Odds Against Tomorrow

by William P. McGivern

  Footsteps sounded In the outer hallway. He turned as a tall young man in a damp gabardine topcoat walked up to the counter.

  “Sheriff Burns?”

  “That’s right.”

  “My name is Kelly, sir.” The young man opened a small leather card case and placed it on the counter. “FBI.”

  “Well, well.” The sheriff studied his photograph with care, then stared at the agent, noting his reddish-brown hair, sharp blue eyes and square, cheerful face. He didn’t have to look down at the man and that was an uncommon experience for him; six two or better, he judged, with enough bulk to give authority to his height. “You got here pretty fast,” he said pushing the wallet back across the counter.

  “Our office in Philadelphia picked up the State Police alert about eight fifteen,” Kelly said. “The SAC sent me out first. There’ll be more men here soon. From Philly and Harrisburg. We’ll have riot equipment in an hour or so, and there’ll be two planes standing by at dawn if we need them.”

  “A regular convention, eh?” the sheriff said. “What’s the SAC by the way?”

  “Special agent in charge,” Kelly said.

  “This is your show now, eh?”

  “Practically every bank job is a federal case, Sheriff. Deposits are insured by a federal agency and that brings us into it. But we’re here to work for you. You know the area. We’ll co-operate any way we can. That sound okay?”

  “It sounds fine,” the sheriff said, underlining the middle word faintly but unmistakably. He had an idea of what co-operation meant—a polite way of taking the reins out of his hands. “Come on in. You got some idea about what our next move should be?”

  “There’s no identification on the dead man?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “I’ll print him and Philadelphia can wire the information to Washington. When we know who he is it may lead us to the other man.”

  “There’s two other men,” the sheriff said.

  “The State Police just mentioned one. How come?”

  “Nobody saw the other fellow.” The sheriff explained to Kelly what he had learned of John Ingram and the man who called himself Smith. “I called the State Police from the bank as soon as the shooting was over,” he went on. “I told them what I’d seen—not knowing the colored boy was in on the job. Everybody in the bank took him for a regular delivery man. When I got the whole story pieced together I decided to let the first report stand for a while.”

  Kelly raised his eyebrows.

  “Well, you may not agree with my reasoning,” the sheriff said dryly. “But it figured those two fellows will hear that report on the radio. The colored fellow may feel free to cut out on his own. And the other man—he’s wounded, remember—might try to stop him. It’s going to put pressure on them and that might prod them into making a break for it.”

  “How long can we keep it quiet?”

  “Until tomorrow morning, I guess. There’ll be talk in town about what really happened, and the reporters will be on our backs then.”

  “You say they might make a break for it. You think they’re holed-up somewhere by now?”

  “Come here a second.” The sheriff took a pencil from his breast pocket and walked over to the county map behind his desk. “Ingram and the wounded man drove out of town on Cherry Street. That took them into open country in four or five miles.” He drew a crude circle around the area southwest of Crossroads. “The State cops have roadblocked all that territory. But there’s back roads those fellows can use to slip around our roadblock. All we can do is plug up the likeliest holes—the main highways, the bridge approaches and so forth. And we’ll watch the buses and trains. They’re in a noose, but it’s awfully big and awfully loose.”

  “What kind of country is it?”

  “Farms and woods, twenty-five square miles of it. Lots of houses, barns, outbuildings, old mills and so forth. We know their car, so they can’t travel. And they can’t stay outside in this weather. Likely they’ll move in on somebody. That’s why I want to make ’em run for it. Get ’em into the open where we won’t run the risk of killing innocent people.”

  “Is the area too big for a house-to-house search?”

  “We could try, but it would take a lot of time.”

  “Have you alerted all the doctors around here to be careful?”

  “We did that first thing.”

  “The call might sound pretty innocent,” Kelly said. “An old familiar patient with a touch of stomach trouble maybe. But talking with a gun at her head.”

  “We reminded them of that,” the sheriff said. “They’ll check with us before they go out on any calls tonight.”

  “Good.” Kelly belted his topcoat. “I’ll get those prints into the works. You’ve got everything running along fine.”

  “Why, thanks,” the sheriff said, deadpan. He was human enough to have enjoyed this little session; there was very little the FBI was going to tell him about affairs in his own backyard.

  Kelly stopped and glanced at him from the door. “You’ve got some fox-hunting down this way, I think. Is that right?”

  “The Chesterson hounds. Why?”

  “Well, just an odd thought. It might be a good idea to ask them to keep their eyes open. A hunt covers a lot of territory, and they might stumble across something interesting. A car hidden in the woods, or smoke from a deserted house.” Kelly shrugged his wide shoulders. “Can’t hurt in any case. I’ll see you.” He waved and walked out.

  The sheriff stared after him, scratching his chin. Then he smiled reluctantly. He should have thought of the fox hunters; they trooped through the back country in all kinds of weather, completely isolated in their small, intense world of horses and trails, hounds and foxes. He’d give the master of hounds a ring in the morning; it wouldn’t hurt them to keep their eyes open for something besides foxes for a change. Kelly was all right, he thought, still smiling a little.

  Three more agents arrived fifteen minutes later, quiet, competent-looking men who introduced themselves to the sheriff and then went down to the coroner’s office to check with Kelly. Within half an hour, Kelly returned to put in a call to the Department of Justice in Washington. “I sent one of the boys back to Philly with the prints,” he said while waiting for the connection. “They’ll wire them to Washington. We’ll probably have something in a few hours.”

  “How do you know you have him on file?”

  “It’s a good bet. A man his age has usually been printed. Military service, defense work, civil-service application, any kind of arrest or jail sentence—that’ll do it.” He lighted a cigarette and perched on a corner of the sheriff’s desk, filling the office with a sense of vital, healthy energy. When his connection was made, he said, “This is Kelly. That’s right. Crossroads, Pennsylvania, the bank job. Now here’s the right- and left-hand count on an unidentified male about forty-five or fifty. The prints are on their way to Philadelphia, and you should have them on the wire in an hour or so. All set?” Kelly took a notebook from his pocket and read a list of numbers into the phone. Then he said, “He’s a high-arch, I see. That should help a little… Yeah. So long.”

  The sheriff hadn’t understood what Kelly was talking about but he was reluctant to ask for explanations. Finally irritation at himself overcame his dignity. “How the devil can they start working in Washington before the prints get there from Philly?” he said.

  “Well, they know where to start looking,” Kelly said. “They’ll pull the cards on one category—high-arch, in this case—and sift out the impossibles. Deceased and women and children. When the prints arrive they’ll check them against the ones left—and they might have the field narrowed down to just a few hundred by then. It’s not my specialty, but the experts in Washington read prints the way we’d read a newspaper.”

  Morgan came in a bit later and reported that the crowds had thinned out, and that traffic was flowing smoothly through Main Street.

  The sheriff swiveled around in his chair and looked up at t
he circle he had penciled around the area southwest of Crossroads. Nothing to do but wait. The rain made any tracking impossible. But time was on their side now. They could sit tight: the hunted men would have to make the first move…

  After a few minutes he glanced at Kelly. “You had dinner yet?”

  “I was about to ask if any restaurants are open.”

  “How about coming home with me? There’s a roast waiting on the stove. With all the trimmings.”

  “I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble at all. In fact it might be a big help. Morgan, keep your ear on that radio. We’ll be back in half an hour or so.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  WHEN INGRAM RETURNED to the living room of the farmhouse, he was shivering uncontrollably, his legs plastered with mud and slime to the knees. He pulled on his clothes quickly, then crouched beside the meager heap of charred wood in the fireplace.

  “You put it away okay?” Earl asked without looking at him.

  Ingram nodded, too exhausted to speak; his bare flesh had been whipped by the wind, and the cold had driven into him like frozen needles. “Nobody will find it,” he muttered at last. The words came awkwardly through his stiff lips. “If they do they’ll need a crane to get it out.”

  “So we’re stuck here now,” Earl said, but he knew his anger was illogical; the car was no good to them. But now they were completely helpless. “Couldn’t you park it on the side of the pit?”

  “I wasn’t worrying about the car,” Ingram said. “I was trying to keep from freezing.”

  The old man laughed softly. “I told you it was a bad night. Didn’t I tell you that?”

  “You’re quite a weatherman,” Ingram said. “You hear rain on the roof and you know it’s raining. You ought to go on the radio.”

  “Don’t talk to me that way,” the old man said shrilly. “You hear me?”

  “Sure I hear you,” Ingram said with heavy sarcasm. “You wouldn’t need a radio. You could just open the window and scream the news. Right from your filthy bed.”

  “Don’t talk to me that way.”

  “Both of you shut up, for Christ’s sake,” Earl said.

  “Tell him to speak respectfully to me. I won’t have a nigger talking down to me in my own home.” The old man’s hands were trembling with impotent fury. “Tell him, you hear?”

  Crazybone came hurrying into the room, an expression of furtive dismay on her tiny wrinkled face. “What you shouting for, Pop? Dinner’s on the way. Oatmeal, you hear? It sticks to your ribs all night long.”

  The old man lay back on the pillows, turning his face away from Ingram and Earl. “You got anything to go with it?” he asked her.

  “You bet your boots,” she cried in a crowing, triumphant voice. “I got a jar of home-made apricot preserves.”

  Earl felt his stomach turn; a spasm of nausea racked him, and the wound in his shoulder began to pound with turbulent pain. “We got to do something,” he said to Ingram. “We got to make plans.”

  Ingram shrugged. “Go ahead. Make plans.”

  Crazybone glanced at them with a puzzled smile, as if she had never seen them before. Then she skipped clumsily from the room, singing a wordless song in a high, sweet voice.

  “We need money and another car,” Earl said, pressing both hands against his roiling stomach.

  Ingram smiled bitterly. “We tried to get some money tonight, remember?”

  “You have any friends, Sambo?”

  “Sure I got friends. They’d love to have me drop in on them. Can’t you imagine how happy they’d be? I got three brothers, too. You think I should try them maybe?”

  “We got to do something. Listen to me.” Earl felt a rush of excitement go through him; Lorraine would help. She would stick. “I got a friend in Philly,” he said, edging forward on the sofa. “She’s got a car, and she can get hold of money.” He glanced at his watch. It wasn’t much after nine. Lorraine would still be at the store. “She’ll help us, Sambo.”

  “You’re dreaming.” Ingram shook his head slowly. “You can’t travel. Even if you could the cops would grab us the minute we showed our face. We’re hot stuff.”

  “I’m hot, but you’re not,” Earl cried; the words slipped out of him in the excitement generated of hope—but it didn’t matter. “I heard a broadcast while you were putting the car away. They’re just looking for me. Nobody saw you. You hear me? You’re free as the air.”

  Ingram looked thoughtfully at him. “And you weren’t going to tell me about it, eh?

  “I just told you, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, sure. When you thought about the car in Philly, and how nice it would be for me to get it.”

  “Don’t take my word for it.” Earl struggled to his feet and walked unsteadily across to the old man’s bed. “Tell him what you heard,” he said. “Tell him the police just want me. Tell him the truth.”

  The old man’s eyes were bright with malice. “I ain’t doing any favors for neither of you. Him sassing me, and you standing by. That’s a fine way to treat a man.”

  “Tell him what you heard!” Earl shouted. “Tell him, goddam you.”

  “It’s the truth.” The old man’s voice trembled with senile fear and indignation. He glared at Ingram. “They didn’t say anything on the radio about you. It’s just him they’re after.”

  “Now you believe it, I guess.” Earl limped up and down the cold, hard floor, trying to control his excitement and bring his thoughts into orderly focus. “There’s a belt highway of some kind that crosses the main road and goes into Philly. I saw it this morning.” He came to the bed and shook the old man’s shoulder. “Isn’t that right, Pop? What’s the name of it?”

  “The Unionville Pike. It’s two miles from here.”

  “And it’s got a bus line, right?”

  “They go in every half hour nights. Takes in factory hands.”

  “Sambo, we’re going to lick this deal,” Earl said in a savage, exulting voice. “We’re going to lick it, hear? I’ll write you a note. If she’s not at the store, she’ll be home. She’ll give you her car, Sambo. And money. Where’s some paper and a pencil?” He limped to the mantelpiece and picked up one of the old, yellowing newspapers. “Now a pencil.” He saw a cardboard box full of buttons, bits of string and dusty spools of thread. Emptying it he laughed triumphantly: there was a stubby pencil in the bottom of the box. He shook the paper open and found a page of advertising with wide margins surrounding the copy. “This is perfect,” he said, carefully tearing out a square of paper. Moistening the pencil, he sat down and began to write slowly and laboriously, his lips moving in a rhythm with the point of the pencil.

  “Now here’s the deal, Sambo,” he said, frowning at the message. “The Unionville Pike is northwest of here. I’ll tell you every turn to make. You catch the ten-o’clock bus. You’ll be in Philly by ten twenty or twenty-five. I wrote the address of the store down, and the address of our apartment. Go to the store first.” He paused to underline a word in the note. “She’s got black hair and she wears it long. You’ll recognize her, don’t worry. She runs the joint. You give her this note. Understand? She’ll carry the ball from there.”

  Ingram was watching him with a faint smile. “You got it all figured out, eh?”

  “It’s our only chance, Sambo.”

  “Then we’re in sad shape,” Ingram said. “I’m not leaving here.” He knew what it would be like outside; his imagination had been working as Earl made his plans. The rain and the wind, with maybe lightning searing the darkness and bringing the whole night world into a fearful brightness… And people staring at him, cops eying him while they swung their nightsticks in slow, speculative arcs.

  “You don’t trust me, is that it?” Earl said.

  “You watch out for yourself. I’ll watch out for me.”

  “Listen to me, Sambo. Use your head. Why should I send you out to get caught?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You
don’t know! You don’t know!” Earl mocked him bitterly. “Well, I’ll tell you something since you’re so goddam dumb. Without that car you’re going to die. Get that into your woolly head. Burke is dead. We’re facing a murder rap. Maybe you didn’t know that, either?”

  “I didn’t have nothing to do with it. I got forced into this job.”

  “Do you want to die? Is that it, Sambo?”

  “I didn’t shoot Burke,” Ingram said shrilly. “They can’t blame me for that.”

  Earl said “Judas priest!” in a weary, disgusted voice. Then he sighed and shook his head. “Will you do me a favor, Sambo? Will you just be serious? Forget about the car. Sit here and wait for the cops. But be serious!” Earl’s voice rose in sudden fury. “You’re a murderer. So am I. The law says we’re responsible for Burke’s death. Don’t talk like a fool. Is that asking too much?”

  “I didn’t know anything was going to happen to him,” Ingram said. “I didn’t even have a gun.”

  Earl settled himself carefully against the back of the sofa, and lighted a cigarette, his manner seemingly careless and negligent. He watched Ingram in silence for a few seconds, judging the texture of his fear with shrewd, instinctive accuracy. Then he said casually, “You ever been in jail?”

  “No.” Ingram shook his head quickly.

  “I was in jail the night they burned a man. That’s something you should know about. You’ll be ready for it then.”

  Ingram looked away from Earl’s bright, searching eyes. “I don’t need any lecture about it. I can guess what it’s like.”

  Earl laughed. “That’s what people outside always say. But they’re wrong. They get funny ideas from movies, I guess. You know the kind of stuff. Prisoners banging tin cups on the bars, colored guys singing spirituals, everybody solemn and scared.” Earl shook his head. “It ain’t like that, Sambo. You know what it’s like? It’s like the night they show movies. It’s an event. Everybody gets all gagged-up and excited. There’s a pool on the minute it’s going to happen. You bet a half dollar and you can win a hatful. My cellmate won eighteen bucks. He was a lifer, a real lucky guy.”