Fools' Gold

by Dolores Hitchens

  Skip was looking up at the house. “Where?”

  “The corner there upstairs.”

  “Open windows?”

  “No. She’s scared of the night air. Leaves the bathroom window open, the light on in there. I don’t know why, maybe because she’s nervous.”

  “What the hell are we beating our gums for out here? Let’s go in,” Skip said.

  “I don’t dare turn on a light,” Karen whispered. “You’ll have to follow me. Don’t fall over anything.”

  “Just lead me to the dough,” Skip said. “I won’t make any racket.”

  They crept into the house. This was a windowed porch. Eddie could see the shining white enamel ledges of laundry trays, a black door open in a white wall; he smelled disinfectant and soap.

  “This is the washroom,” Karen whispered. “We’ll go through the kitchen and on to the hall. There’s a big table in the middle of the kitchen, pots stacked on a shelf underneath. For God’s sake don’t touch that table.”

  “Where’s Stolz’s room?”

  “I’ll have to show you.”

  Feeling his way in the dark, Eddie saw with incredulous wonder how stupid they had been. He and Skip should have known all about the house, every obstacle; should have managed to look it over during the old woman’s absence, or drawn a map from Karen’s description. Now they had to be led along as if blind; and above him he felt the old woman on her bed, wide awake and waiting to hear them stumble. He fought panic again, glad that Skip couldn’t see.

  They got through the kitchen. Eddie’s eyes were adjusted to the dark; he could see the white rectangle of the table’s surface, so there was no problem in avoiding it. He kept expecting to bump into something invisible, though. Or to kick some pan or dish left for the dog to eat or drink from.

  Where was the dog?

  He wanted to ask Karen, but she was ahead of Skip and his voice might carry, might rouse the old woman upstairs.

  The hall was darker, closed in and stuffy. The house was old; you could smell age in it, old varnish and dead wax and underpinnings touched with mold, all clean and swept on the surface. There was none of the familiar effluvium of home, where the choking goiter and a palpitating heart kept his mother all but bedridden, and flies and dirt grew thicker day by day. Eddie’s shoes brushed the carpet, roused no smell of dust, just that of old wool and mothproofing. He all but ran into Skip. Skip and Karen had paused before a door.

  “Where’s the dog?” Eddie got out.

  “Upstairs. I shut him in my room.”

  Skip said, “What the hell’s the matter with the door?”

  “It doesn’t open!”

  “Here, let me try it.” Skip moved; Eddie heard his soft dry step on the wood beyond the carpet; he heard a sort of grunt and a faint click of metal. “For Chrissakes, it’s locked!”

  “No, it couldn’t be!” Karen whispered in a positive way.

  “Well, it goddamn well is. Here, Eddie, have a go at it and see if it isn’t locked.”

  Eddie tried the knob, warm from Karen and Skip’s hands. “Sure it’s locked.” He said in Karen’s direction, “Maybe she’s always locked it at night and you didn’t know it.”

  “It’s never been locked before,” Karen said positively. Her voice was beginning to quiver.

  “What about the windows?” Skip asked.

  “You’d need a ladder.”

  “Well, for Chrissakes get me a ladder!” Skip was angry and he was losing control, forgetting to keep his voice low. Eddie expected at any moment to be bathed in light, to find the old woman standing and looking at them from the other end of the hall.

  “The ladder’s in the garage. I’ll have to get the garage key from the hook in the kitchen.”

  After agonizing minutes of creeping back through the dark house, of delay while Karen put on her shoes and got the garage key and opened the garage and found the ladder, of the risk of noise and exposure, of Skip’s climbing the high old wall of the house above the basement windows, it came out——

  The windows of Stolz’s room were locked as tight as its door.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Eddie carried the ladder back to the garage and Karen, moving beside him in the dark, showed him where to stow it away. They came outside again and found Skip. He stood without moving, utterly silent, and Eddie had a sudden sense of warning. The next moment Skip had turned on Karen. He grabbed her and slammed her into the wall and then jerked his hand back and hit her with the edge of his fist. Her head snapped and Eddie heard the bump it gave against the garage wall. “You goddamn bitch!”

  Eddie said, “Skip, cut it out. We can’t have a racket here.”

  Skip paid no attention. “I’ll show you!” He snatched at her hair, got his fingers into it, jerked her forward almost off balance. She tried to catch his knees to keep from falling; he slapped her hands away. She’d begun to whimper. She stumbled around Skip, off balance, and then he yanked her head up again and she gave a small shrill cry.

  Eddie moved then. His action was involuntary, without plan. He put out a foot and then with a quick tentative step he was closer and pushing Skip in the face with his open hand. Skip tried to hang onto the girl and handle Eddie, but he couldn’t do it. Eddie got a good leverage under his chin and jabbed hard and Skip fell over backward. He was on his feet again in an instant, like a dropped cat. He moved in with a flurry of blows.

  Eddie wasn’t Skip’s kind of fighter. Skip danced and flicked his fists and tormented an opponent, while Eddie just stood and took punishment and waited; but pretty soon Eddie found what he was looking for and he let loose a solid heavy blow that snapped Skip’s head back and flung him off his feet. He sat there under the starshine, not hopping up as before, but stunned, groggy. “You leave her alone,” Eddie said. “From now on.”

  There seemed an eternity of quiet out there in the dim dark beside the old garage. Eddie stood over Skip. He was tensed, a hot fiddle-string tautness filling him, his fists hard as hammers. He was ready for Skip to move. Skip sat bent, his head hanging. His light-colored hair shone a little in the gloom, but his face was in shadow, and Eddie couldn’t even guess what sort of expression was on it. One thing he knew, Skip didn’t accept defeat. His reaction was always simply to be meaner and tougher and cleverer than ever.

  Oddly enough, Skip didn’t say much. He got to his feet, grunted, brushed at his clothes, and then looked around as if for Karen.

  Karen was across the open space, near the house. The light from the little window high in the wall shone down on her, and Eddie could see the look of shock she had, the tear shine on her face and the frightened attitude of her body. When Skip walked toward her she backed to the wall.

  Skip stood, balancing on the balls of his feet, his hands in his pockets. He said almost indifferently, “You’re okay, aren’t you?”

  Eddie wondered why she didn’t run into the house. She was scared; Skip’s violence had astounded her. But he heard her whisper, “Yes, I’m okay.”

  “Sore at me?”

  “You didn’t have to hurt me,” Karen said. “Finding the door locked was just as big a surprise to me as it was to you.” She was looking at Skip now as if something about him was new and unfamiliar.

  Skip stood quietly, almost meekly. It was an act, of course. Eddie had seen Skip do it a thousand times, and though it was false, a fantastic pretense, he could almost believe—as Karen must—that Skip was sorry for what he had done. “Well, sure, I blew my stack over nothing. Why do you think she locked the door if she’s never done it before?”

  “On account of the coat,” Karen said wearily. “Mr. Stolz kept it lying on the money, covering the money so you didn’t see it if you accidentally opened the door of the wardrobe. Maybe she knew where the coat belonged or maybe she didn’t recognize it because Mr. Stolz never wears it. I don’t know. She got excited when she found it
lying on the bed.”

  After a while Skip said musingly, “What a rotten break.”

  Karen didn’t say anything. She knew that Skip blamed her.

  Skip said, “Well, you’ll have to find that key tomorrow.”

  “Oh no, Skip! Please! It’s too dangerous. It’s time to stop now.”

  “You’ll find it,” Skip insisted. He didn’t take any step nearer, but something in his eyes that Karen could see, that Eddie couldn’t see from where he stood, seemed to frighten her. “You’ll be sure that door’s not locked tomorrow night, and we’ll be here right on schedule. Then afterwards we’ll have fun.”

  Eddie wished there was some way he might have comforted her. She looked as if her world were coming apart at the seams.

  Eddie let himself into the rear of the house. There was no one in the living room tonight. From the bedroom he heard his father’s snoring. He knew that his mother must be lying in there awake and miserable, trying to rest because that was what the doctor had told her to do, but kept from sleeping by the grunts and snorts of her husband.

  The bastard abused her even in sleep, Eddie thought, tiptoeing across to his own door. Inside, he pulled off his jacket and shirt and flung them over a chair and sat down on the bed to unlace his shoes. They were tennis sneakers and quite shabby; the laces had knots in them and Eddie had to pluck with his nails until they loosened enough for him to shuck off the shoes.

  The money in Stolz’s room would buy a hell of a lot of shoes. A million other things besides, too. Eddie threw the tennis sneakers under the chair and sat thinking of what he would buy with his share of the loot when they pulled off the job. There would be a tremendous amount of cash. Enough for dozens of suits, shirts, sharp new shoes, a car. An operation for his mother, removing the ugly balloon at the base of her throat. Clothes for her, all kinds of silk dresses, a fur coat, new furniture for the house if she wanted it. And all this, dazzling as it was, would only scratch the surface.

  An odd uneasiness stirred in his mind.

  It was hard to conceive of all the possibilities wrapped up in the bundle of money in Stolz’s wardrobe. When you were used to a dollar or two, even a hundred seemed more than you could count. A thousand was fabulous. With five thousand you’d feel like doing something silly, maybe, just to be spending, something crazy like buying a gold-plated switch blade . . . or taking dancing lessons so you could do fancy steps better than anybody . . . or buying all silk shirts with monograms . . . His imagination sought for other images, roamed in a dazzle of overwhelming splendor.

  Under the dazzle the uneasiness increased. Eddie put his finger on it. The natural, crazy things you did with a lot of money were the things he and Skip had to be careful not to do.

  They needed a plan. He hunted around through the cloud of dissatisfaction and apprehension in his mind and decided that what worried him was Skip’s apparently deliberate lack of planning. Skip was either unable or unwilling to choose a course of action and stick to it. He wanted to improvise, to make his decisions when the time came for them; and even Eddie could see the danger in it.

  Eddie roused himself, shed his pants, snapped off the light, and crawled under the thin covers. He stretched his body on the bed. To hell with worrying. This job was Skip’s baby. Let Skip do the worrying.

  He found himself thinking of Karen then. The idea came abruptly; she was too young for Skip. The clothes the old woman put on her made her look old for her years; but inside, Karen was terribly unadult. It was as if she’d been stunted at about the age of twelve, never allowed to grow further, so that in addition to the youngness there was an inner hunger and craving, a need. The need had sent her to Skip, as if he might show her how to grow up and be a woman.

  You got smart around Skip, Eddie thought, but you didn’t grow up because Skip has never grown up and has no idea how to show anyone else to do it.

  Eddie sat up in the dark, rubbing his head. The memory of the moment came back, how he’d stood over Skip with his fists knotted, wanting Skip to get up and dance around him some more so that he could land another scorcher.

  Now why did I want to do that? Eddie wondered. Why in Chrissakes should I get so worked up over Karen, when she’s Skip’s girl and he ought to be able to treat her the way he wants to?

  Skip was twenty-two. My God, he ought to know by now how women should be treated.

  Skip stood in the dark at the foot of the steps to Willy’s room. He smoked a cigarette, listened to the voices from upstairs. That big bastard was there again with his uncle and Skip had an ominous feeling that his coming in late was a mistake.

  Finally he went on upstairs and opened the door. Uncle Willy sat on his cot in his pajamas and cotton robe. His skinny feet, the toes knobbed with corns, were tucked Buddha-fashion at his knees. He smiled nervously at Skip. “Well. Hello. You’re pretty late tonight. Something keep you?”

  Skip knew all at once that his clothes and his face showed the effects of his bout with Eddie. “I had a fight over a bitch.”

  “Now that’s interesting. Who’s the lady?”

  “Karen Miller.” Skip hadn’t moved away from the door. He was waiting for some action from Big Tom, who was standing across the room. The big brush of gray hair caught the light; the freckles were brilliant against the pale skin. A typical con, Skip thought in disgust. He thought he’d never seen a guy who showed prison like Tom did.

  Big Tom began to walk toward him on the balls of his feet. He exuded authority and power. He could run over Skip or anybody like a hippo over a mouse. Skip hated him so fiercely it was dizzying.

  Big Tom stopped about two feet from Skip. “Who’d you fight?”

  “Eddie Barrett.”

  “That half-Mex punk?” Uncle Willy cried. “You still messing around with him?”

  “Tell us about it,” Big Tom suggested.

  The tone warned Skip. He had to take this easy. He said, “Well, this girl, this Karen Miller, she’s trying to make a play for me. She wouldn’t talk about the money unless I took her home in the car. Eddie came along.”

  “You went out to the house?” Big Tom asked sharply.

  “Not all the way. I got her to the neighborhood, near enough to walk, and I asked about the dough, Stolz’s money, and she got cute. I was . . . uh . . . urging her a little when Eddie blew up. Oh, hell, in the end it wasn’t anything. But it took time.” Skip thought, Time’s what I’ve got to explain. That’s all they give a damn about.

  “Eddie got sore over what you were doing to the girl?” Big Tom asked. “That doesn’t sound so good.”

  “Ah, he’s soft in the head. I’m glad now I’m not going through with it with him.”

  Big Tom was watching him sharply. “You explained about that?”

  “Oh, sure, once Karen had spilled, I let on I’d turned cold on the idea.”

  “How did Barrett take it?”

  “Just . . . nothing.” Skip shrugged. “He didn’t have any complaints. Hell, he wouldn’t know what to do with a sawbuck if he got that much together.”

  “He heard everything Karen had to say?”

  “Yeah, I couldn’t get rid of him.” Skip was feeling his way cautiously, wary for any sign of violence from Big Tom, any indication Big Tom needed to prove who was boss again. “He’s just a sap, he doesn’t know what it’s all about. He’s busy thinking all the time about his mother being sick and his old man steamed up on vino.”

  Big Tom seemed to believe Skip. He walked over and sat down on one of the battered straight chairs, a discard from Mr. Chilworth’s place up front, reversing the chair and folding his big arms across the back. “I want to know about the place. The house, inside. The money. Where it is and how much.”

  “Well . . . as for the house . . .” Skip sat down on his bed. “The way Karen describes it, there’s a hall from the kitchen. Several doors in it. Stolz’s room is to the right. He k
eeps the money in a wardrobe, a kind of thing Karen says is half drawers and half a kind of cupboard for clothes.”

  “I know about wardrobes.”

  “Well, the money is in the big half under a coat, just piled there. She hasn’t counted it. Looks like a lot.”

  “The room’s never locked?”

  “Nah, it’s never locked.” Skip forced himself to meet Big Tom’s gaze with an air of frankness. It’ll be locked when you get there, you bastard. There won’t be anything inside, though.

  “That’s what I don’t like. The carelessness.” Big Tom was frowning. Uncle Willy picked up a flower-seed catalogue off the cot and riffled its pages nervously. “If it was anyone but Stolz . . . If it was the old woman, for instance. I could believe she’d stuff the money in there and be stupid enough to think no one would find it. Hell, they do it all the time, little old ladies keeping a wad in a teapot or a tomato can.”

  Skip shook his head. “The money belongs to Stolz. Karen’s sure of it.”

  He had a flash of hope that Big Tom would worry himself right out of the job, but the hope faded. Big Tom got up and picked up his coat, shrugged into it. “Well, there’s a reason, God knows what. I don’t expect to move, though, until I hear from Benny in Las Vegas. That should be tomorrow. I’ll get in touch with you, Willy. You and Skip can be figuring out where you’ll be. I happened to think—— Skip being in class, that would be good enough. You need to be where people will see you, Willy; I don’t believe I’d do the jail routine.”

  “You can’t argue with a jail record,” Uncle Willy repeated.

  “It makes you look bad,” Big Tom said firmly. “Do something else.”

  “All right.”

  “I’ll see that Snope is notified; he’ll be standing by in case we need him.” Big Tom went to the door, paused there to give Skip a studying glance. “I don’t think we’ll have any trouble. Getting it shouldn’t amount to much. Keeping out of Stolz’s way afterwards might take a little work. Or it could be he can’t afford a squawk and there’s nothing to be afraid of.”