Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (11 page)

‘Where is your friend now?’

‘I don’t know that either, sir. But I can get in touch with him…’

Reece moved around in front of me. He hadn’t looked at Holiday since he had come out of the bedroom. He had his mind above his belt for a change. ‘When’d you figure on pulling this?’ he asked.

‘We hadn’t gone into that,’ I replied. ‘My friend’s the one who spotted this. He just said it looked like a push-over. He didn’t go into details.’

Reece looked at the Inspector and the Inspector looked at me.

‘Well, I’ll tell you what you do,’ he said. ‘You have your friend here at nine o’clock and we’ll
go
into details.’

‘I’ll try, sir,’ I said. ‘I’ll certainly try.’

‘Whaddya mean you’ll try? You said you could get in touch with him.’

‘Yes, sir, but whether or not I can get in touch with him in time to have him here by nine o’clock, I don’t know. He’s holed up somewhere. I’ll have to get the word to him round-about. You can come back at nine, but if he’s not here I don’t want you to get sore at me.’

He stuck his left little finger in his ear and dug, grimacing, and then he looked at the nail to see what he had dug and wiped it off on his trousers. ‘I’m not coming back till he’s here,’ he said. ‘You think you can raise him by tomorrow?’

‘Oh, I’m sure of that…’

‘Call me at headquarters. If I’m not there say that Mister Baker called. I’ll know what that means. Mister Baker.’

‘Yes, sir, Mister Baker – Inspector, sir, what about those two plainclothes men at the garage, Pratt and Downey? What if Mason brings them here? What if they come here?’

‘All you got to worry about,’ he said, ‘is dragging that friend of yours out of his hole.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I said.

He turned and started to go and then stopped, glaring at Reece. Reece was paying no attention to what was being said now. He had his back turned to the Inspector, gazing at Holiday, his chin stuck out, nipping his teeth together in eloquent communication. He was not even aware that the conversation had stopped. He looked like a damn fool, standing there with his chin stuck out, nipping his teeth together, showing her what he’d like to do.

‘Whenever you’re ready, George,’ the Inspector said quietly.

Reece whirled guiltily, startled. ‘Oh – sure, sure,’ he said. ‘I’m finished, I’m finished …’

The Inspector nodded, moving to the hall door, followed by Reece. They went out without looking back. I got up and tiptoed to the hall door. I made sure the latch was caught and then I lay down on the floor with my ear near the crack at the bottom of the door, listening. I heard their footsteps moving down the hall. When the sounds faded I got up and crossed to the bedroom, motioning for Holiday to follow.

I went straight to the closet door.

‘Jinx! Jinx!’ I whispered.

Jinx opened the door.

‘Did you get it? Did you get it?’ I asked.

‘I got it,’ he said, ‘but let’s not make it that close again. If you hadn’t tipped me off that they were coming in here …’

‘You know me,’ I said gaily. ‘Always thinking.’

‘Yeah – always thinking,’ he said. ‘What about that pay-roll hold up? I didn’t tell you about a pay-roll hold-up. I don’t even know where there is a pay-roll. Not that big, anyway…’

‘That was just to keep ’em interested in us. Just to get ’em back here,’ I said. ‘Come on – I wanna hear that record.’

‘No!’ Holiday said suddenly. They might come back!’

‘Relax,’ I said.

She came over beside us. Her face was worried again. Her lips were trembling.

‘What the hell kind of a dame are you, anyway?’ I said. ‘One minute you got all the guts in the world and the next minute you’re scared to death. One minute you’re mowing people down with a machine gun and the next minute you’re shaking like a leaf. Up and down, up and down … The nervous system of a human being is a delicate thing. You can’t bang it around like that. It won’t stand the shocks. You’ll have a breakdown. Relax.’

‘Oh, God …’ she said.

‘Please, Holiday,’ I said patiently. ‘I wanna hear what’s on that record. We can go in the closet and listen. Jinx can keep it down low. Please. Go ahead.’ I said to Jinx.

She shrugged her shoulders, finally; and the three of us crowded into the tiny closet. Jinx picked up the recording and brushed the cuttings off and then put it on the turntable and started the motor, but I couldn’t hear anything. ‘Turn it up a little,’ I said.

He turned up the volume. ‘… to find you here,’ the Inspector’s voice was saying. ‘We thought you’d be on your way to Arizona by now.’

‘I’m sure trying to get away, sir,’ my voice was saying. ‘I’m trying to locate a car.’

‘Jesus, that doesn’t sound like me,’ I said.

‘It’s you all right,’ Jinx said.

‘That’s way over by the door,’ I said. ‘I thought you had to be close to the microphone …’

‘I’m surprised myself,’ Jinx said.

‘Start it over,’ I said.

Jinx lifted the arm and started it over. (
Two knocks at the hall door.
) I: Remember everything I’ve told you now. Just follow my lead. (
That’ll have to come out, I thought.
) (PAUSE – one, two, three, four, five, six) (
Sound of door opening.
) INSPECTOR: Mind if we come in? I: Why – why, of course not, (
Sound of hall door closing.
) INSPECTOR: Sort of surprised to find you here. We thought you’d be on your way to Arizona by now. I: I’m sure trying to get away, sir. I’m trying to locate a car. INSPECTOR: Two or three buses pull out every day for Arizona, son. I told you that before. I: Yes, sir, I know. (PAUSE – one, two, three) I don’t want you to think I’m a fresh guy, sir. I’m not one of those hard-headed punks who does just the opposite of what he is told. I’m gonna do what you told me. I’m gonna get out of town. Aren’t we gonna get out of town? HOLIDAY: Believe me. INSPECTOR: When? (PAUSE – one, two) Don’t you appreciate it when people are nice to you? I gave you a break. Maybe that was a mistake in the first place. (PAUSE – one, two, three, four, five six) I: I certainly do appreciate it, sir. I wanted to take the Arizona bus like you said. Didn’t we? Didn’t we want to take the Arizona bus like Inspector Webber said? HOLIDAY: Yes, we did. But we didn’t have anything to use for money. I: That’s where the trouble was. No money. You took all we had. (
Christ, I was thinking, glowing with pride. This is wonderful. Listen to me suck the guy along!
) There were only a few dollars left. I had to go find the fellow who helped me in the market job. He got two gees as his cut. REECE: That’s the fellow Pratt and Downey are after. INSPECTOR: Did you find him? I: Yes, sir. He let me have a few hundred. INSPECTOR: Quite a few. Eighteen hundred, wasn’t it? I: Well, sir, I can see that if I wanna keep any secrets from you I got to stay away from Mason’s Garage. I can see that – but it was the only place I knew to get a car. That’s the only reason I went – (
This is where I took out the cake, I was thinking, this is where I showed him the money, this is where I started nailing him.
) Here it is, eighteen hundred in cash. How much of
this
can I keep? INSPECTOR: Well, this time there’s somebody else to be taken care of. REECE: Who? INSPECTOR: Pratt and Downey. REECE: But why? INSPECTOR: Don’t be a chump. They’re wise to this. Why do you think they let this guy breeze in and out of their stake-out and not pick him up? There’s enough goddamn jealousy in this department now. (PAUSE – one, two, three. (
This is where he reached out and took the money from me.
) Here … I: Jesus, Inspector. Only fifty dollars for us? INSPECTOR: It’s your own goddamn fault, you go barging in that goddamn garage and give the whole thing away. I told you to get out of town. I been on the hind tit myself. Who do you think these guys are sore at – you or me? I: I never thought of that. Look, Inspector. This fellow who helped me pull the Hartford Market job, this friend of mine. He lives here in town. He told me about a pay-roll that’s a push-over. Now, we’re going to Arizona, all right, but I was wondering.… If we just stay here in this apartment till the time comes to make the haul and then we make it and blow town right away, there wouldn’t be any harm in that, would there? We’re perfectly safe here, we wore masks on that other job and nobody could identify us and this pay-roll’s pretty big, Inspector. INSPECTOR: I wouldn’t trust you. I: Naturally. But there must be somebody you can trust. We’ll need at least a couple of men. You pick ’em. This is worth it, twenty thousand dollars is worth it. You pick a couple of guys you can trust to go in with us. Maybe you and Reece can go with us yourselves, to handle the getaway car or something. If anything goes wrong you can use the old stall, you know, that you were tipped off and went there to grab us red-handed. You’re the Inspector. You could get away with that… (
There it was. Audaces fortuna Juvat.
) (PAUSE – one, two) What the hell. Let’s cut ourselves a real piece of cake. (PAUSE – one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen) (
Light sound of movement; they are going into the bedroom.
)
Standing there in the gloom of the closet, knowing that this had come out all right, I still felt in my stomach a recurrence of the fear-agony I had suffered when they started for the bedroom, a faint recurrence, the way it feels when you touch a freshly healed scar. You are pleased and happy that it is healed, but that does not keep it from being sensitive.
(
Sound of door opening.
) Inspector, Inspector. You’ll have to excuse the appearance of the bedroom. The maid hasn’t come around yet. (Sound of door closing.)

Jinx lifted the playback arm.

‘That’s where they came in,’ he said. ‘I didn’t have time to cut the motor off, I was afraid they’d hear the click of the switch, so I just let it run.’

The motor was running now and it made a lot of noise. ‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘You can hear that thing pretty plain.’

‘I did manage to get Holiday’s coat over it. Like this,’ he said, lifting the coat and dropping it down over the set. Now the noise of the motor running wasn’t so plain, it was muffled. ‘My trade has some tricks, too,’ he said, meaning: You see, Holiday, he’s not the only guy who can think fast.

‘Go on. Play the rest of it,’ I said. ‘When they came back.’

He put the playback arm on the record. I: I don’t know, sir. My friend knows.…

‘That’s wrong,’ I said. There’s something missing. He asked me where the pay-roll job was.’

‘Well I didn’t get that,’ Jinx said. ‘By the time I got Holiday’s coat off the set he’d already said that.’

‘Start it over,’ I said.

He started it over. I: I don’t know, sir. My friend knows.…

INSPECTOR: Where is your friend now? I: I don’t know that either, sir. But I can get in touch with him. REECE: When’d you figure on pulling this? I: We hadn’t gone into that. My friend’s the one who spotted this. He just said it looked like a push-over. He didn’t go into details. INSPECTOR: Well, I’ll tell you what you do. You have your friend here at nine o’clock and we’ll
go
into details. I: I’ll try sir. I’ll certainly try. INSPECTOR: Whaddya mean you’ll try? You said you could get in touch with him. I: Yes, sir, but whether or not I can get in touch with him in time to have him here by nine o’clock tonight, I don’t know. I’ll have to get the word to him roundabout. You can come back at nine, but if he’s not here I don’t want you to get sore at me. (PAUSE – one, two, three, four, five, six) INSPECTOR: I’m not coming back till he’s here. You think you can raise him by tomorrow? I: Oh, I’m sure of that. INSPECTOR: Call me at headquarters. If I’m not there say that Mister Baker called. I’ll know what that means. Mister Baker. I: Yes, sir, Mister Baker. Inspector, sir, what about those two plainclothes men at the garage, Pratt and Downey? What if Mason brings them here? What if they come here? INSPECTOR: All you got to worry about is dragging that friend of yours out of his hole. I: Yes, sir, (PAUSE – one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
This is where the Inspector and I are watching Reece make a fool of himself nipping his teeth at Holiday.
) INSPECTOR: Whenever you’re ready, George. REECE: Oh, sure, sure, I’m finished, I’m finished – (PAUSE – one, two, three, four, five) (
Sound of hall door opening and closing.
)

Jinx lifted the playback arm and cut off the motor.

‘It’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘It’s all there – every beautiful syllable of it.’

‘Except the part when he asked where the pay-roll job was …’

‘Wait’ll he hears the record,’ I said, laughing. That’s
one
part he’ll never miss.’

Holiday was moving out of the closet, taking with her the mood of pessimism and lugubriosity which had remained undented throughout the playing of the record. I followed her into the bedroom and offered her a cigarette. When I lighted it she did not lift her eyes, keeping them on the match.

I said: ‘I was hoping that when you’d heard the record through, you’d feel better.’ She did not say anything. ‘Obviously, you’re still not very much impressed.’

‘I’m not,’ she said.

‘Goddamn it!’ I said. ‘Here we are sitting on top of the world.… What does it take to please you?’

‘Let her run things,’ Jinx said, at my elbow. That’s what it takes to please her…’

She merely flicked her eyes to him.

‘Are you jealous because this was my idea?’ I asked.

‘Don’t be a damn fool,’ she said.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘From now on it was your idea. Take it. You hear, Jinx? From now on it was her idea …’

‘What difference does it make?’ Jinx said. ‘We’re all in this together. You don’t hear me beefing about whose idea it was and I got eighteen hundred dollars in it.’

‘Well, you can’t expect a dame to know much about sportsmanship,’ I said. ‘Look,’ I said to Holiday. ‘I think you’re a very bad sportsman to get sore just because I conceived this idea – because I
just happened
to conceive it.’

‘Big Stuff. The Old Master,’ she said.

‘This is getting us nowhere,’ Jinx said.

‘She doesn’t like me,’ I said. ‘She’s never liked me from the first day she saw me. She only took me in on the crash-out because there was nobody else …’