The Snatchers

by Lionel White

  He looked up to see Gino take the weapon from his shoulder.

  Dent was cursing under his breath as he reached the window and tore the gun from the man’s hands. And then, looking out, he saw Pearl’s body lying crumpled some two feet in front of the Packard. Red had fallen a couple of yards closer to the house.

  Fats stared open-mouthed.

  Dent turned back from the window and carefully pulled the revolver from his shoulder holster.

  Gino stood near the center of the room. “Nobody’s getting out of here unless I go with 'em,” he said. “Nobody.”

  For a long second Dent stared at him. He lifted the gun in his hand slowly.

  “You’re crazy,” he said.

  His index finger pressed the trigger as the words left his mouth.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  He was dead tired; as exhausted as he had ever been in his life. For more than forty-eight hours he’d been completely without sleep. His eyes were rimmed with red and there were dark patches under them. He had been staring out of the front window as dawn broke. One of the first things he noticed was that the bodies of Pearl and Red still lay where they had fallen.

  They had taken the television cameras away sometime during the night; probably after Fats had sent the rifle bullets in their direction. The loudspeakers were still there, the police were still there, but the crowds massed in the distance had been dispersed or drawn farther back out of sight.

  They had reached a stalemate and Dent knew it. From the moment when Gino had shot down Pearl and Red, he had realized that any ultimate compromise was out of the question. Up until that point, he had hoped that something might be worked out. But the staccato crack of those machine-gun bullets had put a period to any such hopes.

  There were, of course, still Terry and the Wilton child. Their safety, in the eyes of the law, was still the only important consideration. But the thing had passed the stage of being a simple kidnaping. Desperadoes they had always been. Now they were desperadoes with blood on their hands, and there was probably no doubt in anyone’s mind that more blood would flow.

  Several times during the night the police had pleaded with them to give up. Once Janie Wilton’s mother herself had gone on the air, begging the kidnapers to release her child. Dent had not answered. There was no answer but silence.

  Early Sunday morning, Fats had gone up to sleep. He took the submachine gun with him. Dent had realized that Fats no longer trusted him.

  Once, during the early hours of the morning, Dent had walked back into the other room and stared for a number of minutes at Janie as she lay sleeping on the cot. The child’s hair was covering one eye and she lay on her back with her arms spread wide. Terry had covered her with a heavy blanket.

  As Dent looked at the child, he was aware of the older girl’s eyes on him.

  “It won’t be long now,” he said. And then, a moment later, he wondered why he had said it.

  Fats was back downstairs by seven-thirty. He hadn’t shaved during the last two days and there was a short, unhealthy-looking stubble on his pudgy face.

  “We’re out of food,” Fats said after a while. “Out of food, out of liquor; even out of coffee. It’s time we got out of here ourselves.”

  “All right,” Dent said. “All right, let’s do something about it. But first, let’s play it smart. Let’s get something to eat, and a bottle of whisky. Then, after we’ve rested up a bit, we’ll make the break.”

  “You’re crazy,” Fats said. “Let’s make the break now. How the hell are

  we getting whisky and food outa this, huh?”

  “The kid needs food, too,” Dent said. “They’ll send in food for her.”

  “Send it in?” Fats asked. “How?”

  “We can send the girl out for it,” Dent said. “Send her out with a note. Give her a deadline. If she isn’t back within an hour...”

  Fats threw his cigarette butt on the floor and stood up.

  “You’re nuts,” he said. “Send her out and that’ll be the last of her. They’d never let her come back and she’d never want to come back.”

  “Look,” Dent said. “We have nothing to lose. The kid is the one they’re interested in. If we try for the break, we’re better off with only her to worry about. So we got nothing to lose. Let the girl go with a note. If she comes back, then we get the grub. If she doesn’t, we make the break anyway.”

  For several minutes they argued and gradually Fats came around to Dent’s way of thinking. He was hungry, and the idea of food, and possibly whisky, appealed to him.

  Dent wrote out the note. He made it simple and to the point. He asked for the whisky and food and told them they’d give the girl exactly sixty minutes. If she hadn’t returned by then, they’d come out shooting, with the child. He carefully folded the note and went into the other room.

  Terry was quietly talking with Janie.

  “You’re going out,” he said, his voice harsh. “I want you to take this note and deliver it. I’m sending you for food. Food and booze. You want this kid to eat, you’ll come back with it. Get ready.”

  Janie started to cry as he turned on his heel.

  Terry spent several minutes whispering to the child, and then she came into the other room. Fats watched her as she crossed the room.

  “Take this,” Dent said, and handed the girl a white towel. “Keep it in your hands and your hands over your head. Once you get out on the porch, walk straight to the nearest police car.”

  He stepped through the doorway with the girl and suddenly he leaned close to her. Quickly he spoke in an undertone that he was sure couldn’t be heard by Fats inside the room.

  “Don’t come back,” he said. “Don’t come back. There’s nothing more you can do, now.”

  He gave her a push and ducked back into the room.

  Fats looked over at him, his lips twisted. “That’s the last you’ll see of that dame,” he said. “She won’t come back.”

  Dent shrugged. “We’ll see,” he said. He picked up the field glasses. He watched through the curtains as Terry made her way across the yard. She cut a wide circle around the Packard and the two bodies lying near it.

  Holding the towel over her head, the girl then made a straight line for * the row of police cars. Dent watched as she neared them. She never changed her slow steady pace. He knew that only a superhuman effort could keep her from breaking into a run. Well, she was a woman with

  guts, all right.

  Moments later he turned back to the room. They would have an hour, and in that sixty minutes he must make his plans. Fats didn’t believe the girl would return. He alone knew that she wouldn’t.

  At the end of forty-five minutes, Fats spoke.

  “Well,” he said, “fifteen minutes more. So how we going to work it?”

  “I’ll take the kid and go first,” Dent said. “I’ll keep a gun at the back of her head. They’ll have glasses on us, and they’ll know that at the first shot, the kid’s life won’t be worth a damn. You take the money and follow me. We’ll get into the car. I’ll get in back with the kid. You can drive.”

  “The idea’s all right,” Fats said. “Only I’ll keep the gun on the kid. I won’t hesitate. And you drive.”

  It wasn’t what Dent wanted, and they argued it back and forth for several moments. At last, Dent, realizing he had no logical objections to offer, agreed to the latter plan.

  “O.K.,” he said. “I’ll take the Tommy gun and the money. You can carry the shotgun and a revolver.”

  “Why don’t I take the Tommy gun?” Fats said, his tone sullen.

  “You’ll have your hands full with the kid,” Dent said. “And for God’s sake, remember one thing: Make one false move and we’re all through. You gotta keep the kid between them and us. And don’t let your hand slip. Our lives depend on her.” He looked at his watch again. “Five more minutes,” he said.

  Turning toward the mantel, Dent started to take down the submachine gun. Fats had walked over to the window,
when suddenly he swung on his heel.

  “Well, for God’s sake!” he said.

  Dent ran to look out.

  Terry Ballin, a large package under her left arm and the white towel in her right hand, was walking back toward the hideout.

  Time stood still for Cal Dent as he crouched motionless in the window and watched the girl’s slow return to the cottage. His mouth worked, but he was unconscious of speaking as he muttered, “Oh, God. Oh, God, the fool! The blind, damned, insane fool.” Over and over he repeated the words in an inarticulate monotone.

  Why was she doing it? Why was she coming back when he had ordered her not to? She must have known in her heart that only violence and

  death awaited her in the cottage.

  And then this man Dent, who from his earliest childhood had lived by the law of the jungle, who had forever worshiped only at the altar of greed and selfishness, who had been aloof from all men and all women, this man had a strange and unusual thought.

  She has love; that was the thought in his mind. A love beyond selfishness and the need for safety. Love beyond fear or desire.

  For the first time in his entire life, Cal Dent understood something about the human heart that he had never heretofore known.

  He watched her and he also thought: God, what courage she has! Would I have as much if I were in her shoes?

  Dent unlatched the door and Terry entered. Putting her package on the table, she handed Dent an envelope. Her face was expressionless.

  Janie was calling Terry from the other room and the girl turned and went to her as Dent tore open the note. Fats watched over his shoulder as he read it.

  We have sent the food and a bottle of whisky, as you requested (he read]. We have permitted Miss Ballin to return, in order to assure you of our fair intentions. We are ready to make a deal. Release the child unharmed and all police will withdraw from within sight of the house. The moment the child is released, we will call off every person within two miles. You still have the car and the money. You will then be free to make your getaway. In order to assure you doubly of our fair intentions, Miss Ballin is willing to go with you with the understanding that you will release her unharmed once you have reached a principal highway. You will have an hour to reach a decision. If you have failed to do so in that time, we must take our chance and attack.

  The note was signed by Colonel Newbold and Gregory Wilton. “They’re liars,” Fats said. “Liars. Let the kid go and they’ll come in

  shooting, girl or no girl.”

  “We’ll still have the girl,” Dent said.

  “The hell with the girl,” Fats said. “It’s the kid they want. Hell, if they’d cared anything about the girl, they’d never have sent her back in the first place.”

  Dent didn’t answer, but walked over to the table and began to unwrap the package. He took out a loaf of bread, a quarter of a pound of butter; and some cold cuts. There was a fifth of rye and a quart of milk. He called to Terry, “There’s some grub here for the kid.”

  He used his thumbnail to open the whisky bottle. Walking to the sink, he reached for two shot glasses and a water glass. He went back to the table and set down the glasses, and then poured two drinks. Then he filled the water glass with water.

  “We’ll have a drink,” he said, “and talk it over.”

  As he put the glass to his lips, Dent’s mind was in a complete turmoil. He knew that Fats wouldn’t change his mind; that he still wanted to follow the first plan and use the child as well as the girl for a shield in attempting to make the break. And Dent knew that it wouldn’t work. There wasn’t a chance.

  A good man with a telescopic sight on a high-powered rifle would be able to cut them down before they could even see a target to shoot at. Even Fats, holding a gun on the child, could be slain before he would have a chance to pull the trigger. Of course, it would be a risk. But Dent firmly believed the police would take that risk before they would let them clear out with the child.

  No, it wouldn’t work. And even if it did work, by some miracle, Dent had finally realized that they would have no hope of making a final break. Every cop in the country would be watching out for them. Yes, they might get back to the highway, all right, but then what? Where could they go from there? It was, Dent realized at last, completely hopeless.

  He poured a second drink and was suddenly aware that Fats had crossed the room and was stuffing his pockets with money. He used one hand; in the other was an automatic.

  And then he knew. Time had run out on him. Now it was no longer a matter of the police and the federal men and those others. It was a matter of the man in this room with him.

  Backing slowly across the room toward the door leading into the back bedroom, Dent spoke casually.

  “Guess I’ll go and get some of that grub,” he said. He deliberately turned his back. The couch was alongside the wall next to the door. Dent had carelessly tossed the Tommy gun on the couch the last time he had held it. As he swung to the doorway, he suddenly stooped down and reached. A second later he leaped into the back room and quickly slammed the door after himself.

  He heard Fats curse.

  For the next few moments there wasn’t a sound in the place. And then Dent spoke to Terry in a harsh whisper, half turning his head.

  “Get over in the far corner,” he said. “Quick. Take the kid with you and get down on the floor. Pull the table over in front of you.”

  Janie started to say something, but Terry quickly put her hand over the

  child’s mouth and pulled her away from the center of the room.

  Fats’ voice reached them.

  “What the hell are you pulling, Cal?” he called. “What goes on here?”

  Dent quickly turned to see that the girl and the child were out of the line of fire from the door. Then he called out.

  “I’m corning out,” he said. “I’m coming out and I’m coming ready to shoot. When I kick this door open, I want you standing in the center of the room, with your hands over your head.”

  He lifted the gun slightly in his arms, and as he did so there was a burst of gunfire. A splintered hole appeared like magic in the center of the wooden door. The crash was followed a split second later by a quick succession of pistol shots. Dent flattened himself against the wall.

  He waited for a full half minute and then, stepping sideways, kicked the living-room door open with his foot. He was firing the Tommy gun as he walked with even steps into the other room.

  Fats Morn stood in the very center of the room. His short, chunky body was in the direct line of fire and he stood wordlessly as the bullets cut a pattern across his wide stomach. His loose mouth fell open and he gave a strangled, half-choked sob as he pitched backward. His head struck the floor with an odd, hollow sound.

  Dent’s eyes followed the fat man’s body as it dropped and he was dimly aware of a piece of green paper, a five-dollar bill, as it listlessly blew across the floor.

  He was aware of the child’s thin, high scream coming from the other room. It was a cry of fright and not of pain.

  His right hand loosened and the submachine gun thudded to the floor. He turned and walked to the front door.

  Standing there in the opened doorway, he started to lift his arms over his head.

  His eyes were half blinded by the flaming sun coming up out of the east, but he was able to see the three police cars racing toward the house. He didn’t see the muzzles of the guns that were pointed directly at him.

  He didn’t feel it as the leaden barrage cut through his chest and body and he slowly crumpled into the sand.

  The End

  $19.95

  “Lionel White’s crime novels... were the next generation of lean, tight stories told in the hardboiled style of Dashiell Hammett.”

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  “White is an important figure in the history of noirboiled as a pioneer of the criminal procedural; you can draw a direct line from White’s work to Donald E. Westlake’s Parker novels.”
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  CLEAN BREAK

  “Packed with hard-boiled action and suspense. Once of the best thrillers I’ve read in this or any season.”

  Jack Webb

  “This is a pretty hardboiled story, very well told and populated with realistic if seedy characters, all of which make this a very, very compelling read.”

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  “A lightning-fast read... and as lean and mean as they come.”

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  “White is the master of the heist (gone wrong) novel.”

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  Lionel White was born July 9,1905 in New York City. He started his career as a police reporter and true crime magazine editor, and turned those experiences toward fiction writing with his first novel, The Snatchers, in 1953, about a failed kidnapping. He wrote more than 35 books, many of them translated into different languages and turned into films like The Night of the Following Day, The Money Trap, The Big Caper, Pierrot le Fou and perhaps most famously, The Killing, adapted by Stanley Kubrick from White's novel, Clean Break. He was considered the master of the big caper, and was credited by director Quentin Tarantino with the inspiration for his film, Reservoir Dogs. White died December 26,1985, in Asheville, North Carolina.

  ISBN 978-1-944520-19-9