by Peter Rabe
One minute before traintime he entered his compartment and locked the door. When the train started to move, he put the leather case on the seat, took off his hat and coat, and sat down. It was hours before the train would hit Detroit, but Catell did not make himself comfortable. He sat without leaning against the cushions, his narrow hands folded between his knees, only his eyes showing how tired he was. He hadn’t slept much during the past few days, because he had been nervous and unsure of himself. When Schumacher had explained the heist to him, Catell had felt unsure. The feeling had stayed with him when he had cased the job, when he had pulled it, and when he had haled up in that burg Hamilton City for a few hours of fitful sleep.
The job had been too easy. Catell pulled out a cigarette and then forgot to light it. He wondered if prison could have made him feel this way, broken down to the size of a gutless punk, a nervous rat. But that didn’t make sense, because he had been in prison before. He was a three-time loser, out for the last time, out for good until he died—one way or the other.
Catell jumped in his seat and made an automatic move for the leather case next to him. He had fallen asleep there, sitting there with the doubt and the fear scrambling his brain.
He cursed through his teeth, trying to shake the weariness out of his bones. He was getting too old, maybe, a crazy has-been who was trying to wrench himself back up by dreams of an old reputation; a reputation so old it didn’t even fit the picture any more. He had slipped badly; he’d slipped so hard that they’d sent him up for that third time.
But that was going to be the end of that. They didn’t know it yet but they had given him his other chance. Nobody was going to call Catell a has-been, an old broken-down three-time loser with a lot of fancy memories and a long list of dead friends.
He was going to pull that big one once more, the one that only Tony Catell could handle, the job that meant big time. And he wanted to walk away from it with a bundle. Perhaps this heist had looked so easy because he still had that old touch. And he certainly had walked away with a solid piece of swag. He patted the briefcase beside him. There was nothing small time about its contents, a thirty-six-pound ingot of solid gold.
Chapter Two
Otto Schumacher chewed his gray mustache and pushed his glass back and forth on the table. He looked across the crowded room of the roadhouse, but he didn’t focus on anything in particular.
“What time is it, Selma?”
“Eleven. Five minutes later than the last time you asked me.”
Schumacher hardly heard the woman. He was nervous; he disliked public places.
“Otto, lemme have another drink.” Selma waited a moment for an answer and then waved for a waiter.
She got her drink and rolled a little bit of the liquid on her tongue. She liked the fine sharp sting in her mouth.
“Otto, how about another one for you?”
Schumacher looked at his glass, half full with a tepid brown liquid.
“No, thanks. You have one.”
“I just got one.”
“Good. Good. Anything you want, Selma.”
“I want a hot-water bottle.”
“Fine. Fine, Selma.”
“I want two hot-water bottles, you bum!”
“You want—Selma, what are you talking about?”
Selma looked at Schumacher as if he were a sick dog and made an ugly sound in her throat. Then she swallowed her drink.
“Selma, what was that for?”
“For you, lovin’ cup. I want another drink.”
“You’re the one that wanted to come. I told you this was strictly business, but you had to tag along.”
“That’s right, lovin’ cup. I had to tag along to this converted hash joint. I had to tag along. That’s how much fun I get hanging around you, lovin’ cup.”
“Selma, I have spoken to you before and I will speak again. I give you anything, the best—”
“With you, the best ain’t much, lovin’ cup.”
“You’re no spring chicken yourself, dear Selma.” There was a short silence. They didn’t look at each other.
“I want another drink.”
Schumacher went to the bar to buy Selma another drink. He was disgusted with himself for losing his temper. Besides, Selma was all right, a fine woman to have around. Just right, now that she was slowing down a little.
He brought the drink back to the booth and noticed that Selma was getting tight. The little wrinkles around her eyes showed up more clearly and one of her curls was hanging down the side of her ear.
“Selma, I got business tonight and I must ask you to go easy. You know what it means to us.”
“Yeah. I bet he won’t show.”
Schumacher narrowed his eyes for a moment. “He’ll show. I’ve known Tony for twenty years and he’ll show.”
“And what if he shows and the deal didn’t come off?”
“The deal came off all right, Selma.”
“So what are you worried about? Why do you have to sit there like a fireplug the dog passed by?”
“It’s not that simple. There’s some trouble.”
“Oh, sure. Schumacher, the brains from way back, he gets himself the best jug heavy in the field, his old buddy Tony Catell, who, just fresh from college, is eager to please his old buddy Otto, and he sets him up with a setup like happens once in a lifetime, he sets him up. And when Tony delivers the goods, all of a sudden there is some trouble. With you, Schumacher, there is always some trouble!”
Schumacher didn’t answer. If she didn’t stop shouting and making scenes, he’d tell her to beat it for good. He’d tell her she was through and she could pick her stuff up in the morning. Off the sidewalk, where he’d throw it. Schumacher turned toward Selma but she wasn’t saying a thing now. Her lidded eyes were wide open, her thin mouth was smiling vaguely, and her chin was tilted up as if she were looking over somebody’s head. Selma was patting her tight curls and then Schumacher saw Tony Catell in the crowd.
He was slowly worming his way past the bar, around the crowded tables, and up to the booth. Catell walked past the booth without a sign of recognition. He went to the men’s room, came back to the booth, and sat down.
“What’s she here for?”
“Otto and I are always together,” Selma said, and she put her hand through Schumacher’s arm. She leaned forward on the table and smiled at Catell. He looked at the V of her dress. Selma was small there. What Catell remembered about Selma was her fine skin and her wide hips. He saw she still had a fine smooth skin.
“My boy, I congratulate you,” Schumacher said. “That was a fine job you did there.”
“Thanks. You figured a neat setup. No troubles.”
“That’s what I wanted to speak to you about, Tony. We’re not quite through yet. The fact is—”
Tony wasn’t listening. His white face looked worn with sleeplessness and his hands were nervous.
“Lemme have a drink first, Otto. I’m beat.”
“That’s right, lovin’ cup. Let him have a drink first, for chrissakes. You and your business all hours of the day and night. I’ll have one with you, Tony.” Selma smiled at him again.
Schumacher didn’t say anything. Above all, he wanted to keep peace. It was difficult enough to explain things to Tony without Selma acting up.
When the drinks had come, Schumacher cleared his throat and said, “Tony, pay attention. Something slipped up.”
Catell only shifted his eyes. “Nothing slipped. Nobody saw me, nobody followed me, nobody knows I’m here in Detroit. And we got the gold, didn’t we? Selma, want another drink?”
She smiled at him and pushed her glass toward him. Before she leaned back in her seat she touched his sleeve and ran one finger along the back of his hand.
“How about you, Otto? Another drink?” Catell said.
Schumacher shook his head and swirled the brown liquid in his glass. He didn’t like the way things were going.
“Listen, Tony,” he said. “This trouble w
e got is the kind you wouldn’t know anything about.”
“What trouble? We got the gold and nobody knows it. What more do you want?”
Schumacher leaned forward in his seat and stared at Catell with an exasperated look on his face. “What do I want? I want to sell the stuff, that’s what I want. And the trouble is, I can’t sell it now!”
“What?”
“I said we can’t sell it. That gold is radioactive.”
“What in hell are you talking about?”
“I’m trying to explain. When I staked out the job, I didn’t get the full story. I didn’t know that gold would be radioactive. I just found out.”
Catell understood two things: He understood that Schumacher said he couldn’t sell the gold, and he understood that Schumacher was serious. He could tell by the old man’s face, by his sick-looking eyes, and by the way Schumacher sat hunched forward in his overcoat. Why didn’t the old bastard ever take his overcoat off? What was he trying to pull with his double talk? Catell’s brain was too tired to think straight. All he could do was sit there and hate Schumacher, hate his reasonable ways, his messy-looking mustache, his slut Selma, who kept grinning at him with her big face.
“Catell, are you listening to me?”
“Yeah.” He took his eyes off Selma’s naked arm and forced himself to concentrate. “All right, Schumacher, what’s this crap about radioactive? The stuff is gold, isn’t it?”
“Jesus, Catell, don’t you know what radioactive is? That metal is pure poison!”
Catell held the whisky glass up to his mouth and licked the rim with a slow motion of his tongue. When he looked at Schumacher, his eyes glittered with fatigue. “Otto, are you giving me the runaround?”
Schumacher caught the tone of Catell’s voice and he had a bad moment. Then he talked with a voice that was harsh and hurried.
“I don’t think you understand, Catell. That ingot of metal you got is dangerous. It gives off radiations that can make a man sick, and for all I know, it can kill a man. Now shut up for a minute. When this deal came up, all I knew was that the government was shipping one ingot of gold to the Atomic Research Center of Kelvin University. The gold was going to be there about a week and they were going to do some kind of fancy radiation work on the thing. When, how, why, and so forth—that I didn’t know, except that I had a good idea it wasn’t going to be during the first two days. That’s why I planned the heist for the second day after the gold got there. Well, the setup was good and you came through as expected. The setup was real good. They got their security rules and so on, but the work at that research place isn’t really so secret. They only do limited work and nothing very new. So it doesn’t call for full-dress security. Besides, it’s a university and no Fort Knox. So the whole deal worked out easy as pie except now we are stuck with a worthless chunk of gold.”
Catell took a deep breath, with an effort. When he spoke his voice sounded squeezed. “Otto, how come you know so much? How come it’s on again, off again, and nobody knows but you?”
Schumacher started to toss his hands in exasperation. Then he stopped as if the gesture had exhausted him.
“Tony, for God’s sake, I’m telling you straight. Something slipped and the bar you got was already hot. You’re worried how come I know so much? From the horse’s mouth I know, straight from the FBI bulletins on the radio, ads in the papers, and all of them screaming that the loot you got is radioactive. They send out warnings. Haven’t you read it or heard it?”
“I haven’t had time to read the papers.”
“All right, so I’m telling you. When radioactive stuff disappears, maybe stolen, they right away put out a total alarm. To you, to the guy that’s toting that dangerous stuff around and doesn’t know it.” Schumacher leaned back in his seat and unbuttoned his overcoat. He was sweating. “So listen to me, Tony, and listen to reason. We don’t know how hot that gold is, perhaps just a little, but it’s poison just the same. We’ve got to stay clear of it and we can’t move it right now. Not for a while. That radioactivity wears off in time, so it’ll be safe again after a while, but right now—” Schumacher made a helpless gesture.
Suddenly Catell felt so weary he could have lain down in the booth and slept. He felt that if he couldn’t sleep right now he might cry.
“The deal’s got to be canceled,” Schumacher was saying. “It came off good but it ended up bad. Later, maybe. Right now it’s a flop.”
The words came to Catell like a curse. They stung him with a fine, deep pain that gripped his body and shook him awake. He gritted his teeth and leaned toward Schumacher.
“And now I’ll say my piece. I don’t know about this radioactive crap, Otto, and it’s not going to scare me. It may be true what you say, and then again it may not. I’ve been toting this stuff around and nothing’s happened to to me. If it’s rotten or if it’s hot, that stuff won’t stop me, because I’m not stopping. Get that, Otto. Nothing’s going to stop me and I wouldn’t want you to be the one to try it.”
He took a deep breath. He felt all right again.
“Selma,” he said, “how’s it been for excitement?”
He was glad Selma was there. Right then he felt she was the sexiest female he had ever seen. He didn’t notice the wrinkles around her heavy eyes or the loose skin under her chin. He just saw her big face, which had been very handsome, and he noticed her white arms, which still had beautiful skin.
“How about a dance, kid?” he said.
“Tony,” Schumacher said, “where’s the gold?”
“Oh, leave him alone now, Otto. Can’t you ever stop talking business?”
“She’s right, Otto. We’ll talk tomorrow. We don’t need to push that stuff in this town. So we get rid of it someplace else. We’ll figure some other way. We won’t let this thing die on the vine, eh, Otto?”
This was the first time Catell had smiled in a long time. But he wasn’t looking at Otto. Selma smiled back at him and started to push her way out of the booth.
“Tony,” said Schumacher, “where’s that rotten gold?”
“Lemme out, Otto. Tony wants to dance with me.” Selma pushed against Schumacher’s side.
“Let the lady out, Otto,” Tony said. He got up, taking Schumacher by the arm.
“All right, Tony, all right. Go dance. But where’d you stash that gold? You got to tell me.”
Tony had pulled Schumacher to his feet and Selma got out of the booth. She stood close to Catell and didn’t move when he put his arm around her and dug his fingers into the flesh of her waist.
“The loot is safe, Otto. I left it at your place.”
“At my place? How’d you get in?”
“How’d I get in!” He laughed at Schumacher’s worried face.
“Tony, get it out of there, man. I’m telling you it’s dangerous stuff.” He clutched at Catell’s arm.
“Let go,” Catell said, and he gave Schumacher a vicious push.
The older man sat down in his seat with a thump and looked up at the couple. “Selma, you reason with him,” he said. “You and I aren’t safe with that thing around. He’s got to get it out.”
“What makes you think I won’t be safe?” Selma said, and her smile was hazy with alcohol.
Catell made an impatient gesture. “I’ll move it. Don’t worry. Otto. I’ll move it in a day or so, once I get my bearings.” He gave Selma a sharp squeeze and pushed her ahead of him toward the dance floor.
“Tony!” Schumacher called after the couple. “Tony, tonight. Please do it tonight!” But nobody heard him. He sat hunched in the booth and followed the couple with his eyes. They did not dance. They skirted the dance floor and went out the front door.
After a while, Schumacher thought of ordering a fresh drink for himself, but decided against it. He hated drinking in public places, and he hated this place in particular. He sat and waited only because he was afraid to go home. He waited, hoping Catell would come back and agree to move that ingot out of the apartment tonight.
> When the band packed up, Schumacher got up and left. There was no point in waiting any longer. Catell must have taken Selma to town.
Outside, Schumacher shivered in his overcoat and smoothed a finger over his gray mustache. He felt cold and alone. With an old man’s awkwardness he hunted in his pockets for the car key. When he had found it, he walked into the parking lot.
Before he put his hand on the door, Schumacher felt the car move. In the back seat he saw them. He saw Catell’s back and he saw one of Selma’s legs.
Schumacher left quietly, thinking with dread of the dreary bus ride home, and of the thing that waited for him there.
Chapter Three
Jack Herron didn’t much like to go on a case with his chief. It made him uncomfortable and awkward. Jones never said much and always wore a bland face. Without talking they walked down the main corridor of the Research Center of Kelvin University until they came to a door marked “C. A. Tiffin, Director.” At the Research Center, Tiffin was top dog. He was bald, thin, and ugly, but he was top dog and he always let you know it.
“Well, gentlemen, what have you done about this outrage besides handicapping our work at the Center? I suppose you have come back for another one of your double checks?”
“Outrage, Dr. Tiffin?”
“The theft, Mr. Jones. The almost unbelievable—”
“We’re handling that matter. For the moment we are concerned with another aspect of the—uh—outrage; the aspect that was your responsibility.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The drained shielding wall around your atomic pile. The radiation leak that made the stored gold radioactive in the first place. Have you determined just how radioactive the ingot may have been at the time of the theft?”
Tiffin shuffled his papers around. He pushed his chair back abruptly and stood.
“The difficulties are such—” he started.
“Have you figured it out?”
“My assistants are still working on it, Mr. Jones.”