The Crossroads

by John D. MacDonald

  Pete laughed, a harsh, choppy sound. “The old kisseroo.”

  “Do you mean this?” Joan asked.

  “Yes,” Chip said.

  “Isn’t this a time when we should be sticking together?” she asked.

  “He suggested leaving. I approve it.”

  “With police permission,” Pete added.

  Suddenly they realized Nancy was crying. Pete put his arm around her and said, “Hey! Hey, girl!”

  “Everything is so … h-horrible,” she said brokenly. “Nobody’s happy any more.”

  Reporters and photographers were waiting for their arrival. Chip dealt with them, controlling his temper. Pete fled to his house, locked himself in and ignored the door-bell, let the phone ring. After they stopped bothering him, the house seemed particularly empty. He paced around restlessly, picking things up, putting them down, looking out the dark windows. Go over to Columbia and spend some time with Gidge and Rusty. He wondered where Sylvia was, where she lay in darkness with Lawrenz’ tan ropy arms around her. The husband betrayed. He thought of how he could make a real comedy routine out of it, for Gidge and Rusty. They would laugh. It was so wonderfully easy to make people laugh. Old Pete, figure of fun.

  He thought of the old man in the hospital bed. Make some jokes out of that, Pete, my boy. Make a few funnies.

  He made a drink. He stretched out on the oversized bed. He had the curious feeling that he had lost his identity, that he didn’t know who he was any more. Pete Drovek, party boy. Ho, ho, ho! The lampshade hat circuit. They love my imitation of Marlon Brando buying a new bongo drum. Ha, ha, ha! I know at least four hundred limericks. There was an old lady from Princeton. There was a young girl named McCracken. A foolish old floop named McGruder. Make a funny about the tears of a pretty niece. Or a murderous gas jockey.

  It took him a long, long time to isolate and identify the strange emotion he felt. Once he had identified it, its very strength appalled him.

  He felt ashamed.

  Brodey lay on the cot in the dark cabin. The only light came from the dial of a small plastic radio. “Lawrenz is described as being six feet tall, weighing one hundred and ninety-five pounds, exceptionally muscular. Dark-brown hair, worn long, pale gray or gray-blue eyes, and a tan complexion.”

  Brodey listened to the complete description of Lawrenz and Sylvia and the two vehicles. A mosquito whined in his ear. He lit a cigarette. He had expected the police to come up with the right names, but not quite so fast. Probably the punk had pulled something stupid. He felt slightly uneasy about how quickly they had worked. Then he went over it logically. They couldn’t tie him to it. He hadn’t been seen with Sylvia. The odds against anybody identifying her nondescript car with him driving it were enormous. It was a calculated risk and he had taken it.

  No, they’d never find them. Locked away together there in the trunk of the red Ford. Cozy. They would look for a long time. In far places.

  He thought about the money. Packed in nice solid bricks. And no risk at all. The punk went and got it and brought it to you. Here you are, buddy. Thanks a lot, pal. He stubbed out his cigarette on the floor, stretched and yawned, turned the music down until it was barely audible, and composed himself for sleep.

  TEN

  Tuesday, the twenty-fourth, was a sticky day of misty sun and no wind. Papa Drovek had spent a good night. The immediate family was permitted to see him in the morning, one at a time, for short visits. His memories were jumbled, his time sense distorted. At times he would ask plaintively where Martha was. He wanted to know what had happened to him, why his head hurt so badly, why he felt so weak and sick. They told him he had fallen. This would satisfy him for a time and then he would start asking again.

  After Chip got back from the hospital he stopped in the gift shop to see Jeana. They went into the storeroom for a few moments. She looked up at him, her palms against his cheeks. “You look completely beat, darling.”

  “It’s such a damned mess.”

  “How is he now?”

  “Better. It looks as if he’ll make it all right.”

  “I’m so glad.”

  “At least when they catch them, it won’t be murder.”

  “Are they sure Sylvia was in on … that part of it?”

  “I talked to Bill Sharry again this morning. He’s in charge of the case. A nice guy. He didn’t get much sleep last night. They found out where Lawrenz was yesterday morning. In a bar near his rooming house. It’s called Nick’s. Lawrenz got a very brief phone call there, a little after ten. The bartender said he was acting jumpy. The call came to a pay booth. After the call, Lawrenz left in a hurry. Apparently he had his props, the glasses and hat and so on in the car. Somebody had to tip him off so he could be in the bank before we got there. And that somebody had to be fairly well acquainted with Papa’s monthly routine, the way he’d cash his check and take his sweet time sticking it away in the box. Sylvia would have known that.”

  “Could anybody else have been in on it?”

  “Sharry doesn’t think so.”

  Jeana had to leave and take care of a customer. She was back in a few moments.

  “It’s awful for your brother.”

  “You wouldn’t know it was, talking to him. They found Sylvia’s car.”

  “Really! Where?”

  “At the airport. Locked and empty. They’re still checking out passenger lists of all flights out yesterday. Sharry seems to think they may come up with something. He says it was so carefully planned that it isn’t logical they’d take off in a red Ford convertible. Too conspicuous. They found out Lawrenz has a record. One conviction. He served thirteen months of a two-year term for assault in Louisiana. The prints they found on his safety deposit box matched the prints on file. So that locks it up. Marty Simmons is more shocked than anybody. He thought Lawrenz was just about his best man.”

  “I wonder where and how Lawrenz and Sylvia got together.”

  “Right at the station at first, I guess. And made a date. Made a lot of dates. And then got this idea.”

  “When will I see you, darling?”

  “After things quiet down. God, I wish that when they do quiet down, we could go away for a while. You and me.”

  She made a face. “I could put a sign in my window. Weekending with the boss man, with my landlord.”

  “Some day.”

  “Don’t even say it. darling. I don’t want you to jinx us. Now you better run along, don’t you think?”

  He went to his office. Pete was standing by his desk, looking out the window. He turned quickly when Chip came in.

  “I thought you’d be long gone, as soon as Sharry finished with you.”

  “He sure asked a lot of questions. Right now I think he knows Sylvia as well as I ever did. Habits. Likes and dislikes. Taste in clothes and movies and food and perfume.”

  “He wanted you to stick around?”

  “No, Chip.”

  “Papa’s doing fine. You can go.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to go.”

  Chip sat down. “You look strangely serious, kid. You baffle me. Where’s the comedy routine? Where’s the punch line?”

  Pete said, “I don’t want to bare my soul. Maybe there isn’t much to expose. Maybe it wouldn’t mean anything to you anyway. You made that pretty clear last night.”

  “As clear as I could make it.”

  “It hurt. Not when it happened. Later.”

  “Good.”

  “Have you got something rough to hand out, in the way of a job?”

  “How the hell long would you last?”

  “I don’t know, and neither do you, Chip. It’s a case of waiting and finding out.”

  Chip made a steeple of his fingers and peered through it at his brother. “You look very earnest. I’m not about to start rejoicing.”

  “I know that.”

  “Report to Harvey. Maintenance crew. Day labor. A buck and a quarter an hour. He’s no Marty, or even John Clear. He’s a mean, driving, crabbed o
ld son of a bitch and he has absolutely no sense of humor, and it won’t matter a damn to him if you’re a Drovek or an arch-bishop. If you don’t work to suit him, he’ll have the authority to fire you. Feel like changing your mind?”

  “Nosir!” Pete said, and saluted.

  “Report to him tomorrow morning at eight at his shed back of the Haven. In work clothes. This is all very dramatic, I suppose. I wish I could believe in it.”

  “You know, it’s time I found out too, Chipper.”

  At a few minutes after eleven on that Tuesday morning, Sharry and Gold walked into the Highway Diner on 71. There were two customers at the counter. A bald man was yelling into a wall phone. A lean man with pale corded arms and a narrow face worked behind the counter.

  “Mark Brodey?” Sharry said.

  “Yes?”

  “Like to talk to you. Police.”

  The bald man had hung up. “What’s this? Police you say. What’s a trouble?”

  “Want to talk to Brodey.”

  The bald man looked at the identification. “City police? Walterburg? What I got to do with Walterburg? Brodey is busy working.”

  Sharry said, “We can take him in with us, or we can talk to him here. This way it doesn’t take as long.”

  The bald man shrugged violently. “So talk to him!” He turned toward Brodey. “Yesterday doctors. Today cops. I dock you for both times, understand?”

  Brodey was wiping his hands on a towel. “What’s this all about?”

  Sharry looked around. Half the diner was taken up by the counter. At the far end were small booths on both sides of the narrow center aisle. Nobody was in the booth section. “Bring a couple of coffees down to the end booth, Brodey,” he said, and walked down to the end. He sat down on one side of the booth. Gold remained standing. Brodey arrived with the coffee. He put it on the table.

  “Sit down,” Bill Sharry said, gesturing toward the opposite bench. Brodey hesitated and sat down. He slid over. Lew Gold sat beside him.

  “Can you give me some idea what’s going on? Or is there some rule about it?” Brodey asked.

  Sharry put sugar and cream in his coffee, stirred it. “Guess you can’t knock down as much here as when you were stealing Drovek money, eh, Mark?”

  Brodey made a slow ceremony of lighting a cigarette, stroking the match slowly, inspecting the glowing end after taking the first drag. “I don’t want to sound like a wise guy, Captain. If it took all this time for Drovek to decide to put the law on me, it would be hard proving it now. If I did knock down a little, which I’m not saying I did. And if he did want to try it, it wouldn’t be Walterburg police, would it? So this is something else. But I don’t have any idea what it could be. I’m as clean as anybody you ever talked to.”

  “Funny job for a bartender.”

  “I’ve been a lot of things. Short-order cook. Meat cutter. Waiter.”

  “But the union says you’ve been a bartender eight years. Five years with Drovek. It pays better than this.”

  “So we talk about my career, if that’s what you want. I got no reference from the Droveks. The word got around. You know.”

  “So now you could be up north in a resort area, lining up a bartending job for the summer, in a resort. They don’t check that close. You still got the union card. That’s all they want to look at.”

  “Are you worrying about me? I don’t like the north. I get asthma. I stay right here until maybe November or December, and then I’m moving down to Miami. That’s okay with you?”

  “You read the paper?”

  “Sure, Captain. What is it I should be … Oh! Would it be that bank thing? Papa Drovek and Pete’s wife and the gas station guy, Lawrenz? Is that what’s on your mind?”

  “How well do you know Glenn Lawrenz?”

  Brodey took a long time stubbing his cigarette out thoroughly and neatly. “I know the woman better. But my knowing them doesn’t mean a thing.”

  “Let’s try Lawrenz first.”

  “He went to work there maybe seven months ago. That place, it’s supposed to be one big happy family. That’s so you won’t notice the screwing you’re getting. I met him. He’s all punk. I figured he was looking for some kind of angle. I didn’t know he had such big ideas.”

  “Run around with him at all?”

  “No. I saw him on the job. That’s all.”

  “Now let’s try Sylvia.”

  “A while after Pete married her and brought her back, she took to coming into the Starlight Club for a couple of quick knocks before dinner. I’m going to level with you fellas. I don’t think I’ve busted any laws. I don’t think the family thought much of her coming in and sitting at the bar. But, hell, she was bored and lonesome. Pete didn’t give her enough time and attention. I went out of my way to be nice to her. I felt sort of sorry for the kid. And she was one of the family. You know. It couldn’t hurt anything, being nice to her. We’d kid around a little. She seemed to like me. Maybe I could have tried to find out just how much she liked me. But that would have been stupid. So, I got bounced out of there. A few weeks later I landed this job. Not long after that she came in here one night when I was on alone. She was a little tight. Pete was out of town. She’d heard from somebody where I was, and came down to tell me she thought I got a raw deal.” He paused and looked troubled and embarrassed. “Look at it from my point of view. I felt I got a raw deal, after five years working for those people. She was tight. She liked me. And you got to admit she’s stacked. Gus was due back any minute to cash up and close the place. So I told her where to wait for me. The Ace Cabins, just up the road. I rent the last one up the hill by the month. When she said she would, I gave her my key. I thought she’d change her mind, go home. But when I got to the cabin, she was there all right. I don’t imagine either of you two guys would back off when stuff like that falls in your lap. I felt like it served the Droveks right I should give her a little bounce. She came back for more a few times, afternoons when I was off. Then I guess she got mixed up with Lawrenz, because she didn’t come back any more. I can see now that’s why you fellas are here, because somebody saw her turning in at the Ace Cabins, or saw her car parked by my cabin.” He sighed. “I was glad when it ended, actually. Maybe I’m the old-fashioned type or something. It spoils it a little for me when it’s some guy’s wife.”

  “Nobody reported seeing her car there, Mark,” Sharry said.

  “What? Then what’s the deal? Where do I fit into this thing? I can’t think of any other reason why you’d come near me.”

  “I guess she told Lawrenz about you.”

  It looked as though Brodey had stopped breathing. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Maybe Lawrenz didn’t like the idea of you taking a few hacks at her.”

  “You fellas are talking way over my head.”

  “When Lawrenz rented the box, he used your name.”

  Brodey had taken a fresh cigarette out. He hadn’t lighted it. He rubbed his thumb and first two fingers together, splitting the paper, dribbling tobacco on the table top. He seemed to be looking over Sharry’s left shoulder, so intently that Sharry felt an impulse to turn around and look out the window behind him.

  “The son of a bitch,” Brodey said softly.

  “It certainly means you and Lawrenz weren’t partners in this deal,” Sharry said. “Unless he was crossing you.”

  “Partners!” Brodey said contemptuously. “I wouldn’t pick that punk to help me steal apples off a pushcart.”

  “It looks like he did pretty good, so far.”

  Brodey suddenly seemed considerably more relaxed. “Until you catch up with them. Let me tell you one thing. Just about everybody had that little girl figured for stupid. I don’t think so. I think that little brain of hers was ticking all the time. She didn’t advertise it. I don’t think Lawrenz could have dreamed a thing like this up. The way I look at it, she was the brains and he was the muscle. Is the old man dead yet?”

  “No. He’s going to pull through.”


  “Glad to hear it. He seemed to me like a nice old guy, somehow.”

  Gold spoke for the first time. “What was this about a doctor yesterday?”

  “I took time off to see a doctor.”

  “Give me his name,” Gold said.

  “What the hell for?” Brodey said angrily. “Why are you on my back? I didn’t have anything to do with what you’re working on.”

  “What’s the doctor’s name?”

  “Okay, okay,” Brodey said, lowering his voice slightly and glancing toward the counter. “That’s the only way I could get that meathead to let me off. There wasn’t any doctor.”

  “Where were you?” Gold asked gently.

  Brodey again took his time lighting his cigarette. “I had something lined up. Yesterday was the first good chance. It has to be in the daytime on account of her husband.”

  “I thought you didn’t go for the married stuff.”

  Brodey grinned in a wolfish way. “Sometimes it’s so good you can’t help yourself.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Listen, I’ve levelled with you fellas all the way. I don’t want to get her jammed up. She’s pretty timid and scary. You know. Let’s leave it this way. If you guys actually have to have her name, okay, you come back and I’ll give it to you. But you take it awful easy when you check me out with her. Okay?”

  Gold glanced at Sharry and then said, “Okay. If we have to have it, we’ll come back on you. Mind if we take a look at that cabin of yours?”

  “Hell, no,” Brodey said. He reached into his pants pocket under the apron, took out his keys and handed them to Gold. “It’s this little brass one. You’ll drop them back off here?”

  “Sure. Thanks for your co-operation, Brodey.”

  “Glad to do what I can. Hope you catch up with that pair quick. It’s a pretty rotten thing, bashing an old guy like that.”