She broke into a sweat and a roar filled her head. A step tapped softly on the floor, coming her way. She clenched her fists so tightly she was like a board. She sensed that the step stopped in the doorway. She battled a compulsion to make a dash for the front door. If they shot her down, wouldn’t it be better than waiting here? At least she had a chance, a small one.
But her body balked, controlled by her reasoning, which prompted her to breathe long and slowly, long and slowly, as if she were sound asleep, to keep her eyes closed no matter how much they wanted to open.
The step receded, and she sagged. One of them had wanted to assure himself she was still sleeping.
She tensed again at the sound of Dan’s voice. “I don’t like any part of it.”
“She’s gotten under your skin. That’s a bad sickness. I almost got myself shot once, there was this dame
“
“Knock it off, Sammy.” Dan’s tone was deadly. “You know I never let a woman shake me up when I’m on a job. But I play it my way. That’s how we set it up. My way. Real close.”
“A guy who plays it too close, maybe he’s just plain
” Sammy thought better of it.
“Plain what, Sammy?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
“I asked you, Sammy, plain what?”
“Gripes, if I could just get a drink. I tell you, I’m stir crazy. I could punch a hole in that wall, like a guy I knew once. He punched a hole clean through a wall. We got all this money, and for what? No dames, no liquor, no golf, no fresh air. We’re in a stinking, lousy jail. And her in there, she’s going to have the screaming willies. You taken a good look at her eyes? What’re you going to do when she starts yelling? Yeah, what you going to do? Put a shot through her like some goof-up kid who loses his head? And get knocked off making a break?”
Dan said slowly,“Maybe you got a point there.”
Sammy continued,“It’s not like there’d be any blood. Few minutes after she’s asleep I’ll lay her away, and we’ll have ten hours before they find her. You tell the landlady ahead of time we got a job in another town, so she won’t get all stirred up when she finds us gone. We can make five, six hundredmiles
.”
“What if she screams?”
“I’ve never had one yet. These fingers, they move so fast. You should see ‘em. And strong. You wouldn’t believe it. They could strangle a horse. Comes from my ma making me take piano. She used to say, ‘I’ll give you good learnin’, start you right.’ But I never got anything out of her except these fingers. No, Dan, she won’t scream.”
They never knew how close she came to it at that second.
17
As D.C. disappeared around the Randall house, Zeke moved swiftly across the back yard. His foam rubber soles touched the thick sod softly and noiselessly. He smelled a strong burnt powder odor as he passed Mike’s “launching pad,” and then the heavy, cloying scent of a night-blooming jasmine.
Rounding the corner, he brought himself up short and scanned the long, narrow passageway between houses for sign of movement. The night was so black that he could barely discern the outline of shrubs. He was conscious of his own breathing, which was loud in the stillness. He noted he was opposite the Macdougall kitchen, and sensed a presence inside. He dropped to a squatting position.
Up near the street a luminous tail swished back and forth from under a shrub as D.C. cased the layout ahead, his eyes mica bright. A fellow couldn’t be too careful in scouting enemy territory. In that no man’s land beyond, dogs roamed about, determined to maintain their fancied superiority, thinking themselves a superior race. He hated the breed. And tomcats lurked out there like so many punk hoodlums, eager to win a reputation for themselves fighting.
D.C. swished his tail again. That jerk who had followed him out of the house was stalking him. He thought he was being quiet, as if D.C. didn’t have a good hearing. D.C. knew what he was up to. The jerk thought he had a duck buried, and the minute D.C. dug it up the jerk would steal it. From the beginning D.C. had had him pegged as a no-good, two-faced sneak.
As D.C. started to cross the street, Zeke trailed him, always keeping the same distance between them. Suddenly tires screeched as a car rounded a corner and bore down on D.C. at fifty miles an hour, its dual pipes roaring. Seized with panic, Zeke raced into the street, waving his arms and shouting. The headlights were two brilliant spots racing toward him with unbelievable speed.
D.C. neither hurried nor slowed his pace. He chose to ignore the car. There were times when a man must assert his rights to what was properly his, and he had as much right on the street as anyone.
Zeke leaped for his life as the car’s headlights encompassed him. The driver slammed on his brakes and the car shrieked to a stop, only feet from D.C., who neither turned nor ran but continued leisurely to the far sidewalk. If a man held his ground, they always stopped.
Zeke leaned against a tree, wheezing like an old race horse. The driver yelled at him,“You stupid bum. Whatcha trying to do, get yourself killed?”
He shouted other imprecations until the first shock wore off. From the far side D.C. looked up with interest. The night was starting off fairly well. He went under a parked car where he sat motionless, observing his eight-inch-high view of the world ahead and, more specifically, Greg Balter’s house and the driveway.
Zeke reduced his breathing to a point near normal, and said into the mike,“Informant under car. Repeat ? informant under car.”
Two miles away a police officer in a cruise car leaned forward in his seat. He had no business tuning in the FBI radio band, but he and his partner were experiencing a dull night. He asked, “Did you hear that, Tracy ? An informant ? under a car.”
Tracy nodded.“Those FBI boys sure get some weirdies.”
His partner agreed.“Probably dead drunk.”
On hearing footsteps, Zeke lighted a cigarette. A worker approached, returning home late, and looked Zeke over as if he might be the Boston strangler. Zeke crossed the street, angling to a point some distance from the car being used as a forward outpost by D.C. Zeke whispered into the mike,“All cars, hold where you are.”
A police dog appeared from out of nowhere, caught D.C.‘s scent, and started in his direction. Zeke hurried to intercept the dog, having visions of D.C. being too maimed to continue his nightly round. Zeke and the dog almost collided. Zeke booted the dog with his foot, and the dog, taken by surprise, backed away in amazement, and then remembered to growl. Zeke said, “Get out of here,” and raised his hand as if to strike him. The dog cowered in terror.
Out of the darkness came a middle-aged woman, that robust, healthy type who takes long walks to keep in shape. Her stride quickened at the sight of the raised hand, which Zeke dropped instantly, but not in time. “You monster, you,” she screamed. “I ought to call the police.” She turned toward the dog, who was engaged in a strategic retreat.“Hey, Pete
Pete.”
Zeke slinked into the darkness, walking rapidly. At the same moment D.C. shot across Greg’s front yard and raced down the driveway, his collar bell tinkling. Zeke caught merely a flash of black under a street light. He hurried after him, and halfway down the driveway fell over a child’s bicycle. Even in falling he never took his eyes from the white tail whisking itself ahead of him, a luminous tail that seemed disembodied. He rose quickly, fearful he would lose the informant and be censured by the Bureau, maybe even draw a cut in salary. An agent could expect serious repercussions if he lost a surveillance in an important case.
The tail stopped under a shrub and once more began describing pale arcs in the blackness. Zeke had an uneasy feeling that those quick eyes had spotted him. He stood as motionless as a cigar store Indian and waited for the cat’s next move. While waiting, he picked pieces of embedded gravel from the palm of his hand, and wondered if Operations Center had heard him fall. The thought flashed in and out that children who parked their vehicles any old place should draw a police ticket the same as adults, and if the little violators couldn’t pay the fine, go to jail.