police mannerisms difficult to describe but impossible to overlook. “Where does he fit into the proposition?”
“A full partner,” Slater said without hesitation.
“How many partners?”
“There’ll be five of us all together.”
“And how big is this walnut we’re supposed to cut up?”
“Let’s get Erikson up here an’ have him tell you.”
“Erikson?”
“The man you sidetracked.”
“Is he calling the shots on the project?”
Slater started to answer me and then stopped. “Up to a point,” he said at last. He listened to the sound of his own words and seemed to approve of them. “Up to a point,” he repeated, and grinned at me. He had strong-looking teeth.
“What’s this man Erikson contributing?”
“Background and knowhow. He’s an ex-Navy type who got in the grease with the brass. He specialized in communications then.”
The blond man had the look of an ex-Navy type, but so did a lot of other men who’d never been closer to an ocean than the Mojave Desert. “So evidently we need an ex-Navy type who specialized in communications. What else do we need?”
Slater ticked them off on blunt fingers. “We need a Spanish-speakin’ type a little rigid in the nostrils. We need a guy who can navigate a forty-footer by dead reckonin'. Erikson says he has men for both slots. We need a guy who’s a specialist with locks, explosives, alarm systems, an’ the art of gettin’ cash out of places it’s not considered possible to get it out. That’s you. An’ we need a guy who knows where the cash is.” Slater grinned again. “That’s me.”
At least it sounded as though some planning had gone into the project. “A Spanish-speaking type and a boat,” I said. “Is this the place to say I’m allergic to South American prisons?”
Slater’s stare was level. “If we miss on this one, you’ll never see a prison.”
“So? A blindfold and a last cigarette?”
“Correct.”
No lace panties on that pork chop. I thought it over for a moment. “I’d need to know more about this man Erikson,” I said.
“I thought you’d think so,” Slater said comfortably. He started to raise his right arm, then paused. “I’m gonna take somethin’ out of my jacket pocket, okay?”
“Carefully,” I answered him.
In slow motion he removed a flat, foil-wrapped disc a little larger than a hockey puck. He removed the foil and showed me a reel of tape. “Call the desk an’ ask them if they have a tape recorder,” he said.
I picked up the phone. “Do you have a tape recorder I can borrow for a few minutes?” I asked the front desk clerk.
“We have a tape recorder you can rent for as long as you like,” he reproved me gently.
The marts of commerce. “That’s fine. Send it up to 304.”
“Let me call Erikson before he gets to thinkin’ I’ve run out on him,” Slater suggested. “He’s bound to get nervous when he bounces off the door of that phony room you gave us.”
He moved to the phone when I made no objection. “Our man blocked you out of the play, Karl,” he said after he had asked the operator to have Karl Erikson paged in the bar. “Give me ten minutes to tell him the proposition an’ we’ll pipe you aboard.” He listened for a moment and his mouth drew down at the corners. “You know any way you’re not gonna give me the ten minutes?” he asked softly, and hung up the phone. “Likes to think he’s in charge sixty seconds every minute,” he said to me.
There was a knock at the door. I went to it as Slater stepped into the bathroom, out of sight. I took the portable tape recorder from the bellboy and signed the receipt for it. Slater came out of the bathroom, took the recorder from me, placed it on the desk, and threaded the tape onto it with fingers that looked clumsy but weren’t. “Okay, here’s your sales pitch,” he announced, and flipped a switch.
For a second there was nothing. Then there was a scratchy sound followed by an authoritative voice. “Watch yourself inside there, Slater. Don’t forget I want to see the palms of your hands after you shake hands.” There was the squeak of a hinge, a shuffle of feet, and a solid-sounding reverberant clang of metal on metal. I could visualize a barred door closing. It’s a sound never forgotten. I’d listened to it for five years when I was a kid. I’d made up my mind then I was never going to listen to it again.
The feet shuffled again, and then there were a few seconds’ silence. “ ‘Bout time you showed up again, man,” Slater’s voice said. It was followed by a whisper, the prison whisper that pierces the ears at three feet and is inaudible at ten. “Did the screw sit you down here, Erikson? Don’t answer out loud.” There was no reply. “Beef about the light an’ let’s move,” the whisper continued.
“I can’t see here,” another voice complained in a normal tone. “Can we move to another table?” There was a renewed shuffling of feet followed by the sound of heavy bodies sinking into chairs. “You realize that all these table locations could be bugged, of course,” the same voice said softly. It had a hollow sound, as though the walls were farther removed. Where was the microphone, I wondered?
“Naaaah. They’d have to hire too many more guards just to listen in.”
“You didn’t move me the last time,” Erikson said.
“The story is that nothin’s bugged till after the third visit.”
“So we qualify.” Erikson’s tone was thoughtful.
“That’s why I figured we should move.” A note of urgency entered Slater’s voice. “What’s the word?”
“Your story holds together. The money was actually sent down there just before everything blew up. Although it was never publicized, I found out that the guarded money truck was waylaid. There’s still only your word that you were part of the hijack gang.” There was a brief pause. I could picture the two men sitting there eyeing each other. “How many men do you claim were with you?”
“Not how many men I
“Making you the sole survivor of the hijack.”
“How many times I gotta tell you that?”
“How many men were guarding the shipment?”
“Five,” Slater’s voice replied. “A guard with the driver, an’ three more in back with the cash. Al an’ Pancho got careless after we stopped the truck an’ the sacks were passed down. They caught it from a machine gun in the truck’s front seat. Digger lost his cool an’ lobbed a grenade into the truck. I know there were five of ‘em in the truck, although nobody stopped to count the pieces afterward.”
“And the money has never been recovered?”
“Nobody could find it.”
“But you can find it?”
“You’re damn right I can.” Slater’s tone was positive.
“You waited long enough to say anything about it.”
“Listen, at first I was gonna sweat out this jolt here an’ go back myself. Then after the trouble I had in Statesville”—there was a pause—“well, I’m not goin’ anywhere for a while.”
“Not for forty years.” Erikson’s tone was dry. “Not without outside help. It makes me wonder why with this on your mind you didn’t stay out of trouble until you were eligible for parole.”
“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, man!” Slater’s voice hardened. “You don’t act in these places. You react. I didn’t want trouble, but I was pushed. The warden moved me over here to Joliet after I killed that joker in case his friends came lookin’ for me. By that time the friends knew better.”
“You’d never have made it back there for the cash by yourself, anyway.”
“I wasn’t goin’ by myself. I had a man in mind for the job. A good man. As far as I’m concerned, he’s still in.”
“Who’s the man?”
