had most certainly done what he’d promised. Suddenly, he began chuckling. Holding her close, his lips against her throat, he began chuckling, and she said, “Stop that, you nut, it tickles.”

“Do you know what we just did?” he said, sitting up.

“Yes, I know what we just did,” Merilee answered, demurely lowering her skirt.

“Do you know where?”

“In the New York Public Library.”

“Right. Do you know on what?”

“On the floor.”

“Wrong.”

“Excuse me, on your jacket.”

“Wrong.”

“On what then?”

“On half a million dollars,” Mullaney said, and got to his feet and dusted off his trousers and then offered his hand to the girl. “May I?” he asked.

“Certainly,” she said, puzzled, and took his hand. He helped her to her feet, grinned, and picked up the jacket. As he dusted it off, he said, “Do you hear anything?”

“No.”

“Listen.”

“I still don’t hear anything.”

“Listen,” he said, and deliberately brushed his hand over the jacket in long sweeping palmstrokes, striking dust from the shoulders and the back and the sleeves, and keeping his head cocked to one side all the while, grinning at the girl, who kept listening and hearing nothing, and watching him as though making love had done something to his head.

“I don’t hear anything,” she said.

“Don’t you hear the rustle of silk?”

“No.”

“Don’t you hear the flutter of angels’ wings?”

“No.”

“Don’t you hear, my dear sweet girl, the sound of money?”

“I don’t hear anything,” she said.

“Have you got a knife?” he asked.

“No.”

“A scissors?”

“No.”

“Have you got a nail file in your bag?”

“All I’ve got in my bag is a driver’s license and a pearl-handled .22. Where’s the money?”

“I’ll have to tear it.”

“Tear what?”

Mullaney grinned and turned the jacket over in his hands. He could feel the stiffness of the bills sewn into the lining, could almost feel the outline of each dollar-sized packet nestling between the outer and inner fabric. He debated whether he should take the packets out one at a time and spread them across the floor at Merilee’s feet, or whether he should simply slit the hem at the bottom of the jacket and allow the packets to fall helter-skelter-come-what-may, as if it were raining money. He decided it would be nice to see it rain money, so he grinned at Merilee again (she was watching him intently, her blue eyes narrowed, a feral sexy look on her face) and then he began plucking at the lining thread at the jacket’s hem. The jacket had been excellently tailored, he had known immediately that K and O’Brien and all the others were gentlemen of taste, with good tight stitches placed close together, all sewn by hand, all designed to withstand any possible accidents on the way to Rome. Mullaney finally had to rip the first few stitches with his teeth, something his mother had warned him never to do, and then he thrust two fingers up into the torn opening, and began ripping the stitches all the way down the line, keeping the jacket bundled and bunched because he didn’t want the bills to fall out until he was ready to let it rain. When he had ripped the lining clear across the bottom, he rose from his squatting position and, still holding the jacket so that nothing could fall out of it, held it at arm’s length in both hands and said, “It’s going to rain money, Merilee.”

“Oh yes indeed let it rain,” Merilee said.

“It’s going to rain half a million dollars’ worth of money.”

“Oh yes yes yes.”

“It’s going to rain all over this floor.”

“Let it rain, baby,” the girl said.

“And then we’ll make love again,” Mullaney said.

“Half a million times,” the girl said, “one for each dollar bill.”

“Are you ready?”

“I am ready,” she said, her eyes glowing.

“Here-it-comes,” Mullaney said, “five-hundred-thousand-dollars in-American-money, ta-ra!” and he allowed the lining to fall away from the jacket.