The Collection (144 page)

By four o'clock he was in bed, and lay there thinking
pleasantly of all the things that he could do with the money once it would be
safe for him to begin spending it.

It was almost nine when he awakened the next morning.

And again, for a moment, there was reaction and panic. For
seconds that seemed hours he lay rigidly, trying to recall everything he had
done. Step by step he went over it and gradually confidence returned.

He had been seen by no one; he had left no possible clue.

His cleverness in getting past the dog without killing it
would certainly throw suspicion elsewhere.

It had been easy, so easy, for a clever man to commit a
crime without leaving a single lead. Ridiculously easy. There was no possible—

Through the open window of his bedroom he heard voices that
seemed excited about something. One of them sounded like the voice of the
policeman on the day shift.

Probably, then, the crime had been discovered. But why—?

He ran to the window and looked out.

A little knot of people were gathered in the alley behind
his house, looking into the yard.

His gaze turned more directly downward and he knew then that
he was lost. Across the freshly turned earth of the flower bed, strewn in wild
profusion, was a disorderly array of banknotes, like flat green plants that had
sprouted too soon.

And asleep on the grass, his nose beside the torn oiled
paper in which Wiley had brought him the meat and which Wiley had used later to
wrap the banknotes, was the black dog.

The dangerous, vicious, beware-of-the-dog, the hound of
hell, whose friendship he had won so thoroughly that it had dug its way under
the fence and followed him home.

There was a knock on the door. Gram put the sock she was
mending back into the work basket in her lap and then moved the work basket to
the table, ready to get up.

But by that time Ma had come out of the kitchen and, wiping
her hands on her apron, opened the door. Her eyes went hard.

The smile of the sleek young man in the hallway outside the
door showed two gold teeth. He shoved his hat back from his forehead and said:
“How ya, Mrs. Murdock? Tell Eddie I'm-”

“Eddie ain't here.” Ma's voice was hard like her eyes.

“Ain't, huh? Said he'd be at the Gem. Wasn't there so I
thought—”

“Eddie ain't here.” There was finality in Ma's repetition.

A tense finality that the man in the hallway couldn't
pretend to overlook.

His smile faded. “If he comes in, you remind him. Tell him I
said nine-thirty's the time.”

“The time for what.” There wasn't any rising inflection in
Ma Murdock's voice to stamp those four words as a question.

There was a sudden narrowing of the eyes that looked at Ma.
The man with the gold teeth said: “Eddie'll know that.”

He turned and walked to the stairs.

Ma closed the door slowly.

Gram was working on the sock again. Her high voice asked:
“Was that Johnny Everard, Elsie? Sounded a bit like Johnny's voice.”

Ma still faced that closed door. She answered without
turning around. “That was Butch Everard, Gram. No one calls him Johnny any
more.”

Gram's needle didn't pause.

“Johnny Everard,” she said. “He had curls, Elsie, a foot
long. I 'member when his dad took him down to the barber shop, had 'em cut off.
His ma cried. He had the first scooter in the neighborhood, made with
roller-skate wheels. He went away for a while, didn't he?”

“He did,” said Ma. “For five years. I wish—”

“Used to be crazy about chocolate cake,” said Gram.

“When he'd leave our paper, I'd give him a slice every time
I'd baked one. But, my, he was in eighth grade when Eddie was just starting in
first. Isn't he a bit old to want to play with Eddie? I used to say your
father—”

The querulous voice trailed off into silence. Ma glanced at
her. Poor Gram, living in a world that was neither past nor present, but a
hodgepodge of them both. Eddie was a man now — almost. Eddie was seventeen. And
sliding away from her. She couldn't seem to hold him any longer.

Butch Everard and Larry and Slim. Yes, and the crooked
streets that ran straight, and the dark pool halls that were brightly lighted,
and the things that Eddie hid from her but that she read in his eyes. There
were things you didn't know how to fight against.

Ma walked to the window and looked down on the street three
floors below. A few doors down, at the opposite curb, stood Eddie's recently
acquired jalopy. He'd told her he'd bought it for ten bucks, but she knew
better than that. It wasn't much of a car, as cars go, but it had cost him at
least fifty.

And where had that money come from?

Steady
creak-creak
of Gram's rocker. Ma almost wished
she were like Gram, so she wouldn't lie awake nights worrying herself sick
until she had to take a sleeping powder to get some sleep. If there was only
some way she could make Eddie want to settle down and get a steady job and not
run around with men like—

Gram's voice cut across her thoughts. “You ain't lookin' so
well, Elsie. Guess none of us are, though. It's the spring, the damp air and
all. I made up some sulphur and molasses for us. Your pa, he used to swear by
it, and he never had a sick day until just the week before he died.”

Ma's tone was lifeless. “I'm all right, Gram. I — I guess I
worry about Eddie. He—”

Gram nodded her gray head without looking up. “Has a cold
coming on. He don't get outdoors enough daytimes. Boy ought to play out more.
But you look downright peaked, Elsie.

Used to be the purtiest girl on Seventieth Street. You worry
about Eddie. He's a good boy.”

Ma whirled. “Gram, I never said I thought he wasn't—”

Gram chuckled. “Brought home a special merit star on his
report card, didn't he? And I met his teacher on the street, and she say, says
she: 'Mrs. Garvin, that there grandson of yours — ' ”

Ma sighed and turned to go back to the kitchen to finish the
dishes. Gram was back in the past again. It was eight years ago, when he was
nine, that Eddie'd brought home that report card with the special merit star on
it. That was when she'd hoped Eddie would—“Elsie, you take a big spoonful of
that sulphur 'n' molasses. Over the sink there. I took mine for today a'ready.”

“All right, Gram.” Ma's steps lagged. Maybe she'd failed
Eddie; she didn't know. What else could she do? How could she make Butch
Everard let him alone? What did Butch want with him?

There was a dull ache in her head and a heavy weight in her
chest. She glanced up at the clock over the door of the kitchen, and her feet
moved faster. Eight-forty, and she wasn't through with the supper dishes.

Eddie Murdock awoke with a start as the kitchen door closed.
It was dark. Golly, he hadn't meant to fall asleep. He lifted his wrist quick
to look at the luminous dial of his watch, and then felt a quick sense of
relief. It was only eight-forty.

He had time. Then he grinned in the darkness, a bit proud
that he
had
been able to take a nap. Tonight of all nights, and he'd
been able to fall asleep.

Why, tonight was
the
night. Lucky he'd waked up.
Butch sure wouldn't have liked it if he'd been late or hadn't showed up. But if
it was only eight-forty he had lots of time to meet the boys. Nine-thirty they
met, and ten o'clock was
it.

Suppose his wrist watch was wrong, though. It was a cheap
one. With a sudden fear he jumped off the bed and ran to the window to look at
the big clock across the way. Whew!

Eight-forty it was — on the dot.

Everything was ducky then. Golly, if he'd overslept or
anything, Butch would have thought he was yellow. And —why, he wasn't even
worried. Hell, he was one of the gang now, a regular, and this was his first
crack at something big.

Real money.

Well, not
big
money, maybe, but that box office ought
to have enough dough to give them a couple hundred apiece.

And that wasn't peanuts.

Butch had all those angles figured. He'd picked the best
night, the night the most dough came in that window, and he'd timed the best hour
— ten o'clock — just before the box office closed. Sure, they were being smart,
waiting until all the money had come in that was coming in. And the getaway was
a cinch, the way Butch had planned it.

Eddie turned on the light and then crossed over to the
mirror and examined himself critically as he straightened his necktie and ran
the comb through his hair. He rubbed his chin carefully, but he didn't seem to
need a shave.

He winked at his reflection in the glass. That was a smart
guy in there looking back at him. A guy that was going places. If a guy proved
to Butch that he was a right guy and had the nerve, he could get in on all
kinds of easy money.

He pulled out the shoe box from under his dresser and gave
his already shiny shoes another lick with the polisher to make them shinier.
The leather was a little cracked on one side. Well, after tonight he'd get new
shoes and a couple of new suits. A few more jobs, and he'd get a new car like
Butch's and scrap the old jalop'.

Then — although the door of his room was closed — he looked
around carefully before he reached down into the very bottom of the shoe box
and took out something which was carefully concealed by being wrapped in the
old polishing cloth, the one that wasn't used any more.

It was a little nickel-plated thirty-two revolver, and he
looked at it proudly. It didn't matter that the plating was worn off in a few
spots. It was loaded and it would shoot all right.

Just yesterday Butch had given it to him. “ 'Sall right,
kid,” Butch had said. “It'll do for this here job. There ain't gonna be no
shootin' anyway. Just one bozo in the box office that'll fold up the minute he
sees guns. He'll shell out without a squawk. And outa your share get yourself
something good.

A thirty-eight automatic like mine maybe, and a shoulder
holster.”

The gun in his hand felt comfortingly heavy. Good little
gun, he told himself. And
his.
 He'd sure keep it even after he'd got
himself a better one.

He dropped it into his coat pocket before he went out into
the living room. As he walked through the door, the revolver in his pocket hit
the wooden door frame with a metallic clunk that the cloth of his coat muffled.
He straightened up and buttoned his coat shut. He'd have to watch that. Good
thing it happened the first time where it didn't matter.

Ma came in out of the kitchen. She smiled at him and he
grinned back. “Hiya, Ma. Didn't think I'd drop off. Should have told you to
wake me, but 'sall right. I got time.”

Ma's smile faded. “Time for what, Eddie?”

He grinned at her. “Heavy date.” The grin faded a bit.

“What's the matter, Ma?”

 
“Must
you go out, Eddie? I — I just got through the
dishes and I thought maybe you'd play some double solitaire with me when you
woke up.”

It was her tone of voice that made him notice her face. It
came to him, quite suddenly, that Ma looked
old.
 He said, “Gee, Ma, I
wish I could, but—” Gram's rocker creaked across the silence.

“Johnny was here, Eddie,” said Gram's voice. “He said—”

Ma cut in quickly. She'd seen the puzzled look on Eddie's
face at the name “Johnny.” He didn't know who Johnny was; and Gram thought
Butch Everard was still little Johnny, who'd played out front in a red wagon—

“Johnny Murphy,” said Ma, blanketing out whatever Gram was
going to say. “He's — you don't know him, I guess.

Just here on an errand.” She tried to make it sound casual.
She managed a smile again. “How about that double solitaire, Eddie boy? Just a
game or two.”

He shook his head. “Heavy date, Ma,” he said again.

He really felt sorry he couldn't. Well, maybe from now on
he'd be able to make it up to Ma. He could buy her things, and — well, if he
really got up there he could buy a place out at the edge of town and put her
and Gram in it, in style.

Bigshots did things like that for their folks, didn't they?

Gram was walking out to the kitchen. Eddie's eyes followed
her because they didn't quite want to meet Ma's eyes, and then Eddie remembered
what Gram had started to say about some Johnny.

“Say,” he said, “Johnny — Gram didn't mean Butch, did she?
Was Butch here for me?”

Ma's eyes were on him squarely now, and he forced himself to
meet them. She said, “Is your 'heavy date' with Butch, Eddie? Oh, Eddie, he's—”
Her voice sounded a little choked.

“Butch is all right, Ma,” he said with a touch of defiance.

“He's a good guy, Butch is. He's—”

He broke off. Damn. He hated scenes.

“Eddie boy,” Gram spoke from the kitchen doorway.

It was a welcome interruption. But she had a tablespoon of
that awful sulphur and molasses of hers. Oh, well, good old Gram's goofy ideas
were saving him from a scene this time.

He crossed over and took the vile stuff off the spoon.

“Thanks, Gram. 'Night, Ma. Don't wait up.” He started for
the door. But it wasn't that easy. She caught at his sleeve. “Eddie, please.
Listen—”

Hell, it would be worse if he hung around and argued. He
jerked his sleeve free and was out of the door before she could stop him again.
He could have hung around for half an hour almost, but not if Ma was going to
take on like that. He could sit in the jalop' till it was time to go meet the
bunch.

Ma started for the door and then stopped. She put her hands
up to her eyes, but she couldn't cry. If she could only bawl or— But she
couldn't talk to Gram. She couldn't share her troubles, even.

“You take your tonic, Elsie?”

“Yeah,” said Ma dully. Slowly she went to the table and sat
down before it. She took a deck of cards from its drawer and began to pile them
for a game of solitaire. She knew there was no use her even thinking about
trying to go to bed until Eddie came home. No matter how late it was.