The Faster She Runs

by Robert Colby

  “I’m sure,” said Rosen. “You know me, Tony.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  Tony ducked out of the car and entered the booth. For a moment he loomed hugely in the light above the phone, his bulk overwhelming the skimpy space. He dialed quickly and opened the door—just enough so that the light winked off.

  Rosen had lowered the windows and the rumble of Tony’s voice, wordless in the distance, drifted from the booth.

  He was back in only a minute. “Move out, Harry. Let’s get off the streets. We can’t risk being seen now.”

  “What about after?” Rosen asked as he maneuvered the car around a corner.

  “Then it won’t matter,” Tony replied. “The cops’ll have other things on their minds and we’ll just slip away in the opposite direction. The idea is to keep moving. If you sit around in a parked car this time of night, you’re just law-bait.”

  “How did you make out on the phone?” Lubeck inquired over his shoulder.

  “Hard to say. Oh, I got ’im, all right. But he was sleepy and I had to keep shoving it home to him. Then he thought I was some crank. I was expecting that. You got to convince ’em with a big play like this. Otherwise you got no leverage, none at all. You’re just a voice on the phone. But wait’ll tomorrow! Then we’ll see, huh?”

  Three blocks west of the shopping center on a side street, there was a massive, ugly church. Rosen drifted past it. Then there was the church parking lot and, beside this, an ancient wood-frame, three-story house. The house was ash-colored and peeling. A sign sprouting from the tired tangle of lawn offered the house for rent or sale, furnished.

  Rosen pulled into the drive of the old house, circled to the rear and, after a little jockeying in the small space, managed to back the car into a sagging garage.

  When Rosen had erased the lights, Tony said, “Let’s go! Bring the glasses, Earl. And gimme that flash from the glove compartment, Harry.”

  “I don’t want to go in,” said Marian. “I’d just as soon wait in the car.”

  “No,” growled Tony. “Out! And snap it up!”

  They climbed a stoop and Tony opened the back door with a key from a ring in his pocket. Entering through the kitchen behind Tony’s flash, they skirted the antique furnishings and mounted the stairs.

  “Would you believe it?” said Tony conversationally as they reached the first landing and continued upward. “This used to be a cat house. When they closed it I took over, put in a battery of phones and ran a sweet book for a time. Eh, Lubeck? Perfect location. You could spit on the track from here. In those days the town was wide-open. You could buy off the mayor himself. Then bango! Down comes the lid. Finished. I mean, you couldn’t operate in the open like before.

  “This old wreck had a bad rep and I couldn’t unload it, so I kept it. Now the people who remember what went on here are gone. But the place began to fall apart and now it’s a regular firetrap so I still can’t move it. I got the lights turned off, but who needs lights for a deal like this?”

  Tony led the way to a front bedroom on the third floor. There were two small windows set close together and to these windows Rosen and Lubeck brought chairs. Tony heaved the windows open and seated himself comfortably beside Marian.

  “Let’s have those glasses, Earl.”

  “Sure, Tony.”

  Lubeck removed binoculars from a leather case and passed them. Tony adjusted the glasses to his eyes and began a slow scanning of the area three blocks to the east. The house towered above the lower structures in the lower foreground and the view was unobstructed.

  “Good glasses,” Tony muttered. “Powerful.”

  “They should be,” said Marian wryly. “Warren paid two hundred for them.”

  “There,” said Tony. “Now I’m getting on target.”

  In the glasses he had picked up the edge of the shopping center, revealed in soft clarity by the splay of street lamps. Scanning left, he focused upon a bakery, a dry-cleaning shop, a shoe store and a short-order restaurant. All were dark, their polished windows refracting light.

  Next a parking lot. Then there was a giant food store, one of a large, statewide, supermarket chain known as the Food Thrift markets. It was the usual long, low building with the all-glass front, the electric glass doors, the paper banners exclaiming boldly over the buys of the day. The market was separate from the other stores, ringed by its own parking area.

  Tony got the Food Thrift roof sign in the glasses, dropped below to the big glass doors and held, adjusting to the finest point of focus.

  “Target,” he said softly.

  After a moment he brought the glasses down and turned the flash on the slim solid-gold watch, eyeing the slow progress of the sweep hand.

  “Eight minutes to three,” he said. “Exactly eight minutes to go.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Eight minutes,” repeated Lubeck, turning from the window, his long face in shadow. “That’s if the timing is right.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Rosen. “Just don’t worry about the timing.”

  “So, if it’s a couple of minutes, give or take, what’s the difference?” Tony said.

  “I checked carefully,” Rosen answered. “The timing is perfect. And all our watches are in sync.”

  “Anyway, I don’t like it,” said Lubeck. “The risk is too big. A thing like this, you can have the whole town breathing down your neck. Give me the old book, anytime—horses, dogs, bolita, any take at all from betting. You get caught and they slap your wrist with a fine or maybe they even toss you in the can for a couple of months or so. Nothing serious. Everyone winks at gambling. You’re just a bad boy because the city or the state or the federal isn’t getting a bite outta you. But man, they catch you in a squeeze-play like this and they’ll cool you for a good twenty or more.”

  “I agree,” said Tony reasonably. “And if I could still run a book with a nice profit, I wouldn’t be sitting here now. I’d be asleep, dreaming about tomorrow’s collections. But when the new administration came in and they sent that metro clean-up squad after us, the curtain came down and the show was over, buddy.

  “They got the money and the men and the power. And you can’t buy anyone worth buying any more. You open up, they close you down. You move to a new stall, they smell you out—and fast, so fast you can’t keep the customers happy. They can’t find you when they want you.

  “Then you got the Syndicate. Sometimes you can join ’em, but you can’t fight ’em. If you join ’em, you might as well be some goddamn flunkie on a corporation payroll because they’ll always eat the cake and feed you the crumbs.

  “So what’s the answer? You map out a really big scheme like this one. You hit hard and fast and you move on. In maybe three months you got a million bucks in the kick. Then you fold your tents and you steal away. The end. You retire. You live happily ever after, and in damn good style! Sure it’s dangerous. Sure the risk is big. But so is the take, brother. We clipped Proctor Drugs for a quarter million, didn’t we?”

  “Yeah,” said Lubeck, looking not quite convinced. “We were lucky. Maybe we should quit after this one.”

  “No,” replied Tony. “But maybe we could raise the ante and then just one more caper would do it—bring us to the mark—that cool million. We’ll see how it goes.”

  Lubeck nodded, chewing his cigar, inspecting the tip and then puffing furiously.

  “Does he have to smoke that thing?” said Marian irritably.

  “Ask him,” Tony cracked.

  “I really don’t know what I’m doing here,” said Marian, her voice edgy, fear-shaded. “You don’t need me and I hate being a part of it. Can’t I leave, Tony? At least let me wait in the car. It’s no thrill for me to watch, you know.”

  “You’ll stay,” Tony snapped. “You wanted in. You wanted the pretty toys this kind of dough is gonna buy. So you’ll stay. You’ll share the risks, you’ll pay the tax, baby. No one gets a free ride in this game. Later on I’m gonna need you. I’m gonna put you to wor
k. Meanwhile, you’ll stay and get acquainted with the facts of life. Understand?”

  “No. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t have a choice, do I?”

  Tony didn’t answer. Again he adjusted the glasses.

  But Marian did understand one thing. Tony was telling her in his way that she knew too much now. She knew too much to be allowed to sit on the sidelines. He was going to force her to become involved in the development, the action of the plan, because once involved she would not be a threat. Later she could not tell all and plead her personal innocence. She was to be made as guilty as the others.

  Why was she here in this room in this musty house with these tense, evil men waiting for the thing to happen? Because of Tony, yes. And her own greed, yes. And maybe, too, because she was as evil as they were. Sure, she had a little more polish, more surface veneer than they did. But underneath, wasn’t she just as bad? What about the things she had done which she had never told anyone? Not even Tony.

  Tony had remarked, in the most disdainful tone of voice, that this had once been a “cat house,” and she had winced. Suppose he found out? Suppose he learned that she had once been a kind of free-lance call girl?

  Oh, that was a bad time, a horrible period in her life! Yet, there was an element of excitement in it, of perverse pleasure, too.

  It started, like most of her troubles, because of her betting the horses, that consuming habit which she herself could hardly understand. Someone said she was suffering from a guilt complex, that she was trying to punish herself, that she wanted to lose. Nonsense like that. Well, of course she didn’t want to lose! She wanted to win, win win! She wanted the whole shiny world to tumble into her lap without lifting a hand.

  Anita Wymer had told her that she hadn’t grown up, that she was still living with a childish dream in which the castle and the gold and the knight on the white steed were all hers for the dreaming. Faced with a reality she couldn’t bear, she bet on the horses to perpetuate the dream.

  Well, that was closer. Yes, that was more like it.

  Anyway, in the end she always lost. And at these times she was desperate, searching madly for a way out. She found it one night in the lobby of a beach hotel, one of those fabulous monuments to the god of sin and sun, fourteen stories of luxury under glass.

  She had a date with another of those well-heeled clients she so often met at the office. The man was Chuck Hatley from Chicago, a real estate investor. He bought much property in Miami, flew south at least once a month, employing Burkholtz Title to handle the details of title search and closing.

  This night he was due on the 8:20 plane and was to meet her in the lobby of his hotel near nine. Dinner, drinks, a show—the whole bit. It would end in his room, of course But she didn’t care, in fact she was counting on it. Chuck was a most superior lover. And Marian was a person who could occasionally become downright nervous if she didn’t have her sex in the bank, so to speak.

  At ten after nine they were paging her. And at nine-fifteen she was on her own. Chuck had been held up for a couple of days.

  Marian was furious. The night was half dead and she was without a date. Furthermore, she was hungry, and she needed a drink—no, a dozen—to make her forget that she owed an impossible tab to the bookie. On top of all that she was in a ravenously sexy mood and now there was nothing in the bank for the evening.

  She marched into the bar and flopped herself down, ordering a drink. Then another. Some guy a couple of seats away kept leering at her. Well, why not? What the hell.

  But when he moved next to her and she found he was a blunt egomaniac who thought her body was his due for the price of two drinks and his winning charm, she became sullen, rebellious. Why should she just give it away to this character?

  So when he said, as if it were the unique brainstorm of a genius, “Listen, I’ve got a bottle of Scotch in my room that’s older than my grandmother. Why don’t we tie one on, just the two of us?” she answered: “Why, I’d just love to! But I can’t. I was supposed to meet a guy here who owes me some money. I’m just a working girl, you know, a secretary. I did a whole batch of typing for this guy and now I need the money. I’m not going anywhere until I get it.”

  “Oh…oh, I see. Well, how much did this fella owe you?”

  “Ninety-eight dollars and change. You might as well call it a hundred,” she said.

  “And if you had this mony you could leave with me?”

  “I guess so. Sure, why not? It wasn’t a date or anything.”

  He gave her the hundred and she went up to his room and he pretended he believed her and it all went off very smoothly.

  So three or four times a week she went to different plush hotels and worked the same gimmick, screening her men so she didn’t get some repulsive slob. Sometimes it was exciting and sometimes it was degrading. But oh, how profitable! And quite foolproof. Never did she proposition anyone—so how could she get caught?

  She was practically ready to give up her job, the money was so easy. But then she had a slow night and she took a chance on a guy who told her he had the cash in his room. He didn’t. Or, if he did, he wasn’t about to produce it. He was a phony! She wanted out.

  He grabbed her and she resisted. That was when he ripped her clothes and beat her so badly she couldn’t show herself at work for a week, had to play sick. And that was also the end of her short career as a call girl. She soon met Tony and decided he was a safer way out.

  Safer? Maybe he wouldn’t beat her, but Tony’s way of living was anything but safe.

  “One minute,” said Tony. “One minute to three.” Again he raised the glasses and brought the Food Thrift market into focus.

  “Oh Christ!” Lubeck grumbled. “I don’t like it. I’ve got a feeling about this one.”

  “There’s a church next door,” said Tony. “Go and pray. Meanwhile, shut up.”

  “You want me to give you the countdown, Tony?” asked Rosen.

  “Yeah yeah. What is it now?”

  “Twenty-two seconds,” Rosen announced.

  “What will happen?” Marian asked in a tremulous voice.

  No one answered. Tension was nearly palpable in the room.

  “Five seconds,” Rosen called. “Four-three-two-one.”

  In the binoculars Tony saw nothing but the shadowy framework of the building, the dim luster of glass.

  “Well,” he said, “where’s the action, Rosen? I thought you had this thing figured for—”

  Suddenly a thunderous blast shattered the morning. In the glasses Tony saw the supermarket disintegrate, vomiting flame and smoke, the explosion hurling fragments into the air, showering them down upon the parking area.

  Now there was no need of magnification. They could all see with naked eyes. The flames which followed the blast lighted the sky with their awesome red-white beauty.

  “I told you, I told you!” cried Rosen proudly. “I wasn’t a powder monkey for nothing, eh, Tony? Right on time! Maybe ten seconds late, that’s all!”

  “You’ll get a medal,” Tony growled. “Now c’mon. C’mon, let’s move outta here!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Thirty minutes later, the blue Cadillac entered downtown Miami. It breezed along Biscayne Boulevard, anonymous in the late cluster of vehicles.

  On the back seat, his arm draped casually over Marian’s shoulder, Tony yawned.

  He said, “Harry, stop in front of that hamburger joint on the corner. Pick up a sack of burgers, some fries and coffee all around.”

  “I’m not hungry,” said Marian.

  “Meanwhile,” Tony continued, “I’ll make another call to Stienmetz. By this time he’s got the message, eh? He knows we play for keeps.”

  “Maybe he’s out,” Lubeck offered. “Maybe he went down to see what’s left of his food barn.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” answered Tony, as Rosen drew up at the curb. “But I doubt it. All that confusion, they probably took a while phoning him the score.”

  Accepting another dime from Lubeck, T
ony hoisted his bulk from the car and strode toward the outdoor booth nudging the hamburger stand. He flipped the pages of his pocket notebook, fed the coin and dialed. The line was busy. He kept trying until he heard the ring.

  “Yes?”

  “Stienmetz?”

  “Yes, yes. What now?” The voice of David Stienmetz, president and founder of Food Thrift markets, crackled across the line.

  “I hear you got a fire sale goin’ for you at the Hialeah store, Stienmetz, What’re you sellin’—charcoal?”

  “I’m selling rope to hang you with, you filthy bastard! I recognize your voice. Who are you, anyway?”

  “You can call me Greengold, pal, because this is Operation Green-Gold, get it? And I wanna be countin’ a whole pile of that green tonight, or we’ll blast another store into Shredded Wheat!”

  “Not a cent, you psycho creep! When you blew up that market you started the biggest manhunt in the history of Florida. I’ll have you and your hoods caged in twenty-four hours!”

  “Aw, now you got me trembling all over. I’m so scared I can hardly hold the phone. Listen Stienmetz, cut the comedy and let’s talk business. How many stores you got? Twenty-eight in this county alone—right? Another couple dozen in Broward County, so forth all the way to Jacksonville. So which one’ll be next? You gonna cover ’em all? Never, Buster, never! You gonna shut down? I don’t think so. The customers would hike on over to A & ? or Kwick Check, one of the other chains. A lot of ’em would never come back. Meantime, how much would it cost you a day? A hundred grand wouldn’t touch it.

  “Then you got the scare problem to worry about. People read in the papers we’re blowin’ up your markets, they get the shakes. Because right while they’re shoppin’ at Food Thrift the bomb might go off and blast ’em to hell. You think they’ll risk it? Wait ’n see. One more blow and you couldn’t trap three customers in one of them stores if you sold steak a penny a pound.”

  Tony inspected his watch. Though he knew a trace would take longer, he would not gamble on talking over two minutes.