Requiem for a Nun

REQUIEM FOR A NUN 279

I'll be listening, in case you change your mind about the cigarette.

He goes on out, draws the door to after him. Just before it closes, Nancy

speaks.

NANCY

Wait.

Pete stops, begins to open the door again.

TEMPLE

(quickly: to Pete) Go on! Go on! For God's sake go on!

Pete exits, shuts the door after him. Nancy and Temple face each other.

NANCY

Maybe I was wrong to think that just hiding that money and diamonds was

going to stop you. Maybe I ought to have give it to him yesterday as soon

as I found where you had hid it. Then wouldn't nobody between here and

Chicago or Texas seen anything of him but his dust.

TEMPLE

So you did steal it. And you saw what good that did, didn't you?

NANCY

If you can call it stealing, then so can 1. Because wasn't but part of

it yours to begin with. Just the diamonds was yours. Not to mention that

money is almost two thousand dollars, that you told me was just two

hundred and that you told him was even less than that, just fifty. No

wonder he wasn't worried -about just fifty dollars. He wouldn't even be

worried if he knowed it was even the almost two thousand it is, let alone

the two hundred you told me it was. He aint even worried about whether

or not you'll have any money at all when you get out to the car. He knows

that all he's got to do is, just wait and keep his hand on you and maybe

just mash hard enough with it, and you'll get another passel of money and

diamonds too out of your husband or your pa. Only, this time he'll have

his hand on you and you'll have a little trouble telling him it's just

fifty dollars instead of almost two thousand-