Ed didn't look happy.
"Yeah," I went on, "a citizen. And I think I hit him too hard. I'm going to Mississippi, if I can get there in this outfit." No point in burdening Ed with the truth.
"I was hurrying, Bill. You said--"
"Yeah, I know. I'll try to let you know the layout when I can."
"Maybe this will blow over, Bill. Why don't you stick around and see?"
"Not this one. I'm just out of one jam, remember? They'll play it tough this time."
"How about the apartment? The rent's too much by myself."
"That reminds me. How much dough you got?"
"Only a buck. And a little change."
"Give it here." He did. "Move one of your girls in. They all work. Or you can sell my gun to tide you over."
"No. I want your gun. Don't worry, I'll make out. Just be careful yourself, Bill."
We shook hands. He used the same newspaper to wrap up my uniform, the harness and equipment, including the gun he wanted. I poked him in the ribs as he walked out, still looking a little sad. I wondered if I'd ever see him again. A good kid. Not overly bright, maybe, but a damn good cop.
I hated to spend any money. I knew I'd need every nickel--twice. But I couldn't stand the head any longer. I bought a small tin of aspirin at the drug counter and washed four of them down with a coke. I waited expectantly, my teeth hard together. No effect. This was a special kind of headache. I asked for a glass of water at the fountain and took two more; then I dug for the change and bought two more boxes for the bus trip.
I started sweating out the time. Things were all right so far; but I had the feeling my luck was reaching hard ground. I saw Griego; he still was not watching me. I knew he must have seen Ed; but he wouldn't spill. We had worked together once. Sometimes it pays to know a great deal about your friends. Especially about the wrong kind of deals.
I counted all my cash. It was easy. One dollar and seventy cents. I'd be hungry when we rolled, into Dallas. If I got that far. I looked at the clock. Almost time. I edged toward the gates trying to watch all the entrances at once. My reflection in a window made me shudder. I peeled off the checkered cap and threw it in a trash can near the door.
The dispatcher's last call finally blared through the station. El Centra, Yuma, Phoenix, Lordsburg, El Paso, Fort Worth--and Dallas. That was me.
First in line, I grabbed a seat in the rear by the window. The bus finished loading, and a few moments later the driver pulled it out into the stream of traffic. We passed the front of the station and I saw two men from Central Headquarters talking to Griego. I watched, keeping my face in the shadow. Griego was shaking his head, hands spread apart. Griego, I love you!
Through the city, across the Los Angeles River Bridge, out past Lincoln Park, down the highway stretching through the orange groves. Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and hello, Dallas--
Maybe I had a chance to make it.
Chapter 2
Junior Knowles
MY plan shore had worked smooth, just like a fresh-oiled pulley inside a well rope.
Split three ways, we had us five thousand dollars apiece! Me, my brother Donald, and old El Mercer! None of us hadn't never had nothing. And if we had stayed in Oklahoma we never would of had nothing.
But now we was rich!
I looked at the little gal we'd snatched. Setting in the old straight chair, sniffling like she wanted to cry some more. I just waited. I was hoping she would cry some more. I hated to slap her again without no good reason.
Donald and old El, they was setting at a table in a corner of the room, and I turned around so's I could see them.
They was counting the money again.
Donald he was smiling, turning his head side to side, mostly feeling them greenbacks and day dreaming.
With old El it was different. He was counting. So dead set on it I would of laughed--but, fifteen thousand dollars!
Course, I'd planned this here trip for money-making from the beginning. But riding down here to Dallas in El's old LaSalle, I didn't have no idee of us making this much. Reckon it was that fancy-pants feller from Tulsa that come into the pool hall back home that changed my luck. I had to shoot pool awful bad to keep from beating him so much he would of quit earlier.
I had fifty dollars when he did quit.
I talked old El and Donald into coming to Dallas and tying my fifty dollars up in a load of whisky. I knowed I could double the fifty, or triple it maybe if I taken my time, taking the whisky across to Oklahoma and selling it to them college boys in Norman.
But in Dallas things worked out different to what I'd figgered, and a whole lot better.
We got here without no trouble. But them big signs along the roads in Texas, telling about how the state fair was on in Dallas, had dern near drove my brother Donald crazy. You'd of thought he was a half-growed kid; he wanted to git out to them fairgrounds so bad.
I hadn't never seen such a big state fair, neither. So I give in to Donald and made El foller them signs to the fairgrounds; and we went in just to look around a little bit.
For a while we walked up and down looking at everything on the Midway. I wouldn't give Donald no money to ride no rides; leastways not till we come across the shooting gallery with them fancy .22's. Iff'n I spent money to shoot, I'd have to let Donald ride, dead certain. But there's just something inside of me that any kind of a gun gives me the itch.
The first thing I knowed, what with me shooting and Donald going on all them crazy rides, we was just about plumb out of money.
I still don't see how we spent so much, but it shore hadn't took long. El kept telling me I was spending too much; but I told him to shut up. Whose money was it? He whined at me.
"Awright, Junior! Just don't forget you done the spending. Ten dollars ain't hardly enough to buy gas and oil to go home, let alone whisky to take back to Norman."
Whenever I was mad at El he wasn't nothing to me but a dirty old fat man; and he was shore making me mad now. I looked him up and down.
El's face was sunburnt, with more furrows in it than a cornfield. He never had on no shirt or socks a-tall. His undershirt and the rest of his clothes looked as if he'd been a-plowing in them that very morning. His hightop shoes was unlaced most of the way down, and dry mud was caked all over them. His jeans had been boiled so many times they was as white as they was blue, except where they was greasy. The only halfway clean thing he had was the coat to a old suit of his, and the ends of the sleeves of it was unraveled pretty bad. He was holding it by two fingers in the collar, slung over his shoulders. He was a mess.
I looked El straight in his yeller eyes.
"Looky here, El, I don't want to hear no more about spending. Come right down to it, some of that there money was spent on you. So shut up!"
But I never felt no better. Never kept what El said from being true just cause I wouldn't let him say it no more. Me, Junior Knowles, gitting suckered out of the money I'd meant to use for me and Leonie to git hitched. Well, no use of crying over it--I figgered we might as well find Donald and git rolling.
I started looking around and seen him down the Midway a piece.
He was squatting down, talking to the little gal. She was about six year old and all dressed up in red clothes, cute as a speckled pup. Me and El walked down there.
"Junior," Donald said to me, "gimmie a dime. I want to buy this little gal a ice cream cone."
"Naw. We done spent all we're going to. Let's go."
"Aw, Junior, just a dime. Ain't she a sweet little old gal?"
"Donald, we got to git moving. Turn that kid's hand aloose and let her git."
He seen I was mad and let go of her. I give her a scary look, but she never got scairt. She taken a step or two towards Donald and opened the top of the little red purse she was holding.
"I got money," she told Donald. "See?"
I went over quick and looked, and old El was right behind me. Doggoned if the little purse wasn't plumb loaded with quarters and dimes! Old El slobb
ered some and reached in front of me to git the purse.
"Let me count it for you, little girl," he said, with a ugly, fat grin.
I caught El's wrist, twisted it, and taken the purse myself.
"I'll count it, El."
I made like I was counting the money but I was doing some fast thinking instead. The little blonde-headed kid had put one hand back into Donald's, looking up at him like she done had her ice cream and he was it.
"Three eighty-five," I told El. There was probably more than that.
I handed Donald a dime of it and dropped the rest in my pocket. El watched it slide out of my hand like a hungry dog watching a man eat a rare steak.
"Buy her some ice cream, Donald, and see you don't let her out of yore sight."
She looked happy walking away with my brother. I tried to watch everybody in the crowd and see if anybody cared about her wandering off with Donald. Didn't look like nobody give a hoot. Didn't make no sense.
El commenced whining about that three eighty-five.
"Shut up, El--I'm a-thinking."
That little gal must of got lost or she wouldn't be in that crowd without none of her folks. If she was lost, her folks was shore to be hunting her. Wasn't hard to tell she belonged to folks with money. I was gonna have to have some. If she was lost for a spell and her folks had money, they'd pay a reward. If I could take her home, I'd git that reward.
I was probably the only human being at them fairgrounds who knowed who she was and where she lived. I don't never miss much, and that white strip of cloth sewed inside her purse had told me. That there purse was inside my shirt right now. My heart beat fast when the plan come to me.
We never had no place to keep her, but I was shore if her paw just kind of thought we was gonna keep her he'd pay a big reward without making us wait around. If he was bullheaded we'd send him a little piece of her ear, sliced off. That'd probably fix it so's he'd pay. I had to grin. As simple as I'd saw it in pitcher shows, only this was the first time I'd ever fell into the chance to work it.
Donald would do whatever I said, and I knowed I could bluff El into it. That or it wouldn't be healthy for El. We'd only git this one chance, and nobody was gonna keep me from taking it.
"El, that little gal means five thousand dollars apiece to us."
"What's that?"
"I said, how'd you like to leave Dallas with five thousand dollars in yore jeans? All in brand new fives, tens and twenties, I mean."
"Now Junior, doggone you, you're trying to git me in trouble." His lips was fluttery.
"Naw, El, not trouble. Just some reward money. Couldn't hardly git in no trouble taking that little gal back to her paw, could we?"
"Nor git no five thousand dollars, neither."
"We could, by keeping her a few days, first."
"Where in thunder could we keep her? Junior, I got a good notion these here Texans don't fret none too much about how they treat kidnappers. Sounds like what you're trying to git me into, we best don't talk no more about it."
"You scairt, El?"
"Shore I'm scairt! Ain't you?"
"Naw. Not for five thousand dollars--cash--apiece--"
"Apiece?" El licked his fat lips.
"Shore, apiece. Look at how she's dressed. And carrying that purse full of money around and her just a shaver of a gal. That much reward would be easy."
"And if we git caught?"
"How? Who in Oklahoma knows we come to Dallas? This here's a city, man. It ain't knowed as Big D for nothing. Nobody here knows us neither.--Call Donald."
El called my brother, just like I knowed he would.
The rest wasn't hard a-tall. We had to be sort of careful, that's all. I never told Donald no whole lot. Knowed I could tell him a smidgen at a time as we went along. The little gal never put up no fuss neither. Reckon that was because she had took to Donald so. He had her a-calling him Uncle Don awready.
We went out on the Fort Worth road a-piece and drove in at a cheap-looking tourist camp. The kid thought it was a game when I hid her under the big tow sacks on the floor of the car.
Soon as we was in the cabin I paid for, I yanked the cloth with the kid's name on it out of the little purse. When I wrote the note, I printed it with my left hand so's to be shore it couldn't be brung home to me. I told El just how to take the note and the scrap from the purse and git directions to the address it showed. I told him to shove them both under the front door and git right on back to our cabin. In case he got lost or something happened, I copied the address and put it in my pocket. I wasn't taking no chances.
El was gone for quite a long spell and I commenced to worry some. But finally he come rolling back in the old LaSalle and said he done just like I said and never had no trouble a-tall.
I left El at the cabin to guard the kid while me and Donald went to watch for the reward to be brung out. I located a good spot to stop and watch from, about half a mile from the place I'd spoke about in the note. It was surprising how quick it come.
A big new car stopped across from the wire fence around that big cement factory. Somebody throwed something out in the ditch, turned around, and started right off towards town again. I waited about thirty minutes to be shore nobody was following that car or watching that there place. Then I couldn't hold in no longer. I had to know.
I stopped the old LaSalle about fifty yards away with the engine running and sent Donald over to git the bundle out of the ditch. He come right back toting a leather suitcase. If my plan had worked it would be stuffed with fifteen thousand dollars! My fingers was trembling so I couldn't hardly git it open.
I never had no call to fret. The money was in there, all right. In little bundles with strips of paper around every one telling how much. Ain't a city slicker a-living that would try to trick me after reading that there note I wrote. Leastways till he knowed if his gal was gonna be safe. He done the smart thing and paid off.
Yep, it had been real easy. I turned the LaSalle around and drove the two-three miles back to our tourist camp.
And here we was, a mite sleepy cause we'd been up most of the night counting money. It was all there. Now all we had to do was kill the kid and be gone. Up till now El and Donald never knowed about this part of my plan. I was just fixing to spring it on them.
I was commencing to like Dallas, and I'd made up my mind to stay here a spell. I wanted to git some soft living. Tall buildings, paved roads, and me and Leonie! I'd already had enough hell, hard work and pore folks around me to last me till doom's day.
Nobody nor nothing wasn't gonna stop me. Not Donald. Not El. And not that kid, neither. The hard times could be made up for now. I ain't never seen nothing better than them three big piles of money laying on that table.
One of them piles was mine. El and Donald was both so happy they was trying to outshine each other. They hadn't never been that happy before. I wondered if I ought to make one of them kill the little gal. Draw straws, maybe. I decided against that. Would be a smart way to make shore El never spilt the beans, to make him do it. Before he had the money I could of made him, easy; but not now.
I could of bossed Donald into it too; but I didn't figger that'd be fair, him so young and all. That brought it right back to what I wanted. Left it up to me. Putting her past talking or recognizing me might save my gullet from gitting stretched at the end of a rope. I knowed that's what I'd git anyways if I got caught trying to take her home, or let her loose to talk about us. She knowed all our names and what we looked like.
"Donald. Take her to the bathroom."
He done what I said, just like always, and shut the bathroom door.
"El," I said, "we've come to the parting of the ways. We got to make a clean gitaway and we got to watch out. Me and Donald will keep yore old car, but we'll carry you down to the bus station. That there car will have to be ditched right away, so I cain't trust you taking it. You want to go back to Oklahoma, don't you?"
"Where else would I go but Oklahoma?"
"Nowheres. Me a
nd Donald, we're going to New Orleans."
"What we gonna do in New Orleans, Junior? I want to go back to Oklahoma, too."
"Naw. Me and you are gonna split up, too. You're going by train. I'll drive the car down there and meet you down there somewheres."
"But Junior--"
"The only way to travel is in ones! I seen it too many times."
"Heck! I want to buy some new clothes, and maybe a new car, and we can git drunk as seven hundred dollars, and--"
"Hold yore hosses, Donald! We'll stick around here long enough to pick us out some new clothes 'fore we leave, awright. But then we'll split up, and travel like I told you. Anyways, I'm gonna need a good night's sleep 'fore I make that there long drive to New Orleans. But by tomorrow or next day we're gitting out of here, and that's that. Everything else is gonna have to wait."
"Where you gonna sleep, Junior?" Donald asked me.
"Don't you worry none. They's maybe fifty good hotels downtown. Better than this here place. And we can afford it, cain't we?"
El butted in. "What about that little gal?"
"I'm tying her up and leaving her here. They'll find her; don't you worry. You can take the suitcase, El, and carry yore part of the reward in it. You'll look more like a bus rider. Donald, put our'n in one of them tow sacks in the car. We'll git some grips when we git them clothes."
They got real busy. El was glad to git the suitcase arid I was honing to git rid of him with it. I wanted him to be long gone when it come out about that kid being dead.
El picked up the suitcase and waddled outside and dumb into the car. Donald was standing there with our money in the tow sack.
"Go ahead and git in the car, Donald. I'm gonna tie the little gal up. I'll be right out."
Donald never wanted to watch me tie her up. He looked real sad as he walked out and closed the door. I felt better about not telling him my plan.
I went to the bathroom, straight off. She tried to back through the wall to git away from me. She wanted to cry but I reckon she remembered what happened the last time. I'm strong.
It wasn't no worse than wringing a chicken's neck.
I sort of folded her up and stuck her in the closet for towels and such. Then I went out and locked the door, and felt mighty good a-walking over to the old LaSalle. Donald and El was used to me doing the leading and had left me the driver's seat.
The Whip Hand Page 2