He smiled knowingly. 'You don't have the eye for these things that I have, cousin. That isn't goose grease smeared all over her pussy hair.'
I turned away from the bed. 'Tie her up in case she comes around. Then we'll wait downstairs for Tommy's papers.'
Dahl rejoined me in a few moments in the downstairs sitting room. 'I just checked the younger kids,' he said. 'They're okay. The Little girl is mad, though. When I took her gag off for a second, she told me I was a bad man.' Dahl chuckled.
We sat in darkness, waiting. I was trying to think of so many things at once that my nerves were fluttering. Had we overlooked anything? What exactly remained to be done, and in what order? I made mental lists, adding and subtracting.
A whistling noise brought me halfway up out of my chair. I stared through the window at the darkened porch. The noise was repeated, and I realized that it was behind me. The whistle ended in a snort. Dahl had fallen asleep and was snoring. I reached out a foot and kicked him in the ankle. 'What the hell, Dahl! Do your sleeping later!'
'Restin' my eyes,' he grunted. 'The papers here?'
'Not yet. Stay awake and listen for them. I'm going upstairs and get the kids ready.'
I climbed the staircase and went into Tommy's darkened room. I sat down on the edge of the bed beside him before speaking. 'You and Margie and I are going to deliver your papers this morning, Tommy,' I said. 'I know the number of your deliveries and where you make them. If you're tempted to give an alarm, Margie will still be in the car with me. Do you understand?' He nodded, and I removed his gag and his wrist and ankle cords. 'Get dressed,' I told him.
I went across the hall to Margie's bedroom. Despite her uncomfortable tied-up position, she had fallen asleep. The healthy nerves of children. 'You and I are going with Tommy when he delivers his papers, Margie,' I said to her when I shook her awake. 'If you try to give an alarm, it won't go well with Tommy.' I removed her bonds. 'Now get dressed.'
I was on my way across the hall again when Dahl's whistle floated up the front stairs. 'The papers just came,' he informed me when I went to the head of the stairs.
'We'll be right down.'
I went back into Margie's room. She was dressed in blouse and shorts, and her face was damp from a quick washing. I motioned toward her socks and sneakers on the floor. 'Bring those along and we'll go to Tommy's room.'
She led the way, her pigtails bouncing on her slender shoulders. There was a light on in Tommy's room. The boy was seated on the edge of his bed, dressed. I was getting my first good look at him. He was a handsome kid with wavy dark hair and a clear complexion but with a sullen expression. He grinned at his sister but said nothing.
I moved to turn out the light. 'Better leave it on,' he said casually. 'People are used to seein' lights upstairs here at this time of the morning.' He had a point. I removed my hand from the switch. 'Where's Ellen?' he continued.
'In her room.'
'Flaked out as usual?'
I glanced at Margie, who had seated herself on the bed and was drawing on socks and sneakers. 'She's asleep.'
'Asleep!' he said derisively. 'Stupid broad!'
I studied him. 'You feel that way about Margie, too?'
'Not yet.' He grinned. 'She still thinks it's to sit on. She'll be givin' it away one of these days, though.'
'I do too know what it's for!' Margie said indignantly.
'That Ellen, though,' Tommy went on. He shook his head. 'A commercial setup I could at least understand. She-'
'That's enough of that,' I cut him off, looking at the pigtailed Margie.
'Oh, I know all about Ellen!' the younger girl said scornfully. 'She hasn't got brains enough to sell it.'
Eleven years old, I thought to myself. Eleven years old.
'Stop showing off, Marge,' Tommy frowned. He was looking at me. 'This is about the bank, isn't it?'
I saw no point in lying. 'Yes.'
'I hope you take 'em for plenty,' he said. His tone was serious. 'I hope you shake up the whole crummy town.'
'Why?'
'Because you'd be hittin' 'em where it hurts. All the parents I know spend their time tryin' to figure out how to swindle someone. At least you've got the guts to go take it.'
I remembered something. 'How many mornings a week do you take a violin lesson?' I asked the girl.
'Only on Mondays.'
'You really cased this job, huh?' Tommy said. He was looking at me with respect. 'If I was a couple years older, I'd go with you.' He scuffed at the carpeting with a sneakered foot. 'I'm at a hell of an age,' he concluded gloomily.
'You certainly are,' Margie said smugly. 'Standing in front of your mirror nights and admiring-'
He reached out and slapped her. She jumped up from the bed and kicked him in the shins. I grabbed a shoulder of each and pulled them apart. This was a demonstration of the familial love I'd been depending upon to make the pair solicitous of each other's welfare? I felt gloomy myself.
I marched them down the stairs. Margie slid behind me as Dahl approached us. Evidently his size impressed her, if anything impressed her generation. I took the wrapped and tied bundle of papers that Dahl handed me, then herded my charges out the front door and onto the porch.
'Hey, that's of Mace's car!' Tommy exclaimed at first glimpse of the Rambler across the street. 'Is that where the folks are?' He followed up that question immediately with another. 'Can I drive the car?'
'You can deliver the papers,' I told him. The sky was still dark but beginning to lighten. 'You have twenty minutes.'
'I don't like the Maces,' Margie announced. 'They don't give parties.'
Once under way, the paper delivery went swimmingly. Tommy folded papers while Margie gave me driving directions in a superior tone of voice. She knew the route as well as her brother did. At each stop he opened the door on the passenger's side and with a flick of his wrist scaled folded papers toward doorways. His percentage of hits was high.
There was only one untoward incident during the short run, but it was a heart stopper. In the middle of the second block of deliveries, I saw the same police cruiser heading toward us. Tommy was out of the car, firing a paper up onto a second-floor balcony. I placed a hand on Margie's arm. The cruiser stopped opposite us. Tommy turned in its direction and sailed the folded paper in his hand across the street and through the cruiser's open window. The cruiser blinked its lights and moved away. I breathed again. 'Stupid cops,' Tommy said contemptuously when he returned to the car for another paper. 'They graft a free one from me every morning that they're out.'
'Stupid cops,' Margie echoed.
We completed the route and returned to the Barton home. Dahl was waiting inside the front door when I brought the kids in. 'Get Ellen,' I told him. 'We're ready to go.'
He went upstairs. When he came down, he was half leading, half carrying the good-looking girl, whom he had swathed in a blanket. She looked the gathering over fuzzily. The pupils of her eyes were pinpoints, but I judged that the depth of her involvement was lessening. 'How's the easiest lay in town this morning?' Tommy inquired with brotherly affection.
'Shut up, you little wart.' The girl's voice was blurry but functional. 'What's-you're not cops. What's this all about?'
'Shut up yourself and walk,' Dahl ordered.
She tried to kick him. His return kick was more accurate. I broke that one up and we went out to the Rambler. I drove. Ellen had drifted off into the land of hashish dreams again. When we reached the Mace house, Dahl carried her inside. Harris heard us coming and met us at the top of the basement steps. He and Dahl muscled the tall girl's dead weight downstairs.
