Enchanted Isle

by James M. Cain

  “What do I do if she does make a pass with her feet?”

  “You grab her, that’s what.”

  “How can I, with both hands holding the basket?”

  Pal was annoyed, but Bud said, “It’s a point, don’t smack it out. With both his hands full it could mean that second’s delay that could ruin us.”

  “OK, Chuck, take a one-hand grip on the basket.”

  “I can’t if it starts getting heavy.”

  They figured on that for a while, everyone quite annoyed, and then Bud said, “Can’t he kick her? Fetch her one in the shins? If she gets wandering feet?”

  Rick said: “OK, that ought to do it.”

  Pal asked him, “How do you feel?”

  “I feel good, Mr. Pal.”

  “He don’t look so good.”

  That was Bud, and Pal twisted around so he was facing Rick. Then: “Chuck, are you all right?”

  “I said I felt good. Yeah, I’m OK.”

  “You’re kind of pasty under the eyes.”

  “It’s something I have now and then when I’m nervous, like I want to throw up. It don’t mean anything.”

  I said, “Rick, how you do is swallow.”

  “Beautiful, you’re talking to Chuck.”

  “Oh, that’s right, I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all the name he has. Remember it.”

  For some time nothing was said, and I kept driving along. Then Pal asked Bud, “What do you think?”

  “I think we do or we don’t.”

  “OK, then. We do.”

  6

  AT 8:25 EXACTLY, WITH RICK still doing his best and hanging on somehow, I stopped on the cross-street after driving past the bank and taking the right turn. Pal got out and walked back, and I commenced watching behind, for what I could see on Wilkens, through the rear window, though the bag standing up in between made it I had to stretch my neck. But there was nothing to see, and I told Bud, “There’s no traffic back there—on foot, of people walking, or out in the street, of cars.” He said, “Yeah, this time of day things are slack. We took note of that already. It’s another thing in our favor.” I said it over again to Rick, hoping it might relax him, so the nervousness might pass, and it seemed to help, just a little. Anyhow, he said, “Yeah, Mandy, that’s good.” Then Bud snapped at him that I was Beautiful, and Rick said, “Yeah, that’s right, I forgot.” In ten minutes, though it seemed a lot longer than that, Pal was back, telling me, “OK, Beautiful, drive on.” Bud said, “OK, spill it, what happened?” “Nothing, nothing at all. I walked up like I wanted to the booth, counting the silver in my hand, and the guy inside nodded, holding up one finger, meaning he’d only be a minute. I stepped aside, like I was not in any hurry, and a girl went on talking about what a chance one of the downtown tellers was taking, shacking up with her boss weekends at a motel. She paid no attention to me and none of them did. It’s just like we hoped it would be.”

  “How many of them were there?”

  “Ah, eight.”

  But he kind of hesitated and Bud caught it, turning into a wolf. “Goddam it, how many?” he screamed. You’d never have thought they were friends—if they were, which I’m not so sure of now.

  “I told you, didn’t I? Eight?”

  “You did but you don’t seem sure!”

  “I’m sure. There were eight.”

  “You counted them?”

  “Of course I did! What was I there for?”

  “I’d damn well like to know.”

  I asked, “Mr. Pal, where do I go?”

  “Frederick Road, then I’ll show you.”

  Where Pal showed me was to a Holiday Inn, but we no sooner were brought to a table than he took Rick downstairs, to run his finger down his throat, or at lease so I supposed, and what he did do I don’t know, but when he came back he looked better. Then we all had buns and coffee, except Rick didn’t eat anything, just sipped along on his coffee. But while they were gone Bud was growling. “You heard what he said, didn’t you, Beautiful? About the girl? Shacking up with her boss at a motel, like that was a hot bit for us? So if that’s what they’re rapping about, they don’t have their mind on us, and no stakeout is there. So OK, the deep stuff is in, we got it covered complete! But the one thing I have to know, which is how many of them pigeons there are, he can’t be bothered about. He’s so goddam busy with this other, the chick shacking up in the motel, that he forgets to count. Listen, I got to know and I don’t! He said eight, but, Christ, he wasn’t sure!” It cleared up a point that baffled the cops, as I’ll explain in due course, when I get to it later on, but right now one thing at a time.

  Pal left a tip and paid the cashier, and then we were driving again, headed for the bank. At 9:29 sharp, I pulled up in front and set the brake. Pal said, “OK, this is it.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  Rick kind of whined it, but Pal reached back and shook his knee. Very cold, he said, “Chuck, you got to.”

  “I don’t want to. I want out.”

  “Chuck, you’re in.”

  “...OK.”

  He just whispered it. Bud got out and went in the bank. Pal got out. Rick got out, then reached in and picked up the basket. Pal told me, “Beautiful, set the doors so they open quick but aren’t hanging wide for some cop to get sore about.”

  “I’ll set them right, don’t worry.”

  He and Rick went in, Rick carrying the basket, and I had a look at the street to see what was moving on it, but nothing was. No cars were coming toward me, and none were backed up behind, waiting for the light. At the end of the block a girl was walking along in the direction of the bank but not paying attention to me. I slid over, pushing my bag on the seat, to set the doors, pulling both of them in, so they looked to be closed but weren’t. The door catches weren’t caught, and they’d open at any pull. I slid back of the wheel again, pulling the bag beside me, and checked my motor to make sure that I still had it. It was humming along nice. The girl was still the only thing moving, that I could see, in the block, and by now she had reached the bank. She went in and my heart skipped a beat. But then I remembered: the way they were going to work it, she was under control. She would be made to lie down and wouldn’t cause any louse-up. From behind, after crossing with the light, a man came along and went in. But except for him, there was still no traffic at all, going or coming on Wilkens, or, that I could see, on the side street.

  Then from inside the bank came a shot.

  It sounded faint, and what with the motor running and me being inside the car, I wasn’t quite sure what it was. But then came another, and then two or three more, so there couldn’t be any mistake. For the first time my stomach felt queer. I was afraid, and my toe wanted the gas, to slam that car out of there. However, I made myself hold. Behind me, out of the corner of my eye, I could see the light turn red, but still no cars were there. There may have been more shots, I can’t be sure, but then all of a sudden out of the bank came Rick, staggering under the weight of the basket, which seemed to be full. But he was carrying it funny, by one hand, reaching back over his shoulder so it was on his back in a hunched-up, clumsy way. I opened the door, the front door, and he fell in, the basket on top of him and his legs hanging out the door. Then he pulled them in and as he did, said to me, “Mandy! Out of here! Quick! Step on it!”

  “But where are Pal and Bud?”

  “They’re dead, they’re shot. Who the hell cares where they are? Mandy, will you get going? Will you get us the hell out of here?”

  I started, then saw that the door was still open. I said, “Rick! Will you close the door? Will you pull it shut? Will you slam it?”

  He tried to but was wedged in on the floor, the basket on top of him, his legs sticking up in the air, so he couldn’t move. And money, packs of ones and fives and tens and twenties, done up in rubber bands, in paper tape, and loops of string, were all over the floor, fouling my gas and clutch and brake. But somehow, at last, I got to the corner and turned right to get out of
sight, when, thank God, the door swung shut though it didn’t slam, and when I looked, the back door was closed though not slammed shut. As I turned the light was still red, but still no cars were there. A guy ran out of the bank, but I pulled ahead and out of his sight. At the next corner I turned right again, to double back in the direction we’d been in. Rick was still on the floor, but he felt what I was doing and started to wail. I said, “It’s OK, if anything’s on our tail, it’s the last thing they’d expect.”

  I ran two blocks with no cars showing behind, then caught open country, or vacant lots anyhow, on both sides of the road, with no one in sight. I stopped, jumped out, ran around, and yanked open both doors. I grabbed the basket, and it was almost too much for me, too heavy for me to lift. But I wrapped both arms around it and pushed it in back, on the floor in front of the seat, the way it had been in the first place, as far over as I could slide it. Then I pulled him out by the feet. I told him, “Get in there! Get in back, quick!” I wanted him in with the money, and at lease he did what I said. I slammed both doors, ran around again and got in, then started up. I ran a block or two, then cut back and got on Wilkens. I was near the Colypte plant but ran past it to the bank, and soon as the light turned, past it. A squad car was out front, an officer standing beside it, talking into a mike, with people gathered around, maybe fifteen or twenty. One or two of the men, who had on gray cotton jackets, looked to be from the bank. As I passed, no one paid any attention to me, and Rick kept whispering, “What do you know about that? What do you know about that?”

  “Now, at last we can talk! What happened?”

  “What didn’t happen! My God!”

  I realized he still couldn’t talk and didn’t press him too hard, then turned left, to head for Frederick—Frederick Road I’m talking about. But then I suddenly realized I didn’t quite know where I was and went in to ask at the next filling station I came to. I almost died when the guy reached for my door handle to throw off the lock on the hood, because that stuff was still lying around, the money, on the floor, where it had fallen out of the basket and I’d kicked it away from my pedals. I slapped my hand over the door and said, “Oil’s OK, thanks. Fill her up—it’ll take six, I think.” So he turned from the door to the hose, and as he opened the tank a TV started to talk, from the other side of the car, inside the filling station: “...All three men were dead on arrival at University of Maryland Hospital, both of the bandits and Lester Bond, the guard, whom one of the bandits shot after being shot himself, taking aim from the floor. ...” I asked for Frederick Road, after paying for my gas, and when I had straight where I was, I drove on. I said, “Rick, did you hear him? That announcer on TV? Not only Pal and Bud, but the bank guard, he’s dead too.”

  “I heard him. That’s bad.”

  “I still don’t know what happened.”

  At last he started to talk: “You know how they had it lined up? Well, that’s exactly how they did it, and it went like it was greased. A girl came in and Bud made her lie down out there by the customers’ desk, and when a guy came in, he made him do the same. Then, soon as Pal handled the tellers, making them open those carts, they marched right out to Bud and lay down beside the girl, the one on the floor already. Then the girl that Pal picked out to pitch the money in, she commenced doing her stuff, me holding the basket for her until it was almost full and getting so heavy I was wondering if I could hang on to it. Then she went out and lay down, and Pal and I went out through the gate, the one in the railing that runs across the bank from the tellers’ windows, in front of a bunch of desks that the secretaries sit at. And Pal said to me, ‘OK, Chuck, out.’ To the car, shove the dough in, get in, and wait!’

  “That he half-whispered, but Bud cut in on him quick: ‘I got ten people here on the floor, two from outside and eight from the bank, but not no goddam guard!’ He roared it and kept on: ‘Not no guy with a gun! Where the hell did he go? Where is he?’

  “Well he found out soon enough.

  “He was still roaring at Pal when a guy popped out of a door, one that leads to rooms in back, his face all lathered up except one side was shaved, a razor in his hand and a gun under his arm, with straps running off from the holster, over his shoulder and around his chest. The look on his face said he’d come at the sound of Bud’s roaring, from shaving himself in the men’s room. Bud saw him and fired, but not soon enough. Because soon as he saw what was up, he ducked back of the railing and then leveled his gun on it, using it for a gun rest so he could sight. He fired and Bud went down. By that time Pal was firing his gun from the other side of the bank. But he had no target to shoot at and almost at once fell. And then, Mandy, I had the worst moment of my whole life, as I woke up that I would be next. I dropped the basket and started to run. But then I knew I had to have it, for protection so I wouldn’t be killed, to keep it between me and him, between my back and the gun. I grabbed it by one hand and muscled it onto my back, then started running again. And he started shooting again. I could feel the chock of bullets and hear their zing as they hit the tin, but none of them went through, thank God. I made the door and got out, and know nothing about the rest, him being shot by Pal, if Pal was the one that did it, or any of it, except me falling into the car, still holding the basket to me so I wouldn’t be hit by the shots.”

  He stopped and I kept driving on, but pretty soon I told him, “Bud was sore about it, Pal messing up the count of the bunch there at the phone booth. It’s all he talked about at the Holiday Inn while you were away from the table.”

  “He had reason to be.”

  By now I was close to the cross-street that the alley ended on, and I said, “Rick, we’ll have to switch cars pretty soon, so will you transfer the money? From the basket to the bag? So we can carry it?”

  “Mandy, to hell with the money! Let’s get out of here! Let’s, for Christ’s sake, not have any retakes of that nightmare there in the bank, when I thought I was going to die! Let’s ditch this car, blow, and wipe today out if we can!”

  “You mean walk off and leave the money?”

  “It’s hot! It can get us the gas chamber! That guard is dead, and they can pin it on us! It’s not who did it, it’s who was in it!”

  “Then, OK, get out!”

  “...What did you say?”

  “I say if that’s all the nerve you got, then get out, git! But I’m not getting out! I’m not leaving this dough! It’s ours and I mean to keep it!”

  “Who says I don’t have any nerve?”

  “I do! You’ve lost any nerve that you did have!”

  “Listen, there’s more to it than you know about!”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “Like what they were fixing to do—to us!”

  “Who was fixing to do?”

  “Those two guys that got killed!”

  “And what were they fixing to do?”

  “To kill us, that’s what!”

  He said he’d caught Bud drawing his finger over his throat, when he thought he wasn’t looking, and Pal nodding his head. He said, “They meant to let us have it, right here in this car, before they made the switch. That’s the split they intended to make. That’s what they meant to do!”

  “Funny I didn’t catch on.”

  “Or maybe they didn’t mean you. Maybe, for you, Pal had different ideas. Maybe the both of them did.”

  “What different ideas?”

  “What do you think?”

  “...Rick, you shoving off or not?”

  But instead of getting out, he pushed the bag down so it was standing right-side up on the back seat where he was, instead of being upended in front of the window. Then he opened it, cocking the hinges so it wouldn’t fold shut. He began transferring the money, pitching it in from the basket, every which way, without bothering to pack it neat. When he got done the bag was nearly full and he snapped it shut. I said, “OK, but I’ve run past our turn, the one I take for the alley. We’re in West Baltimore. I’ll have to run back.”

  So I did,
circling around, taking four or five turns. Then at last I came to the cross-street, turned into it, then turned into the alley. The blue was still there and I parked behind it, just as I had before. I set the brake and got out, taking the key ring. I walked to it, peeped inside to make sure no one was there, and unlocked it. I got in, tried the new key in the ignition to make sure it would turn on. It did and I started the motor. Rick tapped on the right-hand window, and I threw the lock to let him get in. But he reached around inside the front door, undid the lock on the rear door, opened it, and put the bag on the back seat. Then he got in beside me, locking both right-hand doors. But he hadn’t brought my bag. I got out and went back to get it. And when I opened the driver’s door to take it from the front seat, that money was still there, that bunch of ones, fives, tens, and twenties that had spilled out when Rick got in, to be under my feet, in the way. I grabbed them up and stuffed them into my handbag. Then I went back to the blue and got in. As I pulled away Rick asked, “Where do we go from here?”

  “Well, one thing at a time, let me think.”

  “Well, where do we go from here?”

  7

  HE SAID IT PRETTY peevish, and I had no answer yet, as I’d been so busy driving, making him transfer the money, and switching cars in the alley to figure on it at all. Now I tried to, still driving around, at lease as well as I could, but he was no great help, talking along some more in his peevish, faultfinding way: “We can’t go to a motel because look what happened last night—we had hardly got in the door before they commenced suspicioning us, and with this heavy bag in my hand they might want to know what’s in it. So what are we going to say? Suppose they tell us open it up; what are we going to do? OK, so they don’t tell us open it up, but that leaves us worse off than before. They give us a room but those places all have maids, and the one on our floor, she wouldn’t be human if she didn’t wonder about this bag. And when we go out to eat, you think she’s got too many principles to open it up and peep? It’s unlocked and we can’t lock it, as we don’t have any key. Maybe those guys had one, but they’re unfortunately dead now and it doesn’t do us any good. We wouldn’t dare go out, to get something to eat or do anything else! Go out, hell! We dare not go to a motel or anywhere! And we dare not stay in this car—it’s hot, as we know, they told us. And sooner or later, at some bridge or tunnel or light, a cop will hold up his hand, look in his little book, find our number, and that’ll be that. In Maryland murder’s murder—it’s not whether you used the gun. Being in it is enough.”