Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Death and Circumstance
Death and Circumstance
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''AN ENTHRALLING NOVEL OF
BRILLIANT SUSPENSE"
New York Morning Telegram
FULL OF SURPRISES."
Buffalo Evening News
AN AVON BOOK
All of the characters in this hoo\ are fictitious, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental.
AVON BOOKS
A division of
The Hearst Corporation
959 Eighth Avenue
New York, New York 10019
Copyright ©
1963 by Hillary Waugh.
Published by arrangement with Doubleday & Company, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63:12312.
All rights reserved.
Allie Wells
Saturday J April 6^ ^963
had to fight the urge to run. They were under the platform
lights now and anyone could see them.
Now a new fear pressed down on Allie. Suppose an at-
tendant asked where they'd come from? No passenger
trains had arrived for them to have been on. "Tony," he
muttered. "Shouldn't we wait?"
"Wait for what? We're getting outta here."
Allie swallowed. He felt as conspicuous as a black cat
in the snow.
They reached the door without interruption, however,
went down the flightof steps and turned onto the under-
11
ground passage. Ahead was a climbing ramp to a row of
doors that opened into the night, and halfway up was a
turnoflf to the station waiting room. As they started for-
ward, three people from the station appeared, came down
the ramp and ascended the first pair of stairs to another
platform. Tony walked without slowing his pace and Allie
made the effort to match his nonchalance but his heart
was pounding.
Then, from another staircase, a uniformed stationman
appeared. Allie tensed and almost stopped. He forced him-
self forward as the man started to change departure signs
but he was sure the fear in his face was apparent. He kept
on, his eyes staring blindly at the swinging doors ahead,
but Tony suddenly changed pace. He slowed almost in-
dolently and then stopped beside the stationman who was
hooking a metal sign in place. "Is there a phone in the sta-
tion?" he asked boldly.
Allie went a couple of paces past and then lingered, try-
ing not to be noticed. He wasn't. The man jerked his head
at Tony. "Head of the ramp. Right in front of your eyes,
son."
"Thanks." Tony said it just right, without subservience,
but without condescension. He said it, Allie thought, just
as a normal person would.
"Up here," Tony told him, nudging Allie on again and
he led the way towards the three booths, close inside the
doors, with determined strides.
"You ain't really gonna call someone?" Allie whispered.
"The hell I ain't!" He went to the table where a phone
book with a chained cover rested and started thumbing
through the pages.
"Let's get outta here," Allie whispered urgently. "Don't
push our luck."
"I gotta make a call," Tony said deliberately.
"You know somebody in this town?"
"I will."
"We can call from somewhere else."
"What's the matter? You chicken? They're looking for
us out in Indiana, I tell ya." He found the page and ran
his finger down the column of names and stopped. He mut-
tered the number twice, fumbled in a pocket of his over-
large jacket for a dime, and stepped into the booth, clos-
ing the door.
12
Allie shifted his feet outside. He was conscious of his
soiled clothes, of his matted hair and the need for a shave.
His shoes were dusty convict's boots that laced above the
ankle and all he had under his jacket was a soiled T-shirt.
To Allie, "escaped con" was written on him for everyone
to see. Tony, inside the booth, was protected but Allie
was exposed and alone.
He moved to the phone book and bent over the names
with the ostrich hope that if he saw no one, no one would
see him. The colunm started with the Y's and went on to
the Z's but the names meant nothing.
The booth door opened and Tony came out. "No an-
swer," he growled and bent over the book again. "Twenty
Melville Street," he said. "All right, let's go."
At last they pushed through the doors and now they
were in the cool but friendly darkness of the night where
the growth of beard and the tousled hair and the dirty
clothes were inconspicuous. For the first time since they'd
jumped from the freight Allie didn't taste his fear. He in-
haled the moist night air as were something new and
if it
strange and delicious and he was calm once more. "Who's
at twenty Melville Street?" he asked. "Whattaya got in
mind, Tony?"
Tony, for once, was communicative. "Lx)ok, boy," he
said. "We can't just run forever, right?"
"Yeah."
"We're low on dough. What you picked out of the regis-
ter in that dry-cleaning place wouldn't last a bum a week
in a breadline. We gotta do something about that."
"Yeah, but I thought we were going to Boston."
"So did I till I saw that Tittsfield' sign. That reminded
me. You remember Charlie Zeuss?"
"No."
"Maybe he got transferred before you come in. Charlie
was a real operator. He'n me had the same cell when I
first went in and we worked up the escape. Then he got
switched to San Quentin and that left him outta it but be-
fore that, when we were bunking together and planning
this break, he told me he had a sister in Pittsfield, Con-
necticut. He was figuring on getting to her when he broke
out. I forgot till I saw the sign."
"You mean you wantta see the sister?"
"I mean we can't go around in these clothes, for Christ's
13
sake. We gotta get something decent to wear and we gotta
get a stake."
"But she don't know you.'*
"No, but I know Charhe. She'll do it for a pal of Char-
lie's."
"Jesus, Tony, I wouldn't trust her. She might blow the
whisde on us."
Tony gave him a sharp elbow in the ribs. "Whattaya
think, I'm dumb or something? She ain't gonna call no
cops. She's got a record nearly as long as Charlie's herself."
Allie bit his Hp. The fear was creeping back. "But she
ain't home," he said hopefully.
"That's right. She ain't. So we're gonna sit on her door-
step till she comes home."
Saturday Night
Allie wet his own mop and got some semblance of order
out of it. They were alone in the large room and Tony
preened himself before the mirror. "Not so bad," he said
to his reflection. "Only these stinking clothes you got."
Allie couldn't lose himself in the moment that success-
fully. "You know where Melville Street is?" he asked.
"HeU, no. But we'll find out."
14
"How?"
"We'll try the station agent first." He saw Allie's instinc-
tive quiver through the glass and added with a sneer, "If
he don't know, we can always ask a cop I"
"You wouldn'tl"
Tony snorted the felon's disgust of the police. "Why
not?" Then he went out.
The station agent behind the information counter knew
nothing about Melville Street but Tony had charm when
he chose to use it and the agent tried to help. "News
counter in the hotel right over there sells city maps. Other-
wise, ask a cabby or a cop."
"Yeah, thanks. Thanks for the info." Tony led the way
outside. "Cabby," he said. "Frig him. We
ain't got more'n
two singles and some change."
"Maybe we could find a shop that wouldn't be hard to
break into," Allie suggested. He wasn't eager to run the
risk but he felt responsible for their low state of finances.
Burglary was his specialty, the field where Tony, who was
an armed robber, couldn't touch him. It was his area of
esteem, the thing that earned him Tony's respect, and he
felt he had let Tony down when his haul at the dry-clean-
ing establishment had netted only a pittance.
Tony, to his relief, wasn't interested. "Nah," he said.
"All we got to do is get to this dame's house. We'll get a
street map. It'll come maybe."
in handy,
The hotel was looming above an inter-
close at hand,
vening gas station on a triangle of road intersection. It
was, fortunately, not the best hotel in town and the two
youths were not conspicuous when they entered its lobby
and headed for the news counter off one side. Allie tried
to walk as boldly as his companion but he almost turned
and fled when he got his first look at the counter. A po-
liceman was there, leaning over the glass in close conver-
sation with the pert girl who ran it.
As for Tony, he was ever the master and his step never
lagged. He approached casually and halted a pace back
from the counter, waiting until the girl paused. The police-
man looked around. He was stocky and vigorous but his
eyes, though calculating, bespoke no great intelligence.
Tony ignored him, watching the girl. "Do you have a
street map of Pittsfield?" he asked with the right shade of
meekness at his interruption.
15
The girl plucked one from the stand beside her. "Fifty
cents plus tax. Fifty-two cents."
Tony gave her a dollar from his pocket, accepted the
change and said, "Thank you." When he turned away the
policeman was already back in conversation with the girl.
In half a minute both would have forgotten he'd ever been
there.
With a boldness seemed reckless to Allie, Tony took
that
the map and opened it on a ra-
to a corner of the lobby
diator ledge by a window. He thumbed through the pages
for the key, then located the spot with his finger. "It's a
hell of a ways away from here," he muttered. "It's prob-
ably a bus ride into the center and transfer out Purvey
Street." He refolded the map and tucked it into his inside
jacket pocket. "I've got it now. Let's go."
Allie cast a final look back at the policeman at the news-
stand but Tony ignored the man entirely.
They caught a bus at the railroad station and rode it
nearly a mile into the center of town, which was laid out
around a large green. The Purvey Street bus was picked
up at the far comer and it was another twenty-minute
ride out through a run-down, shabby section to Melville
Street. Dingy fruit and grocery stores lined the way, broken
at one point by a housing project, and the bars were
plentiful. The one on the corner of MelvUle was called
Pat's and had a green neon shamrock on its projecting sign.
When they got off, Allie had a nostalgic pang. The neigh-
borhood was strikingly like the one he knew in the days
when he had a home. Even the smells of baking bread and
stale beer, of garlic and overripe fruit were familiar echoes
of the past. He knew without being told that the cops on
the beats here would be fat and lazy. They'd filch fruit
from helpless vendors and look into bakeshops for free
buns. They'd ogle the girls but they'd be too old and too
obese to do more. They'd sweat and they'd smell in the
summer and they'd curse the heat. In the winter they'd
curse the cold and hang out in the bars, having a quick
one on the house when no one else was around. The bar
latrines would be their site for a quick smoke and a warm
place to hide until the need to reach the next checkpoint
drove them out again. There'd be extra money for them
from the whores and sometimes from a recognized cus-
tomer, and there might be another buck or two from the
16
wiser kids for protection in their petty thefts. Allie knew
it all by He'd grown up in it.
heart.
The houses on Melville Street were two- and three-
family dwellings that sometimes housed four or five. There
was room in front for a patch of dirt and grass, and be-
tween for a walk to the rear with here and there a drive-
way. The streetlights were far apart and the cars along the
curbs left barely room for two to pass in the middle. The
beginning buds on the trees along the sidewalk promised to
make the street even darker in summer but, though some
might find it ominous, Allie felt protected and relaxed. He
was less afraid of the girl now and sure no evil would be-
fall him here.
Number twenty was halfway down the block, a double-
porched three-story house with two front doors. They
mounted the steps to peer at the number and Tony struck
a match to read the name-tags but the plates under the
three bells were vacant. He swore, made a trip back to the
sidewalk to look up at the house and returned again.
"Lights on the second floor," he said. "Black on the first
and third." He peered through the dark living-room window
of the first floor and came back again. "Son of a bitch," he
growled. "All right, let's see who's up." He found the sec-
ond-floor bell and pressed it insistently.
There was a dim light in the stairwell back of the right-
hand door but no shadow fell on the mesh curtain behind
the glass. He rang again and there followed the sound of
a door, then heavy feet on the porch overhead. A harsh
woman's voice said, "Whaddaya want?"
Tony went back down the steps and looked up. "Zeuss,"
he said.
"That's upstairs. Why'nt ya look where you're ringing?"
"There're no lights up there."
"Then she ain't home."
"Know when she'U be back?"
"Whaddaya think I am, Information Please?" The door
slammed and silence fell.
20
" " " " " "
was back in that jail. He couldn't tell about the hell Tough
Tony gave those guards and how he was admired by all
the other cons. And when Allie was new in the prison and
bunked in with Tony and the other two men, Tony was
23
—
Sunday, April y
27
He felt the stirrings and moved his body
of desire
against hers, then raised himself on an elbow to take her
face in his hand and kiss her. She snuggled instantly, as if
she'd been waiting for him. "You learn fast, Handsome,"
she whispered. "You're quite a guy."
Tony was prowling the living room when Allie and Lor-
raine finally came out. "Jesus Christ," he said irritably,
"I thought you were dead in there. Whaddaya think I'm
supposed to do, sit here and stare at the walls?"
Allie's glow faded into feelings of guilt. "Jesus, Tony,
I'm sorry."
"You oughtta be. A nice soft bed while I lay on this
lump of couch. I can't even stretch out my feet. And then
ya sleep till noon and spend another hour whoring around
before you get outta bed. Whaddaya think you are, on
vacation?"
Lorraine said, "The Big Shot's hungry. That's what's the
matter with him. I'll cook some breakfast."
Allie went over to Tony when she left. "Jesus," he said
softly. "You told me to make a play for her."
"And you sure did! I could hear those goddam bed-
springs creaking half the night. Whaddaya think this is,
recess? You think maybe nobody's looking for us? You
think the cops out in Indiana ain't got teletypes or some-
thing? You think maybe they forgot we got away?"
"Well, hell, nobody knows we're here."
"For how long? You don't never relax in this racket
You don't never take time off.'*
"No."
"What about the dame downstairs? She keep her nose
clean?"
"She don't know you're here."
"If we stay she'll find out."
28
"
30
Monday, April 8
Lorraine's workday laundromat was eight-thirty in
at the
the morning till with a half hour for lunch.
five at night
On that first Monday she kept tight rein on her own
money and Allie and Tony were limited in their explora-
tions to the dollar plus they had between them.
Their day, however, wasn't wasted. They spent part of
their funds on a couple of beers at Pat's bar on the comer
and Tony disassociated himself from Allie long enough to
make a pitch to a solitary girl there. Apparently he could
not produce a sufficient bankroll for it came to nothing
and the two youths walked out.
The rest of the afternoon was spent getting acquainted
—
with the neighborhood without getting spotted by the po-
lice. This was a factor that worried Allie more than Tony.
He knew that no matter what kind of man the beat cop
might be, he found out what was going on in his territory.
After he'd stared at the same faces day after day long
enough, dumb or smart he was going to notice a new one.
The noticing was apt to lead to questioning and if the an-
swers weren't fast and right, or a fin slipped into a surrep-
titious palm, the stranger would more than likely end up
down in headquarters on a vagrancy charge while his fin-
gerprints were checked.
It was Tony who set Allie's mind at ease. His conversa-
tion with the girl in the bar had not all been jockeying
about price and he was pleased to announce that there was
no beat cop any more. Walking, it seemed, developed flat
feet and the ailment had been eliminated by completely
motorizing the force. Patrols were now carried out by two
men touring the area in a squad car. This divorced them
from the natives for it was hard to discourse well from a
car. That meant the cops not only wouldn't recognize a
stranger but they wouldn't hear of him. They were aloof
and unaware and they could be easily avoided.
Tony and Allie, in soiled clothes but without jackets,
bore the look of laborers and conducted their studies with-
out interruption. A small grocery six blocks away struck
31
Allie as the best bet for a burglary, especially after a stroll
through the alley to the yard in back revealed nothing but
a padlock on the rear door. With a screwdriver the hinge
could be unfastened and the door opened without sound.
In fact, Allie pointed out, the hinge could be screwed back
into place afterwards and no one would know how the
burglars got in. It was a touch that tickled Tony. "The
phantom burglars! That's us," he said.
The only drawback was that the owner and his family
obviously lived on the second floor above the store. This
problem could hardly be avoided, however, for most of
the neighborhood shops were nothing more than the lower
floor of an occupied building. A
silent operation would,
nevertheless, take care of the matter. The family would
hear nothing so long as pains were taken, and Allie ob-
served that a streetlight across the way would lighten the
interior of the grocery sufficiently so that he wouldn't
stumble into things. All in all it was a cinch deal and the
only question was how much cash they'd find in the place.
It was when she got home that night that Lorraine found
out about the plan. She was too shrewd to miss the under-
current of excitement in the two men and when supper
was over she said, "All right, what are you up to?"
Tony was sure that if he feigned innocence she'd worm
it out of Allie in bed. Besides that, he was proud of their
"For when?"
"Tomorrow night. It won't take long and, if we're lucky,
have some dough for a change."
we'll
"What is it?"
"A store we're gonna knock over. It's a can't-miss deal."
"Yeah," Lorraine said bitterly. "That's what Charlie said,
only it turned into manslaughter."
"All right," Tony snapped, "so there's always a risk. You
think you're telling me something I don't know?"
"How're you gonna get in?"
Tony told her.
"Only you mean Allie's gonna do it, don't you? You'U
stand guard around the corner."
"Lay off the dirty cracks. If anybody's yella, it's Allie.
He's a sneak-type burglar. He does it behind people's
backs. When I do it, it's in front of their face. And I ain't
32
afraid to pull no trigger, neither. You ask a guy named
Dominic Paolella if you don't believe me."
"Who the hell's Dominic Paolella?"
"Just the guy I went to jail for on accountta he opened
his mouth and yelled 'cop' and he got himself shot through
the gut. If he hadn'tta been lucky it'd be a murder rap on
me insteadda assault so shut your frigging mouth."
"Then don't call Allie yellow."
"He ain't yellow. Allie's got guts too. I wouldn'tta let
him come along with me if he was yellow."
Lorraine said, "O.K., Big Shot. So you're gonna knock
over a grocery store. Whaddaya gonna do it with?"
"A screwdriver. It's as simple as that,"
"I mean what about gloves? I mean what about clothes?
Those filthy rags you're wearing, let anybody get a peek at
you and they'll remember you a hundred years. And how
d'ya know there ain't no locks on the inside of that door?
How d'ya know that padlock's all there is? Jesus Christ,
you go there with a screwdriver and if the guy's got noth-
ing harder than a slide bolt on the inside of that door
you're up the creek."
"You're real wise, ain't you?"
"I been around longer than you have and I got a
brother who's been around longer than that. He's forgot
more about that business than you'll ever know and I
learned it from him 'cause I used to spot for him and I
used to drive the car."
Tony said, "All right, you're so great, suppose you tell
us what to do."
She ignored the sarcasm. "First you need gloves. It don't
matter how slick you are if you leave your fingerprints
all over the place."
Tony waved, "Who gives a damn about prints? We're
being hunted whether we knock over a store or not."
"So you ride a freight all the way East to get away and
now you're gonna tell everybody you're in Pittsfield? You
call that being a 'phantom burglar'?"
"So how the hell are you gonna get money out of a
cash drawer with gloves on?"
"You take off one glove and wipe the drawer after-
wards. That means you need handkerchiefs besides gloves.
And something to go over your face. As for clothes, you
can't wear what you've got."
33
"
34
itstraight about the rest of the deal. I'll give you some
dough and tomorrow you buy the things I tell ya. Only
you don't go in the stores together. You go in one at a
time. Now you'll need a claw in case that door's locked
from the inside — wait,I'll get paper and write it down.'*
Tuesday y April g
at the shut and dark grocery store three doors down the
block and his nervousness increased. There were more peo-
ple around than he had anticipated and there was a
good deal more traffic.
As he stood uncertainly, two girls went by, arm in arm.
One looked him over, from the tight blue jeans to the
young, still untouched face. "Hello, Handsome," she said
as they passed and both looked back, giggling.
He wondered if they might remember him, if they could
36
around with guilt all over your frigging face! Come on!"
They went to the back again and luck was with them.
A light was on in one window overhead and its glow en-
abled the pair to pick their way through the trash to the
rear door. "Real good," Tony whispered. "Here's the
screwdriver."
Allie laid the prize bar on the ground and got to work
on the hasp screws. They were old and rusty and in the
darkness it was hard finding their slots. It took a full
fifteen minutes before Allie got them out and slipped them
into his pocket. He put on his gloves then, turned the
knob and felt the door come free. There were no other
locks.
When he slowly pulled the door open, the hinges
squeaked and the squeal sounded like a shriek in the
surrounding silence of the yard and against the distant
noises of the street. The two youths froze and held their
breaths for a long, anxious moment. Nothing hap-
pened and, shaken, they slipped inside, Allie first.
The streetlight, on which they depended for illumina-
tion, was effective up at the front of the store but there in
the back the darkness was Stygian. "I can't see a frigging
thing," Tony muttered. "What're we supposed to do now?"
"Lorraine said put on masks."
"The hell with that. Nobody can see nothing in this
place."
Faintly, from someplace upstairs, the voice of a tele-
vision set murmured and the sound was comforting. "We
have to go carefully," Allie whispered. "The cash register
willbe up at the front."
"You go and I'll stay here. I got the steel bar. I'll
stand guard."
"O.K." Allie was just as glad. He had more confidence
in his own ability through the store without
to creep
collision than Tony's. He was on his home ground now.
His eyes had grown somewhat accustomed to the lack
of light and he could make out the shadows of stocked
groceries and the aisles between. As he progressed, the
way got lighter and the silence, outside of the upstairs
mutter of TV, was total. He felt exhilarated. It was a
snap, a cinch. It couldn't miss.
The cash register was on the side counter near the door
and it was almost too light there. If anyone paused out-
37
side to look through the window, that one would be all
but certain to see him.
He crept, half stooping, behind the counter to the
machine and let his gloved hands feel it. The gloves
were too much of a handicap and he pocketed them.
Then he felt for ways to get the cash register open. It
was an old machine and there was no lock on the
drawer. That much was to the good, but pressing the
drawer, feeling for knobs and otherwise exploring proved
fruitless. The machine was obviously so simple it only
opened by ringing up a sale.
Allie shook his head. He didn't like that. He felt under
the counter but there was no strongbox. If there was any
loose cash in the store it had to be in the register. He held
his breath, waited until the sidewalk outside was clear of
people, then pressed the cash register keys.
The clang of the bell as the drawer jumped open
sounded like a prizefight gong and Allie leaped back,
froze, then looked around.Someone walked by outside
without looking in. The muted sound of the TV continued
calmly. All else was silence.
Slowly Allie's heart stopped pounding. He took a breath
and stepped forward again. His fingers lightly felt the
drawer partitions, encountered loose change but no paper
money. He made a face. Nickels and quarters, dimes
and pennies! He should have known there'd be nothing in
a shop like this. He lifted the metal drawer lining and
slid his hand underneath where the big bills would be
kept but there was nothing there either.
Almost angrily he began scooping out the small
amounts of change. He'd be lucky to get back outside with
five dollars for his trouble.
He stuffed the coins in his pocket and was just feeling
for the handkerchief when, with a flash that staggered him
with terror, all the lights in the store went on.
He mouth open and was stunned to
whirled with his
see the owner coming towards him from the stairway.
He was a short man whose stocky build had run to fat.
His hair was gray and thin, his face puffy, and he wad-
dled like a goose. As a hero he looked comical but there
was no humor in it for Allie. The man had a thirty-eight
revolver and he pointed it steadily. He knew what he was
about and he was angry enough to shoot without hesita-
38
" "
tion. "So," the man said, scowling through his glasses, his
lower puffy cheeks flushed with anger,
lip thrust out, his
"you think you do something, huh? You think you steal
from George Panatopolis, huh?"
Allie couldn't take his eyes off the gun. He swallowed.
"Honest, mister
—
The man came up to the open side of the counter. "I
call the cops. So how you like that, huh? Come outta
there,you punk. Stick up your hands."
them to shoulder height and shuffled
Allie raised for-
ward. All he could think about was the picture of that
man at a telephone, the police arriving, a trip to the sta-
tion house, and then the interviews under garish lights.
If it were a theft that would be one thing, but
just
they'd find out in no time that he was an escaped con
and then he'd be sunk. All because of this little man.
"Please, mister," Allie said in desperation. "I wasn't
doing nothing."
"Hah!" was a snort of rage and the man backed up,
It
keeping well out of Allie's reach while holding him help-
lessly at bay. It was as if the man were used to burglars.
"You think you rob old George out of the money he
saves, huh? I show you."
Allie wanted to cry. He wanted to get down on his knees
before the old man and swear he'd never steal again in his
live if only the man would let him go. He'd mean it too.
He wouldn't ever want to risk a spot like this again if
only the man would let him off this time.
A woman's voice, around the turn of the stairs, hol-
lered, "What is it, George?"
"A punk," George called back. "I caught him with his
hands in the cashbox. Call the cops, Essie. I hold him."
"You all right, George?"
"Sure. Call the cops, Essie." He lowered his voice. "Come
on, punk, keep those hands up and don't move. I'll put a
hole through ya, ya punk."
Off at the front Allie noticed that no one was yet
peering through the window. The lights hadn't attracted
any real attention. "Mister," he pleaded, "I didn't mean to
do nothing. I
—
"Shut up, punk," the man interrupted. "You just stand
still and keep quiet."
"Won't you even listen?"
39
"Tell it to the cops. The cops come, you tell them.
They'll listen."
Once more the awful specter of the swarm of police,
the questioning and all the rest flooded before his eyes.
If there were any chance of jumping the man he'd have
taken it. He'd risk anything to get away, but the man gave
him no leeway at all.
A movement at the rear caught his eye. It was Tony
creeping silently through the store and hope exploded in
AUie's chest. He'd completely forgotten Tony and it sur-
prised him. How could he have forgotten his buddy? Had
he, subconsciously, assumed Tony had fled? Ridiculous.
Not his buddy Tony.
He watched without appearing to watch. The man was
talking to him now,
calling him names, trying to rein-
still the fear in Allie he could sense had gone. Allie
didn't hear him. His attention was all on Tony. Tony was
close now but Allie could see he was unarmed. Why
hadn't he brought the steel prize bar? A
clout on the
old man's head and nobody would get hurt. This way it
was two against one but the one had a gun and the gun
might go off.
Tony drew close enough to pounce and Allie shifted his
feet slightly, getting himself poised.
At the last moment some
inner sense warned the old
man that something was wrong. He started to turn his
head. As he did, Tony rose and his arms leaped like
snakes. One circled the old man's neck and the other
struck his arm and wrestled for the gun.
The man wrenched but all he did was throw himself
off balance. He started to struggle, one hand clawing at the
vice around his neck while the other tried to get the gun
free.
Then was on him, both hands diving for the
Allie
thirty-eight. He
tore it from the man's hand with the
frenzy of fear. The gun clattered to the floor and Allie
hit the man as hard as he could in the stomach and side
of the head.
"Police!" hollered the man
Tony's hold slipped. Then
as
Tony swung around and him in the mouth.
hit
"Police!" the man shouted again in a blubbering tone
and there was an echoing yell from out front. Some-
40
body had looked in the window and was starting to run,
shrieking, "Police! Help, police!"
Inside the store both youths drove their fists into the old
fat man, swinging wildly in their desperation. The man
stopped shouting. "Please, please," he said, and moaned.
Blood was running from his nose and mouth and red fist
marks were stamped on his shirt. He slumped to the
floor and Tony gave him a vicious kick.
"Run," he panted, turning to Allie. He pushed him
aside and snatched up the gun. "Run for it." He bolted
for the back.
Allie took a step to follow, then checked his own
panic as a thought struck him. He bent over the semi-
conscious and groaning man, rolled him onto his side and
felt his back pocket. A
fat wallet was stuffed there and
he yanked it out.
As he did, the front door rattled and he looked up to
see a cop. "Halt," the cop yelled and tugged at his hip.
Allie turned and sprinted down the straight aisle for
the back door. There was the explosion of a shot and a
bullet whanged into the doorframe beside his head as he
went through into the blackness of the yard. Upstairs
all the Ughts were on and a woman was screaming.
42
Tuesday Night
out.
The eye-popping total was $784.00 and when Allie
emptied pockets another $3.62 in change was added.
his
"How's that for an evening's work?" Tony said, beaming.
43
"Did I pick the spot or didn't I?" He gathered up the
money and peeled five twenties from the roll and held
them out to Lorraine. "Didn't I tell you a hundred
bucks? Leave it to Tony to call the shots."
Lorraine took the money and then said, "Where's the
rest of it?"
"Rest of it?" Tony's smile went away. "There ain't no
*rest'. You
got that and consider yourself lucky."
"That hundred's for rent. I'm talking about my cut."
"You don't get no cut. Whattaya mean?"
"I mean I doped the thing out for ya. I planned the
goddam job."
"The hell you did. Allie and me
you to pull
didn't need
it off. We can plan our own We
you blabber 'cause
jobs. let
you wanted to blabber but we ain't paying you for talk.
Allie and me run the risks and Allie and me get the
dough."
She said bitterly, "I ain't seen you give Allie none yet."
"I'm the treasurer. I keep the dough. Ain't that right,
Allie?"
Allie nodded.
Tony peeled off a ten-spot and tossed it on the table.
"Here, Allie. Here's some pocket dough. You need more,
you tell me."
Lorraine put her hands on her hips. "And what about
the dough I gave ya to buy the clothes and stuff with?
You ain't paid that back yet."
"What'd that come to? Seventy-eight something, wasn't
it, Allie?" He pulled off five more twenties. "Here and
don't say I ain't generous."
Lorraine was satisfied. She took the bills greedily and
Tony grinned. He stuffed the wad in his pocket and
rubbed his hands. "Well now, let's say we celebrate. I feel
like going out on the town. A
big haul like this don't come
every day!"
Alliesaid, "Hey, great," and even Lorraine smiled.
"How about Pat's on the comer?"
"The hell with that dive. I mean celebrate. I mean
something decent where there's dancing. I mean I wantta
—
go where there're some broads not a bunch of down-and-
out bums. How about it, Lorraine? You know this burg.
Name something."
The place they went to was close to the center of town,
44
a pseudo-swank cocktail bar with dim lights, a jukebox,
a small dance floor and higher-priced drinks. Tony and
Allie got into the new clothes and the three of them took
the Purvey Street bus, arriving at quarter past twelve.
There were no more than a dozen people in the lounge,
most of them men. Tony picked a table and went to the
bar for beers but his eyes were on what females were
present. One was a fat, middle-aged woman in a too
tight dress who sat on a bar stool and talked earnestly,
her face flushed, to a man who appeared not to listen. A
skinny redhead in a print dress also sat at the bar and
two other girls, a blonde and a brunette, swayed to the
jukebox music in the arms of a couple of unappealing men.
Tony came back with the beers and sat down. "The
blonde out dancing ain't bad," he said. "She ain't bad at
all."
Allie, who hadn't really paid attention to the women,
looked over at her. She wore a bright red dress and the
figure it covered was well developed and alluring. Allie
liked that and he also liked her grace. She handled her-
self well and he began to watch her. Her back was to-
wards him most of the time and he didn't get to see her
face until the number ended and the two separated
but when he did, he liked that too. He liked it very much.
She was one of the prettiest girls he'd ever seen, for she
had a cute, baby-type face, merry, untroubled eyes, and
a mouth that was accustomed to smiles. She clapped her
hands lightly and happily, then went to the brunette for a
few words before the music started again.
Allie glanced at Tony but Tony's eyes were all on the
blonde. Allie didn't blame him. She was a dish, all
right, and she made him conscious of Lortaine's plain-
ness, of the fact that Lorraine didn't attract him at all
until they got into bed. Even then it was only animal
attraction and not the kind of emotion they made movies
about. The blonde was nice just to look at. She was pretty
to watch and alluring even with her clothes on.
Tony said, "Let's shove that punk outta there," and got
up to cut in. Allie watched with wistful envy as Tony
clapped the man on the shoulder and took the girl in
his own arms. He couldn't have done that for all the
money they'd stolen that night. He didn't know what to
do around girls other than the bedroom techniques Lor-
45
raine had taught him and they, somehow, didn't go with
the blonde.
When the record ended, Tony took the girl to the bar
for a drink and they leaned on it together, their heads
close. Allie glanced at Lorraine and her face was stony.
She obviously didn't approve but he didn't know why.
After all, Tony didn't have anybody. Why shouldn't he
have some fun?
Tony and the girl put a coin in the jukebox and danced
again while the man who'd been with her, a flabby-looking
individual in his thirties, watched unhappily from a table.
He had a mustache and he kept picking at it over his drink
while seeming to debate what action to take. There weren't
too many answers. Lean, muscular Tony wasn't somebody
to tackle, especially when he wasn't alone.
When that record was finished, Tony picked up the
drinks from the bar and steered the girl to Allie and Lor-
raine. "This is Valentine," he said. "Valentine May. Some
name, huh?" He introduced "Lorraine" and "My buddy,
Allie", and they sat down. "Here's your drink, Baby."
She nodded a thank you and said, "Aren't you two
dancing? You oughtta try it. It's a lotta fun. I been danc-
ing almost steady since half past nine.'*
Tony said, "You come here often?"
"Quite a lot. Me and Bemice. She's my girlfriend."
Tony jerked a thumb. "What about the guy? Is he your
boyfriend?"
"Boyfriend?" Valentine laughed. "Heck no. I only met
him tonight."
"And now you met us!"
"That's right." She lifted her glass. "Here's to us."
Tony probed her with more questions and learned she'd
been raised in Albany, she worked as a waitress in a
and shared a room with Bernice a block away
cafeteria
on Bentwood Street. Bernice worked in the cafeteria with
her.
"Only one room?" Tony said.
"Sure. Thirty-five dollars a month for the two of us."
"Whattaya do if Bemice, say, has a boyfriend who
wants to come up?"
She laughed. "We can't have anybody up. The land-
lady's very strict."
"Hell, she goes to bed don't she?"
46
"Not till awful late. And we have to get up early, you
know."
Tony didn't like that and made a face. "Yeah," he said
bitterly.
She cocked her head at him. "You got a car?"
"No."
"You don't even have a car? I thought everybody had a
car. What do you do? I mean, what's your job?"
"I'm a promoter," Tony said.
"Promoter? What do you promote?"
"Whatever anybody wants promoted."
"Al there, the man I was dancing with before, he's a
salesman. He's here from Hartford."
"The hell with him."
"He's got a brand new Oldsmobile. He was going to
give me a ride in it."
"Well, I was thinking of buying a Cadillac myself. Con-
vertible, of course."
Valentine's eyes grew round. "You mean it?"
"Closed a little deal today. I'm thinking about it"
"Will you take me for a ride?"
"You said it. Baby. Unless you'd rather ride in an Olds."
She gestured impatiently. "Al's a drip. You're much bet-
ter looking than he is."
"I'm better all around than he is."
She eyed him and smiled. "I'll bet you are."
They got up and danced some more and Al, seeming to
make up his mind, cut in. Tony shook him off and Al tried
again. There followed a brief discussion in quiet tones at
the end of which Al stalked back to his table, finished
Valentine's drink, threw a bill beside the glass and left.
Both Tony and Valentine turned in their dancing to watch
him go.
When the number was over it was nearly closing time.
Tony and Valentine went to say something to Bemice and
came back to the table. "Valentine's coming back with us
for a drink," Tony announced. "Let's get moving."
Lorraine looked Valentine over and said sourly, "What
about your girlfriend?"
Valentine shrugged. "She can get home by herself."
"And how're you gonna get home?"
"We got a car, Bemice and me. We share it only I drive
on accountta I'm the one with the Ucense."
47
The car was a cramped jalopy that rattled like an ice
wagon but the engine was good and Valentine took them
home in it. They climbed the stairs and if the flat wasn't
the expected quarters of a promoter contemplating a Cad-
illac, showed no disappointment.
Valentine
much," Tony said. "We'll be moving out soon.
"It ain't I
get the couch and the damned thing's too small."
Valentine laughed. "Why that's a convertible couch.
Didn't you know that?" Then she showed him how it
opened up and Tony was tickled. "What the hell do you
know about that?" he said. "That solves all our problems."
The pair was playful while drinks were being made and
even Allie grinned and felt lighthearted. Only Lorraine re-
mained stony-faced and when she came back from show-
ing Valentine the facilities, she cut loose. "You stupid,
knuckle-headed bastard," she said to Tony in a searing
voice. "What the hell are you trying to do?"
His mood was too gay to be upset and he laughed at her.
"A big girl like you oughtta know the answer to that one
without asking."
"Did you see her eyes pop at the wad you paid the bill
with? She's gonna roll you, you simple-minded son of a
bitch. What d'ya think she came up here for, your charm?"
"Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do." The amusement fled
and his voice got harsh. "So shove it. It's time you and the
kid went to bed."
Lorraine turned on her heel. "Well don't come crying to
me.
Allie trailed after her while, behind them, Tony
laughed.
Wednesday^ April lo
She stalked out down the hall then and Allie could hear
Tony swear again. Lorraine's answer was a sneer. "I
thought Valentine had to go to work. Do you know what
the hell time it is?" There was a rattle of pots and pans in
49
the kitchen and the coffee pot was slapped hard on the
stove.
Allie got into his clothes slowly and unhappily and he
didn't leave the bedroom until Lorraine called him. He
found Valentine fully dressed and putting on make-up
with the aid of her compact mirror, smoothing the lip-
stick with her finger. "Hi," she said brightly and snapped
her compact shut. "I guess I gave you a start."
— —
"No, I uh " She smelled nice and she was as pretty
as a spring day, soft, warm and uncomplicated. Allie was
aware of blushing.
She gave his arm a playful slap. "Sure I did. But it was
so late and Tony said I might's well sleep here and
stop off home to change on my way to work."
"That's fine," said Allie awkwardly. He liked her playful
touching of him but he feared Tony wouldn't. "I guess
Lorraine's got coffee ready."
"I can't stay. I don't have time."
"Oh. Well, gee, it's been nice meeting you."
Tony, with pants on but his well-muscled body exposed
from the waist up, put an arm around Valentine and
drew her against him. "It ain't good-by, huh, Baby?" He
was glowing.
She looked up at him with her prettiest smile and shook
her head.
At the door they went into a long clinch before she
started down the stairs and he stood on the top landing
watching her until she was on the porch. Then he closed
the door, seized Allie around the waist and swung him in
a circle. "What a doll!" he said. "Jesus, is she ever some-
thing!"
Lorraine was standing in the kitchen doorway and her
voice was acid. "You still got your wad. Hero?"
Tony pulled it from his pocket and showed it to her.
"Take a look. Take a big, frigging look, Cat, and pull in
your frigging claws!"
"Yeah? Well if she ever comes back around here you tell
her to keep her goddam mitts off a my man!"
Tony sat down to the breakfast and leered. "Not 'if.
Cat. When! I got her just about persuaded to move in."
Both Lorraine and Allie came to a dead stop. Lorraine
turned slowly. "What?"
"You heard me. Four's company. Three's a crowd."
50
"
Wednesday Afternoon
Tony and Allie lolled around the house most of the day,
drinking beer and feeling like kings. They had money and
Tony had a girl. Her name kept cropping up and Allie
heard over and over again what a doll she was.
Towards four o'clock they went outdoors for a change
of scene and to see what the papers had to say about the
robbery. They bought the Pittsfield daily at a candy store
around the corner and opened it in a booth in Pat's bar
over a beer. The story was on the first page and Allie
gasped. The headline read, "STORE OWNER DIES IN
BURGLARY."
"It can't be,'* Allie whispered, staring at the bold let-
ters with stunned eyes.
"Shut up," Tony muttered, and even he was shaken.
"Finish the beer. We're getting outta here." He put away
the paper, tucking it in his pocket, and his poise came
back. He sipped from the glass with the nonchalance that
Allie usually admired but this time Allie strained with im-
patience. He kept staring at the protruding paper, itching
to get it, and Tony had to whisper, "For God's sake, act
natural I"
Then they were out on the street but Tony still wouldn't
and he kept the paper in his jacket
yield to Allie's curiosity
pocket till they were back in the flat once more. At last,
with the door safely locked, he spread it on the table and
both pored over the story.
George Panatopolis, according to the report, had in-
53
terrupted one or more burglars in his shop about ten
o'clock the previous night. The burglars had beaten the
sixty-three-year-old man and he succumbed in an ambu-
lance en route to the hospital. Cause of death was listed
as heart attack pending autopsy and a hunt was on for
the killer or killers.
Further down the column the article related how Patrol-
man Jacob Morris had arrived on the scene as the burglar,
a youth in his early twenties, dressed in dungarees and
dark shirt, was stealing the fallen man's wallet. He had
fired through the glass pane of the door as the robber fled
but the shot had missed. Morris described the thief as
dark-haired but that was all he could say. Entry had been
gained through the back door of the store and fingerprint
experts were going over the premises.
Allie finished reading, white and shaken. "Jesus," he
said. "We killed him!"
Tony punched him hard. "Come off it. We
didn't kill
him. He had
a heart attack. That ain't our fault!"
—
"Yeah, but if we I mean the judge would call it mur-
der."
"What judge? What the hell makes you think we're going
before any frigging judge?"
"The cop saw me."
"I read that. He says you got dark hair. What the hell
does that mean? Will you, for Christ's sake, relax? No-
body's gonna do nothing. Now forget it."
Allie licked his lips. "I wish I could. Jesus, if we
hadn'tta broke in the guy'd still be alive."
"If he hadn't stuck a gun in your face he'd be alive too.
The nosy old bastard got what was coming to him. He
shouldda stayed upstairs with his frigging TV."
"Yeah, but—"
"Yeah but what? You want me not to've jumped him?
Ya want me to have gone away and left ya? You know
where you'd be if I hadn'tta belted him one? If he was
alive now you'd be in a cell waiting transportation back
to Indiana and that frigging meathead would be the one
fingering you! You oughtta be goddam glad he kicked off.
He's the one bastard who could really identify you! He
had you memorized down to your last frigging whisker,
that's what he had, and if you ever happened just to walk
by his goddam store or happened to stick your head out
54
on the sometime when he was accidentally passing
street
by, he'd be hollering 'cop' and we'd've had it. If that
bastard was still alive we'd have to clear outta this burg.
That's what we'd have to do. You oughtta be goddam glad
he's dead 'cause he's the only witness!"
Allie shook his head. "But, Jesus, I didn't mean for him
to die."
Tony punched him again, harder this time. "What's the
matter with you? You yella or something? He'dda kicked
off in a day or two anyhow with a bad heart. So what if
he is dead? Who the hell was he? Who the hell cares? Stop
your goddam blubbering."
"That's all right for you. You actually shot a man once."
"And I'dda shot this one if I'd had the gun. If you're
gonna be yella, what're you a burglar for? You think you
can break into places and nobody's ever gonna try to
stop ya? You goddam well oughtta know it's gonna hap-
pen sooner or later and when it does it's you or him.
Whattaya want it to be, you?"
Allie shook his head. "No. I suppose you're right. It's
just that I'm kindda excited maybe." He looked up. "I
ain't yella, Tony."
"TTien show you ain't. Insteadda worrying about what
happened to some punk who didn't deserve to be living
anyhow, why don't you worry about the things that mat-
ter? Like leaving your frigging fingerprints. What'd ya
take your goddam gloves off for anyhow?"
"It was just to get into the drawer."
"Yeah, and if they get any prints and check them out,
you know what's gonna happen? They're gonna discover
there's two jailbreakers supposed to be in Indiana some-
where who're here in Pittsfield. That's gonna be just great!
All I can say is that's one hell of a goddam robbery we
pulled off! We're gonna have to lay low for a while. I
guess you know that!"
"Yeah. I know. But I didn't mean nothing, Tony."
Tony decided Allie was contrite enough. He clapped
him on the shoulder. "It's O.K., Kid. There ain't nobody
gonna touch us. The only witness is dead and they prob-
ably ain't gonna get nothing on those prints. We'll be
O.K. Now straighten up. I don't want you moping when
Valentine's here. I don't want her suspecting nothing."
55
Friday, April 12 through Friday, April 26
the payment."
They set up housekeeping on Easter Sunday in a two-
floor, eight-room furnished house on the southern fringe
of the Pittsfield city limits. It was far enough from the
neighbors to give them sufficient privacy, near enough to
the bus line to make the city accessible, and Valentine
signed a one-year lease at $130 per with a month's rent
in escrow.
"It ain't bad," Tony admitted to Allie privately. "Of
course I know what that bitch Lorraine's got up her
sleeve. She's trying to tie us down. She wants you around,
Kid."
"You want us to be tied down, Tony?"
—
"I'm all for it, Kid so long as I got my girl."
"Does she know about us yet? I mean what we do?"
"I ain't told her if that's what you mean."
"You going to?"
"I ain't sure. I don't think she's that stuck on me yet.
She might walk out and I ain't taking chances."
"But we're gonna need money. How ya gonna explain
to her about our going out nights?"
"I been thinking about that. Kid. So she'n Lorraine
work all day? So'U we."
"We can't burgle places in the daytime!"
"No, but you're forgetting something. You're forgetting
that gun I took offa the old cluck we knocked off."
"You mean you're gonna hold up places in the day-
time?"
"I mean we are. You'n me, Kid."
"But we ain't got a car for a getaway."
"We're gonna steal 'em. Steal 'em and ditch 'em. And we
can use Lorraine's flat to go to. She'n Valentine can pick
us up on their way home."
They struck for the first time in daylight on the follow-
ing Wednesday. Valentine drove them into town when she
took Lorraine to work that morning for, as Tony told her,
he had "business" appointments. The two got off near the
green and roamed the downtown area till they found a car
parked at a meter with the keys in it. They took it to the
57
north side of town and Tony walked into a liquor store
while Allie kept the motor running. It was a two-minute
operation and netted them forty-eight dollars in bills.
They hit a drugstore next, some twenty blocks away, and
collected ninety-three dollars more. Then, deciding not to
press their luck, they abandoned the car on a side street
and took a bus back to the flat where they killed the rest
of the time drinking beer and complimenting themselves on
their skill.
"A piece of cake," Tony kept saying. "Just like a piece
of cake."
The robberies got a big write-up the following day with
the papers calling them "daring daylight holdups." Tony
was pleased. "I guess they've discovered something new's
come to town," he told Allie. What also pleased him was
that the descriptions of the robber given by the liquor store
owner and the druggist were fragmentary and didn't jibe.
They hit another liquor store the following week but the
results weren't as happy. In the first place, the till only
contained eleven dollars and, in the second, the victim's
description of Tony was much more accurate. He was
characterized in the papers as tall, well built, dark wavy
hair, swarthy complexion, probably Italian, and he had a
small mole on his right cheekbone.
Tony brooded about it that evening after the papers
came out. Lorraine knew what the trouble was for she had
seen the story but Valentine, oblivious to the way "Lover"
made his money, perhaps deliberately so, kept trying vainly
to cheer things up and complained that the place was like
a morgue. Finally she gave up and went to bed.
They held a council of war then and it was decided
that Allie would pull the next holdup with Tony driving
the car. "Cross 'em up a little," Lorraine said. "The bulls'll
be falling all over their own feet trying to figure it."
61
Friday Afternoon^ April 26
63
pickings to a storekeeper. They all had insurance anyway,
or they ought to.
Even when the grocery man died of a heart attack it
hadn't seemed serious. The law would say so but it was
obvious the guy was ready to go any moment. It was just
—
accident just one of those things.
Now, though, he couldn't kid himself any longer. He
had shot at and killed two men. It was no longer a game
for petty stakes. Cops were at this moment scouring the
town for him and every one of them carried a gun. It
wasn't arrest he had to fear —
capture and return to the
penitentiary in Indiana. He could be killed. He was only
twenty-two years old and he could be killed any day. He
—
might never live to be twenty-five or even twenty-three.
By the simple act of pulling the trigger that morning he
might have used up most of his life. And there was no
saying he didn't mean it. When the cops got him in their
sights they weren't going to ask about intent.
He got up to shake off the morbidity that was pressing
in on him and stalked into Lorraine's room, throwing him-
self on the bed. All right. If that was the way it was go-
ing to be . . "Big time", Tony had told him. Every cop
.
in the city was out looking for him. That was big time all
right. How many crooks ever had a whole city-wide search
going on for them at one time? Well, a big-time operator
didn't blubber around about not meaning to do anything
bad. So the cops had been staking out the neighborhood
liquor stores just lying in wait for him, had they? Well,
now they knew they weren't up against any small potatoes.
They probably thought he'd drop his gun and faint the
moment he saw the blue of their uniforms. They'd know
better next time. And as for catching him in the railroad
station or any other place, fat chance. He was no scared
kid any more. Only one thing. No matter what Tony said,
he wasn't going anywhere without that gun!
There was a click and the apartment door opened. Allie
sprang to his feet, one hand in his jacket pocket gripping
the revolver's butt, already as if from habit. Then he heard
the clack of familiar heels and he gently relaxed. He sat
down on the bed again and grinned as Valentine came to
the door.
Valentine, pert and pretty and always smiling, said, "Hi.
You and Tony ready?"
64
Allie had to admire the way she filled out a blouse.
Physically she was stacked. Mentally, though, she was as
guileless and innocent as a child. Her face had the same
disarming frankness, the same untroubled look. Valentine
never had problems. Valentine went blithely through life
with the happiness of a tot with a toy. She was never sour
in the morning, like Lorraine; she was never cranky at
night, and she could never understand why others might
be.
Allie smiled back at her. He couldn't help it. "Tony
ain't here."
She looked around as if not believing him and advanced
a little. "How come?"
"He had to go outta town on business. I gotta go too."
"When're you coming back?"
"In a few days. We won't be gone long."
She looked around again to make sure. "And he's al-
ready gone?"
"Uh-huh."
She came closer and studied him. "What're you so pale
about? You sick or something?"
"No. I'm fine."
"Is Lorraine coming?"
"Not here. She's going home on the bus."
They looked at each other, she standing, he sitting. Sud-
denly she laughed. "You look like a little boy who's scared
of something. Are you scared of something, Allie?"
"Not a thing."
"Sure now? Honest Injun?"
He reached for her hand and drew her down beside him
on the bed. "Look in rny eyes. Look deep." He put his
hand on her knee. "Do my eyes look scared?"
She looked at them and smiled. "They look pretty."
"So do yours."
She regarded him quizzically. "You're funny."
Hepushed his hand under her skirt. "Funny? How?"
"I don't know. All kind of wild and reckless. I've never
seen you wild and reckless."
He advanced his hand but the skirt was starting to bind.
He said, "Do you like me that way? Wild and reckless?"
She laughed. "I like you any old way, so there." She
looked around again. "You're sure nobody's coming? I
mean Tony or Lorraine?"
65
"Tony's on the train already and Lx)rraine's off visiting
her mother."
Valentine eased her skirt so it didn't bind and the sky-
rockets went off in Allie's head. He thrust her down on the
bed and kissed and pawed her uncontrollably, stirred by
emotions he had never felt with Lorraine.
She locked her arms around his neck and strained
against him. Her voice was husky, eager and frantic. "Un-
dress me."
Tony and Allie spent four days in the big city and Allie
would have liked it to continue. They had a room in a
cheap hotel on the outskirts of Harlem and spent much of
their time with a couple of Puerto Rican girls they picked
up. The one Allie had couldn't make him forget the pic-
ture of Valentine as he had last seen her, naked and
drowsily fulfilled on the bed, but she appealed to him a
good deal more than Lorraine. Now that he was gaining
experience with other girls he was less and less satisfied
with the first.
He dreaded going back to her sharp tongue and the con-
stant conflict she generated. He resented the smothered
feeling she gave him —
as if he were some personal pos-
session she doted on —
and he longed to be free. More than
once he suggested to Tony that they never go back, raising
the arguments of the hunt, the trap, the needless risk.
Tony merely shrugged at first and seemed almost amena-
ble but as the second day turned into the third he began to
talk of Valentine and his longing for her increased with
the hours. Allie, treading carefully, tried to point up her
faults. After all, wasn't she a pushover? If she'd spend the
night with him on a two-hour acquaintanceship, wouldn't
she with others? What about the salesman from Hartford
Tony had stolen her from? What did Tony think she and
the guy would've been doing in his new Oldsmobile if he
hadn't come along?
It was a fruitless effort for Tony cared nothing about
her virtue. He just wanted to be around her. "I ain't never
66
about a dame before," he confessed, "but she
felt like this
sure does things to me." And he even said, "Hey, Allie,
do you suppose I could be in love? Is that what love is?"
Whatever it was, Tony couldn't stay away and on the
morning of the fourth day he called Lorraine at the laun-
dromat to find how things were. The heat wasn't off, she
told him, but it had slackened and she thought it would be
safe. That was all Tony needed and he and Allie were on
the noon train back to Pittsfield.
Lorraine was back living in the flat again for appear-
ance's sake but that wasn't the real change that had taken
place during their absence. She didn't mention it on the
phone, nor when she got home from work. She waited till
Tony began to fret and then she told him. Valentine was
gone.
He neariy exploded. "Gone! Gone where?"
"Home. At least that's where she said she was going."
"Home?" He grabbed for the phone. "You mean Ber-
nice? What the hell is her number?"
Lorraine was very cool about it all. "I don't mean Ber-
nice. I mean back to her folks, wherever that is."
"Albany? She can't do that," he roared. "She wouldn'tta
done a thing like that." He was on his feet now, turning
accusingly, and his wrath was dangerous. "You left her a
note, didn't you, AUie?"
Allie nodded.
"You told her I'd be coming back, didn't you?"
Allie nodded again. ^.
chased her home. You never did like her. You made her
go!"
He advanced threateningly but Lorraine came to her
feet and met him halfway. "It wasn't me, you slob. You
want to know who made her go? You really want to know?
It was you. That's who it was. You!"
"You're a liar, you frigging bitch!"
"Am I?" She whirled and snatched a four-day-old paper
from the table. "Look at that. Read that." She held it in
front of his face and slapped it. "Two cops murdered. Read
67
""
was when she looked away from the television and said,
"How much dough ya got, Tony?"
"I dunno. Who the hell cares?"
"Pretty soon you gotta think about getting some. You
think about that?"
"Why don't you shut your ugly face?"
Allie had stopped watching television the moment the
firstwords were spoken. "That's one thing," he said. "We
can't do nothing in this town no more."
"You can't stick up liquor stores," Lorraine agreed. "But
that's chicken feed. It's about time you graduated into the
big time —
made some real dough."
"Yeah," Tony said. "There're some guys I know in Bos-
ton know how to operate. When I get ready
—
"They operate?" Lorraine interrupted. "And what do you
do, get paid off in loose change?"
"They pay off in centuries. Don't give me that 'loose
change' crap! They're big time."
"Sure, big time, only you gotta split and, 'cause you're
new, you get the leavings. I ain't talking centuries. I'm talk-
ing grands. Twenty-five grand, maybe more."
"You're talking through your frigging hat."
"The hell I am. I know how the three of us could clear
a cool hundred grand. Tax free."
A appeared in Tony's eye and Allie's heart sank.
flicker
He didn't need a third share of a hundred thousand dol-
lars, not if he had to stay with Lorraine for it. "What're ya
talking about?" Tony said.
"A hundred thousand fish. I'm talking^ about something
big."
"Which bank do we rob, you'n me and Allie?"
"We don't steal it. We get A hundred
it given to us.
thousand in unmarked bills."
She had his attention now and Tony stopped pacing.
"By who?"
"The rich father of some kid."
"Kidnapping?" He took up the pacing again. "You're
outta your mind."
"It's a quick easy way to make money."
"Easy is it?" Tony's voice came up."With the Feds on
your neck? God, if you ain't the dumbest goddam
bitch I ever saw."
69
Lorraine was unmoved. "That's the trouble with you
small-time operators," she said. "You think the FBI is
Superman or something. Just whisper 'J. Edgar Hoover'
to you and you turn to water."
Tony raised his arm. "I oughtta belt your ugly face in."
"If you'd listen insteadda talking you might learn some-
thing, Big Shot."
"Yeah? All right, talk, if you know so much."
"Sure I'll talk. You're wanted for murder, ain't you?
If you get caught anywhere, any time, it's the chair.
Right?"
"Nobody's gonna catch me."
"No? So how'reya gonna live? You gonna hide out here
for the next fifty years? You gotta get dough, don't ya?
How'reya gonna do it? Go to work? What at? Who with?
How long d'ya think you'd last before the cops found
you on the job?"
"Who says I'm gonna go to work?"
"All right, so you go on knocking off liquor stores,
town to town across the country. What's that gonna get
ya? Every time you hold up a place you increase the
chances of getting caught. And what'reya running all this
Friday J May 5
Nothing more was said about Lorraine's idea until the fol-
lowing day and then it was Allie who brought up the sub-
ject. Tony was lost in thought a good part of the after-
noon and Allie was disturbed. "You ain't taking that
dame seriously, are you?" he finally asked.
Tony looked up. "What? What about?"
"That stupid kidnapping idea. Can't you tell she's only
dreaming it up to try to keep us here? Why don't we
hght out for Boston like we should?"
"A hundred grand ain't to be sneezed at. Kid."
"You ain't gonna get a hundred grand and you know it.
We can't pull no job like that. How would you do it,
her. We'll follow her. We'll find out where she goes and
when —
"And pretty soon," Tony said sourly, "she discovers she's
being watched and she whistles 'police' and Allie and me
get picked up."
"We do it in relays," Lorraine said. "If you're good,
she ain't gonna tumble."
"Remember," Tony said, "every cop in this damned
burg is looking for us. If a cop even just sees us, or
if she just mentions being suspicious or something, you
75
"
Friday Night
to the girl.
the cliff. They peered down its sheer face to the lower
ground some three hundred feet beneath, and stared off to
the south where, on clearer days, one could see sunlight
gUstening on the Sound. They smoked, they tossed pebbles
and they pointed out the sights, but always they had one
eye on Cobbler's Lane.
By half pasttwo there were ten cars around and at
least twenty-five people. Three carshad entered or left
Cobbler's Lane but none were green convertibles and none
were driven by pretty young college girls with blonde hair.
Tony flicked away still another cigarette and swore. He
scufifed his feet and shook himself. An ice cream truck
swung in from High Ridge Road and he struck his fore-
head. "What the hell kind of a deal is this?" he snapped.
"What the hell are we doing here?"
Lorraine was getting edgy too with all the people
around. "We're setting up a watch," she muttered through
clenched teeth. "What kind of an operator are you sup-
posed to be? Ain't you got no finesse?"
"Either you do something or you don't do it. I don't like
this frigging waiting."
"Two-bit punk," Lorraine muttered, but she didn't let
him hear her.
Then Allie whispered, "Here she comes!" and the others
turned quickly. The green convertible was approaching
fast.
"That's her," Lorraine said and went for the car with-
83
out waiting to see who was behind the wheel. Tony and
Aliie moved with equal speed.- They scrambled into the
back seat and craned.
The green convertible took the comer no more than
fifty feet away. The tires squealed and the rear wheels
slued as the car shot off. Agirl was driving all right. She
had a red and white polka-dot bandanna around her head
but the hair that showed was honey-colored and there was
no doubt in the minds of the three who she was.
Lorraine already had the motor started and she
screeched the brakes backing out and turning around.
"Why don't you yell it out to the world?" Tony snapped
as they took off in pursuit with a shower of kicking peb-
bles and a spin of wheels. "Why don't you tell everybody
we're chasing that car? Christ, you're as subtle as a frig-
ging hammer."
"You want us to lose her? Is that what you want?"
"I don't want to broadcast we're interested."
The convertible was long gone from sight and they went
careening down the hill and around the curves after
it, narrowly missing one oncoming car, having to brake
hard for another. There was one thing about Lorraine. She
could handle a car. When Charlie picked her as his driver
he knew what he was doing.
Despite their speed, they didn't even catch a glimpse of
their quarry until a straight stretch opened briefly and
then it was only as she flashed out of sight around the
farther bend. The girl in the convertible could handle a car
too and she was in an equal hurry.
They didn't pick her up again until they broke out onto
Lake Avenue and then she was two hundred yards ahead
and opening the distance. Lorraine rammed down the ac-
celerator and when they rounded the next bend and got
her in sight again they were holding their own but not
gaining.
The brake lights of the convertible flared red and the
car slowed behind another, then shot out and around when
the way was clear. Lorraine was less fortunate. She got
trapped behind the slow car by oncoming traffic and on the
next straight stretch they could see the rear of the green
car receding in the distance. Lorraine and Tony swore
blue obscenities and Allie sat on the edge of his seat.
He was tense but he didn't know whether he hoped they'd
84
lose the car or catch it. He decided inwardly that he
wanted the latter for he found himself urging the car
forward when Lorraine finally pulled out and squeezed
quickly between the car in front and a honking oncomer.
They opened up again but the convertible was already
around the next bend and it was still a distant blob of
color when they caught their next sight of it.
85
houses and poor shops, all of them a quick block from
Center Street, the main and well-kept thoroughfare
through town.
Tony was standing on the next corner. When he saw
them, he gave no sign but turned and walked away, disap-
pearing into a bar that bore the name "Pete and Dick's."
"We don't know him," Lorraine muttered to Allie. "Re-
member that. We're just going in for a drink."
When they opened the door they found the bar dim
and nearly empty. The counter was on the left and Tony
was at it, waiting for a beer beside a shabby, scrawny
man with a boozer's complexion. In a booth on the right,
sitting where she could watch the door, was the girl.
Saturday Afternoon
Tony took his beer to the booth behind the girl, sliding
in against the common back, and Lorraine took the booth
that flanked her in front while Allie ordered two beers
from the beefy man behind the counter. The scrawny,
half-sodden lush on the bar stool swayed towards him,
a stubby end of cigarette between his lips, and said, "Got
a match?" Allie didn't, but he made a point of searching as
it gave him the chance to look around. He dug in his
91
"
"And—and?"
"What do you want, a diagram?"
"But—but I'm not ready."
"You don't have to be. I am."
"I mean I want to think about it a little."
"If that's the way you feel, give me back the ring."
"No, Jamie. No, please. Can't you understand? It's just
92
that—not My
today. cousin's coming and I've got to get
back and—and— need I a little time. Please try to under-
stand, Jamie. I've got to get adjusted. I've been brought up
a certain way and you can't go against all your whole
93
matter with you? Can't you get it through your head that
if —
we get caught it's the electric chair and that's whether
she's alive or dead?" She looked up as Tony returned
from the kitchen with another can of beer. "Tell him, will
ya, Tony?"
Tony said, "Get rid of her. That's the thing."
Allie, sitting straighter, gestured. "But she looks like
up
a nice kid. I mean why kill her if we don't have to? She
ain't done nothing to us."
Lorraine snapped, "For Christ's sake, that ain't the
point. The point is she could do something to us. It's like
those two cops you shot. They hadn't done nothing to
you, had they? Why'd you kill 'em then? Because they
would have, that's why. You killed 'em first. That's what
we're gonna do with her."
Allie had no argument against that. He chewed his lip.
Lorraine eyed him narrowly. "You going soft on that
twist, Allie?"
"No," he answered hastily. "Of course not." He looked
at Tony hopefully. "She kind of looks a little like Valen-
tine is all."
Tony's face turned sour. "All the more reason for get-
ting rid of the bitch. People looking like that tramp
oughtta get knocked off."
Lorraine said, "The next thing we gotta do is find some-
place to ditch her. We gotta make sure she ain't found
before we collect and blow. So what I propose is tomorrow
we make ourselves a little picnic. We go out in the woods
to have a little picnic only we ain't just having a picnic.
We're looking around for a place to get rid of the twist."
"You mean bury her someplace?"
"Naw. Burying takes too long. Hide her's better."
Allie said, "We could have the hole already dug."
"And have somebody stumble on it? Wouldn't that be
nice."
Tony said, "So where's there some woods?"
Lorraine leaned over the chair arm. "You know where
we got the house? There're a lotta woods around there.
It's right out in the wilds. I figure we'll drive out there
and look."
Allie cringed a little. "Ain't that kindda close?"
"Close to what?"
"Our house."
94
"It ain't our house. Valentine rented it. And she's gone.
Besides, that's the best place.It's south of the city down
be deep enough."
"It'll
"Yeah? Well let's look around some more. Let's not go
overboard on the first thing we see."
"We ain't gonna see nothing better than this."
"We'll look," Lorraine told him. "One thing I learned
from Charlie. You don't quit just 'cause something looks
good. You don't quit till you know there's nothing better."
97
"Yeah? So where's Charlie? In San Quentin. That's
where."
"Yeah? And where would you be if he didn't make the
plans? You'd be sitting in the pen yourself."
Allie, who suffered at the almost constant bickering,
said, "Oh, come on. We'll look. What's the difference?"
"We won't find nothing better'n that anyhow," Tony
growled. "But O.K. You wantta walk in the woods, we'll
walk in the friggmg woods."
to the car, armed themselves with an-
They returned
other sandwich, and Lorraine pointed to the narrow path-
way again. Tony shrugged and finally said to Allie, "All
right.We gotta keep the bitch happy."
"Big Shot," she retorted. "You can't even rob a till with-
out getting caught at it. You think you can pull a snatch
without help? You do it my way and we'll make it. Your
way and you're in the soup."
"Some day I'm gonna forget you're Charlie's sister, Sis-
ter. All right. You're so smart. Go on and lead."
They plunged off up the trail in single file, Lorraine in
front, Tony bringing up the rear. It was uphill, which
didn't lighten Tony's mood, but Lorraine walked with pur-
pose, pushing through the branches, treading on rotted
limbs, going over the mossy rocks of the hillside.
After fifty yards of the close, dank trail, they came
alongside a face of rock that, between two seams, gaped
to form a three-foot niche at the base which disappeared
into darkness.
Lorraine waited till Allie and Tony drew even. "What
about this?" she said, gesturing.
Tony said, "What about it?"
"It looks like a cave."
"It looks like a little hole in the rocks, that's what it
looks like."
might go deeper than you think.'*
"It
"Crawl in if you're so goddam anxious."
Lorraine, who was wearing dungarees and a plaid shirt,
got down on her knees and crawled through the mouth
without a word. She disappeared and the two men could
hear her movements but she was lost in the depths. "Hey,"
she echoed hollowly after a bit. "Come on in. Take a
look."
"Jesus," Tony said.
"Come on. I'm telling ya. This is it."
98
Allie ducked through on hands and knees and Tony,
making a face, finally followed. Once through the mouth,
he discovered to his surprise that the roof of the cave rose
and it was far from cramped. As he went in deeper, it
reached the point where he could stand.
"Got a match?" Lorraine said.
Tony flicked his lighter. The three were in a small
chamber that extended a short distance around a corner
and was bounded by rocks and crevices. "Now whattaya
think of this?" Lorraine said in triumph. "Here's the per-
fect spot."
Tony looked around and snapped the lighter shut. He
stillfavored the quarry. "It's all right," he said grudgingly.
"It's better than all right," Lorraine insisted eagerly.
"This is it. Nobody'd find her here for a hundred years.'*
"They wouldn't find her in the quarry either."
"Like hell. Bodies don't stay down, you know. They
break loose and come up. There's always the danger of a
body floating up again and if it ever happened before we
got the hundred grand, that would be it."
Tony didn't like the closeness and the pressing velvet
black that surrounded them out of sight of the entrance.
He got down again and started crawling for the slot of
light and the outside air. He'd never been in solitary but
if that was what it was like, he was sure he'd go raving
mad in less than an hour. It gave him a pang of terror he
didn't want to admit.
The others followed more slowly and he was brushing
his trousers when they rejoined him. "Naw," he said. "I
think the quarry's the place."
"I told you the quarry's dangerous. The road leads
right to it. People would be going there. And if the cops
thought we'd killed the girl, that's the first place they'd
look. They'd drag it right off. They'd never find the cave.
Never in a million years. Probably nobody even knows
about it."
"How do you know nobody knows about it? Suppose
somebody does find it. Then where are we? There's the
girl, And when she starts to
right there out in the open.
rot and then what?"
stink,
"By then we'll be over the border."
"You can't be sure. You don't know how long it'll take
to collect the dough."
"Listen, dumbbell, you think I ain't thought all this
99
out? We put her in the cave, see? But we don't just leave
her. What we do is pour gasoline on her and set her on
fire. She burns up way back in the cave and nobody knows
marked?"
"God, if you ain't a chicken! It's perfectly good dough,
especially in some country like Mexico."
"If we ever get to Mexico."
you think I ain't thought all
"Listen, Lamebrain, don't
this out? We demand the ransom get paid in unmarked
bills with nothing bigger than a twenty. Unmarked bills.
That means old bills. Get it? You get what this means?'*
"No, Bitch. What does it mean?"
"It means that a hundred thousand bucks in twenties
or less comes thousand bills. Five thousand
to at least five
old twenty-dollar bills. 'em copy the serial numbers
So let
of five thousand old twenty-dollar bills. Let 'em stay up all
night doing it. Them serial numbers will be all jumbled.
There'll be lots of difi'erent starting letters and all kinds of
different numbers. So they send out notices. Who the hell,
outside of a bank, is gonna thumb through sheets and
sheets of serial numbers every time he comes across a
twenty, huh? If they was new bills, that's a different thing.
In the first place, new bills would stand out and in the
second, they'd all have the same letter and starting num-
bers and they'd follow in sequence. It'd be easy for mer-
chants and everybody to pick out one of them bills. But
old twenties? Never.
"That's the first thing. The second thing is, nobody's
gonna give any publicity till long after we get the
this
dough, till long after we're in Mexico." She looked over at
Allie. "What's the matter with you?"
AUie said slowly, "I was thinking about Mexico. I mean,
what are we going there for?"
103
"Because from there we can take off to any country we
please."
"Don't we have to have passports?"
"Not to Mexico, but we will to other places. So our first
stop is New Orleans on accountta that's where I know a
guy can get us passports. Then it's into Mexico and we
can play it from there."
"Well, if nobody's gonna trace the bills, why do we
have to go? We could hide out here."
"Yeah," put in Tony. "Who the hell wants to go to
Mexico?"
"I do, and you would too if you was smarter. Thirty-
three thousand bucks wUl last a long time down there. It
could last the rest of your life."
Tony's eyes leered. "I know what's eating her, AUie.
She wants us to go to Mexico because she wants to go
there. She wants to jump her parole, that's what she wants
to do. She don't want to sit around Pittsfield reporting to
her parole officer every week, not when the kid's dead
and the cops are canvassing the whole frigging state and
she's sitting on a lotta dough she can't explain where she
got it. She wants out, only she wants us to go too."
Lorraine bit her lip. She lighted a cigarette, took a
puff and glared at it. "We'll talk about that later. Right
now we got to discuss how we do the job, not what
we're gonna do when it's over." She looked at Tony. "Or
maybe you're chickening out. Maybe you'd rather go back
to robbing liquor stores and shooting cops."
Tony grinned maliciously. "I want the thirty-three grand
all right," he said. "I just don't like foreign dames. Buy
American. That's my motto. Now I think it's a great idea
you going to Mexico. That's just what you oughtta do.
Allie and me'll stick around here. Right, Allie?"
Allie looked from one to the other and swallowed.
"Right," he murmured.
Lorraine got up. "All right. We'll chuck the whole thing.
I shouldda known better than to think you two clucks
could pull off a job like this. You wasn't cut out for
nothing but penny-ante stuff to begin with. So go out
and shove your big gun in the face of some liquor store
guy and see how long it is before you catch enough lead
to sink you."
Tony glared up at her. "Sit down and shut up," he
snapped.
104
"
"What whip?"
"A cut of a hundred G's. I think we can pull it."
Allie's heart sank a little. "You mean without her?"
"No. That's the frigging trouble. We
need the goddam
bitch I" He took a turn around the room. "The lousy god-
dam so-and-so. It's gotta be her way or no way." He
turned to Allie and said sourly, "So it looks like Mexico,
Kid."
"I was thinking," Allie said desperately. "You know, we
could kind of go up Albany way. I mean where Valentine
comes from."
"What for?"
up with her
"I mean,
again. If we — Mexico you
in couldn't ever pick
"I ain't about to. I've had it with that babe. Run out on
me, will she? It shows you can't ever trust any of 'em. I
thought she was different. I thought she was the real thing,
but she turns tail on me like I was poison or something.
Just because I ain't no pure white knight, like she was
some virgin princess. She's a fine one to talk. She's just
as much a bum as me." He waved his hand. "Forget it.
Forget her. Stop mentioning her name to me. I don't want-
ta hear it." He nodded. "Get the bitch out here. Tell her
we'll go to her frigging foreign country, only we gotta get
this job set up. I ain't wasted all this time on it for
nothing."
Allie chewed his lip for a moment. Then he got up
slowly. "Yeah, Tony. Whatever you say."
105
Week of May 20 through 26
the whole thing off, but it shouldn't get that bad. We'll be
O.K. There wasn't more'n five cars all last Wednesday
afternoon and one of 'em was hers.
"Now we don't know how long we'll have to wait. It
depends on whether she comes straight home after class
or whether she goes someplace with the girls for a soda or
something. We'll wait as long as we dare and if she don't
show, then we forget it till the next day or the day after.
We'll have to play that by ear because it depends on how
many cars might go by and think it funny to see the
same truck parked in the same place where there's nothing
but woods.
"All right. Now the girl comes up the hill. She's usually
going damned but I'll still have plenty of time to let
fast
off the brake and swing the truck across the road in front
of her. She'll be blocked cold.
107
"Now the second I stop, you two jump out. Don't show
your gun, Tony, till you see who's around. All right. She's
stopped in the middle of the road with the truck in front.
You're out as fast as you can get and you're over to her
car. That's when you give her a peek at the gun, Tony,
and you and Allie get her outta that car fast. You get her
into the truck, Tony, and Allie backs her car off to the
side. You're sure you'll know how to drive the thing?"
Allie said, without too much assurance, "I guess so. It
won't be much different from yours, will it?"
"Hell, it'll have power steering and power brakes and
automatic shift. It won't be anything at all like mine.
—
What you do is yank the shift it'll be on the steering
—
wheel to where it says R and let off the brake. If you
ain't sure, you can let off the brake and it'll roll by itself.
If it does, it'll roll off the road into the woods till it hits
something. That's O.K., too. We ain't trying to hide her
car or nothing like that. We don't care who knows she's
kidnapped so long as nobody knows who done it so long —
as they don't know it till after we get outta there. You got it
down pat so far?"
The youths nodded and she was satisfied. "You get her
in the truck and Allie gets back in. By that time I've got
the motor miming and we go down the hill to the main
road and up into Stockford. While I'm driving, you keep
her quiet. That's your job, Tony. Allie, yours is to cut out
a hunk of her skirt. It don't have to be much, just a litde
piece. You get the envelope outta Tony's pocket, and you
use gloves when you touch the skirt and when you touch
that envelope. Tuck the piece in with the ransom note and
seal it, then you hand it over the cartons to me.
"Now, at the comer of Center Street and Meadow, at
that traffic light there, there's a mailbox. I duck out, stick
the letter in the box, and we then proceed up Meadow and
over till it picks up Center the second time up north. Then
we ride that to Pittsfield to the tumoff and the route to
the spot in the woods. What're you gonna be doing while
I'm driving?"
"Keeping the girl quiet," Tony said.
"You're gonna tie her wrists and gag her. That's what
you're gonna do. All right. What about the girl's purse?"
"We leave that in her car."
"That's right. And you don't stop to see if she's got
dough in it either. All we want is the girl and nothing else.
108
Now then, we're in the woods near the cave. When I
stop you don't open the doors. You wait for me to open
them, just in case anybody's around." She aimed a finger at
Tony. "Take it from there."
Tony said, "We march the kid up the trail. Allie carries
the gasoUne, I mind the kid. We go up to the cave. We
make her lie face down. You take my knife and give it to
her in the back and Allie pours gasoHne over her. I flip
her over so he can douse the front of her and then I drag
her into the cave around the comer, get clear, light a book
of matches and throw it on her. Then I get out."
Allie chewed his lip. "What if she's still alive?"
"She won't be," Lorraine assured him. "When I give it
to her, I'll give it to her good. She'll be dead and good
109
PART II
"Oh," Susan said and she tried to keep her face ex-
pressionless over the throbbing of her heart. "Thank you.'*
Miss Belford nodded and Susan ducked quickly down
the hall. She was sure her face was red, that her hands
were trembling, and she knew that her knees were like
water. Betty Coates came by, saying "Hi," and Susan
nodded, wondering if she looked as disturbed as she felt.
What was there about Jamie Hendel that the sound of his
voice or even the mention of his name could turn her
inside out?
She burst into the sunshine of the side driveway and
started down to the parking lot, her mind in a turmoil.
This was the first time she'd heard from him since the
afternoon he gave her the ring, along with its accom-
panying ultimatum. Through the intervening period of
drought she'd lived in dread that she'd never hear from
him again but this was one time when she'd steadfastly
refused to seek him out. There were agonizing nights
when, alone in bed, she wondered if he'd met with an
accident, if something had prevented his meeting her
other than another girl. Nearly every afternoon on her
way home through the center of Stockford she'd had to
steel herself to keep from detouring past his boarding-
house in the shabby section where he lived.
She knew, though, that there had been no accident. If
there had, his friends would have told her. No, he had
stood her up deliberately. It was doubtless another wom-
an and this conviction had been the only thing that had
kept her away. She'd crawled to him before but this time
she had mustered her pride. Nearly always, when they
met, he was late, frequently insultingly so, but this was the
first time he had ever failed to come at all.
A girl had to have some pride. She had to get her back
up somewhere. If she didn't, she was lost. Up till now he'd
got away with everything he wanted, except the one thing
he wanted most. Somehow, almost out of the mists of
her subconscious, she had rallied some spark of resistance
at the height of their love-making and stopped him from
going "all the way." She couldn't stop him from anything
else and she frankly didn't know how she stopped him
there. It was Puritanical upbringing or something. At least
this was the way she had analyzed it to herself and some-
times, to try to ease his aneer, to him. He had tried
114
everything except brute force to win her, had even threat-
ened never to see her again. This had always frightened
her but, strangely enough, it stiffened her resistance. It
was as if the threat was a confession that that was all he
really wanted from her, that it was her body and not her
soul he was after. Her body she didn't care about. It was
her soul he had to want. And, in her constant analyses,
she sometimes thought that was why she resisted. If she
could be sure, then nothing else mattered. Not being sure
was what had tormented her so long, what made her re-
sist him.
The ring, though. That had almost persuaded her. It
might have completely won her, too, if he hadn't acted
quite so much as if it were payment for expected favors
rather than the token of love he professed it to be.
After he stood her up she was convinced the ring was
worthless. She was sure the next time she saw him she'd
give it back. This was his crudest slap and she had made
herself wait for his first move —
hoping daily it would
come, fearing, as day followed day, that it never would.
Some other girl had caught his fancy, one who was more
"mature", one who didn't have her own "upper middle-
class morality,"
So she had gone about her routine of existence but
always there was the ache inside. It had become almost a
part of her, something she was learning to live with. But
now, starting the convertible, there was no ache any
longer, only that almost agonizing thrill that left her trem-
bling and totally shaken.
As she rolled out the drive and picked up the route for
home all she could think about was that he had called
her. He wanted her back. What was even more important
was that he had swallowed his pride. Surely he must care
to have done that. The most she had hoped for till now
was that one of his cronies, one of that rather unpleasant
group of beatnik men he hung out with, would let her
know that if she wanted to come around he wouldn't
kick her down the stairs.
But this! This proved he couldn't forget her and all
the rationalities she'd indulged in came tumbling down.
Hadn't she told herself over and over that he was not for
her, that this was wild infatuation and nothing good
could come of it? Didn't he not have a job? Didn't he
115
totally refuse to meet her folks and her friends, making
her, instead, go with his? Wasn't his choice of friends a
revelation of himself? Wasn't it obvious that marriage
would be a disaster? Couldn't she see he wouldn't be
faithful to her two weeks? Couldn't she see that more than
passion was required for a marriage to work? It didn't
matter any longer. He had come to her and that made it
all different. If he loved her he'd get a job. He'd let her
Monday Afternoon
At first all Susan could do was think numbly, "It can't be
happening to me. This can't be real," and she lay there
with her head against the grooved metal flooring, her eyes
closed as if to keep the reality away. She felt a dull ache
in all the teeth on the left side of her face from the
blow she'd been struck and that was real, all right. She'd
never been hit that hard in her life and she wondered
why she was still conscious.
As the truck gained speed going down the winding road
every unevenness seemed magnified a thousandfold and
her body and head began jarring against the steel beneath
her. She braced herself against the jouncing and a hand
caught her arm, pulling her over on her back.
She looked up into the face of the swarthy youth with
the strange yellow hair, and though he was good-looking,
it was in a nasty way and she had never seen such cold
ing her eyes to blot out the sight of the knife and blot out
the fear in the face of its wielder. She could feel the
wicked sharpness of the edge against the softness of her
throat and she fancied she could feel blood flowing. She
scarcely dared swallow lest the expansion make the knife
cut deeper.
122
"
naled."
"No, Chief. I was just going to hail her."
Susan's heart beat harder, half in hope and half in fear.
There were two policemen at the truck and one was the
chief. They must certainly find her but what would her
captors do if they did? She couldn't see Allie but he was
ready with the gun while the other had the knife against
her flesh.
"All right," the chief said. "Get back to the traffic."
"Yes, sir."
One was leaving and her heart sank. Still she listened
breathlessly as the chief's voice went on, "Now then, what
do you think you're doing?"
"I didn't mean anything, sir," came the answer. "I was
just mailing a letter."
It was a girl's voice! It was a girl driving the truckl
Susan's hopes rose. She could appeal to a giri. giri A
would have sympathy even if she were part of the plot.
A would keep the men from banning her.
giri
Thechief was saying, "I saw you were mailing a letter.
What's so important about that letter that you think you
can hold up rush hour traffic to get it in a box?"
"I'm son-y, sir. I didn't realize. I saw the box and —
"What do you think, that that's the only mailbox in
town? Where're you from?"
The giri sounded very nervous. "Pittsfield, sir."
"Pittsfield? Is that the way you drive in Pittsfield?"
"No, sir."
"Let me see your license."
"Really, sir, I didn't mean to do anything wrong."
"Just let me see your driver's license, please."
There was silence for a bit and Susan trembled with the
suspense. "Arrest her," she prayed. 'Tell her to drive to
the station."
"Valentine May?" the chief said. "Is that your name?"
"Yes, sir."
"Where do you live. Miss May?"
*Twenty-six Bentwood Street." She went on, "Please,
123
Chief, it was just a letter to my boyfriend. I wanted him
to get it tomorrow."
"At all costs, eh?"
"I'm afraid I didn't think. Are you going to give me a
ticket?"
Susan lay there listening to the girl's voice. The clear
innocence of it was amazing. She could be merely return-
ing from work for all her tone betrayed her.
"I'm not going to give you a ticket," the chief said, "just
a warning. The next time you're in this town, don't hold
up traffic. We have enough of a problem without lovesick
girls blocking cars to mail letters to their boyfriends. Use
your head when you're driving and you'll live longer. AH
right, you may go."
The truck started up and Susan, her eyes closed, could
feel the tears blind them again. The truck paused for
traffic, then made a left turn and cut back. It was going
around the triangle of green right past the town hall and
police headquarters, right past her last hope.
They picked up Meadow and
Street again, heading north,
Susan thought of Jamie for the firstand Dick's
time. Pete
wasn't more than three blocks away. If she'd only gone
there— if she'd only been willing to wait for him, hours
of the city, the truck made a left turn onto a quiet road.
The hide-out, then, was in the outskirts to the south. She
wondered if she could find the road when the police asked
her to retrace her path and she kept her eyes closed, lis-
tening, feeling, and smelling, trying to make mental note
of every clue.
There were some more turns and she wondered if a
were being followed to confuse her. Then
circuitous route
the truck moved more slowly. That meant the road was
narrow. There were curves and no hint of passing cars. It
might be woods. Somehow the sounds had a different tone
to them. They didn't have the quality of sound in open
spaces.
There was a sharp turn to the right and now the road
was very rough, almost as if there were no road at all.
The truck rattled and bounced even at a crawl and after a
short distance it came to a dead stop.
Susan opened her eyes. She wondered if they were there
but neither of the two men moved. The silence and the
waiting grew into agony for her. Suddenly there was the
rasp of the door handle turning. Susan lifted her head as
the doors swung wide.
It was the girl standing there. She was lean and browned
in her dungarees and her voice had the snap of a whip.
"All right, get her out. Allie, bring the gasoline."
That she was the boss was obvious by the way the
youths obeyed. Susan was shoved and pulled from the
truck by both men and the treatment was rough and heed-
less. She ripped a stocking and scratched her leg on one of
the floor bolts and the slit in her dress tore some more.
Then she was on her feet outside while the one called
Allie dragged out a heavy gasoline can.
The girl was beside her and Susan could, for the first
time, see into her eyes. They were the coldest green in the
world. Bitterness and hatred were in their depths and a
fearful glitter at their surface. Next to her the two
frightening youths were children. They were in it as a job
but this girl took relish in the work.
Susan's heart slowed and her skin turned cold. She had
been frightened before, but now the terror reached her
soul.
125
PART III
woods in that area. He'll need a dozen men. Get the day
shift and supernumeraries. Get a description of the girl
and send it to the State Police. Have you checked the
hospital or the morgue?"
"No, think—"
I didn't
"Do that before you call the State Troopers. Call
Partridge first. I want him at the spot when I get there and
I'llbe going right out."
Fellows hung up and returned to the dining room
where he outlined the problem briefly while swallowing a
last couple of mouthfuls of meat. "I'm glad we don't have
money and live where they're empty roads," he said. "I'm
glad Katie doesn't have a car of her own."
"I'm not," Katie said.
"Things happen to girls who drive around alone, par-
ticularly in convertibles where they can't lock themselves
in."
"Ican take care of myself."
Fellows sighed. "That's what they aU say," he told her
and left.
Monday Evening
Ed Lewis was finding little on Susan's car. There was no
blood and what few fingerprints were available seemed to
be hers or Mr. Cass's. Fellows told him to vacuum it for
dust analysis and went on to the low, handsome mansion
in the company of the Partridges and the Casses.
John Partridge met them at the door with the news
that calls had come from friends and reporters but no
mysterious voices volunteered information about Susan.
133
He was a handsome youth of sixteen with a sensitive
face and light brown hair only a shade darker than his
sister's.
Mr. Partridge, mindful that he was a host, rang for
the butler and offered drinks around. The Casses accepted
and Mrs. Cass sat with Delia Partridge on the couch, rest-
ing a hand lightly on her friend's knee now and then but
saying nothing. Mrs. Partridge was pale and constantly
moistened her lips as if to speak. Only once or twice did
she say anything and then it was only to remark, "It's
hard to believe it can be happening to you. I keep want-
ing to turn back the clock and start it over again so it
would come out right."
Fellows refused the drink, nor did he wait for those
amenities before beginning his questions. When he took
over the others were silent. He was the authority. He was
the one who'd get Susan back, the one who'd find out
where she went. The gold badge on his shirt said so
and so did his manner. It was quiet but it commanded.
In times of stress he seemed to stand forth from a
group. He drew the attention, attracted the stares.
He directed his questions to Johnny and the youth
helped where he could but his knowledge was scanty.
There were at least eight boys he could name with whom
Susan had had dates since the first of the year. She was
not one to go steady because, as she put it, steady dating
made one miss too many good times.
Fellows dutifully recorded the names and said, "Her
viewpoint isn't that of a girl in love, obviously. But does
she have any favorites?"
"I think she is in love," Johnny replied. "She doesn't
mention it and she doesn't show it, but some boy gave her
a ring."
Partridge sat up. "Say, that's right. It's a pretty damned
fine ring, too. Much too good for a boy to be giving a
girl. I didn't fancy that at all. She's too young to be
thinking about marriage."
"It was an engagement ring?" Fellows asked.
"No. It was an emerald ring in a gold setting. Two
emeralds, side by side, and they were fair-sized stones,
too. I think that ring must have been worth a good five
hundred dollars!"
Fellows felt the first stirrings of hope. Perhaps it was
134
an elopement and not kidnapping after all. "Who's the
boy?" he asked.
There was no reply and surprise overlaid his hope.
"Don't any of you know?" he said with an edge of disap-
proval in his tone.
Heads shook and Partridge said, "She wouldn't open her
mouth. I said, 'Where'd you get that ring?' and she
said it was given to her. I said, 'Who?' and she said, 'A
friend.' I let it go at that. If she didn't want to tell, I
didn't have any right to force it out of her. I did ask
her if it was an engagement ring and she said it wasn't.
She said it was only a token ring, whatever that is."
Johnny said, "She probably means like a frat pin. If
they break up she gives it back."
"It doesn't sound like quite the same thing to me," Fel-
lows said. "I take it this was a girl's ring? It sounds Uke
the boy bought it for her."
"A pretty expensive present," Partridge said. "Let's see,
who'd have that kind of money? Johnny, which of these
boys do you think it could be? The Weymouth family
has about the most money, I guess. You think it's Bob
Weymouth?"
Johnny had doubts about Bob Weymouth. In fact, he
couldn't imaginewho it might be.
Maybe it's somebody not on this Ust," Fellows sug-
gested.
"These are the ones who've come to the house, sir."
all
"Who you know about, in other words?"
The family looked from one to the other at that and
jBnally Partridge said, "Well, I can't say. Anybody who'd
give her a ring like that — —
and if she liked him I don't
know why we wouldn't have heard about him. I don't
know why she'd keep a love secret." He caught the ex-
pression in the chief's eye and added quickly, "I'm not
naive. I know what you're thinking. There might be an
affair going on. I don't think it's likely, though of course
it's possible. Even so, I'd expect she'd bring the boy around.
Monday Night
The carswere gone from High Ridge Road when the
chief came down and he drove back to headquarters grim-
ly. Hogarth was there, behind the desk, and so were two
patrolmen with two seated and sullen visitors picked up in
the dragnet. One was a lush who'd passed three bad checks
over a two-year period. The other was the son of a doc-
tor who'd been in trouble on drunk driving and two hit-
and-run accidents involving other cars, plus a number of
charges of evading responsibility, failure to obey a police
136
officer, and abusing a police officer. Fellows also knew he'd
got a girl in trouble but that hadn't come to his of-
ficial attention.
Hogarth told the chief that search parties had found
no clues of any kind, that Wilks was interrogating a sus-
pect in the office and that Lieutenant Carl Biloxi of the
State Police and an agent of the FBI were with him.
"Who's the suspect?"
"James Montgomery Hendel. Wilks has the file on him."
Fellows knew who Hendel was without the file. Beatnik
poet he called himself. Had a room at 234 Williams Street
and no visible means of support other than attendant at
a gas station when the spirit or the need moved him, which
it usually didn't. He'd been charged by a young woman
through it."
Hogarth came in then with the two-page, single-spaced,
138
typewritten list of missing, stolen or lost articles and the
chief bent over the table running his finger down the
lines. "Here," he said. "Listen to this: '3/28/63 Ring. —
Twin % carat emeralds in gold setting. Value $450. In-
scription: "Evelyn: All my love, Roger. May 16, 1954."
Disappeared sometime in March 1963 from home of Mr.
and Mrs. Roger Knowles, 54 Crestwood Drive, Stock-
ford.' " He looked up. "Any of you gentlemen want to make
any bets?"
Biloxi said, "That sounds like a lead, all right. Any
clues turn up in the investigation of the theft?"
"Check Hogarth," Fellows said, giving him back the
it,
here in Stockford."
"There's a good chance of it, Carl. Let's see who we don't
turn up. And meanwhile, I think we can start bringing up
the question of that ring in these interrogations." He
took a seat at the table. "Let's see what the next guy can
teU us."
139
Tuesdayy May 28
ened to harm her if you don't call off the police. Isn't
that right?"
The other man broke then and his voice was almost a
sob. "Yes, yes."
"What's the note say, Mr. Partridge?"
Partridge stumbled through it haltingly. " 'We got
Susan. Get $100,000 in unmarked bills no bigger than $20
by Thursday. Don't call police or you'll never see her
again. Wait for next note with this sign. We mean busi-
ness.' Then there's a funny kind of symbol at the bottom.
Can't you see what that means? Please. Have mercy. Call
everybody off. Forget it ever happened. Please. For her
sake."
Fellows, scribbling down the note, said, "Is the letter
handwritten?"
"Look, I'm not going to talk about it any more. Leave me
alone."
Fellows threw down the pencil and his voice took on a
roughness seldom heard. "What do you think, Partridge,
that these kidnappers are going to show sympathy for
your daughter? Do you think you're going to placate
them by being a good boy? Don't interrupt, I'm not
through. I'm going to let you have it straight, Partridge,
because that's the only way to do it. Your daughter
could be dead for all you know
—
"No, no," he fairly shouted. "She's alive. They sent
proof."
"What proof?"
"A piece of her dress. It was in the letter."
"What does that prove, other than that they've got her?
That doesn't prove she's Now
understand me, Par-
alive.
tridge. We're not going to do anything
to provoke the
kidnappers. We'll stay out of the case. We won't make
any moves until you get her back, but we're going to
be working under cover —
"No! Absolutely not! I forbid it!"
Fellows' harshness lessened but the firmness remained.
"Mr. Partridge, we'll do everything we can to protect your
daughter. Rest assured of that. But we've got to work
on We've got to try to catch these men."
this case.
want them caught. They can have my money
"I don't
and welcome. I'll never prosecute, I'll never do anything
if they send my daughter home unharmed."
143
" "
pany."
"What for?"
"Somebody named Jamie left that message for Susan.
She was kidnapped here so maybe the call came from
here. If so, by God, the phone company'U have a record
of it and if we're really lucky, we might possibly learn
who Jamie is."
The phone rang as he reached for it and he waited
with his hand on it until Sergeant linger in the other room
called out, "Chief, it's Chief Crouch in Pittsfield."
Fellows lifted the receiver then. "Yeah," he said. "Fel-
lows."
"This is Chief Crouch of Pittsfield, Chief." Crouch
cleared his throat and said, "A body's been discovered."
Fellows didn't blink an eye. "The Partridge girl's?" he
asked.
"
"We don't have a definite identification yet, Chief
"I can guess that," Fellows said with a sharp edge to
his voice. "Do you think it's hers?"
Crouch hedged some more. "Well, you see, it's been
pretty badly damaged. It'd been soaked in gasoline and
set on fire. It in a cave by a couple of boys
was found
—
"You mean not identifiable?"
it's
146
Tuesday Afternoon
"Well, they run for home — it's over the hill and down
148
"
—and one of them gets his mother to come up. She thinks
they're imagining things, only when she gets to the mouth
of the cave here she can smell something too so she don't
go in, she goes back home and calls her brother who's on
the newspaper. He calls the precinct but he don't call the
precinct till he's on his way and by the time the precinct
captain sends a patrolman over to investigate, the news-
papermen are already here. What the hell can I do about
that? You tell me."
"Nothing can be done about it now, I guess," Fellows
said.
"O.K., play it up big. That's the best idea. Get the pub-
lic excited about it. That's the way to get action against
the kidnappers. So it was a ransom note, huh? I thought
it'd be rape."
"It might've been that too. What else have you got?'*
"Well, the precinct patrolman reported back it was a
body all right and the call came in downtown to send out
the works. The captain talked to the kids and some de-
tectives talked to the kids and they learned the kids were
in the cave last Friday and the body wasn't there then so
that makes it since Friday and when I heard that I re-
membered about this girl down your way who disappeared
and I have them check and, sure enough, she's wearing a
ring like your girl. So I called you and decided to come
out here myself."
Fellows nodded. "She been examined?"
"Doc Fink here give her a coarsery one."
"He teU the cause of death?"
"Not for sure yet. No obvious injuries like bullet
wounds or broken bones. Judging from the body a helluva
lot of gasoline was used and it's hard to figure out what
happened from what's left."
Wilks came plodding up the trail then with Mr. Par-
tridge behind. The group of reporters had dwindled a lit-
tle and had been moved back so the two had less trouble
getting through. Fellows introduced Chief Crouch but
Partridge's gaze was fixed on the blanket-covered figure.
From the moment he saw it he stood frozen.
Crouch tried to explain how they'd come upon the body
but Partridge never heard. Fellows took over. "Mr. Par-
tridge," he said, "I'm sorry to have to do this, but this
— —
body was found and it's just ah barely ^possible — —
149
Partridge clenched his fists. "Let me see her," he
croaked.
Crouch went to the body and now Fellows turned to
look. The Pittsfield chief grasped the top corner of the
blanket and lifted it away with an even, practiced motion.
A hideously charred and blackened figure came into
view. Partridge stared and, for a long moment, time
seemed to stand still. Slowly his eyes bulged and his face
turned a more deadly white. Suddenly he screamed,
"Susan! Susan!" and fell on his knees.
Two men caught him as he collapsed. They laid him
out on the ground and he struggled. "It's my baby, it's my
baby," he called out and then his words were lost in
choking sobs. He fought against the men who held him
and Doctor Fink knelt beside him and opened his medical
bag. The sobs rose to screams again and again but when
Fink was through and closed his bag they dwindled to
low moans. Fink got to his feet and said, "Send for a
stretcher."
Crouch gave the order and a man hurried off. The ac-
tion broke the spell and the surrounding reporters started
off too. They had what they'd come for now.
Fellows, breathing heavUy, rubbed a hand over his face
and turned back to the body. It was frightful to look upon
for, as Crouch had said, a lot of gasoline had been used.
No trace of clothes remained and, in fact, the body itself
had been so nearly destroyed that it was only just about
possible to determine its sex. The flesh was charred and
shriveled and where bones and teeth showed through,
these too were blackened by fire. The only thing that re-
mained unharmed was the ring that glistened green and
gold on the fourth finger left hand.
It was the ring that Fellows wanted to see and he
stooped to peer. "All right to remove it?" he asked.
"I'll take it off," Crouch told him. "What do you want
with it?"
"A ring like that was reported stolen in Stockford last
March. If it's got, 'Evelyn: All my love, Roger. May 16,
1954.' on the inside of it, that's the ring."
Crouch worked the ring loose but the black bones and
fragments of flesh came too. He freed the ring and wiped
the inside. " 'Evelyn: All my love, Roger. May 16, 1954,'"
he read. "I guess that's it all right." He drew the blanket
150
across the body again and handed Fellows the ring. "You
make something out of this, then?"
somebody named Jamie gave it to her and if he
"I think
lives m
Stockford, as I think he does, I may be able to
lay my hands on him pretty quick."
"I'm sorry the papers got it, Fellows. We
might give out
a story claiming we don't know who she is. That's a pretty
hard corpse to identify. You gotta admit that."
"Her teeth didn't burn up. A
dental check will prove
who she is in no time and the kidnappers know it. We'll
just have to work fast, that's all."
"Well, if you want to keep that ring you better give me
a receipt.'*
"I want it." Fellows took out his pad and scribbled on
it, tearing off the page for Crouch. "Sid," he said, "I've got
to get back on this Jamie thing. Stay around and see
what you can pick up." He nudged Lawrence and added
heavily, "Well, you've got a story, I guess, if you want to
be late going to press." He started off, gazing down with
sad eyes and compressed Ups at Susan's father moaning
fitfully on the ground.
find out where he went, but get him. One other thing. He
might be dangerous so be careful. Better pick up a man
to cover the rear of the building. It's a boardinghouse."
"Yes, sir. On my way."
Fellows put down the mike and said, "Get the file on
Hendel."
"Right, Chief. What about the girl?"
"She's dead. She was murdered."
"That's tough. Hendel in it?"
"Up to his goddam neck. He had an alibi for the time
of the kidnapping but that doesn't mean he didn't set her
up for it."
153
He closed off the conversation saying she could come
down for the ring in a few days but it wasn't ready for
her at the moment. He put down the phone and went out
to the mike again. "Harris. Where the hell are you?"
That got no answer and he chewed his tobacco some
more and tried again. Finally Harris came on and ap-
parently hadn't heard the call. "Headquarters," he said.
"Harris reporting."
"Yeah, Harris."
"I've been talking to the landlady at 234 Williams Street.
Hendel isn't in and she doesn't know where he went."
"When'd he go out?"
"This morning sometime, so she says."
"He take a suitcase?"
"No."
"Try Austin's filling station. He works there now and
then and he's got friends there. If they can't help you, try
Pete and Dick's. If that doesn't pan out, report back." He
pushed the mike aside. "The bastard's flown the coop,
BUI," he told Hogarth. "I want a watch set up on Mrs.
Almond's boardinghouse, front and back. I want a search
—
made of his room ^with a search warrant if necessary. I
want everybody in the neighborhood questioned. I want
his habits, where he comes from, who his friends are. I
want a hell of a lot more than we've got in this file. Send
out the alarm for him too. Contact the State Police and
the FBI. I want the railroad, bus and plane terminals
watched. Call in supernumeraries for the stakeouts and
get four men for the questioning. Call in Gorman. He'll
know how to set up. You got all that straight?"
it
Tuesday^ Night
158
have to worry about that none. We'll check with Motor
Vehicles first thing in the morning on both of 'em."
"Any stolen trucks listed in Pittsfield?"
"There's always reports of everything being stolen in
this damned city. I guess there're a couple of trucks
among 'em. We'll find that out first thing."
"Let me know everything you get."
"Yeah, but of course you gotta remember we can't be
sure this truck's got any more to do with the kidnapping
than this dead girl in the car has." He cast a look at the
gray and ominous coupe. "And I guess we're gonna have
a tough one there, too. Jesus, two dead bodies in one day.
We've had more damned murders in this town the last
two months! A shopkeeper, two of my own men, and
now these dames. One by fire, one by water. Jesus, what
the hell will the mayor and the police commissioners say?"
Fellows and Wilks didn't stay for the fingerprinting.
The chief told his detective sergeant what they'd learned
about Hendel and what was being done and both wanted
to get back. "After aU," Fellows said as they started off,
"as Crouch says, there's nothing to connect that truck
with the kidnapping except those tire marks."
"You don't really have any doubts about it, do you?"
"Not really, I guess. Funny thing. That truck looks
kind of like the one I stopped in town yesterday after-
noon for blocking traffic. Woman driver."
"Think it could be the same?"
"No. There's too many such trucks. The time was about
right, though, come to think of it. Girl with an odd name
driving it, but she was alone. At least I think she was
alone." He smiled. "I need some sleep," he said. "I'm
starting to get hallucinations."
Wednesday, May sg
Wednesday Noon
Chief Crouch of Pittsfield had an office of pastel green
and a beautiful steel desk which had been confiscated in
165
"
The way Crouch was going at it, it would take all day.
Fellows got up. "You got pictures with those reports?"
"Pictures, dental records, fingerprints. Some pics ain't
too recent, though. Some of these cases are years old."
"Why don't I take a look at them?"
"Help yourself." Crouch willingly pushed the pile in
Fellows' direction and got up. "You can have the place. I
some lunch."
gotta get
Fellows started through rapidly, scanning the pictures,
pausing now and then, shaking his head and going on.
Most of the reports had recent photos attached but many
did not and as he drew nearer the bottom, Wilks said,
"Maybe the girl's too different to recognize."
The worse the rec-
"If so, we'll go through for crimes.
ord the more likely the suspect."
"Or, of course, she might not be in the file."
"You're cheerful this afternoon."
"If DeGennaro and Wells are from out of town, maybe
she is too."
Fellows got down to the very bottom and then, at the
last one, stopped and studied. "Damn it. Police photo-
graphs are God-awful. Like passport photos."
Wilks bent over. "Look like her?"
"It does, but I can't be sure."
"What's the report?"
Fellows read from the sheet. " 'Lorraine Zeuss: Bom
September 23, 1934.' That's about right. 'Height: 5'6Vi".
Weight: 113. Hair: Brown. Eyes: Green. Address: 20
Melville Street.'—"
170
Crouch came back munching a sandwich. "You got
something?"
Fellows showed him the report. "What do you know
about this girl?"
Crouch sat down behind his desk and looked at it.
"Nothing. Don't know her." He studied the list of offenses.
"She sure sounds good, though. Robbery. Accomplice in
robbery. Worked with her brother Charles Zeuss out in the
Midwest in holdups. Manslaughter. Out on parole. Has to
report weekly to parole officer."
"Midwest with her brother?" Fellows said. "Anywhere
around Indiana?"
"Let's see. Yeah. And that's where those escaped cons
came from. I'll bet that's where they've been holing up."
He pulled over a phone. "She works at the Wiley Laundro-
mat. Let's check on her."
"What about her parole officer?"
*'Johnson? I can call him but if she failed to report
he'd've called me." He looked up the laundromat number,
called, asked brief questions, and hung up. "She left work
Monday noon," he said. "Told them she was sick. Hasn't
been back since. In a pig's eye she's sick!" He referred to
the report again and dialed another number. He listened
a minute and put down the receiver. "Her home don't
answer."
Fellows and Wilks looked at each other and back at the
chief. "Let's go," Fellows said.
"If you want to go, we'd better go with a search war-
rant."
"By all means with a search warrant, and with every-
thing else you've got too. Because she and those cons don't
answer the phone doesn't mean they're not there."
Wednesday Afternoon
Fellows, usually taciturn, for once exploded. "What?" he
exclaimed. "Say that again."
175
"
177
Wednesday^ Late Afternoon
There was nothing yet on the real estate project when the
two chiefs and Wilks got back to PoHce Head-
Pittsfield
quarters but the dental record of the charred body was
waiting and it was quickly ascertained that Lorraine Zeuss
and not Susan Partridge had been burned in the cave.
"That's one for you, Fellows," Chief Crouch said.
The real estate break came immediately thereafter, even
before the Zeuss folder was returned to the files. The
intercom on Crouch's desk buzzed and Assistant Chief
Buzzard said, "Clore Real Estate rented a furnished house
on Montrose Road to Valentine May on April thirteenth.
He's on his way over."
"Whereabouts is Montrose Road, for Jesus' sake?"
"South of here near the city line, according to Clore. I'll
check the city map for you."
"How near is it to the quarry?"
There was half a minute of silence and then the inter-
com came to life. "Clore says it's the first house in and
that's damned close. Half a mile at the most."
Crouch looked up. "That's two for you. You're a real
good guesser. Fellows." He depressed the button again
and said, "Send a man to the Hall of Records for a map
of the property and put out a call for the riot squad. I'm
holding a briefing at four o'clock."
The briefing took place in the assembly room and thirty-
five well-trained, capable and hard men were in attend-
ance. Also present, besides Crouch, Fellows and Wilks,
were Captains Silver and McDonnell, two lieutenants,
three sergeants, the chairman of the Police Commission,
and the mayor himself.
The map of the rented property was pinned to the black-
board and the real estate agent was on call in an adjacent
room. Crouch outlined the situation quickly and with com-
petence. "The house faces roughly south," he said, using
a pointer on the property map. "There's about fifty feet
of clearing on the east and west sides, maybe a hundred
feet in the rear and twenty-five feet to the road. It stands
178
a quarter of a mile from route seven and that whole stretch
is rolling fields and meadows. There're woods in back
and to the west and across the street. The ground slopes
uphill in the rear.
and me'U handle the approach from route seven.
"Silver
Captain McDonnell will lead the approach from the west
where Montrose Road comes from Naugatuck Avenue.
Mac, you'll send eight men under Lieutenant Hancock
through the woods on the west side to approach as close
as possible under cover. Lieutenant Wertz and eight more
men will go up in back and come down on the house
from the rear. Lieutenant Hildeth is first in on my side.
He's going up in the woods with a walkie-talkie and
binoculars and act as spotter. Sergeant Stillson leads eight
men over the meadows. This is gonna be belly work,
boys, 'cause the object is to work in as close as possible
without being seen. You gotta keep low in that grass. The
leaders will have walkie-talkies so we can have co-ordina-
tion. The rest of you will be issued riot guns, rifles, gas
masks, small arms and knives."
He read out the assignments of who worked with whom
and with what and then went into the major problem they
faced. "Susan Partridge, so far as we know, is not dead but
alive. We
have reason to believe she's a prisoner in that
house and is held there by two men. Those two men are
the grass was not high and cover was scarce, consisting
of uneven ground, rocky ledges, and occasional bushes
or trees. The house was not visible above the rough New
England terrain and Hildeth set out across the fields with-
out fear of discovery towards the hilly woods and shelter.
Crouch told the driver to go ahead and the car crawled
forward until, rounding a curve, the whole upper floor
of the house burst into view. Crouch swore and said,
"Back up. Get back. Je-sus!"
The driver threw her into reverse and nearly rammed
the car behind before the convoy halted and the lead cars
retreated. There were four cars in the group and they
parked tight together just out of sight of the house some
hundred feet back. Crouch got on the mike and checked
with McDonnell and the west group. They were on Mon-
trose Road approaching their stations.
In the cars behind Crouch, Captain Silver and his men
got out. One of them climbed the six-foot embankment,
keeping low, and took a look around, then slid back. "It's
not good. Captain. The second floor of that house com-
mands the whole field. There's a stone wall along the
boundary but I don't know if we can get to it."
"There's no cover at all?"
"Nothing but one tree. The grass is only a foot high
and it might hide you from the bottom floor but you're a
180
sitting duck from the second. If they've got a rifle, it'd
be shooting fish in a barrel."
Silver relayed this to Crouch and then climbed the bank
for a look of his own. "It's not too bad," he said, coming
down. "The men can keep low along the road to the
stone wall. They wouldn't be in the open for more than
twenty-five feet and once they're behind the wall, they're
set."
The walkie-talkie came to life. "Hildeth reporting. I
have the house in sight. No sign of life."
Crouch picked up the instrument and spoke into it.
Crouch only just got the door open when it was torn from
his grasp from within and thrown wide. Fellows and
Wilks, a step from the porch, slued to a halt, aware of
nothing so much as their own vulnerability. In despera-
tion they yanked their guns up, leveling them at the figure
that came flying through. It was only then that they saw
the skirt and beige dress and Fellows had barely time to
lower his gun before Susan Partridge was in his arms,
nearly bowling him over.
"Cover," shouted the chief, whirling so his back was be-
tween her and the house. Crouch and the other squadman
dashed with Wilks to help form a shield and, as if by sig-
nal, the twenty-four men around the house opened fire.
Bullets whined and teargas exploded as windows shattered
and casements splintered. There was the wild flapping of
186
a window shade and the ringing of bullets against gutter
pipes as the men with the giri chased back over the lawn.
190
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