by Lionel White
He'd been standing at the dresser and he whirled quickly as she entered the room. The gun was stil in his hand and apparently he'd been about to put it into the top bureau drawer where he kept his shirts.
“What in the world have you got there?” she asked.
He blushed, started to say something. But she went to him at once and reached for it. He brushed her hand away then and told her not to touch it.
“My God, George,” she said then. “Don't tel me you're going to actual y be in on the stick-up yourself.” She looked at him with wide eyes, unbelievingly.
It wasn't that at al , he told her. But he felt safer with the gun. The gun was for afterward, once they had divided the money up.
“But I don't understand,” she said. “Is it that you don't trust the others? You think someone's going to try...”
“I trust them,” he said, almost too quickly. “I trust them, al right. Only, it's going to be a lot of money. And it isn't only us that wil be in it. Johnny's got two or three outside men, hoodlums, working on the thing.”
“You trust Johnny, don't you?” she asked.
For a moment then, as she mentioned his name, he seemed to turn away and his neck grew red.
“As much as I trust anyone,” he told her, shortly.
She wanted to know where he got the gun; wanted to know why he brought it home. Asked if it wasn't dangerous, just having it around. But he was evasive. He told her he didn't want her worrying about it.
Final y she asked him outright if he brought it home because they were going to pul the job immediately.
He protested then, protested too much and she knew that the next day must be the day.
As she had fal en asleep, she was stil surprised, however, that George had gotten hold of a revolver. For a fleeting moment she wondered if he could possibly have any suspicion of her relationship with Val Cannon. Could possibly have guessed what she had told Val. But she brushed the idea aside.
There was no doubt but what George had been acting strange the last few days; tense, even short and surly with her. She put it down to a bad case of nerves. She knew that as the time for the stick-up approached, he would of necessity be highly nervous and upset.
Stil and al , the gun didn't quite fit into the picture. George wasn't the type to carry a gun. In fact, she doubted very seriously if he had ever as much as shot off a gun in his entire life.
George Peatty himself had slept badly. He had, in fact, been sleeping badly for about a week. It wasn't only the robbery which worried him. There was the business of Sherry. First her showing up that night of the first meeting. Then, seeing her coming out of Unger's apartment that fol owing Monday at dusk.
Something was going on, and George didn't know what it was. He had, as casual y as possible, mentioned Sherry to Johnny a couple of times lately.
But Johnny had been noncommittal. Certainly in no way had he indicated that he had seen her that Monday afternoon.
Just why he had picked up the gun, George couldn't even say to himself. He only knew that suddenly, around the middle of the week, he remembered a friend of his who had a col ection of revolvers and rifles. He'd never paid much attention to it as he had no interest in either guns or the purposes for which they were used. But he remembered this friend and then the next thing, he'd looked him up. Cal ed him on the telephone and just about invited himself over for a visit.
He'd given the man a long cock-and-bul story about taking a vacation up in the Canadian woods. Wanted to take a gun along with him as he'd be sleeping out in the car nights.
The man had offered to loan him a rifle or a shotgun, but George had asked for a revolver. Said he'd feel better with one in the glove compartment of his car. His friend had demurred, but final y he'd loaned George the revolver. He'd had to instruct George about how it worked.
It was a smal , .32 automatic and as his friend explained about it, George couldn't help but be secretly amused. Here he was, he thought, a member of a mob which was about to pul just about the most daring stick-up in the history of crime, and someone had to show him how to load and unload a gun.
Sherry was up before George and half dressed as he threw the sheet from his body and started to climb out of bed.
“We're out of everything,” she said, speaking over her shoulder as she started for the bathroom. “You get shaved and dressed and I'l run downstairs and pick up some coffee and rol s. You want anything else besides?”
“Might get a paper,” George said.
“Newspaper or a scratch sheet?”
“Newspaper.”
George sat on the edge of his bed, a scrawny scarecrow in his faded striped shorts. He smoked a cigarette as he waited for Sherry to get through in the bathroom. He coughed several times and butted out the cigarette, mental y reminding himself that he was going to cut out smoking before he'd had his morning coffee. At once he began to think of the plans for the day, of what would be happening out at the track this afternoon.
Unconsciously, he reached for another cigarette and lit it.
Sherry came out of the bathroom looking fresh and lovely, even without makeup. She took a scarf from one of the bureau drawers and tied it around her neck. She didn't bother with a hat or a jacket. She was wearing light peach-colored slacks and a turtle-neck sweater, her smal feet thrust into huaraches. She looks, George thought, about seventeen.
“Money,” she said.
“On the dresser, baby.”
She took a couple of bil s from George's wal et and blew him a casual kiss as she turned and left.
“Back in a jiff,” she said.
George got up and went into the bathroom. He walked over to the mirror above the sink and leaned forward to stare at his face. He half opened his mouth and rubbed one hand down the side of his cheek, blinked his bloodshot, faded blue eyes several times. The stubble on his chin was very light and he could have gotten away without shaving. But he reached over and unhooked the door to the medicine cabinet and took out his safety razor, the moth-eaten shaving brush and a jar of shaving cream.
He nicked himself on the chin and on the side of his neck and swore under his breath each time. After he was through and had washed off the razor under the hot water faucet, he tore two tiny pieces from the rol of toilet paper and put them over the cuts to stop the bleeding.
Going back into the bedroom, he opened the bureau drawer to take out some clean underwear and a shirt. Suddenly he remembered the gun.
Quickly glancing at the bedroom door, with almost a guilty expression in his eyes, he reached under the shirts and took out the automatic. He held it at an awkward angle, pointed down toward his feet, and experimental y flipped off the safety catch. He closed one eye and lifting the weapon straight out in front of himself, sighted along it.
His face took on a hard, tough expression and he gritted his teeth. There was something almost pathetical y comical about his entire pose.
“Drop the gun, Louie!”
George swung around as Sherry spoke the words from the door. Her face was convulsed with silent laughter as she stood there with the paper bag holding their breakfast, under her arm.
The gun fel from George's hand and struck the floor with a heavy thud.
“Jesus Christ, Sherry,” he said. “I didn't hear you. Why...”
“Pick it up, George,” she said. “My God, if you're going to be a two gun kil er, you better keep a little more on your toes. I slammed the door when I came in and you never even heard me.”
George blushed and reached down to pick up the revolver.
“Pour the coffee,” he said. “I'l be right in.”
George caught the same train from Penn Station that carried Big Mike out to the track. He saw Mike as the other man climbed aboard and he purposely walked a couple of cars down before finding a seat. He had left the morning paper with Sherry and hadn't bothered to buy a second one to read during the trip out to the Island.
Instead, he sat thinking. He was thinking about figures. As near
as George could calculate, there would be approximately two mil ion dol ars in the offices of the track officials that afternoon at the end of the day, barring accident. That would include profits on the pari-mutuel betting, the break-, age money, the tax moneys from the mutuel machines, and the money from the concessions—the restaurant, the bars, hot dog stands, program venders—and there would be the take from the entrance fee windows of the race track itself.
George knew that cash was never al owed to col ect at any point around the track. The mutuel windows turned over their surplus at the end of each race to messengers who brought it to the main office. What was needed for the payoff, was estimated at the end of the race and certain sums to meet the obligations were rushed to each pay-off cashier.
At the end of the day, al of the money was bundled up and an armored car swung by and guards picked up the entire take. Less than a few thousand dol ars at most would be left in the safe at the track overnight.
As near as George could estimate, the total amount picked up by the armed cars was roughly equivalent to the total handle of the day. It had to work out that way, considering entrance fees and concession money. Figuring this way, at the end of the big race, the Canarsie Stakes, there should be at least something better than a mil ion and a half dol ars in the til . Saturday was always the biggest day of the week, and this particular Saturday, with the stakes running, and at the end of July, was sure to attract a record crowd.
Johnny's planning had certainly been smart. At the end of the day, there wouldn't be one chance in ten mil ion of getting their hands on that money.
George knew that the armored car arrived around five o'clock and parked just opposite the main entrance to the clubhouse. Two men stayed in that car, one at the wheel and the other handling a machine gun from a turret on the top of the vehicle. Two others entered the offices, each ful y armed. There would be the Pinkertons lining the path from the office to the door. There would be the two detectives who were on constant duty in the main offices, where the money itself was col ected.
No, once that armored car showed, a stick-up would be impossible.
Thinking about it, thinking of what Johnny was planning to do, George shuddered.
Jesus, the guy had guts. He had to admit it. He not only had the brains to plan it, but he had guts to carry it out. It was going to take a particularly rare brand of courage to walk into that office, alone, and face those armed Pinkertons.
George looked at his wrist watch as the train pul ed along the platform near the track. He unconsciously noted that the train, as always, was right on time.
He spoke to no one as he made his way to the clubhouse.
Another four hours.
* * *
Randy Kennan went on duty at eight o'clock on Saturday morning. He was on for a straight twelve hour trick. Patroling, first up one street and then down the next. Routine.
Climbing into the black and white prowl car, he offered up a fervent prayer that it would stay routine. But no matter what happened, no matter if there were half a dozen murders and a race riot on his beat, he knew what he had to do and he was prepared to do it.
Fortunately, things started out quiet and they stayed that way during the morning hours. A couple of early morning drunks, a fight over on Columbus Avenue. A speeding ticket and a woman who'd lost her kid while she was in shopping.
At twelve-thirty, Randy cal ed in and told the desk that he was going to have lunch. He'd be out of the car for not more than a half hour. And then, at one o'clock, back behind the wheel, he once more reported in. There was nothing stirring.
At two o'clock, Randy pul ed over in front of a drugstore on West Sixty-first Street near Broadway. He left the engine running and got out of the car, leaving the radio on so that he'd be able to hear it.
He went into the drugstore and entered a phone booth. He didn't have to look up the number. In a moment he had the desk sergeant at the precinct house. He didn't even try to disguise his voice. He knew that it wouldn't be recognized. The sergeant was used to hearing him over the short-wave set.
Quickly he told the sergeant that he was Lieutenant O'Mal ey's brother-in-law, out at Shirley, Long Island.
“The Lieutenant's wife, my sister, has suddenly been taken sick,” he said. “We got no phone out here. Wish you'd try and get word to the Lieutenant. I think he should come on out.”
And then he hung up. A moment later he was back in the car and pul ing away from the curb. He hoped that it would work.
Lieutenant O'Mal ey was his direct superior and he knew that they had no phone. He'd been a guest out at O'Mal ey's beach house several times himself.
It might work and it might not. There was always the chance that O'Mal ey would check back with the Suffolk police and try and find out what was the matter. On the other hand there was an equal y good chance that O'Mal ey, given the message, would ask to be excused from duty and would rush out to see for himself.
If it happened that way, it would be just so much to the good. Then, in case there was a cal for Randy between three and five o'clock, O'Mal ey wouldn't be on duty and his replacement wouldn't be too sure when he failed to contact Randy Kennan's prowl car. Unless it was something real y hot, they'd just assume that Randy's radio was broken and he didn't get the cal . And they'd send someone else out on it.
O'Mal ey, who made the rounds himself in another car and checked up on Randy and the rest of the men in his district, was about the only one who was sufficiently familiar with Randy's beat to know approximately where he would be at any given time.
The worst that could happen, assuming something did break during that crucial period, would be that Randy Kennan couldn't be found. So he'd tel them that he'd taken a snooze on a side street and that the radio had broken down—he'd see that it was broken, too, before he turned in that night—and they might dock him a few days' salary or at the worst put him back to pounding a beat.
It was the best that Randy could figure out.
At ten minutes to three he got a cal to go to the corner of Broadway and Sixty-ninth. Street fight.
“The sons of bitches wil just have to keep on fighting,” he said to himself, and then swung the patrol car south and started downtown. At Fifty-ninth Street, he turned east and headed for the Queensboro Bridge. It was a little longer than taking either the Triboro or the Midtown Tunnel, but he didn't want to pass through a tol gate. A patrol car in the heavy Saturday afternoon traffic between New York and Long Island would never be noticed. A patrol car going through a tol might.
Keeping a careful eye on his wrist watch, Randy held the car at a steady speed. He had timed the trip on a half dozen different occasions and he knew at just what point he should be at just what time. He knew that it was absolutely essential that he arrived at the track at exactly the right moment. A minute or two early wouldn't make too much difference. But as much as ten seconds late would be fatal.
He picked up the Parkway out near Forest Hil s and observed that he was right on the button. He smiled, and holding the wheel with one hand, reached into his tunic for a cigarette.
At exactly four-thirty he swung into the boulevard running paral el with the race track. At four thirty-five, he turned into a narrow, asphalt paved street which ran down the side where the horses were stabled. A uniformed cop, standing in the center of the street idly directing the few cars which were leaving early, waved casual y as he went by. Randy nodded his head and drove down toward the main office building which formed the rear of the clubhouse.
The sound of the crowds in the grandstands reached his ears. He knew then that the horses were off in the seventh race. The Canarsie Stakes.
There were half a dozen cars violating the no-parking ordinance on the street. A single pedestrian walked slowly away from one car as Randy drew adjacent to the clubhouse. He pul ed up to the curb, alongside the high blank outside wal of the clubhouse, which abutted the street.
He looked down at his watch and saw that the minute hand was just passing
the four-forty mark.
And then he heard the steady, overwhelming roar of the crowd inside the track come to a sudden, paralyzing silence. A moment later and that roar once more broke into a frenzied, hysterical cacophony.
Randy was an experienced cop. He knew the sound of a riot when he heard one.
Leaning out of the side of the car, he looked at the row of three windows, some seventy feet up on that blank concrete wal .
Chapter Eight
It was eight-thirty in the morning when Maurice Cohen reached the corner of Southern Boulevard and a Hundred and Forty-ninth Street. He went to a newsstand and bought a scratch sheet and then he found a crowded cafeteria. He ordered a cup of coffee and spread the sheet out on the table, taking a fountain pen from his inside breast pocket. He spent exactly forty-five minutes marking up the sheet. Then he careful y folded it and put it in his side coat pocket. He paid for the coffee and left.
Entering the bank on the corner near the subway steps, he strol ed casual y to the nearest tel er's cage. He pushed a five dol ar bil under the gril and asked the girl for two two-dol ar rol s of nickels. She smiled and gave them to him, along with a dol ar change.
Maurice dropped one rol in each side pocket.
He was armed for his afternoon's work. Maurice knew that a rol of forty nickels was just as effective as a blackjack—and there was no risk of facing a Sul ivan Law charge in case he had to use it.
Riding downtown, he opened a morning tabloid and checked the train schedules in an ad on the sporting page. He decided to take the twelve-thirty, which would get him out in plenty of time to get down on the daily double. He wanted to have tickets on every race—just in case. At least it would prove, should there be a rumble and he find himself arrested, that he had a legitimate reason for going to the track in the first place.
Getting off the train at Grand Central Station, he climbed up to the street level and walked east on Forty-second Street. He went into the lobby of a tal office building between Lexington and Third Avenues and waited for an elevator. He knew the room number without looking it up on the board.