Come Easy, Go Easy (2 page)

This was falling right into my lap.

"Cooper lost the key to his safe the other night," I said. "He loused up my evening."

"A great guy for losing keys," the doorman said bitterly. "Only last week he lost his door key. He had me out of my bed at five o'clock in the morning for Pete's sweet sake!"

"Is that the time he gets back?"

"Yeah, then sleeps all day ... the way some guys live!"

I now had the information I wanted. I casually changed the subject. We chewed the fat about this and that until Cooper came in.

He came in a minute to eleven o'clock.

I crossed the hall and met him half way.

"I have the key to your safe, sir," I said.

It took him a moment or so to recognise me.

"Oh, you." He scowled at me. "Let's have it then."

"I'd better see if it's okay, sir. If I could come up …"

"Oh, sure."

He led the way to the elevator.

Reaching the third floor, he unlocked his front door and I followed him into the lounge.

I tried the key in the safe door while he stood over me. A wild idea flashed into my mind that when I opened the safe door I'd turn on him, knock him out and help myself to his money, but I didn't do h. Instead, I relocked the safe and handed him the key.

"It's okay, sir."

"Right." He put the key in his pocket. "Thanks." He said it grudgingly and his hand went to his pocket, but that was as far as it went. I could read his mind. He had already given me two bucks. He was telling himself that was plenty.

That little act of meanness decided me. For the past twenty-four hours I had been in two minds about taking his money, but I had only wanted an excuse to push me over the line. He had given it to me.

I left him, took the elevator to the ground floor, waved to the doorman and went out into the rain.

Roy was sitting in the truck, waiting for me.

"Was that Cooper? The fat punk with the red face?"

"That's him." I got into the truck beside Roy. "There's nothing to it," I went on as he drove the truck into the street "We can skin him on Sunday."

We decided to do the job on Sunday because both of us were off duty then. Roy hired a car and we were set to go.

It was a drowning wet night which was a good thing for us. The rain kept people off the streets, not that there were ever many people wandering around at one o'clock in the morning in this onehorse town.

Roy picked me up at my place and we drove to the Ashley Arms, arriving there, as planned, at five minutes to one a.m.

Roy slid the car between a Cadillac and a Packard in the private parking lot with about forty other cars left out in the rain.

We sat side by side, watching the front entrance of the building. We were both pretty worked up. "I could hear Roy's breathing coming fast through his short, thick nose, and I wondered if he could hear my heart pounding.

As the hands of the dashboard clock moved to the hour, we saw Cooper come out and cross over to a white Jaguar, parked ten yards from where we waited. He came out, running, his head bent against the rain, and he didn't look our way. We watched him slide his bulk into the car and then drive off into the darkness.

"That's one of them out of the way," Roy said. His voice sounded husky and unsteady.

A few minutes later we saw the doorman close the glass doors of the main entrance and turn the key. We watched him through the glass doors walk across the lobby and disappear down the stairs to the basement.

"Let's go," Roy said and opened the car door.

My heart was pounding so hard I was short of breath. I grabbed up my tool kit and slid out of the car. The rain felt cold against my face as I ran to the glass doors.

We knew exactly what we had to do. I was to open the doors while Roy kept watch.

There was a long drive-in to the block and the entrance couldn't be seen from the street. Unless someone living in the apartment block unexpectedly showed up, we were reasonably safe.

I had trouble with the lock of the glass doors. In an ordinary way, I would have fixed it in three or four seconds, but my hands were shaking. I finally got the doors open as Roy began to curse me.

He joined me as I pushed open the doors and we walked silently and quickly to the stairs. We had decided not to use the elevator in case the doorman hadn't gone to bed and wondered who was around.

We walked up the stairs. We didn't meet anyone. Both of us were panting when we reached Cooper's front door.

This time I had no trouble with the lock. The first key I tried unlocked it.

I pushed open the door and stepped into the dark hall. Roy crowded in after me. For some moments we stood motionless, listening. We heard only a clock ticking somewhere and the occasional rumble of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

"Come on! come on!" Roy said. "What are we waiting for?"

I moved into the lounge and turned on the light

Roy followed me and shut the door.

"He certainly knows how to live, doesn't he?" he said as he looked around. "Where's the safe?"

I went over to the fat nude and swung aside the frame. I spun the dial, setting the combination. Then using the key I had cut when I had cut Cooper's duplicate key, I unlocked the safe and pulled open the door.

"Take a look!"

Side by side, we stood staring at the neatly stacked piles of hundred dollar bills.

"Gee!" Roy's fingers gripped my arm. "This'll put us on easy street for the rest of our lives!"

Then we both heard a sound that froze us: the unmistakable sound of a key being pushed into a lock and the lock snapping.

I was so scared I couldn't move. I just managed to turn my head to stare at the closed door, but the rest of me was paralysed.

But not Roy.

For a split second, he remained frozen, then he became alive. He slid away from me with the quickness of a lizard. He snapped off the light as the door pushed open.

The light from the hall fell into the darkened room, making a rectangle of hard white light in which I stood.

Standing in the doorway was the long legged blonde. For maybe a second we stared at each other.

Then she started back and let out a scream that went through my head like a red hot wire.

"There's someone in here!" she yelled. "It's a burglar!"

Cooper's bulky frame loomed up behind her. He pushed her aside and came storming into the darkened room.

All this happened so fast I was still standing in front of the open safe, scared silly and unable to move.

The girl bolted out of the apartment and started down the stairs, screaming like a train whistle.

I could see Roy's dim outline as he pressed himself against the wall by the door. As Cooper came into the room, he didn't see Roy. He was glaring at me and his hands were extended as if he were going to grab me by the throat Roy moved silently. I saw him swing the heavy crowbar we had brought with us in case we had trouble with the locks. He slammed it down on Cooper's head as Cooper made a grab at me.

Cooper went down like a felled ox. His clawed fingers scraped down the front of my coat as he fell.

"Quick!" Roy gasped. "Out!"

We could hear the girl screaming as she bolted down the stairs.

I rushed to the door.

"Chet!" Roy's voice came behind me in a hiss of fear. "Not down! Up!"

But I was already on the stairs, going down. My mind was frozen with panic. I had only one thought—to get out into the open and to get away.

"Chet!"

I heard him, but I kept on. I reached the second floor and started a blind rush to the head of the stairs. An apartment door facing me opened, and a thin, white haired scared looking man peered out. We glared at each other, then he hurriedly slammed the door shut I took the next flight of stairs in three thudding jumps, lost my balance and sprawled on the landing. I struggled to my feet and dived frantically down the last flight of stairs into the lobby.

The long legged blonde was crouching by the doorman's office door. She stared in horror at me, her red lips parted and this nerve jarring scream coming out of her.

The doorman, in shirt and trousers, his hair standing on end, came charging up from the basement and flung himself at me. We went down together in a heaving, thrashing assortment of arms and legs.

I hit him about the head and body and I took a couple of stiff pokes in the face before I threw him off. I staggered up and made a dive for the door.

As I got it open, the doorman began blowing a police whistle. This whistle and the girl's screams made an inferno of sound that galvanised me into the rain.

I ran down the drive into the street. I could still hear the girl's screams, but the piercing blast of the police whistle rose above any noise she could make.

With my heart pounding and sweat running down my face, I bolted down the street. I heard a man's voice yell after me. I looked back to see a shadowy outline of a man in a peak cap, pounding down the street after me.

I kept on running, then I heard the bang of a gun. Something that sounded like a hornet zipped past my face.

I dodged frantically and darted across the street to where it was darker.

The gun banged again. I felt a giant's hand thump on my back and I sprawled face down in the road. White hot pain bit into me. I tried to roll over, but the pain paralysed me. The last thing I remembered before I blacked out was the sound of pounding feet coming towards me.

I became aware of voices, out of focus, coming from a long way off: voices whispering to me from the end of a mile-long tunnel.

Then I became aware of a hot, dull ache in the middle of my chest, a pain that grew as I slowly climbed out of the dark pit into which I had fallen.

I half opened my eyes.

White walls surrounded me. There was a dim shape of a man bending over me. He didn't come into focus, and as the pain bit into me more sharply, I shut my eyes.

But my mind was now active. I remembered the rush down the three flights of stairs, the fight with the doorman, the wild terrified screams of the long-legged blonde and my blind, stupid rush into the street. I heard again the two bangs from the cop's gun.

Well, I was caught. My futile attempt to grab some easy money had finished in a hospital bed with a cop standing over me.

"If he's not all that badly hurt," a voice said suddenly, "why can't I shake the punk and snap him out of it?"

A tough, hard cop voice you hear on the movies and can never imagine ever talking that way to you.

"He'll come out of it," another voice said. "No point in rushing things, sergeant. He's had a lucky escape. Another inch to the right and he would have been a dead man."

"Yeah? I bet he'll wish he was dead by the time I'm through with him."

I was alert now and I peered at the two men standing by my bed. One of them was soft and fat and in a white overall: he would be the croaker. The other was a big man, fleshy with a red bluntfeatured face, small hard eyes and a mouth like a razor cut. His shabby, dark clothes and the way he wore his hat told me who he was: he was a cop, the owner of the tough voice.

I lay still, riding the pain in my chest I began to wonder what had happened to Roy.

He hadn't panicked the way I had. He had gone up the stairs while I had rushed blindly down into the arms of the law. Had he got away?

Unless he had been seen leaving the building, he was in the clear. I was the one who had been caught I was the one who had seen the money in Cooper's safe. I was the one who had talked to the doorman about Cooper's movements. I was the one who had been seen running down the stairs. Roy was out of all this.

Then I remembered the sound the crowbar had made as Roy had slammed it down on Cooper's head. It had been a terrible blow: made terrible by a viciousness I hadn't expected to be in Roy.

I experienced a sudden feeling of sick fear. What had happened to Cooper? Had Roy killed him?

Then I became aware of the smell of stale sweat and tobacco smoke so close that I opened my eyes and found myself staring up into the cop's red, brutal face.

We were alone. I hadn't heard the doctor leave, but he must have gone, for he wasn't in the room.

The cop grinned at me, showing his tobacco-stained teeth. It was like a wolf grinning at me.

"Okay, punk," he said "Let's have it. I've been waiting two days and nights to talk to you. Let's have it."

That was the beginning of it.

They seemed to have a vague idea I hadn't done the job alone. They had nothing to go on, but they kept at me, trying to find out if I had had someone with me. I said no, and I kept on saying no.

They told me Cooper was dying and I would be up on a murder charge. If I had had someone working with me, now was the time to spill it. I told them I had handled the job alone.

Finally, they got tired of trying to make me admit I wasn't alone. Finally, too, they had to tell me that Cooper was recovering. They seemed pretty sore that he was going to recover.

"But you could have killed him," the sergeant with the tobacco-stained teeth told me, "and that'll make an impression on the judge. You'll get ten years for this, punk, and you'll regret every one of them."

From the hospital I was transferred to the State Jail. I remained there for three months while they got Cooper into good enough shape to give evidence against me.

I'll remember the trial for as long as I live.

When I was brought into the court room, I looked around. The first person I spotted in the spectators' gallery was Janey. That surprised me. She waved her hand at me and I managed somehow to smile in return. She was the last person I expected to see there.