Alverato sat up and stared at Benny. “Little Nancy. Here? She was here?”
“This afternoon. She says you and she’ve been trying to get together again.”
“She said that? I never said-”
“It was a con deal of some kind.”
Alverato got up then and turned off the television. He was paying attention. “Driscoll? Con deal? She’s too dumb. Who’s with her.”
“She asked if Pat was here.”
“Pendleton!” Alverato caught it faster than Benny had expected.
“I think so. I pumped her a little, caught her in a few little slips, like having to take the train out of town and making a local call instead.”
“What did she want?”
“First she says she wants to see you. Then I tell her Pat’s here and how I’m going to take her to a night spot next Monday. She loses interest in you and beats it out of here.”
“What night spot? Did you give a name?”
“I said the Beau Brummel. First thing came to my mind.”
Alverato started to pace. He was kneading his big hands together and there was a grin on his face. “That’s using the old noodle, Benny! You really faked a setup for her, and Pendleton’s going to bite. He’s got to. He’ll take the chance. Old Wrinkle-ass is going to try his hand at making a snatch. The old noodle, Benny,” and he slapped him on the back. “I like the way you picked my club for the setup. Boy, that’ll make it just jake.”
“Now wait a minute, Al-”
“Wait nothing, boy. This is one setup from heaven! Pendleton’s gonna get an old-time party, one of those outdated deals he keeps yapping about.”
“Listen, Al. I wouldn’t I just said that to her to see if she’d bite, or if she was on the level maybe.”
“You nuts? This is from heaven, Benny! I’m going to give old Pendy a demonstration in the old manner!”
“Al, you can’t do it. You can’t send Pat out there in the middle of it What if-”
“Keep out of this, Benny. This kind of thing I know how!” And he did. Suddenly he was no longer a slob acting a role from an old melodrama. He was the wheel, as he had been years ago, the boss who understood and enjoyed force well enough to make it a big, brash, and effective tool.
Alverato went to the door and yelled for somebody to bring a road map of the state. Then he went to the desk and sat down, drumming his fingers.
“Call Birdie in here,” he said, and Benny did.
He sat behind the desk with a map and a pencil and told his two lieutenants to listen closely. “Pendleton’s going to have an eye out for her. If Pat doesn’t show, and you, Benny, he’ll smell it’s a setup and the deal is off. You take her there at nine. Sit around till eleven. Don’t leave later or you might hit the homegoing crowd on the highway. Birdie, I want you to sew up the club. Have the guys on the floor, in the balcony, parking lot, the works. I’ll leave it to you. Now, if I know my onions, Pendleton won’t make the snatch in the club. He knows it’s mine. Besides, he doesn’t like a mess. He’s going to make his try on the highway.”
“Look, Al-” Benny started again.
“You keep outa this. I’m running this show. Now bend over here and look at this map.” They all moved up and watched the pencil move. “The club’s here. There’s only two ways out. This road, direct to the highway going to the city, and this road back to the place here. You’ll be taking this road when you go to the club, Benny. At eleven you’ll take it back home. From the club to this crossing is about three miles. Three miles of nothing but pasture. If Pendleton knows anything, he won’t pick that stretch. From the house to the club there’s eight miles of commuter towns and small places along the road. Pendleton’s not the kind to try anything there. He’ll make his move here.”
Alverato stopped and suddenly slapped his hand on the map. “Pay attention, Tapkow. It’s your neck too, you know.” Then he bent over the map again. “Here’s hills, woods, and kind of a ravine. Two miles of it. That’s where he’s going to wait.” He stopped, looking around like a conductor who had just waved his orchestra to a crashing finale.
Benny was looking at the map and thinking that Alverato was probably right. He was really ticking tonight. “I don’t think you’re going to get Pendleton in this, Al. He’s not going to be out there.”
“Who cares?”
“I thought-”
“Don’t. Just watch this thing shape up.” Alverato sounded eager. “I’ll handle this end myself. Just one more thing: Birdie, get that Mercury the Brady boys have been using. I want a souped-up car in this caper. Get Limpy Smith over here with some two-way equipment. I want a speaker in that car to broadcast to the walkie-talkie. We’ll carry three. Now here’s what you do, Benny: When you leave the club, turn on that speaker in the car, and as you drive, call off every half mile, you hear? Every half mile. When you see something start happening, call the mileage and yell out what it is. Clear?”
“I got it. But that speedometer-”
“When you start from the club it’ll be on zero.”
“O.K.”
“Now, when they rush you, just stop the car. They won’t harm the girl.”
“No. Not the girl.”
Alverato ignored it “And don’t use that car for a getaway unless there’s an emergency, hear?”
“Yeah. Just what do you call an emergency?”
“That I don’t get there, rockhead! You keep the car doors locked. If I’m not there by the time they break the windows, then step on it and don’t spare the pedal, boy.”
“You can count on it.”
“I’ll be there, though. I wouldn’t miss that for the world!”
“I wouldn’t want you to,” Benny said.
Nor would Pendleton have wanted to miss a trick. So he had placed another phone call, and this one too, he was sure, would be a roaring surprise.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Pat got excited the way he had seen her a few times in the past. The night club would be great, she said, and her eyes were sparkling with a sharp, nervous light. She hadn’t been getting that way much lately. She didn’t really get crazy any more.
Pat had wanted a strapless and a hairdo, so when she was ready she looked different than Benny had ever seen her look before. There was a sudden cold beauty about her that hardly reminded him of all the other times. Only her smile reminded him. In the cabin, in Louisiana, sometimes she had smiled that way.
Until ten it was fine. They drank, they danced. She danced with a lilt in her body that was as old as love, but Benny never let go. It was the hook sunk deep, he was thinking. It was the hook that had magic, worming forward, even reaching for him.
And then he began to get the signs. Calling him Tapkow instead of Benny, drinks tossed down too fast, and a few times that thing she did with her ear lobe.
And it wasn’t eleven yet.
He looked over the crowd again, but Alverato had been right. It didn’t look as though anything would happen here. Bare arms and tuxedos, some of the tuxedos with chesty bulges on one side. Birdie had done a fine job.
“We don’t have much fun any more, do we?” Her voice made him start.
“No fun?”
“I’ve always loved you for that keen repartee, dear. Where is that waiter?”
“Look, Pat, you’ve had enough. It’s getting late.”
“You’re just the escort, Tapkow, so be polite.”
“Pat, I’m telling you for your own good. We better go.”
“Is this Saint Benny speaking?” she said, but he ignored the sting in it and got up. He held her wrap for
