Джеймс Чейз - You're Dead Without Money

‘Mr. Humphrey,’ Elliot said as soon as he was connected, ‘you can call off your men. Don’t try to find me. I’m sending you the stamps by registered mail. You will have them the day after tomorrow. The only condition is you won’t try to find me. If you act smart and I get picked up, I assure you will never get the stamps. Okay?’

‘If the stamps don’t arrive on my desk by the day after tomorrow,’ Humphrey said, his voice curt, ‘we’ll come after you. I have a tape recording of your voice. You’ll be in the middle of the biggest manhunt this country has ever staged. I’ll give you until the day after tomorrow and then, if you haven’t delivered, you’re in trouble.’

This could be a James Bond movie script, Elliot thought. Well, the stamps would arrive and he wouldn’t be in that kind of trouble.

‘Let’s hope we don’t have a mail strike,’ he said and hung up.

As soon as Vin had hung up on his conversation with Radnitz, he went to his bedroom and packed his things. He was so elated with the thought that within a very short time he would be worth a million dollars he was almost tempted to leave all his old clothes, thinking that soon he could buy himself a complete new wardrobe. Once the bag was packed, he looked around the room, made sure he had left nothing, then dropping his.38 automatic into his hip pocket, he carried the bag into the living room.

Lighting a cigarette, he went to the window. It would take Joey a good hour to get down town, collect the stamps and return. Well, that was all right with Vin. He could wait... just so long as Joey did come back. Vin told himself that Joey was so spineless he would get the stamps. He grinned to himself as he thought of how he had scared the crap out of Joey with a bottle of eye drops.

While he stood by the window, he thought of Radnitz. He could be tricky. Suppose he tried a double cross? A million was a hell of a lot of money. Radnitz wouldn’t give him that sum in cash.

Vin rubbed his jaw while he thought. How to work this?

After a while and having made his brain creak he decided he and Radnitz would meet at Radnitz’s bank. Before a bank witness, Vin would hand over the stamps in return for a certified cheque. That seemed to be the safe and only way to block a double cross. Radnitz would have to remain in the bank until the money had been transferred by Telex to Vin’s New York bank. Satisfied that he had solved this problem, he continued to wait, his mind roving into the future. Man! What would he do with all this bread! He had always wanted a yacht. Okay, so he would buy a yacht. He would buy one of those big estates in Bermuda the pictures of which he had so often seen in the coloured glossies. He would fill the house with willing dollies. Man! Would he live it up! Then when he wanted a change he would get aboard his yacht with one special chick and take off into the sun. That was the way to live! Vin grinned. Two days... then he would have the key that opened the door to a new, rich and exciting life!

He went on dreaming and waiting and the hands of his watch crept on. Vin didn’t mind the wait. Who cared about waiting when a future so full of everything he wanted made coloured pictures in his mind?

Then he saw Joey coming up the path leading to the bungalow.

Vin watched him. The jaunty, sprightly step and Joey’s relaxed, almost happy expression baffled Vin. It was as if Joey was receiving a million dollars rather than losing them.

Vin went to the front door and jerked it open as Joey reached the steps.

‘Did you get them?’ Vin demanded, aware his voice was unsteady.

‘I’ve got them,’ Joey said and moving past Vin, he entered the living room.

Vin went after him.

‘Give!’ He caught hold of Joey’s arm, his face alight with greed and excitement.

Joey handed him an envelope. Vin snatched it and ripped it open. He took out a plastic envelope containing the eight stamps. He stared at them, his eyes gleaming.

‘They don’t look much, do they?’

Joey moved away from him, watching him.

‘Lots of things don’t look much,’ he said quietly. ‘You and me don’t look much.’

Vin wasn’t listening. He was gloating over the stamps. Finally, he put them in his pocket.

‘Well, I’m on my way, Joey,’ he said. ‘Think of me — rich! Man! Am I going to have a ball! Tell that dummy movie star from me to get stuffed! He thought he was smart. Tell him I’m smarter.’ He went to pick up his bag while Joey watched him, saying nothing.

Vin paused and looked at him.

‘You don’t say much, do you, Joey?’

‘What’s there to say except I’m glad to see you go,’ Joey said quietly. ‘I hope you enjoy the money. Get going. Don could come back.’

‘Yeah.’ Vin started for the door, then again paused. ‘So long, Joey. When next we meet, if ever, I’ll buy you a cigar.’ He went quickly down the path to the waiting Jaguar.

Joey drew in a long, deep breath. So all that danger, risk, the threat of the cops was now finished, he thought. He would have to be careful how he explained it all to Cindy. Maybe if he explained it right, she would come to her senses, see that their way of life was the best way of life. He sat down limply in a chair, feeling suddenly depressed and very tired, but he knew — he was sure — that he had done the right thing. Who wanted all that money? You didn’t have to have money to be happy, he assured himself. He closed his eyes and began to rehearse what he would tell Cindy.

‘Being a writer, Mr. Campbell,’ Barney said as he finished what must have been his sixteenth beer, ‘I don’t have to tell you that every story has some loose ends. Now, this may surprise you, but when I tell a story, I like to be neat. I like to tie up as many loose ends as I can.’

I said that was the hallmark of a good writer and it did him credit. He squinted at me suspiciously, not quite sure if I were conning him or not, but finally he decided I wasn’t.

‘Telling a story is like painting a picture,’ he went on. ‘You finally finish it and you sit back and look at it and you find there are still a few touches to make it perfect... right?’

I nodded.

‘Well, I’m going back to a corner of my picture that you might think I’ve neglected.’ He scowled across the smoky, crowded bar and waved an urgent hand.

Sam shoved his way through the crowd, carrying the seventeenth beer and another vicious looking hamburger.

‘Are you eating again?’ I asked, not because I begrudged paying for this horrible abortion, but because I found it hard to believe any man, at one sitting, could work through three of these soggy messes, plus two dozen mouth exploding sausages.

‘My midnight snack,’ Barney said gravely. ‘If I don’t eat well, I don’t sleep well. If there’s one thing I like, apart from beer and talking, it’s sleeping well.’

I said I understood.

‘Well, now,’ he said as he began to cut up the hamburger. ‘I’m going to shift the scene just for a moment to the two hippies I told you about at the beginning of this story: Larry and Robo.’ He chewed, then looked inquiringly at me. ‘You remember them?’

I said I remembered them. They were the two Vin had run into when he had first met Judy Larrimore: the two Vin had fought with and had kicked around, busting Larry’s nose.

Barney nodded approvingly.

‘That’s what I like about a professional,’ he said. ‘You keep track. You know something? I often tell punks a story and when I try to remind them of something I’ve told them, I find they are asleep.’

I said this was always a danger when telling people stories.

‘Yeah.’ He brooded darkly for a long moment, then went on: ‘Larry and Robo: two stupid young punks who chased the chicks, smoked reefers, threw their weight around and generally made a nuisance of themselves. Not that there is anything unusual about that. They just followed the trend.’ Barney swirled his beer around in his glass and shook his head. ‘The trouble today, Mr. Campbell, is that it is too easy for young punks to earn money. When they’ve got it, they get into mischief. These two punks made money in a rattlesnake factory. Their job was to skin the snakes while other punks put the snakes in cans. Doesn’t sound much of a job, does it? But you’d be surprised. What with their union and the rest of it they made around a hundred and twenty dollars a week. That’s nice money, isn’t it?’