“Now slide across the seat,” he instructed. “You’ll drive, while I have a look at the case.”
I started the car. It was as clean inside as a new one. The engine hummed with vibrant, leashed power. It was evident the car had received meticulous care from hands with an aptitude for mechanics.
“Drive north,” he said, resting the overnight case on his knees, while he held his gun steadily on me.
I eased the car onto the highway. Traffic northward on the two-lane macadam was just about nonexistent. Insects hummed over the palmetto fields. In the distance, tall pines and cypress stood lonely and gaunt against the backdrop of glaring, tropical sky.
“I assume,” I said, “that you located me simply by following me.”
“Right,” he said. “I had the horse waiting near the employees’ entrance at the Diamond Shores. All I had to do was fall in behind you.”
“Maybe you were spotted.”
“You kidding?” he laughed. “Who sees the coming and going of a bellhop? It’ll take awhile for even the bell captain to realize I’m not around the hotel. You know, it was good of you to drive sensibly this morning.”
“Watchfully, too, Johnny,” I said on a hollow note.
“Sure,” he grinned, “but not for an old car that showed behind you a time or two. Guess you figured it was a farmer’s car.”
My reply was a bleak silence. The truth is, I hadn’t noticed the old Ford at all. Nobody who was questionable to Gervasi and me in Miami, or anyplace else, drove an old Ford.
“Don’t let it get you down, Mr. Ramey,” Johnny said in enjoyment “We all make mistakes now and then.”
“A good point for you to remember, Johnny.”
“Thanks, I will. But up to now I haven’t made any. I had plenty of time to change from the monkey suit in the back seat of the car, while you were having lunch. It was really simple. I just sat on the rear bumper of the car next to yours and rested until you came out.”
“It will get less simple, Johnny.”
“Oh, sure.” He patted an imitation yawn.
My hands were in hard knots on the wheel. A drop of sweat crept into the corner of my eye and began stinging and making me blink. “Johnny, you’re very young to start out like this.”
“Younger the better.”
“You ought to think of the years ahead.”
“Now you dig, pops,” he said warmly. “Now you’re getting with it I’ve thought of nothing else for a long time.”
“You’re a nice, clean-cut young man, Johnny, with a future. Unless you...”
“This?” he said in mock horror. “This? Coming from you?”
“Why not from me, Johnny?”
“Oh, nuts!” he said, slouching slightly against the car door. “Now don’t start boring me.”
“What do you think you know about me, Johnny?”
“I don’t think. I know. I know that I know! Most all of us know.”
“Most all of us, Johnny?”
“You wouldn’t dig. You’ve never been a hotel employee. We’re not quite real people. Never really there. You know? Like unseen hands keeping a big, luxury palace afloat. Like spooks with a world all our own, the bellhops, cooks, waitresses, linen women, maids, maintenance men. We eat together, talk together, party together, live together. We got bitter enemies and bosom pals in our own ranks. You know?”
“I don’t think I ever really thought anything about it, Johnny.”
“Who does?” he asked. He was silent a moment; then he laughed softly. “Sometimes we know more about you than you know yourselves. Waitresses overhear those bitter, whispered arguments of elegant people at dinner. A switchboard girl knows the origin of a secret phone call. A swimming pool attendant knows why a wife swims every afternoon while her husband is looking after his stocks. A bellhop delivers hangover medicine or more liquor to a falling-down, talkative drunk. Now do you know, Mr. Ramey?”
My vision reddened slightly. Gervasi and I were going to take a certain hotel apart, if and when I got back.
“How did you find out what’s in the overnight case, Johnny?” I asked thickly.
“I don’t know. Not yet.”
I gave him a quick frown.
He returned a smile. “I know about you and Mr. Gervasi,” he said. “I know about the phone calls to certain people in Dallas. I know you’ve hung onto the case like you were a bleeder and it held your spare blood. Finally, I know that you, personally, Gervasi’s top dog, are making the trip. It all adds up to something very big. Big enough for me.”
“I have to admire your nerve,” I admitted, although with reticence.
“Not nerve,” he shook his head slowly. “I’m not so long on nerve. Just hungry, Mr. Ramey. I ache with the hunger. I wake up at night thinking about it I just can’t live with it any longer. I’m hungry, Mr. Ramey, for a place in that world I and the other spooks help keep afloat.”
“And you think the case is full of bread?”
“I’m absolutely sure of it,” he said. “Bread in one form or another. Bread I’ll never again have the chance to pick up so easy. What is it Mr. Ramey? Drugs? Hot jewels? Dough for a big gamble that’s been rigged? How about the key?” He snapped his fingers. “Give me the key, Mr. Ramey.”
“I don’t have a key, Johnny. Gervasi has one. There is another in Dallas.”
“Okay,” he said. “That makes sense. So I’ll have to blow the lock with the gun.”
“Johnny, there’s two hundred thousand in that case.”
His face went blank for an instant. Then a laugh of pleased surprise ripped out of him. “Even better than I thought!”
“Johnny...”
“Oh, no!” he said. “No deals. You’re not buying me off with peanuts. I’m a pig, Mr. Ramey. And my risk is no greater if I take it all.”
“We’ll hunt you down, Johnny.”
“Where? Hong Kong? Paris? Rome? Rio? Don’t talk crazy and spoil the picture I’ve always had of you, Mr. Ramey.”
“There is something I must say...”
“Please, please,” he gestured with his hand. “You’re spoiling that picture of a man who set his sights and never let anything stand in his way. Why, Mr. Ramey, you’ve been my idol, my inspiration! I wouldn’t think of harming you, unless you forced me. I’m not dumb enough to kill somebody and get the cops after me. After all, their organization is a little bigger than yours. They make it tougher for a man to hide.”
“When you take the money at the point of a gun...”
“When I take the money,” he said, “I’m damned sure you and Gervasi won’t go to any cops. If your deal was honest you wouldn’t be taking the risk of transporting the money this way.”
“You got it all figured, Johnny.”
“I sure have. And we’ve talked more than plenty. I want to open the case. I want the fine, slick feel of the money against my fingers. I want to go someplace private and count it a couple dozen times before I start spending it.”
He held the overnight case as if he were hugging it. “There’s a side road turning into those pines up ahead,” he said, giving the road a long look. “Take it.”
“Johnny...”
“One more peep, Mr. Ramey, and I’m going to start not liking you.”
I slowed the car, turned the wheel. The shadow of the swaying, scraggly pines sent a shiver down my spine. We were on a sandy, rutted trail that led toward the distant swamplands, a little-used logging road. The narrow state highway fell behind. Now it was hidden from us by the piney woods. The world became very desolate, as if it were empty, deserted except for the two of us.
His breathing was thinning out, beginning to rasp slightly. “Stop the car, Mr. Ramey.”
I braked, opened the door. He let the overnight case slide to the floor and moved across the seat behind me.