He wished it hadn’t ever happened, that’s what he wished, because no matter which way he looked, it was still a mess. If he went home now he’d not only still be culpable, he wouldn’t share in the take, which meant he’d be running the risk without any chance at the profit, which was in some ways the worst option open to him. Besides the fact that O’Hara would never let him forget it. O’Hara and Caliato and Caliato’s friends would all be convinced from now on that Paul Dunstan was a coward, they’d treat him with indifference and contempt, O’Hara would probably make life impossible for him.
But to go there meant taking part in murder. Murder One. He knew that, the knowledge scraped over his nerves like steel wool, he couldn’t ignore it or turn his back on it like O’Hara. Whatever their main motivation, whatever their main goal, what they were all planning to do today was murder a fellow human being. Shoot him down while he was defenseless, and hide behind the protection of their uniforms to do it.
It was a bind, a rotten stinking bind, and no matter which way he turned he saw no way out of it. He couldn’t blow the whistle, O’Hara would really make life hell on him then. Not to mention Caliato. He had no idea what Caliato might do to him if he spoiled their chance at this robber. That wasn’t one of his options at all.
He only had the two options. He could either be sick and go home to avoid being actually present for it, thus eliminating his share of the money but keeping his share of the blame, or he could go along, thus actually being involved in the murder but also being involved in the split.
He sat there and thought about things for about five minutes, until O’Hara finally slowed the patrol car and switched off the siren, saying, “That’s far enough. We just lost him.” He glanced at Dunstan. “You want to call in sick?”
Dunstan reluctantly shook his head. “I’m in it,” he said. “I guess I have to stay in it.”
“Good man,” O’Hara said, and Dunstan had the strange feeling O’Hara was relieved, as though he’d been troubled at the thought of going on with it without Dunstan. The impression had to be wrong, but for a few seconds Dunstan was baffled by it, as though a door had suddenly opened in an invisible wall of the world, giving him a quick glimpse of an entirely different world on the other side. Different colors, different shapes, different everything. The impression faded almost immediately, like a ghost on a television screen, and left Dunstan only vaguely uneasy. He assumed he felt that way because of the decision he’d just made.
O’Hara pulled the patrol car off the road and came to a stop. He called in, announcing their position and saying they’d lost the bandit in his second car, he must have turned off somewhere along the way. They were told to hold on there a minute, and during the wait O’Hara told Dunstan, “You can’t say for sure how this thing is going to work. Maybe there’ll be a nice simple way to handle it without anybody getting hurt.”
“How?” Dunstan asked.
“How do I know?” O’Hara was impatient and irritable. “How do I know till we get there and we’re actually in the situation? It’s possible, that’s all, it’s just possible things will work out. You don’t always have to take if for granted the worst is going to happen.”
The dispatcher came back on and told them to go join a roadblock being set up over on Western Avenue. Then he said, “You want me to notify anybody?”
O’Hara said, “Of what?”
“You boys are due to get off at six.”
Dunstan looked up.
O’Hara said, “So what?” Guarded, as though already knowing what was coming.
“It ain’t gonna happen,” the dispatcher said. “Not unless somebody grabs that guy by then. The way it looks, you boys can look forward to a long night. You want me to notify anybody?”
“God damn ill”
“I agree,” the dispatcher said. “Anybody I should call?”
“No!” O’Hara said angrily, and slammed the microphone back into its clamp. He glared at Dunstan, saying, “What the hell are you grinning about?”
“Me? I’m not grinning.”
But he had been. He’d been grinning because all of a sudden a possible way out had appeared. He and O’Hara would be stuck on roadblock duty all night long, they wouldn’t ever get back to Caliato. If Caliato did anything, it would be on his own hook, Dunstan and O’Hara would have no part of it. The robber might even get away, given enough time.
But he managed to make a troubled face, for O’Hara’s benefit. “Maybe I was grinning about the way you got mad at Floyd,” he said. “He doesn’t know what it’s all about.”
“It’s nothing to grin over,” O’Hara said angrily, and slammed the car into gear and made a U-turn in the teeth of oncoming traffic.
Dunstan didn’t grin any more.
Three
CALIATO SAID, “You got your keys?”
“Sure,” Benniggio said. “What’s up?”
Caliato poked a thumb at the tollbooth building beside them. “See can you get us in there,” he said. “Without breaking any doors down.”
“A snap,” Benniggio said, and walked away, his left hand shoving his overcoat tail out of the way so he could dig down into his trouser pocket.
Caliato stood by the front bumper of the Lincoln, looking across the road at the entrance to Fun Island. He knew what the yegg inside was doing now, he was making his way around the fence, he was looking for another way out. He didn’t know yet, that guy over there, what Caliato knew, that there was no other way out. He was in a sack, that guy, all wrapped up in a sack and ready to be gathered in.
The reason Caliato knew about the winter arrangements at Fun Island was that several years ago he’d spent some time working there, in,the office. Sort of liaison with Lozini.
Lozini had summed it up one time, when he’d grinned and said, “If it’s got neon on it, we own a piece of it.” Meaning by “we” not just himself, but the whole loose-knit group that ran this town and of whom Lozini was at the moment leader. Of whom some day Caliato would be the leader.
And what Lozini had said that time was basically true. Bars, restaurants, vending machines, movie houses, almost everything in town; if it was big enough, a piece of it belonged to the boys. And that definitely meant Fun Island, a place that was tied in with the boys a hundred different ways. The vending machines, the liquor licenses in the restaurants, the linen service and garbage collection, the strippers in the Voodoo Island theater, and the printing of tickets and maps and souvenir programs — up and down and crossways, it all connected with the same group of boys.
So Fun Island was an old stamping ground for Caliato. He knew the place well, from the administrative side. And he knew that in the wintertime there was only one way to get into Fun Island and only one way to get out again, and he was looking at it. The artist running around in there now didn’t know it yet, but he was on ice. Just waiting to be picked up.
Benniggio came back, swaggering a little. “It’s open,” he said. “Nothing to it.”
“Good. Go roll down the car windows on this side, and then come in.”
Benniggio looked a little confused, but all he said was, “Sure, Cal.” That was all he was supposed to say.
Caliato went over to the open door and up the step and inside into a square office with pale yellow walls and old wooden desks and round green wastebaskets. The toll windows were covered with shutters on both sides of the room, but in the middle on the road side was a small window through which the gates of Fun Island could be seen. Caliato went over to the window and stood there looking out, his hands in his overcoat pockets, until Benniggio came in. Then, without turning his head, he said, “Shut the door. Open the shutters over there so we can see our car.”