Odds Against Tomorrow

by William P. McGivern

  The white man, yes. They didn’t have his name yet. Just the sheriff’s description: big and rangy, with steady, sullen eyes. He fitted. Moody, restless, a man with a grudge.

  The door opened and Kelly turned from the map, expecting Sheriff Burns; but it was his daughter, Nancy, bundled up in a hooded raincoat and carrying a large thermos in her arms. She said “Hello,” rather awkwardly, and put the thermos on the counter. “I thought Dad would be here.”

  “He’s out at one of the roadblocks.” Kelly glanced at his watch. “Should be back pretty soon.”

  “Would you like coffee?” She put her raincoat over a chair and ran a hand nervously over her long blond hair, “I couldn’t sleep—I wondered if you and Dad might like something hot to drink.”

  “That sounds fine,” Kelly said. He leaned against the desk and watched her pour steaming coffee into the metal cups she unscrewed from the top of the thermos. There was an efficient haste in all her movements as if she were eager to get the job over and done with; he found it difficult to imagine her doing anything at a casual, leisurely pace. Rush, rush, he thought. He was puzzled by this girl; there were contradictions about her that he couldn’t understand. She seemed warm and cold, wistful and hard, pensive and indifferent—but all the same time, the emotions blended together in aggravating and illogical patterns. He had been thinking about her quite a lot since dinner—not simply because she was a young and attractive female, but because the incongruities in her manner aroused his professional interest in puzzles.

  They sat for a moment in silence, Kelly perched on the desk, the girl studying the splinter of light moving on the glossy black tip of her pump. The office was warm and quiet, a comfortable coffee-fragrant refuge against the night pressing against the frosted windows. But the silence between them wasn’t comfortable, Kelly realized; she seemed awkward and strained for some reason.

  He couldn’t imagine why. She was good-looking enough, he thought, studying her smooth profile. Just a little bit stiff and shy, but everything else was definitely all right; nice blond hair, fresh clean skin, intelligent eyes and mouth. No discernible flaws. She was wearing a soft beige sweater with a neatly pegged tweed skirt, and the full curving lines of her bosom and hips were very evident as she twisted slightly in the chair and crossed her smooth, slim legs.

  So why wasn’t she married? he thought.

  “You say you had trouble sleeping tonight?” he asked her politely.

  “Yes—I don’t know why.”

  “You often have trouble sleeping?”

  She glanced at him, a touch of color in her cheeks. “I’m afraid so.”

  “I’m a pretty good sleeper,” he said. “If sleeping were a commercial activity, say like baseball, I’d be the DiMaggio of the league.”

  “What’s the secret? Plenty of exercise, wide-open windows and so forth?”

  “The open window is the real secret,” he said.

  “Does your wife mind a cold bedroom?”

  “I’m not married,” Kelly said. “But I have a future wife wandering around somewhere, and I hope she won’t mind.”

  “It’s an interesting way of looking at things.” She laughed a little. “In fact it’s pretty cockeyed.”

  “I don’t know. Men torch for ex-wives. So what’s wrong with me torching for a future wife?” He smiled at her. “Don’t you ever daydream like that? About the guy you’re going to marry?”

  “I suppose I must have. I suppose everyone does.” She stood and smoothed her skirt with swift, efficient gestures. “Would you like more coffee?”

  “Yes, thanks.” Watching her, he began to understand the incongruous thing about her; she didn’t seem to realize she was attractive—she just didn’t have the casual confidence in herself that was usually part of a good-looking woman’s equipment. That puzzled him, too. Hadn’t anybody told her she was pretty or amusing or wonderful? It seemed unlikely. Maybe someone had stopped saying it… that had the same effect sometimes.

  She should be married, he decided finally; that would fix her insomnia.

  Kelly wasn’t insensitive, but his mind worked simply and directly. The obvious seldom escaped him, and the obscure always sounded a warning bell in his mind; the combination made him a difficult man to fool.

  The phone rang, shattering the uneasy silence, and he said, “Excuse me,” and picked up the receiver.

  “Is Sheriff Burns there?” It was a woman’s voice, high and shaky. “This is Doctor Taylor’s wife.”

  “No, he’s out. Can I help you?”

  “Something has happened to my daughter. Something terrible—I’m sure of it.” The woman’s voice was rising hysterically. Kelly said, “Take it easy now. Just tell me what’s wrong.” He covered the receiver and looked questioningly at Nancy. “Doctor Taylor’s wife?”

  “That’s Laura Taylor—they live in Avondale, about ten miles from here.”

  “Mrs. Taylor,” Kelly said.

  “I’m trying to be calm. My daughter went to a parish dance tonight. She should have been home hours ago. But she’s not.”

  “Who did she go with?”

  “The Metcalf boy. I’ve called him already. He was in bed—he told me he left Carol off at one o’clock.”

  “Did he see her go inside the house?”

  “Yes, yes—he took her to the door.”

  “Have you checked the house carefully? She might have curled up on a sofa or something like that.”

  “She’s not here, I tell you. I’ve gone from the basement to the attic.”

  “Would she have gone out to stay at a friend’s house?”

  “No—something terrible has happened. I’m sure of it.”

  “Is Doctor Taylor there?”

  “He’s got a call. There was an accident on the federal highway. I’m here alone.”

  Kelly turned and stared at the radio speaker. He was sure there had been no accident on the federal highway; he had been sitting beside the speaker all night. “Mrs. Taylor, I’m coming right out,” he said. “Just take it easy. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “Please, please hurry.”

  Kelly reached for his trenchcoat. One of the hunted men was wounded, and a doctor had been called to a nonexistent accident—it could only mean one thing…

  “I’m going to get your father,” he said to the girl. “Can I drop you on the way?”

  “No, please don’t bother.”

  “Why do you think it’s a bother? Come on…”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  INGRAM STOOD at the windows in the living room of the farmhouse and watched the first mud-colored light of dawn pushing back the darkness that hung at the top of the meadow. It was too late for them to start moving; by the time they got ready to go the sun would be up. He glanced at Earl who was sleeping with his head against the back of the sofa and his good arm resting protectively across his wounded shoulder. In the dim lamplight his face was a mask of weakness and pain; the hollows beneath his eyes were like deep purple bruises, and his whiskers had grown into a black furry smudge across his soot-gray skin. Looks as bad as I feel, Ingram thought.

  They would have to sit tight here today, he decided, glancing to where Earl’s woman lay sleeping. She had made her bed with the rear cushion from the car, and was lying with her knees drawn up under an old comforter she had found in an upstairs closet. There was something grim about the way she slept, Ingram thought. Like a fighter taking a last rest before going into the ring—her breath came deep and steady, and her flat body seemed purposefully and deliberately still, as if she were readying herself for some big ordeal. A tidy cat of a woman, too; pumps lined up neatly, bed made like a Girl Scout, and even a ribbon tying back her long, black hair. He could see the pale triangular blur of her face, and the rhythmic vaporings of her breath in the cold air. She was strong, he knew; tough and selfish. She was watching out for herself and Earl—and nobody else. Maybe that was right, he thought, feeling a surprising stab of loneliness. That was a woman’s need—t
o guard the life she had with a man. He began to feel sorry for himself, pitying his body its lonely sickness and pain. A motherless child, he thought, trying to mock his mood. Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a long way from home… He shook his head with weary humor at the plaintive words of the song. Just because my hair is curly, just because my teeth are pearly… How square could you get?

  Earl shifted and opened his eyes. Ingram looked at him and said, “How’re you feeling now?”

  “Okay, I guess.” Earl was staring at the windows. “It’s getting light. We better get rolling, eh?”

  “It’s too late.” Ingram sat down slowly in a chair facing Earl. “I figure we got to wait till dark. We can’t get past the police in the daytime. They’ll see you’re hurt. At night you can sit with your coat collar turned up and they won’t see you too good.”

  Lorraine stirred and Earl lowered his voice. “We just sit here all day?”

  “I don’t see any other way,” Ingram said quietly. “We’ll be okay. The old folks won’t bother us, and the cops don’t know where we are. We just keep out of sight and we’ll be all right.”

  “Maybe,” Earl said, moving his good hand in a limp, futile gesture. The pain in his shoulder was dull and slow, better than he’d expected it to be, but his mood was heavy and spiritless; his thoughts drifted with sluggish indifference about their predicament. He picked up a cigarette from the pack on the couch, and leaned forward to draw a light from the match Ingram struck for him. Inhaling deeply, he watched the smoke drift in thin, blue layers toward the ceiling. “How about the doctor?” he said finally. “Think he can bring the cops here?”

  “I don’t see how. Funny, he acted like he didn’t even want to. He kept thanking me for—well, how everything turned out.”

  “Yeah, that is funny,” Earl said dryly.

  “But he doesn’t know anything that can help the cops. He was blindfolded all the time. So was his daughter. And I drove in circles till they were dizzy with it. I figure our chances this way: nobody knows about your woman and her car. So when it gets dark we can drive right through the roadblock. I’m small enough to curl up in the trunk, and you can ride up with your woman. Why should they stop us?”

  “It sounds all right,” Earl said slowly. He was silent for a moment or so, drawing deeply on his cigarette. Then he looked curiously at Ingram. “How did you get into this deal anyway?”

  “I was a fool, that’s all,” Ingram said with a weary shrug. “I was in trouble. So I went to Novak. He said he’d help me out, sure—if I came in on this job.” He sighed. “It seems like a million years ago.”

  “What kind of trouble were you in?”

  “I owed money to a man who wouldn’t wait for it.”

  “Yeah? How much?”

  “Six thousand dollars.”

  Earl whistled softly. “How’d you get into that kind of debt?”

  “Gambling. Just plain foolishness.” Ingram coughed and put the palms of his hands against the pain and pressure in his chest. “I got shooting craps with a friend of mine named Billy Turk. I was reckless. I didn’t give a damn. You know how that is. Something goes wrong, and you just don’t care what else happens.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Earl said. He was watching Ingram with interest, seeing him in a sense for the first time. “So this friend of yours wouldn’t wait for the dough. Is that it?”

  “No, Billy Turk was all right. But he did a thing that jammed me up. He sold my paper at a discount to some boys who worked for a big shot named Tenzell. You ever hear of him?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, Tenzell wouldn’t wait. He wanted the cash. And what Mr. Tenzell wants he gets.”

  Earl waved a hand irritably at the smoke drifting between them; he wanted to see Ingram’s face more clearly. Until just now he couldn’t have described Ingram beyond saying he was colored; he hadn’t seen much else. This struck him as odd. He inspected Ingram carefully, puzzled by his own interest. The man was small and slender, he saw, with silky black hair and funny eyes—kind of childish, almost, as if he were watching for something that might make him smile. “I don’t get it,” he said. “What do you mean, this guy sold your paper at a discount?”

  Ingram smiled. “Just that. I gave Billy Turk an undated IOU for six thousand dollars. I lost that much in twenty minutes, like a fool. Usually I don’t gamble foolish. But that night I just didn’t care, like I told you. My mother wasn’t dead long, and I felt—I don’t know—just foolish, I guess. I told Turk I’d pay him in a month. He knew I was good for it. But he got drunk that same night and sold the IOU to Tenzell’s men. Next thing I knew Tenzell wanted to see me.”

  “Tenzell’s a tough guy, eh?”

  “More than that, man. He runs two wards in the south end of the city. On the side he owns a fight club, a trucking company, handles all the horse rooms and numbers. He’s got cops working for him—there’s guys like him in every city.” Ingram shook his head slowly, his skin prickling with shame as he remembered his session in Tenzell’s office. Tenzell, flanked by two of his men, his bald head gleaming under a cold electric light, had said gently, “You got forty-eight hours, black boy. Use ’em.” Ingram had begged for a break, but it hadn’t helped; Tenzell could stand anything in people but self-respect, and when Ingram’s had diminished to a satisfactory nothingness, Tenzell had said, “I told you, forty-eight hours. Get out.”

  Earl frowned at the sick look in Ingram’s eyes. “Why the hell wouldn’t he give you some time?” he said. “What kind of a crud is he?”

  “He just wouldn’t. Sometimes he does things to remind everybody who’s boss. And he didn’t like colored people much. That was part of it.”

  “You should have caught him alone and put your foot through his stomach,” Earl said bitterly. “Bastards like that aren’t tough unless they’re running in packs. Well, Novak fixed you up fine, didn’t he?” Earl stared through the windows at the black trees swaying in layers of drifting fog. “He fixed us both up fine. Country hotel, all the conveniences.”

  “We’re going to get out, don’t worry.”

  “How about a drink? We might as well enjoy something.”

  “You want some water with it?”

  “Yeah, just a little.” As Ingram stood up Earl realized that he looked taller than he was because he moved so easily and lightly, his body always in balance. Everything he did looked as if he’d rehearsed it to music, he thought.

  “Aren’t you drinking?” he said, when Ingram handed him a glass.

  “I don’t like whisky much.”

  “You look like you could use a slug. You’re coming down with something.”

  “It’s just a cold.”

  Earl sipped the whisky gratefully and lighted another cigarette.

  “How is working in a gambling joint? Is that a pretty good deal?” Both men were speaking softly, in almost conspiratorial deference to the sleeping woman.

  “Good enough; I usually made around two hundred a week.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Some weeks I did better.” Ingram was pleased, but curiously embarrassed by the look of respect in Earl’s face. “I usually dealt and cut the pot for the house, you know. But sometimes the house would back me against the heavy betters—if I won I kept twenty-five per cent.”

  “You must play damned good poker.”

  “It was my job.”

  “What did your mother think about you working in a gambling joint?”

  “It was a respectable place. The boss paid off the cops, and he didn’t allow any drinking or loud talk.” Ingram grinned a little. “But she never did like it. My brothers had nice jobs, she thought. One drove a streetcar, the other drove a truck, and the baby of the family was working in a market. I made as much in a week as all three of them put together.”

  “Women are dumb that way,” Earl said, shaking his head. “Just plain dumb. A guy has to take his chances.” For some reason talking about these things wi
th Ingram made him feel troubled and restless. He stood and began to pace the floor, rubbing his good hand slowly up and down the side of his leg. He’d had chances too; had his share of breaks. The thought gave him confidence. “You know I damned near stumbled into something good once,” he said. He limped back to the sofa, caught up in a kind of anxious excitement. “It was quite a while back, seven or eight years ago.” He sat down and picked up his glass, watching Ingram with a frown. “I was working at a lodge in Wisconsin then, a place that had a gas station and a bar along with the hotel. A handyman, you could say. Well, there were two guys who dropped in most afternoons for a few beers. They were brothers, Ed and Bill Corley. They were builders, but they had a loan outfit and a big real-estate company, too. You ever met guys like that? With their fingers in everything?”

  “They sound smart, all right.”

  “I’m telling you,” Earl said irritably. “They were big guys. They were building thirty-two homes for a housing development. Does that give you an idea of how big they were?”

  “That’s quite an investment.”

  Earl finished his drink and put the glass on the floor. “Well, they liked me. I used to ice-up the bar in the afternoon, and I talked with them a lot. Later on I figured they must have thought I was pretty smart. Why would they talk to me if they didn’t think I was smart?”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Ingram said. “Unless they were just kind of making conversation.”

  “It wasn’t that way. They liked me, I tell you. But I let the chance slip right through my fingers.” Earl shifted to the edge of the sofa, tense and excited by the memory of this strange defeat. “I let it slip right through my fingers,” he said. He could see Ed and Bill Corley clearly in his mind and smell the sweet-sour smell of the beer in the pine-paneled barroom. The whole area had been booming, but he’d missed the chance to cash in on it.

  “Well, where did you fit in?” Ingram said, puzzled.