Murder Mistress

by Robert Colby

  “That’s enough of that, Val,” said Scofield. But he drooled when he said it.

  “Not the Second National,” said Marty. “Well, I’ll be goddamned! My shop is in the same crib. Kee-ryst, I keep my small change in there. Clay, old buddy, you got a hundred grand until tomorrow?”

  And then much later, Marty again, “Christ, Clay, don’t you ever get the urge to clean out the whole goddam vault and thumb your nose at the world — from say, Tangiers?”

  Clay with half-smile. “Sure, Marty. But they watch me.”

  “You ever have anyone stick up the joint?”

  “Nope. And they’d never get away with it.”

  “Why?”

  “The little men in blue are geared for it. Close off the whole town in a matter of minutes.”

  “You think so? Bet I could clean your green and get away with it, easy.”

  “Big words, my man,” said Clay chuckling. “How?”

  “I’d wear a wig and a beard and hustle it right upstairs to my little shop. Wait until the wind died and take off.”

  “Clever,” said Clay casually. “You’re in the wrong racket.” But before he looked down into his glass, a small flicker of interest crossed his face. So Marty pursued.

  “Of course,” he said, “I’m just pulling your leg. And a guy would never get away with it. Every teller with a gun, guards all over the place.”

  “I can see you’re not up on banks in this town,” said Clay, burping behind his hand. “Not ours, anyway.” He leaned forward. “I’ll tell you something in strictest confidence. Our tellers are not paid to risk their lives and not one of them has a gun. Every dime in that bank is insured. So we have a policy, comes right down from the top. We say to every new teller, “If there’s a hold-up, don’t ever try to be a hero. Do exactly as you’re told. Give the criminals every possible assistance on their way. Get them out of the bank before an employee or customer is killed. If there is any shooting, it will be done by the police, outside of our doors.”

  “You’re kidding!” said Marty in amazement. “Crazy.”

  “Not at all. Why should we risk our lives for money that’s insured?”

  “What about the guard?”

  “Same thing. He carries a gun, of course. But he’s window dressing. Just a threat. No shooting. Unless, of course, he does it outside.”

  Marty took another drink and began to nod his head. “Well, sure. I can see how that makes sense. You got trigger-happy characters snappin’ off shots in a tight area like a bank, some innocent pigeons are gonna fall. The cash is insured, why chance it? Give the little men a helping hand. Play Santa and then let the cops pick them off on the streets.”

  “Exactly,” said Clay.

  “Jesus,” said Marty with an alcoholic grin. “It sure does strike me funny, though. Give the little men a helping hand with that cash. And make it snappy!” He began to chuckle. “Tell you, Clay buddy. You tip me when there’s a real big pile in the till, and me and my friend Roy here, will knock it over and split with you.”

  “That’s not funny,” snapped Clay. “I don’t like that kind of talk. A joke’s a joke, but….”

  “And he’s not joking, are you, Marty?” said Valerie, falling into a chair with a silly smile.

  “Oh, well now, for God’s sake, of course I’m joking. What the hell you think I am?”

  “All right then, drop it,” said Clay.

  “I’ll tell you this, though,” said Marty, watching Clay with a fixed and careful look. “You get as holy as you want about it. But there ain’t many guys in this goddam world who wouldn’t loot your bank or any other bank — providing they were pretty damn sure of getting away with it. And especially providing it was worth their while, a big enough haul to retire for life. And I’m no phony. I’ll admit I’m one of those guys.”

  “Fine,” said Clay. “I get the point. So now let’s drop it. What we need is another drink all the way round. Val, pass the bottle.”

  All this time Roy had been watching and listening in silence. He had not entered much in the conversation and had only one drink because he was a hired hand and every now and then Buck would peer below from the bridge. He might lose his small job and he was sick of losing jobs. But he had every reason to know that Marty was perfectly serious. Nor had he missed the interest which Clay had tried to hide with that self-righteous denial. That was the key. If the farthest thing from a man’s mind is to rob a bank, why does he have to haul in sail like a wounded preacher?

  When they compared notes later, Marty said he got exactly the same impression. Marty could see an open road if it was handled right. So when they debarked, half-loaded and everyone chummy again, Marty said why didn’t he and Clay have lunch together come Monday, since they were in the same building. Clay said it was a great idea and they set up the date. Which was another tip off, because Clay and Marty had about as much in common as Park Avenue and The Bowery. And Clay knew it. Both men had read each other like billboards at ten paces.

  According to Marty, that lunch with Clay was a regular shell game with words. Scofield was running scared and wouldn’t take the bait until about the third martini. That was when Marty slowly pulled the shade up on the window of his life and let Scofield see what he had guessed all along, that Marty was no stranger to the ways of the professional stick-up artist. Then they both began to lay their cards on the table. And after a couple more meetings, the whole deal was hatched.

  Meanwhile, Marty was also working on Roy to go in with him. Usually Marty worked alone. He claimed it was the best safety insurance he ever had. But this time he had to have help. Roy refused point-blank. At first. Until Marty showed him that it was not the beginning of a crime partnership — but a one-time plot that would culminate in a life of perpetual ease. Scofield had promised he could finger a half-million payroll delivery for them with no risk of a gun fight within the bank.

  Marty and Roy were to split three hundred seventy-five grand. Scofield was to get a hundred. And Valerie, for her small part, was to have the remaining twenty-five thousand. The overage of seventeen hundred would be split among them. Scofield was damn unhappy about his cut. But Marty insisted that the biggest shares should go to those who took the greatest risk. All Scofield had to do was supply information, watch from his desk for the delivery, then pick up the phone and dial Marty and Roy, waiting upstairs in the watch shop.

  When Roy saw that it was an astonishingly workable plan with a minimum risk, he began to break down. In the end, he decided that he never had and never would amount to anything. That he would always be at the mercy of some joe like Buck Kingsley for a handout job. Might as well give the dice of his life that one big roll — win or lose.

  The disguise had come about when Marty had seen some painters working in the travel bureau office on the main floor. They would rope off a section and spread a tarp to protect the area. It seemed perfect. Banks had to be painted, too. Valerie went all the way to Palm Beach to buy the coveralls, caps, brushes and tarp. These were antiqued with dirt and paint spatterings.

  The mask arrangement was beautiful for its simplicity. Strips of black cloth with eye-hole cuttings were sewn inside the caps. Lift the cap from the head, give it a shake and the mask, secured at one end, would fall to cover your face. When not in use the mask became an invisible lining for the cap. As an added disguise, Marty alone wore horn-rimmed glasses and a mustache. This was on the outside chance that even in that incongruous garb, he might be recognized by a building employee during the short walk down the hallway from staircase to bank and return. Both men kept their heads lowered and their attention on the tarp during this passage. The disguises were smuggled into Marty’s shop at an earlier date.

  The execution of the plan was a matter of timing and coordination. If there was an unforeseen development, they could still retreat in disguise, right up to the moment they approached the bank. But there was no hitch.

  On that Thursday morning, both men waited behind the locked door of Marty’s
shop, from which hung a sign — CLOSED. The costumes were wrapped for carrying, the tarp folded inside a huge shopping bag. When the phone rang and Scofield said, “We have your note, ready to sign, Mr. Garson,” they knew that the guards had just come into the bank with the money. From his position near the bend of the L, Scofield could just see a corner of the door — enough.

  The guards would remain a minute or two while the sealed sacks were checked and signed for by the head teller, Wilkins. During that time, Roy and Marty in street clothes, went with their packages to the seldom used stairway. They opened the door from the hall and before it swung shut, pressed the push-button lock so that no one could enter from that floor. Now they tore at packages, pulled the costumes over street clothes, placed bag and wrappings in the tarp and refolded it, carried tarp, paint brushes and PAINTERS AT WORK sign in hands.

  Quickly they went below, out the main-floor exit, heads bent during the short walk to the bank entrance. Nearby, Valerie waited, glancing at her watch as though expecting to meet someone. This was the signal that the guards had left the bank and that as far as she could see, the path was clear.

  Next they casually placed the sign on the door, took the tarp and backed inside. At the approach of policeman or guard, anyone who looked like trouble, Valerie was to tap on the glass of the door with a coin.

  The instant the door closed, as they faced the corridor, they flipped the masks into position. Now they turned around, each with gun in hand. Marty went right to the head teller’s window with the tarp, while Roy remained just out of sight but in position to cover anyone entering from the main section of the bank where the elderly guard made a lazy patrol.

  Marty forced the teller to admit him behind the rail and in seconds had him and the few employees near him, face down on the floor. Then he unfolded the tarp, gathered the sacks and wrapped them inside. He heaved the canvas covered bundle over to Marty saying clearly, “Okay, Rick. You and Junky load the car and take off. I’ll hold a gun on these jerks another five minutes.” This gimmick had a double purpose — to keep the employees down while they got away and to lead the cops to believe two of the men, called Rick and Junky, made their escape by car.

  But Marty sneaked out quietly. At the door, both men flipped the masks, stowed guns in pockets. Again as painters, this time carrying heavy equipment in a tarp between them, they made their way to the stairway entrance. When no one was watching, they slipped inside and rushed the loot to the fourth floor. Behind the same locked door, they removed costumes, tossed everything under canvas.

  Meanwhile, Valerie had taken the elevator to the fourth and was playing lookout in the hall. She had already unlocked the door to the watch shop. Now her coin tap on the door told them they could risk the fifty feet or so distance from stairway to shop. A push of the cross-bar and the door unlocked, they stepped out with their burden and rushed it into the shop. Had they been seen, at least they were in street clothes.

  Valerie went around to the other side of the building and took an elevator below. Roy remained with Marty, helping him wrap the money in cardboard boxes which were in turn placed in a chest. Next, they cut the canvas tarp, the sacks, the costumes into small strips. These in turn were boxed and placed in the chest. The chest was heavily locked.

  Roy, who had several days before quit his job with Buck Kingsley, now also departed, losing himself in the crowds on the street.

  And Marty opened his shop for business.

  The rest was no problem. Roy came back the next day and took a couple of the packages. Marty brought the rest home with him in two nights. The scraps of costume were burned, the split made at Marty’s. And all the while the progress of the police, or lack of it, was reported to them by Clay Scofield.

  It was decided that Roy should move out ahead and check the roads. Marty would follow with the three hundred seventy-five grand. Remaining in the shop until the last minute, he might gather news of any change in police method that would affect their escape.

  Not a word of the plan for travel and banking the money had been told to Clay or Valerie.

  Even as Roy sat in the car and wondered how it was possible that those two could have figured a way to cross a pro like Marty, a taxi pulled to the curb and Valerie alighted. Her heels went clipping down the walk. She looked crisp and expensive. Her breasts beneath the thin material of her dress bounced with her stride.

  Thoughts of the money receded and hung on the back rim of Roy’s consciousness. The lust was crowding in, needling him again. And never before had there been such an opportunity.

  He watched her fumble with keys, unlock the door. His last image was of that high saucy rump disappearing inside.

  FOURTEEN

  “We got a couple of Roys around here,” said the man in the booth on the Municipal Pier. “Least we did. One of ‘em quit. Which one you want? Roy Pardo?”

  “He work on one of these charter boats?” asked Daniels.

  “Nope. Speedboat rides. You must mean Roy Whalen. He was mate on Buck Kingsley’s rig. Gone now.”

  “Where?”

  “Don’t know. Heard he got a job back north. Construction. Buck would tell you.”

  “Where’ll I find him?”

  “You won’t. Not today. Hauled a charter over to Bimini. Catch him here in the morning sometime, I expect. Whyn’t you save yourself a trip. Give ‘im a call. Number’s on this card, take it along.”

  “Thanks,” said Daniels.

  “Don’t mention. Buck Kingsley, skipper of the Blue Sail.”

  “Thanks again.”

  “Don’t mention.”

  Scott Daniels, moving off the pier, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. The excitement seeped out of him. This looked like a dead end. If Roy Whalen was connected, so what? Back north. East … west … nowhere. A nowhere lead. Time was escaping.

  He felt the dull edge of depression. And just a few steps away there was the cool bar offering the sweet bitterness and spirit thrust of the dry martini. Brilliant thoughts and high purpose on the third one.

  Indecisively he altered course. Then swung back again towards his car. Not that road, he thought. The next step down will be sixty per at Recordmill Junction, sweep up when she kicks off the air. Thanks a lot, Dick Hurley, for the suggestion. And Milt Lundberg for the helping hand. But no thanks.

  He climbed in the car and cranked up for home.

  FIFTEEN

  Just before she opened the door, Valerie had the distinct impression that the phone was ringing. She made haste, but once inside there wasn’t so much as an overtone of bell sound. She must have been mistaken. Only Clay would call and then not unless there was an emergency.

  She went into the bedroom, the one she shared with Clay. For a moment she studied herself in the dresser mirror. They had done very nicely with her hair. Of course, it was set too tightly. But she would comb it out and brush it thoroughly, restore that fluff which gave her such a casual look of perfection. And oh, the clothes she had bought at Burdine’s! Hundreds of dollars worth. A few days for minor alterations and Clay would be in for a surprise.

  Lord, it was hot! She unzipped her dress and pulled out of it. She felt sticky. A luke-warm bath with some of those sweet-smelling crystals in the tub and she would be relaxed and fresh again. You went from air-conditioning out into that hot sun and the contrast was just too much.

  In the bathroom, while the tub was filling, she removed bra, panties and stockings. Naked, she dumped a few of the crystals in the water and climbed in, readjusting the mixture for more cold.

  In a minute she closed the tap and lay back, sinking under. She felt the muscular tension leave her, but the hollow drawn feeling in her stomach remained. Fear. Ugly, ugly. Not until they left this town would it ever vanish. Not until the bank and the police and Roy were just vague little memories of an unpleasant dream.

  Roy. He was the one to fear. Neither the bank nor the police had the slightest chance of linking Clay with the robbery — even if they knew
who committed it. There was no visible connection. But Roy, by some crude instinct, had come close to the answer of what happened to the money. And then all he had to do was accuse and read the possibilities on Clay’s face. Anyway — he knew. Not how. But he knew. And he was going to get that money, whatever it cost him. Or them.

  She almost wished Roy was dead and there was Marty to reckon with. She had maneuvered Marty once and might have been able to do it again. He sounded and acted tough. But he had a soft spot for the right woman. Didn’t she know?

  In Roy she had read pure animal lechery. But in Marty the lechery had been mingled with respect and a little core of something you might call love if you understood his capacity. All she had to do was play up to him on Clay’s advice. Nothing open. Just a hint in the eye, a brush against him, an innuendo of conversation. Next thing you know, Roy had gone and Marty was on the phone. He had something to say to her. Would she come over?

  And then he was pleading with her to skip with him, showing her the lure of that tan suitcase full of money, explaining the plan. And she was asking a few very indirect questions and getting direct answers, while stalling. She couldn’t go with him now because there were loose ends. She had given Clay her share of the money and had to get it back. Also, she was too kind-hearted. She wanted to let him down easy — not just disappear. She would fly to the coast and meet Marty as soon as she got his letter. And, “No, dear, not now. Save that for later when the strain is off us.” But she permitted him a few quick caresses to allay his suspicion. And “What time are you leaving, Marty — in case I should change my mind?”

  Then she took back to Clay the entire scheme, route and all.

  Suddenly she sat up in the tub and listened. It was the second time she thought she heard knocking. For some silly reason you hardly ever found a home down here with a doorbell. People had to break their hands to get your attention.