“I hear you saying so, but your partner keeps running for the door. How come he has so much to say about it? Who put the package together in the first place? You or Erikson?”
“Now, what kind of a question is that?” Slater’s tone was injured. “How could he even know there was a package to put together till I told him about the cash?”
“Why did you pick Erikson to tell?”
“Because I knew he an’ his people could put me on the street.”
“Didn’t that make headlines? How can you walk around so freely?”
“They don’t have a mug shot of me fresher’n ten years. An’ the fuss when I hit the bricks simmered down in a few days.” Slater reached for his wallet. “Like this, buried at the bottom of page nine.” He handed me a folded-over newspaper clipping.
I unfolded it. “Police admit no leads on escaped prisoner,” the small-sized headline read. “The third escapee in 43 years from Joliet continues to elude federal, state, and local dragnets,” the body of the item continued. “Both the FBI and State Police Captain Gregory Uhl gave assurances today that Winston Slater will shortly—”
I handed back the clipping. It sounded like a thousand others given out by law enforcement types when they had nothing to say but had to say something. “Isn’t it quite a risk carrying that in your wallet? What if you get picked up?”
“I’m not gettin’ picked up,” Slater said positively. “Unless they fold my hands on my chest.”
I came back to the main issue. “How did you know Erikson to approach him?”
“I didn’t. I had a lawyer, a jerk appointed by the court. He was supposed to be seein’ if he could get detainers lifted that were listed against me after I completed my original stretch. Then I had a little trouble inside. I wound up with an extra slug of time that made the original bit look like a jog across the prison compound. So when I knew I wasn’t never gonna make it out on my own, I told the lawyer I had somethin’ to sell an’ for him to find me a buyer. I didn’t even talk to the first two guys he sent in to see me. Then he found Erikson.”
“What made him the man?”
“His connections.”
“I don’t understand that, either. He doesn’t look like a rackets type.”
Slater offered me a cigarette and lit one for himself when I refused. “That’s why he makes them a good man. He can pass anywhere. He’s an ex-lieutenant commander in the Navy who caught it in the neck from Washington when the admiral whose staff he was on in Vietnam was gigged for losin’ a few million gallons of jet fuel.” Slater stopped as a waitress belatedly appeared at our table. “Budweiser for me,” he said.
“Jim Beam on the rocks,” I told the girl.
“You’ve heard how the brass lives in Saigon,” Slater resumed when the waitress went to the bar. “Erikson got a pretty good taste of high livin’ an’ decided he liked it. In the U.S. of A., that takes big money. So here we are, ready to ease into the trenches.”
“It still makes him an amateur on a job like this.”
“This boy is no amateur. Definitely. Positively.”
“Since he came back from Saigon, you mean? What’s his track record?”
“Would you like me to answer as many questions about you that he’s asked me an’ will be askin’ me again?” Slater inquired. “Don’t forget, I’m puttin’ myself in the boat with you guys. Can’t I get through to you that I think you both got it or I wouldn’t do it?”
The waitress brought the drinks to the table. Slater took a pull at his beer but looked wistfully at my Jim Beam. “Seems to me I remember you drinking the hard stuff,” I said.
“Not since I’ve had Erikson livin’ in my hip pocket.” Slater said it with some bitterness. “Oh, he’s probably right—” He sat staring down into his glass.
I shifted ground again. “Why did Erikson postpone a decision until tomorrow?”
“I thought he was ready to pull the trigger,” Slater admitted. “Could be he’s hopin’ another twenty-four hours will give him a handle to use on you.” He rubbed his chin. “You run pretty low to the ground, and from a couple of things he’s said I know it’s corked him that he hasn’t been able to get a real line on you.” He glanced at his watch. “He’s goin’ to be wonderin’ where I am.”
“Then, let’s rack it up.”
He rose to his feet. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t get shook about Erikson. He wants that big bundle as bad as we do. It’s just that until fairly recently he hasn’t been spendin’ much time with guys sayin’ no to him like you an’ I do. He’s spoiled from all the ‘aye, aye, sirs’ he used to get in the Navy.”
I watched Slater leave.
I still had unanswered questions, but they didn’t seem as important now. I was beginning to get the feeling that the project was ready for launch.
The meeting the next day took less than ten minutes.
“Do you have the fifty thousand?” Erikson said to me after a preliminary hello.
“I’ll have it a week after the light turns green.”
Erikson glanced at Slater standing with his hands thrust nonchalantly into his pockets, then looked at me. “It just turned. We’ll meet here a week from today and split it up as expenses dictate.”
Split up Hazel’s $50,000? With two almost-strangers? I decided I’d cross that particular rope bridge when I came to it. “The cash will be here a week from today.”
“Then, we’re set,” Slater announced. He sounded exuberant. “We ought to have a drink on it. Call Room Service, Drake.”
“No drink,” Erikson said immediately. “And you and I”—he was looking at Slater—“will stay away from the Aztec until a week from today. The less we’re seen together, the better.”
I wondered if that meant he’d had a report about Slater and me meeting in the Aztec bar. From Slater’s expression, the “no drink” portion of Erikson’s statement didn’t sit well, but he didn’t say anything.
“You’ll be staying here?” Erikson asked. “In case I need to call you about anything?”
I hadn’t intended to, but there was really no reason why I shouldn’t. “I’ll be here.”
“You leave first,” Erikson said to Slater.
Slater looked unhappy again when he left the room. He wasn’t the type who responded well to orders. “I’ll expect to see the whole fifty thousand next week,” Erikson said. “In cash. No stories.”
“You just be ready to hold up your end when the time comes,” I told him. I didn’t want him thinking he was in charge.
He went out the hotel room door, unsmiling.
It struck me that during our conversations I’d never seen him smile.
I called Hazel from the phone in the lobby. I never like to use a telephone that goes through a switchboard. “You can take off for the southland like a big bird,” I told her.
“With ‘big’ the operative word, sir?”
“I told my partners the money would be ready in a week.”
“That’s easy,” she said in her deep voice. “I’ll get the conversion process started in the morning before I fly south. It shouldn’t take me more than two or three days down there if anything decent is available. The cash will be at the ranch when I get back there, and I’ll wire it to you.”
“Not wire it,” I said. “Bundle it up and send it registered mail. I don’t want to be standing with people looking over my shoulder while that kind of cash is counted over a counter.”
“I should have thought of that myself.” A short pause. “That takes care of tomorrow. I do have some free time tonight.”
I was tempted, but resisted. If Erikson was having me watched, I didn’t want to lead the watcher to Hazel. “Let’s save it for the land of the pomegranate trees.”
“Can I call you to let you know how things are going?”
“If you stay away from specifics.”
“I’ll be on the first plane in the morning. Bye, now.”
“Bye, now,” I echoed, and listened to the phone hum emptily at the other end of the line.
I went into the bar and had a drink.
I should have been feeling all pepped up now that the project was actually on wheels.
