The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction

by Maxim Jakubowski

  I sat behind the wheel and studied the maps. Either the gray Buick was hot or it wasn’t. If it was, I could be in trouble. If it wasn’t, then the smartest thing for the two of them to do would be to make a lot of road time. I was willing to accept south as the direction. His first run had been to the north. South looked good.

  But the south is pretty roomy. Again I had to try to think like Torran. Unless the girl had brought clothes for him, which wasn’t likely, he’d be anxious to pick up a wardrobe. The best wardrobes come from the big cities. The big cities, more often than not, are inclined to have the most alert boys in the cop line. His picture would be widely plastered around. I sat and thought and scratched my head. I just didn’t have enough. With Torran alone I could chance guessing his next move. You study a man’s life long enough and you can detect the pattern of his thoughts. But Miss X added a new factor. I could guess his decisions but I could not guess either hers or their combined decisions.

  So I went to Beloit for the second time. I arrived late Saturday night. Sunday morning I went to the phone company offices, presented my credentials, asked for information about any long-distance calls which had been made from the bus station ten days ago. After some stalling, the chief operator on duty dug into the records and came up with three long-distance calls made from the bus station between ten-thirty and eleven-fifteen. The one to Cleveland I didn’t consider. Nor the one to Evansville, Indiana. The one I liked was made at five after eleven to a place called Britcher City, a town of fifteen thousand midway between Urbana and Danville on US 150 east and a bit south of Bloomington. The call was to anyone at Britcher City 3888.

  I hadn’t checked out of my hotel room. I found a place that would grease my car, change the oil. I took an hour nap and had a quick sandwich before leaving Beloit at noon. It was a hundred-and-ninety-mile trip to Britcher City. I drove by the city limit sign at five minutes of four. I found a square redbrick hotel called the Westan Arms and got a room. I used a pay phone in the lobby to call 3888.

  I heard it ring three times at the other end and then a voice said, “Good afternoon. Westan Arms Hotel.” I nearly dropped the receiver. “Sorry,” I said, “wrong number.” I hung up. Sometimes it happens that way.

  I went to the desk. The gray-haired woman desk clerk said, “Yes, Mr Gandy?”

  The boyish grin was the right one to use. “I’ve got a problem, ma’am.”

  “I hope we can help you.”

  “I believe a young lady left here recently. I don’t know what name she was registered under. She may have checked out ten days ago. Blonde tall girl with dark eyes.”

  “Oh, her!” the woman said with surprising coldness. “Friend of yours?”

  “It’s very important to me to locate her.”

  “Well, we don’t know much about her, to tell the truth, even though she did live here for two months. Her name is Marta Sharry. Is that the one?”

  “I don’t know. I’d have to see her handwriting to make certain. Would that be too much trouble?”

  She shrugged and turned around to a file behind the counter. She hunted for three or four minutes, then pulled out a card. The angular backhand was familiar.

  “That’s her writing. Did she leave a forwarding address?”

  “No, she didn’t. I thought there was something funny about her. No mail and no phone calls, until that last one – all the time she was here. We wondered if she was hiding from somebody.”

  “Did she act as though she were hiding?”

  “No. She used to take liquor to her room and drink it alone. She used to sleep every day until one or two in the afternoon. Along about five o’clock he would come for her and she’d go out with him.”

  It was time for the boyish grin again. “Who is he?”

  She smiled a bit wryly. “Every city has its Joe Talley, I suppose. He runs something that is supposed to be a private club. I don’t know why the police don’t close it. Heaven knows all that goes on there. He’d bring her back here at three and four in the morning. We don’t like that sort of guest, but she was quiet and she always paid her bills. I’ll bet you Joe Talley knows where she went.”

  “Did she have a gray Buick?”

  The elderly woman sniffed. “Not when she came here, she didn’t. Very remarkable. Joe Talley blossoms out in a new car and suddenly she has his old one, with different plates.”

  “Where did she garage it?”

  “Down at the corner. Landerson’s Service.”

  I pushed the register card back to her. Miss Marta Sharry, New York City. Not much information there. “Where is Talley’s place?”

  “On Christian Street. Go down Main and turn left on Christian three blocks from here. It’s eight blocks out on the left and it looks boarded up, but it isn’t. There’s an iron deer in the yard. You’ll see the sign on the gate. The Talley Ho.” She lowered her voice and looked around. “They gamble there,” she said.

  I thanked her with as much enthusiasm as I could manage. I went to the place where she’d kept the car. It was open. A pimply boy was on duty. Just remembering the blonde seemed to up his blood pressure. He had big wet eyes and they glowed.

  I made like I was a friend of hers. The license was 6c424. That surprised me a bit.

  Again I was shot with luck. He smirked and said, “I guess that fancy name, that Marta Sharry, was kind-of a stage name, huh?”

  “Oh, she told you her right name?”

  He had the decency to blush. “No. She had the registration in one of them little plastic things on the key chain. I took it out once because I wanted to see how old she was. The name on it was something like Anne Richards.”

  “Anne Richardson?”

  “Yeah. That’s it.”

  “Good thing Joe Talley didn’t catch you spying on her, eh?”

  He licked his lips. His eyes shifted away from me. “I wasn’t doing nothing,” he said sullenly.

  “Did she come and get the car when she left town?”

  “She phoned, and I drove it over to her. I helped load her bags in the back. She give me five bucks.”

  “She seem nervous?”

  “No. Kind of excited. Joe Talley came along. He sat beside her in the front seat and I walked back here. I saw her come by ten minutes later and he wasn’t with her then.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Sometime before midnight.”

  * * *

  From there I went to the Talley Ho. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. It was a big three-story Victorian frame house, with a cupola, a bunch of scroll saw work and an iron deer standing next to a chipped bird bath in the shaggy lawn under the shade of big elms.

  I went back to the hotel and slept until ten. When I went back to the Talley Ho I found the narrow side street lined with parked cars. There was a guard at the gate.

  “This is a private club, mister.”

  “So I’ve heard. I’m a stranger in town. I thought maybe I could join.”

  “Maybe you can and maybe you can’t. Write us a letter and we’ll let you know.”

  “Couldn’t I talk to the manager?”

  “No. Sorry. I got my orders. Nobody gets in unless they got a card.”

  “That’s a hell of a note. Miss Sharry wrote me and told me that Joe Talley would treat me right if I ever came through here.”

  He turned the flashlight on my face again. “You know her?”

  “No. I just made up the name.”

  “No need to get fresh, stranger.”

  “Hell, I like standing out here. Don’t you?”

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “Anybody comes along I’ll be right back, tell ’em. What’s your name?”

  “Gandy. Russ Gandy.”

  He was gone five minutes. He came back with a taller man. At their request I came inside the gate. I stood while they put the flash on me again.

  “What’s your business, Gandy?”

  “I’ll talk to Talley, if you’ll get him out here.”

  “H
e’s out of town. I’m in charge.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Brankis.”

  “Come over here a minute, Brankis. This is personal.”

  We went over by the deer. I tapped a cigarette on its cast-iron muzzle and lit it. “It’s like this, Brankis. I ran into you-know-who in Chicago. He told me he had Anne Richardson staked out here. At the Westan Arms. I phoned her couple weeks ago. She told me that a guy named Joe Talley is all right, and—”

  “Anne Richardson? Who the hell is she?”

  “Don’t be cute, Brankis. She’s Torran’s girl.” I purposely made it a little loud.

  “Dammit, lower your voice!”

  I laughed at him. “Then the name means something to you?”

  “How do you figure with Torran?” he said in a half-whisper. “Nobody’s ever been hotter than he is. So why should he pop to you?”

  “Maybe you can call me an associate, Brankis.”

  “What kind of a word is that? Associate, yet. Joe isn’t going to like any link-up between him and Torran through that girl. She’s all mouth.”

  “Like any lush. Now can I come in and play? I just want to kill some time.”

  “No, friend. Anybody coming in gets Joe’s okay and I told you Joe is out of town.”

  “That’s too bad. I got some merchandise for him.”

  “Merchandise? What kind of merchandise?”

  “Brankis, you must be a real small wheel in this outfit. Annie knows more than you do. She told me Joe Talley is always in the market for this kind of merchandise.”

  It was too dark to see his face. I waited, hoping it would work. When he spoke he piled the words on too fast to cover up the period of silence. “Oh, that stuff.”

  “Yes, I got it down at the hotel. Want to come look it over and set a price?”

  “Sure. I’ll come take a look.” He couldn’t admit Joe had been leaving him out in the cold, and he had to see the merchandise to know just how far out he’d been left.

  We went to the gate and he said, “George, I’ll be back in a while. You have any problems, ask Mac what to do.”

  We went out and got in my car. I stopped for the first cross street and glanced at him, seeing his face for the first time, liking the youngness, the weakness, the loose viciousness of his mouth. I started up, took out my cigarettes and, as I offered him one, I managed to drop the whole pack at his feet. He bent over instinctively to pick them up. As he got into the right position I hit the brakes hard. His head dented the glove compartment door and he sighed once and flowed down onto the floor, like some thick, slow-running liquid.

  I parked in shadows and looked him over. All he carried was a sap in black woven leather with a coil spring handle. I bent over him, folded his hat double to cushion the blow and hit him hard behind the ear, flush on the mastoid bone. I took his pulse. It was slow and steady.

  I headed toward Danville, found a dirt road that turned left. The sign said the towns of Pilot and Collision were up that road. How does a town get to be called Collision?

  The sky had cleared and the moon made a good light. The road was a little soft in spots. Farmhouse lights were off. The road made a right-angle turn to the left and another to the right. When I saw a break in a fence, I got out and checked the ditch. It was shallow and dry. The pasture seemed firm enough. I put the car in low and drove across toward a dark clump of trees. I parked and hauled him out and used my tow rope to tie him to a tree. I wrapped him up so that all he could do would be roll his eyes and wag his tongue. He was limp, sagging in the rope. I sat and smoked and waited for him to come around.

  After a long time he sighed. Then he groaned. I knew he could see my cigarette end, glowing in the darkness.

  “Whassa marra?” he asked. “Whassa idea?”

  I didn’t answer him. He was silent for a long time. He said, “What do you want?” Panic crouched behind the level tone.

  I watched him and let him sweat. To him, I was just a dark shadow sitting on the front fender of the car.

  “What are you going to do to me?” he asked. His voice shook.

  A farm dog howled at the moon far away. A sleepy rooster crowed in a half-hearted way. Down the line a diesel hooted at a crossing.

  “It was all Joe’s idea,” he said. “I’m not in on it. He met her in the hotel. She got tight out at the place. She hinted about Torran. Just little hints. So Joe pried it all out of her. She told him how she was waiting for word from Torran when he got ready to make his run for it. She didn’t know where or when Torran was going to run. She had five thousand he’d given her in Chicago right after the job, when they split up. She was to buy a car and get it registered under her own name.” He stopped talking and waited for me to say something.

  He started again, his voice pitched higher than before. “Joe started thinking about all that cash. All that money, and he worked the girl up to where she was thinking of crossing Torran, because Torran had been pretty rough with her. The more he thought about getting his hands on that dough, the better he liked the idea. He talked it over with me. The idea was to get Torran to run with the girl to right where Joe wanted him to run. It had to be done delicate because if Torran felt maybe the girl was steering him some special place, he’d smell a cross.”

  Again he waited and again I said nothing.

  “What are you going to do to me? I’m telling you everything I know.” It was half wail and half whine. “Joe fixed her up with the car and figured that because of the dough in serial sequence and the bearer bonds, Torran would want to get out of the country to where maybe he could buy a banana citizenship and get a better percentage than trying to fence the stuff here where it’s too hot to touch. And if Joe got the dough here he’d be in the same trouble. Mexico has an easy border to cross, even with them looking for you. So Joe figured help him get into Mexico through the girl, and take it away from him down there.

  “Joe goes to Mexico a lot because if you spend too much here, the tax boys get curious. He’s got a house down there he rents by the year. In Cuernavaca. As soon as the girl got the word from Torran she told Joe and he flew down to set it up. If Torran goes to Canada or flies out of the country some other place, Joe is licked. The girl was supposed to get away from Torran for a couple minutes and wire me so I could phone Joe. The wire hasn’t come yet.”

  I flipped a cigarette away, stood up, walked over to him. I said casually, “If I kill you, Brankis, you can’t phone Joe and tell him about this, can you?”

  “Now wait a minute!” he said in a voice like a woman’s.

  “Or maybe I’ll tip Joe Talley that you opened up like a book.”

  “A deal, mister,” he said breathlessly. “I keep my mouth shut and so do you. Honest.”

  “And I get word on that wire the minute you get it.”

  “Yeah. Sure!”

  I untied him and slapped him around and took him back and left him. I went right to Western Union. A bored night man looked at my credentials without interest, sneered at a twenty-dollar bribe and told me the only ones to see telegrams were the persons to whom said telegrams were addressed. There was no time to arrange a tap on the Talley Ho phone. I added two more twenties. He ignored me. I added two more. One hundred dollars.

  He yawned and picked up the money. “It was marked deliver,” he said, “and I sent it out twenty minutes before you came in. It was from National City, California, and it read: Plan to take cruise to Acapulco starting tomorrow. It was signed Betty.”

  He pocketed my money and shuffled back and sat down and picked up a magazine.

  3

  Thirty-one hours later I was sitting by a window on the port side of the Mexico City–Acapulco plane as it lifted off the runway at seven in the morning. There was a wad of traveler’s checks in my pocket and a bad taste in my mouth. I had wasted too much time getting the turista permit, making travel connections.

  We climbed through the sunlit air of the great plateau, lifted over the brow of the mountains near Tr
es Cumbres and started the long, downhill slant to Acapulco on the Pacific. It was hard to figure just how quickly Torran and the girl would get there. My phone calls to California had established that there was no scheduled cruise to Acapulco at the date the wire had indicated.

  Probably Torran had made arrangements to have a boat pick him off the lower California coast and smuggle him down to Acapulco. The odds were against his tarrying in Mexico long. Extradition was too simple. The same method of travel would take him down the Central American coastline to some country where an official would listen joyfully to the loud sound of American dollars.

  One thing I could be certain of. Joe Talley would be there. And I would know Joe Talley. I’d memorized a recent picture of him – a beefy blond with a rosebud mouth and slate eyes. I knew Torran’s face as well as I knew my own.

  Traffic wasn’t heavy as it was the off season for Acapulco, the summer-rate season. The air was bumpy. A large family across the way was airsick, every one of them. We flew to Cuernavaca, over the gay roofs of Taxco. Brown slowly disappeared from the landscape below us and it began to turn to a deep jungle green.

  At nine o’clock we lifted for the last low range of hills and came down to the coast. The Pacific was intensely blue, the surf line blazing white. The hotels were perched on the cliffs that encircled the harbor. The wide boulevard ran along the water’s edge.

  There are hunches. All kinds. This was one of those. I looked at the city as we came in for the landing. I looked at it and I didn’t feel anything and then all of a sudden I felt confident and good. I felt that whatever was going to happen, it would happen right down there.

  We made a bumpy landing and as soon as we were down I knew why Acapulco was not at the peak of its season. The heat was like when a barber wraps your face in a steaming towel. It was heat that bored a hole in you and let all the strength run out. It was heat that kept your eyes stinging from the sweat running into the corners.