Agreement to Kill

by Peter Rabe

  It saved the day for Keel when he told himself he could take ‘em or leave ‘em, they were all alike. He drove fast and steady and paid no attention even when Ann suddenly climbed into the back, never mind top down and wind blowing, and sat in the back with Spinner. It didn’t mean a thing, Keel could tell, because they hardly talked and just sat there. He couldn’t hear what they said, the few words now and then.

  “Let me off at my place,” she said when they came in on St Charles Rock Road.

  “Your place? What do you mean — ”

  “You know where I live.”

  She cut him short so hard Keel was glad to get rid of her. She didn’t live much out of the way.

  When he stopped at her apartment house he let her push the front seat out of the way herself and the same with the door. When she slammed it shut again he knew she wasn’t going to say good-by but he hadn’t expected she’d talk to Spinner either.

  “You’ll come by?” she said.

  “As soon as I’m through.”

  “I’ll be ready,” she said and Keel wondered whether she was going to kiss Spinner. He started to make a bet with himself but was too slow. Ann smiled at Spinner and gave a small wave with her hand. Then she walked away.

  “Come on, Keel. Let’s go.”

  That jerk in the back seat again, as if looking at somebody walking up to an apartment was against the code.

  “Come on, sit in front,” said Keel. “You’re no big shot yet”

  Spinner did. He couldn’t even he insulted, like his buddy, that Loma bastard, except Loma never got mean but kept still, as if he was nothing.

  When Keel parked in a downtown lot he was wishing that Spinner would try his stuff on Mercado. That’s when Spinner would learn a thing or two, once he was with Mercado. Except nobody ever acted up with Mercado, and also he wouldn’t be in on the conference. But Keel thought about it.

  “You watch your onions once we get in here,” said Keel. “This is a legitimate business.”

  He opened the frosted door with the name St. Louis Distributors on it and walked right through the front office, where a girl sat at a switchboard and another one was filing her nails. Spinner followed close behind and then through a door marked Number 2.

  “Wait here.” Keel made a general wave with his hand.

  There was a conference table and charts on the wall. Keel knocked on the next door. He went in when a voice said to.

  Keel never had time to shut the door. He stayed very close to it so that Spinner could see his back, and did nothing to interrupt when the voice started yelling at him.

  “You stupid cluck, come in through the front door? With that Spinner? Don’t you know he’s hot from here to hell, you stupid jackass? And how’d you drive into town, with the top down on that bus you got? Never mind! Just get the hell out of my sight!”

  Keel left fast, with just enough time to tell Spinner, “He’s ready for you.”

  • • •

  Mercado was a man who wore green tinted glasses at all times. The color did not disguise his eyes and there were no fancy rims for the sake of appearance. He wore these glasses for one reason only, the fact that light irritated him. He sat at a desk with his back to the windows, he gave Spinner the briefest of looks, and while Spinner sat down Mercado picked through the mess on his desk, his movements hasty and sharp.

  It was like a job interview starting bad; the applicant silent and the boss distracted and showing no interest, except that Spinner didn’t think of it that way. It was bigger than that. It was the last and the necessary suspense before everything else became final.

  “I hear your old man used to work for Dixon. Is that right?” It was very sudden, and Mercado had hardly looked up.

  “Yes. Some time ago. The reason I’m here …”

  “What did he do, you know?”

  “What did he do?” Spinner didn’t know and wasn’t interested. He was interested in now, and that had nothing to do with his father.

  “You don’t look like you know,” Mercado went on.

  “I was a kid. And besides …”

  “He went around and saw voters. Sometimes he worked an adding machine.”

  And all the time Mercado acted as if all this annoyed him because it was an interruption, and if he got snide enough maybe Spinner would go away.

  “Look,” said Spinner. “I don’t care if he ran an elevator someplace. What I …”

  “Honest man, though, the way those things go. Are you?”

  “What?” Spinner might have said more, but Mercado didn’t wait.

  “You were in jail for three years, right?”

  Spinner moved in his chair, leaning forward and twisting his head, because the light from the windows kept him from seeing Mercado’s face clearly enough. Perhaps that’s what made this whole thing so abrupt and disconnected. He and Mercado weren’t seeing each other and weren’t talking about the same things.

  “Meet anybody there from St. Louis?”

  “Where? You mean in jail?”

  “What about you and Dixon? You ever do jobs for him?”

  “About jail,” said Spinner, trying to get his bearings; “the way I got into jail …”

  “I got a record on you.”

  “Let me finish for once! How can I get anything straight if you keep …”

  “What are you trying to say, you went to jail as a fall guy?” For once Mercado looked straight at Spinner and there was no doubt that Mercado was annoyed. “That doesn’t cut any ice, Spinner. We’re all fall guys, when you look at it right”

  And then, as if he were sorry that he had bothered, Mercado looked down and piled some papers together.

  This was all part of the big switch, this was all part of the small details after a big decision, and don’t lose the long view or nothing made sense. Spinner wiped the palms of his hands together but stopped it when Mercado looked up at the sound. Mercado looked elsewhere immediately but Spinner felt more watched than before, and the worst was the confusion about it Watched for what? Was it an interview, was it a brushoff, was it anything that showed anyone’s interest?

  “I’m going to start from the beginning,” said Spinner. He didn’t look at Mercado because Spinner was going to say this without interruption and get back the sense of importance about all this. He was going to get through because the push inside him was bigger than Mercado and his petty annoyances.

  “I’m here because I’m through trying anything else. I want a job and what I have to recommend me is no commitment to anything else. If that doesn’t sound like much, here’s what it means. Anything you got, I’ll take. If I like it I stick with it If I don’t like it, I’ll do it so good you got to give me something better. You don’t know me and I don’t know a soul here, but what I got for a recommendation …”

  “Never mind.”

  “Never mind?” Spinner got out of his chair and Mercado had to sit up to see Spinner’s face. “You call me in here to do me a favor? You don’t owe me a thing. I’m here to show you what I can offer and if you don’t need anything, say so. Either that or pay some attention!”

  “You think I got the time for some kind of a confession or something, then let me …”

  “I wasn’t finished!” Spinner was standing and Mercado had gotten up too, glaring, but Spinner didn’t care about that He didn’t care about what had gone wrong or what had been lost but only that he shouldn’t lose more.

  “Why in hell you ask me up here, to see if I can keep my temper? I can’t! I’ve kept my temper for …”

  “Next question,” said Mercado with a fine edge in his voice.

  “Next? I’ll give you …”

  “Shut up, the next one is mine. The next one is what can you do, Spinner?”

  “Qualifications? What qualifications has that boob out there, this Keel with the gorgeous shirts?”

  “How about yours? It’s so dirty I can smell it from here.”

  “I make a better hood with a clean collar on?”
>
  “All right, next question. Can you figure odds? Do you know why it’s good business paying the Water Commissioner more than the Chief of Police? Do you know why a half per cent return on the pinballs is all we need? Have you got …”

  “Did you when you started? To hell with it!” Spinner turned on his heel and walked to the door.

  It felt good, and he even knew how to explain the whole thing to himself later, when the heat had worn off. There hadn’t been enough difference between this and what he used to know in the past Not half enough of a difference and that, in the end, was what mattered.

  “Spinner!”

  Spinner stopped with the door half open and turned.

  “What? Some parting advice?”

  “You got a job.”

  After a moment Spinner closed the door, then gave it a small tug to see if the latch had caught He came back to the desk and put his hands in his pockets.

  “Why?” he said.

  “On the level. You’ll get …”

  “I said why.”

  “Not because you blew your stack, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Mercado was as irritated as he had been before. “I got you all down here, in the record. That’s why.” He sat down again, not looking at Spinner. “Keel is going to take you back to the resort. I don’t want you hanging around town till you’re needed.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow! The day after! Wait your turn. You go back with Keel, you wait a few days, and then you’ll get your instructions. Here.” Mercado reached into his pocket. “Buy yourself a clean shirt”

  The bill was for a hundred dollars. Mercado told Spinner to beat it.

  CHAPTER 22

  Keel had the top up when they got into the car and he watched Spiner as if he expected a comment Spinner made none. He sat in the front, arms folded, and stared out the window without seeing a thing. Once he felt his pocket and heard the bill make a crackling sound. There was the bill. The whole thing was real. It had happened but Spinner sat feeling as if it were just going to start. Then he thought it all through again and came to the part where Mercado said, “You got a job.” And that had happened too. What had not happened yet was a feeling, how Spinner felt about it, how he might safely allow himself to feel about all of this — because all of it hadn’t happened yet.

  Spinner gave his head a sharp shake. Drifting off the way he was doing, guessing and checking and hedging, he might even forget what had happened. The real thing was better than planned, faster and easier and as sure as the hundred bucks in his pocket Spinner pulled out the bill and started to grin. He waved it at Keel and said, “I’m in!”

  “In what?”

  But Spinner wasn’t listening. He put the bill back, stretched in the seat and grinned to himself. Why feel surprised? He couldn’t lose. The big part had been over a long time ago, the time he beat Loma into the dirt and then made Loma show him the way. Ever since then, Spinner felt now, he hadn’t been able to lose.

  “Hey! You’re halfway out of town, Keel!”

  “I’m a good driver. You know, when I set my mind …”

  “Turn around, damn it, I’m picking up that girl!”

  “Oh, Annie? I forgot about Annie.”

  “Turn around and …”

  “Couldn’t do that, what with all the things I got to do after dropping you off.”

  “Keel, listen to me. I told Ann …”

  “I know, I was there.” Keel took off after his stop at a light and swung the car up the ramp to the freeway going out of town. “You shoulda reminded me. I clean forgot”

  That’s all it was. Spinner was sure Keel hadn’t meant anything by going straight out of town, because Keel really didn’t care one way or the other or he would have acted different about Spinner and Ann long ago. Keel took a cigarette out of his pocket and licked the end. “Got a match, Spinner? My lighter don’t work. The car cost me six thousand plus and the lighter don’t work.”

  “At the next ramp, Keel, I want you to turn back.”

  Keel looked up from his driving and said, “You really mean that? Hell, Annie’s a nice kid, here and there, but hell, I don’t see …”

  “Just do what I say.”

  “Listen, Spinner — what’s your first name, Jake? Listen, Jake, don’t take it hard or anything. She’s been stood up before, she don’t give a damn.”

  Spinner kept still, watching for the next ramp.

  “You know, she and another kid like her. Paula, from New York, they used to have an arrangement where one …”

  “Just shut up, Keel, will you?”

  Keel frowned and licked his unlit cigarette.

  “I don’t get you. How about that match, Jake? I’m still waiting.”

  “There’s the ramp. Slow down.”

  This time Keel didn’t answer. He laughed most of the time, or talked most of the time, but that was only half of him. One reason he drove the car he did and paid the prices for the shirts he wore was because he made money like dirt. He was paid well because he followed orders and was a hard man to stop. He was dumb, but very valuable. Spinner reached for the wheel. Keel gave him a hard slap in the teeth.

  “Don’t do that again, Jake.”

  Spinner hadn’t expected it, but the next thing was automatic. He saw the cutoff fly by, lunged for the ignition and when he had the key in his hand he drew back to wait for the car to slow. The next thing after that was even surer, he’d beat Keel’s ears off and then argue.

  Keel let the car roll and watched Spinner out of the side of his eye.

  “Feel my pocket, Jake.”

  “Just get that car on the grass safely and then I’ll give you something to feel.”

  “Here, just touch it,” said Keel. He wasn’t laughing and he wasn’t angry; this was just business, so when Spinner made no move to do what Keel had said, Keel reached into his pocket and his hand came out with brass knuckles over his fingers. They were big and shiny. “You interfere once more, Jake, and I’ll peel your face.”

  Keel put the hand with the brass knuckles back on the wheel and let the car roll to a stop. There was no doubt in Spinner’s mind that Keel would do what he said.

  “Put them away and I’ll show you a trick or two,” Spinner said.

  “You nuts or something? What you think I got it for?”

  “Is this a habit or did you just think this up, pulling a stunt like this for nothing?”

  “I don’t go around hitting for nothing at all. Hell, what you take me for?” Keel braked the car to a stop on the shoulder and held out his free hand.

  “Gimme the keys.”

  Spinner gave them to Keel. He didn’t get any of this and sat there puzzled.

  “What do you call nothing at all?” he said finally.

  Keel didn’t put the keys in right away because he was watching Spinner to see if he had changed his mind.

  “You don’t think,” he said, “I can let you just go and walk all over me, do you? I’m taking you back, and I got things to do, that’s all.”

  “That’s all?” Spinner still didn’t get it.

  “What else?” said Keel and looked puzzled.

  This time Spinner gave up because Keel had him convinced. This was something to learn, Spinner thought Keel seemed to have no troubles to speak of, but drove a big car, liked all the chores he was doing, or, at any rate, didn’t have any feeling about them, like an ape. This was something to learn.

  “All right, Keel. You can put it away”

  “You gonna be good?”

  “I’m going to be real good, Keel. Let’s get going.”

  It took Spinner longer than Keel to forget about what had happened, but after a while he did. He worked at it, thinking of Keel and of Loma. They both had it down pat, this thing to be like an ape or a machine. Spinner thought about Ann now and then, but he pushed it away, working on it.

  • • •

  When they got to the cabin Spinner got out and Keel drove off immediately. Spinner walked into the ca
bin.

  “You’re back sooner than I expected,” said Loma. He sat up and swung his legs off the bed. He had been lying on Spinner’s bed.

  “Yeah. Anyone phone here?” said Spinner.

  “No. Who would?”

  Who would call. Spinner took off his jacket and tossed it on a chair. Ann would, he was thinking, but the hell with that kind of thinking at a time like this. Loma got into his chair and wheeled himself out of the room. And to hell with telling Loma the news. And if Loma had asked about St. Louis, that would have been the real pleasure, telling him to mind his own business and to hell with all of it. I’m going to sleep.

  “I’m going to sleep,” said Spinner, but Loma was already out of the room and couldn’t have heard.

  Spinner slept for a long time. He tossed and a few times made sounds in his throat, but kept sleeping until the sun was almost down. He woke very suddenly and sat up, but then lay back feeling exhausted. There was no good reason to feel that way, and the thought irritated him. Everything he looked at and the small, meaningless sounds he could hear from outside, everything irritated him. He twisted to look at the phone and the squat, black shape which did not move or make a sound. He got up, took off his clothes, and went into the shower, but the pleasure of that got killed by the thought of the clothes he was going to put on afterwards. He still only had his dirty shirt. He had a hundred bucks, a future, and a dirty shirt to irritate him.

  When he got dressed he looked into Loma’s open door and saw that Loma was gone. He saw him under the tree, in his wheelchair. Loma was learning to get around by himself. He got the wheelchair out of the door and sat where he wanted to sit without any help. Then why still use the wheelchair? Spinner could hear what Loma would say. He would say, “There is no good reason why I shouldn’t.”

  Spinner put on his tie so that the dirty collar of his shirt wouldn’t show. He raked his fingers through his moist hair and stood by the door for a moment. Now what? Till morning or the day after there was nothing. Go eat, and talk to Loma. Or talk to anybody, maybe Dickie.