A million was better than seven hundred and fifty thousand.
Talk about the world in your pocket!
With a million in cash, a man was a king!
CHAPTER NINE
I
The next two days followed the same pattern. At dawn, Bleck and Gypo went into the caravan, and Kitson came back to the cabin.
After a few hours sleepy Kitson then went out with Ginny and spent the day with her, swimming and walking or going on the lake.
Bleck sat on the floor of the caravan reading the papers while Gypo toiled at the truck door.
The news as reported in the papers was encouraging. The police and the Army were plainly baffled. Although the search was being continued, there was now a note of helplessness in the police statements to the press. They had finally decided that the truck must have been driven away in another vehicle. There could be no other solution as to how it had vanished so completely. It was thought by now the truck was out of the State. The search had been extended to a five hundred mile radius, and the reward had been raised to five thousand dollars.
Two hundred soldiers and police were combing Fox Wood and hover planes were still patrolling the roads. Sooner or later, Army headquarters announced, the truck must be found. It was a physical impossibility for it to vanish the way it had and stay vanished!
If the police and the Army were having their troubles, so too were Bleck and Gypo.
The result of Gypo’s two days’ work had come to nothing.
He had sat on his stool in the broiling heat of the caravan all day, moving the dial, listening, sweating, cursing and listening again, but the second tumbler had refused to fall into place.
With nothing to do but to watch Gypo and read the newspapers, Bleck’s nerves by now were crawling out of his skin. Added to the insufferable heat in the caravan and the tension of expecting to hear from Gypo at any second that the second tumbler had dropped, he also had the maddening thought that Ginny and Kitson were out in the open air, enjoying themselves.
Surely even though Kitson was a punch-drunk bum, Bleck argued to himself, he must by now be making an impression on the girl. No man, going around with a woman for three solid days, could fail to make an impression. If he - Bleck - had Ginny on his own for twelve hours, she would have surrendered to his technique by now. So the thought of them alone together added the bite of jealous acid to his already frayed nerves.
Around six o’clock on the third day as the evening sun dropped behind the mountains, shedding an orange-red light over the lake, Gypo cracked.
For three days he had slaved at this lock in almost impossible conditions, and now he felt he was completely defeated. The second tumbler had refused to fall. He had moved the dial a hair breadth by a hair breadth over the whole circuit, and still it hadn’t fallen. It meant he was moving the dial just that much more than it should be moved. It meant that the hand he was so proud of wasn’t sensitive enough to control the knob on the dial.
‘I can’t do it!’ he suddenly moaned, slumping against the door of the truck. ‘I can’t do it, Ed! It’s no use! If I try for twenty years, I won’t do it! If I don’t get out of here I’ll go crazy!’
Alarmed by the hysterical note in Gypo’s voice, Bleck jumped to his feet and came around the truck, gun in hand. ‘Shut up!’ he snarled, ramming the gun into Gypo’s ribs. ‘You’re damn well going to open that truck or I’ll kill you!’
Gypo began to cry helplessly, his fat body trembling with exhaustion.
‘Go ahead,’ he gasped. ‘Kill me! Do you think I care? I’d rather be dead than work anymore on this sonofabitch! Go ahead and kill me! I can’t stand any more of it!’
Bleck hit Gypo savagely across his face with the barrel of the gun. Gypo flinched away, blood running from a cut in his fat cheek down his face into his collar. He sagged against the side of the truck, his eyes shut.
‘Go ahead!’ he cried, his voice shrill and as hysterical as a frightened woman’s. ‘Kill me! I can’t go on! I’m through!’
‘Pull yourself together, you creep!’ Bleck shouted, alarmed to see how bad Gypo was looking, and thinking if he was going to get out of control, the whole plan would blow up in their faces.
‘I tell you I can’t do it!’ Gypo wailed and collapsed on the stool, hiding his face in his hands.
At that moment there came a gentle tap on the door of the caravan: a sound that made Bleck stiffen and his heart skip a beat. He had seen Ginny and Kitson go off in the Buick for a shopping trip to town so he knew it couldn’t be either of them knocking on the door.
As Gypo started to moan, Bleck grabbed him and shook him, whispering fiercely, ‘Shut up! There’s someone outside!’
Gypo stiffened and stopped his noise.
The two men waited, listening.
The knock came again.
Bleck signalled to Gypo to remain where he was. His gun in his hand, he crept to the curtained window. Keeping to one side, he peered forward to look through the curtain.
At the door of the caravan was a small boy of about ten, knocking and frowning and staring up at the caravan. In his hand, he held a toy pistol which he pointed at the door.
Bleck watched him, his lips drawn off his teeth in a snarl.
The boy, clad in jeans and a white and red checkered shirt, his feet bare, a battered straw hat on the back of his head, stared curiously at the door of the caravan, his sunburned face puzzled. There was a long pause as the boy continued to stare at the caravan, then, as if making up his mind, he moved forward and hooked his fingers on the windowsill, preparing to hoist himself up to peer through the window.
Gypo, seeing the sudden murderous, frightened expression on Bleck’s face, got up off the stool and joined Bleck at the window. He caught his breath sharply when he saw the boy, and his hand clamped down on Bleck’s wrist.
‘No!’ Gypo hissed. ‘Not a kid! Are you crazy?’
Bleck wrenched his wrist free, relaxing as he saw the boy hadn’t the strength to pull himself up as far as the window. The boy dropped back, and again stared up at the caravan, his expression frustrated. After staring at the caravan for some moments, he turned abruptly and hurried off down the path that ran along by the lakeside.
‘Do you think he heard us?’ Bleck asked anxiously.
‘I don’t know,’ Gypo said. The shock of the boy’s unexpected appearance had brought him abruptly to his senses.
‘He certainly scared me,’ Bleck said and wiped his face with his hand. ‘Here, you sit down, Gypo, and take it easy. Suppose I try to fix this goddamn lock?’
‘You?’ Gypo’s face wrinkled in disgust. ‘No! You could dislodge the first tumbler if you don’t have the feel of it. Keep away from it!’
Bleck reached out and took hold of Gypo’s shirt front, giving him a hard shake.
‘So if I don’t do it and you damn well won’t do it, how do we open it?’ he demanded, his voice thick with rage.
‘Don’t you understand?’ Gypo said. ‘We’re not going to open it! For three days I’ve worked on it! Hour after hour after hour! What happens? One tumbler falls, then nothing. That lock has at least six tumblers. I’ve got five more to find. Okay, maybe in a week I’ll find the second one; maybe I won’t. If I find it, I’ve got four more to find. By that time I’ll be crazy in the head! No one can work in this heat! No one! I’m quitting! I can’t do any more! I’ve had enough! No money is worth this! You hear me? No money can be worth this!’
‘Aw, shut up!’ Bleck shouted violently. ‘Don’t start that again!’
But he was worried. He realized that Gypo was talking sense. The thought of being cooped up in this oven of a caravan for another three or four weeks appalled even him.
Gypo had slumped down on the stool again, holding his hand to his aching face as he stared hopelessly at the dial.
‘Could you cut the door open?’ Bleck asked.
‘Here? Impossible! People would see the flame through the curtain. Then think of the heat! The caravan would
catch fire.’
‘Suppose we take the caravan up into the mountains? Frank said we might have to do that, and it looks to me that’s what we’ll have to do,’ Bleck said. ‘Then you can work with the back of the caravan open. It would be okay like that, wouldn’t it?’
Gypo took out his handkerchief and dabbed at his bleeding cheek.
‘I’ve had enough. I want to go home. No one’s going to open that sonofabitch - no one!’
‘We’ll talk to the other two,’ Bleck said, a rasp in his voice. ‘Where are your guts? There’s a million bucks behind that door! A million bucks! Think of it!’
‘I wouldn’t care if there were twenty million,’ Gypo said, his voice shaking. ‘I’ve had enough, I tell you! Can’t you understand English?’
‘Relax, will you?’ Bleck said, sitting on the floor. ‘We’ll talk to the other two.’
Unaware of Gypo’s crack up, Ginny and Kitson were returning from town, some fifteen miles from the caravan camp, after an afternoon’s shopping.
They had decided it would be unsafe to shop any more at the store on the camp. The storekeeper was certain to notice the amount of food they were buying and would know it couldn’t have been for two people, so now they did a daily run into town.
During the past two days, Ginny and Kitson had been constantly in each other’s company. Ginny was still trying to make up her mind whether to join up with Kitson when they got the money. She knew he was in love with her and she found that she was growing to like him. Unlike Bleck, there was nothing dangerous about him and she felt safe with him.
As they drove along the highway, heading back to the caravan camp, she kept glancing at him. Apart from his broken nose, he was quite handsome, she thought, and she had a sudden urge to confide in him
‘Alex.’
Kitson glanced at her and then back to the road. When he had her by his side, he was a very careful driver.
‘Yeah? Something bothering you?’
‘Well, yes.’ She lifted her copper-coloured hair off her shoulders and then let it drop back into place. ‘You asked me once how I knew about the truck and the payroll. Do you still want to know?’
Kitson was surprised, ‘Well, I’ve wondered, but it’s no business of mine,’ he said. ‘What made you think of that?’
‘You’ve been pretty nice to me,’ Ginny said. ‘Most men in your place would have been troublesome. I appreciate it, I want you to know I’m not a gangster’s moll.’
Kitson shook his head, ‘I never thought that.’
‘Morgan did. He thought I had stolen the plan from a mob I had been working with and brought it to him for a bigger share. He didn’t say so, but I knew that’s what he thought.’
Kitson shifted uncomfortably. He knew that was exactly what Frank had thought.
‘Well, maybe. I didn’t.’
‘I knew about the payroll and the truck because my father was the gate man at the Research Station,’ Ginny said quietly.
‘He was?’ Kitson gave her a quick look. ‘Yeah, so you would know about it.’
‘I’m not trying to whitewash myself,’ Ginny said, leaning her head back against the seat. ‘My mother was no good. I guess I have a lot of her badness in me. She left my father when I was ten. She was always talking about money, telling me without it, I’d never do anything. My father was a good man, but he didn’t earn much. He was good to me, but that didn’t stop me having an itch for money. As I grew up, the itch got worse. It tormented me. I never had any decent clothes. I seldom went to the movies. I used to spend all my time staring into the windows of the luxury shops, envying people who could buy what I saw there and what I wanted. My father often talked about the payroll, and I often dreamed of having all that money. Then the new truck arrived. My father thought they were crazy not to insure the payroll any longer. He said it wouldn’t be so hard to hijack the truck. He and I used to discuss it. It was his idea to hide the truck in a caravan. Don’t imagine he ever thought of doing such a thing. There was nothing like that about him, but it made me think and the idea of grabbing that truck became an obsession with me.’
Kitson was driving slowly now and listening. He watched the sun, like a red ball of fire, dip behind the mountains.
‘My father was a sick man,’ Ginny went on, lacing her fingers over one knee. ‘He had two years to go before he got his pension, and he tried to hang on, but in the end he had to quit.
They gave him time off, but when he wasn’t well enough to come back when they thought he should, they sacked him, and away went his pension. I went to see the staff manager to explain, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He treated me as if I were a beggar. So, when my father died, I decided I would get even. I would be killing two birds with one stone: I’d settle the score and I’d become rich. I had the plan all worked out in my mind and I had to find someone to help me. I was in a cafe one night, and I overheard some men talking about Morgan. From what they said, I decided he was the one to go to. So I went to him. That’s the story. It was my father’s plan, but he would never have used it.’
‘I’m sorry for your father,’ Kitson said.
‘Yes.’ He saw her hands suddenly turn into fists. ‘I’m sorry I ever started this, Alex. I know I’m hard and bad and money loving. I know all that, but I didn’t think it was going to be like this. It’s so easy to talk about killing a man. You see it on the movies and it doesn’t seem anything, but when it really happens.’
‘Look, Ginny,’ Kitson’s voice was suddenly urgent. ‘Why don’t you and me quit? We could go to Mexico. If we cleared out right now, we stand a chance of getting away with it. Why don’t we do that?’
She hesitated, then shook her head.
‘No! I’m not going to quit now. The time to have quitted was before we killed the guard and the driver and before Morgan died. I’m going through with this now, Alex. But you quit. I’d like to see you out of this, but I’m going through with it. We still have a chance of getting the money. What have I to lose now? But you quit, Alex. You should never have been in this anyway.’ She looked at him. ‘Why did you? You didn’t want to. I could see that. Why did you vote for it?’
Kitson shrugged his shoulders.
‘Because of you,’ he said. ‘You meant something to me from the moment I saw you.’
‘I’m sorry, Alex. I’m really sorry.’
‘Look, if we get the money, couldn’t we join up together?’ Kitson asked, staring hard at the road as it came towards him. ‘I love you, Ginny. You’re the only girl who has ever meant anything to me.’
‘I don’t know, Alex. Perhaps. Let’s wait until we get the money. I’m scared of complications. Will you let me think about it?’
Kitson nearly drove off the road, he was so surprised.
‘You really mean there’s a chance you might, Ginny?’
She patted his arm.
‘Let me think about it, Alex.’
It was dark by the time they got back to the caravan camp.
Kitson, elated by the talk he had had with Ginny, dumped the groceries in the kitchen and then went across to the caravan. The lake side was deserted. It was safe enough to let Bleck and Gypo out. As he watched them come from the caravan he knew something was wrong.
Gypo walked slowly and heavily, his shoulders hunched. His right cheek was bruised and bleeding slightly.
When Kitson asked him what was the matter, he didn’t reply, but entered the cabin and slumped down into an armchair.
Bleck, his face bleak, an ugly glitter in his eyes, walked to the settee and then reached for the whisky bottle and poured himself a stiff drink. Then he sat down, scowling.
‘There was a kid hanging around outside the caravan,’ he said as Kitson shut the cabin door and locked it. ‘He tried to look in.’
Sensing the atmosphere, Ginny asked, ‘What about the lock?’
Bleck shrugged.
‘No luck so far,’ he said, leaning back and staring at her. ‘The second tumbler shows no signs of falling. Gypo
has got worked up about it.’
‘Worked up!’ Gypo exclaimed shrilly. ‘I’m quitting! The lock has beaten me! Do you hear? I’m quitting!’
Ginny said quietly, ‘But you can’t quit. What’s the matter?’
‘Matter?’ Gypo thumped his fists on his knees. ‘No one can work in that caravan in that heat! You don’t know what it is like! For three days I’ve tried to bust that lock. It’s no good! Now I quit!’
‘You told Frank it would take a month,’ Ginny said. ‘You can’t quit after three days.’
‘Leave him alone,’ Bleck said. ‘I’ve been over all this with the jerk until I’m sick of it. The heat in the caravan is sheer hell. We’ve got to go up to the mountains as Frank said so we can work with the back of the caravan open. We can’t go on boxed in; we just can’t.’
‘It’ll be dangerous,’ Ginny said. ‘Here, we’re lost among other caravans, but in the mountains, if we are spotted, they’re bound to investigate us.’
‘We’ve got to take that risk,’ Bleck said savagely. ‘If Gypo can’t handle the lock, we’ll have to try to cut into the door and we can’t do that here.’
‘They are still watching the roads,’ Kitson said, uneasily. ‘We stand a chance of being stopped, Ed. And another thing, we don’t know if the Buick will haul that weight up the mountain road. I’ve been up there. It’s bad and part of the road has been broken up by the storm a couple of weeks ago.’
‘We’ve got to chance it,’ Bleck said. ‘If we leave here tomorrow at noon, we’ll be on the mountain road by dark. We’ll have to buy a tent and food. It’ll mean living rough until Gypo busts the truck.’
‘Count me out!’ Gypo said violently. ‘I’m going home!’
As Bleck started to say something there came a knock on the cabin door.
There was an electrifying pause, then Bleck, gun in hand, stood up.
Gypo, his face white, leaned forward to stare at the door.
Ginny said in a fierce whisper, ‘Get into the bedroom, you two!’
Bleck grabbed hold of Gypo, dragged him to his feet and bundled him into the bedroom as Kitson, very tense, crossed the room and opened the cabin door.
1958 - The World in My Pocket Page 17