by Kane, Henry
“Wouldn’t kid Sunny for the world.”
“Safe here?” she said.
“Depends,” I said, “on what you’re afraid of.”
That brought a puzzled frown to her forehead but she shook it off. She opened the jacket of the brick-red suit and revealed a white lace blouse that strained at its buttons. She cast a look at my kit which was on the floor (with my gloves on it), kicked at it lightly, and came to me. She put her arms around me and drew me close. Her body was soft and her stomach was jumping. She kissed me, her left leg rising slightly, and then, as we were kissing, she opened her eyes. And she saw my eyes.
She let go of me as though I had suddenly grown prickles. “I …” she said, her tongue thick in her mouth. “I hate your eyes.”
“Nonsense,” I said.
“They’re cold, they’re crazy, they’re far away, they’re not here.”
“Correct,” I said, “on the last two counts.”
“What? What say?”
“They’re far away. They’re not here.”
“Well, where the hell are they?”
“In a vault in a bank on Pine Street.”
Now she really looked frightened. She began to button her jacket. “I’m getting out of here,” she said. “And do me a favor. Lay off me. Don’t come around to Monte’s any more. Go see a doctor or something. I’m getting out of here.”
“No you’re not, Sunny.”
“Who’s going to stop me?”
“I am.”
Her mouth twitched. Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips. She said, “Look, Pete … Mr. Chambers … look … is there something wrong … you playing cop with me … is there an angle …?”
“Yes, ma’am, there is.”
“All right, let’s have it, huh?”
“First, let me tell you a little about yourself. You’re from L.A. and out there you’re not Sondra Saunders, you’re Mrs. Alfred Borrachi. Mr. Borrachi was a portrait painter who was doing pretty lousy. You married him, had a kid with him, and kind of supported your family doing handwritings, if you know what I mean. Then, one time, you had a drunken fight with him, and you shot him. His legs are paralyzed now and he lives in a wheel chair. You left him, finally, with the kid. Occasionally, you send money, but hardly enough. How’s that for a smattering of background?”
She was pale now, not licking her lips, but biting them. “Why?” she said. “Why the check? Who’re you working for? Who wants information on me?”
“Nobody, Sunny. It’s just that I’m a curious kind of louse. But all of that doesn’t mean a thing to me, it’s none of my business. What does mean a thing to me is that you’re a first class crackerjack with the pen, and that you’ve got a hell of a lot of talent as a forger, if you’ll pardon the expression.”
“What else do you know? What else, God damn you!”
“Know about the trial where you got acquitted, but I bet I can dig up stuff where you won’t be acquitted. Sister, if I want to squeeze, I bet I can squeeze until I push you through jail bars. Certainly, I can see to it that you don’t work any of the plush clubs, and it’s only working the plush clubs that a dame can turn anything like a decent buck reading handwriting.” She went to a small bar, grabbed a bottle and had a drink. Sunny had her manners down. She took her medicine direct, tilting the bottle up and letting it gurgle. Then she slapped it down on the bar. “Okay,” she said. “How much?”
Innocently I said, “What are you talking about, Miss Saunders?” “I’m talking about—how much! I know when a guy’s looking to get on my payroll.”
“You think I’m working a little blackmail?”
“I don’t think. I know.” “Maybe,” I said, “in a way, I am. But I’m not going to earn any money. You are.”
That made her reach for the bottle again, but now she did it slowly, one eyebrow quizzically raised, and both eyes shooting off glints, the kind of glints that come from avarice. She put the bottle away, seated herself, and crossed a fine leg right up to a full pink thigh. “You mean,” she said, “it’s something I can work on with you?”
“That’s what I mean,” I said.
She giggled. “Well, why the hell didn’t you say so in the first place?”
“I had to prepare you, my love. Just in case you wanted to play the righteous hoity-toity.”
“Work with you?” She wrinkled her nose and nodded. “Shrewdie like you? I’d love it. What’s the pitch?”
“I’m going to knock off a box in a bank vault. That’s the pitch.”
She fairly flew to the bottle. She used a glass this time, but her hands trembled. “You’re a crazy man,” she said. “That’s all there is to it. You’re nuts.”
“That’s enough of that for now.” I took the bottle away from her. “Sit down,” I said. “And shut up and listen.”
“I’m listening,” she said and sat down.
“Sounds crazy,” I said, “doesn’t it? Talking about knocking off a bank vault box. But it’s a wrap, a real wrap. They’ve got all those shiny bars, and bells, and gadgets and stuff, but that’s all icing for the cake. The cake itself is soft and mushy. Do you have a box in a bank vault, Sunny?”
“I have.”
“Me too. Now think. What happens when you go to your vault?”
“Well …”
“Nothing happens, really. A pleasant guy makes you sign a book, he checks the signature against the one he has on file, and you give him your key. Then he uses his key on the outer lock of the box, and your key on the inner lock—and there’s your box, ma’am, go look at your valuables, you can use any of the little ante rooms. Now, Sunny, that’s what happens, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, that’s what happens.”
“So, a little nerve combined with a little talent combined with having the right key—and boff, you’ve done the thing that people without imagination would consider impossible. Well, we’ve got the nerve, you’ve got the talent, and I’ve got the right key.” I opened my wallet and took out five of the ten one-hundreds that Benson had donated. I gave them to her.
“You listening?” I said.
“I’m all ears.” She waved the money and put it into her bag.
“There are a few additional details,” I said. “All of them fit fine with the thing I have in mind.” I filled her in on Jessica Rollins, on that whole end of the deal. The only thing I omitted was the fact that Hart was dead. “So you see,” I said, “it figures for perfect.”
She was intelligent, all right. “Yah,” she breathed. “Her own bank is right here around the corner. But she took the vault down there, so she must have taken it because Mr. Hart asked her to.”
“Correct. And her receipt is dated three weeks ago. Figures for about the time Hart was beating the Federal boys to the punch—beating them to his bank vault.”
“And he had big confidence in this little gal.”
“That he did.” “So you figure he took some stuff out of his vault, had her take a vault in her name, and put the stuff in there.”
“Exactly. Also I don’t suppose she could have been there more than once or twice in these three weeks, she’d have no call to. Which sets our play up just fine.”
“All right, Pete.” She raised both hands, palms facing me. “From here on in, do it slow.”
“Sure. First off, you’re of the same general type as she is. Second, those guards down there see thousands of people—they don’t specially remember any one of them—unless they’re constant customers. Does your bank vault guy know you?”
“No, he doesn’t.” “Neither does mine. People just don’t go to vaults that often. Okay. Third, we’ve got the key to the box. And fourth, and most important, you can do her signature.”
“I’ve never seen her signature.”
“You’re going to see it right now.”
I gave her the cancelled check. She studied it and her lips parted in a wide smile. “Simple,” she said. “I do it a hundred times, and I’ve got it pat. Y
ou don’t have to worry about the signature.”
“Good. You know her name, you know where she lives, you know where she works. We’ll take a couple of phone bills and things in case anybody asks for identification, which, as you know, they don’t. I’ll go along with you. We’ll be a couple of casual, assured people, and the guy’ll hardly pick his head up from his work.”
“What about the number of the box?” she said. “You know, the serial number, whatever they call it.”
“Do you know the number of your bank vault box?”
“No.”
“Neither do I, nor do I have any record of it. If you’ve got the key, and you’ve got the signature, and you’ve got the assurance, the guy just ups and opens the goddamn box. Now, go to work on that signature, Sunny. Do it a hundred times. Do it two hundred times. Do it until you’ve got it a hundred percent perfect.”
14
We left the apartment exactly as I had found it, spic and span and in order. We stopped at my office where I deposited my kit and my silk gloves. There I destroyed Sunny’s practice sheets and then I had her practice some more. It was amazing. She did a perfect copy of that signature, did it as though she had been doing it all her life, quickly and easily and with aplomb. Then I gave her another run-through on the pertinent facts concerning Jessica Rollins, and we left. On the way out, I picked up an attaché case, the kind that lawyers carry. I figured a legal-like prop wouldn’t hurt, and it didn’t.
The bank was a two-story corner building, scarred and grey without, cool and quiet and cavernous within. The vaults were down a deep flight of stairs to the left, and we descended, Sunny in the lead. Downstairs, there was a small vestibule and a large door, running from floor to ceiling, and made of thick steel parallel bars with very little space between each bar. To the right was a fat white bell. Sunny put a thumb on the bell and we could hear the clang inside. A thick-stomached guard appeared on the other side of the door, and Sunny waved the key at him.
“Jessica Rollins,” she said.
“One moment, please.”
He went away and he came back and he unlocked the door.
“Come in, please,” he said and he locked the door behind us.
Now we were in a large square room with three green walls. The fourth wall was composed of floor-to-ceiling steel bars, with a wide steel door. Beyond that we could see the gleaming glint of hundreds and hundreds of oblong steel panels, the little locked doors of the vault boxes, tier upon tier of them. To our right was a desk at which another guard was seated. A customer was nervously standing near him, drumming fingernails on the desk top. The inquiry was completed, because the seated guard pushed away a large open flat-type scrawled ledger, took heavy spectacles off his nose, picked up a ring of keys, stood up, smiled tiredly at his customer, said, “If you will come with me, please, Mr. Stanford … and if you have need of the private booths, they’re in the rear …”
He unlocked the wide steel door, led his customer through, and they disappeared within the maze of glinting vault boxes.
And now our big-stomached guard smiled at us. He held a six-by-four filing card in his left hand, and his right hand rested on the butt of a pistol that protruded from a holster hung to a belt strapped around the bulk of his middle. “Hot out,” he said amiably, “ain’t it?” He said it to me, but his eyes were riveted to Sunny’s fluffed-out brick-red bosom.
“Certainly is,” I said.
“Real cool down here.”
“Certainly is,” I said.
“Nothing like a downstairs vault on a hot day.”
“Nothing,” I said. “Real cool down here.”
“Certainly is,” I said.
He did not look cool, eyes bulging at a bulging brick-red bosom. “Would you like to sit down, ma’am?” he said, waving the card at a covey of straight-back chairs along one wall.
“No, thank you,” Sunny said.
“Real cool down here,” he said and his eyes got fastened again.
The other guard came wearily from the vault room.
“Jessica Rollins,” Sunny said, smiling at him.
“Thankee, ma’am.” He went to a huge card-index filing cabinet, and Big-stomach’s eyes came unfastened.
“Oh,” he said. “I got her card right here, Sam.”
Sam stuck his upper lip over his under-lip, pulled down the corners of his mouth, and fell into the chair at the desk. Big-stomach gave him the card and Sunny moved near. Sam adjusted his specs, looked at the card, pulled the book to him, pen-scratched a number of entries, and turned the book to her.
“Will you please sign here, ma’am?” He indicated a line in the book.
Sunny signed.
“Thankee,” he said. Then he put the card alongside the signature.
The lower right hand corner of the card bore the signature of Jessica Rollins. He moved the card along the open ledger until the signature on the card was contiguous to the signature that Sunny had written. He flicked an expert glance at them, while the private detective’s heart did private nip-ups within his private breast. Then Sam grunted, pushed the book away, took his specs off, picked up his ring of keys, said, “1908. If you will come with me, please, Miss Rollins … and if you have need of the private booths, they’re in the rear …”
“May my attorney come too?” she said.
“Of course.”
He led us through the wide door, down a corridor of glinting panels, and around a turn. There he stopped, stooped, and used one of his keys to open the outer lock of one little door. Then he turned to her and she handed him her key. He used that to open the little inner door. Then he stood up, and sighed.
“Help yourself,” he said. “Do you wish to use a booth?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Please push the button in the booth when you want me to come back and lock up for you.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
He ambled away.
Sunny bent and pulled the box out. It was a large one. She gave it to me. It was not heavy. We went to the rear and opened the door of one of the booths. It was more than a booth. It was a small room with a bare table and four chairs. There was a small push-button on the wall to the right of the door.
I put the box on the table and lifted the metal cover. In the box, filling most of it, was a narrow red stuffed portfolio, tightly tied with grey string. There was nothing else in the box. I transferred the portfolio to my attaché case, closed it, and dropped the cover of the metal box.
“Aren’t you going to look?” she said.
“Not here.”
I pushed the push-button on the wall, and gave her the box. We went out of the booth and met Sam coming toward us. He led us to 1908, took the box from her, re-inserted it, took her key, locked the inner door, and locked the outer door with his key. He led us out and we followed him. He dropped into his chair at the desk, and Big-stomach reassumed command. Big-stomach unlocked the steel-barred door at the base of the stairs, smiled at me, smiled at her, hooked his eyes to her bosom, wet his lips with a thick red tongue, said, “Real hot out today. Real Indian Summer Real hot.”
“Certainly is,” I said.
15
Outside, we walked. We walked quite a way. I do not believe either of us knew the direction in which we were walking, but we walked. We did not say a word. We walked. And then she said a word. She said a few words. She said a few crazy words. She said, “I’d like to make love. Now. Right now.”
“What the hell?” I said.
“I’d like to go somewhere right now. You and me, alone. I’d like to go somewhere and make love.”
“You crazy?”
“No. It gets me sometimes. Just like that. When there’s fright in me, excitement, when I’m scared. It’s the best like that. Let’s go somewhere, huh, please?”
I understood. I understood so well, I had to fight it off. “Let’s get out of this neighborhood,” I said. “Let’s grab a cab. Let’s hit a saloon, grab a couple of balls,
and simmer down. Monte’s open this early?”
“The cocktail room is.”
“Fine. We’ll have a bite of lunch too.”
“If that’s what you want.” There was a sliver of contempt in her voice.
“That’s what I want,” I said.
We grabbed the cab, we went to Monte’s, and then, over a quiet lunch, the bag between my feet under the table, Sunny said, “Let’s get a look-see, huh? I’m dying.”
“No.”
“Not now?” she said.
“Not ever.”
“Not ever?” She pulled at my elbow. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” she said. “What’s now?”
“Now—is this. You did a job and you did it well. And you were paid for it. And that’s it. Period. Finish. End. Eat your lunch.”
“You mean you’re not going to let me know what’s in that goddamn portfolio?”
“That’s just what I goddamn mean. Now forget it. Eat your lunch.”
“To hell with you,” she said, “and to hell with the lunch.” She pushed up from the table. “Do me a favor,” she said. “Drop dead.”
“Okay,” I said.
“And do me one more favor,” she said. “Lay off me. Lay off me! Will you do me that favor? Lay off me, you crazy bastard.”
“I’ll do you the favor,” I said.
16
Back in my office, I closed the door and I opened the attache case. I took out the red portfolio, cut the string, and dumped the contents.
There was no variety. It was all the same. Same pictures, same color, and the color was green.
That portfolio contained nothing but one thousand dollar bills.
There were so many, my fingers grew tired counting. There was $900,000.
All in cash.
17
I will admit to the temptation.
Here was nine hundred thousand cash bucks, and I was in a position to retain a splendid portion of it, even if I had to make a compromise with a doll named Jessica Rollins, and any compromise with Rollins was a compromise in my favor.
I resisted the temptation.