Джеймс Кейн - The Enchanted Isle

“I heard him. That’s bad.”

“I still don’t know what happened.”

At last he started to talk: “You know how they had it lined up? Well, that’s exactly how they did it, and it went like it was greased. A girl came in and Bud made her lie down out there by the customers’ desk, and when a guy came in, he made him do the same. Then, soon as Pal handled the tellers, making them open those carts, they marched right out to Bud and lay down beside the girl, the one on the floor already. Then the girl that Pal picked out to pitch the money in, she commenced doing her stuff, me holding the basket for her until it was almost full and getting so heavy I was wondering if I could hang on to it. Then she went out and lay down, and Pal and I went out through the gate, the one in the railing that runs across the bank from the tellers’ windows, in front of a bunch of desks that the secretaries sit at. And Pal said to me, ‘OK, Chuck, out.’ To the car, shove the dough in, get in, and wait!’

“That he half-whispered, but Bud cut in on him quick: ‘I got ten people here on the floor, two from outside and eight from the bank, but not no goddam guard!’ He roared it and kept on: ‘Not no guy with a gun! Where the hell did he go? Where is he?’

“Well he found out soon enough.

“He was still roaring at Pal when a guy popped out of a door, one that leads to rooms in back, his face all lathered up except one side was shaved, a razor in his hand and a gun under his arm, with straps running off from the holster, over his shoulder and around his chest. The look on his face said he’d come at the sound of Bud’s roaring, from shaving himself in the men’s room. Bud saw him and fired, but not soon enough. Because soon as he saw what was up, he ducked back of the railing and then leveled his gun on it, using it for a gun rest so he could sight. He fired and Bud went down. By that time Pal was firing his gun from the other side of the bank. But he had no target to shoot at and almost at once fell. And then, Mandy, I had the worst moment of my whole life, as I woke up that I would be next. I dropped the basket and started to run. But then I knew I had to have it, for protection so I wouldn’t be killed, to keep it between me and him, between my back and the gun. I grabbed it by one hand and muscled it onto my back, then started running again. And he started shooting again. I could feel the chock of bullets and hear their zing as they hit the tin, but none of them went through, thank God. I made the door and got out, and know nothing about the rest, him being shot by Pal, if Pal was the one that did it, or any of it, except me falling into the car, still holding the basket to me so I wouldn’t be hit by the shots.”

He stopped and I kept driving on, but pretty soon I told him, “Bud was sore about it, Pal messing up the count of the bunch there at the phone booth. It’s all he talked about at the Holiday Inn while you were away from the table.”

“He had reason to be.”

By now I was close to the cross-street that the alley ended on, and I said, “Rick, we’ll have to switch cars pretty soon, so will you transfer the money? From the basket to the bag? So we can carry it?”

“Mandy, to hell with the money! Let’s get out of here! Let’s, for Christ’s sake, not have any retakes of that nightmare there in the bank, when I thought I was going to die! Let’s ditch this car, blow, and wipe today out if we can!”

“You mean walk off and leave the money?”

“It’s hot! It can get us the gas chamber! That guard is dead, and they can pin it on us! It’s not who did it, it’s who was in it!”

“Then, OK, get out!”

“...What did you say?”

“I say if that’s all the nerve you got, then get out, git! But I’m not getting out! I’m not leaving this dough! It’s ours and I mean to keep it!”

“Who says I don’t have any nerve?”

“I do! You’ve lost any nerve that you did have!”

“Listen, there’s more to it than you know about!”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like what they were fixing to do — to us!”

“Who was fixing to do?”

“Those two guys that got killed!”

“And what were they fixing to do?”

“To kill us, that’s what!”

He said he’d caught Bud drawing his finger over his throat, when he thought he wasn’t looking, and Pal nodding his head. He said, “They meant to let us have it, right here in this car, before they made the switch. That’s the split they intended to make. That’s what they meant to do!”

“Funny I didn’t catch on.”

“Or maybe they didn’t mean you. Maybe, for you, Pal had different ideas. Maybe the both of them did.”

“What different ideas?”

“What do you think?”

“...Rick, you shoving off or not?”

But instead of getting out, he pushed the bag down so it was standing right-side up on the back seat where he was, instead of being upended in front of the window. Then he opened it, cocking the hinges so it wouldn’t fold shut. He began transferring the money, pitching it in from the basket, every which way, without bothering to pack it neat. When he got done the bag was nearly full and he snapped it shut. I said, “OK, but I’ve run past our turn, the one I take for the alley. We’re in West Baltimore. I’ll have to run back.”

So I did, circling around, taking four or five turns. Then at last I came to the cross-street, turned into it, then turned into the alley. The blue was still there and I parked behind it, just as I had before. I set the brake and got out, taking the key ring. I walked to it, peeped inside to make sure no one was there, and unlocked it. I got in, tried the new key in the ignition to make sure it would turn on. It did and I started the motor. Rick tapped on the right-hand window, and I threw the lock to let him get in. But he reached around inside the front door, undid the lock on the rear door, opened it, and put the bag on the back seat. Then he got in beside me, locking both right-hand doors. But he hadn’t brought my bag. I got out and went back to get it. And when I opened the driver’s door to take it from the front seat, that money was still there, that bunch of ones, fives, tens, and twenties that had spilled out when Rick got in, to be under my feet, in the way. I grabbed them up and stuffed them into my handbag. Then I went back to the blue and got in. As I pulled away Rick asked, “Where do we go from here?”

“Well, one thing at a time, let me think.”

“Well, where do we go from here?”

He said it pretty peevish, and I had no answer yet, as I’d been so busy driving, making him transfer the money, and switching cars in the alley to figure on it at all. Now I tried to, still driving around, at lease as well as I could, but he was no great help, talking along some more in his peevish, faultfinding way: “We can’t go to a motel because look what happened last night — we had hardly got in the door before they commenced suspicioning us, and with this heavy bag in my hand they might want to know what’s in it. So what are we going to say? Suppose they tell us open it up; what are we going to do? OK, so they don’t tell us open it up, but that leaves us worse off than before. They give us a room but those places all have maids, and the one on our floor, she wouldn’t be human if she didn’t wonder about this bag. And when we go out to eat, you think she’s got too many principles to open it up and peep? It’s unlocked and we can’t lock it, as we don’t have any key. Maybe those guys had one, but they’re unfortunately dead now and it doesn’t do us any good. We wouldn’t dare go out, to get something to eat or do anything else! Go out, hell! We dare not go to a motel or anywhere! And we dare not stay in this car — it’s hot, as we know, they told us. And sooner or later, at some bridge or tunnel or light, a cop will hold up his hand, look in his little book, find our number, and that’ll be that. In Maryland murder’s murder — it’s not whether you used the gun. Being in it is enough.”