James Chase - The World in My Pocket

He shrugged his shoulders, frowning. Then, putting Ginny out of his mind, he concentrated once more on the plan.

At six o’clock a.m. on Friday morning, after a restless night, Gypo got out of his bunk and walked over to the open window to look at the sun as it came up from behind the mountains.

In two hours’ time the job that had been discussed and discussed until his brain was dizzy would begin. He would be pitting his training, his skill and his cunning against one of the most difficult locks devised, and he felt uneasy. Suppose it defeated him? He flinched at the thought of Morgan’s anger.

Making an effort to control his nerves, he went over to a tin bowl, filled it with cold water and washed his face. He shaved, nicking himself in several places, noticing with a feeling of dismay that his hand was far from steady. To feel the fall of the tumblers on the lock, to catch them at the right moment meant moving the dial a hair’s breadth at a time, and this called for a rock-steady hand.

Looking at his trembling hands, Gypo drew in a long, deep breath. He must control his excitement and anxiety, he told himself. Always he had prided himself on the sensitiveness of his fingers and the steadiness of his hands. If he allowed himself to get nervous the lock was certain to defeat him.

He looked across the room to where an ornate wooden crucifix, which his mother had given him, hung on the wall. Perhaps this was the time to pray, he thought: something he hadn’t done for years.

But when he knelt down before the crucifix, crossing himself as he had been taught, he discovered that he had forgotten how to pray. He realized that he couldn’t ask for help when he was going to do something he knew to be wrong, and he could only mumble incoherently, repeating over and over again, the words: ‘Forgive me.’

In a room on the outskirts of the town, Kitson was heating coffee, having just got out of bed. He was aware of a cold clutch of fear gripping him.

He had spent a bad night, worrying and tossing on the bed. Everything was now ready. At eight o’clock, it would begin, and there would be no turning back. It was only the thought that he would have Ginny to himself for two days that kept him from throwing his few belongings into a bag and getting out of town and as far away from Morgan as a train could take him.

He felt in his bones that this job was doomed to fail, but Ginny’s attraction and his feverish, immature love for her urged him on.

When the coffee was ready, he found he couldn’t drink it. The smell of it made him feel sick, and he hurriedly emptied the contents of the cup into the sink.

In another room, in another street, not far from Kitson’s home, Morgan sat at the window, looking across the roofs of the buildings, watching the sunrise, a cigarette between his thin lips, his mind going over the final preparations that he had checked the previous night.

He was like a general before the battle, checking over in his mind each move that he had planned, satisfied that he had done his job well. He was now prepared to accept the consequences of either victory or defeat, knowing that there was nothing more he could do to make his plan better or safer. Everything now depended on the individuals concerned. If Ginny lost her nerve; if Ed failed to shoot straight; if Kitson failed to handle the car and the caravan on his own; if Gypo went haywire and couldn’t bust into the truck; innumerable ‘ifs’, but nothing he could do about it. Not once did Morgan question his own ability. He was completely sure of himself, and he looked down at his rock-steady hands, satisfied that his nerves were tough and he wouldn’t crack.

In another part of the town, in his two-room apartment, Bleck was still in bed. He lay on his back, watching the sunlight creep up the wall, knowing that when it reached the right-hand corner of the ceiling, it would be time to get up.

Bleck had been tempted to call up Glorie the previous night and get her to spend the night with him, but he knew the danger of this. His bags were packed and his personal belongings had been put into store. Glorie would know immediately that he planned to leave town and she would ask questions. She might even make a scene, so on this night before the big job, Bleck had to sleep alone: something he hadn’t done in years, and he found the night long and lonely.

Now, as he watched the sunlight edge slowly into the room, he wondered how he would feel after he had killed the guard. This would be the final step in his criminal career. Never before had he planned to kill anyone, being always careful to arrange his petty robberies so that no one got hurt.

He had no compunction about killing the guard. It was part of the job, and he accepted the fact. The man had to die, otherwise the plan would fail, but in spite of accepting the fact, Bleck couldn’t help wondering how he would feel when he came out from behind his cover and walked over to the dead man and looked at him. He had talked to killers while he had been in prison, and he had seen a shifty, uneasy, scared expression in their eyes as they had boasted of what they had done. He knew they felt themselves to be people apart. The expression in their eyes was something he had never seen in the eyes of any other man no matter how badly they had lived. He wondered if he too would look like that after he had killed the guard and the thought bothered him.

When he squeezed the trigger of the rifle, he would not only be killing a man, he would also be offering his own life as a hostage to fortune. From the moment the bullet sped on its way, his own life would no longer be safe until he was dead.

It would mean he would no longer trust anyone, that he would always stiffen at a knock on the door, that his hands would turn moist at the sight of a policeman and his sleep would be haunted by dreams. He would become one of the men apart.

The sunlight had by now reached the right-hand corner of the ceiling and he threw off the sheet and got out of bed. He crossed the room, picked up a half-empty bottle of Scotch and poured a stiff drink into a glass. He grimaced as the liquor filled his mouth, then with an effort, he swallowed it. For a few moments he stood motionless, then when he began to feel the effects of the liquor, he went into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

In a shabby little room on the top floor of a rooming house on the outskirts of the town, Ginny was closing the lid of a suitcase that contained all her worldly belongings. She looked at her wristwatch and saw the time was twenty minutes to seven. There was no need for her to leave for Gypo’s workshop for another half an hour, she told herself and she went over to the window and looked down into the narrow, dirty street, lined on either side by refuse cans.

If they were lucky, she thought, in a few days or a few weeks, this sordid, dreary life she had been living would be a thing of the past. She would have money. She could go to New York, buy clothes, perhaps rent a penthouse apartment and live the life she had dreamed of living for years.

If they were lucky.

She had faith in Morgan. He thought the way she did. She had liked the phrase he had coined: the world in your pocket. The phrase exactly represented the life she wanted to live, and there was no other way of getting what she wanted except with a large sum of money.

If anyone could capture the truck and get at the money, it was Morgan.

As for the others.

She made a little face.

So much depended on Gypo. His excitability made her nervous. She only hoped Morgan would handle him.

Bleck might be troublesome. She had seen the way he kept looking at her. She would have to be careful when they were at the caravan camp never to be left alone with him.