THE GETAWAY

"Yes?" There was a peculiar gleam in the hunchback's eyes. "You ca

"Sorry," Doc said hastily. "I was so absorbed in watching your game that-but, yes, I believe you can be of help to me. I, uh-the truth is I'm very worried about my wife. I don't think she's at all well."

"I see. So?"

"Well-" Doc lowered his voice. "It's of a highly confidential nature, Doctor. I'd want to discuss it in absolute privacy."

Vonderscheid turned and glanced around the room, his gaze lingering for the merest moment on a palmsheltered corner nook. Brows raised, he turned back to Doc again. "This would seem to be private enough," he said. "Yes, this should do perfectly. So what is it about your wife, and why do you bring the matter to me?"

Doc began a cautious explanation. He had not nearly finished when Vonderscheid interrupted with an impatient gesture. "If you please, Herr McCoy! So much talk for so commonplace a deed! You want me to examine your wife, yes? To suggest that she would do well to have one, with no mention that it is your suggestion. And then you wish me to tell her that she is in need of an operation. To convince her of it. And during the course of the operation, I am to…"

"No point in spelling it out," Doc said quickly. "After all, a great many people die in surgery. Now if you'd, uh, care to give me an estimate of your fee…"

"If I did it, there would be none. To remove either you or your wife from society would be both pleasure and privilege. Unfortunately I ca

"Now just a moment," Doc frowned. "I'm afraid you misunderstood me, Doctor. You surely don't think that I…"

"If you please!" Vonderscheid cut him off with a bang of a cue. "Do not ask me what I think of you or your wife, of what you have done with your good bodies, your strong minds, your unlimited opportunities. If only half so much I had had, or poor Rudy Torrento…"

"So that's it," Doc said, angrily sardonic. "You and Rudy were friends, so naturally…"

He broke off. Vonderscheid had moved back a step, stood gripping the cue with both hands. He wagged it with an ominous movement, and Doc discovered he had nothing more to say.

"You are quite through, McCoy?" The doctor gri

He laughed wickedly, tossed his billiard cue onto the table and walked out.

Doc bit his lip. He remained where he was for a moment, and then, with a kind of dreary nonchalance, he walked around the table and skirted the palms.

Carol had a portable bar drawn up in front of her. Silently he sat down at her side, and silently she fixed him a drink, her eyes warmly sympathetic. "He was pretty rough on you, Doc. I'm sorry."

"Oh, well," Doc sighed. "I hope he wasn't equally nasty with you, my dear."

"I don't care about myself. I've been told off by experts. But someone like you, someone that everyone has always liked…"

She gave his hand a soothing pat, and Doc turned to her with thoughtful wonderment. "Do you know," he said, "I believe you really love me."

"Love you?" she frowned. "Why, of course I do. Don't you love me?"

"Yes," Doc nodded slowly. "Yes, Carol, strangely enough I love you very much. I always have and I always will, and I could never love anyone else."

"And I couldn't either. I-oh, Doc. Doc!"

"And it doesn't make any difference, does it, Carol? Or does it?"

"Does it?" She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. "T-tell me it does, Doc, and I'll tell you it does. And what the hell difference will it make?"

Doc nodded vaguely. He refilled their glasses. In the palace tower a great bell began to toll the hour of twelve. And in the ballroom the band struck up the strains of _Home Sweet Home_.

"Well," Carol said. "I guess it's just about over, Doc."

"Yes," Doc said. "Just about over, Carol."

"You!" she said, and her voice was suddenly angry, frightened, tortured. "I'll drink a toast to you, Doc darling!"

"Why, how kind of you," Doc said, and he touched his glass to hers. "What will it be!"

"To you! To you and our successful getaway!"

"And to you, my dear," Doc said. "And another such victory."

About the Author

James Meyers Thompson was born in Anadarko, Oklahoma, in 1906. He began writing fiction at a very young age, selling his first story to _True Detective_ when he was only fourteen. In all, Jim Thompson wrote twenty-nine novels and two screenplays (for the Stanley Kubrick films _The Killing_ and _Paths of Glory_). Films based on his novels include _Coup de Torchon (Pop. 1280)_, _Serie Noire (A Hell of a Woman)_, _The Getaway_, _The Killer Inside Me_, _The Grifters_, and _After Dark, My Sweet_. A biography of Jim Thompson will be published by Knopf.