Croy kept watching the place where John Lash had disappeared. Betty kept whispering to him. But in about ten minutes Croy stopped struggling.
“There, baby. There,” I heard Betty whisper.
He gave a big convulsive shudder and looked around, first at her and then at the rest of us, frowning a little as if he had forgotten something.
“Sorry,” he said huskily. “Real sorry.” And that is all he ever said about it. He promised that he was all right. I carried his stuff to their car. Betty bound his ankle with a strip of towel. He leaned heavily on her to the car.
6.
That’s almost all, except the part I don’t understand. The Deep Six is back up to about fifteen again. We have a compressor now, and new spots to go, and we did fine in the inter-club competitions this year. We’re easy with each other, and have some laughs.
But Croy never came back. He and Betty, they go out by themselves in a kicker boat when the weather is right. I don’t see any reason why he didn’t come back. He says hello when we see him around. Maybe he’s ashamed we saw him like that, saw that wildness.
One morning not long ago I went out alone on the Gulf side. I got out there early and mist hung heavy on the water. I tilted my old outboard up and rowed silently. It was kind of eerie there in the mist in the early morning. All of a sudden I began to hear voices. It was hard to tell direction but they kept getting louder. There was a deep voice, a man’s voice, talking and talking and talking, and every so often a woman would say one or two words, soft and soothing.
All of a sudden I recognized the voices as Croy’s and Betty’s. I couldn’t catch any of the words. I rested on the oars. It made me feel strange. I figured I could get closer and find out what in the world Croy could talk about for so long.
But then understanding came to me suddenly, and it wasn’t necessary to listen. I understood suddenly that there was only one subject on which a quiet guy like Croy could talk and talk and talk, and that the situation wasn’t over and maybe would never be over. And I realized that embarrassment was only part of the reason Croy didn’t come skin-diving with us any more; the rest of the reason was that the sight of us reminded him too strongly of John Lash. I turned the dinghy and headed off the other way until their voices faded and were gone.
Later in the morning after the sun had burned the mist off, I was spin casting with a dude and monofilament line over a weed bed when they went by, heading in, their big outboard roaring, the bow wave breaking the glassy look of the morning Gulf.
Croy was at the motor, Betty up in the bow.
Betty waved at me and Croy gave me a sort of little nod as they went by. I waved back. Their swell rocked me and then they were gone in the distance.
She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. You could look at her all day and not find anything wrong.
Cop For a Day
by Henry Slesar
They had eighteen thousand dollars, they couldn’t spend a nickel. Davy Wyatt spread the money on the kitchen table, in neat piles, according to their various denominations, and just sat there, looking. After awhile this got on Phil Pennick’s nerves.
“Cut it out, kid,” the older man said. “You’re just eatin’ your heart out.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Davy sighed, and swept the bills hack into the neat leather briefcase. He tossed it carelessly onto his bunk, and joined it there a minute later, lying down with his fingers locked behind his head.
“I’m goin’ out,” Phil said suddenly.
“Where to?”
“Pick tip some sandwiches, maybe a newspaper. Take a little walk.”
The kid’s face paled. “Think it’s a good idea?”
“You got a better one? Listen, we can rot in this crummy joint.” Phil looked around the one-room flat that had been their prison for two days, and made a noise that didn’t nearly show his full disgust. Then he grabbed for his jacket and put it on.
“It’s your neck,” the kid said. “Don’t blame me if you get picked up. With that dame playin’ footsie with the cops—”
“Shut up! If they get me, they’ll have your neck in the chopper ten minutes later. So don’t wish me any bad luck, pal.”
Davy sat up quickly. “Hey, no kidding. Think you ought to take the chance?”
The older man smiled. The smile did nothing for the grim set of his features, merely shifted the frozen blankness, which was the result of three prison terms. He put a soft fedora on his gray head and adjusted it carefully.
“We took our chance already,” he said as he opened the door. “And as far as the dame goes — you leave that up to me.”
He hoisted the .38 out of his shoulder holster, checked the cartridges, and slipped it back. The gesture was so casual, so relaxed, that the kid realized once again that he was working with a pro.
Davy swallowed hard, and said, “Sure, Phil. I’ll leave it up to you.”
The street was full of children. Phil Pennick liked children, especially around a hideout. They discouraged rash action by the police. He walked along like a man out to get the morning paper, or a pack of cigarettes, or to shoot a game of pool. Nobody looked at him twice, even though his clothes were a shade better than anybody else’s in that slum area.
Davy’s last words were stuck in his thoughts. “I’ll leave it up to you...” It was easy enough to reassure the kid that the old pro would work them out of trouble. Only this time, the old pro wasn’t so sure.
They had planned a pretty sound caper. Something simple, without elaborate preparations. It involved one small bank messenger, from a little colonial-style bank in Brooklyn, the kind of messenger who never seemed to tote more than a few grand around. Only they had been doubly surprised. The bank messenger had turned out to be a scrapper, and the loot had turned out to be bigger than they had ever dreamed. Now they had the money, and the little bonded errand boy had two bullets in his chest. Was he dead or alive? Phil didn’t know, and hardly cared. One more arrest and conviction, and he was as good as dead anyway. He wasn’t made to be a lifer; he’d rather be a corpse.
But they had the money. That was the important thing. In twenty years of trying, Phil Pennick had never come up with the big one. It would have been a truly great triumph, if the cops hadn’t found their witness. They hadn’t seen the woman until it was too late. She was standing in a doorway of the side street where they had made their play. She was a honey blonde, with a figure out of 52nd Street, and a pair of sharp eyes. Her face didn’t change a bit when Phil spotted her. She just looked back, coldly, and watched the bank messenger sink to the sidewalk with his hands trying to back the blood. Then she had slammed the front door behind her.
The kid had wanted to go in after her, but Phil said no. The shots had been loud, and he wasn’t going to take any more chances. They had rushed into the waiting auto, and headed for the pre-arranged hideout.
Phil stopped by a newsstand. He bought some cigarettes, a couple of candy bars, and the Journal. He was reading the headlines as he walked into the tiny delicatessen adjoining. The holdup story was boxed at the bottom of the page. It didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know. The honey blonde had talked all right. And she was ready to identify the two men who had shot and killed the bank’s errand boy. Shot and killed... Phil shook his head. The poor slob, he thought.
In the delicatessen, he bought four roast beef sandwiches and a half dozen cans of cold beer. Then he walked back to the apartment, thinking hard.
As soon as he came in, the kid grabbed for the newspaper. He found the story and read it avidly. When he looked up, his round young face was frightened.