“I want that,” I said.
He got up and I followed him. He switched on the cellar light, took me downstairs and across the littered pile of refuse a cellar can collect. When he pointed to the old set of dungarees on the nail in the wall, I went over and felt through the pockets. The key was in the jacket. I said thanks and went back upstairs. The taxi was still waiting. He flipped his butt away when I got in, threw the heap into gear and headed toward the smell of the water.
I had to climb the fence to get on the pier. There wasn’t much to it. The lockers were tall steel affairs, each with somebody’s name scrawled across it in chalk. The number that matched the key didn’t say Cooley, but it didn’t matter any more either. I opened it up and saw the cardboard box that had been jammed in there so hard it had snapped one of the rods in the corner. Just to be sure I pulled one end open, tore through the other box inside and tasted the white powder it held.
They never expected Cooley to do it so simply. He had found a way to grab their load and stashed it without any trouble at all. Friend Jack was good at that sort of thing. Real clever. Walked away with a couple million bucks’ worth of stuff and never lived to convert it. He wasn’t quite smart enough. Not quite as smart as Carboy, Gerot, Renzo…or even a kid who pushed a junk cart. Smart enough to grab the load, but not smart enough to keep on living.
I closed the locker and went back over the fence with the box in my arms. The cabbie found me a phone in a gin mill and waited while I made my calls. The first one got me Gerot’s home number. The second got me Captain Gerot himself, a very annoyed Gerot who had been pulled out of bed.
I said, “Captain, this is Joe Boyle and if you trace this call you’re going to scramble the whole deal.”
So the captain played it smart. “Go ahead,” was all he told me.
“You can have them all. Every one on a platter. You know what I’m talking about?”
“I know.”
“You want it that way?”
“I want you, Joe. Just you.”
“I’ll give you that chance. First you have to take the rest. There won’t be any doubt this time. They won’t be big enough to crawl out of it. There isn’t enough money to buy them out either. You’ll have every one of them cold.”
“I’ll still want you.”
I laughed at him. “I said you’ll get your chance. All you have to do is play it my way. You don’t mind that, do you?”
“Not if I get you, Joe.”
I laughed again. “You’ll need a dozen men. Ones you can trust. Ones who can shoot straight and aren’t afraid of what might come later.”
“I can get them.”
“Have them stand by. It won’t be long. I’ll call again.”
I hung up, stared at the phone a second, then went back outside. The cabbie was working his way through another cigarette. I said, “I need a fast car. Where do I get one?”
“How fast for how much?”
“The limit.”
“I got a friend with a souped-up Ford. Nothing can touch it. It’ll cost you.”
I showed him the thing in my hand. His eyes narrowed at the edges. “Maybe it won’t cost you at that,” he said. He looked at me the same way Helen had, then waved me in.
We made a stop at an out of the way rooming house. I kicked my clothes off and climbed into some fresh stuff, then tossed everything else into a bag and woke up the landlady of the place. I told her to mail it to the post office address on the label and gave her a few bucks for her trouble. She promised me she would, took the bag into her room and I went outside. I felt better in the suit. I patted it down to make sure everything was set. The cabbie shot me a half smile when he saw me and held the door open.
I got the Ford and it didn’t cost me a thing unless I piled it up. The guy grinned when he handed me the keys and made a familiar gesture with his hand. I grinned back. I gave the cabbie his fare with a little extra and got in the Ford with my box. It was almost over.
A mile outside Mark Renzo’s roadhouse I stopped at a gas station and while the attendant filled me up all around, I used his phone. I got Renzo on the first try and said, “This is Joe, fat boy.”
His breath in the phone came louder than the words. “Where are you?”
“Never mind. I’ll be there. Let me talk to Helen.”
I heard him call and then there was Helen. Her voice was tired and all the hope was gone from it. She said, “Joe…”
It was enough. I’d know her voice any time. I said, “Honey…don’t worry about it. You’ll be okay.”
She started to say something else, but Renzo must have grabbed the phone from her. “You got the stuff, kid?”
“I got it.”
“Let’s go, sonny. You know what happens if you don’t.”
“I know,” I said. “You better do something first. I want to see the place of yours empty in a hurry. I don’t feel like being stopped going in. Tell them to drive out and keep on going. I’ll deliver the stuff to you, that’s all.”
“Sure, kid, sure. You’ll see the boys leave.”
“I’ll be watching,” I said.
Joke.
I made the other call then. It went back to my hotel room and I did it smart. I heard the phone ring when the clerk hit the room number, heard the phone get picked up and said as though I were in one big hurry,
When I slapped the phone back I laughed again then got Gerot again. This time he was waiting. I said, “Captain…they’ll all be at Renzo’s place. There’ll be plenty of fun for everybody. You’ll even find a fortune in heroin.”
“You’re the one I want, Joe.”
“Not even Vetter?”
“No, he comes next. First you.” This time he hung up on me. So I laughed again as the joke got funnier and made my last call.
The next voice was the one I had come to know so well. I said, “Joe Boyle. I’m heading for Renzo’s. Cooley had cached the stuff in a locker and I need it for a trade. I have a light blue Ford and need a quick way out. The trouble is going to start.”
“There’s a side entrance,” the voice said. “They don’t use it any more. If you’re careful you can come in that way and if you stay careful you can make it to the big town without getting spotted.”
“I heard about Gulley,” I said.
“Saddening. He was a wealthy man.”
“You’ll be here?”
“Give me five minutes,” the voice told me. “I’ll be at the side entrance. I’ll make sure nobody stops you.”
“There’ll be police. They won’t be asking questions.”
“Let me take care of that.”
“Everybody wants Vetter,” I said.
“Naturally. Do you think they’ll find him?”
I grinned. “I doubt it.”
The other voice chuckled as it hung up.
I saw them come out from where I stood in the bushes. They got into cars, eight of them and drove down the drive slowly. They turned back toward town and I waited until their lights were a mile away before I went up the steps of the club.
At that hour it was an eerie place, a dimly lit ghost house showing the signs of people that had been there earlier. I stood inside the door, stopped and listened. Up the stairs I heard a cough. It was like that first night, only
