Джеймс Кейн - The Moth

“And we, we have got something left, hey?”

“More than he’s got.”

“Jack, we can use him.”

“For what?”

“Watching, for one thing. He can smell a cop further than—”

“All right.”

“If either one of us had anything left, we wouldn’t be pulling something like this. We’re trying to get it back. Maybe he is, too. Maybe—”

What he really meant was that Hosey had it on us whether we liked it or not, and if we were going to pull this job instead of waiting to pull some other job we had to take him. He was more use than we expected. He went over there to this flagship later that morning, dropped dead in front of the door, and when they brought him to with ice water he came up with stuff about not having eaten for three days, and they let him make a buck cleaning the place off with a squeegee. He came away with a pretty good idea of where everything was, and said as far as he could see there wasn’t any safe, that the money was kept in a cash drawer out by the pumps, that they opened every time a customer paid. He drew up a plan of the station, with all streets marked, and distances in yards. He had the names of the station manager and the boss of the chain.

In the late afternoon I figured to get the gun. It’s when most guys want a drink, and while we didn’t have much money left, we did scrape together for some liquor and one or two things. I got a pint, with some fizz water, at a drugstore, and they gave me some ice in a container. There was a phone booth in there and I rang a picture theater and got the time of the feature, the newsreels, and all the rest of it, for Hosey. I checked on a bus he’d have to ride, to join up with us later. When I got back to the motel it was around five.

“Buck, you got a beer opener?... Oh, I beg your pardon. I thought this was my friend’s room. I was thinking of throwing a drink together, but I’ve got nothing I can use to open my carbonated water. Well, have you got one?”

“No, I wish I could accommodate you, but—”

“I’ll find something.”

“Would — pliers do?”

“I bet they would work.”

“You’re welcome to try, if you think—”

“Well, say, why don’t you try?”

“Is that an invitation?”

He was a shriveled little guy, maybe forty, with wrinkles around his eyes, a little red mustache, and a jut-out chin that slewed over sidewise from his jaw, just about what you’d expect somebody to look like that had a.38 in his bureau drawer. How quick he found the pliers was funny, and we went in my room. They didn’t work, but by a funny coincidence, the screw driver on my jackknife did. I unscrewed the top of the whisky, that was so cheap it didn’t even have a cork, got out the glasses, poured drinks, and said: “Here’s how.” Right away he got friendly and began asking me if I wasn’t from Virginia. I said no, Tennessee, just outside Chattanooga, and he said he knew it was below the line somewhere. We talked along, I poured more drinks, said: “Here’s how” again. But about that time somebody outside began whistling Casey Jones and I started out. “Excuse me just a second — be right back. Help yourself to the liquor.”

“Thanks.”

Outside, crossing the street, were Buck and Hosey. A block away, I caught up with them. We strolled along and I made Buck show me the gun, to make sure he had it. He spread his coat pocket and I looked in. It was an automatic. We went over it then with Hosey, what he was to do, and explained it to him once more, that it was all part of his alibi, in case he had to prove one. He was to buy a ticket at the theatre, and sit in a loge seat at the back. If no usher bothered him he was to stay there. If an usher did ask to see his ticket, he was to show it to her and put up an argument, but kind of a rube’s argument, without much steam in it, enough that she’d remember him, not enough he’d get thrown out. Then he’d move and stay in his new seat till the newsreel started, which would be a few minutes after nine o’clock. Then he was to leave, by one of the fire doors marked “Exit,” so nobody could say exactly when he left. Then he was to walk down to Highway 91 and take position about a half block away from the filling station. At anything that even looked like a cop he was to signal us. “O.K., now. Put your fingers in your mouth and try that screech whistle we’ve got to have if you’re going to be any good out there.”

“Listen, Jack, I’ve whistled that way ever since I was—”

“I said try it.”

“Here goes.”

“... Good.”

“How much is the theater ticket, boys?”

“Thirty-five cents. Here’s a buck. Better have yourself some java and beans first, and don’t go in much before eight o’clock. Take it easy. Act natural. Talk straight from the shoulder. Let both girls, or anybody you meet going in the theatre, see you. Smile, act friendly, so they really remember you.”

Buck and I had some beans at a dump near the station, and when we got done it was eight, and time to get ourselves a car. We walked on toward a residential section, then found a street with some cars parked out on it. At that time cars still had running boards, so in the middle of the block we sat down on one, facing across the street, pretty much out of sight, and watched. We figured that incoming cars, full of people coming home, would be no good to us. Those cars would be driven into garages, and to follow them in would be just staking ourselves out. We aimed to catch somebody visiting, that had left their car at the curb and would be going home around eight thirty or a little after. From the time it would take them to leave some house, get to their car, climb in, and find the key, to the time we’d get there, would be just a convenient interval. I suppose we’d been there a half hour, getting pretty nervous, when three people, a man, a woman, and a boy, came out of a house up the street. Buck reached for the gun. “No.”

“What’s the matter, Jack, you getting cold feet?”

“We can’t handle three.”

“We better be handling somebody.”

“Let them go.”

They went, and two more parties went, a two and a four. And then came a girl, from a place three doors down. She had more comical jokes, saying goodbye, about not doing anything she wouldn’t do, not taking any rubber nickels, and being good, than you could count. I could hear the cusswords rising in Buck, and chocked him hard, with my elbow, to keep him quiet. But at last she came skipping along, humming under her breath. She got in from the curb side, and we were at the left-hand window, watching her switch on the ignition, before she had any idea we were there. “Easy, easy, easy.”

“What?”

“Not so loud.”

“Who are—?”

Buck slipped his hand over her mouth in kind of a gentle, regretful way, opened the door, and pulled her out. I hopped in, found her bag, started the motor. Then I slid over, in the right-hand seat, so Buck could hop in from the left, where he was holding her. He let go of her and she started to scream. He got in, took the wheel, and started. I looked back. A couple of people were at their front doors, but nobody was running and nobody was shooting. “Look in her bag, Jack. We’ve got to have dough, to pay for the gas we order—”

“... A five and a one. And change.”

“O.K.”

“And something else.”

“What?”

“A watch.”

“Are you kidding?”

We’d spotted a drugstore with a clock on it, and we’d expected to check by it, so we’d come to the filling station exactly when we wanted. But the watch meant we could take a drive, relax, and get our nerve.

Out of town a few miles, toward the California border, he began to talk: “Jack, how many guys went on the road, do you think, about the same time we did?”