Easy Death (2 page)

“Yeah, but listen, Walter.” Eddie rolled down the window, wincing as cold winter air flooded in, and he shifted in his seat. “You just ain’t safe in this neighborhood at night.” He slipped the Colt .38 from under his war-surplus Army jacket and passed it over to the driver. “You better keep this.”

“You won’t need it?” Walter slowed the truck as they approached a high chain-link fence next to a building with a picture of a Greek warrior holding up a sword and shield and under that a sign that read

AJAX ARMORED CAR
- Safe - Secure - Dependable -

“Not like you do.” Eddie flexed his fingers inside dark gloves. “Just don’t lose it or nothing.”

“Well thanks, Eddie.” Walter tucked the revolver under one leg, pinning it to the seat, and slowed the truck a little more, feeling the long gearshift lever slide easily as he worked the clutch. “See you later?”

“Does everything go right,” Eddie said, and he reached out the window with both hands and drew his lanky frame onto the roof of the cab, then crawled up onto the square metal roof at the back.

The truck was down to a slow walk now, and crouching on top, Eddie looked down at the fence. Eight feet tall, with a strand of barbed wire running across the top, and a sign:

DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE

And right beyond that, just inside the Ajax parking lot, the six squat, heavy-steel armored trucks parked in a neat row close to the fence.

He breathed in deeply, holding the air in his lungs, feeling the chilly small-town quiet like a cloak around him. Looked at the tight-coiled strand of barbed wire running the top of the fence and wondered if it really was electrified. It didn’t look like it could carry anything more deadly than pigeon droppings, but… His hands shook a little and he looked down at them, wondering if the faint tremor was nerves or the seeping cold. He willed his hands to quit shaking, let his breath out slowly.

He looked at the fence again.

Then he rose and casually stepped over it, from the roof of the truck to the roof of the armored car on the other side. Slipped quickly down to the asphalt parking lot and crouched in the shadows to see if the noise of his entry had caught anyone’s attention.

In a minute or so he decided it hadn’t. He pulled a flashlight from the pocket of his olive-drab jacket and switched it on. The lens had been covered with windings of electrical tape until just a narrow sliver of light stabbed out in front of him, and he used this to check the numbers on the armored cars. Found the one he wanted, took a screwdriver from his pocket and set to work.

* * *

Five minutes later, he climbed to the top of the truck closest to the fence and jumped over, rolling with the eight-foot fall when he landed. Two minutes after that, he was walking casually past a radio repair shop at the edge of downtown, heading toward the gas station where Walter should be with the ice truck about now.
A cigarette would be nice
, he thought,
only this is maybe too close. Wait just a little….

He passed the radio repair shop, hearing-without-hearing the music from inside that kept playing all night:

…To save us all from Satan’s power

When we were gone astray,

O-oh ti-i-dings of co-omfort and joy

Comfort-and-joy
,

Ohooo ti-dings…

He caught the tune and hummed softly as he moved through the shadows. Two blocks farther he put a cigarette between his lips and got a Zippo lighter from his pocket.

A single snowflake touched his nose as he lit the cigarette.

December 20, 1951

10:40 AM

Officer Drapp

That damned snow kept hitting the windshield like it had a special grudge against anyone dumb enough to drive in weather like this—maybe something against dumb folks as a general rule and me for certain—but I guess I was doing all right, considering the mess I was in. I took one hand off the wheel long enough to blow on it, pretending I could feel the warmth from my breath through the heavy leather glove and the knit-wool glove liner underneath.

And just kept driving.

I was piloting a pre-war Ford pick-up, and to judge by the dirt and manure caked on the sides, this was the first time it ever got off the farm since they shipped it down from Detroit. When I tried to push it over 30, the engine squealed like a pig in a sausage grinder, and the heater was just a tired old joke, but it was better for driving in this godawfulness than any police car I was ever in; the tread on those wide tires was sharp and deep, and six bales of wet straw in the back nailed it tight to the road. Even this road.

Yeah, this road.

It was the road they call the Willisburg Cut-off: all backwoods two-lane packed-down gravel, and there looked to be a foot of snow on it, and more coming down and coming down like God’s judgment on this miserable sinner. Up ahead, I could see maybe twenty yards. Beyond that, everything just milk-white and blurry.

I looked down past the badge on my chest to the old radio bolted on the dash that kept fading in and out. I had it on looking to hear something about the robbery, but all I got so far was

I’m dreaming
,

Of a wh-i-i-ite Christmas,

Just like the ones I uuuused to knoooow.

Where treeee tops glisten

And chil-dren listen….

No news reports on this station yet, and I didn’t like to take my hand off the wheel again or my mind off the road to turn the dial.

And a good thing, too. I came up on a curve. Not a serious curve, but bad enough in this weather. I pushed in the clutch, hoping to coast slow enough so I wouldn’t have to touch the brake and end up in a ditch on one side or the other.

It worked.

I down-shifted to second at the apex and let the clutch back out, pulling me around the bend and back in control. The road straightened out, I put her back in third while Bing was still crooning about every Christmas card he writes, and I looked ahead.

The tracks were getting easier to read.

Not that there was much to look at. Me and the getaway car were about the only things on this stretch of farm road between Willisburg and Boothe National Park, and the print of chains on those tires was hard to miss, the way they bit the snow like that.

Or maybe those tracks bit so deep from the extra traction of carrying a half-million dollars in the trunk. That wouldn’t hurt any either.

I shifted on the seat, trying to get the big flap-holster on my right hip to sit easy on the worn bench seat. No use. Police uniforms are made for wear, not for comfort—same as this truck, I guess, so I might as well get used to it. There’d be more uniforms coming along behind me just any time now, so I’d do best to keep my mind on the road.

And the snow.

And those tracks.

I liked how they were getting sharper and clearer; that meant I was getting closer. Maybe not what you’d call catching up yet, but not falling behind any either. What with the lead he had, and all the fuss I ran into getting hold of this truck, I guess I was doing all right. Barring any accidents—his or mine—I was set to catch up with him in an hour or so.

And if I didn’t, that wouldn’t matter much because I knew where he was headed.

I tried to make myself relax some, not waste precious energy grabbing the wheel so tight, settle back and listen to Bing, who never got excited about anything in his life. Through the static he wrapped things up:

…and may allll yourrrr

Christmas-essss

Beeee white.

December 20, 1951

7:30 AM

Logan and Chuck

The Pierce brothers, Logan and Chuck, walked out the door beneath the sign with the picture of a Greek warrior and the words

AJAX ARMORED CAR
- Safe - Secure - Dependable -

Logan blinked twice at the snow dusting the parking lot, shivered a little in the cold wind and nestled the company shotgun next to the folded newspaper under his arm. He pulled a toothpick from between his wide, white teeth with his free hand, pitched it into the snow and climbed into the back of the armored car, starched uniform straining across his wide shoulders and broad back. He kicked a little snow off his boots as he entered.

Inside the green-painted steel interior, he clipped the shotgun into the holder by the door, switched on the overhead light and turned on the war-surplus two-way radio riveted to the wall. Then, always feeling kind of uneasy about sealing himself in, he pulled the heavy door closed and shot home the bolt.

The sound of Chuck locking him in from outside came in quick reply.

He cast a glance at the empty space that would shortly be filled with bags of money bound for Willisburg and points north, then settled onto the wooden bench against the front wall, stretching his long legs across the steel-reinforced floor.

“Hey how ’bout some heat back here?” he hollered at the wall behind him.

“Comin’ up, Log’.” The truck swayed—not much—as Chuck climbed up front and slid behind the wheel. Logan felt the rumble under his butt as the engine started and the radio up front gave out with

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth,

Two front teeth
,

Two front teeth
,

Gee if I could only have…

“You ready for Christmas, Chuck?” Logan tucked his hands into his armpits and huddled for warmth as he spoke through the grate in the steel wall separating them.

“It’s gettin’ here whether I’m ready or not, I guess.”

Logan worked his fingers inside his fur-lined gloves. “Somebody’s getting ready for it; sounds like we got a big haul to Willisburg. Must be doing good business.”

“That’s all they think about anymore, is business.” Up front, Chuck picked up a clipboard and began the ritual of marking squares on a mimeographed checklist as he spoke. “You remember Thanksgiving?” he called towards the back. “How Trudy had to leave before dessert just to get into Belkin’s and start decorating? Didn’t get home till near midnight, and next morning she’s up at seven-thirty so’s they can open the doors at nine ayem and not one minute later or old man Belkin might have conniptions.”

“Well she did a real good job on that window. Looked real pretty this year. We took the kids to see it twice.”

“I’d like to tell Belkin someday there’s more to Christmas than making money, and he can put that in his window and show it off.” Chuck hesitated over a square on his list. “Hey, you gonna check that radio?”

Logan turned to the battered, olive-drab radio with the weathered stencil “U.S.A.” still visible, and watched the tubes glowing softly. Picked up the black microphone hooked to the side.

“Jerry, this is Logan. Come in, Jerry. Over.”

“Jerry here.” The transmission was from the building right next to them, but fainter than usual. “Read you a little weak, Logan. Over.”

“You’re kind of weak here too, Jerry. Maybe there’s ice on the antenna. Over.”

“Could be. This snow supposed to amount to anything? Over.”

“Lemme ask the brains of the outfit. Hey Chuck,” he called through the partition, “we supposed to get much of this?”

“Not supposed to get any at all.” In the cab Chuck stowed the checklist, then put the truck in gear. “I heard on the radio this morning just ahead of the Bob’s Bandwagon show, and they didn’t say nothing about no snow at all. Gonna get cold, though. Let’s roll.”

“Chuck says the weatherman says we’re not getting any snow,” Logan relayed into the microphone. “Must be your imagination. Over.”

“Looks like an inch or two of my imagination, then. And I don’t like the look of that sky in the west. You kids be careful now. Over.”

“We’ll check back as we leave the bank. Over and out.”

Logan switched off the radio and settled back for the ride. Up front, Chuck eased the armored truck out of the driveway and onto the main road through town.

In the back it was starting to warm up a little. Logan relaxed and stared thoughtfully at the radio.

“You think we’ll ever get shut of that war?” he asked.

“What you mean, Korea?” Chuck snorted from the driver’s seat up front and called over his shoulder, “That ain’t no war.”

“No I mean the real war, the one we was in.”

“We’re shut of it now, ain’t we? Been more’n six years we been home.”

“Yeah, we’re home,” Logan said. “But seems like we’re still there sometimes. Everything we use, it’s war surplus. We buy a house, we get it on the VA plan. Go to meetings at the VFW. Hell, anytime I start to do something, I think back to how we used to do it in the Navy. Look how I just talked to Jerry on the radio here, same way we did it in the Navy.”

“And what’s wrong with that? Didn’t the Navy way always fix something or make it worse?”

“Yeah, but…just seems sometimes like…we’re home, and it’s getting to be a long time ago…” Logan tried to make his point and found he’d lost it.

“I guess I just can’t figure what you’re complaining on.” Chuck touched the brake and felt the truck slide gently and slightly sideways before it slowed, and he concentrated on driving, scarcely listening to Logan in the back.

“…my boy Jimmy, he starts first grade next year,” Logan was saying, “and yeah, folks are gonna teach him about the war in school, but he’s not going to remember it. Not like we remember it.”

“Well how could he? He wasn’t born then, was he?”

“Well he can’t. That’s what I’m saying.”

“And so?”

“By the time he’s our age, that war and the Navy way of doing it, that’s just going to be his old man’s story. But it was our life. We’re never gonna be done with it, it feels like. But he’s going to pick up and go on and never remember all that stuff, not like we remember it. He’s not going to come on some problem or something and think back on what they told him to do in the war to figure it out.”

“I guess not.” Chuck had given up trying to get the point. “So are you guys coming over for Christmas?”