The Big Book of Reel Murders

by Stories That Inspired Great Crime Films (epub)

  Simms cleared his throat. A stub of toothpick fell on the floor between Steve’s feet—the wood Simms chewed, the cigar he couldn’t have. “Remember,” he said, “it’s not what a man wants; it’s what he has to do.”

  “Let me alone,” Steve said.

  The heavy legs went away. And Steve could hear the crash of a steel door closing. An ordinary guy—Joe Citizen, taxpayer—could have yelled for help. But not Steve Lacy. Lacy was an ex-con with a big ten on the book against him. With a cop like Simms, ex-cons weren’t human. They were things to be kicked around and used, stool pigeons and nothing else. And an ex-con’s wife—less than that. Less than the toothpick Simms had dropped on the floor. Lacy stared at the shredded bit of wood. No picnic at the lake——not tomorrow. He wondered if Ella would cry. No. Ella, baby, don’t waste your tears.

  * * *

  —

  Thursday morning and the clock was yelling again. Sunshine fell through the bedroom window. There was a note on Ella’s pillow. “Darling. I’m taking the car so I can shop and get back early. We’ve got a date today…remember.” Lipstick in the shape of a kiss.

  Steve sat on the edge of the bed, holding Ella’s note in his scarred hands. He felt old and heavy and very tired. All night in his dreams he’d tried to run while Doc Pennypacker and Pat Simms had laughed at him. He looked about the bedroom now, at the closet, the dressing table. Ella’s scuffed blue slippers were beside the dressing-table bench—one upright, one on its side. He could feel her presence in the room.

  The taste of regret was bitter in his mouth. They let you out, but they didn’t let go. You took the place with you when you went down the road: the cell blocks, the yard, the foundry, the walls. You had it up there on your back, every stinking brick and bolt and bar of it, when you went down the road.

  “Time you were getting up.” Doc Pennypacker stood in the doorway. “Your wife’s gone. We got some talking to do before she gets back.”

  “No,” Steve said. “We’re all through talking.”

  Doc’s blue eyes were cold. “You haven’t forgot Benny, Stevie.”

  “No,” Steve said. “I’m going along. I’ll drive for you. But that’s all I’m going to do. Win or lose, Doc, that’s every damned bit all.”

  “Good boy,” Doc said. “I love you, Stevie.”

  Steve said, “Get out. I want to dress.”

  Doc was waiting in the kitchen. He spread a map of the city on the breakfast table. “We got extra license plates,” he said. “I got ’em yesterday. After your wife gets back, you keep her busy and I’ll put ’em on with wire so we can yank ’em in a hurry.” His voice was tight and raw and he could not control the twitching in his hand. “Everything else is marked on the map, Stevie. We got one light to jump, and then we’re down the alley to the Drive. Then we roll. We hit the Drive and we roll and we’re in the clear. It’s a good plan, Stevie.”

  A good plan—if the cops all dropped dead and the radio quit.

  “You got it, Stevie? You know the route?”

  “It’s my town,” Steve said. “I got it, Doc.”

  “We leave here at eleven-thirty.”

  “We leave at ten and then come back,” Steve said. “I got an errand to do. You can ride with me or you can wait.”

  Doc said, “Errand. I don’t like this errand stuff.”

  “Go away,” Steve said. “You spoil my breakfast.”

  Doc Pennypacker folded the map and put it in his pocket. He took the sports page and sat on a stool by the stove. He rattled the paper, but he didn’t read. He was jumpy—as jumpy as Johnny Dianco’d been, and where was Johnny now?

  “Your wife,” Doc said. “She just drove in.”

  “I’ll help her unload the car,” Steve said.

  He carried the groceries in—two boxes, two trips. Then he put his hips against the drainboard, leaning there, while Ella heaped her packages on the table. “I splurged,” she said. “Beer, and that cheese you like. We’re going to have a swell lunch, a swell picnic. There’s no wind. It’ll be warm on the island.”

  “Sure,” Steve said. “It’ll be warm today.”

  Doc Pennypacker said, “Stevie, it’s almost ten.”

  He went out the back way and down the steps. Steve waited until he heard the car door close. “I’ve got an errand,” he said. “We’ll be right back.”

  “I’ll pack the lunch while you’re gone.”

  “After you kiss me, you will,” Steve said.

  The shopping center was a mile from the house. The bank—Bay Road Branch—was open when Steve parked at the curb. Doc was at Steve’s side when he went through the door and up to the counter. Steve gave the girl the number of his safe-deposit box and signed the slip. Doc stayed at the counter, grinning, while Steve took the box into the booth and dumped its contents on the shelf. Steve endorsed the bonds—the thin sheaf of bonds—and that did not take long. He closed the box and took it back and went out through the counter gate.

  “All done,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Doc said, “Quit worrying, Stevie. This’ll be a cinch.”

  “So was the last one,” Steve said. “Get in the car.”

  “That Dianco was a punk,” Doc said.

  The car moved toward the city limits. Steve watched the road. The bonds were in Ella’s name now. The checking account was hers. He’d done what he could. The loose ends were all caught up—all but one.

  “You had me sweating,” Doc said. “I’ll admit it now. You had me guessing, Stevie. I had a notion you might try to blow the whistle—even with Devers and Benny coming out. A crazy thing, but you were acting crazy. That errand of yours—that thing at the bank. A man wouldn’t do a thing like that if he was going to holler cop.”

  “I said I’d drive,” Steve said. “I will.”

  Doc said, “I know that now.”

  Steve put the car in the garage and left Doc there to wire the extra plates in place while he went in the house. The lunch was packed, ready to go. Ella was doing the dishes, humming at her work. Steve got a tea towel from the rack.

  “Doc’s leaving,” he said. “I’ll have to take him into town.”

  “Can’t we drop him on the way?”

  “No,” Steve said. “I’ll take him and then come back.”

  “I’ll be waiting on the porch,” she said.

  Doc came in and got his suitcase and took it out to the car. The clock on the kitchen wall said eleven-ten. Steve dried the coffee cups and put them carefully in the cupboard. Ella would be waiting on the porch. With her hat on and the lunch in a cardboard box, she’d be waiting on the porch.

  “Ella, baby,” he said. “I love you. I want you to know that.”

  She smiled at him. “I’m glad, Steve.”

  The minutes ran away. Eleven-twenty. Eleven-twenty-five. Doc was kicking gravel in the drive. His suitcase was in the car. He’d opened and closed it there. The guns probably were on the front seat of the car. Or maybe Doc’s was tucked in the top of his pants under his coat.

  “Steve,” Ella said. “What’s the matter?”

  “I was just thinkin’,” he said, “of a guy I used to know.”

  Doc was at the back door. “Stevie, I got a train to catch.”

  Steve kissed the top of Ella’s head. He went out the door and down the stairs. Doc was already in the car when he reached the garage. Steve saw the shine of gun metal on the seat. He started the motor and let it run.

  “What’s eatin’ you?” Doc said. “Why the funny look?”

  “I’m goin’ back,” Steve said. “I’m going to kiss my wife good-by.”

  “You did that once.”

  “With you watching me, Doc. With you breathing on my neck.” Steve made a fist and rubbed it in an open palm. “Like you said, it happens that I love my wife. I’m going to say good-by to her alone or I do
n’t drive you. I do or I don’t play, Doc. That’s the way it is.”

  “Chump,” Doc said. “You’ll see her in a day or two.”

  Steve looked at Doc, but did not speak. He could not speak.

  “Go ahead,” Doc said. “But make it short.”

  The kitchen was empty. Ella was in the bedroom, singing there. She was cleaning up, making the bed. Steve went into the hall. He stood in the bedroom door. The telephone was on the wall of the hall, within the reach of his hand. He caught up the book, flipping through the yellow pages as Ella turned.

  “Put your fingers in your ears,” he said. “This one I don’t want you to hear. I’m going to call my blonde.” He couldn’t keep the roughness from his voice. “Better yet,” he said, “put your head under a pillow. I don’t want you to know her name.”

  “You’re going to take her on the picnic, Steve?”

  There was laughter in her voice—laughter and trust.

  “Get under the pillow,” he said. “I don’t want you to know.”

  He had found the number he wanted. He was dialing now.

  “You’re the boss,” Ella said. “You’re the man I love.”

  She smoothed the bedspread, smiling still. She lay on the bed, face down, and pulled a pillow over her head. “Like this?” she said, and her laughing voice was faint. “Like this, while you date a blonde?”

  “Just like that,” he said.

  “Zenner Brothers,” a crisp voice said. “Wholesale diamonds.”

  “Listen.” Steve spoke into the hand he’d cupped around the instrument. “Get this and get it straight. It’s eleven-thirty now. You’re going to be held up at noon. I mean that, man. At noon—straight up. Get cops. Get plenty of cops.”

  “Held up?” the voice said. “Who is this?”

  Steve said, “A friend of yours. A guy who knows.”

  He put the receiver back on the hook, cutting the crisp voice short.

  “I can’t hear a word,” Ella said. “Tell me when you’re through.”

  He walked into the bedroom. He spatted her where she sat down, just hard enough to sting. She yelped and pushed the pillow away. He drew her to her feet. He kissed her hair and then he kissed her lips.

  “The hell with the blonde,” he said. “She can’t compare with you.”

  Ella smiled. “Say that again, Steve.”

  The horn called him. Doc Pennypacker was on the horn.

  “You’re the only one,” he said.

  “Please,” Ella said. “Please hurry back.”

  Steve got behind the wheel and started the motor again. He idled the motor until the oil pressure came up. He checked the ammeter. He could drive for Doc, but he couldn’t mistreat that motor. A sackful of kittens, a sweet and beautiful thing. He was going to hate being without that motor.

  “You kissed her good-by?” Doc asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “A real girl,” Doc said. “You send her a wire in a couple of days and she’ll come running. She’ll stick, Stevie, thick or thin. You got nothing to worry about where that girl is concerned. Take it from old Doc.”

  Steve got the car rolling.

  So Doc didn’t know. That’s what came of being a muscle-head. You said you wanted to go back and kiss your wife and Doc bought it. It was the kind of dumb thing a guy with a face like his would do. Figure an angle—no! He couldn’t think his way out of a wet paper bag. Take this. Some answer he’d got for this. Maybe a little more time and he’d have found a way through. But now—one long slide, coming up.

  “Plenty of time,” Doc said. “But don’t waste it.”

  Steve drove a little faster.

  Doc was quiet now. Outside. Inside he was keyed up, singing like piano wire. Little things came through. He pulled a cigarette in two trying to get it out of the pack. Not shaky; too strong. He breathed funny through that bugle nose. Doc was wire-tight. A man like that, what would he do when the trap sprung? Anything. You couldn’t tell. He might fall in a pile, he might fly to bits like a busted clock, he might start shooting. That gun in the customer’s back. A nervous jerk of that finger and they were gone. Steve’s big fingers crawled on the wheel, gripping it. You drive for a guy on a job and somebody gets killed, you split the gas chambers with him. That’s what happens.

  “You know the way out?” Doc asked. “You’re sure?”

  “It’s my town,” Steve said.

  Doc swore. “Your town. What the hell, your town. I want to know. Give me the way out. What streets?”

  Steve gave it to him.

  “Okay,” Doc said. “Keep it solid in that thick head of yours. I don’t want any mistakes, see?”

  It was a mistake that Doc had ever been born. He was a thickhead, sure; but that Doc had a crack in his. A mile wide. Why’d they ever let guys like Doc out of the pen? They ought to be able to tell. Steve Lacy could tell. He could take them through the pen, and point the right ones out. “This guy and this guy and that one. What they did was wrong and they know it. These others, they think what they did was right. Keep those.” That easy, you could tell.

  Doc said, “Watch where you’re going, damn it!”

  Steve had eased up to a stop street behind a truck, stopping close up to the truck. Not too close; the way he always did it. But Doc was wire-tight and jumpy. It scared Doc. A man like that with a gun. Lord, Lord!

  He passed the truck. Two blocks, turn left. He was a guy in a dream. He could see and feel, he could taste the sweat on his lips, but it wasn’t real. It wasn’t Steve Lacy doing this. Not the kid who’d died a million times doing ten big ones in the pen. Vomiting, it was so tough. How long was a day in the pen? Somebody ought to measure that, the way a con measured it. How long was a night? You couldn’t measure a night. Take three-sixty-five of those and multiply by ten. But the second rap was longer. Multiply three-sixty-five by twenty-five. There wasn’t that much time in the world.

  “See that sign?” Doc Pennypacker said. “That’s it, Stevie, boy. That’s our little baby.” He was sitting up, rubbing his hands fast on his legs. “Once around the block, Stevie. Just for size. We’ll give it a look.”

  “Zenner Brothers,” the sign said. “Jewelry, Wholesale & Retail.”

  A box of a store in the middle of the block. Glass brick for a front. Big windows. Plenty of stuff in the windows. A woman going in. A man with a cane coming out. An empty loading zone right in front of the place.

  Cops? No cops.

  “That’s our baby,” Doc Pennypacker said. “We’ll take the candy right offa that baby. How about that, Steve? Forty grand, easy. Maybe more. A place like that, a cinch.”

  Where were the cops?

  Steve turned at the corner. On this street, a street-car track. Trucks unloading. A narrow, tough street to drive. No cops. Another corner and Steve turned again. He saw a cop. A beat cop, fifty-five if he was a day. With a belly. A block and a half from the store. He could run that distance in a half a day. Some cop to have around when you needed one.

  Another corner. This was a wider street, smooth and easygoing. Who was wire-tight, now? The hair on the back of Steve’s neck was so tight it hurt. Steve rubbed the back of his neck hard with the palm of his hand. No shakes, but how tight. One more corner.

  Doc Pennypacker said, “One more pass, Stevie. One more ride by so I can get a look inside.”

  And still no cops. Empty cars lined the street along the curbs. Characters ambling up and down. Nobody in particular. Just people doing whatever they’d done all their lives. Ordinary characters, but no cops. What did they think—that call was a joke? He would have had cops lining the street like an army.

  “Fine,” Doc Pennypacker said. “Real fine.”

  Steve could see through the big window. Three people inside now. One behind the counter, two in front. A man and a woman, buying a ring, maybe. A wedding ring,
sure. That guy behind the counter. That pantywaist. He would be a big help. He’d faint dead away. The box, the big box, where they kept the good ice, was down at the end with the door open. They could close that door and not go far wrong.

  The narrow street again, the streetcar tracks. A corner. The fat cop, talking to a little kid. He was a kid’s kind of cop, that’s what he was. Another corner, the wide street. Doc Pennypacker was fooling with his gun. A good piece of machinery—fitted and polished and oiled. An ex-con could never own a gun. Tough for a man who liked finely worked metal.

  “You’re doing all right, Steve,” Doc Pennypacker said. “Steady and cool. That’s what I like about you, boy. You’re just right for the job. A guy with brains gets nervous, sitting and waiting. Guys like that get pictures in their heads. They get scared.”

  “I’m scared,” Steve said.

  “Sure, sure.” Doc laughed.

  It was a funny kind of laugh, a whinny like a horse. His bugle was really whistling now. In and out, in and out, fast. The guy was strung tight.

  Another corner.

  “This time put it in the slot, Stevie,” Doc said. “This time we go.”

  Steve held the car close to the parked cars, not fast, not slow. Just right. Nobody new around, nobody different. No cops, not a single cop. You could talk your head off and nobody listened. A great big lousy stinking world, it was.

  “Easy does it,” Doc said.

  Steve nosed the car into the loading zone, swung it out again going up abreast of the car parked ahead. He turned the wheels and backed smoothly in, exactly in. No two passes, no cutting back and forth. Perfect the first time, the rear wheels rubbing the curb light and easy, the front wheels cramped for a smooth go-away.

  “On the nose,” Doc said. “For that I’ll buy you a drink.”

  “Right now, I could use a drink,” Steve said.

  “Atta kid,” Doc said. “I’m on my way.”

  He got out of the car. He was on his way. They were both on their way. Like this you cut a piece right out of your life. Twenty-five. A big piece. For money? God, no! Not for all the dough in the world. Doc Pennypacker closed the car door to the latch and no farther. Easy to open. He crossed the sidewalk in no great hurry. Steve could see through the window. Still the guy and the girl, buying the ring. Getting all set, those two. No twenty-fives out of their lives. No walkers like Doc Pennypacker tramping up out of their pasts. And no Benny slugging her coffee.