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He
went first. I followed and stood against the wall. The squat man
called Larry stopped just inside the door. It was a lot darker in the
garage. Handsome found the light switch and snapped it. He stuck his
head through the open sedan door, pulled it out, opened the front
door, looked inside, straightened up. He walked completely around the
car. He squatted and looked under it. He raised the lid of the
built-in cabinet in which I kept tools and tire chains and old tubes
and all the other stuff which accumulates in a garage. Then he came
back to me.

“
Where
is it?”

I
tried to make myself sound unafraid. “In the police station.
I’dd just come back from there when' I saw you in the driveway.

“
Nuts!
You wouldn’t lug that heavy bag when you have two cars right
here. Besides, your wife told me you’d left the house only
about ten mintues before. Let’s have the key to the trunk.”

“
I
lost it,” I said.

Larry
spoke for the first time. “You’re a big guy, sport. Let’s
see if you can touch the ceiling.”

I
raised my hands. Handsome went through my pockets and relieved me of
all the keys he could find. He let the keys drop to the floor except
the two which were obviously car keys. He tried each of them in the
sedan trunk, and then turned to me with a scowl. He didn’t say
anything. He went outside and used one of the keys to unlock the
coupe door and the other to unlock the coupe trunk.

He
returned to the garage and stood looking at me with his hands in his
pockets. His shoulders were huddled as if against cold. “Where
are the sedan keys?”

“
I
lost them,” I said.

Larry
poked the gun muzzle harder against the pocket. “How’d
you like a slug in the guts, sport?”

I
shook my head. “That won’t get you anywhere.”

“
A
hero, eh?”

“
No,”
I said. “But you won’t do it. The shot will be heard and
you’ll have to run for it.”

“
There
are ways I don’t have to be noisy; sport,” Larry
suggested softly.

“
My
death won't give you the bag.”

“
Stow
it, Larry,” Handsome said. He ran a thumbnail over his
mustache. “His wife told me the bag was in the garage. When I
offered him fifty bucks for it, he figured it must be worth a lot
more. He saw I didn't drive away, so he had an idea I'd be back and
locked it in the trunk. The reason I know it's in the trunk is that
he hasn't got the keys on him. A guy always carries his car keys. He
threw 'em away when he saw us coming.”

“
You
should've been a detective in the movies, the way you figured it out
so neat,” Larry sneered. “Okay, so it's in the trunk. All
we do is break the lock.”

Handsome
kept frowning up at me, but he spoke to Larry. “He turned down
half a grand for it. Why?”

“
You're
the mastermind,” Larry said.

Handsome
looked at the coupe, then at the sedan, then at me. “This house
you live in isn't so swell, but you have two practically new cars.
What's the answer, Breen?”

My
raised arms were getting tired.

I
lowered them. Larry didn't object.

“
The
coupe in the driveway isn't mine,” I said. “It's a
demonstrator.”

“
A
what?”

“
The
car we use to demonstrate to customers. I'm an auto salesman.”

Light
leaped over the area just outside the garage. Esther had turned on
the kitchen light, but the open garage door blocked us out from the
kitchen windows. Handsome walked to the edge of the door and looked
at the two lighted windows.

Larry
said: “All right, mastermind, what do you say now?”

Handsome
came back with only one hand in a pocket. His other was on the
mustache. It was his left hand now. There didn't seem to be a gun in
either pocket after all. Larry's was enough.

“
Who
do you work for.?” Handsome asked.

“
Redfern
Motors on Atlantic Avenue. We sell Planets. Are you interested in
buying one?”

“
A
comedian,” Larry grunted. He glanced sideways at Handsome.
“Ever hear of 'em?”

“
No.”
It was very still in the garage.

Handsome
was again searching for something in my face. “I didn't pay
much attention to what the guy told me. He still had the jitters.”

That
was over my head, like most of what was happening. Automatically I
asked what guy.

“
Howard
Pine, the guy whose car hit Ray Teacher,” Handsome replied.

“
I
got his name and address out of the paper. He told me he saw the cops
stick Ray's bag into this car. Something else he told me I didn't pay
attention to. He said he thought Ray got out of the sedan that a few
minutes later drove him to the hospital. This sedan. The one your
wife drove.”

“
That's
crazy.” My voice was so thick it had trouble passing my throat.

“
Teacher
was crossing the street and walked in front of this car. Howard Pine
probably didn't see him until he hit him.”

Handsome
went on as if I hadn't spoken: “Pine said Ray got up from the
road and walked over to the sedan and spoke to your wife and then got
in. Why straight to her car? It figures up. It shows why you wouldn't
take half a grand for the bag and why you locked it, in the trunk and
threw the keys away.”

“
I
wish I knew what you were talking about,” I said.

Larry
took his gun out of his left pocket and held it flat against his
broad left palm with his finger on the trigger and his thumb on the
safety catch.

“
This
guy needs opening up.”

“
Plenty,”
Handsome agreed. “He can tell us lots of what we want to know.
But not here.”

Esther's
voice made my insides jump. She called from the kitchen door: “Are
you in the garage, Adam?”

She
had seen the light, of course.

“
Keep
her out of here,” Handsome whispered harshly.

I
nodded. On that we could agree.

“
I'll
be in soon, baby,” I said loudly.

“
Did
you see the man who came for the bag?'' she asked.

“
I'm
giving it to him now.”

There
was a silence. The kitchen light went out and I breathed again.

“
We're
dopes,” Larry said. “His wife drove the car this
afternoon. I bet she's got a set of keys of her own.”

My
hands clenched. I was going to hit Larry. Maybe that solid frame of
his wouldn't go down or he'd shoot me before I completed the swing or
after, but I was going to hit that jaw.

“
Don't
you think I thought of that?” Handsome said testily, “Sure,
she's got keys, but we're keeping women out of this.”

Larry
snorted. “I can make her hand them over.”

I
was trembling. I was going to hit him. I couldn't tell them that I
had thrown the keys in the grass. Esther would see us search for them
and she would come out to ask what we were after. No matter what I
did, she would be in it. I was going to drive my fist into his thick
jaw.

“
I
know what you can do to a woman.” Handsome's voice was thin
with anger. “Only you're not. Get that into your head.”

Larry
shrugged. I relaxed a little.

“
Then
how's this?” Larry said, “We drive away this sedan with
the bag in it and take Breen along with us. I don't need no ignition
key to start it. All I do is disconnect — “

“
And
what about the coupe parked in the driveway?” Handsome cut in.

“
You
got the key to that. We drive it out and then — “

“
Sure,
sure. And drive my car away from the front of the driveway. It'll be
like a parking lot where you drive cars in and out. Every kid in the
neighborhood will come and watch us. And Mrs. Breen will come out to
see what's going on.”

“
Okay,
mastermind, what's your idea?”

“
To
do it nice and orderly without risk,” Handsome said. “We
want the bag and we want a long private talk with Breen. You take him
out to the Coney Island place in my car. Think you can handle him
alone?”

.Larry
laughed through his nostrils. “This mug?”

“
I'll
stay behind and work on the trunk. I've never seen the car lock I
couldn't open without a key.”

“
So
open it now and we'll all go together.”

Handsome
glanced toward the street. “We've wasted too much time already.
I'll take maybe ten more minutes to get this trunk open.”

“
So
somebody will come,” Larry said. “That don't scare me.”

“
You'd
like to use that rod of yours.”

“
On
the big shot it'd be a pleasure.”

“
Use
your head,” Handsome said.

“
That
was a stall Breen gave us that he'd received a phone call from him.
Why would he call Breen if Breen is part of the outfit? He figures
the bag is as safe with Breen as it was with Ray Teacher.”

“
Then
we got plenty of time,” Larry argued.

Handsome
chewed his mustache. “I know women. Mrs. Breen will wonder
what's keeping her husband. Or she'll worry because he doesn't come
right back and she'll come out here.”

“
So
she's still bothering you?” Larry sneered.

“
Women
complicate things. I don't want to be burdened by her. Breen might
get frisky if she comes in, and I don't want shooting, not here and
not before we get the bag. You beat it with him. I'll close the door
and put out the light and work by flashlight. If she looks out the
window again, she'll see the garage dark and figure we're gone. Or if
she or anybody else comes, I'll be alone and can pull a bluff.”
Handsome showed strong white teeth. “Careful and smart —
that's the way I like to do things.”

“
Don't
be too smart, that's all.” Larry returned his gun to his
pocket. “Get going, sport,” he told me.

My
shoulders left the support of the wall.

The
garage light went out. The door creaked shut.

CHAPTER
FOUR

Twilight
was deepening into night, but I was distinct enough to Larry. He
walked behind me until we passed the demonstration coupe and then he
stepped to my right side, not close. Within a split-second he could
send a bullet into me through his pocket, though to anybody seeing us
we were two men simply walking up a driveway.

One
light was on in my house, in the nearer of the two living room
windows. I stopped. Through the frilly curtains I saw Esther snuggled
in the English club chair, reading by the light of the floorlamp. The
radio was on. A comedian whose voice I did not know was telling a
joke.

I
had only a view of one rounded cheek. The rest was hair and a braid.
Her head was raised from the book; she was listening to the joke. My
throat clogged. It was a time to kiss my wife and daughter good-bye.

Larry
stepped behind me and gave me a slight shove with his empty hand. I
continued walking and he hurried back to my side. The comedian
reached the point of his joke with a rising inflection that ended in
a strident giggle, and everybody in the radio studio laughed. And the
radio in Gillette's house and other nearby radios audible through
open windows also laughed, so that laughter filled the evening.
Nobody

could
be that funny.

Gillette
was backing his car to the other side of the street. The headlights
swept by us and fixed on his driveway and he rolled his car in. A
young man and woman approached us with their arms about each other.
All up and down the street there were people sitting in front of
stoops', or standing, or getting into or out of cars. It was the way
it had always been with the coming of darkness on a pleasant evening.
It was ridiculous that none of them should know what was happening to
me or that I couldn't let them know.

“
You're
driving,” Larry said.

I
slid across the wide seat of the convertible and let my hand drop
negligently on the handle of the door on my left. I would push the
handle down and fall against the door. My weight would open it and I
would spill out with the car between myself and Larry.

“
Don't
try it, sport,” Larry said.

The
gun was out of his pocket, held low and hidden from the street by his
body. He was way ahead of me, knew more possible tricks than I could
think up. The value of experience. He got into the car with his face
and gun toward me. He reached behind him to close the door and sat
with his back against it, facing me, the gun resting on his left
thigh. I wondered how many times he had done it before.

“
Drive
to Coney,” he said. “Take it nice and easy.”

I
drove. The car rolled sweetly and powerfully. I looked at my hands on
the wheel. They were even bigger than Larry's and probably as hard.
They were steady, but the knuckles were white. I loosened their grip
a little and looked sideways at Larry, sitting solid and invulnerable
with the gun in his left hand.