I Would Rather Stay Poor by James Hadley Chase

place. I happen to have a good friend there who runs a gambling joint. I haven’t seen h im for years, but I know I can rely on him because he owes me plenty … I saved his life in the Pacific fighting. I will use some of our capital to gamble with and I’ll w in. My pal will see to that. In fact I’ll win quite a lump of money. We will suddenly find ourselves with more money than we had originally and we will change our ideas about buying a rooming-house: instead, we’ll buy a much more ambitious proposition: a motel in Florida. I also happen to know someone who has a motel to sell. We ’ll buy it. It isn’t much of a place, but with us working at it, it’ll suddenly begin to make money. If there is one thing I can do it is to fake a set of books. We will pay, little by little, money from the payroll into a bank, showing it is profit from the motel. In three or four years, we ’ll have enough in the bank to let us start speculating on the market. Then once we are in this position, we are safe. You and I can part and have our money without any danger to either of us.’
    ‘Did you say three or four years?’ Ki t demanded, her voice going shrill.
    ‘That’s w hat I said.’
    ‘If you imagine I’m going to wait three or four years before I spend that money … ’
    ‘If you can’t wait that long,’ Calvin cut in, ‘then we had better not do the job. This is a three hundred thousand dollar take. It’ll put us on easy street for the rest of our lives. If we make one false move we’ll both land in the gas chamber. Think about it.’
    He got to his feet and left her, going up to his room, humming tunelessly, satisfied in his mind that she would do what he wanted.
    Their love-making the previous night h ad been disappointing. He had expected a fierce, wild passion, but she had given herself to him the way a prostitute gives herself. He had the disturbing feeling that it was only because of the whisky she had drunk that s he had given herself at all. He had been glad to get away from her and return to his room. It had been the most frustrating sex experience he had ever had.
    It was after lunch when the old people were taking a nap and Kit was clearing up in the kitchen that Calvin had the opportunity of getting Alice to himself. She was in the lounge looking through the Sunday newspaper when he wandered in and sat down.
    He said very casually, ‘I ’ve been thinking about you, Alice. Would you mind if I talked to you about your career for a moment?’
    She went red and then white and shook her head, dropping the newspaper and staring at him like a startled rabbit.
    ‘I’ve been very impressed by your work,’ Calvin said, his voice matter-of-fact. ‘You’re w asted in Pittsville.’ He switched on his charm. ‘You should be more ambitious.’
    Hanging on his words, Alice continued to stare at him.
    ‘I – I don’t understand, Mr. Calvin,’ she said.
    ‘A girl like you should be working at head office. They ’re always on the look-out for keen, energetic workers. Would you like me to put your name forward?’
    Her eyes widened behind the shiny lenses of her glasses.
    ‘But they wouldn’t consider me,’ she said breathlessly.
    ‘Of course they would.’ He paused, his trap set, then he went on, ‘But you would first have t o take the advance bank examination. It i sn’t difficult. You’d have to take a correspondence course. It wouldn’t cost you anything. Head Office fixes all that.’ His smile w idened. ‘You’d have to work in the evenings for two or three months. That wouldn’t worry you, would it?’
    She was pathetically eager as she said, ‘Oh no, of course not.’
    ‘Okay, then leave it to me.’ He waved his big hands. ‘You’ll have to give up watching television, but that won’t be a hard ship, will it?’
    She shook her head.
    ‘It would be wonderful to go to San Francisco.’
    ‘Fine, then tomorrow, I’ ll fix it for you.’ Smiling, he got to his feet and wandered