Эд Макбейн - Guns

“You being taken care of?” the other waitress asks.

“Yeah, thanks,” Colley says. Behind him, the truck driver who’d been sitting alone at the counter is paying his check. The cashier asks him, “Was everything all right, sir?” and the guy nods and takes a toothpick from a glass container on the counter. The cashier rings up the check, money comes tumbling down the cash register chute into the small metal receiving dish. Colley wishes he could see into the open drawer of the register, but the mirror isn’t angled that way. “Have a nice day now,” the cashier says. “You too,” the truck driver says, and goes out.

In the mirror, Colley can see him buying cigarettes at the cigarette machine in the entrance cubicle. The door to the kitchen swings open again. The short-order cook is laughing and the brunette waitress has a grin on her face; she missed her calling, she should have been a stand-up comic. Down at the other end of the diner, the truck driver is coming out of the men’s room, fiddling with his zipper. Colley is willing to bet eight-to-five that the guy did not wash his hands afterwards. Colley always washes his hands afterwards, even if he’s only taken a leak. But he has noticed over the years that most guys don’t bother washing their hands afterwards. He has also noticed that most guys don’t even bother flushing the goddamn toilet afterwards.

In Sing Sing the cops would get mad as hell you didn’t flush the toilet afterwards. Prison movies, all the prison security officers are called screws by the cons. Colley gets up to Sing Sing, he discovers the cops are called cops or pigs, just like outside. Fuckin pig is a fuckin pig no matter where he works. One cop up there, they called him the Shadow, he’d sneak up on a man before you knew what was happening. “The Shadow knows,” he’d say, and give you a shot with his fuckin stick, the end of it, poke you with it hard. If he found a guy walking away from a toilet without flushing it, he was on that man in a minute, sneaked up on him like a whisper. “The Shadow knows,” he’d say, and ram that fuckin stick in your arm, leave it black-and-blue for a month. Even so, guys up there didn’t flush the toilets. Same as outside here.

The truck driver who came out of the toilet says, “Well, you ready to roll, Frank?”

“I was asking Jill here she maybe felt like dancing tonight,” Frank says; he’s the one with the button on his hat.

“What makes you think we’ll be back tonight?” the other guy says.

“We’re only going far as Washington, ain’t we?”

“I thought we’d maybe stay over.”

“I rather come back here, go dancing with Jill,” Frank says.

“He’s a good dancer, he tells me,” Jill says. “Is that true, Eddie?”

“I never danced with him,” Eddie says, and the jerks start laughing again.

Eddie and Frank, Colley thinks. Get the fuck out of here, Eddie and Frank. Get the rig rolling, lots of miles to cover before you get to Washington.

“So what’s it going to be?” Jill asks. “Are we on for tonight or what?”

“What time you quit?” Frank says.

“Five o’clock.”

“I’ll call you before then. Soon’s I see what kind of time we’re making.”

“You made some pretty good time right here in the diner,” Jill says, and they all laugh again. She is writing out the check as she says this, the girl really missed her calling. She doesn’t even look up at them, she just keeps writing, and they’re practically rolling on the floor laughing at her remark. “Here you go, boys,” she says. “Who’s taking it this time?”

“I think it’s my turn,” Eddie says, and takes the check from her hand.

Frank gets off the stool like he is disembarking from a rodeo horse. He stretches his arms over his head, showing his belly when his shirt rides up. “I’ll call you before five,” he says.

“I’ll be waiting,” Jill says.

They laugh again, for no reason this time, and the two men come down the aisle and stop at the cash register behind Colley. He sees them in the mirror as they pay the check. “Was everything all right, gentlemen?” the cashier says, and Eddie says, “Just dandy,” and Frank says, “Best food in all Jersey,” and the cashier rings up the check and chirps, “Well, thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed it. Have a nice day now.”

Jeanine is sitting outside in the red Pinto. Colley is afraid the truck drivers will see her sitting there and wonder what the hell she’s doing sitting there while her husband or whoever is inside the diner. He realizes he should have ordered sandwiches to go. Not something to eat inside here. So if anybody got suspicious of Jeanine, they’d think he was in here buying something for her to eat in the car. In the mirror behind the counter, he sees the truck drivers opening the door and stepping out into the entrance cubicle. Frank, the one with the button on his hat, stops at the pay telephone on the wall, and automatically feels in the coin-return chute to see if there is any change in it, cheap bastard. They both go outside. Colley waits until he hears their truck starting, hears the grinding of gears, the hiss of air brakes, the truck gearing up again as it enters the highway, and then the sound of its engine fading into the distance.

It is time to make his move.

“Eggs over lightly,” Jill says, and puts the plate down in front of him, together with a second plate on which there’s the toasted English. “You did say bacon, didn’t you?” she asks.

“Yeah, bacon.”

“Coffee’s coming,” she says, and turns to the big urn on the wall to the left of the swinging door to the kitchen, and draws a cup, and puts it on the counter next to the plate of eggs. “Cream and sugar?” she asks.

“Please,” Colley says.

Behind him there is nobody at the cashier’s counter; he wants to make his move immediately before a traffic jam starts. Jill picks up the sugar container from where it’s sitting two stools down and carries it to Colley and sets it down on the counter in front of him. To the left of the coffee urn there’s a small tray of creamers and she reaches for two of these now, her back to Colley. He is about to turn on the stool, and get to his feet, and throw the gun in the cashier’s face. He is almost starting into motion when the swinging door to the kitchen flies open and the short-order cook comes out. He looks Colley directly in the face, and smiles.

“Hot back there,” he says, and wipes his forearm across his upper lip. “Eggs okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, fine,” Colley says, and picks up his fork. He does not want to throw down on the cashier while the short-order cook is out front. He does not know who the guy is, but sometimes in these small diners the cook is also the owner, and he doesn’t want to have to shoot a man trying to protect what’s in the till.

Jill is back now, she puts the two creamers in front of Colley. He rips the foil top off one of them and pours the contents into his coffee. Jill reaches into the pocket of her uniform, takes out a package of cigarettes, discovers it’s empty, crumples it, and puts it in an ashtray. Then she comes through the break in the counter and goes outside to the cigarette machine. In the mirror, Colley sees her looking out at the parking lot as she rips the red cellophane strip off the top of the package. When she comes inside again, she says to the short-order cook, “Blonde sitting outside there in a red Pinto.”

“Yeah?” the cook says.

“That’s my wife,” Colley says immediately. “She wasn’t hungry.”

“She should come in, cool off,” Jill says.

“It’s cool in the car,” Colley says.

“Cool in here, too,” the cook says. “Except back there by the stove.”