1958 - The World in My Pocket (3 page)

Bleck, frankly startled, lifted his eyebrows and pursed his lips in a soundless, appreciative whistle.

Kitson looked as if someone had hit him on the head with a hammer. He stared at the girl the way a tortured bull stares at a matador the moment before the estocada.

Morgan said, ‘This is Ginny Gordon.’

Bleck got to his feet. After a moment’s hesitation, Gypo also got to his feet, but Kitson sat there, his big hands into fists on the table, his eyes a little glassy, his expression still stunned.

‘Reading from right to left,’ Morgan went on, ‘is Ed Bleck who takes care of the gang when I’m out of the way. Gypo Mandini, our technical man and Alex Kitson who handles the car when we need a car.’

Kitson suddenly lumbered to his feet, nearly upsetting the table. He continued to stare at the girl, his hands still in fists.

The girl’s eyes moved quickly from face to face, then she pulled out a chair beside Morgan and sat down.

‘I’ve given the boys an outline of the plan,’ Morgan said to the girl, standing over her. ‘Two of them think it’s too big for us. Our rules are if there’s any disagreement about the job, we vote on it. So we’re going to vote.’

The girl frowned, her face suddenly puckering into a puzzled frown.

‘Too big for them?’ she repeated. ‘You mean two of them don’t want to pick up two hundred thousand dollars?’ Her voice was cold and incredulous.

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Morgan said and grinned. ‘They think someone might get hurt and that bothers them.’

The girl looked at Gypo, then her greenish-grey eyes moved to Bleck, then flickered over to stare at Kitson.

‘I thought you said your outfit was good,’ she said.

The sudden scorn in her voice made Kitson flinch and turn red.

‘That’s what I said.’ Morgan’s grin widened. ‘But this is the first job we’ve planned that’s really big and two of us aren’t too happy about it.’

‘This is the big one,’ the girl said, her voice tense. ‘It pays off a million dollars. You said your outfit could handle it and I believed you, otherwise I wouldn’t have come to you. Now you are taking a vote. What is all this?’

The three men were startled. The contemptuous, reckless note in the girl’s voice angered them.

Bleck, who had the reputation of treating his women rough, said, ‘You sound a little loud, baby. Suppose you relax a little?’

The girl pushed back her chair and stood up. Her pretty face was cold and hard.

‘I guess I’ve come to the wrong address,’ she said to Morgan. ‘We’ll skip it. I’ll peddle this idea to a mob who has blood in its veins. I’m not going to waste my time talking to a bunch of powder puffs.’

She swung around on her heels and started towards the door.

Still grinning, Morgan reached out and caught hold of her arm, checking her.

‘Take it easy!’ he said. ‘These boys are okay. They’ve just got to adjust themselves. Gypo here is the best safe man in the business. Ed has nerves as good as mine. Kitson can handle a car the way no one else can. Just take it easy. You’ve caught us on the wrong foot. Maybe I shouldn’t have got around to the facts so fast. These boys are technically good, but they’re scared someone is going to get hurt.’

She stood staring at each man in turn.

‘Hurt? Who’s the dumb cluck who imagines we can pick up a million dollars without getting hurt?’ Her voice was harsh as she looked at the three men. ‘It’s a million dollars! For that kind of money I wouldn’t give a damn what happened to me or to anyone else!’

She shook off Morgan’s restraining hand, moved back under the hard light.

She looked directly at Kitson.

‘Are you scared to get your pretty skin bruised when there’s two hundred thousand dollars for the taking?’

Kitson had to make an effort to meet her steady, scornful eyes.

‘The job can’t be done,’ he said sullenly. ‘I know. I’ve worked for these people. This could be a murder rap and I don’t go for that.’

‘All right, if that’s the way you feel about it,’ the girl said, ‘we can do without your help. If you don’t want the money, now’s the time to pick up that beautiful, muscular body of yours and get out of here!’

Kitson’s face darkened and he pushed back his chair.

‘Who do you think you’re talking to? I tell you this job can’t be done! It’s a pipe dream!’

She flicked slim fingers towards the door.

‘And you are a pipe dream too. Run away, powder puff. We can handle this without you.’

Slowly, Kitson got to his feet, his breath snorting through his broken nose. He walked slowly around the table towards the girl who pivoted on her heels so she faced him.

The three men at the table watched. Bleck looked worried. He knew Kitson’s temper was unreliable. Gypo was frowning. Morgan still grinned.

‘You and nobody else talks to me that way!’ Kitson said as he confronted the girl.

They made an incongruous couple. Her head scarcely reached to the top of his shoulder, and standing in front of her, he seemed at least three times as broad as she was.

She looked at him, her expression still scornful.

‘Then in case you didn’t hear, I’ll repeat what I said,’ she said quietly. ‘Run away, powder puff. We can handle this without your help.’

Kitson made a low growling noise and he lifted his hand, threateningly.

‘Go ahead and hit me,’ the girl said. ‘I’m not scared of getting hurt!’

Morgan laughed.

Kitson dropped his hand and stepped back. He muttered under his breath and then started for the door.

‘Kitson!’ Morgan’s voice rapped out. ‘Come back here and sit down! We’ve got to vote. You walk out now, and you’re through with this outfit for good!’

Kitson hesitated, then turning slowly, his face confused and sullen, he walked back to the table and sat down.

Morgan looked at Gypo.

‘Another slip.’

Gypo took out his notebook and cut another slip of paper.

Bleck said, ‘Before we vote, Frank, I want to know more about this job. How does she get mixed up in it?’ He jerked his thumb towards Ginny.

‘For the past five months I’ve been trying to figure out how to knock over this truck,’ Morgan said, ‘and I couldn’t figure an angle. Three nights ago, she came to me and dropped the whole thing, sewn up, into my lap. It’s her idea, that’s why it’s a five-way split. She’s worked out all the angles, and I’m satisfied her plan will work.’

Bleck looked at the girl.

‘And where do you come from, baby?’ he asked. ‘What put the idea into your pretty head?’

The girl opened her cheap, shabby bag and took out a pack of cigarettes and a book of paper matches. She lit a cigarette while she regarded Bleck, her gaze cool and impersonal.

‘It’s no business of yours nor anyone else’s where I come from,’ she said curtly. ‘I thought up the idea because I want the money. While we’re on the subject, I don’t like being called baby, so drop it, will you?’

Bleck grinned. He admired a woman with spirit.

‘Sure, I’ll drop it. What made you pick on this outfit to help you with a job as big as this one?’

She pointed to Gypo.

‘Because of him. I asked around. They said he’s the best man with a lock in the district and that’s what’s needed for this job. They said you had a lot of nerve, that Morgan had a flair for organization and Kitson was the best getaway driver on the coast.’

Gypo was smiling now. He thrived on flattery. The girl is dead right, he thought. There is no better man in the lock business.

Kitson had lost his sullen expression. He now looked embarrassed, and he kept his eyes down, staring at the wet ring on the table made by his whisky glass.

‘They said? Who said?’ Bleck asked.

‘That’s neither here nor there. We’re wasting time,’ the girl said. ‘I asked around because I had to be sure I was coming to the right outfit, but it seems I could have made a mistake. If I have, then I’ll try elsewhere.’

Bleck lit a cigarette while he stared at her.

‘Well, you’ve certainly picked the toughest end of the job if you’re the one who’s going to lie in the road. Was that your idea?’

‘Of course.’

‘Let’s look at what you are taking on. You’ll be lying in the middle of the road. You’ll have a gun under you. When the guard comes up to you you’ll stick the gun in his face, correct?’

She nodded.

‘It could be rugged,’ Bleck said. ‘Two things could happen: either the guard tosses up his hands and quits or else he won’t take you seriously and makes a grab at your gun. From what I hear about this guy, he won’t give up. He’ll make a grab at your gun. Then what?’

The girl let smoke drift down her nostrils.

‘This is a million dollar take,’ she said in a cold, expressionless voice. ‘If he makes a grab at the gun, he’ll get shot.’

Gypo took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. The tip of his tongue moved over his lips as he looked uneasily at Morgan and then at Kitson.

‘This is the big one,’ Morgan said. ‘You’ve got to face up to it, guys. If you don’t like it, you can always quit.’

Bleck was studying the girl.

She’s no bluffer, he was thinking. Sweet Pete! She’s as hard as a diamond. She’ll kill the guy if he starts anything. With any luck, he’ll see it in her eyes when she shoves the heater in his face. If he does, he won’t make a move. If I were he, and found myself looking into a gun held by her, I know damn well I’d stop breathing let alone make any sudden move.

‘Okay. I just want to know which way we’re heading,’ he said, reaching for a cigarette and tapping it on the table. ‘Let’s have the rest of the plan.’

Morgan shook his head.

‘We don’t get the rest of it until we vote,’ he said. ‘That’s the arrangement. She tells me she’s taken care of all the details and ironed out all the snags. What I’ve told you just now is a sample of it. If we agree to work with her then we hear the rest of it, but if we don’t want the job, then she’s free to peddle it elsewhere. That’s fair enough. What do you say?’

‘But has she really ironed out all the snags?’ Bleck asked. ‘It seems to me there’re a hell of a lot of them. We’ve stopped the truck and we’ve fixed the driver and the guard. That in itself is something we didn’t think possible. But from what you tell me the truck is in continuous radio communication with the Agency. As soon as the truck goes off the air, a search for it will be started. They know where to look for it, and what’s more, not only the cops will come a-hunting, but the army as well, and that means hundreds of men, aircraft and cars. They have only ninety-three miles of road to check. An aircraft can cover that in a few minutes. The truck will stand out on any road like a boil on the back of your neck. We will have less than twenty minutes to get it out of sight. It might be possible if we didn’t have to stop the truck at the bottleneck. Beyond there and the other side of it is as bare of cover as the back of my hand. We’ll have to travel twenty-five miles to reach any good cover and they’ll know it and that’s where they’ll look for us. I can’t see how we can hope to stop the truck, bust it open, get the money and get away before the cops and the Army arrive.’

Morgan shrugged.

‘I thought that too.’ He nodded at the girl. ‘She says she has taken care of that angle.’

Bleck looked at Ginny.

‘Is that a fact? You really know the answer to that one?’

‘Yes,’ she said in her cold, expressionless voice. ‘That’s the hardest part. I’ve taken care of it.’

She spoke with such assurance that even Kitson, who was listening cynically, had a sudden feeling that she might swing this job.

Bleck spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders.

‘Okay, I’ll take your word for it, but you’ve certainly dreamed up a miracle. There still remain two more problems. The first is when we’ve stopped the truck what’s to prevent other traffic coming up on us just when we’re fixing the guards? This road isn’t overused, but there is traffic on it. We could be surprised.’

The girl’s face became wooden and her eyes bored as she leaned back in her chair, her scarlet shirt tightening across her full, provocative breasts.

‘That’s an easy one, isn’t it? There are two roads, both linking up with Highway 10. All we have to do is to put a diversion sign at the bottom of the road after the truck has passed and the rest of the traffic will use the other road. What’s so hard about that?’

Bleck grinned.

‘Yeah, that’s a fact. Now, bright eyes, solve this one: we have the truck and we get it under cover somehow. How do we bust it open? According to Kitson, it’s the toughest thing made. We’ll have to work fast. Have you solved that one?’

Ginny shook her head.

‘That’s his headache,’ she said and pointed to Gypo. ‘He’s the expert. I’ve fixed it he has the truck. There’s no hurry. He can work on it for a month or even two months if he has to.’ Her sea-green eyes moved to Gypo. ‘Could you open that truck if you had a month’s uninterrupted work on it?’

Gypo, inflated by the flattery he had already received, nodded eagerly.

‘I could bust into Fort Knox if I had a month’s work on it,’ he said.

‘That’s what he’ll have,’ Ginny said. ‘At least a month; more if he needs it.’

‘Okay. We’ve talked enough,’ Morgan said. ‘She’s really worked this thing out, and I’m satisfied she can handle it. Let’s vote. What you’ve got to make up your minds about is whether you are ready to get hurt or if you are prepared to hurt, and by that I mean, someone, either on our side or on the other side, could get killed. If the other side gets killed, then we all face a murder rap. Whatever happens, if no one gets hurt, and we make a slip, we face from ten to twenty years in jail. Against that, there’s the payoff. Each one of us will have two hundred thousand dollars, and that’s quite a slice of money. That’s the position. Let’s vote, unless anyone else wants to ask any more questions.’ He paused, looking at the three men. ‘Once we’ve voted, we go ahead on the decision. You all know the rules of this outfit. Whoever is outvoted, if there is a majority against him, works with us or quits for good. Don’t rush at this. The take is two hundred grand. If we make a mess of it, we land in jail for maybe twenty years or if we make even a bigger mess of it, we land on the hot seat. That’s the setup. Do you guys want a little time to think about it?’