Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (10 page)

If
…

But there mustn’t be any ifs. By God, there just mustn’t be any ifs!

‘Get in there, Get the machine set up,’ I said to Jinx.

‘It’s set up. It’s been set up and tested.’

‘Well, get in there anyway,’ I said.

‘How do you know he’ll come?’ he asked.

‘Goddamn it,’ I said. ‘This whole thing’s designed to make him come. I arrange it to make him come. Where’s that other gun?’

‘In there on top of the recording machine.’

‘Take this one too,’ I said, handing him my automatic. ‘You keep ’em. I hope you got guts enough to use ’em in case anything goes wrong.’

‘How can anything go wrong?’ he said. ‘You’re an expert…’

‘Get on the machine, will you?’ I said.

‘Sure,’ he said agreeably. ‘Just remember to keep him right on top that microphone all the time.’

‘I’ll remember,’ I said. ‘Get in there’

‘You think I got time to put on my shoes?’

‘You got time to button up…’

He smirked at Holiday and walked out into the bedroom. Impassively, she watched him go.

‘Please forgive me,’ I said.

‘For what?’ she asked.

‘For disturbing you at such an ecstatic moment. But try to appreciate the situation. There I was standing out there in the hall, unable to rouse anybody and momentarily expecting Inspector Webber to show up. That would have ruined everything. So you see, I had to get inside, I
simply
had to get inside. I’m the last person in the world who wants to interfere with your pleasure, but this time I couldn’t help it. I hope you understand that…’

‘I understand …’ she said sweetly.

‘You’re tremendous,’ I said. ‘Truly tremendous.’

‘Please don’t be sarcastic,’ she said.

‘I’m not sarcastic,’ I said. ‘I’m trying to be very sincere. You’re tremendous.’

‘Please don’t be sore,’ she said.

‘Then, goddamn it, keep your legs crossed,’ I said. I took off my coat, stepping past her to the davenport. She shifted her base, turning, watching me go. I put my coat on the davenport and looked at her. All your taste is in your mouth, the one thing I don’t want to get is the one thing you’ll eventually give me if you don’t stop laying up with every son-of-a-bitch you say hello to, I wanted to tell her, but I didn’t; thinking that Jinx might overhear me through the microphone. I didn’t want any rupture with him – yet. I needed him and his eighteen hundred dollars that I had in my pocket.

‘What happened at Mason’s?’ she asked.

‘Just what I told you would happen,’ I said, and not too cordially. ‘There were some cops there and Mason. I gave him a flash of the eighteen hundred dollars and he went straight to the telephone.’

‘Good,’ she said, relaxing a little. ‘I was worried about you.’

‘Hereafter when you worry about me,’ I said, ‘don’t narcotize yourself with sex.’

Her eyes flashed. She started to say something but she never got the words out. There was a knock at the door. We both jumped a little.

‘Remember everything I’ve told you now. Just follow my lead,’ I said, as softly as I could and still make the words audible above the pounding of my heart.
Auto-da-fé.
Take it easy, my heart, slow down, slow down, I kept repeating, this is as safe as an old feather bed, otherwise he wouldn’t have come, slow down, my heart.… I went past Holiday, getting that sharp-rising cinnamony puff again, striding to the door and opening it. The Inspector and Reece stood there, but this time almost apologetically, like door-to-door canvassers.

‘Mind if we come in?’ the Inspector said.

They came in and I closed the door.

‘Sort of surprised to find you here,’ the Inspector said. ‘We thought you’d be on your way to Arizona by now…’

‘I’m sure trying to get away, sir,’ I said, ‘I’m trying to locate a car.’

‘Two or three buses pull out for Arizona every day, son. I told you that before.…’

‘Yes, sir, I know,’ I said. Slow down, my heart, slow down. You’re laboring my voice, you’re making me aspirate. Nothing to be excited about now: we’ve got him, we’ve got him good. Just maneuver him over near the microphone, just ease him over.… ‘I don’t want you to think I’m a fresh guy, sir,’ I said. ‘I’m not one of those hard-headed punks who does just the opposite of what he is told,’ I said, backing slowly to the davenport. ‘I’m gonna do what you told me. I’m gonna get out of town. Aren’t we gonna get out town?’ I asked Holiday.

‘Believe me,’ she said, but she was talking straight to Reece, the other cop, smiling at him, and he was smiling back, thinking the same old thing – which was what she wanted him to think, goddamn her.

I finally felt the davenport with the calves of my legs, and sat down. The radio that concealed the microphone was on the end table beside me.

‘When?’ the Inspector asked. He took three or four steps towards me, a paternal frown on his face. ‘Don’t you appreciate it when people are nice to you? I gave you a break. Maybe that was a mistake in the first place …’

Well, now, copper, you just stick around and you’ll find out whether or not it was a mistake. It was the goddamndest mistake you ever made, you thieving son-of-a-bitch. The pounding of my heart was less violent now and the excitement was dissolving and I was getting the feel of this.

‘I certainly do appreciate it, sir,’ I said. ‘I wanted to take the Arizona bus like you said. Didn’t we?’ I said to Holiday. ‘Didn’t we want to take the Arizona bus like Inspector Webber said?’ I had to identify him, I had to get his name on the record to nail him down.

‘Yes, we did,’ she replied. ‘But we didn’t have anything to use for money…’

She moved to the other end of the davenport and sat down, anti-charm school, spreading her knees, stretching her skirt tightly, while Reece laid his head on his shoulder, trying, blatantly, to see as far up under there as he could. You see what I mean? You couldn’t blame him …

That’s where the trouble was,’ I said to the Inspector. ‘No money. You took all we had. There were only a few dollars left. I had to go find the fellow who helped me in the market job. He got two gees as his cut.’

‘That’s the fellow Pratt and Downey are after,’ Reece said to the Inspector.

‘Did you find him?’ the Inspector asked.

‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘He let me have a few hundred.’

‘Quite a few,’ he said dryly. ‘Eighteen hundred, wasn’t it?’

I pretended to be surprised that he knew. ‘Well, sir,’ I said, ‘I can see that if I wanna keep any secrets from you, I got to stay away from Mason’s Garage. I can see that but it was the only place I knew to get a car. That’s the only reason I went…’ I took the currency out of my pocket and laid it across my knee, smoothing it down. ‘Here it is, eighteen hundred in cash,’ I said. ‘How much of
this
can I keep?’

‘Well, this time there’s somebody else to be taken care of,’ he said slowly.

‘Who?’ Reece asked.

‘Pratt and Downey’

‘But why?’ Reece asked.

‘Don’t be a chump,’ the Inspector said sharply. ‘They’re wise to this. Why do you think they let this guy breeze in and out of their stake-out and not pick him up? There’s enough goddamn jealousy in this department now…’ He reached over and picked up the eighteen hundred dollars from under my fingers and riffled it. He held out two twenties and a ten.

‘Here …’ he said.

‘Jesus, Inspector,’ I said. ‘Only fifty dollars for us?’

‘It’s your own goddamn fault, you go barging in that goddamn garage and give the whole thing away. I told you to get out of town. How do you think those guys feel? I been on the hind tit myself. Who do you think those guys are sore at you or me?’

I took the fifty dollars. ‘I never thought of that,’ I said. ‘Look, Inspector,’ I said. This fellow who helped me pull the Hartfood Market job, this friend of mine. He lives here in town. He told me about a payroll that’s a pushover. Now, we’re going to Arizona, all right, but I was wondering.… If we just stay here in this apartment till the time comes to make the haul and then we make it and blow town right away, there wouldn’t be any harm in that, would there? We’re perfectly safe here, we wore masks on that other job and nobody could identify us and this payroll’s pretty big, Inspector.…’

‘I wouldn’t trust you,’ he said.

‘Naturally,’ I said. ‘But there must be somebody you can trust. We’ll need at least a couple of men. You pick ’em. This is worth it, twenty thousand dollars is worth it. You pick a couple of guys you can trust to go in with us. Maybe you and Reece can go with us yourselves, to handle the getaway car or something. If anything goes wrong you can use the old stall, you know, that you were tipped off and just went there to grab us red-handed. You’re an Inspector. You could get away with that…’

Using cops to actually help me in a hold-up had heretofore been only a thought, never specifically considered any more than the guy playing left field for Dallas specifically considers his participation in a World’s Series; it had been only a vague ambition, a dream that had flashed through my mind and registered and passed on. But now I sensed that it might be attained without long years of bush-league apprenticeship. The Inspector’s face was still hard and set, but his eyes widened, barely perceptibly, and he looked at Reece momentarily, telepathically, and then back at me.

‘What the hell,’ I said. ‘Let’s cut ourselves a real piece of cake.’

He fondled the knot of his cheap silk necktie, not taking his eyes off me, staring almost fiercely, as if the answer to the success or failure of the operation could be found in my face. After a minute he looked at Reece again and jerked his head towards the bedroom. Fine! I thought. You two gents step into the conference room and talk it over, and then I remembered that Jinx was in there, in the closet; and that maybe the Inspector was not taking Reece in there to talk things over at all, that maybe he was suspicious and was going to shake down the place, that maybe he knew there was something funny about this and how could he help but know, an itinerant punk doesn’t make cold-blooded propositions like this to an Inspector of Police. Jesus, I told myself, you overplayed your hand this time, you didn’t need this, you had him nailed with the pay-off, but no, you and your talent, you and your genius, you and your sadism, you had to screw it up, you punk, you child; and I could feel that tremor coming at my stomach and bang! it hit and the color of it was pale thermal-red, and it spun and twisted my intestines the way a rubber band is twisted when you wind up a toy aeroplane. From the other end of the davenport Holiday gasped and the sound of that was dripping of fear, too. I heard the bedroom door being opened and through the vortex I realized that Jinx had to be warned that it was not I or Holiday who was opening the door but the Inspector and Reece. ‘Inspector, Inspector,’ I said, turning around. That stopped him. ‘You’ll have to excuse the appearance of the bedroom,’ I said, laughing. ‘The maid hasn’t come around yet.’ They went on in, closing the door.

‘Jinx!’ Holiday exclaimed, shoving herself to her feet. She was trembling all over. I pantomimed vigorously for her to sit down, thinking: Jesus, I hope that stupid son-of-a-bitch understands, I hope he’s got the closet door closed like I told him, I hope he’ll be still and quiet as a creep-mouse. There was nothing I could do about it now, absolutely nothing. It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, I desperately pantomimed to Holiday, trying to get her to sit down, making up my mind that the instant I heard any voices, any noises, I would rush for the hall door. Jinx had two guns in there for just such an emergency and I hoped he had the nerve to use them. It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, I pantomimed to Holiday, goddamn it, sit down and wait. Still trembling, she looked wildly at the bedroom door and again I wondered how anybody could shoot at people with a machine gun, and hit them, could get so frightened. There wasn’t one dame in a million who, her business suddenly interrupted could stroll out of the bedroom with the dignity and
savoir-faire
that she had exhibited. She was tremendous, all right, but at the wrong time and in the wrong places. This was the time and place for her to be tremendous; instead she was panicky. I was panicky too, but not that panicky. I could feel my intestines still being twisted, but, by God, I wasn’t shaking all over. I didn’t like to have these extraneous thoughts and I wished they wouldn’t come: I wanted to concentrate on being scared. I didn’t want anything to interfere with my listening for any kind of noise from the bedroom; I didn’t want extraneous thoughts interfering with my dive for the door when the time came to dive for the door. I leaned forward, raising my heels, cocking the muscles in my legs, ready to go, gesturing to her that everything was all right, all right, but she knew that I was merely hoping …

‘Oh, God, I knew this wouldn’t work, I knew it,’ she moaned.

I jumped up and grabbed her, hugging her tightly, putting my lips against her ear. ‘Goddamn it, sit down!’ I whispered. I turned her loose, giving her a light push towards the davenport, and sat right back down where I had been sitting, tilting my head, straining my ears. Nothing. The only sounds in the room were the faint febrile exhausts of the steam shovel in that excavation down the street. Holiday hadn’t sat down yet, her eyes were on the bedroom door; and I kept trying to tell her with my lips and hands to please sit down, that we were in no danger now. I didn’t believe this myself, but as the seconds passed and I heard nothing from the bedroom I slowly became aware that maybe this was so. If anything was going to happen in there it surely would have happened by now. If they were shaking down the room they surely would have found Jinx by now. It just wasn’t possible that they could have found him and not made some sounds. It just wasn’t possible. My intestines began to ease off and I began to feel better, heart-beat by heart-beat. I smiled and spread my hands at Holiday: You see? Now, please sit down.

She was just sitting down when the door opened and the Inspector and Reece came in.

‘Where is this pay-roll job?’ the Inspector asked.

I searched his face. He was not suspicious. He was on the level. My intestines finished easing off, sprawling into a luxurious heap. ‘I don’t know, sir,’ I said. ‘My friend knows …’