Night My Friend (22 page)

“Why didn’t he?”

“Because he heard Margaret shout his name from the outer office. And with the shouted word Billy, a sudden plan came to him in that split second. He recrossed the small office quickly, and stood behind the door as we entered, knowing that I would think it was Billy Calm who had jumped. As soon as we were in the room, he simply stepped out and stood there. I thought he had arrived with the rest of you, and you, of course, thought he had entered the room with Margaret and me. I never gave it a second thought, because I was looking for Calm. But Margaret fainted when she saw he was still alive.”

“But she said it was Billy Calm who entered the office,” Greene protested.

“Not until later. She was starting to deny it, in fact, when she saw Knox and fainted. Remember, he carried her into the next room, and he was alone with her when she came to. He told her his money would be safe if only people thought Calm dead for a few hours. So she went along with her lover; I needn’t remind you he was a handsome fellow, even though he was married. She went along with what we all thought happened, not realizing it would lead to murder.”

Sam Hamilton lit a cigar. “The stock did go down.”

“But not enough. And Knox knew Calm’s arrival would reactivate the merger and ruin everything. I don’t think he planned to kill Calm in the beginning, but as the morning wore on it became the only way out. He waited in the private elevator when he knew Billy was due to arrive, slugged him, carried his small body to that window while we were all out to lunch, and threw him out, replacing the cardboard afterwards.”

“And the stock went down some more,” Hamilton said.

“That’s right.”

“She called him Billy,” Shirley reminded them.

“It was his name. We all called him W. T., but he signed his memo to me
William T. Knox.
I suppose the two of them thought it was a great joke, her calling him Billy when they were together.”

“Where is she now?” someone asked.

“The police are still questioning her. I’m going down there now, to be with her. She’s been through a lot.” He thought probably this would be his final day at Jupiter Steel. Somehow he was tired of these faces and their questions.

But as he got to his feet, Sam Hamilton asked, “Why wasn’t Billy here for the meeting at ten? Where was he for those missing hours? And how did Knox know when he would really arrive?”

“Knox knew because Billy phoned him, as he had earlier in the morning.”

“Phoned him? From where?”

McLove turned to stare out the window, at the clear blue of the morning sky. “From his private plane. Billy Calm was circling the city for nearly three hours. He couldn’t land because of the fog.”

“D
AVE?” HELEN QUERIED TENTATIVELY.

He rolled over on the bed and stared up at her, surprised to see her awake so early. “What is it?”

“I had a dream, Dave. I dreamed my mother came to live with us.”

“No!” He rolled back, burying his head in the pillow. “Go back to sleep and dream me up some fast cash. No dogs or cats or mothers.”

“I can’t help what I dream, Dave.”

“You used to be good, Helen. You used to be damn good. I think you’re losing your touch.”

He was sorry he’d said it, because he saw at once that she was too upset to return to bed. He watched her move aimlessly about the dingy bedroom, searching for her cigarettes, then curl up in the chair by the window and stare at the dawn coming up over Hudson Street. For a moment, seeing her there with her knees up under her chin, he considered making love to her. But then the desire passed, and he closed his eyes against the brightening square of window.

He’d been with Helen Reston for two years or better, ever since they met during an all-night poker game in Kansas City. She was not the best looking girl he had ever known, and certainly not the most intelligent, but she had one gift that was invaluable to a man like Dave Krown. She had a fantastic imagination, and she always remembered her dreams. He’d realized it the very first night they spent together, back in Kansas City, when she had awakened next to him in the morning. “I dreamed you robbed the poker game,” she’d said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “Isn’t that crazy?”

“Not so crazy,” he’d said, thinking about it. He had been a big loser and was just about at the end of his wits. That night, he had purchased a second-hand gun, the blue steel revolver he still used, and had gone back to the game with one of Helen’s nylon stockings over his face. They had left Kansas City the next morning seven hundred dollars richer.

Dave needed someone like Helen, someone to come up with ideas, even if they were the stuff of dreams. He was a man utterly without morals or fear, a man to whom brute force and the blue steel revolver under his arm had become the only religion he practiced in a world that rewarded violence with the passing fame of stark headlines and television cameras. With her ideas and his certain skill, they made a team.

The two years had passed like two months, under the sun at Miami Beach, across the continent by jet to California, then to New York, at dog tracks and horse races and poker games. Always where the action was, always where there was a sucker to be rolled or a bankroll to be hijacked. Once before, when Helen’s dreams had started running to dogs and cats, he had parked them in a little motel on the Illinois state line and had gone off to hold up a gas station. The thing had been a disaster from start to finish. He’d gotten five dollars for his trouble and been forced to shoot the over-zealous attendant in the bargain. It was the only time he’d been driven to violence in his career, and he brooded about it for weeks afterward as they fled blindly across the country. He never heard if the youth lived or died, though the wound had been serious.

New York had been their last stop, where Helen dreamt of a robbery at the jewelers’ exchange after three days of wandering with Dave up and down the side streets of Manhattan. He had pulled it off pretty well, and it wasn’t her fault that a fluke of scheduling had made the haul next to worthless.

They’d been living up the Hudson, in the medium-sized city of Seneca, since before Christmas—conserving their money, biding their time, and waiting for the dreams to come again. Some nights Helen worked as a waitress at a nearby lunch counter, and Dave had been doing occasional jobs of auto repair at a garage. It kept them in eating money until their luck changed.

Now, as she sat by the window, Helen asked, “Dave?”

“Huh?”

“Think we’ll get to Miami this winter?”

“Not unless we can scrape up some money. The old car would never make it down there with those tires.”

“I guess my dreams haven’t been so good, honey.” She was always aware of her failings, and conscious of the fact that he somehow held her responsible for their plight.

“That’s all right.” He sat up on the rumpled bed. “I’ve been thinking maybe we should settle down anyway. Give up this business and get a couple of honest jobs. You know, we’d probably make just as much in a year’s time, without half the worry.”

She came over to him. “I like to hear you say that, Dave. I like to think maybe someday I’ll be dreaming about babies and a house in the suburbs instead of holdups and stuff.”

“Got a cigarette?”

“Sure. Before breakfast?”

“I feel like one.” She lit it for him and he inhaled deeply. “But we need one more job, Helen. One more big job so we can head south and start a new life.”

“In these stories on the TV it’s always the last job when the cops catch them.”

“That’s on TV. I know when to quit while I’m ahead. Anyway, think about it, huh? Think about it and maybe something’ll come to you.”

“Yeah.”

They didn’t work that day. Instead, they strolled through the frosty afternoon along the banks of the river, and though the Hudson was no Mississippi, it did bring back memories of their early days together. They stopped at a nearby firehouse to get new license plates for the car, and later, as the city darkened for night, he took her out for a lobster dinner at a restaurant that charged more than they could really afford.

“We’ll just relax,” he said later, back in the room, “and see what tomorrow brings.” The money was running low, and it had been a bit of an added shock to discover that the New York State license plates on his second-hand car were due for replacement.

But he slept well, and didn’t awaken until nearly dawn, when he was aware of Helen padding about the room in her bare feet. “I had a dream,” she said, seeing his open eye watching her. “I dreamed I was back home at mother’s, cleaning the rug, and the vacuum cleaner turned into a snake, and then the snake turned into a lobster and it pinched my foot.”

“That’s no dream,” he mumbled into his pillow. “That’s an upset stomach. Go back to bed.”

When he awoke again the sun was already high in the morning sky, and he knew it was late. Helen was stretched out on her back next to him, still asleep, half uncovered by the milky sheet. But when he turned over she awakened quickly and sat up, rubbing her eyes. “What time is it, Dave?”

“After ten.”

“I had a dream.”

“I know. About the lobster.”

“No, another one. Just now, I think.”

There was something in her voice that excited him. “Tell me about it.”

She arranged herself cross-legged on the bed. “Well, remember the line at the firehouse waiting to get license plates yesterday? Remember all those guys plunking down their fifteen or twenty bucks or more for their plates?”

“Sure. What about it?”

“Dave, they have to get them by the end of this week. That firehouse is going to be taking in a lot of money the next few days.” She paused for breath. “I dreamed about it. I dreamed you turned in a false alarm, and when all the firemen were gone you just walked in and held up those two foolish women who sell the license plates.”

He was silent for a moment when she’d finished, silent just thinking about it. Then his face slowly relaxed into a sort of grin. “You got some imagination, Helen,” he told her at last. “You’re the only gal I ever knew who could make millions while you’re sleeping.”

“You think it’ll work, Dave?”

“Of course it’ll work. And I’ll see you get a new dress out of it. Or better still, a good winter coat.” He’d been noticing the shabbiness of her old green one.

“When, Dave?” she asked, her eyes sparkling with growing excitement, as they always did. “When will you try it?”

“Tonight’s as good as any,” he told her. And he went to the closet and took the blue steel revolver from its hiding place.

At exactly ten minutes to nine, Helen telephoned a report of a fire from a booth at the nearby drug store. Dave was waiting in the shadows across from the firehouse, watching as the massive red engines went shrilling off into the bleak winter night. When they were out of sight, leaving only the dying echo of their sirens like a scent to be followed, he walked quickly across the street, hoping there was no last-minute straggler buying his plates.

But the two women were alone, counting out the money into neat banded stacks as their day neared its end. The younger of them, a handsome brunette with deep, pale eyes, looked up as he entered. “Our last customer,” she said.

He raised the wool scarf over his mouth and nose, and showed them the gun with his other hand. “I’m taking the money,” he said, making it simple

The older woman started to rise. “Oh, no!” she gasped, and then fell back onto the padded metal chair.

He took a paper bag from his overcoat pocket. “In here. All of it. Skip the silver.”

The brunette held the bag open, sliding the bills in with professional ease. When she had finished, she said, “You won’t get away with this.”

“I’ll take my chances.” The bag was brimming with bills, and he wished he had brought a larger one. He backed slowly from the building, keeping the gun pointed in their general direction. “Just sit there and you won’t get hurt, ladies.”

Somewhere in the distance he heard the slow clanging of a bell, and he knew the first of the engines was on its way back from the false alarm. He closed the door behind him and broke into a trot, letting the woolen scarf flap away from his face.

Beneath his arm, the soft weight of the money felt good.

“Almost nine thousand dollars,” Helen said as she finished counting it. “Who’d have thought there would be that much?”

“It was there, just waiting for me,” he told her. “The thing went off like clockwork.”

“Do we head south now, Dave? For that new life?”

“We sure do! But not for a week or so. Somebody might get suspicious if we blew town right away. Look—we cool it for about a week, then drive down to New York and trade in this car on something that will get us to Florida. After that, we’re in the park.” He took four twenties from the stack. “Here. Get yourself that new coat, but nothing too flashy, understand. No fur or anything.”

She clutched at the bills with a grateful smile. “We still make a good team, Dave.”

He was reading a newspaper account of the robbery when she returned the following evening with the new coat, a fuzzy red thing with black speckles that matched her hair. “That’s not supposed to be flashy?” he asked with a laugh.

“It didn’t cost much, honey. Only seventy dollars. You like it?”

“I like it.”

“Dave, why did I buy a new winter coat if we’re goin’ to Florida next week?”

“You need one, don’t you? Maybe we won’t be spending our lives down there.”

“You’re not going to give it up, are you?”

He sighed and reached for a cigarette. “This one went so smooth, doll.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“All right. But be sensible, Helen. You don’t quit when you’re ahead.”

“No! You wait till you’re lying with your face in the gutter and some cop’s bullets in your back! Then you’ll decide to quit!”

“All right, calm down.” He slipped into his fleece-lined jacket. “I’m going out for a walk.”

“So they can find you easier?”

“We agreed to stay here a week, didn’t we? So how is it going to seem if I never show up at the garage? I’ll just look in on them, and I’ll be back in an hour or so. Here.” He gave her another twenty. “Think nice thoughts while I’m gone.”