Тэлмидж Пауэлл: Manhunt. Volume 5, Number 1, January, 1957

By then Frank had the gun. The girl looked at him, her mouth working, her eyes wide and unfocused. She ran around him, sobbing. She fumbled with the key, unlocked the door. He followed her out, moving slowly. She was running up the hill. He heard the dying sound of her footsteps, heard her blundering through the brush. No one seemed to have heard the gun or the commotion, or perhaps no one had the desire to investigate.

He did not look back into the room. He walked down the hill. He slipped the gun into his side pocket. There were no customers in the diner. The fat man was wiping off the bar top. He looked at Frank with heavy annoyance. “I’m closed, bud.”

“I’m going to use your phone.”

“I told you I’m — well, okay. Go ahead. Make it short.”

Frank straightened his shoulders, “I might talk a half hour.” He was daring the man to oppose him. “That’s going to be okay with you, isn’t it?”

The man looked at him, shrugged, looked away. “Suit yourself.”

He called the police. Then he made a collect call to Marian. Her voice was sleepy, but she soon began to understand. It was five hundred miles — one day’s drive away. He hung up when he heard the approaching cry of the siren.

He walked out and waited for them. He knew that he would talk well and they would remember him.

The clothes were new, the man the same. Too bad certain people failed to recognize him.

They had eighteen thousand dollars, they couldn’t spend a nickel. Davy Wyatt spread the money on the kitchen table, in neat piles, according to their various denominations, and just sat there, looking. After awhile this got on Phil Pennick’s nerves.

“Cut it out, kid,” the older man said. “You’re just eatin’ your heart out.”

“Don’t I know it.”

Davy sighed, and swept the bills back into the neat leather briefcase. He tossed it carelessly onto his bunk, and joined it there a minute later, lying down with his fingers locked behind his head.

“I’m goin’ out,” Phil said suddenly.

“Where to?”

“Pick up some sandwiches, maybe a newspaper. Take a little walk.”

The kid’s face paled. “Think it’s a good idea?”

“You got a better one? Listen, we can rot in this crummy joint.” Phil looked around the one-room flat that had been their prison for two days, and made a noise that didn’t nearly show his full disgust. Then he grabbed for his jacket and put it on.

“It’s your neck,” the kid said. “Don’t blame me if you get picked up. With that dame playin’ footsie with the cops—”

“Shut up! If they get me, they’ll have your neck in the chopper ten minutes later. So don’t wish me any bad luck, pal.”

Davy sat up quickly. “Hey, no kidding. Think you ought to take the chance?”

The older man smiled. The smile did nothing for the grim set of his features, merely shifted the frozen blankness, which was the result of three prison terms. He put a soft fedora on his gray head and adjusted it carefully.

“We took our chance already,” he said as he opened the door. “And as far as the dame goes — you leave that up to me.”

He hoisted the .38 out of his shoulder holster, checked the cartridges, and slipped it back. The gesture was so casual, so relaxed, that the kid realized once again that he was working with a pro.

Davy swallowed hard, and said, “Sure, Phil. I’ll leave it up to you.”

The street was full of children. Phil Pennick liked children, especially around a hideout. They discouraged rash action by the police. He walked along like a man out to get the morning paper, or a pack of cigarettes, or to shoot a game of pool. Nobody looked at him twice, even though his clothes were a shade better than anybody else’s in that slum area.

Davy’s last words were stuck in his thoughts. “I’ll leave it up to you...” It was easy enough to reassure the kid that the old pro would work them out of trouble. Only this time, the old pro wasn’t so sure.

They had planned a pretty sound caper. Something simple, without elaborate preparations. It involved one small bank messenger, from a little colonial-style bank in Brooklyn, the kind of messenger who never seemed to tote more than a few grand around. Only they had been doubly surprised. The bank messenger had turned out to be a scrapper, and the loot had turned out to be bigger than they had ever dreamed. Now they had the money, and the little bonded errand boy had two bullets in his chest. Was he dead or alive? Phil didn’t know, and hardly cared. One more arrest and conviction, and he was as good as dead anyway. He wasn’t made to be a lifer; he’d rather be a corpse.

But they had the money. That was the important thing. In twenty years of trying, Phil Pennick had never come up with the big one.

It would have been a truly great triumph, if the cops hadn’t found their witness. They hadn’t seen the woman until it was too late. She was standing in a doorway of the side street where they had made their play. She was a honey blonde, with a figure out of 52nd Street, and a pair of sharp eyes. Her face didn’t change a bit when Phil spotted her. She just looked back, coldly, and watched the bank messenger sink to the sidewalk with his hands trying to back the blood. Then she had slammed the front door behind her.

The kid had wanted to go in after her, but Phil said no. The shots had been loud, and he wasn’t going to take any more chances. They had rushed into the waiting auto, and headed for the pre-arranged hideout.

Phil stopped by a newsstand. He bought some cigarettes, a couple of candy bars, and the Journal. He was reading the headlines as he walked into the tiny delicatessen adjoining. The holdup story was boxed at the bottom of the page. It didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know. The honey blonde had talked all right. And she was ready to identify the two men who had shot and killed the bank’s errand boy. Shot and killed ... Phil shook his head. The poor slob, he thought.

In the delicatessen, he bought four roast beef sandwiches and a half dozen cans of cold beer. Then he walked back to the apartment, thinking hard.

As soon as he came in, the kid grabbed for the newspaper. He found the story and read it avidly. When he looked up, his round young face was frightened.

“What’ll we do, Phil? This dame can hang us!”

“Take it easy.” He opened a beer.

“Are you kidding? Listen, one of the first things the cops’ll do is go looking for you. I mean — let’s face it, Phil — this is your kind of caper.”

The older man frowned. “So what?”

“So what? So they’ll parade you in front of this dame, and she’ll scream bloody murder. Then what happens to me?”

Phil took his gun out and began cleaning it. “I’ll stop her,” he promised.

“How? They probably got a million cops surrounding her. They won’t take any chances. Hell no. So how can you stop her?”

“I got a plan,” Phil said. “You’re just going to have to trust me, kid. Okay?”

“Yeah, but—”

“I said trust me. Don’t forget, Davy.” He looked at his partner hard. “This wouldn’t have happened at all — if you didn’t have a jerky trigger finger.”

They ate the sandwiches, drank the beer, and then the older man went to the leather brief case and opened it. He lifted out a thin packet of bills and put it into his wallet.

“Hey,” Davy said.

“Don’t get in an uproar. I’m goin’ to need a few bucks, for what I’ve got in mind. Until I come back, I’ll trust you to take care of the rest.” Phil put on his jacket again. “Don’t get wild ideas, kid. Remember, you don’t leave the room until I get back. And if we have any visitors — watch that itchy finger.”