Two for the Money

by Max Allan Collins

  “Kid,” he said, “I got some time to kill before my meeting. You want to stick with me till then, or take off?”

  “Just as soon stick with you, Nolan. That okay?”

  “Well, it won’t matter either way for you as far as the cops go. I mean, the odds won’t change better or worse if you head for Iowa City now or wait a few hours.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better for you and me to go on to Iowa City now, though? We could stash the money with Planner and you could let things cool for a few days, and then have your meeting.”

  “No, it’s better to take care of all of it at once. It’d be more dangerous hanging around the area for a period of days. This way, when tonight’s over, I’ll have my affairs settled and can clear out for good.”

  “Well, then, I’ll keep you company, Nolan, if you’ll put up with me.”

  “There could be some trouble.”

  “Why’s that? You just said it didn’t matter with the cops.”

  “It doesn’t. It’s the meeting I’m thinking of. If the meeting goes wrong somehow, it’d be nice to have you around. To wait outside with your car, in case I have to get out quick. In case it sours.”

  “Well, sure, of course, if I wasn’t there you’d be without a car.”

  “Wouldn’t that be sweet.” Nolan lit up the last cigarette off his last pack, breathed the smoke in deep, then said, “I’m sorry about this, kid.”

  “It’s perfectly okay.”

  “When I called Werner yesterday, he said he needed time to set it up, two this morning was the quickest we could do it. Said it had to be that way.”

  “Two in the morning? It’s hardly five now.”

  “I know. Nine hours. Still with me?”

  “Sure. I just wonder what we’re going to do with all that time.”

  “There’s a hotel we can go to, real close to where I’m supposed to go for the meeting. Werner runs it.”

  They’d left the money in the trunk, putting the briefcase under the seat in front and locking the car, which they left parked in the Concort lot. Inside the hotel Nolan was pleased to find the clerk who’d been on duty last time behind the check-in desk again. He remembered Nolan, after struggling past the lack of mustache and the changed hairstyle, and when Nolan asked for a room overlooking the parking lot, the clerk went into his “anything for a friend of Mr. Werner” routine and gave them the room.

  Nolan was on the bed stretched out when the knock at the door got him up. Instinctively he yanked his .38 from his belt, then when he heard, “Room service,” stuffed it back in and put his coat on over it. He cracked the door to confirm the claim, saw it was true and let the man come in and set up his trays of food. When he was done Nolan paid him and showed him out.

  Nolan lifted the little steel caps off the plates and smiled. “Prime rib,” he said, “big juicy slices. Sure you won’t change your mind?”

  The scent of the food got Jon up off the other bed; he said, “Changed my mind,” and sat behind one of the trays.

  While they ate, Nolan noticed a look of concern on the boy’s face and said, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Jon said. “Lot of things.”

  “Like this deal tonight?”

  “That’s one. How do you know this isn’t a cross?”

  “Don’t. That’s why I want you there to back me up.”

  “You trust these guys?”

  “Don’t have a choice. The guy Werner, he’s a friend, or was at one time. Anyway, I trust him more than Charlie, the other guy.”

  “What’s it all about, anyway?”

  “I thought Planner told you. You heard what I told Shelly and Grossman, that’s close enough.”

  Being reminded of Shelly and Grossman seemed to make it hard for Jon to swallow the bite of meat he was on, and Nolan looked up and watched as the boy finally got it down. “Nolan,” Jon said, “all I know is that Charlie, this syndicate guy, has it in for you.”

  “Well, I used to run a club for him in Chicago, and he wanted me to . . .” Nolan cut a portion of fat off his meat while he tried to come up with a vague comic book term that would communicate to the boy without spoiling his supper. “. . . he wanted me to do some dirty work for him, and I wouldn’t, and that’s what started it.”

  “Oh. Is that all there is to it?”

  “Yeah. Eat your food.”

  When they’d finished, Nolan shoved the trays and chairs up against the wall, took his coat off, and went back to the bed. He lay down, resting the .38 on the nightstand. Jon was sitting on the bed again, a blank look on his face.

  “You tired, kid?”

  “A little. I couldn’t ever sleep, though. I’m still pretty keyed up.”

  “Well I can. You want to wake me in a few hours, and I’ll stand watch?”

  “Stand watch?”

  “We really both shouldn’t be asleep at the same time. If nothing else, one of us should be checking on the car out the window now and then.”

  “Oh. Well, you go ahead and sleep, Nolan, I’ll just sit here.”

  Nolan shrugged. “I’ll call down and have the switchboard ring us at one-thirty, if you happen to drop off.”

  “You don’t need to, I won’t.”

  “Better.”

  Nolan called down, then switched off the light and stretched out again.

  A few minutes later the boy said, “Nolan?”

  “Yeah, kid?”

  “Why’d you save off all the marked bills like you did? Just to keep them separate? Why didn’t you just leave them behind, like you had us do with the coins?”

  “The bait money’s my safety catch. It’s in as part of my payoff to Charlie. If he and Werner cross me, I won’t tell them it’s in there. That way if they get me, the law will get them.”

  “And if they’re straight with you you’ll tell them?”

  “I suppose. Then they can sell the bait money to a fence, at a loss.”

  “Won’t that make this Charlie pissed that he isn’t getting a hundred cents on the dollar?”

  “Tough shit. Charlie made a lot of stipulations about how I was and wasn’t supposed to pay him, but he didn’t say anything about not using bait money.”

  “So if they cross you they’ll get busted for being in on the bank job, like maybe for being behind it or something?”

  “Or something. See, even if they manage to squirm out of the law’s hands, there’ll be a stink over it and they’ll still have to face the Family, whose back they’ve been working behind.”

  “Works out neat.” Jon smiled. “You know, Nolan, you been quite a teacher.”

  “If I were you,” he said, “I’d stick to the comic books for my idols.”

  Several more minutes went by and Nolan propped himself up on one elbow and said, “Kid?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Remind me later to give you the list I made up the other day.”

  “List? What list?”

  “List of people I want notified if tonight sours. Business associates of mine, who run fronts for me.”

  “Okay.” The boy hesitated, then said, “You sweating this, Nolan?”

  “I’m just careful in my old age. Oh, and also the name and address of a girl in Cicero who’s supposed to get my share of the bank money—if, you know.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Just a girl who helped me out a while back. When I got shot up. Got me on my feet again.”

  “That’d be a lot of money for her.”

  “I know, and I’d just as soon spend it myself. But if something does sour, she might as well have it as anybody.”

  A few more minutes went by and Nolan was nearly asleep when Jon said, “Nolan? You asleep yet?”

  “No.”

  “I been wondering.”

  “What?”

  “Grossman. About Grossman.”

  “What about him?”

  “Why didn’t he kill us, too, why just Shelly?”

  “Getting us out of the way would’ve been t
he only reason for that. Maybe that wasn’t reason enough.”

  “But why would he kill her and let us go? I mean, after all, I always figured he was crazy in love with her.”

  “Maybe that’s why.”

  Jon was quiet for a while, then said, “Yeah. Yes.”

  Nolan shut his eyes and went to sleep.

  After what seemed like an instant, the phone rang and Nolan picked it up and said, “What?”

  A female voice said, “One-thirty, sir.”

  “Thanks.”

  He hung up slid off the bed and onto his feet. He looked over at Jon, who was stomach-down asleep, his face to one side, snoring softly.

  He nudged him, said, “Wake up, kid.”

  “Huh?”

  “Wake up.”

  “Did I fall asleep?”

  “Maybe for a second. Let’s go.”

  5

  Nolan and Jon sat across from the warehouse in the Chevy II and waited. The night was dark, moonless dark, but Nolan could still make out the big red letters on the window glass that said QUAD CITY/JUKEBOX SERVICE/INCORPORATED.

  “Damn it,” he said, searching his pockets, “forgot to pick up cigarettes.” He didn’t bother asking Jon if he had any, knowing the boy didn’t smoke unless somebody offered one of theirs.

  Jon was staring over at the warehouse. “You know, it’s funny, Nolan, really, it’s funny.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s funny, because it’s always an old warehouse.”

  “What?”

  “In movies, in the comics. The shoot-out, it always happens in an old abandoned warehouse.”

  “Well not wanting to spoil the moment for you, kid, I might point out that this warehouse isn’t abandoned, it was just handy for the meeting; and let’s hope there isn’t any ‘shoot-out. ’ž”

  Jon squirmed in the seat and made a face, as if he was trying to get up nerve to say something he’d been thinking about saying for a long time.

  “Something bothering you, kid?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Go on.”

  “Why don’t we leave now, Nolan, and forget this? It’s a set-up to get you, I just know it is. You got plenty of money from the job. Let’s take off, right now.”

  “Can’t. If you want to go, go ahead, I’ll get out here.”

  “No, no,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t understand you, that’s all. You plan so careful for a bank job, watch all the angles, rehearse, memorize, discipline yourself and your co-workers. And now you want to go walking into an obvious trap like this one.”

  “Get your head out of the comic books, will you.”

  “I will if you will.”

  “Look, kid, I got no choice. Nowhere to go but here. No other way.” Nolan hadn’t bothered trying to explain about the cover name, because he knew the boy couldn’t understand what it meant to him, not only in terms of money, and time, but people running fronts for him, friends of his who’d get hurt if the cover were exposed; that this chance, however slim a chance it might be, was his only chance to regain the cover. And if he did just say to hell with it and start over on his half of the bank take, he’d still have to live with the threat of Charlie and the Family hanging over him.

  Jon was saying, “I just don’t get you,” shaking his head.

  “Kid. Jon.”

  “Yeah, Nolan?”

  “I should tell you one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If you get it in your head sometime to work another heist, remember what’s waiting for you if you ever get connected to today’s.”

  “What’d you mean?”

  “It’s more than just grand larceny is what I mean.”

  “Isn’t grand larceny enough? What the hell else would it be?”

  “Murder.”

  “Murder? Jesus, why?”

  “Both Shelly and Grossman are dead. Any killing that takes place during the committing of a felony, even if it’s somebody else in on the job with you who gets killed, is murder, under the law. No matter which finger was on what trigger, everybody left alive from the job’s a candidate for a murder rap.”

  “Christ.”

  “Just thought you should know.”

  “Christ.”

  “Anyway, if we get split up here, I want you to give some thought to making this your first and last job.”

  “This is a hell of a time for a sermon, Nolan.”

  “Sermon, hell. Fact of life. You got money now, so buy your damn comic book shop, and draw your pictures, and let this cure you of living out your half-ass fantasies. There was some truth in what you said, you know . . . a lot of times it does end in an abandoned warehouse somewhere. Or in an alley, or in a cell. Or the way it did for Grossman, or Shelly.”

  A gold Lincoln pulled up across the street and backed into the alley, up against the triple garage doors.

  Jon said, “That them?”

  Nolan nodded, watching Werner and Charlie climb out of the car. Alone. Like they said they’d be. Werner unlocked the side entrance by the triple doors and he and Charlie went in.

  “Drive up the block,” Nolan said, “and let me out.”

  Jon drove out of the parking place into the empty street. A block up he swung over to the opposite corner and stopped. Nolan opened the door, reaching down under the seat for the briefcase of money.

  “Go around the block,” Nolan said, “then pull back into that spot you just left. Keep the car running and be ready for anything.”

  “Got you . . . Nolan!”

  “What?”

  “It means something to me, those things you said a minute ago.”

  “Save the sob sister stuff for later. Just make sure you got that car running in front of that warehouse if I come flying out of there with my ass-end on fire.”

  “Okay, Nolan.”

  He shut the door and headed back down the block.

  He stuck the .38 down deeper in his belt, since he’d agreed not to bring a gun along, and buttoned one button on the suitcoat. If things were played out straight, he’d hand this briefcase of money over to Charlie, they’d shake hands on it and that’d be that. Werner would be around to witness the verbal agreement and would expect to answer later on if either side got shafted.

  The warehouse was up ahead. Across the street Jon’s parking space was still vacant, as were in fact the whole row of places on either side of the warehouse. Traffic was nearly nonexistent, though two streets down a main thoroughfare seemed active. Nolan approached the window with Irish’s proud lettering on it and stopped suddenly when he noticed a round black object stuck in the lower window, on the inside.

  A funeral wreath.

  A black funeral wreath with a white ribbon which had gold script saying, “Beloved Provider.”

  An employee of Irish’s had died, obviously, unless this was the trap Jon envisioned it to be, and the wreath was Charlie’s idea of gallows humor.

  Nolan ruled that out, but undid the button on his coat anyway.

  He went around to the side door he’d seen Werner and Charlie go in through, and found it unlocked. He opened it and went in.

  The huge room was poorly lit, one small hanging bulb over a work area at the left providing what light there was. Charlie was sitting in a folding chair over to the right, wearing an overcoat that was buttoned to the throat; in back of him was a jukebox with its wire guts hanging out. Werner stood next to him but slightly to the rear, dressed in a dark suit and dark tie.

  Charlie said, “How are you, Nolan?”

  Nolan shut the door, but not letting its latch click, and stood nearby. He didn’t like the feel of this. He kept the hand that was gripping the briefcase handle against the door behind him, to shove it open if necessary, and with his other hand got out his .38. “I’m fine,” Nolan said, “thanks. Now how about you stand up and open the coat. Slow.”

  Charlie laughed and spread his hands. “When are you going to learn to trust people, Nolan? When?”
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  “Do it.”

  Charlie shrugged and stood, unbuttoned the coat, and revealed a dark suit and tie identical to Werner’s.

  “Conservative today, aren’t we?” Nolan said.

  “Business transactions,” Werner said, joining the conversation for the first time, “should be entered into seriously.”

  Nolan didn’t really know what that was supposed to mean, but he let it pass.

  Charlie said, “You did well today, Nolan. Radio said a few hours ago you took in close to eight hundred thousand. Something of a record for around here.”

  Werner said, “We thought maybe you’d forget your deal with Charlie and just settle down with your share of the take.”

  “No,” Nolan said, motioning to Charlie that he could sit down again if he wanted, “it’s time Charlie and me got our differences out of the way.”

  “Look, Nolan,” Werner said, “neither one of us has a gun. You can search us if you like. Why don’t you put that away?”

  Nolan thought it over, said, “All right,” and stuck the .38 back in his belt. He walked over to Charlie, dropped the briefcase at his feet.

  Charlie picked it up off the floor, set it on his lap and snapped it open. It was crammed with packets of money, each with a red band reading 500.

  “Want me to wait while you count it?” Nolan asked.

  Charlie said, “I trust you.”

  Nolan said, “That’s it, then.”

  “Don’t rush off.”

  “You can count me out for coffee and bagels.”

  “Still bitter, Nolan?”

  “No. Just keep in mind that if you cross me and let the Earl Webb name leak, I’ll be back for you. And I won’t be after the hundred thousand.”

  “Such strong talk for a man who just paid another to leave him alone.”

  “I’ll be going.” Nolan began edging his way backward, toward the door.

  “Wait a moment,” Charlie said.

  Nolan kept moving, though he slowed a shade.

  “I thought you might be interested in the reason behind our . . .” Charlie smiled. “. . . conservative dress.”

  “Werner gave me a reason.”

  “I’m afraid he wasn’t being entirely honest with you, Nolan.”