The Golden Girl and All

by Ralph Dennis

  “I’ve got wheels,” Art said.

  The Electra turned right at Five Points. Hump turned. Now we were three cars back. “Passing Plaza Park,” I said. “Staying in the center lane so far.”

  “Turning onto Peachtree at Five Points,” Art said.

  “Move up soon as you can,” I said. “I don’t want him to make me.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “At Alabama,” I said. “Still in the center lane.”

  “Got you and the Electra in sight,” Art said. “Take a left on Mitchell and a right on Pryor.”

  I nodded at Hump. “He’s yours,” I said to Art.

  Hump made a left turn onto Mitchell. One block and he took a right onto Pryor. Now we were parallel with the green Electra and Art’s unmarked police car.

  “Still going straight out,” Art said.

  “We’re getting back on Peachtree,” I said.

  “It’s turned into Whitehall now,” Hump said.

  “Whitehall then.”

  Hump took a right and, a block later, a left that put us somewhere behind Art and the Electra. They weren’t in sight ahead. Hump hit the accelerator and started bulling his way through the traffic.

  “Pulled into a service station. Dropped a kid off. Heading out again.”

  That figured. The pick-up man had paid the kid a few dollars to drop him off a distance from the Journal-Constitution and to pick him up out front a few minutes later.

  “Worth worrying about the kid?” Art asked.

  “No,” I said, “he’s day labor.”

  “Ahead,” Hump said.

  We’d made a sharp curve and there ahead of us was Art’s unmarked police car. “I see you, Art.”

  “Stewart’s coming up. He’s turning onto Stewart, heading for Hapeville.”

  “Time to leapfrog,” I said. “I’ll pick him up.”

  “He’s yours,” Art said.

  Ahead of us, Art worked into the right hand lane and pulled off the highway and stopped in front of a package store. Hump took a left and we were on Steward. The green Electra was about a block ahead of us.

  “Lay back some,” I told Hump.

  “I’ve never done much of this,” Hump said, “but isn’t this just a bit too easy?”

  “Bothers me too,” I said. “Either he’s simple or the trick’s coming.”

  “Where are you?” Art asked.

  “Passing the Salvation Army Officer Training School,” I said.

  “I’m working my way up,” Art said.

  “Get closer,” I said to Hump.

  Hump worked his way closer. Now we were half a block behind the Electra. “Atlanta Tech coming up,” Hump said. I passed that to Art over the walkie-talkie.

  On the left the fence that surrounded Atlanta Tech appeared. Behind the fence I could see the old airplanes they used in teaching aviation mechanics.

  “Shit,” Hump said.

  I looked ahead. The green Electra slowed and took a left through the entranceway and onto the grounds of Atlanta Tech. Hump said, “We follow?”

  “No, go on.”

  “This the trick?” Hump asked.

  “Might be.” I turned and looked through the rear window. The Electra was going down the road that curved to the left and circled the area where the old planes were parked. It was slow going because there was a speed bump about every twenty yards or so.

  “Art,” I said into the walkie-talkie,” he’s turned in at Atlanta Tech. We’ve gone past. He’s in a box.”

  “Like shit,” Art said. “There’s a way out. Joins the expressway back there.”

  Hump found a driveway, pulled in and made his turn. We reached the entranceway and Hump pulled in and followed the same road the Electra had taken. Only Hump wasn’t easing down for the speed bumps. We seemed to be flying about half the time. I put by hands up and tried to brace the hurt ribs. It didn’t do much good. Each time we landed on the other side of a bump I could count each rib.

  “Sorry, man,” Hump said without taking his eyes off the road.

  “Keep going,” I said.

  After we passed the large parking lot there weren’t any more speed bumps. I got the walkie-talkie and called Art. “We’re behind Atlanta Tech, looking for the expressway connection.”

  “Stay with it,” Art said. “I’ll follow Stewart on out toward Hapeville.

  At the rear comer of the parking lot Hump jerked to a stop. To the left a large low building with a flag flying over it, a sign in front: Georgia Educational Production Center. “Blind end that way, I think.”

  Hump swung to his right. A narrow road curved away from the rear of the parking lot and he followed that road. It wasn’t far to the expressway. Hump hesitated again. Most of the traffic was heading back toward Atlanta, on the far side of the highway. To the right, heading toward Hapeville, it was almost empty. There was no sign of the Electra in either direction.

  “Which way?”

  “Toward Hapeville,” I said. It was just a feeling, a hunch with nothing to back it up. The pick-up man seemed to know the area. If he was headed for some place in downtown Atlanta there were many ways he could have tried to lose us in the confused and seemingly formless layout of streets. Instead he’d led us down a straight line into southwest Atlanta. Then he’d pulled his trick perhaps just on the outside chance that he was being followed. Perhaps just to make us believe that he’d doubled back.

  “I hope you’re right,” Hump said.

  In the long stretch, with the almost empty road ahead of us, we could see for two or three miles. Nothing of the Electra yet. Hump looked in the rear view mirror. “Hope there’s no cops around.” He stomped on the accelerator. We went straight out for a couple of miles, edging past 90, and I’d about decided that we’d made the wrong choice when Hump said, “There’s our boy.”

  I saw the Electra, about half a mile ahead, slowing down to ease into one of the off ramps. “Close on him,” I said. I tried Art on the walkie-talkie and couldn’t raise him. I braced myself as Hump skidded into the off ramp and then we were following the abrupt rise of the exit road and I tried the walkie-talkie again. “We’ve, got him, Art. He took the exit …”

  “It must be dumb luck,” Art cut in on me. “I camped at the right exit. I’ve got him, you too.”

  “He’s yours,” I said. “We’ll peel away.”

  The Electra took a left and we slowed down behind him and took a right. In the rear window I could see Art’s unmarked police car tailing away from us. As soon as we lost them completely, Hump made his turn and we were after them again. We took it slow and easy. It was a rundown, tacky section we passed through, fast food shops, chicken to go, trailer sales, and a scattering of bars. It reminded me of the road leading out to the military reservation at Fort Bragg.

  “You just passed me,” Art said. “On your left.”

  He was parked in front of a closed and shuttered snow cone shop. Hump did a tight U and we parked next to him. I got out and kicked gravel over to the passenger door of Art’s car. I got in.

  “We almost blew it back there,” he said.

  “Where is he?”

  “Across the street. The Electra’s around back. Can’t see it from here.”

  It was a bar called the Blue Night Lounge. Even this early in the afternoon there were seven or eight cars parked out front. I checked my watch. Almost one-thirty. It was a little early for drinking. I’d been watching myself for the last couple of months.

  “We’ve got ourselves a bird in the hand,” I said.

  “I’m bushed,” Art said. “You and Hump go pick his feathers.”

  It was dark in the Blue Night. Maybe that was by plan, to make you forget how early it was, to give you the feeling that it was really evening. It was overheated too and the lounge smelled like simmering old beer. The Blue Night was a few steps up from the bars down around the Fulton County Courthouse, the ones that opened at six or so in the morning. The men scattered along the bar seemed to be skilled labor, electric
ians, plumbers, or construction workers on their day off or waiting between jobs. Only one man had a tie on and it had irregular stains, soup or tomato juice, down near the wedge end that touched his belt buckle. He was seated near the curve in the bar and as we passed I heard him telling the man on the other side of him about the days when he’d sold tons of structural steel in a single afternoon.

  I found two stools at the center of the bar, close to the beer taps. Seated, our backs were to the tables and booths. I didn’t want the search to be too obvious so I used the mirror behind the bar. It wasn’t hard. He was the only one in the lounge who wasn’t at the bar. He was seated alone at a table in the far back corner, drinking coffee. The owner, the manager or just a valued customer? As far as I could tell nobody else was drinking coffee and there wasn’t a coffee pot behind the bar.

  I nudged Hump. He gave me a short jerk of his head. He’d found him, too. The barman came over and I ordered two short cans of Bud. After the barman brought the beers and left with our money, I said, “We’ll give it some time.”

  “We could just kick his ass,” Hump said.

  “Not yet,” I said. “I think this is probably just half-way there.” I looked in the mirror and, as if to back me up, the pick-up man pulled back his shirt cuff and checked his watch. He got up from the table and carried his coffee cup through a door in the rear of the lounge. Hump started to slide off his stool and follow. I stopped him. “Stay easy,” I said. “If he leaves Art’s out front.”

  Hump nodded. “Getting shaky,” he said.

  “That’s two of us.”

  The pick-up man returned a minute or so later with another cup of coffee. He sat in the same chair, the one facing the outside door. He lifted the cup and blew some of the steam away.

  That reminded me. I lifted my beer and took a couple of short sips. It didn’t taste good this early in the day. It hit my stomach like a large block of ice. I looked at Hump and saw that he was having his troubles as well. “The first one of the day’s the best one, right?” I said.

  Agreeing, Hump took a large swallow and almost gagged. He gave me an injured look and I could see the muscles in his throat working to hold it down. I waited until it was under control. “It’s a busted rope,” I said. “He’s hired to pick it up. He’s to make sure he wasn’t followed here. He probably made a call soon as he got here. Said he wasn’t tailed. Now, somebody picks it up from him.”

  “Looked at his watch again,” Hump said.

  “He’s nervous.”

  The bartender moved down the bar toward us. I said, loud enough for him to hear, “How about seeing if I left that pack of Gold Medal cigars in the car?”

  Hump grunted and drank some more beer. “I will in a minute.”

  The outside door opened and the glare of winter light cut across the bar like a spotlight. Everybody at the bar except Hump and me looked away from the sun. For a short moment a woman was highlighted in the doorway and then she stepped inside and the wind smacked the door closed behind her. My eyes had to adjust to the darkness again but I got a look at her as she passed behind me and angled toward the table in the far back corner. She was a little on the bony side, wearing a tailored pants suit and a woman’s tan trench coat over that. The platinum blonde hair or wig was teased up into something like a beehive.

  “I’ll see about those cigars,” Hump said. “Watch my beer.”

  I pulled his beer close to mine and waited. The blast of wind and light struck again as he went out. I watched the pick-up man and the platinum blonde at the table to see if they paid any attention to Hump’s exit. They hadn’t. They seemed to be in the middle or an argument. He was shaking his head and she was insisting. Finally, I guess they got it settled and she reached into her shoulder bag and brought out an envelope. He jerked it away from her and held it just under the table top level for his count. She was seated across from him with her legs crossed. Now she was impatient and it set her top leg rocking. It wasn’t the slow, steady, auto-erotic leg rock. This was an angry one.

  The count must have been right. The pick-up man reached into the breast pocket of his gray suit and brought out an envelope. She grabbed it and stood up, all in one motion. She had a few more words for him and though I wasn’t close enough to hear any of them, I could have won a prize guessing some of them.

  Hump came in and walked down the bar to his stool. I pushed his beer back to him. “Couldn’t find the cigars,” he said, “so I guess you left them at the apartment.”

  “Probably,” I said.

  Hump lowered his voice. “Art had it figured soon as she drove up.”

  “What’s she driving?”

  “Yellow caddy convertible.”

  The blonde whirled away from the pick-up man. As she passed I turned on my stool and gave her my best bar watcher looking at a girl thing. I got a look at her face this time. I tagged her age around twenty-five. It looked like she’d lived those twenty-five the hard way and nobody was ever going to pick her for under thirty for the rest of her life.

  “Art’ll follow,” Art said. “He said he’d come back for us as soon as she settles somewhere.”

  “You mean we’ve got to drink some more?”

  “Seems so,” Hump said. “Never heard you complain so much before.”

  “It makes sense,” I said. I could see, in the mirror, that the pick-up man was still at his table. He was facing the front entrance. “Leaving right after the broad might make him wonder about us. He might make a phone call.”

  The barman passed and I waved a hand at him. He brought over two more cans of short Bud. I freshened my glass and sipped at it. The barman dropped my change on the bar and said, “I haven’t seen you two in here before, have I?”

  “Just passing through,” I said.

  Ten minutes later we left the Blue Night and went out and sat in Hump’s car. A few minutes later Art returned. He pulled off the highway and made a u-tum. “Got her planted,” he said over the walkie-talkie.

  Hump backed out and we followed him past all the neon and the fast food chrome. A couple of miles from the Blue Night he swung off the four lane into a two lane. Not far from the main highway we were in the center of a low rent residential section. Houses on both sides of the street, and perhaps another layer or two of houses behind the ones that fronted on the street. They were a little better than the usual cracker box but not much. The main difference I noticed was that there was some choice about whether the home owner wanted the carport on the left or the right.

  The yellow caddy looked out of place in the driveway of 124 Mason Tower Road. The driveway and carport here were on the right side and the lawn was overgrown and wintered yellow.

  Art drove past and we tailed him around a turn and parked behind me, out sight of the house and the caddy. Art came back and eased into the back seat.

  “You’d better stay out of this at first, Art.” I said.

  “If you’re going to do what I think you are, you might be right,” Art said. “The police don’t believe in ass-kicking without a warrant.”

  “I’d like to know who else is in the house. Any men, any shooters.”

  “There are ways,” Art said, “but you always got this hurry-hurry thing going.”

  “You could find out who the phone is listed to. Might give us something to make a guess on.”

  ‘I’ll call in.” Art got out and went over to his police car.

  “I’ve got a feeling we’re going to do something silly,” Hump said.

  “Like kicking doors open, storming in, things like that?”

  “I’d rather not,” Hump said. “That’s a way of meeting a bullet head on.”

  “They’re checking,” Art said when he returned.

  “I could use some iron if you’ve got a spare.”

  Art opened his jacket and reached back on his hip. He brought out his own, a Smith & Wesson .38 with a two inch barrel.

  I dropped it in my topcoat pocket. We were dragging our feet. It was past time and we
didn’t know how to do it. There wasn’t an idea among the three of us. I grabbed the door handle. “Might as well,” I said.

  A truck with Ideal Odorless Laundry on the panels came around the corner. It passed us and parked ahead a couple of houses. A fat black man got out and walked around to the back. He got out a package of laundry and walked across a lawn up to the house. I looked at Hump and grinned and he grinned back.

  “Art,” I said, “Hump wants to go into the laundry business.”

  Art was waiting at the truck when the laundry man returned with a bag of dirty clothes over his shoulder. Art showed his I.D. and the black man appeared interested until they talked for a minute or two. He seemed reluctant. I got out and walked over to them. The black was saying, “… couldn’t do it without the company saying it was okay.”

  I held out two twenties and a ten. “Rent for ten minutes,” I said.

  The laundry man took the bills and said he had nothing against helping the police. No sir, ask anyone and they’d tell you he was a good citizen.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Hump drove around the block and parked the truck behind the yellow caddy in the driveway. He was wearing the tan jacket with Ideal Odorless Laundry on the patch over the left breast pocket. The jacket was too small and he left it unbuttoned on the chance that it might not be too obvious that way.

  I was in the back of the truck, seated with my hands clasped over my knees. I could hear the ribs grating with each bounce and it was hard breathing with the pain. Now and then I’d have to reach up and push one of the bundles of laundry aside as it tipped toward me. Over my head, the plastic wrappings of the cleaning swished and cracked.

  Hump opened the rear doors and nodded at me. He selected a couple of dresses from the rack above and a bundle of laundry from the stack at my feet. He left the doors open and as soon as he moved away I ducked out of the truck. I kept the truck between the house and me and reached the cab. I took another step and looked over the hood. Hump was at the front door. He struggled to get a hand free. That done, he found the door bell and pressed it. I got Art’s .38 out and duck-walked up to the bumper.