by David Goodis
“Next block.” Kingsley was still standing in the far corner of the room. He hadn’t looked at Corey Bradford yet. Now he squinted at the man who weighed two-thirty. “What’s all the questions for? What bothers you, Ernie?”
“The car,” Ernie said. He was five-seven and the excess poundage gave him the shape of a barrel. He was dripping sweat in the sticky heat of the room. Some of the sweat was from worry. He muttered, “The car oughta stay where it is. If something happens. I mean—I mean, if we gotta get to the car in a hurry—”
“You’ll run,” Kingsley smiled at him. “You got legs and you’ll run.”
“You kidding me?”
“It’ll do you good to run,” Kingsley said. “You’ll lose some of that weight.”
The colored man chuckled. Ernie looked at him with displeasure and the colored man chuckled louder. Ernie looked him up and down and then faced away saying, “Some people I’ll clown with. Other people, no. Not under any conditions.”
The chuckling stopped. The colored man said, “You signifyin’?”
“I’m telling it straight,” Ernie said. “I’m allergic to chocolate.”
The colored man stiffened. His eyes glittered. He started to say something, but Kingsley interrupted, “Forget it, Gene.”
Gene was breathing hard. His mouth quivered.
Kingsley went to him and patted him on the shoulder, saying softly, “Come on, get hold of yourself.”
“I’m all right,” Gene mumbled. He looked away from Ernie. And then he was concentrating on Corey again, and he pointed the gun at Corey’s head.
***
So now it’s all professional again, Corey thought. But for a few seconds, it was just some sand lot monkeyshines, and maybe you coulda tried something.
Or maybe it’s better you didn’t, considering that you’re sitting in a chair and it takes time to get up and make a jump for that gun. It’s a long jump, it’s at least nine feet, and that’s suicide. And he ain’t gonna come no closer, either. He knows what he’s doing with that gun. He’s a gunman, this Gene. You can tell from the way he holds it. Just from the way he holds it and covers you, the traffic signal is red—period.
Delbert Kingsley was lighting a cigarette. He took a few drags and then pulled up a chair and sat down facing Corey Bradford.
For some moments Kingsley just sat and studied Corey’s face. Then he said, “You look sorta groggy.”
“From liquor,” Corey said.
“You soused?”
“Not now,” Corey said. “I slept it off.”
“You sure?” Kingsley prodded, frowning clinically. “You really look plastered. I can’t let you fade out.”
Corey grinned.
“What’s that for?” Kingsley murmured.
“You can’t let me fade out. That’s a good one.”
“But I mean it,” Kingsley said. “You know I don’t want you all chopped up. If I wanted that, you wouldn’t be sitting there breathing.”
“You wanted that in them swamps. In them swamps you weren’t playing.”
“Only because you cut loose. I couldn’t afford to let you get away.”
Corey grinned again. This time it was a tight grin. His eyes were saying, you still can’t afford that.
It got across to Kingsley. He smiled pleasantly and said, “Let’s keep it on the soft side. What the hell, I’m not a butcher. And it’s a cinch I can’t sell you for fertilizer. All I want from you is some talk. That is, if you know what I think you know.”
Corey leaned back in the chair. His expression was passive, his arms hanging loosely at his sides. It looked as though he was very weary, just about worn out. That was how he wanted it to look.
Kingsley said, “If you know what I think you know, then it’s just a matter of coming to terms and arranging a deal. The deal goes through, we both score.”
“Score how?”
“You get a ticket outta here.”
“On my feet?”
“Guaranteed.”
“And you?” Corey spoke with his eyes half-closed. “What do you get?”
“The jackpot.”
There was a long silence. Kingsley was waiting for Corey to say something, to show some reaction. Corey just sat there slumped, looking weary. Ernie moved closer, frowning anxiously. Gene stayed where he was, his dark face immobile, the gun braced in his hand as though locked in a vise, the muzzle aimed at Corey’s skull.
Kingsley gestured impatiently to Corey, “Come on, feed it to me.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Whaddya mean, you’re thinking? What’s there to think about? All you gotta do is gimme the information. That is, if you got it to give.”
“I got it all right,” Corey said. And then he smiled lazily. “I got it to sell.”
“Now look, you want that ticket, don’t you?”
“It’s gotta be more than just that ticket. A lot more.”
Hard lines showed on Kingsley’s face. He turned his head slowly, deliberately, his eyes aiming at the gun in the colored man’s hand. His head turning again, he scanned the invisible path that stretched from the muzzle of the gun to the side of Corey’s head.
He said to Corey, “You better wake up to what’s happening here. You’re in no position to quote prices.”
“Don’t bet on that,” Corey murmured.
Kingsley blinked several times. Without moving he seemed to be squirming.
Corey spoke very softly. “You know what’s in that jackpot?”
Kingsley shifted in the chair, wet his lips, rubbed his hand through his thick curly scalp. He muttered, “All right, tell me.”
“It comes in around a million five.”
“What?” Kingsley said. And then louder. “What? What?”
“I said a million five.”
Kingsley’s eyes were wide and his mouth was open. He looked at Ernie, then at Gene. They were gaping at Corey. Kingsley leaned toward Corey and said, “Let’s have that music again. Let’s have it nice and slow.”
Corey said it very slowly. “One million five hundred thousand dollars.”
Beads of perspiration gleamed on Kingsley’s forehead. He didn’t bother to wipe them off. He was rubbing his hands together and mumbling, “What a package, what a package—”
“We don’t have it yet,” Gene said.
“We’ll have it,” Kingsley said. Then he smiled fondly at Corey. “We’ll have it soon, won’t we?”
“If I’m included.”
“For how much?”
“One third.”
“Come again?”
“One third,” Corey said. “Off the top.”
“You’re joking.”
“Not hardly,” Corey said.
Kingsley was quiet for a few moments. And then, “All right, we’ll work something out. I’ll talk it over with Lita. As soon as she comes back. You don’t mind waiting, do you?”
Corey shrugged. He leaned further back in the chair. His tone was mildly curious as he said, “What’s this with you and Lita?”
“We’re tight.”
“Since when?”
“Well, we been together a long time,” Kingsley spoke matter-of-factly. “She was hooked to me long before she met Grogan. Then I’m doing a stretch, and she comes to visit me and says she’s latched onto something and it looks like gravy. There’s this certain moneybag, this Walter Grogan, and she’s living with him and just playing for time until she can hit for dividends. I tell her no, I don’t like it. Not because she was letting him get in. What the hell, I never cared who she slept with. For a cash return, that is. If you understand what I mean.”
Corey nodded.
Kingsley went on, “But I didn’t want her messing with Grogan. Because I’d heard about Grogan. You’re in stir, you’re always hearing about this one and that one, and I told her it’s always a mistake to cruise a racketman. It’s a good way to get some bones busted when he finds out he’s getting cruised. She tells me not to worry, she knows what sh
e’s doing. And then gradually I’m getting to see it her way. Because it ain’t like she’s cruising him for a hundred here and a hundred there. It’s more like she’s putting a blindfold on him, selling him the idea that with her the money comes second. What comes first is reading the philosophers and looking at paintings and going to lectures and so forth.”
“And meanwhile, of course, she’s finding out more and more about his finances. Not that he ever tells her. And not that she sees it on paper. But there’s times he’s on the phone and there’s another phone upstairs. Other times he’s talking with syndicate people and they’re sitting around in the parlor and she’s upstairs in the hallway, listening.
“And what it all comes to, she says there’s reason to believe he’s got hot lettuce put away somewhere. She figures it’s around a hundred grand.”
Corey smiled thinly.
Kingsley went on, “Well, anyway, it got me thinking. I mean, what the hell. You don’t walk away from a hundred grand. So the first thing I did when I got outta prison, I started a campaign to get released from parole. For a long time it was no go. I couldn’t get to first base at the parole office. But then something happened. I found exactly what I needed. A front. The perfect front.”
“Lillian?”
“Check,” Kingsley said. “And we’re married only three months when the parole office lets me off the leash. Because they don’t keep a man on parole when he’s living the good clean life with a decent respectable woman.”
“And Lita? What about Lita?”
“We kept in touch. At first we couldn’t get together like we wanted to. But later, when they took me off parole, we rented this crib. That is, Ernie pays the rent with the money we give him—”
“But what if the owner walks in?”
Kingsley appeared puzzled for a moment. Then he chuckled softly. “I see what you mean. She told you it was Grogan’s property. She hadda tell you that. Fact is, it’s one of the few houses in the neighborhood that don’t belong to Grogan.”
“And that notice on the front door? No Trespassing?”
“From a door across the street. I made the switch after I got the phone call from Gene. He spotted you on Addison. So then I give Lita some instructions—”
“Very neat,” Corey murmured. “Except there’s one thing I don’t get. I mean, all this engineering with Lita, sending her out to put the flim-flam on me. What made you think it would pay off? Or lemme put it this way—what gave you the idea I had the information you wanted?”
“Lita tipped me,” Kingsley said. “That is, she told me something that put some thoughts in my head. She told me what she saw today. Grogan sitting in his car, and then he opens the door for you. The car pulls away and an hour later it comes back and you’re still in it with Grogan. Real chummy. So during that hour you weren’t just talking about the weather. He musta been telling you what he didn’t feel like telling you last night, when Lita was listening upstairs. Because last night he wasn’t sure he could trust you. But today, for some reason, you’re more than just another name on the payroll and it’s buddy-buddy. He lets you get in that elegant Spanish car. I don’t hafta tell you, he’s very particular about who rides with him in that car. So I’m adding two and two and getting four, telling myself that Grogan rates you high enough to give you all the facts—to tell you what’s in the jackpot and where the jackpot is stashed.”
Corey pretended a look of wonder. He injected pure amazement in his slow-spoken words, “Kingsley, you’re a wizard. I mean that very seriously.”
Delbert Kingsley turned his head and looked at Gene and Ernie. “Didja hear that?” And then, louder, “Didja hear what he said?”
In the hallway there were footsteps and then the door opened and Lita came in. Kingsley got up from the chair. He took Lita to the far corner of the room. They stood talking in low tones, their backs to Corey. He couldn’t hear what they were saying; he wasn’t trying to hear. His thinking was running far ahead of that. He sat there smiling companionably at Gene and Ernie. They didn’t smile back. Ernie was pacing around, restless. Gene stayed where he was, nine feet away from Corey with the gun still pointed rigidly at Corey’s head. Then Kingsley and Lita faced about and came toward Corey, and he checked the way they were grinning at him. Very friendly, he told himself. Friendly like crocodiles.
Kingsley patted Corey on the shoulder. “You’re in,” Kingsley told him. “You got yourself a contract.”
“What terms?”
“The price you quoted. One third off the top.”
“Regardless of the take?”
“That’s right. The take is what you say it is, you walk away with five hundred grand.”
Ernie let out an anguished yelp. “That’s way outta line.”
“Close your head,” Lita hissed at Ernie.
“But you can’t let him have all that.” Ernie was very agitated. “It don’t make sense.”
“Close it,” Lita hissed.
“Don’t you tell me nothin’,” Ernie yapped back at her. “I wanna holler, I’ll holler. Christ’s sake, I got a right to holler. I have stock in this corporation—”
“Me too,” the colored man cut in quietly, and yet it sounded loud in the room.
Kingsley looked at the colored man. “What’s the matter, Gene?”
“It’s rotten eggs,” the colored man said. “This time I go along with Ernie.” And indicating Corey, “He’s taking us. He gets that one third, he’s cutting our throats.”
“No he ain’t.” Kingsley spoke softly, soothingly. With his eyes he coded a message to Gene, and Gene’s eyes relayed the message to Ernie.
Kingsley said to Corey, “Now here’s what we do—first you spill. You gimme the location, the exact location where the loot is stashed. I go there with Lita and we pick it up and come back here—”
Corey was shaking his head.
“What’s the objection?”
“Them,” pointing to Gene and Ernie. “You leave me here with them, I won’t be sitting in this chair when you come back. I’ll be on the floor with a hole in my skull.”
“Why do you say that?” Kingsley frowned.
“Because that’s what’ll happen if I let it happen. Because all it needs is one bullet. And that leaves me out and they get a bigger slice.”
“Now look, I give you my word—”
“It’s gotta be more than that.”
“Such as what?”
“That’s up to you,” Corey shrugged. “You’re the dealer here.” And in his brain he looked at the cards he was holding. He saw four cards, a ten, a jack, a queen and a king. He sat there waiting and hoping.
Come on, he spoke without sound to Delbert Kingsley. Come on, dealer, deal me that ace.
Kingsley was gazing thoughtfully at the floor. Some moments passed and then he said to Corey, “All right, let’s try it this way—you make the trip with me and Lita. That is, you’ll navigate. We pick up the loot, you get your split then and there. If it’s cross-up, you get this,” and from under his shirt he pulled out a .38.
Without sound Corey said, Thank you dealer man.
Ernie was saying, “What about me and Gene?”
“You and Gene stay here,” Kingsley said.
“What for?”
“A caper like this, the less the better.”
“How you mean?”
“Less chance of a foul-up,” Kingsley said.
“That ain’t how I see it,” Ernie grumbled. “The way I see it, we oughta—”
“You starting again?” Lita frowned at Ernie.
“I’m only saying—”
“You’re saying nothing,” Kingsley cut him off. “You’ll do what you’re told and that’s all. I’m getting tired of your goddam yapping. I’m trying to do some thinking here, and you stand there running your fat mouth. With noise coming out. Just noise.”
“It’s more than noise,” Ernie stood his ground. “I’m makin’ a point and you know it. You hit for that cash, me and Gene should
be there when it happens. Ain’t that right, Gene?”
The colored man looked at Ernie, looked at Kingsley, then at Ernie again. Kingsley and Lita exchanged a glance. Kingsley smiled pleasantly at Ernie and Gene and said to them, “Now look, you two wanna talk it over, that’s all right with me.”
They hesitated a moment. Then they moved off to one side and commenced a whispered conference. They had their backs to Kingsley. His pleasant smile remained pleasant as he aimed the .38 and pulled the trigger and almost in the same split second, aimed again and pulled the trigger.
On the floor the colored man was facedown, motionless. Ernie was on his knees, coughing and bringing up blood. He crawled toward Delbert Kingsley. He was weeping and the tears dripped down, mixing with the blood that spilled out of his mouth. He said to Delbert Kingsley, “Why’d you do that? Did you hafta do that?”
Kingsley nodded slowly.
“No,” Ernie wept. “No, you didn’t hafta do that. Not that.” He coughed again and fell over on his side. His mouth opened wide, making an effort to pull some air into his lungs. But before he could do that, his body became rigid.
“Check him,” Kingsley said to Lita.
She went over to Ernie, examined him and said, “He’s done.”
“Check the jig.”
Lita went to Gene and felt his pulse and told Kingsley there was no pulse. She walked back to Kingsley and stood beside him. They both looked at Corey Bradford.
“Up,” Kingsley said, motioning with the gun. Corey got up from the chair. Kingsley and Lita moved behind him.
“Let’s travel,” Kingsley said.
The three of them walked out of the room.
Chapter 13
There was no talk as they went through the hallway and down the stairs. Lita had switched on a light in the hallway, flicked another switch to illuminate the parlor. They moved slowly, going through the parlor, toward the front door. Corey was slightly in front with his hands at his sides. Kingsley prodded him with the gun and told him to clasp his hands behind his back. Then Kingsley told Lita to take a look outside. It was possible the shots had awakened some neighbors, and he didn’t want heads sticking out of windows. Lita opened the front door, gave the street a long careful look, said there were no eyes out there. The gun nudged Corey’s spine and he walked out of the house, Lita beside him, Kingsley close behind, letting him feel the gun as they moved along the narrow street. Corey said, “Why the pressure with the rod? We got a contract, ain’t we?”