Night My Friend (13 page)

They talked, debated, argued for the rest of the evening, but he already knew she’d be on the plane with him.

His excuses to Kate in the morning were vague and uncertain. He would be away overnight, up in—Boston seeing about a job, a really good one right in his line. It was a damp, almost rainy day and the hours dragged till four and he met a trenchcoated Green in the park.

“Think the planes will be flying?” he asked.

Green handed over the candy, a great flat box with a ribbon tied around it. “Of course the planes’ll be flying. A little rain never stopped them.”

“This man will be at the airport?”

“He’ll be there.”

“How will I know him?”

Green thought for a moment. “His name is Dufaus. He has a little mustache and he’s always carrying a briefcase. Looks like a government bigwig.”

“All right. What about you?”

“I’ll see you sometime before noon. I plan to drive all night. There’s a little motel near the airport. Wait there for me.”

“How do I know you’ll show up?”

Green turned away. “Don’t worry. I’m trusting you, you can trust me.”

“Will Rider be there too?” O’Bannion asked on an impulse.

“Don’t you worry about Rider. He takes care of himself.”

Overhead, an unseen jet could be heard through the clouds. The planes were flying.

They held hands all the way.

It reminded O’Bannion of a youthful night on a hayride when he’d dated the most popular girl in the senior class for the first time. He’d held hands that night too, thinking and plotting all the way about how he’d work up to that first kiss, that first hand around her shoulders, on her knee. That night had ended disastrously, with the girl going home in a quarterback’s car while O’Bannion sat alone behind the barn and cried for the first time in years. A year later, in college, he’d met Kate and there’d never been anyone else. Not really.

The weather was cooler when they landed, a clear coolness you didn’t really mind. Above them the sky was full of stars and ahead he could see the flashing red-neoned
MOTEL
. The letters fuzzed and flickered irregularly as if the sign were tired. There to meet them at the airport was the mustached man with the briefcase, Mr. Dufaus.

He waited until they’d cleared customs and then he came up smiling. “Ah! O’Bannion?”

“That’s right. You must be Dufaus.”

“Correct. Quite correct. I have a car waiting. This way.”

They followed him to a black foreign-built automobile with low, expensive lines. He motioned O’Bannion into the front seat with him but made no effort to start the car. Instead, he held out his hand. “The candy, please.”

“No,” O’Bannion said, halfway into the car.

“What?”

“No.”

“What do you mean?”

“No candy until I get my money.” O’Bannion hadn’t really planned it that way, but suddenly he had spoken the words and there was no recalling them.

“You’ll get the money tomorrow. Didn’t he tell you?”

“He told me. You’ll get the candy tomorrow.”

Through all of this Shirl had stood behind him on the sidewalk. Now she tried to pull him from the car. “Dave, be careful.”

O’Bannion backed out of the car, still clutching the candy box. “I’ll be at the motel,” he told Dufaus. “See you in the morning.”

The man with the mustache was visibly upset. “The money cannot possibly be ready until I’ve had time to inspect the merchandise.”

“Too bad. I’m sure we can work it out in the morning.”

O’Bannion slammed the car door and walked quickly away, half pulling Shirl along with him. Dufaus made no attempt to follow.

“Dave, why did you do that? What’s the matter with you all of a sudden?”

“Nothing. I just realized that I haven’t decided about this thing yet, not really. I want more time to think. A few hours ago we were in New York, a few days ago I was still an honest man, and a few weeks ago I still had a job. Things are moving too fast for me. Too fast.”

“Life is fast. We live and die before we know it, much too fast.”

“Not by tomorrow morning. It’s not over that fast. Let Dufaus sweat about it overnight. If this thing I’m carrying is so valuable, maybe I want to keep it a while.”

They’d reached the motel, a low, long building of concrete that seemed about to crumble. The manager gave barely a flicker when they checked into a double room.

“What now?” she asked when they were alone.

“First things first. I’m going to check this candy. They didn’t give me a chance before. I suppose that’s why Dufaus risked meeting me at the airport—to get the candy before I had an opportunity to exercise my curiosity.”

He removed the garish ribbon and lifted the lid, to disclose the regular designs of foil-wrapped chocolates. “Nothing but candy,” Shirl observed over his shoulder.

“Maybe.”

He unwrapped a piece and studied it. He squeezed with his fingers and broke it open. Inside, darkened and coated by the butterscotch filling, was something sharp and glittering in the light. “It’s a—a jewel. Looks like a diamond. Still in its setting.” He tried another piece of candy and it yielded up the red of a ruby.

“Dave, what is it?”

After the third one he answered, “It looks like part of a necklace of some sort. It’s been broken at the links and separated into individual pieces so it could be hidden in the candy. Come on, help me look inside the others.”

Ten minutes later, with all forty-eight pieces of candy broken open on the bed, they had a rainbow-colored collection of gems, each set in a glistening ring of platinum. “Who’d want to wear a thing like that?” Shirl asked, wide-eyed.

O’Bannion half remembered something he’d heard or read. “It’s not for wearing, really. It’s a necklace called the Rainbow and its gems are supposed to be worth a quarter of a million dollars. It was stolen a week ago from an armed messenger.”

“You’re sure?”

He nodded. “The messenger was killed. I’m into this a little deeper than I figured.” He ran his palm across a forehead suddenly damp with sweat.

Later, sometime in the hours between midnight and dawn, when the only sound to be heard was the gentle buzz of the electric clock on the far wall, Shirl said, “Do you think they’ll come for us or something? Because you didn’t give them the candy?”

He laughed and tried to sound amused. “You’ve been seeing too many movies, gal, Nothing’s going to happen.”

“They killed one man. You said so.”

“Maybe I was wrong. Maybe these jewels are something else.”

“You’re not wrong, Dave. If you don’t think anything’s going to happen, why don’t you come to bed?”

He laughed and lit a cigarette. “I don’t know, maybe I’m shy.” Then, after a moment’s silence, “Tell me about this boy friend of yours, Shirl.”

“He’s just a guy.”

“You like him? Well enough to marry him?”

“Would I be here with you if I did?”

“I don’t know.” He blew smoke in the direction of the window, watching it as it crossed the single bar of dimly filtered light from outside. “What are you going to tell him when you get back?”

“I’ll think of something,” she said. “More to the point, what are you going to tell Green and Dufaus in the morning?”

He thought about it for a long time before answering. “I think I’ll go to the police, Shirl,” he said finally.

“The police! But—but
why
?”

“This is murder. If I don’t get out of it now, it may be too late.”

“But what about
us?
What about your wife? Do you want it spread all over the newspapers that we were up here together?”

“No, of course not. But what else can I do?”

“Give them their foolish jewels and be done with it. Take the money and just forget about it. That’s what you planned to do originally, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so, but things have changed.” Suddenly he ground out his cigarette. “All right, let’s get out of here then. We’ll get the jewels to the police somehow without implicating ourselves and be back in the States by noon.”

But she held him back with her hand. “No, Dave. I’m afraid to go out there. I’m afraid they’ll be waiting for us.”

“I’ll take a look around,” he said and slipped into his jacket.

Outside, the world was a pale dark landscape sleeping in the full moon’s glow. A car was parked at the head of the driveway. A cigarette-tip glowed like a far-off star. O’Bannion sighed and went back inside.

“What is it, Dave?”

“You were right. He’s got somebody watching the place.” He looked out the back window, but decided against risking it with Shirl. There was a twenty-foot drop to the highway. They could hardly make it without a twisted ankle or worse.

“So?”

“So we stay till morning and see what happens.”

The sun was back in the morning, already high in the sky by the time the car drew up outside. O’Bannion had been watching out the window. He saw Dufaus and Green join the man who had been watching the motel throughout the night.

“Here they come,” he told Shirl without looking at her. “Green’s with them.”

She came up to the window and stood just behind O’Bannion, watching. “Give them the jewels, Dave. We don’t want trouble.”

Then they were at the door, knocking. He opened it and looked into Green’s expectant eyes. “Well! I was worried when Mr. Dufaus told me about his troubles. Let’s get this settled now.”

The two of them crowded into the small room, leaving the third man to wait outside. Green said, “The candy. Where’s the candy?”

“We were hungry. We ate it,” O’Bannion told them.

Green’s mouth twisted into an odd sort of grin. “Look, cut out the wise talk. You’ll get your money as soon as Dufaus inspects the candy and gives me the O.K.”

“I didn’t know I was getting involved in a murder,” O’Bannion said. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

Dufaus was suddenly agitated. “He knows too much!”

Green’s hand dropped to his pocket. “All right, we’re finished fooling, O’Bannion. I didn’t let you bring this stuff five hundred miles across the border just so you could double-cross me.”

His hand was coming out of the pocket when O’Bannion hit him, a glancing blow to the side to the head that tumbled him onto the bed.

Against the wall, Dufaus uttered a gasp of dismay. “No violence—please! I only want to purchase the gems!”

O’Bannion moved again, but this time Green was faster. The gun—a small .32—was out of his pocket, pointed at O’Bannion’s middle. “We’re through fooling,” he growled. “Shirl, where did he hide the stuff?”

Behind him, as in a nightmare, O’Bannion heard her reply, “In the toilet tank. I’ll get them.” And then, almost as an afterthought, “I’m sorry, Dave. Really I am.”

He sat on the bed, unfeeling, as Green and Dufaus counted the gems. And when she came to sit next to him it was as if a stranger had entered, a perplexing intruder.

“In the beginning I thought I was doing you a favor,” she said quietly. “You needed the money and my boy friend—how I hate that expression—he needed someone to fly to Canada with the necklace. I talked him into calling you. I never thought it would come to this. I should have risked bringing the thing over myself.”

“It wasn’t Harry Rider,” he said. That was all he could say.

“Not Rider, no. It was me. When you thought I was calling the hotel Monday night I was really calling Greeny’s apartment. I was afraid you’d notice that I dialed the number without looking it up. I was afraid you’d notice Dufaus wasn’t surprised to see me at the airport.”

“I guess I didn’t notice anything. Not a thing.”

Green came over to the bed. “Dufaus is satisfied. Let’s roll.”

“A quarter of a million?” She breathed it, like a prayer.

“Not even half, but I can’t stay to argue. It’ll get us a long way.”

“What about him?” Dufaus asked from the door, pointing at O’Bannion.

“That’s five grand I saved myself,” Green said. He brought the gun into view once more.

Shirl stepped quickly in front of him “No, Greeny. No more killing.” She held her position.

“I leave him here to tell the cops everything he knows?”

But Shirl stood firm. “He can’t tell them anything without implicating himself, with the police, and with his wife. I don’t think he wants to do that. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Green faced him with the gun for another moment, uncertain, and then pocketed it as he turned away. “All right, we’ll leave him.”

She came over to O’Bannion one last time. “Dave?”

“What?”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “When he gives me my cut I’ll see you get something. A thousand or so anyway.”

“Don’t bother,” he said, turning away.

“Dave—”

“Go on. Go!”

He heard them drive away, listened to the sound of traffic reaching him through the still-open door.

After a time he went out and walked until he found the motel manager, who was watering a spring garden by the highway. He asked where there was a telephone he could use and when he found it he dialed the number of the local police.

It would be a long journey back to Kate, and he wondered if he would make it.

“W
E’LL HAVE THE CHECK,
please, waiter.”

“Yes, sir. Right away.”

Carley moved off between the tables, back to his station at the service end of the bar where he’d left the check book. He quickly figured the items for table 33, totaled them, and ripped the check from the pad. Another night just about ended.

For Carley, the nights were becoming much the same. He worked the evening shift at the little restaurant a block from city hall, which meant midnight on weekdays and two o’clock on weekends. Then, perhaps, there was a brief stop somewhere else for a drink and always afterward the trek home through deserted streets wet with rain or snow or summer sprinkling. That was the only constant in Carley’s world. The streets always seemed wet on his way home.

He’d worked a good many places in his day, the good and the bad, the hotel dining rooms and the private clubs, and even occasionally the cheap beer joints down by the tracks. He was not really a good waiter, which perhaps was the reason he moved so often, but there was never too much problem about making a living. As more than one satisfied owner had remarked on occasion, Carley had a certain touch all his own, a specialty.