Two for the Money

by Max Allan Collins

  Like Nolan’s, Jon’s sheets of paper were wadded up when spent and dumped on the floor. Every hour or so Jon would walk around and collect the balls of paper and pitch them into the fire one at a time, like a kid tossing pebbles in a pond.

  When Jon entered the living room with the sack of groceries, he found Nolan still at the poker table, working at his latest sheet of paper.

  “Hello, Nolan.”

  “Kid.”

  “I’ll just go in and get these groceries put away.”

  “Okay.”

  “I got some beer and pretzels for the meeting.”

  “It’s not supposed to be a picnic, but that’s okay.”

  Jon went into the kitchen, with its rusty sink, dusty-shelved cabinets, faded white walls. The yellow formica table with its matching plastic-covered chairs and battered refrigerator and stove were 1950s classics. He unloaded the sack, filling one of the cabinet shelves with a dozen cans of vegetables, then transferred a wrapped package of hamburger, a small bag of potatoes, six six-packs of Schlitz and eleven TV dinners into the refrigerator. He left the box of pretzels on the table, then walked into the living room and sat in the chair by the fireplace. He picked up a brass poker and stirred the gently burning logs.

  He had a queasy feeling, a mixture of fear and loneliness. He knew with Nolan in on this thing, it should go smoothly, but he and Nolan had spoken very little in the past two days, and that made him feel ill at ease. In Iowa City he’d had to sit by while Nolan discussed possibilities with Planner, and he tried to absorb all he could, but it was hard. And today, of course, he’d been hearing half conversations, the terse Nolan half—which was frustrating to say the least—and Nolan had spoke to him rarely.

  “Kid,” Nolan said.

  “Yeah?”

  “What time’s Grossman and the girl going to get here?”

  “When I called him I told him six-thirty, like you said to. It’s ten after now.”

  “You make clear the instructions on how to find this place?”

  “Clear enough. Gross’ll find us. Those turn-offs on all those country roads are confusing, but he shouldn’t have any trouble.”

  “Is that beer cold?”

  “It was in the cooler where I got it, in that grocery store in the little town up the road, and less than a five-minute drive back.”

  “If that means it’s cold, get me one, will you?”

  “Sure, Nolan.”

  Jon was on his way back into the living room with two cans of Schlitz when the door buzzer sounded. He dropped the cans off with Nolan on his way to answer it and said, “They’re a little early.”

  “Probably allowed extra time to find the place,” Nolan said; but Jon noticed his right hand seemed to be drifting casually toward the revolver in the shoulder holster under his left armpit.

  Jon opened the door a crack and Grossman shoved it open the rest of the way and came in, Shelly following behind him.

  “Hi, everybody,” Jon said.

  Grossman nodded, throwing his denim jacket over a nearby chair. He was in his standard outfit of tee-shirt and worn jeans.

  “How are you, Jon?” Shelly asked, Jon helping her out of her coat and hanging it on the rack by the door. “Is everything going all right?” She was wearing a baby blue sweater that accented the uplift of her breasts, and blue jeans that clung like a coating of cloth paint. As he helped her out of her coat, Jon brushed against those breasts ever so slightly and not entirely accidentally, but Shelly only smiled and gave him a warm look.

  “Nolan’s been working awful hard,” Jon told her. “So I guess things are going fine.”

  Grossman walked over by the poker table, gave Nolan a half-nod, and stared into the burning fireplace. The girl walked over next to him, then turned toward Nolan and said, “How are you, Nolan?”

  “Preoccupied. Sit down, will you? Everybody?”

  Jon joined Grossman and Shelly and they all found places around the big table.

  “Anybody else want beers?” Jon asked.

  Grossman’s grunt was affirmative and Shelly said, “I’d like that, Jon.”

  “Better bring the pretzels, too, kid.” Was that sarcasm in Nolan’s voice, Jon wondered, or just his own paranoid imagination at work?

  Two minutes later Jon came back with the extra beers and the box of pretzels and sat down. Nolan spoke again.

  “Okay,” he said, “we got a lot to talk about. Before I say anything about the plan I’m working on, there’s some incidentals to get out of the way.”

  Grossman gulped down a third of his beer in one multiple swallow, then wiped his mouth with his hand and said, “Such as?”

  “Might as well start with you, Grossman.”

  “So now I’m an incidental?”

  Nolan got his cigarettes out from his breast pocket, shook one free, and lit it, tossing the pack on the table for anybody else who might want one. “Jon told me you did some dealing in Iowa City. That so?”

  “Yeah, big deal. You a narc all of a sudden or something?”

  “What d’you push?”

  “Just a little pot. Nothing hard. And I never got busted, if that’s your next question.”

  “Smoke it yourself?”

  “Do I smoke dope, you mean?”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I smoke it. And I like it. So what?”

  “So don’t smoke it anymore. Not till you’re out of my life.”

  “Why the fuck not? You think the noxious weed’s going to turn my brain to cottage cheese or something? And you who supposedly been around.”

  “Christ you’re stupid! What do you think it would do to this operation if you were to get busted for possession tomorrow?”

  “I won’t get busted.”

  “That’s right. Because you’ll be clean. If you got any stuff stashed in your apartment in Davenport, flush it down the stool when you get home tonight. I’m not shitting you, Grossman. After tonight, if I find one joint on you, I break you in half.”

  Grossman started to get up. “I don’t have to take this kind of crap off you, old man. Come on, Shelly.”

  “Gross,” Shelly said, “This is our last chance to maybe get free. Isn’t that worth taking a little crap over?”

  Grossman shrugged and said, “I guess you’re right, babe.” He sat back down, looked at Nolan. “I just gave up dope, okay, old man?”

  “Good,” Nolan said. “Now, something else. Have you been seeing Shelly in Port City, Grossman?”

  “Some,” he said.

  “How much?”

  “Some, I said.”

  “Once a week?”

  “More.”

  “Daily?”

  Grossman shrugged again, finally nodded.

  “Do you mind explaining to me,” Nolan said, “how the hell you expect anyone to believe that a girl could be taken hostage during a robbery by a guy she’s been shacked up with for two months?”

  Grossman reddened and Shelly, sitting between Jon and Grossman, leaned over toward Nolan and touched his hand. “Nolan,” she said, “Gross has been very careful. If we go out, he takes me to Davenport for the evening, or Iowa City. Otherwise, he’ll come up and spend time with me, alone, in my apartment. The girls at work know I have a boyfriend, but none of them have ever seen him.”

  “I take it you’re living alone, Shelly?” Nolan said.

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s your apartment?”

  “Above the Old Town Mill.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A restaurant. A bar.”

  “Downtown?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Then somebody’s sure to have seen you two together, as much as you see each other, with the apartment downtown and over a bar.”

  Grossman sat and thought about that.

  Nolan continued. “You people have got to start thinking. There is a thing, a little thing, called common sense. It’s too late to do anything about you and Shelly being seen together, G
rossman, except work on an appearance change for you; and, of course, you’ll stop seeing her.”

  “What do you mean?” Grossman slapped the table. “You’re out of your fucking mind.”

  “You won’t see her, except at these prearranged meetings. Starting today you’re a priest.”

  “Look, Nolan, how about I just be careful, okay?”

  “How about you just abstain.”

  Jon said, “It’s only for a week or so, Gross.”

  Nolan said, “Shelly, I’ve got something for you to do, too, that’ll put you to some trouble.”

  “Yes?”

  “Today is Saturday. A week from today I want you to take a bus up to Davenport and get fitted for a short black wig. Be sure it’s a good, expensive one. In the meantime, at work next week, tell your girlfriends at the bank that you’re going to get your hair cut and styled, getting it cut short. On the following Monday, the day of the robbery, you’ll wear the wig to work and tell everybody, well, your hair’s cut, and how do they like it?”

  Grossman said, “What’s the point of that?”

  “We have to be able to make a radical change in appearance after the hit if we expect to get away with it. After the robbery, our ‘hostage’ will slip off her wig and still have all her long hair, but dyed blonde. The FBI and cops will be on the lookout for a girl with short black hair.”

  “It sounds good to me,” Shelly said, “but a wig can slip when you’re wearing it, and sometimes you have to adjust it. Besides, there’s no guarantee a wig will fool everybody. Somebody at work is bound to notice it.”

  “That’s okay,” Nolan said. “It’ll most likely be a girlfriend of yours who spots the wig, right? Well, you just take her into your confidence and tell her that when you got your hair cut the guy did a bad job, really butchered it, so you decided to buy this wig and wear it till your hair grows out again.”

  The girl nodded. “It’s good. It’s very good.”

  “I heard you and my uncle talking,” Jon said, “about these appearance changes. Gross and I’ll be having them, too?”

  “Right,” Nolan said. “In my case it’ll be powdering my hair and mustache whiter. After the robbery I’ll wash the powder out of my hair and shave off my mustache.”

  “When are you going to have the time to be doing any shaving?” Grossman asked impatiently. “You’ve been talking about a quick getaway.”

  “It’s simple,” Nolan said. “Standard operating procedure after a heist is usually one of two things. First, take off immediately and don’t stop running till you get where you’re going. Or second, hole up for a couple weeks some place nearby and wait till the heat’s off, then go. We’ll do neither. What we will do is get away from the bank as quick as possible and come here, taking an hour or so to make our changes. With our physical makeup different, and splitting up, we’ll have no trouble with roadblocks or cops. With an hour gone, some of that initial heat’ll be off. They’ll assume we’re either long gone or holed up.”

  “That makes sense,” Grossman said, “but what’s all this ‘appearance change’ bullshit?”

  “Now personally I don’t give a damn about anybody’s looks,” Nolan said. “This is only to help insure you get cash to spend, not time in jail.”

  Jon broke the ice for Nolan. “I heard you saying something to Planner about hair.”

  Grossman lurched forward. “Hair!”

  “Hair,” Nolan said.

  “Let’s get serious, old man.”

  “My sentiments exactly.”

  “I suppose I’m to cut it off?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” Grossman pounded the table with both fists. “This is the only goddamn robbery I ever heard of with a fucking dress code!”

  “Settle down,” Nolan said. “I couldn’t care less about your hair, a pony tail or a butch, it’s all the same to me.”

  Grossman was still upset. “I don’t get this. I don’t get this at all.”

  “It’s part of the plan I’m working on,” Nolan said. “You cut it the night before the job.”

  “What the fuck for?”

  “We’ll get to that.”

  Jon was working on his beer, which was getting warm, and trying to ignore Shelly’s leg, which was resting against his. He told himself she wasn’t doing it on purpose, and her cool features weren’t aimed his way, that was for sure; she was just sitting there innocently munching pretzels and listening. But when she did them, even listening and eating were sexy. Jon found himself almost wishing her leg was nestled against his because she wanted it there, but Nolan was talking again, and Jon had to make himself forget about that soft, warm thigh.

  “Shelly,” Nolan was saying, “have the bank examiners come around since you started working at Port City Savings and Loan?”

  “Hey, old man, what are you getting at?”

  “Quiet, Grossman. Shelly?”

  “Bank examiners? Yes, as a matter of fact, they’ve come twice. Once each month.”

  “Once each month? Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “This could completely wipe out all my preliminary plans. Shit. I don’t understand it, examiners usually make the rounds once in a nine month period. Why so often, Shelly? Do you know why the examiners have come twice in two months?”

  “I think it’s because of the changeover.”

  “The what?”

  “The changeover. I think it’s because of the changeover.”

  “What changeover?”

  Jon couldn’t believe it: Nolan was actually shook!

  “The changeover,” Shelly said, “from state to federal bank.”

  “Christ,” Nolan said.

  “Christ good or Christ bad, Nolan?” Jon asked.

  “What’s the hassle, old man?”

  “Hassle?” Nolan said. He smiled.

  Jon felt butterfly-stomached; he’d never seen Nolan smile like that, it was a strange smile that Jon didn’t know the meaning of.

  “No hassle,” Nolan said. “More like miracle.”

  Shelly was wide-eyed and wondering. “What’s going on, Nolan? What’s the big deal about changing over from state bank to federal?”

  “Nothing,” Nolan said, “except it’s maybe our free pass to three quarters of a million dollars.”

  6

  “Good job, Irish,” Nolan said.

  The small redheaded man leaned against the hood of the station wagon, a late-model Country Squire that looked strangely out of place in the midst of the jukebox-scattered cement floor. “He’s an artist, this friend of mine,” Irish said. “You’d never guess that wasn’t a factory paint job, would you, Nolan? It was brown and white before it was light and dark green.”

  “It’s good. How much do I owe you?”

  “One and a half,” Irish said.

  Nolan reached in his pocket for a roll of bills and peeled off a pair of thousands. “Keep the extra for your trouble.”

  “No, Nolan, that isn’t necessary . . .”

  “Don’t argue with me, you wetback bastard.”

  Irish grinned, ran a hand through his clump of red hair, put the money in his pocket. “Who’s arguing, gringo?”

  They shook hands and Nolan climbed into the driver’s seat. Irish walked over and swung the triple-size garage door up and Nolan wheeled the car out into the alley. When Nolan had the station wagon outside the warehouse, waiting at the mouth of the alley to drive out onto the street, he rolled down the window next to him and yelled, “Irish! Thanks.”

  Irish came over to the open window and said, “Whatever it is that is happening for you now, my friend, good luck and God speed.”

  “You can have the God,” Nolan said. “I’ll settle for the luck.”

  Nolan guided the station wagon out of the alley and up the street, going a block and a half and pulling into a hardware store parking lot where Jon was waiting in his Chevy II. Nolan got out and went over to the Chevy and joined him in the front
seat.

  “That didn’t take long,” Jon said.

  “Couldn’t afford to let it take long,” Nolan said. “Guy that runs that place is a friend. He could get stepped on if certain parties knew he was helping me.”

  “I thought this . . . what is it? Family? I thought this Family knew about what you’re doing?”

  “No. Just two people in the Family know, nobody else. If some other joker in the organization should spot me and decide to take things into his own hands, he could really screw us up.”

  “What would those other two guys in the Family think if something happened to you like that?”

  “They wouldn’t lose sleep.”

  “Oh.” Jon cleared his throat. “Well. That sure looks like a nice car.”

  “Yeah. You’ll like it, kid. It’s got a secret compartment and everything. Just like in the comics.”

  “The Batmobile.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing. You going back to the farmhouse now, Nolan? Going to follow me there in the station wagon or what?”

  “No, I think I’ll stay here in Davenport for a few hours and check up on our friend Grossman. See if our little talk last night sank in.”

  “I really don’t think you need to, Nolan.”

  “I really think I do. Can you lead me to that head shop you were telling me about?”

  Jon shrugged. “Suppose so.”

  Nolan returned to the Country Squire and followed Jon out of the lot. The little Chevy continued straight ahead on the same street, which a block later began a sudden angling upward, rapidly turning into a steep hill. Another four blocks up the hill, the Chevy II turned left and continued three more blocks, finally pulling into an open spot across the way from a one-story sagging building.

  The building was covered in yellow pasteboard brick, and the front window had a stained-glass sign in it saying INNER LIGHTS. Painted on the window in black block letters were the words BOOKS, RECORDS, PARAPHERNALIA. The head shop was one of the lesser structures in what was obviously a low-income neighborhood, and the only commercial building in sight, though Nolan had noticed a grocery store and an upholstery shop the block before.

  Nolan pulled in behind Jon and waited while the boy got out and came over to his window.