Maxie went on: “The other ten grand is for not telling the Syndicate boys. You don’t pay, I tell the cops and the Syndicate boys. If the cops don’t lock you up and throw away the key, someone in the Syndicate is gonna get the idea of helping you spend that dough, right?”
There was a long silence this time. Little Maxie took a tight grip on his .38 and waited. At last the voice of Walter Midge said, “You’ll tell them? The cops and the Syndicate?”
“I will,” Maxie said. “And don’t think about knocking me off. In the first place you couldn’t do it, in the second place that’s a murder rap and twenty grand ain’t worth a murder rap to a guy like you.”
The silence was longer this time. The little killer went over the whole thing in his mind. The kind of man who drove a get-away car for ten percent of a big robbery was not the type who would kill anyone if he could help it. Maxie knew all about killers, and robbery drivers were never killers if they could help it.
Little Maxie was sure of that. It wouldn’t do the big man any good to turn him in to the police. And the big man was too dumb to know that Little Maxie wasn’t about to talk to the Syndicate. If Midge knew that, the big man would have walked out already.
The big man’s voice said, “You’ll tell the Syndicate?”
“You heard me,” Maxie said. “Here’s what you do. Bring the money to the Valencia Hotel, you know where it is. Ask for Mr. Brown’s room. Then you go straight up and wait at the room door, got it?”
The big man did not answer. Little Maxie was sure Midge was shaking his head up and down in the dark, but the big man did not speak, and then Maxie saw a shadow at the mouth of the alley. Maxie hissed, “Run!”
A voice called, “Halt! Police!”
Maxie was down and crawling away before the first shot was fired. The little killer never did see what happened to Walter Midge. Maxie knew the voice — Lieutenant Jacoby.
Maxie swore under his breath. The only way Jacoby could have known was from Eddie the Wasp. Eddie must have heard him on the telephone to Walter. He decided he would take care of Eddie after Walter paid the money.
There was movement at the mouth of the alley. Little Maxie fired four quick shots and made a dash for the nearest door. He went through the door in a sprawling dive, landed, rolled, and came up running. One last shot missed him by a hair as he went down a laundry chute in the hotel head first. He came out in the cellar and was out the front way and running away in the dark before the police reached the cellar.
From the shadows Little Maxie watched Midge cross the street and go into the entrance of the Valencia Hotel. The big man was carrying a brown-paper wrapped package. The little killer waited in the shadows. Light was just beginning to break in the sky to the east.
Dawn soon, and Maxie had already checked on the nine o’clock flight nonstop to Brazil. They had a seat. Now he waited across the street to see if Walter Midge had decided to try to be smart.
Fifteen minutes passed, but no one else went into the hotel, no one drove up and parked on the block.
Midge was playing it straight. Maxie knew Walter himself was no danger, but it paid to be sure, and Maxie checked his .38 before he put it in his pocket with his hand on it and ready. Then he walked across the street and into the hotel. He had played it all as smart as it could be played; now his luck just had to hold another three hours.
In the hotel he walked up the stairs. Walter Midge was waiting in front of the door of the room he had taken in the name of Brown. Maxie walked up to the big man and pulled out his .38. “Hold still!”
He carefully searched the big man. Midge was not carrying a weapon. Maxie had been sure, but it paid to figure on everything. Maxie said, “Okay, come on.”
“Where?” Walter Midge said.
“Just come on,” Maxie said. He led the big man down the stairs to the next floor. He took a key from his pocket and opened the door of an empty room.
Maxie grinned. “In case you told anyone. I got the key and checked the room being empty while the clerk was off buying me some whisky, for a small tip, of course.”
The big man walked into the room and Little Maxie locked the door behind them. Maxie still held his .38, just in case, but he was not worried about the big man. And he had decided not to kill Midge later. Sudden killings were dangerous, too much could go wrong. A shot in the hotel was too risky — too many people. With a man as big as Midge a knife was chancy.
The main thing was that Little Maxie did not want a killing to start the police checking the airports. Eddie the Wasp would have told them Maxie was looking for Walter Midge by now.
“Okay, Midge,” he said, “hand it over and I’ll blow.”
The big man handed Maxie the package. Maxie laid his .38 on the bureau and tore open the package. And Maxie stared down at the neatly stacked and wrapped piles of cut newspaper. Not all newspaper. On each stack there was a single ten dollar bill. Little Maxie screamed at Walter Midge:
“Newspaper?! Why you stupid—”
The big man moved with amazing speed. Midge was half way to Maxie before the little man knew what was happening. The big man shouted, “You ain’t gonna tell! You ain’t—”
Little Maxie grabbed for his .38. His mind was racing. The shots would bring the cops if the big man’s shouts didn’t. It was crazy, stupid!
The big man came closer. Maxie fired before his gun was steady. The big man grunted. But Midge did not stop coming. Little Maxie panicked. It was all wrong! It was stupid! Maxie ducked and ran. It made no sense, and the little killer reached for the door in panic.
The big man’s hands closed on his throat. The .38 fell to the floor. Little Maxie tried to breathe, but the fingers crushed his throat. Maxie heard shouts and running feet in the hall. He tried to scream, but his throat was twisted and nothing came out.
Blood rushed up behind Maxie’s eyes and his mind screamed over and over — it don’t figure, it’s stupid, it don’t figure, it don’t...
And Little Maxie Lima died trying to think of what had gone wrong.
Detective Lieutenant Fred Jacoby looked down at Walter Midge. The big man was breathing hard with the bullet in his chest. Jacoby said to the Sergeant, “So Maxie put his gun down and when Midge rushed him he couldn’t get it up fast enough. It looks like he panicked. He couldn’t figure what went wrong.”
“Midge was lucky,” Sergeant Allers said. “He gonna make it?”
“Maybe,” Jacoby said. “I don’t figure he cares.”
The coroner, who was working over the injured Walter Midge, looked up at Jacoby. “He’s got a chance.”
“That newspaper trick was smart, but risky,” the Sergeant said. “Me, I’d of given Maxie the money.”
“What money?” Jacoby said. “Walter never went near a big robbery in his life. You’re as bad as Maxie. The newspaper wasn’t a smart trick; Walter really thought it was twenty thousand dollars. That’s why the tens on every stack. You heard him tell us what happened? He still thinks he was in on the robbery, drove the car, and brought the money to Maxie. It’s a delusion, he wants to believe it. The only thing he doesn’t know is why he killed Maxie. If he had really been in on the robbery, he would have paid Maxie, not killed him.”
The coroner stood up. He looked down at Walter Midge. “He had to kill Maxie or face up to his delusion. If he let Maxie tell anyone about the robbery, the part of his brain with the delusion would have to admit it was only a delusion. So his subconscious killed Maxie to protect its delusion, so it could go on believing what it wanted. I’ll bet Maxie still can’t figure it out wherever he is.”
Jacoby said, “Maxie should have asked me. We checked Walter two months ago. We’d heard the same rumors. It turned out he inherited some money — he’d rolled some drunks when it was real safe. The big criminal, just a delusion. Poor Little Maxie.”