James Chase - The World in My Pocket

‘This and the big one,’ Bleck said, half closing his eyes. ‘From now on — no mistakes, huh?’

Morgan nodded, then moved the car out of the parking space and headed up town.

A little after eleven-thirty a.m., Kitson and Gypo arrived at the bottleneck two miles from the entrance to the Research Station in Gypo’s battered Lincoln. Kitson was driving and because Gypo loathed walking, he stopped at the bottleneck to let Gypo out, and then drove on for a quarter of a mile to a wooded thicket where he could hide the car. Leaving the car out of sight from the road, he walked back to the bottleneck.

The sun was hot and blazed down on his unprotected head, and, pretty soon, he was sweating.

He was wearing an open neck, navy blue shirt, a pair of jeans and sneakers. He moved easily, swinging his big fists, his head up, his breath coming in sharp snorts through his broken nose. He welcomed the chance to stretch his long, powerful legs, and as he walked, he examined the terrain either side of the dusty, rain-parched road.

It was certainly rugged country, he thought as he strode along, kicking up the dust and hunching his shoulders, taking a pride in the way his muscles rolled under the sweat-soaked shirt. But there was plenty of cover, and this bottleneck was a cinch for a pile-up.

Coming upon the bottleneck, he paused to examine it.

The road sharply narrowed at this point, hemmed in by two gigantic rocks that had come down off the sloping hill either side of the road. Either side of these rocks were shrubs and scrubland, offering excellent cover.

Looking over the ground, he could see no sign of Gypo, although he knew he was right there watching him. The fact that Gypo was able to conceal himself so well bolstered Kitson’s sagging confidence a little.

He was scared of this job. He was sure that before Dirkson and Thomas gave up someone was going to get hurt. For the past six months, since he had quitted the ring, Kitson had been under Morgan’s influence. Morgan had been the only one who had stayed with him in his dressing room after his ignominious beating by a man half his size and seventeen pounds lighter, but whose fighting brain was much superior to his own. That was when Kitson’s manager had tossed two ten-dollar bills on the rubbing table and had told Kitson he was through. His manager had walked out and Morgan had walked in. Morgan had helped him dress and had led him, half blinded still and stunned from the beating he had taken, out of the Stadium to Morgan’s car. Morgan had even taken him home.

‘So you’re through with getting your brains bashed into a pulp,’ Morgan had said when Kitson was flat on his back on his bed in the sordid little room he called his home. ‘So what? You and me could work together, kid. I’ve seen the way you can handle a car. I’m getting together a small mob: boys who can do a job sweetly and quickly and make themselves some money. What do you say?’

At twenty-three, Kitson realized he had reached the bottom of his ladder of ambition. He had hoped to become the Heavyweight Champion of the World, but this beating told him, as nothing else could, that this was now a pipe dream and he was just one more fighter in the trash bin. He had twenty dollars in his pocket, no friends and his future looked bleak. Even at that he hesitated. He knew Morgan by reputation. He knew Morgan had served fifteen years in jail, that he was violent and dangerous. He knew that he was asking for trouble if he joined Morgan’s mob, but he was more scared of being left on his own, to try to make a future for himself than of being hooked up with Morgan, so he had thrown in with him.

The five jobs he had done with Morgan’s mob had earned him enough money to live fairly well. They were jobs without much risk: small and carefully planned, and he knew, if he had been caught, he would have had to serve only three to six months in jail as a first offender.

But he was intelligent enough to know that these jobs were merely a rehearsal for a big job. He knew enough about Morgan to realize that Morgan would never remain content to continue on such a small scale. Sooner or later, Morgan would plan a big job that would carry a twenty-year sentence, and Kitson would be involved.

While he had been trying to make a name for himself in the fight game, Kitson had worked as a driver for the Welling Armoured Truck Agency. He had lasted exactly ten days. The discipline of the Agency had defeated him. His shoes had never been as well polished as those of the other drivers. His driving had been just that shade more careless to earn him bad marks. His punctuality lagged behind. His shooting practice had made the instructor bitter and sarcastic. It came as no surprise to him when the foreman had given him his pay and told him not to come back.

But he had, in those ten days, learned enough about the Agency’s methods and their men to realize that Morgan was taking on a world-beater. It was as if he himself had had the audacity to get into the ring with Floyd Patterson. He might perhaps have a million to one chance of beating the champion, but the chance was so small as to be laughable.

He knew that neither Thomas nor Dirkson would quit, and that meant a gunfight. Someone would get killed. If he were caught, he faced a twenty-year sentence or the electric chair. He had made up his mind as soon as Morgan had outlined the plan not to touch it. Rather, he would walk out on the mob. He would have done exactly this if it hadn’t been for the copper-haired girl.

No girl had ever spoken to him nor looked at him as she had done. Up to the moment when he had faced her and seen the contempt in her eyes and realized her complete lack of fear of him, he had imagined that he had had power over women.

Granted, he did have some kind of animal power over the women who were the camp followers any fourth-rate boxer will find tagging along behind him, but this copperhead had shown him for the first time that the power he had been so proud of was strictly limited. She had made an impact on him that had badly shaken him, and now he was so acutely aware of her that he could think of little else.

So it was because of her, and only because of her that he was going ahead with this job. He knew he was moving into something that was too big for him, that could be his finish, but he hadn’t the moral courage to face her contempt. He stood looking around the scrubland that surrounded the bottleneck, but he failed to see Gypo.

‘Okay, so you’re good,’ he called. ‘Where are you?’

Gypo’s moon-shaped face appeared from behind two boulders, and he waved to Kitson.

‘Here, kid. Pretty good, huh? Me and the invisible man like this,’ and he held up two fingers pressed tightly together.

Kitson walked off the road and joined him.

‘This is some place for an ambush,’ he said, squatting down beside Gypo. He looked at his watch. ‘They should be along in twenty minutes if they’re going to have a fast run.’

Gypo stretched out on his back. Taking a splinter of wood from his pocket, he began to explore his teeth while he stared up at the brilliant blue of the sky.

‘See that sky, kid?’ he said. ‘It reminds me of my home town. No sky like it in the world.’

Kitson glanced at him. He liked Gypo. There was a kind, sympathetic streak in the fat man that made companionship with him worth having. Gypo wasn’t like Ed Bleck who was always boasting of his conquests with women, who was always ribbing people, picking on them and playing practical jokes. Ed was smart, and had plenty of nerve, but he wasn’t the man to go to if you were in trouble, whereas Gypo was. Gypo would lend you his last dollar with no questions asked, but you’d never get anything out of Bleck unless there was a string tied to it.