They reached the parking lot before Kitson could think of a suitable rejoinder. He was suddenly depressed. A girl like Ginny could fall for a smooth operator like Bleck: a guy who knew his way around, who had education and who probably did know Paris like he said. That was opposition that overwhelmed Kitson. He wasn’t sure either if he could take Bleck in a fight. Bleck was fourteen pounds heavier than Kitson, and he was in good condition. Kitson had seen him fight once in a saloon brawl and he had been impressed by the weight of Bleck’s punching. He was a savage, ruthless fighter with every dirty trick for disabling a man up his sleeve.
When they arrived at the parking lot they found there was no attendant to look after the cars parked in two long rows.
As the two men got out, Bleck said, ‘You take the top row. I’ll take the other. If you find anything, whistle.’
The two men separated, and Kitson walked fast along the long line of cars, his mind seething. He kept trying to assure himself that Bleck had been lying about Ginny and he joining up together, but it worried him. At least, he told himself, he would have a couple of days – three with luck — with her alone, and he decided this would be his one chance to win her if she was to be won, which he felt doubtful about. There were moments when she looked so hard and wooden, Kitson wondered if any man could possibly win her.
He paused abruptly as he came upon an MG two-seater sports car, parked between a Cadillac and a Jaguar. This would do, he told himself, and, looking quickly to right and left to make sure no one was in sight, he went to the car and examined it.
He had a small flashlight with him, and with the aid of its beam he checked the car over. In the glove compartment he found the ignition key. He whistled to Bleck, who he could see walking along the lower row of cars.
Bleck joined him.
‘This looks okay,’ Kitson said, ‘and the ignition key’s here.’
Bleck studied the car and nodded.
‘Yeah. You’re getting smart, plough boy.’ He looked at Kitson with a jeering smile. ‘Well, you drive it to Gypo. Since you’ve been elected as the bright boy driver and since you’ve got the soft end of the job, you may as well take a little risk now before you start making sheep’s eyes at Ginny.’
This was more than Kitson could stomach. Without thinking, he slammed his fist at Bleck’s head. Bleck was hoping he would do exactly that and he was ready for him. He shifted his head a fraction to the left so Kitson’s fist sailed over his shoulder, then as Kitson lurched forward, off balance, Bleck hit him in the pit of his stomach, solidly, all his weight and strength gathered into a punch that didn’t travel more than a few inches.
Kitson had been out of training now for months, and his muscles had softened. The blow paralysed him. He fell on his knees, gagging, a white flame of pain engulfing him.
Bleck stepped back, a cruel grin on his face.
‘That makes us even, bum,’ he said. ‘Don’t swing another punch at me again or I’ll make you even more sorry. Get that car to Gypo and snap it up.’
He walked away to the Lincoln leaving Kitson still on his knees, his head hanging, while he struggled to get his breath back into his tortured lungs.
It took him some minutes to recover from the impact of the punch. Finally, he got to his feet, then, moving painfully, his mind on fire with the humiliation of his defeat, he got into the MG, started the engine and drove out of the parking lot.
He had asked for it, he told himself savagely, as keeping to the back streets, he headed for Gypo’s workshop, but the next time would be different. He felt sure that there would have to be a final clash between Bleck and himself. For months now Bleck had been picking on him, and if Bleck thought he was going to steal Ginny from him, he had another think coming. When the clash did come, he was forewarned. Bleck could punch and he would have to keep away from that devastating right hand. Both of them had surprised each other with a sucker punch. Both of them wouldn’t be taken by surprise again.
While Kitson continued on his way to Gypo’s workshop, Morgan was driving back to his room off the town’s main street. Morgan’s mind was occupied with the coming job. He had gone over the plan time and again, taking the job much more seriously than any of the other three. This would be the last job he would do, he told himself as he steered the car through the heavy traffic.
The rain had now ceased, but the roads were slippery and glistened in his headlights, and he drove carefully.
As soon as they had the money, he thought, the mob would split up. He had already made arrangements for his own getaway. In his wallet he had an air ticket for a Mexican-Californian border town; a priority ticket, undated, but that gave him the right to board any plane out at any time. He had rented a safe deposit in the town in which he intended to lodge his share of the loot. He would then cross the border into Mexico and wait. When he felt it safe enough, he would begin to buy bearer bonds, and once he had turned the whole two hundred thousand dollars into bonds, he felt he not only had the world in his pocket, but also at his feet.
He wasn’t kidding himself about this job. He had a fifty-fifty chance of survival. The opposition would be fierce. The police and the Army would throw in every man and every trick they knew to get the money back. He didn’t trust Bleck nor Kitson nor Gypo. So long as he directed them they would be all right, but once his hand was off the helm, once they were on their own, their chances of escape were small. It irked him to think that he had organized a steal as big as a million dollars, only to get a fifth share for himself. He felt sure that the rest of the money would eventually be grabbed by the police with the possible exception of Ginny’s share.
Ginny intrigued him, but she also worried him.
Her plan to capture the truck had been complete and brilliant.
He couldn’t believe she had thought the plan out herself. Then who was behind her? Had she double-crossed someone? He supposed it wasn’t his business. She had given him the plan and he was going to profit by it. She had accepted the hardest and most dangerous part of the job.
He shrugged his shoulders, frowning. Then, putting Ginny out of his mind, he concentrated once more on the plan.
CHAPTER SIX
I
At six o’clock a.m. on Friday morning, after a restless night, Gypo got out of his bunk and walked over to the open window to look at the sun as it came up from behind the mountains.
In two hours’ time the job that had been discussed and discussed until his brain was dizzy would begin. He would be pitting his training, his skill and his cunning against one of the most difficult locks devised, and he felt uneasy. Suppose it defeated him? He flinched at the thought of Morgan’s anger.
Making an effort to control his nerves, he went over to a tin bowl, filled it with cold water and washed his face. He shaved, nicking himself in several places, noticing with a feeling of dismay that his hand was far from steady. To feel the fall of the tumblers on the lock, to catch them at the right moment meant moving the dial a hair’s breadth at a time, and this called for a rock-steady hand.
Looking at his trembling hands, Gypo drew in a long, deep breath. He must control his excitement and anxiety, he told himself. Always he had prided himself on the sensitiveness of his fingers and the steadiness of his hands. If he allowed himself to get nervous the lock was certain to defeat him.
He looked across the room to where an ornate wooden crucifix, which his mother had given him, hung on the wall. Perhaps this was the time to pray, he thought: something he hadn’t done for years.
But when he knelt down before the crucifix, crossing himself as he had been taught, he discovered that he had forgotten how to pray. He realized that he couldn’t ask for help when he was going to do something he knew to be wrong, and he could only mumble incoherently, repeating over and over again, the words: ‘Forgive me.’
In a room on the outskirts of the town, Kitson was heating coffee, having just got out of bed. He was aware of a cold clutch of fear gripping him.
He had spent a ba
d night, worrying and tossing on the bed. Everything was now ready. At eight o’clock, it would begin, and there would be no turning back. It was only the thought that he would have Ginny to himself for two days that kept him from throwing his few belongings into a bag and getting out of town and as far away from Morgan as a train could take him.
He felt in his bones that this job was doomed to fail, but Ginny’s attraction and his feverish, immature love for her urged him on.
When the coffee was ready, he found he couldn’t drink it. The smell of it made him feel sick, and he hurriedly emptied the contents of the cup into the sink.
In another room, in another street, not far from Kitson’s home, Morgan sat at the window, looking across the roofs of the buildings, watching the sunrise, a cigarette between his thin lips, his mind going over the final preparations that he had checked the previous night.
He was like a general before the battle, checking over in his mind each move that he had planned, satisfied that he had done his job well. He was now prepared to accept the consequences of either victory or defeat, knowing that there was nothing more he could do to make his plan better or safer. Everything now depended on the individuals concerned. If Ginny lost her nerve; if Ed failed to shoot straight; if Kitson failed to handle the car and the caravan on his own; if Gypo went haywire and couldn’t bust into the truck; innumerable ‘ifs’, but nothing he could do about it. Not once did Morgan question his own ability. He was completely sure of himself, and he looked down at his rock-steady hands, satisfied that his nerves were tough and he wouldn’t crack.
In another part of the town, in his two-room apartment, Bleck was still in bed. He lay on his back, watching the sunlight creep up the wall, knowing that when it reached the right-hand corner of the ceiling, it would be time to get up.
Bleck had been tempted to call up Glorie the previous night and get her to spend the night with him, but he knew the danger of this. His bags were packed and his personal belongings had been put into store. Glorie would know immediately that he planned to leave town and she would ask questions. She might even make a scene, so on this night before the big job, Bleck had to sleep alone: something he hadn’t done in years, and he found the night long and lonely.
Now, as he watched the sunlight edge slowly into the room, he wondered how he would feel after he had killed the guard. This would be the final step in his criminal career. Never before had he planned to kill anyone, being always careful to arrange his petty robberies so that no one got hurt.
He had no compunction about killing the guard. It was part of the job, and he accepted the fact. The man had to die, otherwise the plan would fail, but in spite of accepting the fact, Bleck couldn’t help wondering how he would feel when he came out from behind his cover and walked over to the dead man and looked at him. He had talked to killers while he had been in prison, and he had seen a shifty, uneasy, scared expression in their eyes as they had boasted of what they had done. He knew they felt themselves to be people apart. The expression in their eyes was something he had never seen in the eyes of any other man no matter how badly they had lived. He wondered if he too would look like that after he had killed the guard and the thought bothered him.
When he squeezed the trigger of the rifle, he would not only be killing a man, he would also be offering his own life as a hostage to fortune. From the moment the bullet sped on its way, his own life would no longer be safe until he was dead.
It would mean he would no longer trust anyone, that he would always stiffen at a knock on the door, that his hands would turn moist at the sight of a policeman and his sleep would be haunted by dreams. He would become one of the men apart.
The sunlight had by now reached the right-hand corner of the ceiling and he threw off the sheet and got out of bed. He crossed the room, picked up a half-empty bottle of Scotch and poured a stiff drink into a glass. He grimaced as the liquor filled his mouth, then with an effort, he swallowed it. For a few moments he stood motionless, then when he began to feel the effects of the liquor, he went into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
In a shabby little room on the top floor of a rooming house on the outskirts of the town, Ginny was closing the lid of a suitcase that contained all her worldly belongings. She looked at her wristwatch and saw the time was twenty minutes to seven. There was no need for her to leave for Gypo’s workshop for another half an hour, she told herself and she went over to the window and looked down into the narrow, dirty street, lined on either side by refuse cans.
If they were lucky, she thought, in a few days or a few weeks, this sordid, dreary life she had been living would be a thing of the past. She would have money. She could go to New York, buy clothes, perhaps rent a penthouse apartment and live the life she had dreamed of living for years.
If they were lucky.
She had faith in Morgan. He thought the way she did. She had liked the phrase he had coined: the world in your pocket. The phrase exactly represented the life she wanted to live, and there was no other way of getting what she wanted except with a large sum of money.
If anyone could capture the truck and get at the money, it was Morgan.
As for the others.
She made a little face.
So much depended on Gypo. His excitability made her nervous. She only hoped Morgan would handle him.
Bleck might be troublesome. She had seen the way he kept looking at her. She would have to be careful when they were at the caravan camp never to be left alone with him.
She frowned when she thought of Kitson. He was so obviously in love with her. Her cold, calculating mind warmed a little as she remembered the expression in his eyes and his desperate anxiety to please during the drive to Marlow.
When she had the money, the wolves would move in, trying to get it from her. She was sure of that. It might not be such a bad idea to join up with Kitson. Between the two of them, they would have half a million dollars. He wouldn’t be hard to handle and she felt certain he was dependable. It would be safer too. People might wonder how a girl of twenty came to be so rich: a girl on her own was always suspect.
It was something to think about.
II
Morgan was the first to arrive.
He pulled up outside Gypo’s workshop as the hands on the Buick’s dashboard clock stood at ten minutes to eight. The previous night, he, Bleck and Gypo had worked over the car until they were satisfied that it was one hundred percent efficient, and Morgan had then taken it back to his place, giving it a tryout.
He found Gypo checking the tools he had put in the cupboard in the caravan.
He saw immediately that Gypo was pale, and his breathing laboured. When he handled the tools, his hands were shaking. That should pass, Morgan thought. It had got to pass.
Even he felt strung up now that they were so near to the first step in the plan, and he could excuse Gypo for feeling nervous, but he didn’t intend to excuse him if he didn’t settle down, and settle down fast.
‘Hi, Gypo,’ he said. ‘You okay?’
‘Sure,’ Gypo said, not meeting his eyes. ‘It’s going to be a hot day. Better the sun than the rain, huh?’
Ginny came into the shed, carrying a picnic basket and her suitcase.
Morgan thought the girl looked as if she had slept badly. There were shadows under her eyes and she seemed pale under her make-up.
‘Well, this is it,’ he said, going over to her. ‘Worried?’
She looked at him, her sea-green eyes impersonal and cool.
‘No more than you.’
He grinned at her.
‘That makes you worried then,’ he said.
Kitson came in, followed by Bleck.
Morgan had an immediate suspicion that Bleck had been drinking. His face was flushed, and he walked with a swagger.
This gave Morgan his first twinge of uneasiness.
Kitson seemed nervy, but much more in control of himself than either Gypo or Bleck, and this surprised Morgan.
It was no
w two minutes to eight, and he saw no point in hanging around stretching nerves that were already too taut.
‘Okay, fellows, let’s go,’ he said curtly. ‘Get the caravan out, you three. Ginny, take the MG and get over to the Agency.’
He walked with her to the car and watched her get in. He stood over her, looking down at her, thinking how cool she was and admiring her.
‘You know what to do, and you’ll do it right,’ he said. ‘Good luck.’
She gave him a ghost of a smile and then started the engine.
Kitson came hurrying over.
‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘Be careful how you drive. That car’s fast.’
She looked up at him and nodded.
‘Thanks: good luck to you,’ and, letting in the clutch, she drove the car out of the workshop.
Five minutes later, the Buick nosed its way out of the workshop, hauling the caravan.
Morgan and Bleck were sitting on the floor of the caravan.
Kitson was driving.
Gypo closed the doors of the workshop, then he hung a sign on the padlock that read: Closed for the Summer Vacation. He had a sudden presentiment that he would never see this old ramshackle shed again, where he had spent fifteen idle years of his life. Although he hadn’t earned much from the workshop he had grown to love it as only a sentimental Italian could love a place like this, and there were tears in his eyes as he got into the caravan.
‘What’s the matter, greaseball?’ Bleck demanded savagely. His nerves were crawling. ‘What the hell are you so sad about?’
‘Cut it out!’ Morgan barked, making room for Gypo. His cold, dangerous eyes made Bleck look away. Then punching Gypo lightly on his chest, Morgan said, ‘You’re going to have something a lot better than this. Your own villa, your own vines and as many cigars as you can smoke. Think of how the women will flock after you when they know you’re worth two hundred thousand bucks!’
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