briefcase under his arm—and that was the important thing. I stood up and waved. I thought, start walking, you sonofabitch. This is the last leg of your last mile!
He came over and sat on the stool next to me, putting the briefcase in front of him. “Well,” I smiled, “you're a bit late, Mr. Calvart, but I'll forgive you this time.”
“It's the last time, O'Connor. You better remember that,” he growled.
“Of course, of course.”
“Well,” he said sharply, “there is an exchange, I believe. Let's get it over with.”
“Nothing could be more to my liking, Mr. Calvart.” I handed him an envelope. “Here you are, sir, delivered as promised.”
He ripped the envelope open and made sure that everything was there. He didn't get up to leave, as I had expected. He sat there glaring at me with those flat, unimaginative eyes. I reached for the briefcase. “It would look better,” I said, “if we walked out together.”
“All right.”
That surprised me too. For a man with his temper, he was taking this mighty coolly. He stood up when I stood up, and we walked away from the counter and through the big waiting room toward the wall of doors. We went through the wall of doors and I imagined that the night air held a smell of electricity, a feel of excitement, but I knew that it was only the excitement and electricity within myself.
This, I thought, is where the fun begins. This is where I show him the gun, this is where I march him across the street to where the Lincoln is parked. Yes sir, I thought, smiling right in his face, this is the beginning of the end, Mr. Calvart!
That was when the man in the bright plaid sports coat stepped up beside me. He was a tall shambling man with a long bony face and a hooked nose. I had never seen him before in my life, but he said, “All right, O'Connor, just take it easy. We're going to walk across the loading ramps, over to that parking lot in the middle of the block, and we're going to do it nice and easy and without any noise, understand?”
His right hand was in his coat pocket. He moved it just enough to let me feel the muzzle of an automatic.
I looked at Calvart and he was smiling.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THERE WERE PEOPLE all around us, redcaps, travelers, soldiers, sailors, all of them harried and peevish as they looked for their luggage or the next bus for Dallas, and not one of them as much as glanced at us. I felt a bloody knife of fear twisting in my groin. In a mob like this a man could be shot dead and these stupid cattle would never realize what happened. The man in the sports coat knew it and smiled thinly.
“March, O'Connor!”
I marched. Calvart, who had moved to the other end of the ramp just in case I forced a shooting play on the spot, now ambled toward us at the end of the ramp.
“Everything all right, Max?”
“Everything's fine, Mr. Calvart. He come along nice and peaceful, like a baby. See, he ain't givin' us no trouble at all.”
“That's nice,” Calvart smiled. “All right, hold him up just a minute and I'll get the Buick.”
“What the hell is this?” I said tightly.
“Quiet,” Max crooned softly. “Nice and quiet, O'Connor,” nudging me in the ribs with the automatic.
“You sonofabitch,” I said, “You'll be eating that .45 before this night is over!”
But he only smiled. I was scared and he knew it.
Max and I stayed right where we were and Calvart went on ahead to the parking lot. After a few seconds he came out in a black Buick sedan and pulled up at the curb. I didn't have to have the situation drawn out for me, I knew that I was as good as dead if I ever got into that car. Calvart was a tough boy and sometime during the day he had decided that he wasn't going to pay blackmail, and the only way to stop it was with a bullet.
Good as dead. That dagger of fear kept stabbing in my groin. I had to get to my .38. I somehow had to knock Max's automatic away for a moment, just a moment, and then I would kill the sonofabitch and take care of Calvart later.
But how? The muzzle of that .45 was in my ribs, hard and cold, and it didn't waver. I couldn't very well holler cop, even if there had been a cop handy, and Calvart must have guessed that much.
“Start walking,” Max said.
This, I thought, is the only chance I'll ever get. I've got to take the chance that Max won't shoot in a situation like this.
But Max was there ahead of me. “Just a minute,” he said. Then, with an expert hand, he snapped my .38 from my waistband and slipped it into his left-hand coat pocket, that .45 of his never moving from its position just below my heart. “Now walk,” he said.
I walked, feeling the sweat popping out of my face, feeling my knees go to mush, feeling the blossom of fear grow as cold as ice in my stomach. Calvart had the back door open when we got to the Buick. Max shoved me inside.
And no one noticed a thing. Out of all those dozens of people milling around the bus station, not a single one of them noticed that a man was being set up for murder right under their noses! Calvart turned around and smiled as Max shoved me over to the far side of the car and then got in beside me. His .45 was out now, in his hand, and it looked ugly and black and as big as a cannon.
“All set, Mr. Calvart. Turn left on Mallart Avenue. Follow it all the way out of town, out by the brick yards. Anywhere out there will do.”
“Whatever you say, Max,” Calvart said, smiling at me. Then he eased the car into gear, slipping into the stream of southbound traffic.
Jump him, I thought, it's the only chance you have. Somehow you've got to get that .45 away from him while Calvart is busy at the wheel!
I couldn't do it. My guts had gone to buttermilk. I tensed my shoulders, readied for the lunge, but when the time came I simply couldn't force myself to act. I couldn't throw myself into the muzzle of that automatic.
Now or later! I told myself savagely. What's the difference? Calvart's got it planned, he's going to kill you. The least you can do is make a fight of it while you can!
But panic had me in a grip of iron, held me immobilized, helpless, and all I could do was sit there and sweat.
About three blocks from the bus station Calvart turned left on what I guessed was Mallart Avenue. It's a one-way road for me, I thought emptily. I underestimated Calvart... I made the fatal mistake of underestimating an enemy and for that bit of stupidity I'm going to die. They'll find me tomorrow, or the next day, in some gutter, and the cops will fingerprint the body and identify it as Roy Surratt, and the investigation would stop right there.
That dagger of fear that stabbed in my stomach there began to stir an anger. A great, unreasoning, savage anger, not at Calvart, and certainly not at Max who was just a hired hand brought in for an hour or so to do a job of work. The anger was at myself. You deserve everything you're going to get! I thought savagely. Roy Surratt, criminal philosopher, realistic genius, perfectionist. Well, you slipped, Surratt, and perfectionists don't slip, and because of that little piece of idiocy you're going to get exactly what you deserve; you're going to get a well placed .45 slug in the back of the head; you're going to get your brains spattered all over some lousy brick yard just because you failed, this one time, to scrupulously practice what you preach!
The anger helped some, but not much. I was sick with fear, paralyzed with it, and I began to wish that the mild, cool-eyed killer sitting across from me would go ahead with it and pull the trigger. The waiting was the thing that got me. I was afraid I'd go all to pieces if it lasted much longer. Already my hands were shaking. A small muscle in my threat started to quiver, a nervous ripple flowed over my shoulders and down my back, and a great, yawning emptiness opened in my belly. Great God, I thought helplessly, I
And Max, the hired hand, smiled blandly and held his automatic close to my heart. Calvart slipped the big, quiet car through the streets and the brightness and garishness of the city passed behind us.
At last the pavement ended and the city was just a glare against the lowhanging clouds. There were no buildings at all out here, and very few houses, and the land was also empty, nothing but ragged and torn hills of red
