by Craig Rice
“She really is a beautiful girl,” Bingo said to Chris Halvorsen. “You ought to have a good picture made of her sometime.”
“I got dozens a’ready,” Chris Halvorsen said in the same dull voice. He stood there for a minute, looking at Bingo and Handsome and not seeming to see either of them.
He seemed to be years older than when Bingo and Handsome had first seen him. He couldn’t have actually lost much weight in a couple of days, yet his dark denim overalls appeared to hang loosely on his big frame. His face had been round and red and cheerful, now it was drawn and haggard and almost pale. Even his stiff, yellowish-gray hair was limp around his perspiring forehead.
“How are the turkeys?” Bingo asked politely.
“A’right, I guess. Still a little nervous.”
“Turkeys are terrible nervous birds, anyhow,” Earl said. He yawned, and looked thoroughly bored.
“Everything quiet around here?” Chris Halvorsen said.
“Sure is,” Bingo said heartily.
“No excitement of any kind—no people coming around?”
Bingo said, “Not a thing, Mr. Halvorsen. Not even bill collectors or magazine salesmen.”
Chris Halvorsen didn’t smile at that. But he looked relieved. He was silent for a moment and then said, “That’s good. No good for turkeys to get upset. Any excitement around here, you let me know.”
“You bet we will, Mr. Halvorsen,” Bingo said. “We feel a real sense of responsibility for those turkeys.”
Chris Halvorsen and Earl got into the truck. Bingo took a step forward. It had occurred to him, Chris Halvorsen might like a nice, special-size photograph of the turkeys too. Then he paused. That could be discussed tomorrow. Right now, all he wanted was to see that truck out of here. He was so relieved to see it start on its way down the drive that he almost failed to respond when Christine waved to him.
The farm truck disappeared down the highway. Bingo stood staring after it. For a moment he didn’t even realize that he was shivering.
A voice—the Professor’s—from inside the shanty called, “Very nice work, my young friend. I couldn’t have done better myself, on such short notice.”
Another voice—Terrier’s—called, “C’mon in. Monk found some flour and he’s making pancakes.”
Crip’s voice called, “Too bad her old man was with her. She can probably make better pancakes than Monk can.”
Still Bingo didn’t move. His stomach felt as though it had been accidentally left overnight in an ice-cube tray. Then Handsome touched his elbow, and he jumped.
“Breakfast, Bingo,” Handsome said.
He walked into the shanty, still shivering. The Professor was at the window, with the shotgun. Loogan was washing his face. Crip was setting the table while Monk fried pancakes, and Terrier was starting to paw through the stack of old magazines and comic books.
There was something reassuring and ordinary about the smell from the frying pan and the coffeepot. Bingo sank down onto one of the chairs and slowly relaxed.
“I’ll inform you if any more company shows up,” the Professor said.
“Mind if I finish with these pictures?” Handsome said, getting out the forty-three prints of Will Sims in camper’s uniform and insignia. Nobody minded. In fact, everyone crowded around for a moment to admire the job.
Crip strolled over to the stove and sniffed. “Monk, were you ever a cook?”
Monk grinned, and shook his head.
“Can’t he talk?” Bingo demanded, a little irritably.
Monk looked at Bingo and nodded, still grinning.
“He can,” Crip said, “but he won’t. He had a run-in with some tough Southern cops once, and since then he hasn’t said a word. Made a resolution, I guess.”
Monk turned away from the stove a moment and described the run-in with an elaborate pantomine. Bingo looked at him thoughtfully. A skinny, undersized man, with wispy, dirty gray hair, a few yellow teeth, bright blue eyes, and freckles all over his face.
“Been in jail long?” Bingo asked, trying to make polite conversation.
Monk held up three fingers. Then he indicated a pause. Then he held up two fingers. Another pause. Then five fingers. Finally, one finger, and a few gestures to indicate that he had seven more years still to serve, if they caught him.
Between flipping pancakes, Monk managed to convey his entire life story. He indicated his ancestry by a few steps of a jig, pretending to play a harp, and a ribald imitation of a French gentleman. He made it plain that he was sixty-seven years old, had never made much money, and had spent most of his life in jail, mostly for petty thievery.
“Not the last two times,” Crip said.
Monk grinned. He went through another elaborate pantomime.
“A nifty skirt man,” Terrier said, with a wink.
Monk shrugged his shoulders, to indicate that a man had to make a living somehow, and that to steer customers to a high class establishment—”
“A curious phenomenon,” the Professor remarked, never taking his eyes from the window. “Monk is the only one of us who doesn’t have a life sentence. Seven more years, and he’s free. But he insisted on coming along. And he would bitterly resist being recaptured.”
Monk went through another pantomime. This one was just as elaborate, but it wasn’t funny. It made very unpleasantly clear just what he would rather have happen to him than to be picked up again by the police.
“He’s bull-simple,” Terrier said. “Some of those Southern bluebellies can be hooty as hell.”
“You should have stuck to robbing cash registers,” Crip said to Monk, with an almost affectionate smile.
The pancakes were done. They were thin and tender and delicious. Monk had found the rest of the bacon, and Handsome had dug a bottle of sirup out of the back of the cupboard.
For a few minutes Bingo forgot that he was breakfasting with five escaped convicts, and that a sawed-off shotgun had been left on the window sill. He forgot everything except that the food was good and that the companions were not too unpleasant. Then suddenly he became aware of the silence at the table, and he realized that it was a habitual silence, the result of years spent in prison dining halls. Somehow, he didn’t want any more pancakes, after that.
“Got any cigarettes?” Crip asked.
Handsome found some in the pocket of Bingo’s blue plaid jacket. Monk put a fresh pot of coffee on the table. Crip carried the dirty dishes over to the sink. Loogan found a saucer to use for an ash tray. Handsome began packing the forty-three pictures of Will Sims in a manila folder and putting stamps on the souvenir pictures taken the day before. Everything seemed normal. At least, Bingo tried to pretend that it was.
“None of us want to go back to prison,” Terrier said suddenly, in a quiet and unexpectedly well-bred voice. “Naturally, we’d like a cut of the money Chuck Engan buried, if we can find it, but freedom comes first. Take me, for instance. Turn me loose anywhere, and I’ll make myself a fortune. For your information, my friend, I’m a slick conjuneero. Con man, to you. I made the mistake of shooting it out with a shoulder tapper. Crip, here, is a check artist. The Professor can hit the gravy train from a dozen angles. We can all get along, only none of us want to go back to boarding school. Because if we go back, we’re there from now on, see?”
Bingo saw. For a moment, he was completely in sympathy with Terrier. He wouldn’t want to go back to a prison himself, he reflected, even if he had to sweep streets to make a living outside.
“What do you want me and Handsome to do?” he asked.
“Just keep us under cover,” Crip said. “We’ll handle everything else. The whole thing can be on a friendly basis. You be the front. If the boodle turns up, we’ll cut you in on it.”
Temptation made a fast and circular trip through Bingo’s mind. These five escaped convicts, who’d been in jail with Chuck Engan, might know where a quarter million dollars in gold was buried. They might know how to turn gold into ordinary folding money that could be passed ove
r a counter. With their knowledge, and his brains, they might all get rich.
Then Loogan giggled and said, “Pretty girl.”
Crip sighed and said, “He’s still thinking about that blonde.”
“Loogan likes girls,” Terrier said, “only he likes ’em to be dead first. That’s how come he’s a book man.”
Bingo looked up. Their five faces moved past his eyes as though they’d been on a wheel: Loogan’s big, ugly, stupid face with its unpleasant grin; Monk, sly, and winking, like a sick weasel; Crip, with the unhealthy red spots on his thin cheeks; the oily, cold-eyed Professor; and, finally, Terrier, with his furtive, continual glancing from side to side.
For just a moment he’d felt sympathy for them, the instinctive sympathy that always rises at the thought of a fleeing prisoner, the human hope that he will get away. For just a moment they’d seemed friendly, joking, agreeable people, and he’d liked them. And, for that moment, he’d felt that he could play along with them.
Now, he knew otherwise. The five escaped convicts had been in the penitentiary for good reasons. They’d shot a guard, “Feller name of Sampson,” in making their escape. They hadn’t had anything against the guard, named Sampson; he’d just been in their way and they’d killed him.
They’d kill anyone else who got in their way. Bingo Riggs, or Handsome Kusak, or that swell guy, Sheriff Judson. Or Henny.
The new fear that gripped Bingo made him almost physically ill. He curled his toes inside the brown-and-tan snappy-sport oxfords. He swallowed hard.
He lit a cigarette and sat for a few seconds watching the smoke curl up from the end of it. Then he looked up at Terrier with a smile that he hoped didn’t look as frozen as it felt. Over Terrier’s shoulder he saw Handsome’s face relax.
“Let’s talk the whole thing over, pal,” Bingo said pleasantly. “I think we can do some business together.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He’d have to bluff, Bingo realized, as he never had before. First, to put over the idea that he was really on the level about doing business. Second, to find out what the escaped convicts knew about the buried money.
“Why should we cut them in,” the Professor was objecting. “They’re going to keep us hidden out here, anyway.” He took the shotgun away from the window sill, described an arc with it, and said, “Whoopee! I’d really love to shoot one of these things.”
“Cut that out,” Bingo said. “Guns make me nervous. It’s a phobia of mine.”
“Imagine that,” Crip said. “He’s got a phobia about guns. So he wouldn’t sell us out to the hick dicks, would he!”
“Lay off,” Terrier said. “This is a gentlemanly business conference. We need these guys.”
“Why?” the Professor asked.
Monk shrugged his thin shoulders and gestured toward the cupboard.
“Somebody has to go into town and buy more eggs and bacon and flour,” Handsome said.
“Not necessarily,” the Professor said. “I’m getting a little tired of eggs and pancakes, anyway. We can eat turkeys. Loogan can wring their necks for us. He’d probably love that.”
Loogan giggled.
“And Monk must know how to cook turkeys,” Crip said.
Monk grinned and nodded.
Bingo said coolly, “Aren’t you forgetting the money? You’re going to need some help. Because you guys have to stay holed up here. Me and Handsome can go anyplace. And we aren’t going to ask for more than a reasonable split.”
“We’ll play fair with you about the split,” Terrier said. He drummed on the table with his fingers, until Crip and the Professor looked at him. Then he moved one eyelid just a little, not enough to be called a wink, so slightly that Bingo wouldn’t have noticed if his senses hadn’t been keenly alert. Just enough to indicate to Crip and the Professor that there wouldn’t be any split, as far as Bingo and Handsome were concerned.
“There’s plenty to go around,” Bingo said amiably. He was trying to think fast. Somehow he had to make them think he knew almost as much about the buried money as they did, and that he knew a little more about what was going on. “How much did Chuck Engan tell you before he died?”
“He told us he’d been double-crossed,” Terrier said. “And that the bloke who double-crossed him beat it with the boodle and buried it.”
Bingo nodded wisely. The bloke in question couldn’t have been Henry Siller, then. Because Henry Siller hadn’t known where the money was. He’d come here, hoping to find out. So Siller must have been double-crossed, too. Bingo tried a shot in the dark.
“In addition to helping you escape,” he asked, “how much of a split did Siller promise you for leading him to the guy who knew where the money was hidden?”
Crip grinned, an ugly grin that showed discolored teeth. “He said half,” Crip said. “But I think he meant zero.”
“We would have discussed that,” the Professor said, smiling, “when the time came.”
Loogan seemed to think the remark was almost unbearably funny.
“How about Gus?” Bingo asked.
Terrier shrugged his shoulders. “Just a stooge of Clancy’s. If we didn’t connect with Siller, we were to ask for Clancy, and if he wasn’t around, then we were to look for Gus.”
There was something unconvincing about the way he said that, but Bingo decided not to follow it up. Instead, he asked, “Now, what gives as far as Clancy is concerned? Where’s his cut going to be?”
Terrier winked broadly at Bingo and said, “The throat, chum.”
“But don’t you worry,” Crip added hastily. “You’re our pals. We’ll split with you.”
“You’d better,” Bingo said, “or I’ll write to my Congressman.”
Everyone laughed at that. A little too noisily.
Bingo decided to try one more shot in the dark. “What was Clancy in for when you met up with him?”
Terrier shrugged his shoulders and made a gesture with his thumb and middle finger to indicate that it hadn’t been anything important or noteworthy. “Rolling a lush, I think. He was only a sixer.”
“Strictly a smallie,” Crip added.
Bingo nodded sagely. “Well, it was a lucky coincidence for you.” Had Clancy shot Siller? Impossible. Clancy had said of Siller’s murder—that it messed everything up. “Want me to locate him for you?”
“Why bother?” the Professor said. “We don’t need him. We know the guy we want to locate.”
“He’ll tell us where the money is,” Crip said. His upper lip curled up from his yellow teeth, in more of a snarl than a grin.
“How about the girl?” Bingo said very casually. A thought struck him. “How come you didn’t get her here at the shanty last night?”
Terrier said, “Listen, chum. I’d be very happy to forget about that. Up to then, everything was going fine. Clancy met us with the clothes and the car. We hid out till night. Then we drove up here. Parked the car down the road a piece. Another car drives up, the dame hops out, heads for the shanty. We decide to go get her. After all, we can use her in our business. We start to move in. Then some son-of-a-bitch in the yard decides to shoot through the windows.”
Bingo saved himself just in time from saying, “Oh, it wasn’t you that shot through the windows.” He said instead. “Do you know who he was?”
Terrier shook his head. “He ducked. By that time hell seemed to be breaking loose. We went after the girl, anyway. Then a mob moved in. Guys with machine guns. Shooting at the windows. Shooting at the tires. So we fogged out.”
Monk gestured and held up his hands, indicating that there must have been at least ten in the mob.
Bingo avoided Handsome’s eyes, didn’t say a word, and tried to look both surprised and sympathetic.
“We drove,” Terrier said. “And somebody, maybe this same son-of-a-bitch, shoots at us. Must of been a rifle. Hit the right front tire and we skidded into a hogpen. Smashed up the car. We scattered. It was too dark to shoot and, anyway, it might of been Johnny Law. We got together and
found a barn where we could hide out.”
“Too bad,” Bingo said. “Now. About the girl—”
“Hold it,” Crip said. He’d been watching the window. “Car coming.”
Handsome glanced out the window and said, “Sheriff’s car.”
About five seconds later the shanty appeared empty, save for Bingo and Handsome. The act must have been rehearsed overnight. Crip and Terrier were under one bunk, Loogan and the Professor under the other. There was a shotgun under each bunk, trained on the door. Neatly pulled-down blankets hung to the floor. Monk had squeezed into the cupboard that held turkey feed and miscellaneous tools.
The sheriff’s car came up the driveway, turned around so that it faced the road, and stopped.
On the table was unmistakable evidence that seven people had eaten breakfast. Handsome grabbed the big case that had held photographic equipment and swept everything from the table into it, banged it shut, and shoved it into a corner.
Suddenly Bingo imagined headlines: Escaped Convicts Shoot It Out With Police. Two Innocent Bystanders Victims.
Handsome spread out the last prints and began mounting them, slowly and meticulously.
Herb got out of the sheriff’s car, strolled up to the door, knocked, and then walked right in.
“Hy’ah,” he said amiably.
Handsome looked up and said, “Your picture’s a’most done. Just need for the paste to dry a minute.”
“It’s a honey,” Bingo said enthusiastically. “Miss Halvorsen is going to be crazy about it.”
Herb leaned over the table, and so did Bingo, who hadn’t seen the picture before. In the picture Herb looked even more like a grinning imbecile than he had in the pose.
“Say,” Herb said admiringly. “That is a nice picture. Sort of flatters me.”
“Oh, no,” Bingo said. “I wouldn’t say that.”
Handsome examined the job carefully and said, “I guess it’s dry. But be careful of it.” He slipped the mounted print into an envelope and handed it to Herb.
“Y’know,” Herb said, “maybe you’re right. Maybe if she has this picture of me around where she can see it all the time, she’ll think of me.”