The Name of the Game is Death

backyard. I had another place near the Vermont-New Hampshire border on the Connecticut River. If I was there in August, I'd drive over to Saratoga and make the race meeting. Usually I spent part of every winter in New Orleans.

I went a year without turning a trick after Ed Morris was killed in a drunken argument in a bucket of blood in Santa Fe. I didn't need money. Then one night I met Bunny in a tavern in Newark. I watched him for a month, and I liked what I saw. He could handle himself, and he had the big advantage that he could pass as a deaf mute. He even knew the finger language. He'd been small-time before I picked him up, but he did as he was told. He had complete confidence in me after our first job. Bunny—

It was a damn shame.

I couldn't escape the feeling that I-was going to need another new partner.

I entered the Iatched-back doors of the Suncoast Trust Company and approached a gray-haired woman near the railing which enclosed the executive desks. 'I'd like to see Mr. Craig,' I said, handing her a Chet Arnold business card. 'He won't know me. If he's busy, I'll wait.'

'Will you have a seat, please, Mr. Arnold?' She rose and walked to the desk of a big man in a dark suit. She placed my card in front of him and said a few words. I gave him a Hash of the double-bitted ax in its straps on the side of the tool-kit when Craig looked up at me, and his glance lingered momentarily before he returned to the work on his desk. I sat down to wait.

The exterior of the bank was old-fashioned but the interior showed signs of a recent facelift. The indirect fluorescent lighting was bright without being harsh. The tellers' cages were behind head-high glass panels. The only bars visible were in the rear around the vault with its huge door gaping open.

A safe prediction nowadays is that a cosmetic job on a bank's interior will result in the appearance of a lot more glass at the expense of a lot less steel. They've made it a little too easy. The pendulum's got to swing the other way. People shoving notes through tellers' windows and walking out with paper bags full of cash are beginning to get under the skin of bank architects, to say nothing of the bonding companies.

Not too long ago knocking off a bank on a smash-and-grab was tough tissue. I believe it will be again. It goes in cycles. Now the thinking is positively no violence inside the bank. Whatever the bank robber wants, give it to him. Most likely it will be recovered, and if it isn't, it's insured.

Human nature being what it is, the script isn't always followed. Bank guards suddenly acquire hero complexes. So do bank customers. It's a rare banker who hasn't testified at an inquest or two concerning the final moments of such a paths-of-glory candidate.

The only real edge a pro has is in how he plans his getaway. The amateur is more likely than not to run straight into the arms of the beat patrolman outside the bank front entrance. Once on the sidewalk, the pro's three-in-ten chances of getting that far blossom into three-in-four of going the rest of the way.

The amounts of cash even branch banks carry today make anything over a job or two a year an unnecessary risk. A job or two leaves time to study an operation. Most bankers tend to become rigid in their defensive thinking. A little probing for the soft underbelly will usually—

'Mr. Arnold?'

I looked up. The big man was standing at a gate in the low railing, my card in his hand. I picked up my toolchest and followed him to his desk. Up close, his color was flat white, and pain lines were at the corners of his mouth. He had a big, lionlike head with shaggy gray hair. He was still looking at the ax, so before he sat down I slipped it from its loops and handed it to him.

He swung it lightly in his left hand, his right unbuttoning his jacket before he remembered where he was. He re-buttoned it. 'Nice balance,' he said. 'Feels a bit light, though.'

'You're a big man, Mr. Craig.'

His mouth twisted wryly. 'I was a big man.' He sat down, running a fingertip along the helve. I hadn't made any mistake coming here; this man had seen an ax or two before. 'Make your own handles?'

'Yes, sir.'

'I used to, too. Except for boning and polishing them.' He handed me the ax. 'What's your business with me, Mr. Arnold?'

'I'd like to clean up the trees on your place on Golden Hill Lane, Mr. Craig. They need it.'

He nodded. 'References?'

'Nothing local. I've been working up around Bellingham, Washington, but I ducked out ahead of the rainy season. I'd be glad to meet you at your place at your convenience and show you what I can do. You were in lumber. I couldn't kid you for three minutes.'

He nodded again. 'Per diem or flat contract?'

'Write your own ticket, Mr. Craig,' I said earnestly. 'I'll do a job for you, because with your recommendation there's more work in the area I should be able to get. Like tin-Landscombe estate.'

'Be out at my place at eight tomorrow morning,' he said, rising to his feet. 'When did you get into town, Arnold?'

'Yesterday afternoon.' His calling me Arnold with no Mr. in front of it was the best sign yet. I had a foot well inside the door.

'I like your style. You've rounded up your information and boarded ship here this morning before the sun's over The yardarm. We've got a breed around here that doesn't move that fast. Eight o'clock,' he repeated.

'I'll be there, Mr. Craig. And thanks.'

'Don't thank me yet.' His eyes had already returned to the papers on his desk. 'If you can't cut the mustard, you don't get the job. And you're right about one thing: you won't be able to fool me. See you in the morning.'

'With bells on,' I promised. I slipped the ax back into its straps while I walked away from his desk. Outside the executive enclosure, I walked to a window, caught a fat lady's eye, and opened up a checking account with eighteen hundred dollars in cash.

On the way out I glanced at Craig's desk. I was sure he'd know about that deposit by the time I saw him in the morning. I wanted him to know. I wanted to look like something more than a fly-by-night county-jumper.

Around Hudson, Florida, Roger Craig's good will could be as sharp a tool as any I had in my kit.

That afternoon I called Jed Raymond's real estate office from the Lazy Susan. 'Chet Arnold, the tree man, Jed,' I said when I had his molasses drawl on the line 'Where do you recommend I do my drinking in town?'

'There's a place a little north of town on 19, Chet. The name is the Dixie Pig, but everyone calls it Hazel's.'

'Can I get a meal there?'

'If you're not a vegetarian. Hazel's got a habit of running a slab of beef between a candle and a lightbulb and calling it a well-done steak. You've got to watch that her beef doesn't get up from the platter and bite you back.'

'That's for me. See you there?'

'Not tonight.' Regret tinged his voice. 'I'm doin' a little livin'-room-couch missionary work with a gal whose daddy's plannin' a new development. Ain't it hell what a man's got to do to make a livin'? Say, how'd you make out with Roger Craig?'

'I take a test flight in the morning.'

'Hurray for our side. Tell Hazel I sent you, Chet. An' don't let her bull you around. She's a character.'

'What kind of a character, Jed?'

He laughed. 'You'll see,' he predicted. He laughed again and hung up.

I showered, shaved, and dressed. A drink and a good steak sounded just about right. I drove north from the Lazy Susan in the early twilight. Five hundred yards beyond the business district I took my foot off the gas pedal when a big German shepherd burst out of some underbrush and loped along the shoulder of the road in front of me.

I was still trying to decide if he was going to cut across in front of me when a blue sedan swung around me. It must have been doing sixty-five in a thirty-mile zone. The driver crossed over sharply, almost cutting me off, shot out onto the shoulder, and hit the dog. Deliberately.

At the last second the shepherd either heard or sensed the car. He jumped sideways, but not far enough. Either the fender or the wheel rolled him down into the ditch. The blue sedan veered back onto the highway and roared off down the road.