Chapter 5

A few minutes later when she had sufficiently recovered her senses, Sally Denham sat up. Both men, she observed, had cleaned themselves up in a small adjoining powder room and she now walked with all the dignity she could muster into the little tiled enclosure to wash her face and try to make herself presentable enough to leave the bank. She came out of the room and began to dress silently.

"Here," John Blodgett helped her with the zipper of her dress and Quigg collected her shoes and purse. They seemed to want to be quickly rid of her, but she had inherited the stubbornness and tenacity of her New England ancestors and was not about to leave without the thing she had come for.

"Now," she eyed the brothers-in-law coolly, "when can Ray take over the drugstore? Are the papers ready?"

Lee Quigg raised his light blonde eyebrows and shrugged, obviously washing his hands of the whole business. Blodgett's husky voice dropped to a patronizing tone. "Honey, I did exactly what I promised. I asked Lee to approve the loan, I pestered him about it. But I'm afraid there's too much risk involved. He'll go maybe as high as fifteen thousand, if you can raise the rest someplace else. Now, I'm real sorry, but that's it."

There was absolute stillness, except for the piped-in music and the steady hum of the air conditioner. Sally Denham's small chin went up. She stared with utter contempt first at John Blodgett, then let her withering glance rest on Lee Quigg.

"That isn't good enough," she said at last, "you'll have to do better than that, gentlemen. Because if you don't... everyone in Quiggville, Tennessee is going to hear about you two--starting with my husband!"

She swung her purse defiantly over her shoulder and started to walk out. Lee Quigg stopped her. "Hold on, Sally. L-let's not do anything hasty. As a woman, you have the most to lose if there was any, uh, scandal."

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong," she smiled like a cat in cream, "because if we don't get the drugstore, Ray and I will simply pull up and move somewhere where no one's ever heard of us, and make a fresh start. It's you two who will have to live the scandal down right here."

John Blodgett stepped in between them, taking Sally by the arm. "We'll talk it over some more," he agreed. "Here, you wait in the Board Room," he unlocked the door and steered her rapidly down the hall, pushing her into another room. "Give me a few minutes with Lee--I'm going to do what I can, Christ, I'm trying..." he pulled the door to let her in and left the wearied girl staring at the gleaming bare surface of the long table and the twelve stiff empty chairs that surrounded it. After a moment of indecision she sat down at the head of the table... no longer believing anything Blodgett said, but still not wanting to leave as long as any chance remained... she put her face down against the cool, almost sensual smoothness of the table and closed her eyes. Did she have the courage to tell her husband what she'd done? She wasn't sure. God help her, she wasn't sure of anything any more.

Lee Quigg had started in accusingly on his brother-in-law as soon as Blodgett re-entered the office. "Oh, buddy, you bought us a peck of trouble this time. What are you gonna do about her? She's really mad, John, she's not like the others. You know Ray Denham is just liable to take a shotgun to us?"

"Shut up," Blodgett rasped savagely, "that bitch isn't going to run and tell her old man she put out to both of us, she's not that crazy..." He snapped his fingers, "Got it!" He picked up the telephone and dialed swiftly, talking fast as his number rang. "What we have to do is discredit her, that way if she does tell no one will believe her... Hello, Eula? Get me Tully, and this is important! Get him on the line just as fast as you can." He mopped at his brow with a handkerchief as he waited. There was an intercom system connecting the main house with the dairy barn, and in a few seconds the line clicked and Tully, the man who managed the farm, spoke into the receiver.

"How fast can you get into town?" Blodgett barked into the telephone. "OK, here's what I want you to do. Drop whatever you're doing, and bring me some of that Spanish Fly--that's right, what you've got for the cows--and bring it in here to me at the bank. Not my office, I'm downstairs in Quigg's office. And Tully--you hustle, you hear?"

A dazed, comprehending expression crept over Lee Quigg's weak face as he listened to the conversation and absorbed its implications. "John, what are you thinking of? You aren't going to use that stuff--you aren't going to give Spanish Fly to that girl in there? John, that stuff is dangerous, it can be poisonous to humans!"

"Give me some credit for not being a fool," the other man answered. "She'll get just enough. I didn't reckon on giving her what it takes to make one of those cows of mine hot, 'cause we already know it doesn't take too much of anything to get the little bitch that way. Tully'll be here inside of fifteen minutes. He knows how to floorboard that pickup truck, so calm down. Christ, I'm the one with high blood pressure and you're sweating like a mule!"

They lit cigarettes and waited and in a few minutes there was a rap on the door and Tully entered. He was a burly southerner of the type often referred to as a "red-neck," who had worked for Blodgett for years and was well acquainted with his employer's tastes and quirks. He handed over a little packet and received a shot of whiskey for his trouble, then was told to wait for a further errand. Lee Quigg watched dubiously as Blodgett measured out a portion of the aphrodisiac into a glass and added liquor, soda and ice. "Go get her," he grinned lewdly, swirling the glass.