He made a vague gesture. He was a slim, wiry character with dark good looks. “That last go-round was a little hairy.”
I granted him that. We’d just peeled away from our last hit with that fifty-two thousand when a cruising sheriff’s deputy had intercepted us. We’d managed to shake him, but only after a careening chase over narrow country roads, with a fusillade of shots exchanged and the deputy’s car ending up in a ditch. Once clear, we’d still poured it on, finally ending up some eighty miles away in this hick town of Madison Springs. We were lying low for a week.
“We’ve had squeakers before,” I said.
Frankie nodded. “I know. But... well, it’s more than that. I like this town. It’s quiet, restful. A guy can get out of the rat race here, settle down.”
I couldn’t credit any of this. “It’s quiet, all right,” I said. “Dullsville, in spades. You’d be climbing walls.”
He shook his head. “Not necessarily. Not if I had something to do.”
He cited me the whole script then. The owner of the local smoke shop was giving up and going to live with his brother in Arizona because of some health problem. Frankie had been talking to the man and had a chance to buy the business for twenty-five thousand — his half of our present stake.
I told you some of this was wild. Frankie Coll, heister, reforming. Hah!
But Frankie didn’t think so. “I’m going to do it, Lou,” he told me soberly. “There’re two other joes interested, so I’ve got to act fast.”
“But you can’t!” I protested. “Aside from everything else, you don’t know the first thing about running a tobacco store.”
“I can learn,” Frankie said.
There was more, of course; we batted his crazy intention back and forth for over three hours. I even brought up how easy it would be for us to augment that fifty-two thousand by heisting the local bank as we pulled out. “It’s a crackerjack box. I’ve checked it out. No alarm system, no cameras, one old guard—”
Frankie wasn’t listening. “Save your breath, Lou. My mind’s made up.”
So there it was. When we finally hit the sack at 2:00 A.M., I knew I’d lost. And it was sad — because with the two of us in tandem there was no telling how far we could’ve gone: plenty of cash, girls, bright spots like Vegas.
Damn! Lying there in the dark, sleepless, listening to Frankie’s heavy slumber, I grew more depressed every minute until, abruptly, I wasn’t depressed at all. My pulse speeded as I cranked the idea through my mind again. In another minute I was easing out of bed.
I dressed quietly, retrieved the satchel from the closet, scribbled a note in the dark, and left it and a couple of thousand on the bureau. Then I simply slipped down the hotel’s service stairs, got into our souped-up Chevy out back, and took off. An hour later I’d put Madison Springs far behind me.
I fleshed out my ploy as I drove. My sister worked nights as a cocktail waitress in a lounge in Capital City. I could reach there in five or six hours. Sue didn’t approve of my life style, but she’d given up trying to change me.
In point of fact, she wasn’t too happy with her own situation, what with all the creeps with hot eyes and four hands she had to serve. But she hung on and I sent her five hundred or so as often as I could.
I still meant to lie low for another couple of weeks; and I knew Sue would put me up.
“Lou!” She gave me a warm hug and kissed me when I walked into her apartment shortly after eight. “What in the world—?”
We hadn’t seen each other in nearly a year and she looked great to me. Dark auburn hair, smoky grey eyes, trim figure. “Hi, Sis,” I said. “Everything O.K.?”
She built a wry smile. “Sure — like always.” Then she added seriously, “You’re O.K. yourself? You’re not in any trouble?”
“None at all,” I said. “But I would like to lay over here a spell.”
Despite my reassurance, she still was skeptical over my well-being, so I told her the entire charade. “In the note I left,” I finished, “I told Frankie to meet me — and all the money — at a motel we’ve used upstate, in two weeks. By then that smoke-shop owner will have sold out to somebody else. There were at least two other prospective buyers.” I grinned. “With no cash to speak of, he’ll have no alternative. And when he does show, we can pick up as before.”
Sue frowned. She’d never met Frankie, but obviously she didn’t approve. “That’s sort of a crummy trick, Lou.”
“I had to do it,” I said. “We’re a great team.”
Sue was pensive. After a moment she said, “You’re more than welcome here, of course, but there are a couple of points—”
“Eh?”
“First, all that money. You’d better rent a safe-deposit box temporarily. This isn’t the safest neighborhood.”
“Good idea,” I said. “What’s the other problem?”
She indicated a small traveling bag by the door. “You’ll have to eat out or buy some groceries, do your own cooking. I’m taking a two weeks’ vacation with a girl friend; she’s meeting me at the bus station at nine.” Sue gestured toward the kitchen. “I can’t even give you breakfast. I cleaned out the refrigerator last night.”
“So it all works out,” I said, replenishing my wallet with a couple of hundreds from the money satchel. “I take you down to the bus, stop off for breakfast, collect some comestibles, then stop back here for my... ah—” I grinned “—deposit. By then the banks will be open. What’s the nearest one?”
And that’s how it did work out, with one exception. Again, wild, like I warned you. Because an hour or so later when I stopped back at the apartment, I found the rear kitchen window broken and the place thoroughly ransacked.
Naturally, the money satchel was gone.
I ranted and raved, kicked the furniture, put it back in place, and then kicked it again. Finally, though, I let up. I’d been stupid. I’d asked for it. I should have lugged the satchel with me; Sue had told me the area was a target for break-ins.
So what was ahead now? Two quiet weeks alone in the apartment about summed up my immediate future. I had enough pocket money to carry me. After that, though, when I met Frankie again, things would get back to normal. We’d make some quick, lucrative scores.
Because I still intended to keep that motel date. And I was confident Frankie would too. He would have been teed off when he discovered me gone, sure, but he would have no idea where to run me down in the interim. Also, he would have realized the true reason for my caper and appreciate that our relationship was such that I’d follow through.
So I bided my time, loafed around the apartment, fixed the kitchen window. The day before the motel date I left Sue a note of appreciation, turned the key over to a neighbor, and drove upstate to the motel.
In all truth, I wasn’t looking forward to the confrontation. For all I’ve said, I knew Frankie would be steaming — all the more when he learned I’d lost the money. But I still figured I could placate him, pick up the threads.
I needn’t have fretted. Frankie didn’t show.
I couldn’t understand it. I waited three days, thinking perhaps it was a transportation problem, I having taken our car. Even so, that didn’t make sense — Frankie could have rented a heap or even taken a bus.
Finally, I gave up at the motel. I couldn’t truly picture Frankie still being at Madison Springs, but he might have done or said something — perhaps to that smoke-shop character — that would tip me as to where he’d gone.
So after those three days I drove back, and the whole affair coalesced into its crazy denouement. Because Frankie was still in town. More, he was standing in front of the smoke shop and, recognizing me as I drove up, he didn’t scowl or threaten.