Kiss and Kill. Richard Deming

wife anyway. We make a perfect business team. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a permanent relationship. Why not make it legal?”

      She smiled a little ruefully. “All perfectly logical reasons.”

      “What’s the matter with you?” I inquired. “Don’t you want to get married?”

      “There isn’t anything I’d like more,” she assured me. “I happen to be in love with you.”

      “Then why all the shilly-shallying?”

      She lifted her shoulders in a resigned shrug. “You reeled off three sensible reasons for wanting to marry me. None of them the one reason every woman wants to hear.”

      I examined her dubiously. Women are such incurable romantics. “You mean I haven’t said I love you?”

      “Not ever,” she informed me. “Not since the day we met. You treat me like you love me, most of the time. You act proud of me in public. You hardly ever fail to tell me how nice I look when we start out. And in bed—well, you don’t act as though I repel you. But not once, ever, have you said those corny little words: I love you.”

      “I’m just not demonstrative,” I said. “Of course I love you. Satisfied?”

      She gave me a wry smile. “What woman wouldn’t be after such a passionate avowal?”

      “Don’t be sarcastic,” I said impatiently. “You want to get married or not?”

      “You’re the boss in this family,” she said. “We do whatever you want to do.”

      We were married on New Year’s Day. We took a six-week honeymoon cruise to South America, then returned to Houston and stretched our honeymoon to another six weeks at the Shamrock.

      Toward the end of March, Mavis announced that we had a little over four thousand dollars left in the bank. It was time to go back to work.

      “We have to dream up a new racket,” I told Mavis. “The POW gimmick has about worn itself out. Let’s see what the Houston sucker list has to offer.”

      The Houston list turned up two old ladies who would have been perfect marks for the prisoner-of-war dodge. But I was afraid of it. Our previous scores had been too well publicized.

      “I don’t see a single weakness we might capitalize on among these other people,” I told Mavis. “There’s a guy who collects stamps, another who’s a nut on sailboating. There’s a couple of women who spend all their time at club meetings. Period. Give me a couple of days to think.”

      It was Mavis who finally produced an idea, though I was the one to recognize it as a possibility. She was reading the paper in bed one morning while I shaved, when she suddenly emitted a little laugh.

      “Listen to this, honey,” she called through the open bathroom door. “People put some of the funniest things in personal ads.”

      “Yeah?” I inquired.

      “Comely widow, age 35, desires correspondence with single or widowed gentleman of same age. Must be strong, healthy, willing to work, able to manage fight gym left by deceased husband. Object: matrimony.”

      I grinned into the mirror and went on shaving. “The world is full of screwballs,” I said. “How about phoning room service for breakfast?”

      For some reason the item stuck in my mind. As we lingered over our breakfast coffee, I said, “Wonder if that widow has any money in addition to the gym.”

      “The one in the ad?” Mavis inquired.

      “Yeah,” I said. “See if you can find that item again.”

      Mavis rose to get the paper and began to turn pages. “Here it is,” she said finally, handing me the folded paper and pointing out the item.

      I read it over, noting that a box number was given for replies.

      “It says she’s a comely widow,” I commented. “According to Webster, that means agreeable to the sight.”

      “That’s her own description,” Mavis said. “She’s probably a living horror. If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t have to advertise for a husband.”

      “There’s one way to find out.”

      Mavis raised her eyebrows inquiringly.

      “I’m going to answer the ad,” I told her. “Maybe she has some money we can shake loose.”

      I didn’t know it at the time, but my decision was the turning point of our lives. It was to start us in a new and permanent career.

      It was our entry into the big time.