Benny Muscles In

by Peter Rabe

  “Your car, boss,” and they pushed him aside to file into the big sedan that had pulled to the curb. Alverato and the girl got in first, then the others. Benny kept talking, fast now: “This time it’s foolproof, for chrissakes. Do you hear me? He’s got a daughter, Al, and nothing means more to him than his daughter, believe me, because if anything should happen to her-” they slammed the door-”Pendleton would give his skin to-”

  The car started moving and Benny clawed the glass of the window with frantic hands, beside himself now and hoarse: “Al! Hear me! I’ll do it myself, by God! The contact, Al! The contact in Italy-”

  The car took off with a roar and Benny staggered into the gutter. He thought he heard a giggle and then he was alone. His hands opened and closed, his breath was like a spasm. A puddle of dirty water was soaking his shoes. He could see the red taillights shine and grow small. Then his head sank down.

  When he looked up again he saw the bare street and in the darkness the small red lights were still there, steady now, standing still at the end of the block. It meant nothing to him when the voice caught him: “Tapkow! Can’t you hear? Alverato’s waiting for you!”

  Benny didn’t move. He stood in the street looking at the car farther down. One door was open and a man was waving an arm. “Tapkow! On the double!”

  Benny took a deep breath, harsh and long. First he wiped his hands on his pants, then he reached up and pulled his hat down firmly until it was square on his head. Then he moved and stood on the curb.

  When the car backed up he waited till the rear door was exactly in front of him. They opened the door for him and closed it after he was in. The girl wasn’t giggling any more.

  Chapter Eight

  “You’ll need some clothes,” Alverato said.

  Benny finished his drink. “Yeah,” he said.

  “Here’s two thousand on account. That should hold you till Florida.”

  “Sure.”

  They didn’t say anything for a while. Alverato paced around the office. He was licking his lips. “You sure about the schedule, Tapkow? No slip-ups?”

  “I made it up, didn’t I?”

  “Anyway, go over it once more. Five days from now-”

  “You have your men in St. Petersburg. Corner of Orangewood and Ninth. I don’t know when I’ll get there, so have them stand by all day, starting at nine A.M. I’ll deliver. If anything goes wrong on my end, I’ll call you. Here at the club during the next two days, at the Florida place after that.”

  “O.K. I guess that’s it for now. Have a drink for the road?”

  Benny had a drink for the road. Then he left. He went to the parking lot of the club and found the gray Cadillac he was going to use for the trip. He gunned the motor a few times and took off.

  When he got downtown he stopped the car at a hotel, told the doorman to have it parked, and took a room for the night. It cost twenty-five dollars and he paid in advance. Then he walked into the haberdashery in the lobby, bought two suits, three jackets, four pairs of slacks, and the rest of the stuff from the skin out. Then he went upstairs.

  He took a shower and had a drink, and then his clothes came. He put on one of the suits and went down to the dining room. After his meal he had another drink and then he went to bed. He slept till nine in the morning. At eleven he was driving down a highway south of the city.

  Vanmeer College lay in the small wooded hills that looked like a picture in a travel folder. Benny stopped in Portville, twenty miles from the college, and walked into a drugstore. He dialed long-distance and got the college.

  “This is Mr. Pendleton’s chauffeur,” he said. “We left a message for Miss Patricia Pendleton a few days ago but she hasn’t answered. May I speak to her now?”

  “I’m afraid that isn’t possible, sir. She’s attending Spring Convocation and won’t be available until after two. Would you care to call again?”

  “No, thank you. Please give her my message, though. Tell her Mr. Pendleton’s chauffeur will be at the college at two-thirty and she should be ready to leave about then. And another thing, miss. You might tell whoever is responsible that Mr. Pendleton is annoyed with this inefficiency of yours. We have called several times and apparently nobody ever told Miss Patricia. See that it doesn’t happen again.”

  He hung up and went to the service counter.

  “Cup of coffee, black,” he said, and lit a cigarette.

  So far, so good. Next he had to pull it off with Pat herself. He didn’t know her too well, but he hoped she’d have enough respect for her old man to follow along with the bogus order. This con job was going to tell the tale. He could end up dead or he could end up with the life that he needed; on top.

  Benny jammed his hat down farther and left.

  At two-thirty sharp he walked into the Administration Building of Vanmeer and asked for Miss Pendleton. He was wearing a chauffeur’s cap now. They let him wait for a while, phoning and checking, while Benny sat in a straight-backed chair reading a college bulletin. He was dying for a smoke.

  “Miss Pendleton says you should pull up to the dorm. It’s McTooley Hall, the one with the spires on the other side of the green.”

  Benny drove around the green, his hands slippery on the wheel.

  She was standing on the steps of the building, looking for a familiar car and seeing none. Her short blonde hair looked rumpled in the wind, and she was slapping her blowing skirt down with an irritated gesture. Benny saw how brown her legs were.

  “Miss Patricia! Over here.”

  She waited for him to come out When he stood by the steps below her, she waited for him to speak.

  “Did you get our message, Miss Pendleton?”

  Her face kept its coldness, like her father’s. “What are you doing here, Tapkow?”

  “It’s this way, Miss Patricia. We’ve tried to reach you several times but you never got the message. Mr. Pendleton would like you to join him over the holidays, at the place in Florida. I brought the car to take you down.”

  She didn’t answer right away. “I thought you and Turk had a fight.”

  “That’s all patched up. Mr. Pendleton was very generous.”

  “He would be.” She looked down at him. “Florida? This is awfully short notice.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Pendleton. But your father was very insistent.”

  “He would be,” she said again.

  They looked at each other for a moment without speaking and then she came down two steps, standing close to him. “You mean you and Turk had a fight with dear Daddy right in the same room and you got away with it?” One side of her mouth flicked upward a little in a half-smile. “How’d you manage that?”

  Benny felt tense, but he merely shrugged and smiled. She had come very close and her blowing skirt kept touching his leg.

  Then her smile dropped away and she stepped back. “Florida’s fine,” she said. She was talking to the help again. “I’ll call you when the bags are ready.” She went into the building.

  Benny took a deep breath and leaned against the car. He took his cap off to wipe the band. Then he jammed it on again. “I’ll call you when the bags are ready-” that high-assed little bitch. To look at, there wasn’t much wrong with her except for those goddamn brassy manners. She didn’t look her twenty-three years.

  “Tapkow! You may pick the bags up now.” She was at the window, three flights up. “Ask the girl at the desk for a pass and she’ll show you the way up.”

  He got upstairs, his manner as it should be, and gathered up the luggage.

  “When you have the bags stowed, wait for me in front of Administration. Some last-minute plans. Well, go on, Tapkow We’re in a hurry, aren’t we?” She ran from the room, leaving him with her bags.

  He waited in front of Administration for close to an hour. His hands had started to itch and he rubbed them along the steering wheel with an irritated movement. At first, when he heard the voice, he didn’t move.

  “Hi. She’ll be right along.” Somebody opened th
e rear door of the car.

  Benny turned. He felt jumpy.

  A youngish woman sat in the back, smoothing her lumpy seersucker suit, which could have fitted any size from bean pole to matron. She had an artless permanent that flattened out her head, rimless glasses, the wrong lipstick. Her legs weren’t bad, not counting those shoes, and even her face wasn’t bad, except that she didn’t know what to do with it.

  “You got the wrong car, sister. Beat it.”

  She blinked at him, unable to move. “I’m-I’m sorry, but I think-”

  “Come on, come on!”

  Then she got her strength back and scrambled out of the car. Outside she hesitated, turned, and came to the window in front. “I’m sorry, but isn’t this the Pendleton car?”

  “What’s it to you?” Benny was tense, too tense.

  “Well-” she tried to smooth things with a queer laugh-”the truth is I was asked. I was invited.”

  “What’s this?”

  “Didn’t Pat tell you? She’s taking me along. To Florida. I’m Nancy Driscoll.”

  Some last-minute plans, she had said. Some last-minute plans to screw up a million-dollar deal-and then he saw Pat coming.

  “Well,” she called, “you got here before I did. Have you two met? Our chauffeur, Benny Tapkow; Miss Driscoll.”

  “We met,” Benny said. He got out of the car, picked Miss Driscoll’s bag off the sidewalk, and put it into the trunk. The two women were standing by the car, chatting. Not a word out of the Driscoll dame about what had happened. She was that kind. Much too scared to make a fuss, and much too proper to complain.

  “Miss Driscoll works in the Dean’s office,” Pat said. “I’ve been in the Dean’s office so often, we got to know each other quite well, didn’t we, Nancy?” Pat laughed, and Nancy managed a pinched smile.

  “It was so good of you to ask me,” she said. “And at the last minute, too. Why, if it had been fifteen minutes later I would have been on my way to Mother’s.”

  “You can see her all summer,” Pat said. “Let’s get in.”

  “I have to be here for summer school.”

  “Come on, Nancy.”

  They got into the back and Benny started the car. He took off with a fast burst, careening down the mountain road as if he were driving a getaway car. No such luck, though. What he wanted to get away from was sitting right in the back, one smug bitch who thought she was society and one dumb spinster who thought she was going to have a vacation. They were both going to get the surprise of their lives.

  “Your Mr. Tapkow drives just like a gangster,” Miss Driscoll said, and she tried her laugh again.

  Pat threw her head back and really laughed. She couldn’t stop for a while and then she leaned forward and tapped Benny on the shoulder. “Hey, Tapkow, did you hear that?” She was laughing again. “God, did you hear that, Tapkow?”

  “Have I said something funny?” Miss Driscoll looked expectant.

  “Funny?” Pat was overdoing the laughter now. “Funny!” and she started to fumble with her handbag. She pulled a pint out, unscrewed the top, and took a drink. “Nice,” she said, and handed the bottle to Miss Driscoll. “Come on, come on, Nancy, or I won’t tell you the funny story.”

  While Benny started to sweat, they argued a while longer about the drink and then Miss Driscoll had one and said she enjoyed it. “And now the funny story, Patty.” She handed the bottle back.

  “Did you ever know any gangsters, Nancy?”

  “Of course not,” Miss Driscoll said.

  Pat sat back in her seat and made her voice confidential. “Darling, don’t breathe a word of this, but you have met one.”

  “I have?”

  “Tapkow, here. He used to be one.”

  Miss Driscoll’s mouth turned into an O and then they both had another drink.

  “He claims he never was a gangster himself, but he chauffeured for one. Tapkow, tell Nancy about it.” Pat laughed again.

  “You don’t want to ask me those things.” He tried to make it sound offhanded. He wished they’d shut up and let him think. Between now and St. Petersburg he’d better come up with a sharp answer, because when he stopped at Orangewood and Ninth only one dame was going to be in the car, and that was going to be Pat.

  “Tapkow, say something. Tell us about that time you worked for the gangster.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.” He sounded curt. “I just drove for him. Picked him up at the office and drove him home. That’s all.”

  “He’s a little shy about it,” Pat said to Miss Driscoll, “so I’ll tell you. Do you know what he really did, Nancy? He pimped for that man!”

  That crazy bitch, what was she up to? And how’d she know about that part?

  “You don’t say!” Miss Driscoll sounded breathless. Benny couldn’t tell whether she was shocked or merely interested. “Why, Patty,” she went on, “is your father aware of this-this background? My heavens, this-” and she ended with nothing. They exchanged the bottle.

  Pat was liking the game. “You don’t have to worry about him, Nancy. He only does it for pay. What’s the current price, Tapkow? How much would we fetch?” and she gave her cold laugh.

  “You shouldn’t talk like that, Miss Patricia.” It came out evenly, not showing the effort it was costing him to hold his temper. One more crack out of her and he’d give her an answer.

  “Take Nancy, here,” Pat went on. “Or let’s put it this way: Would you take Nancy, here?”

  Nancy answered that one herself. “Patty! I forbid you to talk that way. Why, in all my years-” She hiccuped.

  “How old are you, Nancy?”

  “Why-”

  “Is she too young, Tapkow?”

  “Christ, no,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road.

  There was only a sound from Miss Driscoll, but Pat took it up. “Too old, then,” and Benny knew there’d be that smirk on her face.

  There was a weak “My heavens” from Miss Driscoll and Benny could hear the bottle clink. “She’s not too old,” he said. “The disposition’s what counts, Miss Patricia. The nice disposition.”

  There was silence from the back, and before Pat could give an answer Miss Driscoll started to cry.

  Pat put her arm around the woman. “Nancy, what’s wrong? Here, Nancy, have another drink.”

  But Miss Driscoll just kept sobbing and hiccuping, shaking her head from side to side. Then she leaned back into the cushions of the seat and gave a deep sigh. A minute later she was out cold.

  “Stop the car,” Pat said, and she sounded like a child who had just broken her toy. “I’m coming up front.”

  She came up front and sat down with her legs tucked under her. Benny saw she wasn’t any too sober herself, but she just sat without talking. The line was between her brows and she stared straight ahead.

  “Drive like hell, Tapkow.”

  She was holding onto the bottle and the whisky in it kept getting lower.

  He drove fast. Every so often he wiped his hands on the scat.

  When he heard the clunk he turned his head and saw the bottle on the floor. Pat sat slouched against the door, mouth open. Her eyes were only partly closed but Benny knew she was out.

  This was it.

  He waited another five minutes and then he came to a gentle stop. Letting the motor idle, he edged carefully out of his seat, out of the car, and then gently tried the handle of the rear door. Both women breathed like sleepers. There were woods on his side of the highway, thick enough to hide a body that wasn’t moving. He’d dump her there and take off. He wouldn’t need much of a head start before she’d wake up wondering what in hell had happened. And if she was under enough, he could take her skirt off or something, and she might wait a while before she dared step out on the highway and flag a ride.

  Benny opened the door, put one leg inside, and leaned over Miss Driscoll. She just breathed. He worked his hands under her slowly and started to tug. She didn’t weigh so much, but it was awkward. Leaning closer, with
his arms solidly around her now, he could feel her breath on his face. Her eyelids fluttered a little and her mouth seemed to twitch. Suddenly the eyes were open, staring him straight in the face no more than a few inches away. She’ll scream, Benny thought. Then her arms came up, and clutched him by the neck. Her lips came full on his, pushing against him. The eyes were closed now.

  With a mighty effort Benny yanked himself free and staggered backward out of the car. Still lurching, he slammed the rear door shut and jumped behind the wheel. The car took off with a jolt and a roar.

  “Easy, boy. Easy there.” Pat sat up, looking around wildly. She gave a weak grin and slumped back against the door. From the way she was breathing, Benny knew she was out again.

  He drove. He didn’t look in the rear-view mirror. Then came a little pat on his shoulder. “Is she asleep, Mr. Tapkow?”

  “Yeah.”

  Silence. Then another tap. “It seems I was asleep, too, Mr. Tapkow. I was dreaming.”

  “Yeah. So was I.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  Chapter Nine

  He didn’t have a chance from then on. For the rest of the trip-when they stayed overnight, when they stopped to eat, while driving-the two women stuck together like glue. Pat had given up playing games and Miss Driscoll was full of small talk. So no matter how he figured it, there wasn’t a chance to pry the two of them apart. He was on schedule, he was delivering, but it also looked as if he was going to gum the works. It was a good thing they weren’t trying to talk to him. His skin prickled and there was a dry clot in his throat.

  He got to St. Petersburg around noon and had to crawl through the downtown traffic.

  “You’re dawdling, Tapkow.” He couldn’t see her in the back, but her voice was plain enough. There was that line between her eyes, and he knew her mouth was pulled narrow. The same kind of temper as her father’s; not hot, but cold as ice.

  “Tapkow! Turn back and use the cutoff. Why do you drag us through this impossible downtown traffic?”

  “Yes, miss,” he said, but he kept going straight ahead. Any minute now he’d be at the intersection, the pickup jumbled by two crazy dames. A thousand miles of watching for a chance and nothing but a blank.