Excerpt

When the kiss ended, Ed said, "Warm up our coffee and let me talk now. I haven't been honest with you. I haven't lied. I just haven't told you the whole truth. The last nine days of my life have just been mind-boggling. I've needed someone I could trust to talk to. I even wished once this week that I was Catholic and had a priest I could talk to.

"Polly---I have that money--four million dollars in hundred dollar bills." He paused, but Polly said nothing. He went on, "I was there, saw the shoot-out. When the two vans took off, I walked over there, closed the suitcase full of money and walked away. I did it without even thinking about it or knowing how much there was. I took it back to camp, counted it, and then buried it. I have justified keeping it by telling myself that it was drug money and that it wasn't really stealing. It may take two more pots of coffee, but I want to tell you everything, and why I really wanted to keep it. You may interrupt me any time you want, but let me tell you everything that I have done, and thought about this past week. Some of it will really blow your mind."

He told her everything: about the Dooley theory and his option; about Beth; the detectives; the tapes; and the photos.

Polly did interrupt at that point, "You mean you have video tapes and photos of me and Jim All having sex in his hideaway? You have seen those and still say you love me?"

"I haven't seen any tapes of you. There are a few black and whites photos of you together. English showed me just a few minutes of tapes of All and Beth. That was all I intended to buy at first. I've already made up my mind I am going to destroy any and all with you in them. I've only watched parts of one with Beth and All. It had one segment with him and another woman on the same tape. So I'm not sure which ones you are in, or how many. There are labels on them but I didn't take the time to read them. I don't know how well they are indexed. But it doesn't matter Polly--I still love you. I don't believe I ever truly loved another woman."

Polly exclaimed, "You were right when you said some of it will really blow my mind. This has blown it! Ann All has had these tapes for over a year and is just sitting on them! Wow! I'm probably going to be really mad when I get over the initial shock of this."

"I almost didn't tell you about the tapes. I may wish I hadn't. Unless Beth gives me a hard time, I meant to destroy them. I kept the one out of the lock box to give to her if I had to, and tell her there were many more. If she tells All, there may be hell to pay."

Polly said, "He is capable of murder. He would kill you to get those tapes." She stopped and thought a minute, before saying, "Ed, we really better think about disclosing the existence of these tapes. You could be in more danger over them than the cash. I am serious. He 's a dangerous person and has an awful lot to lose if all this comes out. It would serve the son-of-a-bitch right, but I don't want you to get killed over them. This coffee isn't going to get it, I'm going to fix us a drink."

Ed lit a cigarette. He thought he heard someone knocking on his door. He went and looked though the peephole. Sure enough, Beth was there. After a couple of minutes, she turned and knocked on Polly's door. Ed held a finger to his lips and motioned to Polly to stay away. In another couple of minutes, she gave up and left. Ed said, "I was right. That was Beth." He went back to the kitchen, sat down, took a drink, and said, "Let me finish my story and then we can come back to whatever you want."

When he finished, Polly asked, "Do you think you really have to have the money to use on the oilfield? Isn't there some way you can swing it without it?"

"It is very doubtful, particularly right now. If I could, it would be hard to cut myself a very big piece of the deal. If I can get the money out of the country and put it in an offshore corporation, I could wind up owning almost all of it. If Im right, it could be worth fifty to one hundred million, maybe more depending on the price of gas and oil. Polly, you can believe this or not, but it is not really the money. It's not greed. It's just the idea of the whole thing. However, I don't want Beth to have any of it. Money is everything to her. Right or wrong, I like the idea of her getting really screwed in the deal. Am I wrong thereI mean- feeling that way?"

"Good God, you have given me enough to think about without that. I can see why you've done what you've done. What's done is done. Now I need some time. Wow! I feel like I've fallen in love with a bomb, a time bomb waiting to explode. It was exciting enough to think about going off somewhere with you. I don't know whether I can stand this or not. Maybe you really ought to write a novel about this. It would be a best seller."

Ed said, Polly, have you ever wondered what Adam thought and felt when he took a bite out of that apple in the Garden of Eden? I have and when I made the decision to keep the money, I felt like I had just taken a bite out of the apple----just like he must have felt then. Polly replied, God---youre going to have to let me think about that a while.