Agreement to Kill

by Peter Rabe

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  Agreement to Kill

  PETER RABE

  a division of F+W Media, Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  The Box

  Also Available

  Copyright

  CHAPTER 1

  It was half a street One side had houses, a few stores, and people walking. The other side was a blank wall. Along the top of the wall and around the large gate were a few geometrical frills in stone, but it was senseless. The wall meant prison and the gate was steel. It opened without sound, the movement almost casual.

  A tall man stepped through, stooping as if afraid he might hit the top of the frame, and he straightened up when the gate shut with a clank. He didn’t turn at the sound. For a moment he stood on the bare side of the street and squinted in the sun’s sharp, high light.

  With a sudden movement he started across the street The way he moved looked greedy. Then he stood on the sidewalk, his back to the long wall on the other side of the street, watching the stores, the people, the whole view without prison in it.

  After a while, he said to himself, after a while it will feel the way it should. He would know that he stood here on the street, not imagining it He breathed faster, but the feeling of not being here didn’t leave him.

  He squinted nervously, as if an insect were bothering him. Then he walked. A half-hour walk to the bus, and then a three-hour ride on the bus and he’d be home. He wouldn’t even have to go all the way into Stone Bluff because the bus passed the farm and he’d get off right there. Walking, he felt the strain in his face and then the tense set of his jaw. He rubbed his face. Then he put a cigarette into his mouth so that his jaw would have to relax.

  A half-hour walk to the bus — He went over it as if afraid he might forget the routine, then caught himself. No need to think about it. No doubts and no need for decisions because he had it all laid out beforehand and had decided his steps. The simplest, the straightest, the hardest way of all. Done with prison, go back to the farm, check over the damage and work. Three years’ fallow might even have been for the better. That’s how he was going to think about it; no other way. Any other way and there would be nothing for him to hold on to.

  He didn’t notice it, but his jaws were clenched tight again, as if he were holding something tight in his teeth.

  The prison was at one end of town, which didn’t make any difference to the rest of the city. The center was full of noise, amusements, and neon. The neons jumped and sparkled even though the sun was shining bright When he stopped at a traffic light a hand plucked his sleeve, another came up to his eyes. It was cupped around a picture.

  “Special today, feller. The whole dozen …” The voice stopped, then started to laugh. “Hell, it’s Spinner. Just got out today?”

  He looked down at the man and nodded. “Just now. And let go my sleeve.”

  “Sure, Spinner,” and the man laughed again. His old back was bent and his old face was grinning. “Beat you by maybe a week,” said Moss. “Good thing for you I ran into you.”

  Spinner crossed with the light but the old man stayed next to him. “Seeing you and me is fraternity brothers …”

  “Beat it, Moss. I’m not buying.”

  Moss was still grinning. He almost always did. He walked along next to Spinner and stuck the pictures back into his pocket.

  “Where you going? Back to that farm you got?”

  Spinner ignored the slur in the old man’s voice, turned the corner, and walked into the bus station.

  He bought a one-way fare to Stone Bluff and folded the ticket into his pocket. He had imagined it differently. He remembered thinking that once he bought the ticket the feeling would be something like a final decision. It would be like the show of strength which meant he had guts to go back, some magic touch which meant that for once and at last everything had to go his way.

  None of this happened. He had bought his ticket and when he turned Moss was there waiting for him.

  “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee,” said Moss. “From one con to another.”

  “Con?”

  “You been in jail, Spinner. That makes you a con.”

  Spinner ran one hand down the side of his face to cover the jump in his muscle. It felt as if the muscle was sticking out like a bent spring and everybody could see it.

  “And lucky,” Moss went on. “Hell, you ought to be happy. I seen buddies of mine got twenty years for assault, against your three.”

  Spinner stopped and said, “Moss, listen. I’m so happy I don’t need another thing in this world. Not even you. So go away. I keep smelling jail when I look at you.”

  “Here’s the counter,” said Moss. “Two black, for my buddy and me,” he called to the girl, and then he sat down without doubting that Spinner would, too.

  Spinner sat down, because he suddenly felt very tired. He thought there was no point making a struggle of everything, to make an issue over a cup of black coffee and how he envied the ease in Moss, his grin, and the way he relaxed on the stool. His ease — no. That didn’t fit Moss. There was a wormlike softness in the way he acted.

  “I know how you feel,” said Moss, and watched Spinner sit down. “Every time I get out I go through it.”

  “Through what?”

  “The way you feel. Like you ain’t out yet.”

  Spinner put down his coffee and crossed his arms on the counter. “I’m out.”

  “Sure. Like down and out. Listen, Spinner, you got to work at it.”

  Spinner squinted his eyes as if the sun were in his face. He hunched his big shoulders together. It helped keep the anger down. From somewhere the anger had come up inside him and he didn’t know why or what to do with it.

  “Now here’s how you work at it, Spinner. Expose yourself to the nice things in life, get it? Give the nice things in life a chance to get at you.”

  “Like that filth you showed me?”

  “Naw. That’s just the come-hither, the teaser. Now, my real business …”

  “I never knew a pimp your age, Moss.”

  Moss laughed. The laugh made Spinner want to spit. “Don’t worry about it, Spinner. Just sit there for a minute while I make a phone call.”

  “Thanks for the coffee,” said Spinner. “But that’s all.”

  Moss was getting up, taking a dime out of his pocket.

  “Just work at it, Spinner, while I set it up. Just sit there and work at it” He went to the phone booth.

  Spinner’s shoulder started to ache and he made himself loosen up.
But his anger was there again, from somewhere, and it made him work the muscles inside his throat to avoid choking on it. Something had started it — what Moss had said. Work hard and you can’t lose, or something like that. Must have been his father who said that Not his mother. He remembered she had been dead by the time his father started with his homey lessons. He knew lots of homey sayings and lessons and they all had to do with work hard and you can’t lose.

  Then his father had lost half the farm, then his job, and in the end he had lost his life.

  “All set” Moss came back from the phone and sat down. He stared into Spinner’s face and seemed to he thinking. “You know, I just remembered something. You’re from Stone Bluff.”

  “And I’m going there in about fifteen minutes.”

  Moss ignored it.

  “Isn’t that where Dixon’s got his place?”

  Spinner held still. He hadn’t been thinking about Dixon and he had thought that the name Dixon would no longer give him a jolt He had thought he had handled all that in his mind and with his new attitude.

  “How come you know Dixon?” he said. He heard his own voice like a stranger’s.

  “How come? He’s big, ain’t he?” In that way Moss borrowed Dixon’s glory.

  Jake Spinner shrugged. He kept turning around to look at the clock.

  “He’s in with St. Louis,” said Moss, making it sound like magic. “Don’t you know that?”

  “I know that.”

  Moss was not making any impression. He sucked his teeth and looked Spinner up and down.

  “What’s the matter,” he said. “You know him so good this ain’t news to you? Lemme tell you something, Spinner. He may be big in Stone Bluff, but he’s just one of the men in St. Louis.”

  Spinner sipped coffee. He did not want to hear more about Dixon. He knew enough already — that Dixon lived in Stone Bluff, that he always had lived there, and that the townspeople liked to call him Old Dixon, which was the homey way of covering their feelings when it came to a man who owned most of the town, who had made a great deal of money before repeal, and who had his fingers in everything.

  That’s how Spinner’s father had lost half his farm — because Dixon had wanted it. He was building a park for himself.

  And that’s how his father had lost his job, because when the farm was cut in half, in the depression, he had started to work for Dixon in St. Louis. They had lived in St. Louis and Spinner’s father had worked for Dixon at something or other, and all the while he was trying to teach his son homey sayings: work hard and you can’t lose. Maybe the old Spinner had never worked hard enough, and in the end he’d been fired. There had been an argument over losing the job, something nobody did with Dixon, and Spinner’s father had got thrown out of the office. That had been the last time he had ever tried anything. He had tried walking back in and Dixon had stood there, watching two of his men throw Spinner’s father back out again, after roughing him up a little.

  That’s when Spinner’s father had given up. He went to bed with a headache and died with a hemorrhage. That’s how Spinner saw it. His father had given up.

  “And because he’s small fry,” Moss was saying, “he acts big the only way he can do it — in a burg like Stone Bluff. Hey, you listening to me?”

  “Sure,” said Spinner, and gave Moss a short look. He did not like looking at Moss.

  “I tell you something else,” said the old man. He put his hand on Spinner’s arm and before Spinner could pull away Moss said, “Watch your step in Stone Bluff.”

  Moss was pleased with the pause it brought on. He saw Spinner sit very still and he saw the nervous squint around Spinner’s eyes.

  Moss grinned. He would milk this dry. “Ain’t you gonna ask what I mean?”

  “What?” said Spinner. It sounded curt, so that his voice wouldn’t show how anxious he was.

  “I get around,” said Moss. He looked at the clock to check how soon Spinner’s bus would leave, and then said, “I keep my eyes open. All the time.”

  “And your mouth,” said Spinner. “But nothing comes out.”

  “No? Then listen to this,” Moss leaned closer, his hand on Spinner’s arm again. “Dixon’s in trouble,” said Moss.

  This time the pause did not give Moss any pleasure, because he saw Spinner relax. Another moment and Spinner would lose interest altogether.

  Spinner said, “I thought you said I should watch my step.”

  “You live in Stone Bluff, don’t you? Dixon does, don’t he? And when Dixon’s got trouble …”

  “He lives on trouble,” said Spinner, and turned to look at the clock.

  “Not this kind. Listen.” Moss grabbed Spinner’s sleeve to keep him from leaving. “He’s not in trouble in St. Louis; he’s been monkeying around with the county vote. You know what that means? He’s been getting around St. Louis itself and back at them with this monkey business from outa the county. Here they thought he was just sitting around in that Stony Bluff burg and …”

  “Let go my arm,” said Spinner.

  “Wait, where you going? Hey, I got it all set up, like I told you — ”

  “Beat it,” said Spinner and Moss had to run after him. “Beat it? Listen, friend, I don’t go to no trouble for nothing. You don’t want it, is your business, but you owe me …”

  Spinner yanked his arm free and slapped it back, making Moss tumble. He didn’t see whether Moss fell or not because he ran through the gate to the ramp and caught the Stone Bluff bus at the last minute.

  CHAPTER 2

  At first he tried concentrating on the landscape outside, the flat land getting rounder and the fields and trees slanting up against the hillsides. He hadn’t seen it in a long time and it should mean something to him. It should mean he was going home, the way he had planned it, that he was sticking it out though God knows it was harder than he had thought. That mention of Dixon hadn’t been any help.

  Spinner took out a cigarette and smoked for a while. It made a dry heat in his mouth, which reminded him of the farm and that he was going back to it. He was coming back at the wrong time. High summer. Dry heat Same as the last time, when he had come back to the farm from the army. That had been the wrong time. Or the time before, after his father had died and Spinner had left St. Louis to try to put the farm back in shape. That had been high summer.

  It seemed he never did anything but go back to that place, work hard, as his father’s homey sayings said he should, and lose out. The first time he’d come back, after St Louis, the place was almost a working farm when the army had gotten him. The second time, after the army, he had tried again. It would have been easier if Dixon hadn’t owned the best part of the farm. It was now Dixon’s park.

  One day Dixon had come up to the fence on a horse. Spinner had let him talk because he was tired from work and Dixon took a long time making clear what he wanted. He always wanted something, but first there had been small talk about the old days in St Louis. How close he, Dixon, had been to old Spinner, how one good turn deserved another, and if young Spinner would take it as a favor, then he, Dixon, would buy the rest of the farm for high cash. As a favor.

  “Not for sale,” said Spinner.

  “Jake,” said Dixon. He favored first names when he was in Stone Bluff. “You can’t make a go of it. But with cash you can do anything.”

  “It’s a better farm now than when you cut off half of it to waste on your bridle paths.”

  Jake Spinner didn’t like Dixon and after all the hard tries and losing each time it was suddenly easy to blame Dixon for all of it.

  “Jake,” Dixon said, “I want that farm. Be smart like your pappy,” and then he yanked on his horse and rode away.

  Spinner didn’t like Dixon any better for that remark, and for the threat in his voice. Work hard and you can’t lose wasn’t something that had proven itself, but Spinner was still trying. More so now. he discovered — now that his anger had found a direction.

  “Your pappy could tell you,” said Dixon the
next time he came around, “you oughtn’t to cross me.”

  Spinner got off his tractor and climbed over his fence. He walked to the place on Dixon’s road where the car had parked, with Dixon in back and the chauffeur in front. By the time Spinner got there his voice was low and controlled. He said, “It’s not for sale.”

  “Learn something, hick,” and Dixon got out of his car and walked up to Spinner.

  “The farm’s mine, Dixon.”

  “You don’t look right when you’re mad, Spinner. You look like somebody’s gonna take a fall.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Spinner. “I’m holding back.”

  “Meaning you,” Dixon went on. “You don’t stand there and look at me that way, Jake boy.”

  It had been just talk so far. Jake Spinner tried to keep that in mind, keep out all the rest and just think of the situation right now, of Dixon asking a stupid question. Spinner tried to keep it out of his mind how Dixon got what he wanted, how Dixon the crook always got his way, and how Dixon kept coming up like a private plague.

  Then Dixon swung.

  Maybe he had been thinking of Spinner’s father or of other times when crude muscle had turned the trick.

  But Jake hit back. He hit back out of pure rage. It jumped out of him with the sudden push of his panicky feeling that he was going to lose again, that there might be no end to his losing.

  He hit just once and then had to wait till Dixon got up out of the dirt, quite a while later. Dixon’s chauffeur had looked away when it happened and didn’t get out of the car to help the man out of the dirt until the last moment when Dixon had started to stir. Dixon got into the back of his car and left without saying anything else.

  What kept Jake Spinner from worrying too much was the thought of one thing. It had been with him a long time and had gotten sharper. That he wasn’t going to lose forever. It wasn’t a plan and it wasn’t a formula. But it gave him intent.

  But Dixon had more than just a feeling. The next time he didn’t come himself but sent the sheriff, and for the time being Dixon let the farm plans go by. He would get to that later. The real-estate plan could wait for a while, and for a better price. And it needed more than a pushing around because Dixon had learned something about Spinner’s intent He wasn’t like his father. Dixon would have to go to more trouble. With all the pressure at his command Dixon made the best of Spinner’s intent Spinner was sent to jail for assault with intent to kill.