“I’m going to. That’s just what I’m going to do, Uncle Bud.”
“Atta boy! You’re my kind of people, Kid. Now, you just sit tight here, and I’ll get you fixed up right.”
I looked him over as he left. I gave him another good once-over when he came back and started piling groceries, beer, and whiskey on the table. And I saw that he wasn’t packing a gun. Things were working out real nice for him, he thought, and there was nothing he needed a gun for.
“Well, Kid.” He motioned toward the table. “See anything I overlooked? Anything you think of, just name it.”
“You’ve got plenty. We’re not going to need all that.”
“Well, you can’t never tell now. I want you and Fay to be comfortable, and you may have to hole up here quite a while.”
I grinned to myself. I said I was sure we’d have plenty of everything.
“Yeah?” He gave me a sharp look. “But they’ll find that doctor in the morning, won’t they? You won’t be able to do no chasing around after that.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Well, uh, well,” he said hastily, “what I meant was, you might want something and I wouldn’t be around to get it for you.”
“Sure. But we’ll have plenty. You don’t have to worry about that at all.”
He hesitated, started to say something else. Then, he gave up on it—chalked it up, I guess, to some more of my screwy talk—and uncorked a bottle of whiskey. We poured drinks. He went on with the gabbing, talking about how fine everything was. And I nodded and grinned and told him he was sure right.
The fun was going to be over pretty soon. Pretty soon, now, I was going to set him back on his heels. So I let him enjoy himself while he could.
Fay came out of the bedroom and fixed the boy an egg and some milk. I watched from the doorway as she tried to feed it to him, and it was just no go. He just didn’t have the strength or the stomach for it.
She brought the plate and the glass back into the kitchen. Uncle Bud pulled his everything-is-fine line on her, and she stood and looked at him until he was all through. Until the words kind of died in his throat. Then, she filled a glass with whiskey and sat down in a corner with it.
Evening came on. Uncle Bud got busy with the food, made a plate of lunch-meat sandwiches and opened up some potato salad and a few cans of stuff.
I ate a pretty good meal. Fay took a sandwich and more whiskey. Uncle Bud didn’t eat anything.
“I’ll just grab me a bite later,” he said, taking a big swallow of his drink. “I ain’t real hungry now, so I’ll just get something when I go into town.”
I didn’t say anything. He took another drink, fidgeting a little.
“I still got to keep right on top of this deal, y’know, Kid. This is the most important time. We’re due to pull down the money in less than twenty-four hours. And if the cops got any fast ones cooking—they might try to pull something right at the last minute, you know—why, it’s up to me to find out about it.”
I waited, still keeping silent. Looking at him, and saying nothing. He filled up his glass again.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Yes, sir, I sure got to keep a close eye on everything from now until the wind-up. You, uh, I guess you and Fay can get along here all right by yourselves, huh?”
I smiled at him. Just smiled. He glanced nervously at Fay, and she gave him a dead-eyed stare.
“I guess it all works out pretty good. We can’t very well all of us stay here, so it’s just as well that I’ll be away. I, uh—” Uncle Bud paused, fumbling with the buttons of his coat. “You’re sure you don’t need anything now? You’ll be all right until tomorrow night? Well, I’ll just run along then.”
And I spoke at last. I told him to stay right where he was for a moment, and Fay and I and the boy would go with him.
He laughed. He put on his hat and started to get up. And then it registered on him, what I’d said, and he sank back down in his chair.
“G-go with me?” he stammered. “W-what—what for?”
“For the same reason you’re going,” I said. “To get the money.”
His mouth dropped open. A guilty, red flush spread over his face. “K-Kid, I, I—it ain’t the right time yet. You know it ain’t, Kid! It’s not supposed to be until tomorrow night!”
“Yeah? How do I know that?”
“Why—why, because! It’s what we planned right from the beginning! I gave the family seventy-two hours.”
“Seventy-two hours from when? From the time I took the boy? From the time the ransom note was mailed? From the time the family got it, or the night of the day they got it or when?”
“Well, it—it was—”
“Forget it. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t change anything. Maybe you didn’t plan on running out on us in the beginning, but you’d never pass up a setup like the one you’ve got now. Fay and me tied down here—the cops looking for us after tomorrow morning. You on the loose.” I shook my head, nodded to Fay. “Get the boy ready. We’re leaving.”
She got up and went into the bedroom. Not saying a word. Ignoring him when he told her to wait, to talk the Kid out of this crazy notion. Fay shut the door. He stared at it helplessly.
“All right, Kid. The money ain’t there, but if you won’t take my word for it, I’ll prove it to you. It’s all wrong, sending the messenger now—showing our hand in advance—but if that’s the way you got to have it—”
“It’s not the way,” I said. “We’re going to pick the money up ourselves.”
20
That one really threw him. Uncle Bud looked like he was about to faint.
“No!” he said. “No, you can’t mean it, Kid. Take that boy into the railroad station? W-why, hell, we probably wouldn’t much more’n get him out of the car before he was spotted.”
“All right. We’ll leave him in the car then. Just you and I and Fay will go in.”
“Leave him? Damn it, that’s even worse! He might start stirring around. Someone might look in and see him.”
“That’s right.” I nodded. “And no one’s going to do anything to him to make sure that he doesn’t stir around.”
“Well, then? You can see yourself that your idea won’t work, Kid.”
“Fay doesn’t trust me. I don’t trust her. And we don’t trust you. But I can fix that part—you. We’ll park near the station, where I can see you go in and come out. If you aren’t back in fifteen minutes, I’ll tip the cops off to you.”
“But—Kid! Kid.” Uncle Bud mopped his face. “That—it just ain’t right! Suppose the money really isn’t there?”
“It is. We both know it is. So get it. Get it by yourself, or Fay and I will go with you and get it.”
“But you can’t! You can’t leave the boy in the car like that.”
“So that brings us right back where we started from, doesn’t it? You get it, and don’t take more than fifteen minutes to do it.”
“B-but—”
His mouth worked helplessly. He looked down at the floor, shaking his head, wagging it back and forth, until I thought it was going to fall off. And, then, at last he looked up again, there was a kind of greenish cast to his face, but a red flush was spreading beneath it. Uncle Bud was sick—really sick, he was scared so bad. But along with it he was ashamed.
“Kid, I guess I got to tell you something. This deal—I—there wasn’t much risk the way I had it figured. With the messenger picking up the money, you know, and that wino to take the fall if there was one. I—well, I didn’t have to know if there was a police stake-out at the pay-off place. I mean, if there was it wouldn’t catch me. I wouldn’t lose nothing but the dough. I—I—” He licked his lips.
“Go on.”
“Well, uh, about the money. About maybe it’s being marked or the serials registered. There wasn’t any risk there either, the way I figured. Hell, all those small bills—the biggest ones twenties—they just couldn’t trace ’em. There’s too many in circulation, and by the time
they traced ’em back to a guy, why—well, I didn’t believe they could. I didn’t think the family would play around to begin with, they’d be so anxious about the boy. And if they or the cops did try anything funny, it wouldn’t get them anywhere. So…so.” He paused, glanced at me pleadingly. “You see what I mean, Kid? You see what I’m driving at?”
I nodded. I saw it, and I felt sorry for him. But not as sorry as he wanted me to feel, not after what he’d done to me. Except for him, I wouldn’t be in this spot. I wouldn’t have hurt Doc, the only man who’d ever done anything for me. And the little boy wouldn’t be dying. And Fay and I—things might have been a lot different between us. You couldn’t judge by the way things were now. We’d both been pretty mixed up, easy to swing one way or another, and we might have swung the right way instead of this one. We might have. It could have worked out that way.
If Uncle Bud had left us alone.
“I’ve been lying to you, Kid. I don’t have no pipelines into the department. Most of the guys I know, they don’t even speak to me any more. They see me comin’ they turn the other way. I guess I can’t blame them much, but anyway that’s the way it is. I don’t know what they’re doing or what they’ve done. I figured I could get by safe enough without knowing. If there was any kind of jam, it would be someone else that got stuck, and—and naturally, I didn’t want no one else to get into trouble.”
“Let it go at that. You don’t know anything. You’re not sure that the guy who goes for the money won’t be walking into a police trap.”
“That’s right, Kid.”
“Well, you’ll know pretty soon,” I said. “You’re going to find out awfully fast.”
…We sat there for another half-hour or so, and he was talking every minute of it. Begging, pleading with me, actually crying a little toward the last. The words poured out of his mouth, and they didn’t mean a thing to me. I didn’t even hear them. They were just a noise, just a lot of noises coming from a sickish-white face. I didn’t mind them particularly. I didn’t care whether Uncle Bud made them or whether he didn’t. Other people had never meant anything to him. What they said meant nothing to him. And now it was his turn. Now, he was meaningless, and what he said was meaningless.
I was all those other people, all the people in the world, and I couldn’t see him and I couldn’t hear him.
He stopped talking, at last. He’d talked himself kind of hoarse. I finished my drink, and set the glass on the table.
“Anything else? If-you’re all through, we’ll shove off.”
“S-shove off? But, Kid, I just—”
“All right. There’s no hurry. You talk as long as you want to, and then we’ll leave.”
His eyes watered. His lips trembled, and he managed to get his mouth open, but no words came out. I grinned at him. I asked him again if there was anything he wanted to say.
Uncle Bud looked at me dully, hesitated, and made one last try. “I know quite a few people around that station, Kid. Guys that ain’t got much use for me. If one of ’em should get in touch with Bert—”
“Go on. Make it nice and scary.”
“It could happen, Kid! He always comes into town for dinner, and if he had the word spread around to look out for me—And you know he has! You know he’s been tipped off!”
“Uh-uh. I don’t know it, and neither do you.”
“Don’t make me do it, Kid!” His eyes filled with tears again. “Please don’t make me do it. If one of those guys should call Bert, he could be there in five minutes.”
“Only five minutes?” I grinned. “You don’t think he could make it in three?”
“I’m beggin’ you, Kid! I got a bad feeling about this. If the cops don’t get me, why—”
“Shut up! Get up and start moving. I’m sick of looking at you.”
21
I rode in the back with the boy. Fay drove, and Uncle Bud sat in the front with her. There wasn’t a half-dozen words passed between us on the way into town. About three blocks from the railroad station, I had Fay stop the car and Uncle Bud got out.
It was about seven-thirty, the quiet part of the evening. The day rush was over, and it was too early for the dinner and theatre crowds.
Uncle Bud trudged down the street, practically by himself. He turned around near the end of the block and looked back at us. He crossed the intersection and looked back again. He hesitated, sort of teetering—too scared to go ahead, knowing it was go ahead or else. Then he went on, walking fairly fast. Anxious, I guess, to get the job and the suspense over with.
I got behind the wheel and made the boy lie on the floor in back. Then I followed Uncle Bud down the street, letting the car creep along, letting him stay well ahead of me.
The railroad station occupied a block on the other side of the street. I stopped in the middle of the block just below it and shut off the motor. I watched as Uncle Bud went up the broad marble steps and disappeared through the entrance.
I scooted down a little in the seat and peered up at the clock in the station tower. It was twenty minutes of. He had until five of eight to get back with the money. If he wasn’t back by then…
I kind of hoped that he wouldn’t be. Because I’d meant just what I’d said about calling the cops, and that would wind everything up just that much faster. And that was all I wanted now. Just to get it over with, to have the end come. Because it was bound to be bad; no good, no happiness, could come out of this now, so the quicker it was over the better.
I’d have ended it myself if I could have. But somehow I couldn’t, and I guess it wasn’t so strange that I couldn’t. There’s something inside of every man that keeps him going long after he has any reason to. He’s no good to life and life is no good to him, and he knows it will always be that way. But still he can’t quit. Something keeps prodding him, whispering to him—making him hope in the face of hopelessness. Making him believe there’s a reason to stay in there and pitch, and that if he fights long enough he’ll stumble onto it.
It’s that way with everyone, or almost everyone, I guess. It’s hardly ever been any other way with me. For years, for as far back as I could remember, I’d kept going when going didn’t seem to make any sense. And I had to keep on now. If any quitting was done, it had to be done for me.
Uncle Bud had been gone a little more than five minutes. It was five minutes, I mean, since he’d entered the station. I looked down from the clock to the tall doors of the building, and I saw a man hurry through one of them and pause at the top of the steps. He had something in his hand—a flashlight. He flashed it three times, and the light was red.
It didn’t mean anything to me for a minute. I just thought, still, there’s a guy with a red flashlight, so what about it? Then, Fay sat up with a gasp, turned toward me, her face blurred white in the semi-darkness. “Collie! L-look!” she said and pointed. But I was already looking, for the street had suddenly come to life.
A police car had pulled into each side of the intersection ahead of us. Two other cars had stopped at the next intersection, shutting off the side streets. And in the block beyond, a car was out in the middle of the intersection, and a cop was directing traffic off of the street.
“Collie!” Fay whispered. “Collie! W-what are they doing?”
“It’s a stake-out. They tagged him as soon as he got the money, but they’re afraid to take him in a crowd. I guess that’s the reason.”
“Well do somethin’! L-let’s get out of here! Aah, Collie, I—I—”
I kind of frowned, jerked my arm away from her hand. This was what I wanted, you see, the end. And it seemed like she should want it, too; that she should damned well get it, regardless of what she wanted. Because Fay wasn’t fit to live, because she’d be better off dead or locked up for life. And I started to tell her that. And then—
When a man stops caring what happens, all the strain is lifted from him. Suspicion and worry and fear—all the things that twist his thinking out of focus—are brushed aside. And he can see people as
they are, at last. Exactly as they are—as I saw Fay then.
Weak and frightened. Self-pitying, maybe. But good, too. Basically as good as a woman could be, and hating herself for not being better. She’d planned to call the cops, telling them the boy was in the culvert, after we’d made our escape. I knew that now. I knew that if it came to a showdown, she’d protect him with her life. I knew it, and suddenly I wanted Fay to live.
Suddenly, it made sense for Fay to live; it was the only way my having lived would make any sense. It was why I had lived, it seemed like. It was why I had been made like I was. To show her something, to prove something—to do something for her that she could not do for herself. And, then, to protect her so that she could go on. So that she would have the reason for living that I’d never had.
I turned on the switch key. Then, I glanced over my shoulder, hesitated, and turned it off again. Because it was too late, of course. The whole area had been blocked off at the same time. The street behind us was blocked, and a motorcycle cop was bearing right down on us.
I barely had time to check that the boy was down flat, when he drew up at the side of the car, bracing his feet on the pavement. I looked out the window, smiling at him, and he turned the flashlight into my face. He held it on me for a moment, then switched it over to Fay, then brought it back to me again.
“Something wrong?” I said, hoping he wouldn’t see the boy on the floor in back. “Aren’t we supposed to park here, officer?”
He grunted as he held the light on my face.
“What’s all the excitement about?” I said. “Why all the police cars? My wife and I were just sitting here and—”
“Why?” He snapped off the light. “What business you got here? Who you waitin’ for?”
He was an older man, maybe fifty. He was kind of heavy-set, like motor cops get, and he had a fat, hard-looking face.
“We’re waiting for a friend of mine, Jack Billingsley. He’s coming in from the East about eight-thirty, coming in on the train, and we were waiting for him.”
“What’s your name? This your car? Let’s see the papers on it,” he said all in one breath.