'Well, uh, like I said a moment ago, there's you and the boys to think about. We're all in this together, and you'd still be here, and-' He broke off, eyes glinting. 'I say something funny, kid?'
'No' – Dusty shook his head. 'I just wanted to know how things stood.'
'Okay!' Tug snapped harshly. 'Now you know. Now you got the picture. I got some plans and I ain't letting 'em be screwed up. I didn't figure you in 'em originally, but that's the way it's worked out. You're in and you're going to play. Or else!'
Furiously, he reached over the seat and snatched up another bottle of beer. The cap grated against his teeth, popped loose, and he spat it out and drank.
He coughed, leaning back in the seat, and the old joviality came back into his voice. A little strained, but nonetheless there. 'Aaahh, kid. This is no way for pals to talk to each other, and I've always been your pal, ain't I? Always friendly and easy to get along with, and tossing the dough around. I liked you, see? I felt like you were my kind of people and I know you felt the same way about me. Why, who did you come to this morning when you were in a real jam? Why, you came to me, didn't you, and I didn't hesitate a minute, did I? I had plenty big worries of my own, but I just said, Why, sure, Dusty. Just leave it to me and I'll take care of it. Ain't that right, now?'
'That's right,' Dusty murmured.
'And I didn't know what I was getting into, didn't I? I didn't have the slightest idea that it was going to work out so's I could put the squeeze – ask you to do me a favor. Help me out and put yourself on easy street at the same time. I didn't have any idea it was going to be that way. All I knew was – that you were a pal, and I was ready to knock myself out to give you a hand…'
His voice droned on earnestly… pals… favors… give you a hand… didn't know. And Dusty nodded earnestly. Fighting to keep his sudden excitement from showing in his face.
Suppose Tug had known. Suppose he had arranged the whole thing! It made sense, didn't it? It made sense to a degree that no other explanation could approach. It explained things that could be explained in no other way.
Bascom. Why had he allowed Marcia Hillis to register – a woman alone, arriving late at night? Why, because Tug had told him to and he had been afraid to refuse. And the ten-dollar room? Why, the answer to that was beautifully simply, too. There were only a few such rooms in the hotel, and one of them was on Tug's floor. Without arousing Dusty's suspicions, she had been put right where Tug wanted her – and wanted him – when she sprang the trap. The circumstance would practically impel his appeal to the gangster. His old pal, Tug, would be right there at hand, and he would run to him automatically.
The kidnaping. The 'kidnaping.' And he had been afraid that they wouldn't get away with it – -justifiably afraid. For they wouldn't have got away with the real thing. They wouldn't even have attempted the real thing. It was all an act, part of the scheme to make him vulnerable to Tug's demands.
There were a few loose ends to the theory, but on the whole it made a very neat package. And relatively, at least, it was as comfortable as it was plausible. If Marcia Hillis was working with Tug, then naturally she was in no danger. If she worked with Tug, then she was attainable by him, Dusty. Not through money alone, of course. Despite the part she had played, or appeared to have played, he didn't believe that she could be influenced very far or very long by money alone. But certainly, with a woman like that, money would be an essential. She would expect it, take it for granted. And with Tug's help, by helping Tug with his scheme, whatever that scheme was…
'Just a minute, kid.' Tug leaned over him, flipped open the door of the glove compartment. 'I know you maybe think I'm giving you a snow job about that babe, so take a gander at this.'
He drew it out of the compartment, a crumpled eight-by-ten oblong of glossy cardboard. He smoothed it out carelessly and handed it to the bellboy, and Dusty's breath sucked in with a gasp. It was her picture, a theatrical shot, with her name written along the bottom in white ink. She was posed against a background of artificial palms; she lay, smiling, along the sloping trunk of one. A wisp of some thinly leafed vine' was between her thighs. Her hands, fingers spread in a revealing lattice, lay over her breasts. Otherwise she was nude. 'Well, kid' – Tug took the picture from his hands and crammed it back into the compartment-'she's just what I said, huh? I wasn't lying, was I?'
Dusty shook his head., So she was an entertainer, or had been one. That still didn't prove that she wasn't working with Tug.
A lot of woman, huh, Dusty?' Tug smacked his lips. 'You ever see anything like her in your life?'
'No.. I mean not quite, I guess,' Dusty said.
'But she ain't got a bit more on the ball than you, Dusty. For a man, you've got just as much as she has. All the looks and the class that she has, and then some.'
'And you really think' – Dusty cleared his throat-'you really think that she would – that she might-'
'That she'd go for you? If you were in the chips? I'll tell you what I think, kid.' Tug tapped him solemnly on the knee. 'I'd guarantee it, know what I mean? Yes, sir, I'd guarantee she would.'
Dusty hesitated. It was all wrong. He was all mixed up. Tug had aroused first one instinct, then another; played upon one after another. Self-preservation, avarice, fear for her, outright desire. He had offered too much, too eagerly; threatened too much. And the end result was confusion, or, more accurately, the canceling out of everything he had said.
She was in no danger, Dusty guessed. He guessed that he was in none – none that he could not escape from with a little fast thinking. At this point, he could still pull out with no harm to anyone but Tug. And, yet…
Well, he was only guessing, wasn't he? He might be figuring the thing wrong, and if he was she'd be lost to him. Dead. And if I was right, she would still be lost to him. He would have to go on as he was now, barely getting by from one day to the next. Trudging through a gray emptiness that grew emptier and grayer with every step.
He shivered inwardly; he couldn't stand it, even the thought of it. But could he – could he, on the other hand, accept the sinister alternative? Could he adopt a course which must certainly run counter to all the plans and preparations of years?
His voice faltered. 'I don't know, Tug. It seems kind of crazy that I should even be thinking about… well, what we've been talking about. You see, I've always wanted to be a doctor, my father and mother wanted me to be one. I was just working at the hotel -temporarily until-'
'Yeah?' Tug chuckled softly. 'Who you trying to kid, kid? You're there at the hotel because the easy money's there, and you're easy money guy. I know, see? I can spot 'em a mile off. Maybe you think different, but I know. You wouldn't go back to school if you was paid to.'
'But I-'
'We've talked enough, Dusty. A lot longer than I figured on talking to you. But maybe I ought to tell you one thing more. Them boys of mine are pretty jumpy. They're pretty leery of you, kid. If they got the notion that you might jump the wrong way, I don't know as I could hold 'em in line.'
Tug nodded at him grimly, and abruptly the doubts and confusion were dispelled from Dusty's mind. He didn't know Tug's hoods, as he knew Tug. He had never been friendly with them. To them he would just be a stumbling block, a guy who'd made trouble and might make more. And what they might do, would do, was reasonably easy to predict.
'… won't be around much longer, y'know, kid. They'll be on their own. So what's it going to be?'
What was it going to be? What could it be? The choice was not his.
'All right,' he said. 'All right, Tug. What do you want me to do?'
And Tug told him.
TEN
As the body has its limits to suffer, so is the mind limited to shock. One can be startled just so much, alarmed just so much, and then there can be no more. The wheel of emotions becomes stalled on dead-canter. And instead of turmoil there is calm.
So with Dusty. In little more than an hour a whole way of life had been jerked from beneath him and a new one proffered. He had been pushed to the outermost boundaries of shock; now he answered Tug quietly:
'It can't be done, Tug. Those deposit boxes are theft proof. It takes two keys for each, one, the hotel's and the depositor's, and even if you could get them both…'
'Yeah? Go on, kid.'
'There's a box for each room. It would take all night to unlock them all. And you wouldn't know whether they were worth robbing unless you did open them. I couldn't tell you. Practically all the deposits are made in the day
