Wait For The Wagon

by Mary Lasswell

  “Just my partner; he’s asleep in the bunk. We drove fast, specially after we got away from ’em in Indianapolis.”

  “Got away from whom?” Miss Tinkham came closer and sat down on the floor. Old-Timer snored stertorously in the next room. Mrs. Rasmussen closed the door.

  “Those gangsters that waylaid me.”

  “What gangsters?” Mrs. Feeley said. “What the hell you talkin’ about?”

  “Oh, they weren’t looking for me,” Dave said.

  “You said they stopped you; get to the point, boy!”

  “They came up to me an’ asked me a lot of questions. Followed me for quite some time, but I finally gave ’em the slip.”

  “Who were they lookin’ for?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “You,” Dave said.

  “Me?” Mrs. Feeley squeaked as she sank down on the floor.

  Miss Tinkham felt sure her heart sounded like a bass drum pounding in the room.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” she said. “How could anyone in the whole world know where we are at the moment. Who could be looking for us? You must be mistaken.”

  “Begin at the beginnin’, for gossakes,” Mrs. Feeley said. “I wish I had a beer.”

  “When I came across Route Thirty-six, just past Pendleton, coming into Indianapolis, I saw this Ford with two heavies sitting in it, parked facing the highway like they were waiting for somebody. They pulled right in behind me and followed me twenty-eight miles by the speedometer. I had a funny feeling on the back of my neck like they were following me, so I pulled into a lunch stand, figuring they would go on by unless they were. Charlie was asleep in the bunk and I went in and ordered pie and coffee. Pretty soon the fat one comes up to me and says: ‘Where are those three women you are going to meet in the bright blue twenty-six Cadillac?’ I just about dropped my teeth on the floor. They were tough-looking bruisers all right. I couldn’t recall ever having seen them before, so I tried to stall a little bit.”

  “Tell us where we come in,” Mrs. Feeley said, “before I let a faint.”

  “The big one says to me: ‘You brought them to El Casablanca outside of Pittsburgh Saturday night. They’ve got a croaker name of Freemartin with ’em, and we want him.’”

  “Gawd! I knew we shouldn’t of took him,” Mrs. Feeley groaned.

  “‘We’re after him, an’ we’re gonna get him,’ he says. ‘He’s got something we want and we want to persuade him to give it up. He ran out on the syndicate with a big load of the stuff. You better spill what you know, bud. You were seen with those women swapping addresses and arranging to meet up with them. If you value your health,’ he says, ‘you better tell us where we can catch up with them. We know they can’t go far in that old car. Freemartin’s going to hand over that package to us before we…”

  “Rub him out!” Mrs. Rasmussen whispered. “They’ll murder the lot of us.”

  “What does he mean we can’t go far in that ol’ car? Better’n their jalopies any day,” Mrs. Feeley said. “It’s Crusher Dasey! That’s who it is. I knew Freemartin was runnin’ out on him with somethin’.”

  “But David knows Crusher Dasey,” Miss Tinkham said. “Have you forgotten that he introduced us to him?”

  Mrs. Feeley looked crestfallen.

  “They’re part of Crusher’s mob, anyway,” Dave said. “Freemartin must have pulled a fast one, hoping to do a Brinks’. Soon as he found out you’d take him with you, he must have cleaned out the whole supply for the syndicate and he’s trying to keep it all for himself.”

  “Hell, he didn’t bring nothin’ with him,” Mrs. Feeley said. “A radio no bigger than a kodak, an’ he smashed that with a gin bottle right in front of our eyes an’ threw the pieces in the creek. That an’ one little ol’ zipper-bag that wouldn’t hardly hold a change o’ clothes.”

  “I figure he took a big pile of snow,” Dave said.

  “Snow, boy? You crazy? It’s in the blazin middle o’ summer!”

  “Cocaine, heroin, or perhaps morphine,” Miss Tinkham said. “A fortune in the traffic would fit into a teacup.”

  “I was pretty sure he was a dope-peddler of some kind,” Dave said. “I figured it was the petty stuff like reefers and goof-balls.”

  “Goof-balls?” Miss Tinkham said.

  “Nemmies, sleeping pills,” Dave said. “The kids start with that stuff. But if he’s got enough to make it worth while running out on the mob, you can be sure it’s the heavy stuff. They’re going to take it away from him for sure. I never could see why you agreed to take him.”

  “I am beginning to doubt the wisdom of the decision,” Miss Tinkham said, “even though we were motivated by the highest…”

  “Gawd!” Mrs. Feeley whispered. “Them hoods chasin’ us! They’re out to get us for sure. Let’s get in the car an’ beat it this minute. We’ll leave that snowbird high an’ dry. We won’t have a safe minute till we’re back in the Ark an’ the big dresser shoved across the front door. C’mon!”

  “Let us hear the remainder of David’s story,” Miss Tinkham said.

  “The end of it was that I convinced ’em that our meeting was all off,” Dave said. “I told them that having to haul this big new load of stuff down from Buffalo had busted up that idea. It was the best story I could think of at the time. So I told ’em we were going to meet at your house out in San Diego. After a while they seemed to believe me, and when I went out to my truck they were sitting in their car. They had a Pennsy license all right—and that wasn’t all!”

  “What else?” Miss Tinkham said.

  “The biggest, cold-blooded-looking Tommy-gun you ever saw. Right out in the open on the back seat. They generally put a blanket over ’em, or at least a newspaper.”

  “Oh my Gawd!” Mrs. Feeley said. “They can use us all for a lawn-sprinkler when they’re through. I’ve heard plenty for now! What we waitin’ for?” She got up and started looking for her shoes.

  “They don’t want us really,” Miss Tinkham said. “It is the dope Doctor Freemartin stole that they want. Of course, we are in a dreadful spot carrying him—and it.”

  “Not no more, we ain’t!” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “You are quite certain you threw them off your trail?” Miss Tinkham said.

  “I pulled into a big transportation garage where I sometimes get extra grease jobs or stop to tighten my lugs. The fellows know me an’ I tipped ’em the wink.”

  “The thugs followed you?” Miss Tinkham said.

  “But not far,” Dave grinned. “At least, not in the same car. They followed me into the garage and bought some gas.”

  “Surely the car didn’t break down,” Miss Tinkham said. “They always have the fastest and most dependable cars in the movies.”

  “Us haulers have a few little tricks left in the bag,” Dave said, “like a pint of molasses in the gas tank. The garage fellows always keep a Mickey Finn like that on hand for snotty customers. It will take a couple of years and three or four chemical analyses to figure out what was the matter with the engine. I didn’t see a thing of them after that. I drove out through the garage underpass just to be sure. Haven’t seen them for over two hundred and fifty miles now. There wasn’t a car on the highway when I pulled in. The truck’s parked out back of the bar next the hills where they can’t see me if they do go by. But I’m worried about you; that blue Caddy parked there stands out like a carbuncle on a movie star’s nose.”

  “Not for long, boy. We’re haulin’ outa here now.” Mrs. Feeley pulled her dress over her head as she spoke and then put on her shoes.

  “I’ll just wake Ol’-Timer.” Mrs. Rasmussen was dressed and packed. “He’ll sure enjoy that about the molasses in the gas tank. Might come in real handy.”

  “My father always said, ‘Observe, son. Observe. And then don’t say anything about what you observed,’” Dave said.

  “Would that we had had the benefit of your father’s advice,” Miss Tinkham said. “I know Mrs. Feeley is right in leaving at once.”

/>   “I think it’s the smart thing to do,” Dave said. “Are you really going off without waking them?”

  “Them?” Mrs. Feeley sputtered. “She run off with the goddamdest outfit o’ ruffians you ever seen. Ain’t nobody left but him.”

  Old-Timer came in quietly. He had not bothered to undress. He shook hands with Dave and started gathering up the small handbags.

  “Aphrodite!” Miss Tinkham whispered. “We simply cannot abandon her to the clutches of that maniac…”

  “We can’t stop for her now,” Mrs. Feeley said. “We’ll get you another one first Thrift Shop we come to; we gotta save our skins right now.”

  “Now that I’ve told you,” Dave said, “I’m gonna shove right off. The man in the bar there is sound asleep and the fire’s out at the barbecue pit. Best thing for us to do is take no chances of being seen together. Wish I could be of more help, but I’ve done all I know how. You’re traveling so fast, there’s no use to try to tell the police about it.”

  “Hell, we’re in enough trouble now without dragging them dumb bunnies in on it; they’d put us in the Alcatraz for sure,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Beat it, boy. We’ll go down that highway like a celluloid cat through forest-fire. See you in San Diego, if God spares. I wish I’d a been a better Christian!”

  “Take care, now,” Mrs. Rasmussen whispered.

  “Thank you, David, for all you have done for us,” Miss Tinkham said. “We’ll leave at once. I have to decide immediately on a course of action. I simply cannot leave Aphrodite with that maniac. Heaven only knows what familiarity such a man might attempt. He may well be a fetishist of some sort.”

  “I’d get going, if I were you. Don’t stop any more than you can help. It’ll all be over and forgotten like a bad dream when we meet at your house. I’m off.”

  “G’by, Dave,” Mrs. Feeley whispered.

  “How can we get Aphrodite out of that madman’s room?” Miss Tinkham moaned. “I’d never forgive myself…”

  “They ain’t gonna be nothin’ left to forgive if we don’t get goin’,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Murdered to death by thugs, that’s what we’ll be.”

  Suddenly, Miss Tinkham gave in. “You are quite right,” she said. “This is a case of sauve qui peut. But after all”—she paused for a minute—”we undertook this dangerous mission at the behest of Inspector Connolly. He promised us something better than police protection; if we ever needed it, surely we need it now. The only thing to do is to make the telephone call and to notify him that we have been attacked, our very lives are in danger, and we want some of the protection that he promised us. I am going to make that telephone call. There was a booth in the main cabin…”

  “We’ll load up and be ready,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Be an awful waste o’ time, though, tryin’ to get him all the way to Pittsburgh in the middle o’ the night like this—Central stepped out for a short beer or somethin’…”

  “The operator never sleeps,” Miss Tinkham said, “and the call will go through more quickly now than it would in the daytime when the circuits are jammed. I do wonder what time it is?”

  Mrs. Rasmussen carried one bag and Old-Timer had the remainder.

  “While I am putting the call through,” Miss Tinkham said, “start the car and drive it behind the main cabin out of sight of the assassins.”

  “You go with her, Mrs. Rasmussen.” Mrs. Feeley stepped over the sill and shut the screen softly from the outside.

  The main cabin was dimly lighted and Miss Tinkham saw the bartender asleep with his head on his folded arms. She tiptoed to the telephone booth in the corner while Mrs. Rasmussen kept watch at the front door. In less than five minutes, Miss Tinkham came back. “He’s not there,” she said, “but I spoke to his wife.”

  “What we gonna do?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “She was very cryptic,” Miss Tinkham said. She opened the back door of the car and Mrs. Rasmussen got in.

  “What’d he say?” Mrs. Feeley whispered. “He’s not there,” Miss Tinkham said. “Gawd! Went off an’ left us in all this mess! Ain’t it just like a cop?” Mrs. Feeley sighed.

  “She was very sleepy,” Miss Tinkham said. “It’s well past three A.M. But when she finally made out who I was, she was very businesslike. Her husband left this message for us: Don’t let Freemartin out of your sight and keep going.”

  “A hell of a fine help that is,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “No matter what I asked her, that is all she would say. Those were his orders to her and she said he told her to relay them to us exactly the same way. I am most undecided as to what the best course really is.”

  “Don’t let him out of our sight an’ keep goin’,” Mrs. Feeley said. “I’m all in favor o’ that last part…”

  “Looks to me like the only thing we can do,” Mrs. Rasmussen said, “is to do what Connolly says: take him right with us to our home-diamond where all the cops knows us an’ we’ll get a fair shake.”

  “I guess that’s right,” Mrs. Feeley said, “but it’s sure dangerous.”

  “Also,” Miss Tinkham said, “we must not let him know that we are aware that he is being pursued by his mobsters. If he knew they were after him, he would try to make off to safer quarters with the narcotics. We must keep him in sight constantly; it will be up to Old-Timer to keep him under surveillance in the ah…more private personal moments.”

  “He’ll stick closer than a brother,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Be a whole lot easier,” Mrs. Rasmussen said, “with Uremia gone. Ol’-Timer an’ him can sleep in the same room when we stop nights.”

  “Stop nights?” Mrs. Feeley snorted. “If we ever get goin’ we ain’t gonna stop for nothin’ but beer an’ black coffee till we park right inside o’ our own parking lot.”

  “Mrs. Rasmussen may have to help out with the driving,” Miss Tinkham said. “I do not think it would be safe to stop anywhere; the syndicate spreads out over the entire country like the spokes of a wheel. There is nothing for it now but to beard the lion in his den. We must wake him.”

  “Ol’-Timer, keep her revved-up,” Mrs. Feeley said. “C’mon. If we gotta do it, no use dallyin’.”

  Dr. Freemartin slept soundly. When Mrs. Feeley finally roused him by kicking the door stoutly, he met the ladies with a murderous-looking knife in his hand.

  Miss Tinkham giggled nervously and began to sing in an unsteady voice:

  “Put down your bistouri,

  I’m not from Missouri,

  You’ve no cause to shorten MY life!”

  “Never can tell who it might be this time of night,” Dr. Freemartin said. “What’s the beef this time?”

  “Get in the wagon,” Mrs. Feeley said. “We’re goin’—it’s near four now.”

  “We did not come here for the purpose of serenading you,” Miss Tinkham picked up Aphrodite and went out the door.

  Dr. Freemartin put on his shoes and pointed to his blue zipper-bag. “Carry that,” he said to Mrs. Rasmussen.

  “Carry it yourself.” Mrs. Feeley kicked him pot over kettles as he tied his shoelaces. “Savin’ your hands for a pie-anna concert? Get a move on, you slimy…”

  “What you got the wind up for?” he said insolently. “You were all hopped-up about staying all night.”

  “We got homesick,” Mrs. Feeley said, “an’ I feel a headache comin’ on.” She herded him ahead of her out to the car. “A real bad headache,” she whispered to Mrs. Rasmussen, “the kind you get from a thirty-two slug between your scalp an’ your skull.”

  “What day o’ the week is it? What time o’ day is it? An’ where the hell are we?” Mrs. Feeley woke with a start. Miss Tinkham and Old-Timer were steering a valiant course through the early hours of the dawn. Occasionally, Miss Tinkham’s head dropped forward on her skinny chest, but soon snapped back to attention. Once in a while the blue Cadillac gave a dangerous spurt of speed that was caused by Old-Timer’s tiny catnaps. Dr. Freemartin snored away, slumped down in his corner. Miss Tinkham turned wearily to face
Mrs. Feeley.

  “It’s ten minutes past five—those red streaks in back of you are daylight over Oklahoma City. There was no use to stop there. Too many desperadoes…” She glanced uneasily at Dr. Freemartin, who continued to snore blissfully. “I am absolutely certain that Bubba the Lug was following us,” she whispered. “What was last night? Only Tuesday? It seems a century ago. It was Tuesday that we left the Blue Grotto, just after four in the morning. We have been on Route Sixty-six all the way. I almost told Old-Timer to turn off onto a country road when Bubba the Lug drew up alongside with that load of television sets.”

  “How’d you know it was him?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “I recognized him from his picture on the cover of Crime Magazine,” Miss Tinkham said. “Of course the load of television sets was only a front—loaded with sawed-off shotguns and dum-dum bullets, no doubt. He was cruising too close for comfort. I knew he was pursuing us because he went through a red light after us. Old-Timer very cleverly turned the corner when we heard the motorcycle siren. But it was close!” Miss Tinkham wiped her neck with a dingy handkerchief. “We’re out of Kleenex.”

  “Beer, too,” Mrs. Feeley said sadly.

  “What state are we in?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “The state of complete exhaustion,” Miss Tinkham said. “I don’t think even Old-Timer can hold out much longer. He simply must have rest.”

  “Can’t talk or plan nothin’ with him there.” Mrs. Feeley pointed at Dr. Freemartin.

  “Where’d you say we was?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “Outside of Oklahoma City,” Miss Tinkham said. “We have about two hundred and fifty miles to go before we reach Amarillo, Texas.”

  “Gawd, you don’t reckon that’s safe, do you?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Large gusts of wind and hot air come across the pampas,” Miss Tinkham said, “but they have all probably gone to the Maritime Alps for the summer.”

  “You’re feelin’ the strain,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “We stay on Sixty-six?”

  Miss Tinkham nodded, glancing at the crumpled map she held in her hand.