Chapter 16
It wasn't five minutes before the bags were packed and Gus and Denny were ready to leave. Sherry was still sitting on the edge of the bed when she heard Gus tell Denny, "Gimme a hand with this stuff and let's get it in the car."
Sherry listened as the door opened and the two men went out, leaving the house in sudden eerie silence. She had no way of knowing what transpired on the beach outside, of course, as Denny helped Gus hide the money in the trunk of the car. Then they lifted Ben's lifeless body onto the rear seat.
"First good spot we come to, we'll dump him," Gus said unemotionally.
Denny nodded perfunctorily but his mind was back in the beach house. "What happens to Sherry?"
A mirthless grin flickered on Gus's evil face and he handed Denny one of the two submachine guns they'd brought along. The other lay on the front seat of the car.
Denny took the gun and his boyish face blanched. "What, what's this for?"
The grin held on Gus' face. "You always wanted to prove you were a big shot. This is your chance."
"But-"
Gus cut him short. "You owe her. You forgettin' what a chump she made of you, the other night, screwing you right in front of everybody? What kind of a lousy trick was that for a broad to pull on a Queen like you?" He said it without facetiousness and made it sound as if it were her idea and that he and the others had nothing to do with it. He studied Denny's frowning countenance for a moment and saw the reluctance still written there. He said, "Another thing, kid, if you wanna go with me, I can't afford to have you one up on me. I mean, I knocked off Ben here, now it's up to you to take care of her, so we can start off even. Okay?"
Denny's eyes swept the darkness around them as if somewhere out there in the night, he hoped to find the answer. He asked, "Can't we just leave, Gus, and let her stay here?"
Gus shook his head adamantly. "Not unless you wanna sit on my lap in the gas chamber. She knows too much. So go ahead, get inside and get it over with. Ill wait for you here in the car and when it's all over, well be right back in the ol' horse race, with Benny-boy's share of the loot to make up for those fifty G's you had to shell out to the two broads." He put an encouraging hand on Denny's shoulder. "Make it quick and sweet."
Denny took another look at the darkness as if trying to see to the top of the bluff, maybe measuring how far away he was from being free of this situation that had turned into a nightmare for him as well as for Sherry. Then with a shrug, he took a stouter hold on the submachine gun and trudged through the sand to the house.
Sherry was still seated on the edge of the bed in a state of semi-paralysis as Denny came into the room. She stared at the gun he was holding, her heart hammering with fear, her mind in mild panic.
He studied her for a moment then he murmured, "Gus sent me to kill you."
"And--and you're going to?" she managed to choke out.
"I'm going to make him think I did."
"Won't he find out?"
"By the time he does, it'll be too late." A frown furrowed her brow. "What do you mean?"
"You know how bad Gus' eyesight is?"
"Yes."
"On the road leading down the bluff from the highway, there were at least a dozen cars with blinking red lights."
"Police?"
Denny nodded. "They probably didn't turn on their sirens for fear of tipping us."
' 'What could possibly have brought them here?"
Denny shrugged. "They must have picked up Ben's trail and followed him here. That stuff about 'honor among crooks' is hogwash. With a reward of $25,000 being offered for our capture, any one of a dozen or more people might have turned us in. Right now out in the darkness the beach is probably crawling with cops, just waiting for us to make a move and try to get away."
It went without saying that the police in all probability had been too far away to have heard the shots that killed Ben, above the sound of the wind and the waves.
"I'm going to make Gus think that I carried out his orders," Denny told Sherry tightly. "The minute I do, all hell's probably going to cut loose. So you duck under the bed and stay there until the shooting's over."
She got up from the bed and took a step toward him. "Why are you doing this for me, Denny—-going against Gus?"
He took a deep breath and focused his gaze on her lips. "Because, you proved something to me. You showed me I was something I never thought I was--a man. You taught me what it's like to have a woman, gave me the greatest thrill I've ever known."
"Any woman could have done the same thing, if you'd only given them half a chance."
"Maybe, but you're the one who did it and from that moment on, I felt different, was different. Different because for the first time in my life I knew what love was . . . when I fell in love with you."
The sound of Gus honking the car horn out in the darkness interrupted.
"Now you better get under the bed where you'll be safe," Denny said hurriedly.
She threw her arms around his neck, pressed her body to his and kissed him on the mouth, emotionally. The evidence she felt against her flat tummy established beyond a doubt that a metamorphosis had set in and Denny very definitely had become a man--several hard-packed inches of him!
"You better hurry," Denny insisted, breathing heavily as he pulled back from her. "Gus isn't going to wait out there much longer."
She kissed him again and whispered, "Be careful." Then she got down onto the floor as he raised the machine gun, pulled the trigger and set a round of bullets chewing into the wall.
Almost at once the beach became a sudden blaze of light with Gus trapped in the car in the middle of their blinding glare. Bullhorns began blaring forth, drowning out the wind and the surf.
There was a burst of machine gun fire directly outside the door. It was answered by a staccato rattle of guns from all over the beach. Gus had made a foolish move and paid dearly for it. At the first indication that the police were there, he had reached for the machine gun on the front seat beside him. He didn't get off more than a round when the police opened up at him. A shower of lead hit him and the gun slipped from his grasp as he slumped forward across the steering wheel and his life poured out through the multiple bullet holes the police had left in his body.
It was another day. A bright sunny day because spring was on the way and with spring came the promise of a whole new life for Sherry.
Red and Louie were behind bars. Ben's prediction that it might not be wise for them to try to contact the plastic surgeon on their own, proved accurate. Instead of being admitted to a sanitarium to have their faces and fingerprints altered, they were picked up and sent to the state penitentiary for from "ten to twenty" without having had a chance to enjoy even one penny of their ill-gotten fortune.
At the moment, Denny also was a non-paying guest of the state in the big house, serving a lesser sentence because his part in the robbery had been minimal. He'd had only a stolen car rap on his previous record and since he proved to be a more than cooperative witness, the judge was very lenient when it came to sentencing him.
Denny's word, along with the testimony of Red and Louie who had nothing to lose by telling the truth, completely exonerated Sherry of any implication in the robbery, or being an accessory after the fact. It was clearly brought out at the trial that she had been kidnapped and held prisoner in the beach house by the five men. "Kidnapped" because it also was made clear that she had no legal standing as Ben's wife, since she was the last of six previous wives whom he had collected along the way, none of whom he had taken the trouble to divorce.
Of course, Sherry received none of the $25,000 reward money. That went to the member of the plastic surgeon's staff who turned in Ben and alerted the police to the whereabouts of Red and Louie when they showed up for their facial alterations. However, Sherry was not without compensation for her ordeal. That little slip of paper that blew into the beach house between Gus' legs as he stood in the doorway that night after machine gunning Ben, proved to be Ben's winning lottery ticket, that even after taxes were deducted, left a sizable amount.
Sherry found it while she was gathering together her belongings. Since it would do Ben no good, she saw no reason why she shouldn't keep it in payment for what she'd gone through.
On this particular spring day, Sherry was on her way to the state pen to visit Denny. After he'd saved her life and put his own on the line for her, she felt she owed him a great deal more than a visit. Denny told her about the new rule at the prison that allowed the wives of prisoners to visit their husbands for a secluded weekend. He added that serious consideration was being given to the possibility of extending the same privilege for girl friends of prisoners.
"I--er--I was wondering--if it goes through whether you'd consider spending a weekend with me?" he asked hesitantly.
She smiled and whispered, "Why not?"
Why not indeed? In fact, even if the girl friend ruling didn't go through, she said they still might be able to work something out. After all, she did feel a certain responsibility since she was the one who had converted him. Besides, if he still wanted her after knowing all that went on in the beach house, even if it hadn't been her fault, there was no reason why she shouldn't accept him.
If he could still walk out through the prison gates a one hundred percent man, after all the hanky-panky she'd heard went on behind those tall gray walls after lights went out, then he would have more than earned her love.