Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (28 page)

‘What?’ she said.

‘Your new boy friend is certainly trying to find out who’s got that record, isn’t he?’

‘What’re you talking about?’ she said.

‘Reece and Webber,’ I said. ‘They cooked this up with you last night, didn’t they?’

‘Do you think…?’

‘Nuts,’ I said.

‘Oh, you couldn’t think that I would …’

‘Turn down the bed for me, will you?’ I said.

‘Lissen, Ralph …’

‘Paul,’ I said.

‘I swear, Paul. On my dead father…’

‘Fix the bed, will you?’

She got up from the bowl and stepped beside the tub. ‘Do you actually believe that I would …?’

I pulled a bath towel off the rack and slapped her across the face with it, ‘I asked you to fix the bed,’ I said.

‘Oh, God, why are you so suspicious?’ she moaned, going out…

M
ANDON PICKED
J
INX AND
me up on the corner near the apartment, a little after eight o’clock. He was sitting in the front seat and the handsome colored boy, Highness, was driving. The car barely paused at the curb and Mandon swung the door open and we got in.

‘I hardly knew you,’ he said to me. ‘All those new clothes’

‘This is only the beginning,’ I said. ‘How are you, Highness?’ I said. I thought: You gonna drive for a man, you ought to learn your job. You ought to learn how to get out and open the door.

Highness turned his head and looked at me impersonally, but did not say anything. There was nothing in his eyes either, but I had the old feeling that he was ready to spring. He gave me a chill every time I saw him. You son-of-a-bitch, I thought, I got a spot picked out right in the middle of your black stomach, you ever spring at me …

‘Where’re we meeting Webber?’ I said to Mandon.

‘At his office …’

‘Did you tell him the idea?’

‘I should say not. You couldn’t sell him that on the telephone. I don’t know that you can even sell it to him in person.’

‘I’ll sell him,’ I said.

‘Well – he might come around. …’

‘He can come around or be brought around. He can take his choice.’

‘Now, for Christ’s sake, don’t start getting tough with him,’ Mandon said. ‘You take it easy. You let me handle things.’

‘You hear that, Jinx? That goes for you too.’

‘I hear,’ he said.

Mandon turned all the way in his seat, looking at him. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he asked.

Jinx didn’t say anything.

‘You heard the man,’ I said. ‘He wants to know what’s the matter with you.’

‘Nothing,’ Jinx said to Mandon.

‘I never saw such a collection of sore-heads in all my life,’ Mandon said. ‘What the hell is he mad about?’ he asked me.

‘You heard the man,’ I said to Jinx. ‘He wants to know what you’re mad about.’

Jinx looked out the window.

‘He’s jealous of my new wardrobe,’ I said.

‘Well, he can have one, too,’ Mandon said. ‘Can’t he wait? Does he have to have it tonight?’

‘The man wants to know can you wait,’ I said.

‘Goddamn it,’ Jinx said. ‘I don’t care how many clothes he buys with his own dough. The dough he used to trap Webber and that guy belonged to me. Any other dough coming in, I want my split.’

I leaned forward to Mandon. ‘I’ve been trying to explain to him that the dough that bought these clothes was not corporation income,’ I said. ‘It was a loan. I borrowed the money.’

‘That’s right, Jinx,’ Mandon said.

‘Joseph,’ I said.

‘I loaned him the money myself, Joseph. …’ He turned and looked at me and I saw that he hadn’t realized yet that all the stuff I had bought cost more than the forty dollars he had loaned me. I had bought the clothes with the two hundred dollars I had borrowed from Vic Mason, the two hundred I had borrowed to have a date with Margaret Dobson, but it would have been a waste of time to try to explain that. It wouldn’t have changed the way Jinx felt, and I didn’t care how he felt, anyway. The hell with him. … I wouldn’t be saddled with him too long. …

This the way to the City Hall?’ I asked.

‘We’re not going to the City Hall,’ Mandon said.

‘I thought we were going to his office.’

‘We are one of ’em.’

‘How many offices has he got?’

‘Several,’ Mandon said.

This office was on the third floor of an eight-story building. We walked up, not using the elevator, as Mandon had suggested, but relaying, I was sure, a suggestion from Webber himself. It was an old building and the stairs were worn and dirty. There were several lights in various offices, and Mandon led us down the corridor, finally jerking his thumb at a door on which was lettered: COOPERATIVE BORROWERS, INC. Loans – winking, flipping his big eyebrows, trying to indicate that this is where we were going. He stopped before the next door on which was lettered: COOPERATIVE BORROWERS, INC. Loans. PRIVATE. Entrance 306. He knocked on the door normally, not using a code, just a normal knock, and it was opened by Reece and we went in.

Reece smiled but didn’t speak, closing the door. He wore a white suit and the armpits were stained by sweat, but he had no toothpick in his mouth. Webber was standing by a flat desk. He wore a striped seersucker suit and was smoking a cigarette. There were several chairs around the desk, and overhead a wooden fan was revolving slowly.

‘Hope I didn’t put you out too much,’ he said.

‘No, you didn’t put us out,’ Mandon said.

Reece moved away from the door, joining us at the desk. ‘Sit down,’ he said.

He sat down in an office chair and I sat down in a chair that had arms.

‘Sit down,’ I said to Jinx.

He sat down beside me.

‘I thought it’d be better if we talked here,’ Webber said. ‘What’s the big idea, Cherokee, that you couldn’t talk about on the phone?’

‘I could have talked about it on the phone,’ Mandon said quietly. ‘You were the one who didn’t want to talk about it.’

‘Well, what is it?’

‘Before I tell you, Charlie,’ he said, ‘I want you to know that we haven’t gone off half-cocked on this. It’s dangerous, but we can handle it.’

‘If the Inspector’ll co-operate,’ I said.

He glanced at me but didn’t get the pun. He looked back at Mandon and said: ‘Is this a heist?’

‘Yes,’ Mandon said.

‘Who?’

‘ Roamer’s collectors.’

‘Roamer’s collectors?’ he said. He looked at Reece. ‘How’d you happen to pick them?’

Mandon shrugged. ‘They carry a lot of money. …’

‘They carry a hell of a lot of money....’

They carry a hell of a lot of money, but they’ve never been heisted yet. Don’t you know why that is? You couldn’t take them without gun play and even then I have my doubts.’

‘You think you’re the first guys that ever thought of this?’ Reece asked.

‘We’re the first guys that’re gonna do it,’ I said.

‘Guess again,’ Webber said. ‘You try anything like this the whole town’d get shot up.’

I smiled at Mandon. ‘Maybe you’d better tell the gentlemen how we intend to avoid that,’ I said.

‘You tell him,’ Mandon said.

‘There’ll be no shooting as such,’ I said. ‘I guarantee it.’

‘How’re you gonna do it – hypnotize ’em?’ Webber said.

‘That’s where the co-operation comes in, Inspector. With your help we can hypnotize ’em.’

‘What kind of help?’ Reece asked.

‘With the help of some police uniforms and a squad car, a traffic control car…’

Webber blew the ashes off his cigarette to the floor. ‘Disguise yourselves as cops, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

He looked at Mandon. ‘He’s a very funny boy,’ he said.

‘I guarantee there’ll be no shooting,’ I said. ‘That way we can take ’em without a struggle.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Webber said. ‘He’s a comic’

‘We want a traffic control car and some uniforms and two other cops to help, real cops,’ I said evenly.

‘Oh, now, for Christ’s sake, Cherokee, you know I’ve got a deal with Roamer,’ Webber said crossly.

‘If you’re gonna put it on that basis, Inspector,’ I said, ‘we’ll have a hard time finding a customer. You don’t want us to touch a bank or a Federal job, and with everybody else you got a deal. Where does that leave us?’

‘With Roamer I’ve got a deal,’ Webber said. ‘What happens when the collectors tell him they’ve been stuck up by cops? Who do you think they’ll come to? He won’t be satisfied unless I put every cop on the force in the show-up for him. Jesus, Cherokee,’ he said, ‘maybe it’s too much to expect this kid to use his head, but there’s no damned excuse for you not using yours. …’

‘Inspector,’ I said, ‘what makes you think his collectors’ll tell him anything?’

He didn’t get this, either. ‘Of course, they will,’ he said. ‘They’ll have to tell him something. You might buy one guy and you might put the fix in for two, but not four. …’

‘Four of them. We’ll keep ’em quiet without a fix,’ I said.

Now they all got it.Webber and Reece looked at each other and for a moment there was silence.

‘And how can that be arranged?’ Webber asked.

‘That’s very simple,’ I said. ‘The part that isn’t simple is arranging things so that the four bodies and the car cannot be found or identified. That’ll take some thinking, but by tomorrow I’ll have the answer to that too.’ I heard Reece exhale heavily, but I was watching Webber. A little white showed around his lips. ‘I promise you, Inspector, that unless this can be done cleanly and without even an echo, I won’t touch it’

‘Four guys disappearing all of a sudden …’ he said. ‘Seems to me that’ll leave an echo.’

‘An echo,’ Mandon said, ‘is not evidence.’

Reece said: ‘If it’s as clean as that, Inspector, nobody can prove anything.’

I looked at him, nodding in surprised approval. I had begun to think that he never volunteered an opinion. Webber was staring at the desk. I knew what he was thinking. ‘I realize, Inspector, that in this case suspicion against you is just as damaging as evidence against you. But nobody will ever suspect anything. They just disappear. As far as Roamer is concerned, they blew with the dough.’

‘He’ll never believe they blew with the dough …’

‘Why shouldn’t he believe it? It’s happened before – probably to him too. Who is he that these guys won’t blow on? Saint Francis of Assisi?’

‘How much do you think they’re carrying?’

‘Mandon knows more about that than I do,’ I said.

‘A minimum of fifteen grand,’ Mandon said.

‘Jesus,’ Webber said. ‘Four guys for fifteen grand. …’

‘If you’re going to pro-rate this,’ I said, a little annoyed, ‘don’t leave out the Buick. That’s got to disappear too. A second-hand Buick on today’s market is worth more than all four of these mugs put together.’

Webber looked at Mandon and shuddered a little.

‘What kind of a job do you think we came here to tell you about?’ I asked. ‘A neighborhood drug store? An oil station? Snatching some old woman’s purse?’

‘That’d be more in your line,’ he snapped. ‘A swell-headed punk with all this talk about killing people …’

‘Where the hell do you get off to be so goddamn scrupulous?’ I said.

Take it easy…’ Jinx said.

‘Now, now, now…’ Mandon said.

‘You shut up!’ I said. ‘A swell-headed punk, am I?’ I said to Webber. ‘You just won’t learn, will you? That was your original mistake – thinking that. That’s how you happened to get caught in the wringer in the first place. I’m no goddamn dilettante playing around the edges of the underworld for a vicarious thrill; I’m just as much a professional as you are. What do these mugs mean to me? I don’t worry about them any more than you do about shaking a guy down and then shooting him in the back to keep him from singing …’

Fierce resentment was in Webber’s face and manner, and Reece saw it and stepped back and reached for his hip pocket.

Jinx slid out of his chair, crouching behind the side of the desk and there was blank astonishment in Mandon’s face.

I laughed, looking at Reece. ‘Stop acting, stupid,’ I said. The boss sees you. You’re a hero …’

‘You get this wild man out of here, Cherokee,’ Webber said. ‘Talk some sense into him.’

‘Come on, Ralph,’ Mandon said nervously.

‘Paul,’ I said.

‘All right, Paul. Goddamn it, come on …’

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘You can come out now, Joseph,’ I said to Jinx. He crawled back into his chair. ‘Sit down, Cherokee, and relax,’ I said. ‘Why do we have to yell and scream and insult each other every time we get together? Hating my guts shouldn’t make you act like that…’

‘It’ll do for the time being,’ he said.

‘Well, I hate yours too,’ I said complacently, ‘but that shouldn’t be any particular hardship on either one of us, because we’re not social friends. We’re professional friends – and we surely can put up with each other if there’s a profit involved. Of course, with your varied interests, a profit is not as great an inducement to you as it is to me. Consequently, it means more to me than it does to you. If you will try to understand that, then you can understand my behaviour. For which I apologize.’ He stared at me, not blinking an eye. Reece had taken his hand off his hip. ‘I don’t want to jeopardize your deal with Roamer,’ I said. ‘I know the story about the goose and the golden eggs as well as you do. This job is proposed on the basis of a complete and perfect disappearance…’

‘We got a happy town here,’ he said. ‘We all get along: the D.A., my office, all the boys around. The newspapers don’t bother us, we got no reform element – we wanna keep it that way. We don’t want none of the boys suspicious. We don’t want none of the boys cutting each other’s throats …’

‘Please, Inspector,’ I said. ‘Such loyalty is very touching, but what you’re really worried about is making Roamer’s four collectors and his automobile disappear completely. Isn’t that it?’

‘Somebody’ll find ’em sometime. They’ll find something.’

‘If there’s the slightest chance of that, I won’t pull it. If there’s the slightest chance. And you can be the sole judge.’

‘How’re you gonna do it?’ Reece asked.

‘I haven’t worked it out yet. Give me till tomorrow. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?’ I looked at Webber. ‘That’s fair enough, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘You be goddamn sure you check with me first.’