Strongarm (Prologue Crime)

by Dan J. Marlowe

  Valuable papers, the man had said. And never a word about the money. I must look like a prize apple. The stuff about his being a government man was pure horse manure, of course. More likely a crooked cop on the make. Was he hoping I hadn’t opened the briefcase? If he was on the level, what was he doing breaking into my car instead of coming up and knocking on the door of my cabin? My license number was on the car ferry ticket. It wouldn’t have taken him five minutes to check it out. He wasn’t interested in checking it out.

  Just the same, there was something damn funny about that action down in the hold, and about the attempt at the gas station. If they knew I was an escaped con, they should have moved right in behind drawn guns. Even if they didn’t, and they just had word to intercept a car with my plates, why the fooling around? It had to be that three or four of the boys had pooled their information and decided to go for the cash. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  I turned the packets over in my hands. That funny-looking printing on the oilskin; suppose — just suppose — the guy in the hold was leveling? Suppose the packets were important to someone in the government? I supposed it for a minute. The answer came back loud and clear: what the hell was it to me? I had my ass to keep out of a sling, Lynn to get under cover, and Charley Risko to knock out of his tree. And the long green I’d just removed from the briefcase was going to help me do all three. Those were the valuable papers. I wrapped the sealed packets in toilet paper and shoved them down into one of the shopping bags with the money. One of these days when I had time to breathe I’d open the things and see how valuable they looked on the inside.

  When I finished with the money-wrapping job, both shopping bags were almost full. I withheld a packet of hundreds, broke the seal, and began scuffing up the new bills. I crumpled them, made another trip across the hall to wet them, walked on them on the cabin floor to dirty them, rubbed them partly dry between my hands, crushed them individually, and finally put them back together and into my pocket, folded over once. Body heat would finish drying them.

  I took the briefcase and stuffed it under the mattress of the bed farthest from the door. I hadn’t used the bed, so it would be next trip — longer, if no one took the cabin — before a maid making up the bed would find it. I could have tossed it overboard, but there was too much risk someone might see and remember. I looked at my watch; not one wink of sleep, and we were only an hour out of Milwaukee. It couldn’t be helped. I took a final look around, picked up my shopping bags, and went down the corridor to Lynn’s cabin.

  She opened the door at my knock. She was dressed, but I was surprised by her appearance. Her hair was different, up on top of her head, her evening gown had suddenly become knee length, and even the top of it didn’t look the same. She pirouetted in front of me. “Like it?” she wanted to know. “Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but next best are a few good old common pins. I rounded up some from the maid.”

  “It’s great,” I said. “Listen, I hope you didn’t leave anything in the car?”

  She shook her head. “No. Why?”

  “Because we’re leaving it. We’re walking off this thing in Milwaukee. We’ll take a cab uptown and get another car.”

  “That takes money, Pete.”

  “I just printed some.” I hurried on before she could speak. “We’ll go in separate cabs. You go to a woman’s specialty shop and get outfitted from the skin out, and I’ll go to a men’s store. Vacation clothes, that’s what we want — we’re vacationists. Get enough extras on everything for a trip. Get a bag to pack them in. Then we’ll go out to a used car lot and pick up another car.”

  She was silent for a few seconds. “Wouldn’t it be better if I bought the car?”

  “Maybe it would, but you’re not gonna do it. I’ve got you in deep enough already in this miserable — ”

  She was standing right in front of me; she put her finger on my lips. “I’ve got a copy of my birth certificate with my maiden name on it,” she said.

  “You have? That would be perf — no, the hell with it. We’ll — ”

  “I’ll buy the car,” she said firmly.

  “Listen, Lynn, just what do you think this three-legged sack race is all about?”

  “I think you stole some money from Palladino,” she said coolly. “I wish you’d turn yourself in, Pete. If it’s gone, I’ve got enough money in the bank to replace it. If it’s not too much.”

  I came close to telling her the truth, or part of it, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell her part without telling her all, and with the heat on the back of my neck the knowledge could prove a dangerous thing for her if anything happened to me. “I can’t turn myself in, Lynn.”

  “You’ll change your mind,” she said. “You’ll get tired of running.” She said it hopefully. “In the meantime doesn’t it make more sense to let me buy the car?” I didn’t say anything. She nodded at the shopping bags. “What’s in those?”

  What was I going to say? Money? “Dirty laundry I took out of the trunk of the car. And speaking of cars — ” I took the roll out of my pocket and counted out four thousand in hundreds. “This is for your clothes and the car you’re going to buy. A conservative-looking car.”

  She held the money loosely in her hand. “I know you must have thought you had a good reason for taking the money, Pete,” she said gravely. “Some of Palladino’s methods weren’t the most honest in the world. I hope yon didn’t take much more than this, though, so we can replace it and you can get probation. I’m not going to insist you turn yourself in; you’ll come to it yourself. I just want to tell you that when you do, I’ll be right with you.”

  Ahhh, man, this is crazy, I thought. “Lynn, maybe I’d — ”

  She was putting the money in her handbag. “Do we walk off the ferry together?” she wanted to know.

  I drew a deep breath. Tell her? How the hell could I tell her? I’d just involve her in a real mess. Better to let her go on condoning grand larceny in her mind. “No, we’ll go off separately. If they’re watching anything on the Milwaukee end, they’re watching the cars, but we’ll play it safe. There’s something I want to look up — I’ll be back in a second.”

  I left the cabin and went down the hall to the reservation desk. With my mouth open to ask for a Milwaukee telephone directory, I remembered the shopping bags sitting on the floor of the cabin. I had to clamp down on myself to keep from dashing back. What difference did it make? If she looked, she looked. If she looked and quit — well, wouldn’t she be safer? Wasn’t the idea to find her a safe place to stay? I seemed to have lost sight of that lately.

  With the directory I borrowed paper and pencil and copied down the address of the used car dealer with the largest ad. I tore the paper in two and copied it again, returned pencil and directory, and went back to the cabin. Lynn was sitting on one of the beds. The shopping bags were on the floor as I had left them.

  “Okay,” I said, handing her one of the slips. “Here’s where you’ll get the car. Tell them you want something good mechanically or you’ll be back to haunt them. Even for cash it’ll probably take you a couple of hours to get processed. Get the clothes first. Don’t give the cabby a hundred — you got any small stuff?” She nodded. “All right. When you’ve got the car, turn right as you come out of the dealer’s parking lot and stop at the first restaurant on the right-hand side of the street. That’s where I’ll be. Got it?”

  “Turn right and the first restaurant on the right,” she repeated. “How much time before we get in?”

  I looked at my watch. “About thirty-five minutes. Why?”

  “You ought to get some rest, Pete.”

  “I’ll stretch out on the other bed.” Going by her bed, I kissed her. Just once. She kissed me back.

  I sat down on the farther bed to take off my shoes. In the silence of the cabin I became conscious of a weight on my thigh. Looking down at it, I could see through my pants the outline of the .38 special I’d taken from the man in the hold. I stood up quickly, glancing o
ver at Lynn to see if she’d noticed. She was lying on her back with her hands folded behind her head, staring up at the ceiling.

  I began to pace the cabin. Lynn’s eyes followed me for a few turns, then returned to her ceiling-inspection. When I was sure her attention was distracted, I eased the gun out of my pocket with my body between me and the bed and stuffed it down into one of the shopping bags. “Aren’t you going to lie down?” she asked me as I straightened up.

  “I’m afraid if I relax I won’t be able to get in gear again,” I said. “I’ll just sit.” I sat down beside her. “At the landing, you just follow the pedestrian crowd. They’ll lead you right to the cabs.”

  She propped herself up on her elbows. “How about you going off first, Pete, so I’ll know you’re off all right?”

  “I’ll get off all right,” I said. “They’ll be looking for a man and woman in a car, not a man on foot.”

  She didn’t say anything more. She took my hand and pressed the back of it to her lips, released it, and closed her eyes. Even sitting bolt upright, I had a hell of a time keeping my own eyes from closing. I kept looking at my watch. Finally I nudged her gently. “Five minutes,” I said. “I’ll give you a two-minute start. Go on out and mingle with the crowd.”

  She got up from the bed and smoothed down her dress. “Please be careful, Pete?” she begged me. She brushed my cheek with her lips and left the cabin.

  Alone, I didn’t like what I was thinking. For the girl to think herself in love with me would be a bad deal for her. Assuming she was on that course, I had to get her off it, and quickly. I told myself sourly that the damn girl had gotten well under my skin. There was a quiet serenity about her —

  I quit the cabin and joined the mob milling around at the head of the gangplank as we nosed into the ferry slip. Latecomers pressed in behind me; the shopping bags were plastered against my legs. I wondered what the reaction of people around me would be if they could all suddenly become clairvoyant and discover they were standing alongside three-quarters of a million dollars. I still had trouble believing it myself.

  The broad gangplank lowered itself with the soft whirring of an electric motor. People surged forward even before the barrier was raised. I moved along in the tide of evacuees. Right ahead of me a shorts-clad four-year-old lost her grip on her mother’s skirt and began to fall behind in the rush to the pier. I transferred the bag in my left hand to the company of the one in my right, and scooped up the child in my left arm. The little girl looked down at me questioningly for a moment, and then relaxed against my shoulder. When the mother, with a baby in her arms, looked back, I held up the girl for her to see. She nodded, and her lips formed the words “Thank you.”

  Stepping down on the dock, I couldn’t see anyone who looked as though he might be observing the descending passengers. No one even glanced at my shopping bags. Almost everyone was carrying something. Out on the street I transferred the child back to her mother. She said “Thank you” again, and headed for the buses. I moved along to the rear of the small knot of people waiting for cabs. Lynn was nowhere in sight. She’d evidently caught a cab before I came along.

  I got into the next-to-last one. “Take me to a decent men’s shop,” I told the cabby. “I need some shirts.”

  “Sure thing, Mac.” I leaned back in the rear seat as we wound out of the ferry platform area, but I couldn’t relax. Would Lynn be all right? Could she handle the used car situation I’d let her take over against my better judgment? There shouldn’t be any complications, but could you ever be sure? She had a level head on her shoulders, but there was always the overlooked detail, the unlucky chance —

  I realized we had stopped and the driver was looking back over his shoulder at me. I glanced in the store window alongside with its gaudy summer shirts and swimming trunks, hoisted myself out on the sidewalk with my shopping bags, and paid him. Even that early in the morning the sun was hot. There was something ridiculous, I decided, about carrying the amount of money in those bags around the streets of Milwaukee in the bright sunlight like so much picnic lunch.

  I went into the store. “I’m leaving on an unexpected vacation,” I told the bald little clerk who approached me. “I want a suit, sport jacket, three or four pairs of slacks, half a dozen shirts, underwear, socks, a pair of shoes. I don’t need the best, but I want good quality. If you don’t sell suitcases, send out for one I can pack the extra things in. Better make it good-sized.”

  “Yes, sir!” he said with enthusiasm, rubbing his hands together. He whipped a tape measure from around his neck. “Let’s see, now — neck, sixteen; sleeves — ”

  “Short sleeves,” I interrupted him.

  “Right. Waist, thirty-four; trouser leg — ” he bent swiftly “ — thirty one. Right this way, sir. Now here’s a nice — ”

  “Neutral colors. And just so it fits.”

  “Yes, sir. Here’s a lightweight material in a pleasing shade of — ”

  “I’ll take it. Where’s a dressing room?”

  “Behind you, sir. Now about the slacks — ”

  “You pick them out. Better find me a couple pair of washables, too. But first get me underwear and socks.”

  “Be right back, sir.”

  All told, it took close to two hours, the worst of which was waiting for the leg length on the slacks and suit to be altered. Not even a ten-dollar bill speeded that up much. Away from Lynn I felt increasingly anxious. I could have used a shower before changing, but the fresh clothes gave me a lift, anyway. While I was waiting I remembered the swimming trunks in the window and had him throw in a pair.

  A boy came in the front door carrying a brand new suitcase. The clerk took it from him and started to pack the things he had stacked on the counter. “I’ll do that,” I told him. “Just add up the bill.” Alone with the bag, the clothes, and my shopping bags, I removed the duplicate keys from the string around the handle and tested the lock. When it worked, I put a key in my pocket and one in my billfold. Packing carefully, I got the money into the suitcase and covered it up with the clothes. It was a tight fit, but I got everything in, including the .38 special. I locked it up. I’d faced the curtained doorway during the whole operation. No one had looked in.

  The tab was $342.28, including the suitcase. Out on the sidewalk again, I may not have felt like a new man but I surely felt like a different one. I walked around the corner and caught another cab. “What’s the name of that restaurant on the same street as Hessian’s used car lot, beyond it on the right?” I asked the cabby.

  “On the right? You must mean Piccolino’s, buddy.”

  “That’s the one. Run me up there.”

  En route I realized I was starved. Except for a cup of coffee, I hadn’t eaten since the evening before. And neither had Lynn, I realized guiltily. Except for the thought of breakfast when we first boarded the ferry — and nothing had materialized from that — food hadn’t crossed my mind again. As a direct result my stomach and backbone felt too damn close together.

  On the ride I watched for Hessian’s. Passing it, I had to fight an urge to go in and make sure everything was all right. Anxious as I was, though, I knew it wasn’t smart. Better to play it the way we’d laid it out. Beyond the used car lot, I kept an eye out to make sure Piccolino’s actually was the first restaurant on the right, because that was where Lynn would be looking for me. It was the first, a kind of shabby-looking Italian place set flush on the sidewalk.

  I paid off the cabby, picked up my weighty bag, and entered the restaurant. It looked better on the inside than it did from the street. I settled myself with the bag beside me at a table from which I could watch the door. I waved the waitress’ menu away when she approached me. “I want an antipasto like this — ” I made a big circle with my arms “ — and an order of fettucini and meatballs. That’s all.”

  It was enough. I ate until I began to get a lumpy feeling. Strength flowed back into me, along with a lassitude I could have done without. I was on my second pot of black coffee an
d just beginning to worry in earnest when Lynn walked in the front door and looked around. Her new white blouse and pastel skirt were simple enough, but on her they looked molded. She looked wonderful. I jumped up to take the small bag she was carrying. “Have any trouble?” I asked, leading her to the table.

  “Not a bit, until right now,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “The odor of all the food in here is making me feel faint.”

  “Be my guest. Sit down and take on a load.” I was so relieved I felt giddy. I sat down across the table and just looked at her. And looking, something crystallized in my thinking: why go to Chicago? I didn’t want to leave her in Chicago. I didn’t want to leave her any place, for that matter, but Chicago was just too damned far away from where I’d be operating.

  “Listen, Lynn,” I said when she’d ordered the veal scallopini. “What would you say to running down to Des Moines and picking up your cousin Gussie?”

  She raised an eyebrow at me. “What happened to Chicago?”

  “It’ll still be there.”

  She was studying my face. “You’re not thinking of dumping me with Gussie someplace and going off by yourself, are you?” she asked with disconcerting directness.

  “Of course not,” I lied. To get to Charley Risko I had to leave her someplace for a while. “I just think we ought to try to change the image.”

  She buttered a roll in silence. “You could be getting more than you bargained for,” she said finally. “Gussie is a spoiled brat with a keen eye for a pair of trousers. I doubt I ought to expose you to the influence.” She smiled. “That should send you bounding down the highway.”

  “You mean in personality the kid’s a real loser?”

  Lynn shook her head firmly. “No, I don’t mean that at all. She has a lot of winning qualities. She’s just never had any need to harness them up. The last letter I had from her was the first time in her life I’ve known her to sound even moderately concerned about anything. Things have come easily to Gussie.”