Борден Дил - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956

“Mind stopping for a minute, Matt? I’d like to pick up some aspirin. I’ll find a phone book at the same time and call my sister to tell her I’m in town. All right?”

“Sure.” I said it with a grin, but I was going to watch this one closer than a load-limit inspector checking the scales under your wheel. I found a double-parking slot and worked the truck over to the curb.

“Be just a sec,” she called gayly.

There was a small drugstore right by the truck and she went in, then came out before she had had a chance to more than take a quick look around.

“They don’t have an L.A. directory, Matt. I’ll have to run back and try another store.”

I nodded. As soon as she started up the street I hunched over on my side and put my face as close as I could to the big mirror. That expanded the field of view. It was like looking out the window, only my head wasn’t sticking out of the cab. The blonde hurried along. About a block back, she hesitated for a careful look around. It looked like she nodded, but I wasn’t sure, before she turned into a store.

A bit farther on a car door opened toward the curb. A man in tweeds slipped across the walk and followed Maggie into the shop. The glow of a streetlight caught him long enough to remove any doubt... the blonde was getting together with Jake Wirth’s boy Joe.

Drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, I waited for her to come back, waited and chewed-on the latest development. One thing for sure — nothing was sacred now. Anything I could do to upset the speed of this cannonball was fair enough. I felt behind me for her suitcase, but the lock didn’t open. I’d need a key and Maggie never parted with her purse. But I had to know what I was carrying.

There’d have to be a way to get Maggie out, and still have the purse left in. I worked on that. Then I got out and went back to the rear wheels and squatted down on the sidewalk to peek under the truck. I waited for Maggie to come.

“Something wrong, Matt?”

I didn’t look up. I put my hand under and felt the hose coming down to the brake cylinder.

“What is it, Matt?”

“Air line. Plugged, I think. Can’t use the brakes.” Then I felt along the cylinder. “Maybe that’ll do it,” I said, and we climbed into the cab. I waited until she’d made herself comfortable and stowed her handbag. Then I reached under the dash and fiddled with nothing.

“No air.” I looked at her as I said it and saw the first signs of worry creeping across her face. She put a hand to her long yellow hair and I thought she tried to check the mirror on what was happening behind us.

“Maggie, you know that length of hose coming down back there? The one I just had my hand on?” She nodded. “Now look,” I went on slowly, “you watch the thing for me. You’ll see it jump when the air blasts through. It’ll jerk a little, like a garden hose when the water first comes on. Catch?”

“Yes, Matt, but—”

“Nothing to it,” I cut in. “I’ll work it free in a second and you’ll see the hose move. Then we can go.”

She climbed down and went back.

“Watching it?” I called.

“Yes, Matt.”

“Move yet?” I asked, my hand grabbing her purse. She answered a slow “No” while I made a quick pass through her bag. No keys. I brought out a gun instead.

“She moving now?” I called, and she answered, “Not yet, Matt.”

“Keep watching,” I said.

I checked the gun, a little .25 automatic, a vest-pocket edition, but plenty dangerous up to a few yards. The truck cab is only a few feet — I couldn’t allow this. I slid the clip free, then checked to make sure the chamber was empty. I dropped the bullets into my pocket and the gun back in her purse. Then I found the keys.

Moving fast, I hunched back toward the bags. She’d moved the little radio over by the open back window. I swung it down, slipped a key into the top suitcase, and raised the lid.

Green. Bales of green bills bound in packets with paper bands. They were twenties and I dared not think how much cash the suitcase represented. Involuntarily, my hand went to the smooth green paper. No use to open the other one. I was looking at more than enough dough to warrant knocking off a truck-driver when the time came. Brady was sure monkeying with a blowtorch this time!

Snapping the lid shut, I hoisted the leather radio back up, but the nearly-hidden gleam of a tube caught my eye.

There’d been no music out of the thing. Not a note. I stalled for time again. “Maybe now,” I called. “Keep an eye on it.”

“How long is this going to take, Matt?”

“Hold on,” I told her. “Just hold on, will yuh?”

I turned the radio quickly in my hands. Pressing the back down, I slipped it aside, but the works I saw were strictly not of the radio variety. Familiar to me, sure, but not radio. What I was holding was the chassis of a little walkie-talkie. I didn’t remember the number. B — C something. We’d used them often enough during the war. Someone had stripped away the case and tailored the works into this little portable radio shell.

Now I knew why the blonde had been so careful to pronounce the names of towns. A play-by-play report. A progress check every time Matt Brady turned the wheel. Our tail couldn’t have lost us if he’d tried. Not even at night.

We could do without any more of that kind of thing, too. I wrapped my fingers around the R-F amplifier tube, slipped it out, and replaced the back. Then I put her radio back on the miniature Fort Knox behind me and tramped on the brake pedal.

“Matt! It moved.”

“Come on, Maggie,” I called. “That does it. We’re ready to roll.” But we didn’t roll, not right away. I didn’t know which way to turn. I had to think. “We’ll build up a little air,” I said, my eyes glued to the dials.

They didn’t need watching, but I needed some time. I realized now that the bundle of bills behind had never seen the government mint. There could only be one reason Wirth wasn’t getting into the same car with the cash, for the trip south. That reason was twenty years on the rockpile. I thought about those etchings hanging on his walls. He was a master craftsman all right. The whole setup was plenty clear. He’d cut a set of plates and printed the phony twenties. A million dollars — two million, what did it matter? He’d picked a patsy, Matt Brady, to carry it down to a center of distribution. And Brady’d do the job for four hundred dollars and a smile — and maybe a hole in the head.

I made one solid decision. We could do without the escort when I got to discussing things with Maggie. Traffic was pretty heavy when we pulled out into the stream. I eased along playing the lights, waiting for a break, the tail-car boxed in a block behind us.

Then Maggie Blake cracked up. She broke like a school kid jilted on the night of the big dance. We were riding along and suddenly she threw herself across the cab, her arms going around me, her fingers digging into the flesh along my neck. I felt her body shudder. Hysterical sobs pulsed through her and big tears cascaded down the side of her face. Those bright red lips trembled and stayed half open, but never a sound came out, just the racking sobs as she clung to me. I slipped my free arm around her and half-heartedly tried to ease the strain; in the back of my mind was the idea that this was just another trick — something else to keep Brady off balance.

Only if this show wasn’t the real McCoy, the kid next to me was wasting her time. She could have been among the top-ten actresses.

When the panic died away, I smoothed her hair. “Better now?”

“Better, Matt.”

“You could tell me about it,” I said softly.

“Sometime. I will, Matt, sometime. But we’re close enough now. I can take a cab up to Mamie’s house from here. So if you’ll let me out, Matt, I’ll—”