‘If we get the truck,’ Morgan said, speaking slowly and distinctly, a threat in every word, ‘we’ll bust it open with or without the other two. You don’t imagine I’d get so far and then quit?’
Bleck nodded.
‘Okay. Then there’s another thing. Looks like we’ll have to raise at least two thousand bucks to finance this thing. That was something we didn’t go into last night. How do we raise the dough?’
‘We’ll have to do a job,’ Morgan said. ‘A small one, something that won’t get us into trouble. I’m thinking about it. With the big one ahead of us, I’ve got to watch it not to pick on something that’ll put the cops on our tails.’
Bleck sucked at his cigarette.
‘How about the filling station on Highway 10? The one on the left as you leave Dukas.’
‘Maybe,’ Morgan said. ‘It could be knocked over for two thousand, but I’d rather pick on something a little quieter, not on the highway. I was thinking of that all-night cafe on Maddox
Street. After the theatres it gets pretty full and the people who go there have money. We might pick up a lot more than two thousand if we have any luck. It would be a straightforward heist job. I’m working on it now.’
Bleck grimaced.
‘It could be rugged, Frank. I don’t like that kind of job. You never know if someone’s going to turn hero.’
‘It’ll be good training,’ Morgan said with a grim smile. ‘We know for sure these two will be heroes. We may as well get used to the idea. That cafe could be worth three grand if we’re lucky. Besides, we’ll take the girl along with us. I want to find out for sure if her nerve is as good as she makes out it is.’
‘Who else will be on the job?’
‘Kitson will handle the car. You and me will handle the heaters and the girl collects the dough.’
‘Gypo on the easy end of it again?’ Bleck asked with a sneer.
‘Look, Ed, you’re always making those cracks about Gypo. We don’t want him on a job like this. He’s our technical man. He’s no good on a caper like this and you know it. He is going to bust open the truck. No one else in this outfit can do it, so he’s going to be reserved for that job and that job alone. Get it?’
‘Oh, sure. One of these days I’ll learn to be a technical man myself,’ Bleck said shrugging. ‘Where are we going to get the caravan from?’
‘There’s a place that sells them at Marlow. As soon as we get the dough I’ll send Kitson and the girl there. Their story will be they’re going on honeymoon together.’
Bleck smiled.
‘Watch out Kitson doesn’t try to kid himself that’s what he is really going to do.’
‘Will you skip it?’ Morgan snarled. ‘We’ve enough on our plates without woman trouble. I’m telling you once and for all: there’s going to be no monkey business. Kitson’s the youngest of the four of us. It’s his job to act the husband, but that doesn’t mean a thing. If he thinks it does, then he has me to talk to.’
‘How about the frill?’ Bleck asked. ‘Have you consulted her on how she’s going to conduct her sex life?’
Morgan drew in a slow, deep breath.
‘I saw this coming,’ he said, his voice low and savage. ‘As soon as I saw her with that body of hers, I knew you three punks would try to reach for her. I told her: if she starts any monkey business, she’s out.’ His lips twisted into a hard smile. ‘It would have surprised you if you had seen her when I said that. Make no mistake about this: there’s only one thing in that baby’s life, and if s not sex. It’s money. Don’t kid yourself otherwise. Neither you nor Kitson nor Gypo are going to get anywhere with that girl. It’s money first and last with her. If Kitson tries to start trouble with her, he’s in for a shock. That goes for you and Gypo too. So get your mind adjusted. She says no monkey business. I say no monkey business, and that means no monkey business. Now do you get it?’
Bleck laughed.
‘Sure. It sounds to me there’s going to be no monkey business.’
Morgan put his cold, thin fingers around Bleck’s wrist and tightened his hold. Startled, Bleck looked quickly around and met the glittering black eyes.
‘I’m not fooling, Ed,’ Morgan said softly. ‘This is my big chance to break out of the prison that’s been my life. This is the big take. If you imagine you can queer my show because you’ve got hot pants for a twenty-year old girl, you have another thing coming. I’ll put a slug in your back if I think you’re going to foul up this job. Remember that. This is the once-in-a-life-time chance, and I’m not having it put on the skids because you or Gypo or Kitson gets a sex itch. Is that understood?’
Bleck’s smile was forced as he said, ‘What’s the matter with you, Frank? I was only fooling.’
Morgan leaned forward slightly. His tobacco-tainted breath fanned Bleck’s face.
‘You’d better be fooling.’
There was a long, tense pause as the two men stared at each other, then Bleck, making an effort to speak lightly, said, ‘Think this car can tow the caravan? It’ll be as heavy as hell.’
‘It’s got to tow it,’ Morgan said, relaxing back in his seat, his nicotine-stained fingers drumming on the steering wheel ‘There’re no really bad hills. The first half-hour will be the toughest. We’ve got to get as far away from the bottleneck as we can in that time. After that it’ll be easy. I want you to check this car, Ed, and I mean check it. If we have a breakdown when we have the truck, we’ll really be in trouble.’
‘Sure. I’ll give it a thorough check over. You can leave that to me. We’ll have to knock off a car for the girl. When do we do that?’
‘A couple of days before we do the job. You and Gypo will have to get new plates for it and Gypo must do a body spray job on it. We mustn’t take any chances of the car being spotted when she’s handling it.’
Bleck gave Morgan a sudden nudge as he saw the big wooden gates of the Armoured Truck Agency swing open.
‘Here it comes.’
Through the gateway came the armoured truck. They were seeing it for the first time, and both of them stared at it, photographing it in their minds.
Bleck was surprised to see how small it was. He had expected something much bigger. It was like a steel box on wheels, plus the driving cab. They could see Thomas and Dirkson through the windshield. Dirkson was sitting upright, looking ahead. Thomas had that easy stance of a born driver, his hands at two o’clock on the steering wheel. He edged the truck out into the flow of traffic as Morgan turned on the ignition of the Buick and moved it out into the traffic, two cars behind the truck.
‘I thought it was going to be bigger,’ Bleck said, trying to get a view of the rear of the truck, around the Lincoln that was in front of them. ‘It doesn’t look so tough.’
‘Yeah? Maybe it’s small, but don’t make any mistake about it not being tough,’ Morgan said.
He saw a gap in the traffic, touched the gas pedal and slid in front of the Lincoln. Ahead of him now was a low-slung sports car, and both men could get a clearer view of the rear of the truck.
Painted across the rear door was a sign that read: THE WELLING ARMOURED TRUCK SERVICE
You are looking at the safest truck ever invented.
If you have anything of value to transport, make use of us.
The safest and best trucking service in the world.
Bleck found he was breathing heavily as he stared at the truck that moved smoothly and fast through the morning’s traffic. It looked like a cube of solid steel on wheels. Instinctively he felt that this moving cube of steel not only offered a challenge to his future but also to his life.
‘On your right,’ Morgan said suddenly.
Bleck’s pale eyes swivelled to his right.
A traffic cop, sitting astride his motorcycle, had just started his engine and had steered his machine into the traffic.
‘Time we shoved off,’ Morgan said. ‘They’ll have this joker with them now until they leave town. If we hang on to them, he’ll want to know why.’<
br />
He swung the wheel and steered the Buick out of the flow of traffic and into a side street.
The last glimpse Bleck had of the truck was its steady movement forward with the speed cop riding at its side. He had a feeling of relief when he had lost sight of the truck.
Morgan slowed, swung to an empty parking space and pulled up.
‘Well, you’ve seen it now.’
‘Yes: a steel box. Seeing it doesn’t mean much. Did you get the exact time it left the Agency?’
‘Yes: eight forty-three.’ Morgan took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘Three hours from now, it should go through the bottleneck. I bet Gypo and Kitson are sweating it out there in this heat, waiting for them.’
‘Seeing the truck and the two guys brings the job to life,’ Ed said, shifting lower in his seat. ‘You’re right, Frank: this is the big one and it’s going to be tough.’
‘If we get the breaks, it’ll be okay,’ Morgan said. ‘We’ll take a look at that all-night cafe now. I want to see what the escape route’s like. We may have to leave fast. This is the one job, Ed, where we mustn’t make a mistake.’
‘This and the big one,’ Bleck said, half closing his eyes. ‘From now on — no mistakes, huh?’
Morgan nodded, then moved the car out of the parking space and headed up town.
II
A little after eleven-thirty a.m., Kitson and Gypo arrived at the bottleneck two miles from the entrance to the Research Station in Gypo’s battered Lincoln. Kitson was driving and because Gypo loathed walking, he stopped at the bottleneck to let Gypo out, and then drove on for a quarter of a mile to a wooded thicket where he could hide the car. Leaving the car out of sight from the road, he walked back to the bottleneck.
The sun was hot and blazed down on his unprotected head, and, pretty soon, he was sweating.
He was wearing an open neck, navy blue shirt, a pair of jeans and sneakers. He moved easily, swinging his big fists, his head up, his breath coming in sharp snorts through his broken nose. He welcomed the chance to stretch his long, powerful legs, and as he walked, he examined the terrain either side of the dusty, rain-parched road.
It was certainly rugged country, he thought as he strode along, kicking up the dust and hunching his shoulders, taking a pride in the way his muscles rolled under the sweat-soaked shirt. But there was plenty of cover, and this bottleneck was a cinch for a pile-up.
Coming upon the bottleneck, he paused to examine it.
The road sharply narrowed at this point, hemmed in by two gigantic rocks that had come down off the sloping hill either side of the road. Either side of these rocks were shrubs and scrubland, offering excellent cover.
Looking over the ground, he could see no sign of Gypo, although he knew he was right there watching him. The fact that Gypo was able to conceal himself so well bolstered Kitson’s sagging confidence a little.
He was scared of this job. He was sure that before Dirkson and Thomas gave up someone was going to get hurt. For the past six months, since he had quitted the ring, Kitson had been under Morgan’s influence. Morgan had been the only one who had stayed with him in his dressing room after his ignominious beating by a man half his size and seventeen pounds lighter, but whose fighting brain was much superior to his own. That was when Kitson’s manager had tossed two ten-dollar bills on the rubbing table and had told Kitson he was through. His manager had walked out and Morgan had walked in. Morgan had helped him dress and had led him, half blinded still and stunned from the beating he had taken, out of the Stadium to Morgan’s car. Morgan had even taken him home.
‘So you’re through with getting your brains bashed into a pulp,’ Morgan had said when Kitson was flat on his back on his bed in the sordid little room he called his home. ‘So what? You and me could work together, kid. I’ve seen the way you can handle a car. I’m getting together a small mob: boys who can do a job sweetly and quickly and make themselves some money. What do you say?’
At twenty-three, Kitson realized he had reached the bottom of his ladder of ambition. He had hoped to become the Heavyweight Champion of the World, but this beating told him, as nothing else could, that this was now a pipe dream and he was just one more fighter in the trash bin. He had twenty dollars in his pocket, no friends and his future looked bleak. Even at that he hesitated. He knew Morgan by reputation. He knew Morgan had served fifteen years in jail, that he was violent and dangerous. He knew that he was asking for trouble if he joined Morgan’s mob, but he was more scared of being left on his own, to try to make a future for himself than of being hooked up with Morgan, so he had thrown in with him.
The five jobs he had done with Morgan’s mob had earned him enough money to live fairly well. They were jobs without much risk: small and carefully planned, and he knew, if he had been caught, he would have had to serve only three to six months in jail as a first offender.
But he was intelligent enough to know that these jobs were merely a rehearsal for a big job. He knew enough about Morgan to realize that Morgan would never remain content to continue on such a small scale. Sooner or later, Morgan would plan a big job that would carry a twenty-year sentence, and Kitson would be involved.
While he had been trying to make a name for himself in the fight game, Kitson had worked as a driver for the Welling Armoured Truck Agency. He had lasted exactly ten days. The discipline of the Agency had defeated him. His shoes had never been as well polished as those of the other drivers. His driving had been just that shade more careless to earn him bad marks. His punctuality lagged behind. His shooting practice had made the instructor bitter and sarcastic. It came as no surprise to him when the foreman had given him his pay and told him not to come back.
But he had, in those ten days, learned enough about the Agency’s methods and their men to realize that Morgan was taking on a world-beater. It was as if he himself had had the audacity to get into the ring with Floyd Patterson. He might perhaps have a million to one chance of beating the champion, but the chance was so small as to be laughable.
He knew that neither Thomas nor Dirkson would quit, and that meant a gunfight. Someone would get killed. If he were caught, he faced a twenty-year sentence or the electric chair. He had made up his mind as soon as Morgan had outlined the plan not to touch it. Rather, he would walk out on the mob. He would have done exactly this if it hadn’t been for the copper-haired girl.
No girl had ever spoken to him nor looked at him as she had done. Up to the moment when he had faced her and seen the contempt in her eyes and realized her complete lack of fear of him, he had imagined that he had had power over women.
Granted, he did have some kind of animal power over the women who were the camp followers any fourth-rate boxer will find tagging along behind him, but this copperhead had shown him for the first time that the power he had been so proud of was strictly limited. She had made an impact on him that had badly shaken him, and now he was so acutely aware of her that he could think of little else.
So it was because of her, and only because of her that he was going ahead with this job. He knew he was moving into something that was too big for him, that could be his finish, but he hadn’t the moral courage to face her contempt. He stood looking around the scrubland that surrounded the bottleneck, but he failed to see Gypo.
‘Okay, so you’re good,’ he called. ‘Where are you?’
Gypo’s moon-shaped face appeared from behind two boulders, and he waved to Kitson.
‘Here, kid. Pretty good, huh? Me and the invisible man like this,’ and he held up two fingers pressed tightly together.
Kitson walked off the road and joined him.
‘This is some place for an ambush,’ he said, squatting down beside Gypo. He looked at his watch. ‘They should be along in twenty minutes if they’re going to have a fast run.’
Gypo stretched out on his back. Taking a splinter of wood from his pocket, he began to explore his teeth while he stared up at the brilliant blue of the sky.
‘See that sky, kid?’ he sa
id. ‘It reminds me of my home town. No sky like it in the world.’
Kitson glanced at him. He liked Gypo. There was a kind, sympathetic streak in the fat man that made companionship with him worth having. Gypo wasn’t like Ed Bleck who was always boasting of his conquests with women, who was always ribbing people, picking on them and playing practical jokes. Ed was smart, and had plenty of nerve, but he wasn’t the man to go to if you were in trouble, whereas Gypo was. Gypo would lend you his last dollar with no questions asked, but you’d never get anything out of Bleck unless there was a string tied to it.
‘Where’s that, Gypo? Where’s your home town?’ Kitson asked, stretching out on his stomach and lifting his head so he had a clear view of the road.
‘Fiesole, near Florence in Italy,’ Gypo said, screwing up his small eyes and wrinkling his fat nose. ‘You been to Italy, kid?’
‘No.’
‘No country like it in the world,’ Gypo said with a heartfelt sigh. ‘I haven’t been there for twenty years. That’s too long. Know what I’m going to do when I get my share of this dough? I’m going out there. I’m going to take a first-class passage in the ship. I’m going to buy an Alfa Romeo as soon as I arrive, and then I’ll drive to Fiesole. That’s going to give my old ma a hell of a bang. I’m going to buy me a little villa on the hill that looks down on Florence. My old man died about ten years ago, but my ma will be there, waiting for me. I’ll get married and I’ll settle down and have a lot of kids. Money can fix anything. Like Frank said: we’ll have the world in our pockets. He’s right. That’s what I’ll have: the world in my pocket.’
Unless you get shot, Kitson thought. Unless the cops catch up with you before you get on that ship.
Gypo looked at him, rolling his head on his arm, grinning.
‘What are you going to do with your dough, kid? Thought about it yet? What are your plans?’
Listening to Gypo, Kitson thought, was like listening to a child talking.
‘I guess I’ll wait until I get it,’ he said. ‘It’s too early to make plans. Maybe we’ll never get it.’
The World in My Pocket Page 4