I studied him. "You feel that way about Margie, too?"
"Not yet." He grinned. "She still thinks it's to sit on. She'll be givin' it away one of these days, though."
"I do too know what it's for!" Margie said indignantly.
"That Ellen, though," Tommy went on. He shook his head. "A commercial setup I could at least understand. She-"
"That's enough of that," I cut him off, looking at the pigtailed Margie.
"Oh, I know all about Ellen!" the younger girl said scornfully. "She hasn't got brains enough to sell it."
Eleven years old, I thought to myself. Eleven years old.
"Stop showing off, Marge," Tommy frowned. He was looking at me. "This is about the bank, isn't it?"
I saw no point in lying. "Yes."
"I hope you take 'em for plenty," he said. His tone was serious. "I hope you shake up the whole crummy town."
"Why?"
"Because you'd be hittin' 'em where it hurts. All the parents I know spend their time tryin' to figure out how to swindle someone. At least you've got the guts to go take it."
I remembered something. "How many mornings a week do you take a violin lesson?" I asked the girl.
"Only on Mondays."
"You really cased this job, huh?" Tommy said. He was looking at me with respect. "If I was a couple years older, I'd go with you." He scuffed at the carpeting with a sneakered foot. "I'm at a hell of an age," he concluded gloomily.
"You certainly are," Margie said smugly. "Standing in front of your mirror nights and admiring-"
He reached out and slapped her. She jumped up from the bed and kicked him in the shins. I grabbed a shoulder of each and pulled them apart. This was a demonstration of the familial love I'd been depending upon to make the pair solicitous of each other's welfare? I felt gloomy myself.
I marched them down the stairs. Margie slid behind me as Dahl approached us. Evidently his size impressed her, if anything impressed her generation. I took the wrapped and tied bundle of papers that Dahl handed me, then herded my charges out the front door and onto the porch.
"Hey, that's of Mace's car!" Tommy exclaimed at first glimpse of the Rambler across the street. "Is that where the folks are?" He followed up that question immediately with another. "Can I drive the car?"
"You can deliver the papers," I told him. The sky was still dark but beginning to lighten. "You have twenty minutes."
"I don't like the Maces," Margie announced. "They don't give parties."
Once under way, the paper delivery went swimmingly. Tommy folded papers while Margie gave me driving directions in a superior tone of voice. She knew the route as well as her brother did. At each stop he opened the door on the passenger's side and with a flick of his wrist scaled folded papers toward doorways. His percentage of hits was high.
There was only one untoward incident during the short run, but it was a heart stopper. In the middle of the second block of deliveries, I saw the same police cruiser heading toward us. Tommy was out of the car, firing a paper up onto a second-floor balcony. I placed a hand on Margie's arm. The cruiser stopped opposite us. Tommy turned in its direction and sailed the folded paper in his hand across the street and through the cruiser's open window. The cruiser blinked its lights and moved away. I breathed again. "Stupid cops," Tommy said contemptuously when he returned to the car for another paper. "They graft a free one from me every morning that they're out."
"Stupid cops," Margie echoed.
We completed the route and returned to the Barton home. Dahl was waiting inside the front door when I brought the kids in. "Get Ellen," I told him. "We're ready to go."
He went upstairs. When he came down, he was half leading, half carrying the good-looking girl, whom he had swathed in a blanket. She looked the gathering over fuzzily. The pupils of her eyes were pinpoints, but I judged that the depth of her involvement was lessening. "How's the easiest lay in town this morning?" Tommy inquired with brotherly affection.
"Shut up, you little wart." The girl's voice was blurry but functional. "What's-you're not cops. What's this all about?"
"Shut up yourself and walk," Dahl ordered.
She tried to kick him. His return kick was more accurate. I broke that one up and we went out to the Rambler. I drove. Ellen had drifted off into the land of hashish dreams again. When we reached the Mace house, Dahl carried her inside. Harris heard us coming and met us at the top of the basement steps. He and Dahl muscled the tall girl's dead weight downstairs.
The younger kids blinked at the transition from shadowy darkness outside to the stockade's bright illumination. Tommy's fascinated gaze fastened upon the slavering nude Rachel, who was chewing at the bonds on her wrists. Margie favored her brother with a superior sisterly smile.
Harris had gagged Thelma Barton. Dahl dumped Ellen to the floor where she sprawled three-quarters out of the blanket, then marched over in front of Ellen's mother. "What the hell kind of a parent are you?" Dahl demanded. "Don't you know where your kids are nights? Don't you care?"
Thelma Barton's features turned purple from the intensity of the abortive effort she made to reply. Dahl turned away. Harris drew me to one side. "Mrs. Mace wants to talk to you privately," he said. "She says it's important."
"Bring her outside, then. And get the tie-cords off Barton and Mace and onto the kids."
I went out into the basement proper. Harris led out Shirley Mace and then went back inside. The woman wasted no words. "There's a burglar alarm at the bank in the writing desk just inside the side door," she said. "You'll have to keep everyone away from it."
I couldn't help thinking that never in my life had I had more cooperation from such unlikely sources. First the bank manager's kids, now the assistant bank manager's wife. "You have a reason for telling me this, of course."
Her eyes met mine levelly. "I do. You're a ruthless man. I want you to kill Rachel before you leave. You can make it look like an accident."
"Well, now-"
"You'll be doing everyone concerned a favor," she insisted. Her tone turned acid. "I've spent twenty-two years in slavery because of George's truckling to his conscience. I don't propose to do it any longer. I've given you information which might easily make the difference in your getting away or not. You owe me a favor."
"We'll see," I said in the manner of a parent speaking to a petulant child, avoiding the outright "no" because of fear of the resultant emotional explosion. "Get back inside." She hesitated as if there were something more she was about to say, then led the way.
Barton and Mace were on their feet, rubbing their wrists. Everyone else except Shirley Mace was on the mattress floor, bound wrist and ankle. Harris speedily added her to the lineup. Ellen had thrown off her blanket and was staring defiantly at her family. Sometime since I had seen her on the bed in her room, either she or Dahl had removed her panties. The girl was as naked as Rachel.
"More bare pelt on the loose around here tonight," Dahl commented, seeing my expression. I kept a grip on myself. This was no time for a discourse on adult juvenile delinquency. For an instant I debated the wisdom of leaving Dahl with the group. I had committed myself to Harris, though. The gambler would be disturbed by a last-minute reversal of roles. "Harris and I are leaving now with these two," I told Dahl, nodding at the men. "Hold the lid on here till we get back. We'll take Mace's Rambler and leave your rental job in the driveway. If we're not back by nine twenty, go for yourself."
"I read you loud an' clear, cousin," he declared.
We climbed the basement steps with me in the lead, Barton and Mace in the middle, and Harris bringing up the rear. "Do you have your key to the bank's side entrance?" I asked Mace.
"It's on the Rambler key ring," he answered.
"Make sure of it," Harris warned. "You wouldn't like what happens to the people downstairs if it isn't."