Sunday—7:30 P.M.
“You’re a different man with twenty hours’ sleep,” Jan said. She was holding Reardon’s hand across a table in Marty’s Oyster House. A waiter hovered in the near background, undisturbed by the importuning of other customers, prepared to instantly spring into action at the lady’s slightest command. Since the lovely lady was accompanied, the waiter knew he would be expected to give somewhat equal service to her companion; it was unfortunate, but the waiter felt it a price worth paying.
Reardon winked at Jan and used his free hand to raise his martini.
“In fact,” Jan said, “you’re a different man away from that police station.”
“It isn’t a police station. It’s called the Hall of Justice. And I still have two more lovely days free—”
“Which you will probably spend sleeping. You might as well,” Jan said. She sipped her martini and put it down. “Because I have to work.”
“I wanted to talk to you about that—” Reardon started, and then paused as a man stopped beside their table. He looked up to discover Porky Oliver staring at Jan, entranced. “Mr. R.,” Porky said without looking in his direction, “I certainly will. And thank you.”
Reardon frowned. “You certainly will what?”
“Join you for a drink,” Porky said, and slid into the booth at Reardon’s side. Jan, looking across the table, was pleased by what she saw. Oliver was handsome, well-dressed, soft-spoken, with an obvious sense of humor, and his apparent admiration for her managed to make her feel very feminine without in the least making her feel insulted.
Reardon sighed and slid over. Oliver raised a hand for a waiter, forcing himself to stop looking at Jan. The waiter came over instantly; Porky frowned. “They must have changed management,” he said under his breath, and then saw the look the waiter was bestowing upon Jan. “Oh,” he said, understanding. “In that case I might as well take full advantage of the rare situation. I’ll have what they’re having, only vodka instead of gin, straight up instead of on the rocks, onion instead of twist.”
Jan smiled. Porky smiled back in friendly fashion and spoke over his shoulder. “You haven’t introduced us yet.”
Reardon shrugged. “Jan, this is Paul Oliver.”
“Jan what?” Porky asked, interested.
“Jan is all you need to know,” Reardon said shortly.
“I do believe I note a tone of jealousy,” Porky said, and looked at Jan. “Tell me, Jan, does Mr. R. have reason for this possessiveness?”
Jan smiled and nodded. “He does.”
“Oh.”
“And why do you call him Mr. R.?”
“I have a short memory,” Porky said. “But the name ‘Jan’ isn’t too great a strain. I shall work on etching it on my brain.” He accepted his drink from the waiter, sipped, and nodded his approval.
Jan felt it time to change the subject, especially as Reardon merely sat in the corner and frowned. “What do you do, Mr. Oliver?”
“I’m in communications,” Porky said with becoming modesty.
“Publishing or broadcasting?” Jan asked.
“Well, a bit of both, actually,” Porky said, considering. “My primary interest is an occasional book. The broadcasting, you might say, is more a hobby.” It was his turn to change the subject. He turned to Reardon. “Your exploit in that bank caper is the talk of the airwaves, Mr. R. When last we lunched you mentioned the names of four complete unknowns, but failed to raise the name of this Mr. Milligan. Had you done so I could have clarified the picture while we were waiting for service. Mr. Milligan was an old client, although frankly of late our relationship left something to be desired. Like payment on his part.”
Reardon frowned. “Then why didn’t you tell me? Didn’t you see his name in the papers at the time of the robbery?”
“Unless he was favored at the Big A or scratched at Fairground,” Porky said, “I would have missed it.” He turned to Jan. “I apologize for speaking in riddles. In any event, one can pursue just so many hobbies, and reading newspapers is one I’ve been pleased to forego.”
He finished his drink and came to his feet.
“I thank you one and all,” he said pleasantly, and looked at Jan. His tone became slightly conspiratorial; he lowered his voice. “You may have noticed,” he said, “the remarkable resemblance between our friend, Mr. R. and sweet Alice. He weeps with delight when you give him a smile, and trembles with fear at your frown. I should do something about that if I were you.”
“Such as what?”
“I should marry him if I were you,” Porky said. “Weeping and trembling policemen give cities a poor image.” He smiled brightly at them both and walked away.
“Well,” Jan said, “at least that was something different.” She looked across the table. “Now, if you were in the kind of business where you didn’t have to associate with hoodlums all the time, but could meet people like your friend Mr. Oliver—”
Reardon had been drinking. He choked.
“Pinch your nose,” Jan said. “It helps.” She tried to keep a straight face but couldn’t. “‘I apologize for speaking in riddles,’ he said.” She laughed. “I was practically raised at Santa Anita. Outside of being a bookie, and your personal informant, I gather Mr. Oliver seems like a very nice man.”
Reardon looked at her with admiration. “He is. He’s also a very smart man. That advice of his was excellent.”
“I thought so, too,” Jan said softly.
“If you weren’t so stubborn,” Reardon went on, not listening, “you could take the next few days off and we could go up to Tahoe and get married.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
“It’s simply ridiculous,” Reardon declared, “for us to go on like this and not get married!”
“I agree.”
“Porky—I mean, Paul Oliver was right, you know.”
“I know. So let’s get married.”
“One of these days—what?” Reardon stared. “What did you say?”
Jan smiled. “If we’re going to drive to Tahoe tonight, we’d better not talk so much. We’d better order.” And she raised her hand for the waiter.
Saturday—7:45 P.M.
At his booth farther down and across the way, Porky Oliver was able to see the look, first of disbelief and then of happiness spread across Reardon’s rugged face. He sighed. It must be nice, he thought, but scarcely for him. Still, it had been the least he could do for the lieutenant. He just hoped, for Reardon’s sake, that Jan never found out it had been a setup.
He raised his hand for a waiter and then dropped it, knowing it to be useless. Why couldn’t Reardon have arranged the meet anywhere else in San Francisco except Marty’s Oyster House?
Turn the page to continue reading from the Lieutenant Reardon Mysteries
CHAPTER 1
Friday—8:45 P.M.
Sergeant Michael Holland sat extremely still and tried to make out as much of the man’s features in the rear-view mirror as he could. Night had fallen within the hour and the only illumination came from the reflected light of a streetlamp a few yards down the block, plus the occasional glow from the cigar tucked in one corner of the man’s bearded mouth.
Sergeant Holland’s first thought at being accosted in his own car in his own driveway had been that some of the boys from the Hall of Justice were playing a practical joke on him on this, the day of his retirement from the force; but another look into the mirror revealed a strange, casually cruel, faintly smiling bearded face, cigar atilt, that instantly disabused him of the notion. Holland had no idea of how the man had managed to get into the rear seat of the locked car, nor when; but he recognized the authority of the cold muzzle against his neck and accordingly kept his hands pressed tightly on his knees. In addition to the sardonic cast of the full lips gripping the cigar, the small mirrored glass showed enough of the weapon held in the gloved hand to be instantly recognized. Mike Holland knew the gun well. It was a .38 caliber police positive, and until five o’clock t
hat afternoon, one just like it had been as much a part of him as his right arm. Michael Holland had spent a portion of his career on the San Francisco police force teaching recruits how properly to use precisely this weapon. He knew the damage it could do to a two-inch plank in the ballistics lab, and in the course of the few years he had spent in Homicide before being shunted to Communications to work out his final years, he had also seen the damage it could do to the human body. That damage was considerable. It was not easy to forget.
He cleared his throat, surprised when he spoke that his voice was not even tighter than it was. “What goes on?”
“Relax,” the man said amusedly. “Keep quiet and keep still.” The voice was calm, detached. He took the cigar from his mouth, flicked ashes to the floor almost contemptuously, and replaced the cigar. The pistol never moved from Holland’s neck.
“But—”
“I said, quiet.”
Mike Holland sighed and glanced about, moving his head with extreme caution, feeling the muzzle scrape lightly against his neck, but being most careful in keeping his hands on his knees. From the house on the right, his own, he could see the faint glow of the lamp he always left lit whenever he went out evenings, for Michael Holland lived alone and had since his Katherine had died eight years before. And to the left the Horvath place was dark, as he expected, since Steve and Margaret were off someplace on vacation. Los Angeles, he remembered, and then thought how unimportant it was, any more than it was important that the other houses around held neighbors who were not on vacation. It would take quite a shout on his part to be heard over Walter Cronkite, or whoever—even assuming anyone would come if they heard him. Or if he’d even be alive when they got there. The man in the mirror, with that faint smile on his kisser, looked just wild enough, with all that hair, to use the revolver just to hear the bang.
Mike Holland wet his lips, and wondered what they were waiting for. He glanced into the mirror, read nothing in the steady eyes that stared back at him, and brought his attention to the closed garage ahead. Take it easy, he told himself. Don’t let yourself get up-tight. This clown has to be making a mistake. And the guy in the mirror, despite that slightly off-beat smile, still didn’t look like a hophead—although Mike Holland had to admit it was getting pretty hard to tell these days, what with the drug companies coming out with new pills every half hour, bless their little commercial hearts. He looked back up into the mirror.
“What’s this all about? What are we waiting for? What do you want? Who are you?”
As if in answer to his questions, the door beside him suddenly opened and he saw that his assailant had not been alone. A second man appeared in the opening, thin to the point of emaciation, abnormally short, his face hidden in the shadows of an excessively wide hat brim. “Nobody around,” the newcomer said in a deep gravelly voice that seemed odd coming from his stunted body. “Just what I like—a nice quiet neighborhood.” He turned his head in Holland’s direction. “Okay,” he said. “Feet first.”
Mike Holland stared, not understanding. “What about my feet?”
The thin man seemed to double over, and for a stunned moment Holland hoped it was with pain, but then he realized with sudden fury that while he had been staring at the weird-looking hat and hoping the little bastard had suffered a burst appendix, the skinny little son-of-a-bitch had clamped a set of cuffs about his ankles.
“Hey!” Mike Holland said, outraged, and started to reach. The gun instantly was thrust with force against his neck and Holland froze. This was no Saturday-night special, a four-buck job that maybe it went off and maybe it didn’t. This one served for the police, and this one went off each and every time, without fail.
“Hands,” the little man said evenly, and looked up at the large sergeant. In the reflected light from the streetlamp, Mike was able at last to make out the face. The eyes beneath that ridiculous hat brim were sunken, as were the nose and cheeks. The whole effect was like seeing two burned holes in a scarred and ravaged barrel stave, and somehow reminded Mike Holland of pictures he had seen one time of lepers. He looks like a very sick kid with his old man’s hat on him, Mike thought with sudden anger; a fifty-year-old bastard kid who ought to have that stupid hat jammed over his stupid ears and then given a good healthy kick in the butt for luck.
“Hands,” the little man repeated.
Mike fought down growing anger, knowing temper could only be a mistake.
“Now, look, you characters,” he said in as reasonable a tone as he could muster. “I got a sum total of maybe thirty bucks on me, and the car’s practically worthless. I don’t even carry theft insurance on her. She’s damn near as old as I am.” Or anyway, as I feel, he thought bitterly. You didn’t retire out of the force one day too soon, Holland, he thought, getting picked up like a farmer his first night in a topless joint! “And there’s not a thin dime in the house, either,” Mike went on, “plus my son’s in there asleep, a Medal of Honor winner, and if you wake him up over some nonsense like this, he’ll take that toy pistol away from you and push it in one of your ears and pull it out the other!” And he would have, too, if Michael Patrick Holland, Jr., hadn’t died at the age of four from what they called the croup in those days. “Take the lousy thirty bucks and leave me be,” Mike Holland said wearily. “I got an appointment tonight.”
The little man had been listening to this story with the air of a person who had gone into a jewelry store to buy a cheap watch strap and found himself the unwilling participant in an auction. He snapped out of his reverie.
“Hands,” he said evenly. “Out in front of you. And keep them together.”
“Now listen, you dumb baboons!” Mike Holland said furiously, no longer able to contain his ire. “I’m a police officer and you guys are asking for more trouble than you can handle! Sweet Mary and Jesus! Take the lousy thirty bucks and pray to your saints I don’t never run into either one of you two again …!”
There was the sudden wiping of the gunsight against the burly neck. The gunsight had either been given a poor tumbling job at the factory, or had been sharpened by its sadistic owner to serve as a weapon on its own. Holland felt the chilling pain, the sudden automatic cold tightening of the scrotum at the thought of flesh being parted by edged steel, and then the dampness of blood, warm blood, his blood, running down his collar. His first thought was that his nice new white shirt, bought especially for the occasion of the evening, would be ruined; but then he knew it really didn’t matter. It didn’t look as if he were going to get to any dinner tonight, anyway.
“Hands,” the little man repeated for the third time in that oddly inconsistent rasping voice. His tone was not remonstrating, merely reminding. Mike Holland took a deep breath and brought his big hands forward slowly, fighting down the impulse to take the scrawny neck before him and wring it like a dishrag, but he had no doubt that the bearded bastard with the cigar behind him wouldn’t hesitate to use the gun. Mike brought his hands together and felt the cold steel snap around his thick wrists.
“Over,” the small man said in that same impersonal tone, and made a move to enter the car. Mike stared at the familiar dashboard as if seeing it for the first time, and then slowly edged his large body toward the other side of the car. He knew he should be making mental notes on the two hoods, burning details into his trained memory beyond the mere fact that one was skinny and had poor taste in hats, and the other was bearded, smoked cigars, and was nasty, but at the moment his anger blotted out the ability to act properly. Besides, his neck hurt, although not half as much as his pride. Taken like a child! The fact that he had climbed into his car quite naturally and suddenly found a gun put on him had nothing to do with the matter; somehow he should never have allowed himself to be suckered like that!
The skinny little man slid into the driver’s seat, pushed down on the adjusting button and slid the seat closer to the steering wheel to accommodate his reduced size, reached up a skeletal hand to adjust the rear-view mirror to his satisfaction, reached out to do t
he same for the side-view mirror, and then squirmed into a more comfortable position. The skin-tight gloves he wore made him appear to have brown hands attached to pale thin wrists. The bearded man took his cigar from his mouth and leaned over, bringing his lips close to Mike Holland’s ear.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he said softly. “I can lay this gun barrel alongside your ear and put you to sleep, and then we’ll just be two pals taking a drunken friend home. And you’ll wake up with the large, economy-sized hangover. Or we can go along just the way we are without any big disturbance from you, and you may even live to see the grandchildren from that Medal of Honor son you don’t have.” The gun snaked forward, pressing cruelly against the cut, and then was partially withdrawn. Mike winced involuntarily. The quiet voice went on. “It’s that simple. Take your choice.”
Mike remained silent. The bearded man seemed to take it as acceptance.
“Good,” he said pleasantly, and tucked his cigar back in place. He looked toward the small driver. “Let’s get going. We’re behind schedule, listening to Sergeant Holland, here, tell us how he’s a policeman.”
“Yeah,” the little man said with a grin. “I thought he was a streetcar conductor without his uniform, myself.” He turned on the ignition, listening to the steady purring of the old motor in appreciation for the obvious attention it had received, and then put on the lights, put the car into gear, and backed from the driveway. “Not bad for an old clunker,” he said to no one in particular, and swung the wheel. He changed gears and started down the street, driving with obvious skill, but with equally obvious care.
The man in the back seat spoke, a small edge to his voice. “A little faster, Harry, if you don’t mind?”
“What’s the difference we’re a couple minutes late?” Harry asked, but nevertheless he pressed the accelerator a trifle. The car responded, moving a bit faster.
“We made a schedule, let’s stick to it,” the bearded man said, and lapsed into silence, sucking silently on his cigar.
Bank Job Page 19