No Beast So Fierce (23 page)

“No, but if you're hungry I'll cook you something at my apartment. It's not very far, in a groovy canyon.”

I said sure, and she started the car.

“You've only been out a few days?” she asked, the car moving around the curves.

“Uh huh.”

“Had a woman yet?”

“No. I go for young boys.”

Her face fell utterly blank, then turned to a consuming blush when I burst into laughter.

“I've got to pick up a car at a gas station in Hollywood at 8:30. Can you get me there?”

“I'll be late for work, but I can call in.”

The building holding her apartment was older than most of those in the hillside canyons. It was a dark-yellow stucco with tile roof and wrought iron railings on the balcony, a Spanish-influenced design. A winding, curbless road led to it, and there was heavy shrubbery and trees around it. The door was heavy, dark wood in a thick wall. It had been built in an era of cheap labor and material—and before the Hollywood Hills had become fashionable. The high ceilings had wooden beams. A wide, deep fireplace covered most of one wall in the main room—a huge room for an apartment. The furniture was Mexican in style and color. I liked the deep reds, the blacks, the aura of rustic comfort. I dislike formica and stainless steel.

She scrambled eggs, fried potatoes and ham, made good coffee. I ate with gusto, and gulped down five more bennies with the coffee. I'd be on fire with alertness during the robbery.

We talked more while eating. I showered and shaved. She freshened herself. We did not make love, never mentioned it—both of us knew that the affair was just beginning and there was no necessity to rush. It would be better to wait until there was time rather than go to bed with one eye on the clock. Also, the delay would increase anticipation, make it better when the time came.

On the way into Hollywood, Allison asked when I'd call. I told her that it would be soon, perhaps later in the day, perhaps tomorrow, that I had some business and didn't know how long it would take. She didn't ask what I was going to do, instinctively recognizing that such questions were out of bounds. I wouldn't have told her—wouldn't tell her even if we were living together. Too many criminals trust their women with their business. I rigorously followed the rule of never confiding in anyone if it wasn't absolutely necessary. And it was unnecessary unless the person was directly involved. The most trustworthy person in the world today may become untrustworthy tomorrow—or next week, or next month—and the statute of limitations runs for several years. One wife put the finger on her husband for a murder ten years after it happened.

10

I
T
was 9:45
A.M
. We pulled into the parking lot behind the market. A refrigerated meat truck was at a loading dock a considerable distance from the rear entrance. It could be ignored. There were only a few cars, most of them probably those of employees.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“Okay. Just hope we get some luck.”

“We'll keep pulling until we get something or the string breaks.”

“Or something breaks our asses.”

The old Plymouth rested in line with the glass doors twenty yards away. I deliberately left the key in the ignition. If things got wild and we had to move in panic it would be an unnecessary hassle to dig through a pocket for a key.

We watched. Jerry raised the shopping bag containing the sawed-off shotgun, put it on the seat between us. He adjusted the .38 in his waistband beneath his sweater so the butt was hidden and it was comfortable. His hands were steady, his manner deliberate. His composure increased my own.

“Get any bad vibrations?” he asked, wanting to know if I sensed anything amiss—sensed not with regular faculties but with some primordial instinct that is highly developed in thieves. There was always a remote possibility that the police were waiting in ambush—a stake out. Stake outs for robbers are invariably announced by the flatulent roar of a shotgun rather than a demand to surrender. Police aren't giving up the chance to shoot first, nor would I in their position. As Jerry and myself were the only persons aware of the robbery, the odds of a stake out were very small. Yet someone else might have been ripping things off in the area.

A fat woman, looking obscene in pink stretch pants and scarf over hair curlers, came out pushing a cart with one hand and dragging a child with the other. Waiting police would never allow them to exit through a possible line of fire. The market was safe.

The manager hadn't appeared. We waited.

“Did you see that guy you belted in the chops?” Jerry asked.

“Last night. I cooled him off.”

“Good. Especially if you hang around that spot.”

“He knows he fucked up. He's not treacherous.”

“Being sure of people gets us busted. Somebody you don't trust can't get next to you.”

I nodded agreement, staring at the doors ahead.

“I'll check that spot in Beverly Hills tomorrow,” Jerry said.

“We need to get a bank first. It's quicker.”

“I'll look for one of them, too.”

The manager's lean figure appeared, turned up the stairs.

“That's him,” I said.

“Let's not keep him waiting.”

I took the shopping bag with the shotgun. As we crossed the parking lot, my senses had special keenness, drawing into focus usually unnoticed background sounds and sights. I could feel the sun soaking through my shirt, the roughness of asphalt through my soles, could hear the whirring of automobiles on the freeway a hundred yards away. A carpenter's hammer was pounding a melody through the morning. The pungent odor of shrubbery was clear, though none was in sight. I could see globules of sunlight glistening from pebbles in the pavement.

Jerry carefully used a shoulder to push through the glass doors, leaving no fingerprints. Nobody in the front of the market glanced our way. We turned up the stairs, taking two at a time, yet treading silently. On the first landing we paused, donning rubber gloves and masks. Jerry's muscles twitched as they disappeared behind the nylon. My heart was pounding from the benzedrine and the excitement.

I drew the shotgun, flattened the shopping bag and stuffed it in my windbreaker. Jerry patted my shoulder with the revolver and pointed upstairs. I went first, the sawed-off shotgun in both hands.

At the top of the stairs, I stopped. The door was closed. Jerry bumped into me. I wondered whether we should rush the door or knock. If it was unlocked, rushing would gain us complete surprise. But to charge a locked door could create problems. Before deciding, a matter of three seconds, I saw a flicker of movement in an alcove ten feet away to my side. The manager was standing with an eye pressed to a peephole; he was looking for shoplifters in the store below.

I almost laughed, then moved. The manager jumped at the touch on his shoulder; it was the shotgun six inches from his chin. He looked into the twin barrels and neither blinked nor changed expression, except for going pale. I expected him to ask, “May I help you, sir?”

Jerry had slipped behind him, prodding his spine with the revolver. The man opened his mouth. No sound issued. His blankness was the paralysis of utter terror. I grabbed his sleeve with my left hand, holding the shotgun as a pistol. “Let's go open the safe, please.” He followed my leading hand toward the office as if he was blind. We went inside.

“Open the safe,” Jerry said.

“It's open,” he gulped.

Locking the office door, I looked for something to use as a brace. Nothing fitted the purpose. I forgot it. The manager had swung open the safe door and was being led to a corner by Jerry.

“I've got a family,” the manager said. “I won't give you any trouble. Don't hurt me.”

“Wouldn't hurt you for the world,” Jerry said. “We want money, not blood. Lie down on your side. Gotta tie you up.”

Confident that Jerry would handle the victim, I kneeled at the open safe, filled the shopping bag with bundles of currency, dug through compartments, scattering what I didn't want onto the floor. Some money was high on the shelves; a canvas bag was on the bottom.

When I finished, Jerry was taping the man's wrists behind him. We'd been in the room three minutes. “How's it look?” Jerry asked.

“Fair score. What about the change?”

“It spends as good as green.”

Coins in brown wrappers were dumped into the bag.

Jerry pasted strips of tape across the man's mouth. “Face the wall and don't look around,” he ordered.

I'd removed my gloves and was reaching for my mask when someone knocked on the door. “Mr Ecklund,” a muffled voice said.

Jerry crouched, unmoving, beside the prone figure. I was calm but my mind was racing. I picked up the shotgun from the floor and gestured Jerry to open the door.

The knock came again.

Jerry slipped along the wall. I stood directly before the door and raised the shotgun. The weapon made me confident I'd control whoever was outside. Jerry flipped the latch and threw the door open, instantly springing back from the possible line of fire. His pistol was ready.

A teenager in Levi's and a butcher's smock stood framed in the doorway. He swayed and nearly fainted at the sight of the masked man and the twin shotgun barrels.

Jerry leaped forward, grabbed the youth's arm, jerked him inside, half-dragged him to the manager and shoved him down. “Just stay there. Don't move a fuckin' inch.”

“Tape him up,” I said.

“No more tape. I'll just blow his brains out if he moves.” Jerry was deliberately instilling fear. We were moving toward the door. Bounding down the stairs three at a time, we stripped off the masks and gloves, stuffing them in pockets. The shotgun went in with the money. We looked like exiting shoppers as we pushed through the glass doors into the sunlight—except close inspection would have shown us breathing heavily.

I forced myself to walk, not run, to the car. The scene was peaceful—early autumn morning in suburbia. I went to the driver's side and got in, dropping the sack on the floor. Jerry waited beside the passenger door, hand under his sweater, eyes on the market door. He waited until I had the motor started and came in, drawing the revolver to his lap, watching the door as I pulled toward the driveway. I drove with careful deliberation, conscious of every shift of gears, carefully balancing the necessity for speed against arousing unnecessary attention. At the end of the driveway, I paused; two cars went by. I turned in behind them. We passed directly in front of the market's windows. Everything within was peaceful; nobody was yet rushing about like beheaded chickens.

“The kid must've waited to untie the manager,” Jerry said. “Otherwise they'd be frantic.”

I braked at the first stop sign, coming to a more complete halt than under normal circumstances. The elation of success was beginning to surge. I eased through the underpass beneath the freeway, halted for the second stop sign, studied the traffic behind us. I grinned, thinking that they'd never expect us to go this way, halting twice within a hundred yards of the score. I eased off the brake, pressed the gas, meticulously flicking the turn indicator and also giving an arm signal.

“Bastard!” Jerry said. “I forgot his wallet.”

“Man, don't do that. I thought you saw fuzz—and we can't outrun a motor scooter.”

Now the sun was fragmented by trees overhanging the residential street. The speed limit was twenty-five, but I crept it up to forty—not too fast, but moving. The rear view mirror remained blank. Two minutes later we were in sight of Mary's address. There sat Jerry's car, baking in the sun.

Joey Gambesi was fidgeting with his bicycle in the driveway. He looked up when the horn bleated and moved the bicycle aside as we pulled in. I drove behind the front house, pulled into the carport and shut off the motor, leaning back with a sigh. “Home free, baby,” I said.

“Like takin' candy from a baby.”

Mary had heard the automobile. The curtains flickered. Moments later she came around the bungalow from the kitchen door, shaking her head and waving her finger in censure—but she was not angry; she was pressing her lips down to keep from smiling.

“Where have you been?” she asked. “New York? Miami?”

“The car broke down.”

“The telephone, too? You've had me stranded here for a week.”

Elated by our success (we were as safe as if we'd never done it) and certain my glee would be infectious, I got out and playfully pinched her cheek. “I've got something to pay you for your trouble.”

She grabbed my wrist, her face somber. “Come over here. Let me talk a minute.”

“About the car?”

“No. About Lisa.”

“Can Jerry go inside?”

“Of course.”

I motioned him. “Take the shopping bag. We'll be there in a minute.”

“Don't pay any attention to the mess,” Mary said. “There's coffee on the stove.”

Jerry thanked her and went around the bungalow carrying the heavy shopping bag. When he was beyond hearing, Mary told me that Lisa was gone for the day, was just beginning to relax around her, and it would be best if she didn't see me for a while. She'd never turn me away, but she knew I'd understand. I agreed.

Joey came up the driveway, trundling the bicycle, grinning at me. He poked playful fun at his mother, reminding her how angry she'd been over the automobile and what she'd sworn to tell me when I showed up. He made her blush and ruffle his hair. I wished he was my son.

Yet it was best to send Joey away for fifteen or twenty minutes. There was stolen money to count, the license plate to remove. I sent him to buy a morning newspaper and a box of cigars. When he pedalled down the driveway, Mary started for the bungalow and I held back. She stopped, waited for me.

“Fuck it,” I muttered, walked to the back of the car and tore off the taped license plate, bending it in half.