Эд Макбейн - Guns

The waitress is standing in front of Colley now. She has her hands on her hips. “Will there be anything else, sir?” she asks.

“Call me Steve,” he says, using the name he gave the doctor.

“Okay, Steve,” she says, and she makes it sound like they have already agreed to spend a month together in Brazil. “Will there be anything else?”

“Depends what you got in mind,” Colley says, and smiles.

“Right now, I got food in mind,” she says.

“But that’s only right now, huh?” he says. She is smiling, too. They are both smiling and looking into each other’s faces. “How about later, huh?”

“We’ll see about later,” she says.

“How about seeing about later now?” he says.

“You want a cup of coffee?”

“I want to talk about later.”

“Have a cup of coffee first,” she says.

“Okay, I’ll have a cup of coffee and also a piece of that Danish back there. Is that Danish?”

“Cheese Danish,” she says.

“Let me have a little piece of it,” he says.

He watches her as she draws the coffee, and lifts the cover off the Danish tray, and picks up a piece of pastry. He is still watching her when she brings the coffee and the Danish to the counter. She is wearing a smoky sultry look now; she smiles like a harem girl through a gauze mask.

“What’s your name?” he says.

“Marie.”

“Are you Italian, Marie?”

“French,” she says.

“French. Well, well. How old are you, Marie?”

“Old enough, don’t worry,” she says.

“What time do you get out of here, Marie?”

“Six.”

“That late, huh?” The coffee is very hot. He sips at it gingerly and then puts the cup back on the counter. “Six o’clock, huh?”

“Yes.” She is looking at him steadily.

“Maybe I’ll stop back here later,” he says. “What time is it now?” He looks at his wristwatch. “Almost four-thirty,” he says. “That gives me an hour and a half.”

“That’s right,” she says.

“So maybe I’ll stop back later.”

“If it’s maybe,” she says, “forget it.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” he says, but she has already walked away to the end of the counter. She comes around the counter, sits on a stool, picks up the comics from the Sunday News, and begins reading Dick Tracy.

Colley sips at his coffee. He is going to give her plenty of time. He puts the hat on his head and looks at himself in the mirror behind the counter. Not bad. He looks a little bit like Albert L. Donato, the noted Buick dealer. He sips some more coffee. He tilts the hat at a more rakish angle. He winks at himself in the mirror and then glances toward where Marie is still reading the funnies at the end of the counter. She is thoroughly absorbed in Dick Tracy. She is lip-reading her way through Dick Tracy there at the end of the counter.

“Marie?” he says.

She turns toward him as if a stranger has entered the drugstore and she cannot locate the sound of his voice. She has heard someone speaking, but she cannot imagine who it can possibly be, since she is alone in the place with only the cashier and Dick Tracy, and this voice from out of the blue has startled her. She locates Colley at last, sighs, gets up off the stool, comes around the counter, and walks to where he is sitting.

“Hi,” he says.

She says nothing. She stares at him. She is mortally offended.

“Can I have a check, please?” he says.

She begins writing. She does not look at him now. Her pencil scratches out the figures on her pad. He looks at her hand as she writes. The fingernails are bitten to the quick; he likes tense, nervous girls, they are very good in bed.

“You’re a pretty girl, Marie,” he says.

She does not look up.

“You want me to come back here at six o’clock?”

She puts the check on the counter face-down, and then she looks up into his face. He thinks she is going to tell him to go to hell. Instead, she says, “Do what you like.”

“I’d like to come back,” he says.

“Fine,” she says.

“Okay, I’ll be back at six.”

“Fine.”

“You live near here?”

“Yes.”

“You got a car?”

“I take a bus.”

“Cause all I’m driving is a pickup truck.”

“That’s okay.”

“Okay,” he says, and picks up the check. “Do I pay this here?”

“Yes,” she says.

“Okay,” he says, and takes out his wallet, and wonders if he’s supposed to tip her. He’s just made a date with her, is he supposed to tip her? He pays her the exact amount on the check, and she gives him a look, and he can’t tell whether she’s still sore because of what he said earlier, or whether she’s sore now because he stiffed her. “Well, I’ll see you later,” he says, and walks away from the counter. At the checkout, he takes off the blue cap and hands it to the cashier. She looks inside it for a price tag, and then rings up the sale. The plate-glass windows at the front of the store are behind her. Through them Colley can see the pickup truck. Alongside the truck is a white car marked NEW JERSEY STATE POLICE.

“That’s a dollar forty-seven,” the cashier says.

The police car is empty. Colley can see the trooper in the cab of the pickup truck, rummaging around. He can only assume that fat Will Hollip got out of the storage shed and called the state police to tell them a man had shot his brother’s valuable and gentle German shepherd and stole a pickup truck besides. Otherwise, why would a trooper be going through the truck now? He will find the Smith & Wesson in a minute. He will thumb open the glove compartment and find the gun. Colley turns immediately from the checkout counter and walks to where Marie is sitting reading the funnies again. She just cannot tear herself away from Dick Tracy, this girl. She has already read four panels of the strip. By Christmas she will have finished the whole page. He imagines being in bed with her. He imagines trying to talk to her afterwards. It will be like talking to a yak.

“Marie,” he says, “is there a back door to this place?”

“Why?” she says, and looks up from the comics into his face. Her eyes dart past him to the front door.

Colley turns at once. The door is opening. The trooper is coming inside. He has his gun in his hand. Colley does not know what kind of gun it is, but he knows that the troopers in some states use .357 Magnums, and he knows a bullet from a Magnum can tear off your head. The gun in the trooper’s hand is a big one, it could easily be a Magnum. Colley starts moving toward the back of the drugstore. He does not think the trooper has seen him yet. He figures the reason the trooper has his piece in his hand is because he’s had a report on a stolen pickup truck, and he’s found the truck and there’s a weapon in the glove compartment. Which is enough reason for him to proceed with caution. To him, proceeding with caution means having his own weapon in his hand as he enters the drugstore in front of which the pickup truck is parked.

Colley is moving down the center aisle, shelves on his left and right, shelves of perfume, Band-Aids, toothpaste, cologne, razor blades, shaving cream, deodorants, menstrual pads: he is moving between shelves of stationery and monster models, playing cards and boxes of candy; he is moving between shelves of magazines and paperback books. He spots the door at the back of the place, a glass door with a metal push bar across it about waist-high. He tries the door, and it is locked. He glances back over his shoulder. The trooper has moved from the checkout counter to the lunch counter. He is talking to Marie, and she is pointing toward the rear of the store.

The door is wired for a burglar alarm, metal strips creating a border design around the glass. He knows the alarm isn’t on, otherwise it would ring every time somebody came in the front door. Besides, an alarm going off would only bring cops, and he has a cop here already, looking toward the back of the store and nodding. In a minute he will come through the store yelling. And maybe shooting. Colley brings back his foot and kicks out flatfooted at the deadbolt lock. The door doesn’t budge. He kicks at it again. The cop is coming down the center aisle now. His gun is out in front of him. Colley thinks he has been here before. He has certainly been here before with a cop coming down the aisle at him holding a gun. This cop is not holding the gun in his left hand. This cop is not holding up a shield. This cop is just coming down the aisle very fast. There is also one other difference. Colley does not have a gun.