O’BANNION QUIT HIS JOB AT three o’clock on a sunny Friday afternoon in April. It happened suddenly, though certainly he had considered the possibility many times in the past. It happened with words, a pounding fist, and then the decision that could not be recalled. It happened, oddly enough, on the same day that a man called Green robbed and killed an armed messenger for the Jewelers’ Exchange.
O’Bannion, who had never heard of Green, spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning out his desk, separating the few personal possessions into a home-bound pile. When his secretary returned with her afternoon coffee she asked him what he was doing, though it must have been obvious.
“I finally did it, Shirl,” he told her. “I walked out on the old man.”
She sat down hard, the coffee forgotten. “You mean you quit?” she asked, still not quite able to grasp it.
“I quit. Walked out while he was still swearing at me. Now if I can just pack my briefcase and make it to the elevator before he comes after me, I really will have quit.”
“What will you do?”
“I’m sure I won’t sit around the house feeling sorry for myself. This is the best thing that could have happened to me.” It sounded properly convincing, even to him.
He zipped shut the briefcase and told her goodbye. There was no sense being emotional about it at that point. “Goodbye, Mr. O’Bannion,” she called after him. “Let me know when you get settled.”
“Sure. Sure I will.”
He rode down in the elevator with an afternoon’s assortment of secretaries bound for coffee and businessmen bound for martinis, but he no longer felt a part of them. The cut-off had been too clean, too certain. He was a man without a job, and he wondered how he would tell his wife.
Kate and the kids were still out shopping when he reached home just before five o’clock. He hung his raincoat carefully in the closet and mixed himself a drink. It was the first time he’d drunk before dinner in years, but he felt as if he needed one.
Kate came in as he was pouring the second.
“Dave. What are you doing home so early?”
“I quit my job. Finally walked out on the old guy.”
“Oh, Dave—”
“Don’t worry, honey. I’ll have another one by Monday morning. I’ve still got a few contacts around town.”
“Who? Harry Rider?”
“I might call Harry.”
“I wish you hadn’t done it. That temper of yours, Dave—”
“We’ll make out. We always have.” Then, because he’d only just thought of them, “Where are the kids?”
“Outside playing.”
“We won’t tell them for a few days. They needn’t know over the weekend, at least.”
“All right, Dave.”
“Want a drink?”
“I want you to tell me about it, how it happened.”
He told her about it. They talked for the better part of an hour, until the two boys came running in for supper. Then they ate as if nothing at all had happened, as if it were a Friday night just like any other. But it wasn’t, and he noticed toward the end of the meal that he was speaking more kindly to the children than he usually did. Perhaps he was beginning to feel a bit guilty.
After supper, when the boys were being tucked into bed by Kate, he phoned Harry Rider.
“Harry? How are you, boy? This is Dave O’Bannion.”
The voice that answered him was sleepy with uncertainty. He’d forgotten that Harry Rider always napped after dinner. “Yes, Dave? How’ve you been?”
“Pretty good. Look, Harry—”
“Yes?”
“Harry, I quit my job this afternoon.”
“Oh? Kind of sudden, wasn’t it?”
“I’d been thinking about it for a while. Anyway, I’m looking, if you know of anything around town.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. Then Harry Rider said, “Gosh, fella, I don’t think I could help you right now. Maybe something will turn up though.”
“Well, if you hear of anything, Harry—”
“Sure. I’ll keep you in mind. Glad you called.”
After he hung up, O’Bannion sat for some moments smoking a cigarette. When Kate came back downstairs, he was ready for the expected questioning look. “I heard you talking.”
“I phoned Rider.”
“Why?”
“Why not? He’s got a lot of contacts around this town.”
“All the wrong kind.”
“Maybe in a few weeks I won’t be so fussy.”
“Can’t you get unemployment insurance or something?”
“Not right away. I wasn’t fired, remember. I walked out.”
“But Harry Rider! He never did a favor for anybody in his life that didn’t have a dozen strings attached.”
“You didn’t used to think he was so bad, back before we were married.”
“That was before we were married. A lot of things were different then, Dave.”
He lit a cigarette and started pacing the floor. “Anyway, you don’t have to worry. He didn’t have anything for me.”
She shook her head as if to clear it. “Oh, I’m sorry. I guess the whole thing is just too much for me all at once.”
“Just stop worrying. I’ll have a job by the end of next week and a better one than I left. You can bet on it!”
She smiled at his words, even though neither of them felt quite that optimistic. They both knew it would be a long weekend.
Monday morning was warm and rainy, with a west wind blowing the drops of rain against the front windows with disturbing force. O’Bannion gazed out at it unhappily. It would not be a pleasant day to be trudging the streets of the city in search of a job. The kids, not yet old enough to attend school, were cross with the prospect of a day indoors, and he could see that Kate was already tense.
“Cheer up, honey. I’ll phone you after lunch.”
“Where are you going to try?”
“Oh, there are a few offices around town that might have openings, especially for someone who walked out on the old man. I’ll hit those today and tomorrow, and if the scent is cold I can always try an employment agency.”
He went off in the car because Kate wouldn’t be needing it and he wasn’t quite up to facing the ride in on the same old commuters’ train. It was still too early in the day, and there would be people he knew, people he wasn’t yet in the mood to chat with. In the city, he parked the car at the ramp garage he occasionally used, nodding silently in reply to the attendant’s cheerful morning greeting.
The first place he tried was an engineering firm where he had contacts. He thought. They listened in friendly agreement to everything he said, and one of them even offered to buy him lunch. But there was no job available and he wasn’t yet ready to accept charity. He thanked them and went and bought his lunch from a white-coated sidewalk vendor who sold dry ham sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. He found an empty bench in the park and ate among the damp trees, thankful at least that the rain had stopped and the wind had died to a gentle breeze.
The job he’d left, O’Bannion was beginning to realize, had done little to prepare him for the necessity of stepping quickly into something else. He’d never had any opportunity to build upon some sketchy engineering courses he’d left unfinished at college. The job, for all its nine-thousand-a-year salary, had been little more than an arduous managership of an office full of unmarried and just-married girls more intent on dates and marriage than work.
He called on two other places that afternoon, and the best he came up with was a promise of something “maybe in a month or two.” That wasn’t good enough. He was already more depressed than he cared to admit to Kate.
Tuesday was much the same, and Wednesday. That afternoon, he swallowed his pride and called the familiar number of his old office. He got by the switchboard operator without being recognized and in a moment he was talking to Shirl.
“This is Dave. How are you?”
“Mr. O’Bannion! I’m fine, how are you? Everyone’s been asking about you.”
“I’ll bet. Who are you working for now?”
“They have me in the pool till they get someone to replace you. Have you found anything yet?”
“Not yet. I’ve got a couple of leads. What I called for—has there been any mail for me? Anything personal?”
“Just the usual junk, Mr. O’Bannion. Except this morning a letter came for you from California. Los Angeles. It looks as if it might be personal.”
“It is.” He had some friends in Los Angeles who often misplaced his home address and wrote him at the office.
“Should I forward it?”
“I suppose so,” he said, and then had a second thought. “Say, would you like to meet me for a drink after work? I could get the letter from you and you could tell me what’s been going on.”
She hesitated a moment, but finally agreed. “All right. I guess I’d have time for one.”
“Fine. I’ll see you at five—a bit after five—over at the Nightcap.” He hung up and then phoned Kate to tell her he’d be a bit late for dinner.
By the flickering candlelight of the Nightcap, a quiet little place where it seemed always to be the cocktail hour, he really looked at Shirl Webster for the first time. She’d been his secretary for the better part of the past year, but in that dubious manner of modern business he’d tended to take her mostly for granted. She was nothing more than an impersonal machine to take his letters and dictation, answer his phone, and perhaps suggest a birthday present for his wife. He’d never really thought of Shirl Webster as a woman, though he was aware now that she was surely a woman, and a striking one at that.
“I’m sorry it all happened,” she said, seeming to mean it. “I liked working for you.”
He noticed for the first time that her eyes were blue, a very light blue in sharp contrast to the dark of her hair. She was a tall girl, perhaps nearing thirty, with a certain regal grace about her. “I’m glad of that, at least,” he said with a chuckle. “There were days when I thought the whole place was in league against me, including you.”
She shook her head. “Not at all. I was kept busy all day Monday explaining what had happened to you. All the girls miss you.”
“Makes me sound like a bluebeard or something.” He sipped the martini in front of him. “Do you have that letter?”
She nodded and handed over a flat envelope with a Los Angeles postmark. He pardoned himself and slit it open, just to make sure the news was nothing more urgent than weather and kids and when-are-you-coming-to-visit-us. Then he folded it away in his inside pocket.
“Nothing important?” she asked.
“The usual stuff. They’re old friends. I’ll have to write them, tell them about my new status.”
“Do these leads of yours sound good, Mr. O’Bannion?”
“I’m not your boss any more. Call me Dave.”
“All right—Dave.”
“To answer your question, no—the leads don’t sound good.”
“Maybe the old man would take you back. He’s having a hard time replacing you.”
“I have a little pride left, unfortunately. Want another drink?”
For a moment he thought she’d agree, but then she shook her head reluctantly. “I have to get home.”
He realized that in almost a year he’d never even thought where home might be. “Got a boy friend, Shirl?”
She blinked at him. “I’m too old to call them boy friends any more.”
“Oh, come on! How old are you—twenty-five?” He’d knocked a few years off his real guess.
“You’re sweet. Now I really have to go. But keep in touch, let me know how you’re doing.”
“I will.”
He watched her walk to the door, hips tight against the contoured fabric of her skirt, and he wondered why he’d never noticed that walk before.
Thursday was too nice a day to be out of work. It was fine to walk along Main Street on your lunch hour and moan about having to return to a desk on such a beautiful day, but O’Bannion quickly discovered it was only frustrating to be job-hunting on such a day. The trees in the park were already blossoming with spring, and the people he passed were smiling. He would have felt happier in a thunderstorm.
Friday was more of the same. An offer of a job at a thousand dollars a year less than he’d been making, a promise of something “maybe in the summer,” a regret for a position just filled. It all added up to a big zero.
On Saturday morning he went to see Harry Rider. He knew the man would be at work on a Saturday because the tracks were racing. Harry’s main source of income demanded a six-day week. He was a big man, with a face and hairline that made it difficult for O’Bannion to remember him as Kate’s one-time suitor. The years had changed them all, but none more so than Harry Rider.
“What can I do for you, Dave?” he asked, not bothering to rise from behind the wide desk strewn with typewritten sheets, racing forms, and three telephones.
O’Bannion stared at the thinning hair, the wrinkles of tired skin around deep, calculating brown eyes, and said, “I phoned you last week. Maybe you forgot.”
“Oh! Sure, I remember now. You’re out of a job.”
“That’s it. I’ve got some good leads in town, but you know how it is when you just walk out on something. No two weeks’ pay or anything like that.”
“Need ten bucks?” Harry Rider was already reaching for his pocket. The words, coupled with the motion, made O’Bannion suddenly ill. He was sorry he’d come.
“No, no—nothing like that. I was wondering if you knew of anything around here. Even something temporary. You said once you had a lot of influence in the right places and just to come see you.”
“Sure. I can get you a job cleaning out the stables up at Yonkers. How’s that?”
O’Bannion’s face froze. “I didn’t come here for that sort of talk, Rider.”
“Just kidding. Never take me serious! Ask Kate. She never took me serious.”
“We weren’t discussing Kate.”
“Sure, sure. She know you came to see me?”
“No.”
“Just as well.”
“I intend to tell her when I get home. I have no secrets from her.”
Harry Rider chuckled. “Maybe it’s time you started having a few.”
He could see he was getting nowhere with the man. There was no job in the offing, only this opportunity for ridicule. “I’m sorry to take up your time,” he told Rider, rising from the chair.
“Wait a minute! Maybe I’ll hear of something in your line.”
“Thanks. Don’t trouble yourself.”
He was going out the door when Rider called after him, “I’ll be in touch with you, Dave.”
O’Bannion didn’t bother to answer.
On Sunday he went to church for the first time in a year. Listening to the minister rant about the evils of overabundance, he wondered why he’d bothered. The previous evening he’d told Kate about his visit to Harry Rider. She reacted about as he expected and there had been an unpleasant scene. She hadn’t accompanied him to church on Sunday, and when he returned to the house he found her mood had not improved.
“It’s a nice day,” he said, to make conversation.
“Just great.”
“Still upset because I went to Rider?”
“Why shouldn’t I be? Dave, there are employment agencies, friends, relatives—why go to Harry Rider for a job?”
“I didn’t know you felt that strongly about it.”
“You knew—you knew darned well. I have a little pride left, even if you haven’t.”
Anger growing within him, he spun around and started from the room. Then he paused to face her once more. “Do you happen to know how much we have in the bank? I figure it’s just about enough to keep us going for another three weeks. Then we either stop eating or stop paying on the house and car.”
Her lips were a thin line of—what? It almost could have been contempt. “Maybe you should have thought about the money before you quit your job,” she snapped.
“Sure, sure! Maybe I—” The ringing of the telephone cut into any retort he would have made. He decided it was probably just as well and went to answer it.
“Is this Mr. Dave O’Bannion?” a strange voice asked. Male, perhaps a bit muffled.
“Yes.”
“Mr. O’Bannion, I understand you are presently at liberty. I have a position available, temporary work, which I’d like to discuss with you.”
“Sure. Who is this calling?”
“My name is Green. Could you meet me tomorrow to talk it over?”
“Certainly. Where are you located?”
“I’ll be in Room 344 at the Ames Hotel, anytime after ten. It must be tomorrow, though, as I’m leaving for Canada on Tuesday.”
O’Bannion assured him it would be tomorrow. Even this mysterious temporary sort of job was worth looking into. But when Kate questioned him about the call he implied it was from someone he knew, someone he’d contacted the previous week. He had a growing feeling in the pit of his stomach that the strange Mr. Green in his hotel-room office would prove somehow to be an associate of Harry Rider.
Green, if that was really his name, proved to be a tall man in his mid-thirties. He didn’t really belong in the hotel room. He seemed more like a man made for the outdoors, a man who might venture inside only for a drink or necessary food. He was obviously ill at ease in the surroundings of impersonal luxury such as one found at the Ames.
“You’re O’Bannion?” he asked, frowning as if he might have expected someone older.
“That’s right.” He held out his hand and Green shook it. Then they both sat down and O’Bannion added, “You have a job open?”
Green leaned back in his chair. “A temporary position. It would involve a trip to Canada.”
“For how long a period? I wouldn’t want to be away from my family.” He said the words because they sounded right. Just at the moment Kate and the boys were far from his thoughts.
“Only a day or two. And the pay would be good.”
“How good?”
The man shrugged. “Perhaps five thousand dollars.”
His worst fear realized, O’Bannion got suddenly to his feet. “I guess you’d better tell Mr. Rider I’m not interested.”
“Who?”
Why had he gone? Why had he gone to Rider when he’d known all along that this would be the only sort of job the man could offer? Across the border for five thousand dollars.
“Harry Rider. I believe that’s a name you know.”
Green was blocking him at the door, holding him back. “Wait, wait. Look, there’s no risk, if that’s what’s worrying you. It’s safe.”
“Sure.”
“I’ll give you something to take with you. All you do is deliver it to an address in Toronto and you’ll be paid the money.”
“Five thousand dollars for no risk? Why don’t you take it yourself?”
Green was nervous now, unsure of himself. “All right,” he decided suddenly. “I guess I got the wrong guy. Go!”
O’Bannion went.
The remainder of the day he spent in a sort of twilight, wandering from office to office, filling out applications for jobs he neither wanted nor qualified for, existing in a world of mere minutes adding up slowly to hours. Again and again his thoughts returned to the man in the hotel room, to the five thousand dollars he’d offered for the flight to Canada.
O’Bannion tried to guess what would have been involved. Harry Rider’s interests were mainly gambling, horse racing, and the like, although he occasionally dabbled in politics. Perhaps it was nothing more than transporting betting slips or some political material.
The afternoon was sunny, even now when it was almost ended, even with its twilight rays filtered through the blossoming branches of the park trees. He walked with a lengthened, broken shadow behind him, destination undetermined. Then, the random thought just crossing his mind, he started down the street toward his old office. They’d be leaving now, not a minute too early because the old man was always watching, but not a minute too late either. He stood in the shadow of a building, watching faces and figures already receding from memory after only a week’s time. Then he saw Shirl Webster, walking very quickly along the curb, head down against the sunset.
O’Bannion crossed the street and intercepted her at the next stoplight. “Hello, Shirl,” he called from a few paces behind her.
“Dave! I mean—”
“I told you Dave was all right. How are you?”
“Fine. I was just this minute thinking about you, wondering how you were coming along.”
“Got time for a drink?” he asked, and as the words left his mouth he wondered just how accidental this meeting had been. Didn’t he subconsciously seek her out rather than return home to Kate?
“Just one. I have to meet my boy friend.”
He chuckled. “I thought you were too old to call them that.”
“On days like this I feel younger. We going to the Nightcap again?”
“Why not?”
Over a drink, with the candle flickering on the table between them, he suddenly found himself telling her about his interview with Green in the hotel room. It was an odd sort of feeling she gave him and he wondered how he could have worked with her all those months without being affected by the sensuality of her presence.
“So you walked out on him,” she summed up, making it a simple statement.
“I walked out on him. Wouldn’t you?”
She toyed with the plastic stirring rod from her scotch-and-water. “I don’t know. Five thousand dollars is more money than I make in a whole year. I don’t know what I’d have done.”
“It’s obviously something crooked, with Rider involved.”
She frowned into the glass. “The Rider you mention—if he is such a shady character, why did you go to him in the first place?”
Why? It was the sort of question Kate had asked too. Why? Was it purely a spirit of revolt against his wife’s wishes, or was there more to it than that? “I don’t know why,” he answered finally. “Not really.”
He lit her cigarette and watched while she settled back in her chair. “I think you’re like me, Dave. I think you’re sick of working your life away for someone like the old man, who doesn’t care about anything but the profit and the overhead.”
“You think I should have done it? What Green wanted me to do?”
“I don’t know. I think you should have asked a few more questions, thought about it a little more.”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” He signaled the waiter for another drink.
“Are you going to discuss it with your wife?”
“How can I? She’s already barely speaking to me because I went to Rider. Am I going to tell her now that she was right all along about him being a crook?”
“Are you asking me what you should do, Dave?”
He wasn’t really. Until that moment he’d been convinced that he’d followed the right course of action. Now she had planted a doubt. “You’d have asked more questions.”
“Go back and see him again, Dave. Why not?”
“He’s gone. On his way to Canada.”
“Maybe not. He might be looking for someone else to make the trip.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t be sitting in that hotel room still. How’d he know I wouldn’t come back with the police?”
“What could you tell the police? What do you know to tell them?”
“Nothing,” he admitted glumly.
“Let me call the hotel for you, see if he’s still there.”
“I don’t know. I’m getting in so deep—”
“It’s a great deal of money, Dave. Enough to carry you over till you can find a really good job.”
“Well, I suppose you could call. I know he won’t be there.”
She rose from her chair. “You said it was the Ames Hotel?”
“Yes.”
She stepped into a phone booth near the door and he watched her dialing the number. She spoke a few words and then motioned quickly to him. When he joined her at the booth door she covered the receiver with her hand and said, “He’s still there. I’ve got him on the line. You want to go over?”
“I—” He felt suddenly weak in the knees.
“Mr. Green,” she said, returning to the phone. “I’m calling for Dave O’Bannion. He was up to see you this morning. Yes—Yes. Well, he’d like to reconsider your offer.”
O’Bannion started to protest and then changed his mind. Well, why not? It was five thousand dollars, wasn’t it?
He took the phone from her and heard the familiar voice of Green in his ear. “I’m glad you’ve reconsidered.”
“Yes.”
“You just caught me as I was checking out.”
O’Bannion grunted.
“Can we meet someplace else? How about the park behind the library?”
“All right. What time?”
“It’s almost six-thirty now. Make it seven o’clock.”
“Fine. I’ll be there.”
“Alone.”
“All right,” O’Bannion agreed without hesitation. He hadn’t even thought about taking Shirl with him.
He hung up and joined her back at the table. “All set, Dave?”
“All set. But he wants me to come alone.”
“Oh.” She seemed disappointed.
“I could meet you back here after if you’d like.”
His words brought a smile to her lips. “I’d like.”
“What about that boy friend?”
“I’ll call him.”
He tossed a couple of bills on the table. “Get yourself something to eat. I’ll be back in an hour or so. Maybe sooner.”
He left her and walked across the street to another bar. There he had a quick drink and phoned Kate at home, making some excuse about a possible job that sounded phoney even to his own ears. Then he started for the little park behind the library, his heart beating with growing excitement. He didn’t know whether the excitement was caused by Green or Shirl or both. He only knew that Kate had no part in it.
The park was almost dark by seven, lit only by the random lamps in standards twined by ivy. It was a lunchtime spot for summer secretaries, a strolling place for evening couples, a clubhouse for after-dark drifters. Though he was only a hundred feet from the street O’Bannion still had a sense of fear.
He found Green lounging on a bird-specked bench deep in shadow, his eyes caught by a necking couple across the path. “Look at that,” he said to O’Bannion. “At seven o’clock.”
“Yeah.”
“Cigarette?”
“I’ve got my own, thanks.”
“Who was the girl?”
“My secretary.”
“I thought you were out of a job.”
“She used to be my secretary.”
“Oh.”
“Now what about this deal?”
Green was grinning in the flare of his match. “You’re ready?”
“I’m ready.”
“All right. I have a plane ticket here, round trip to Toronto, leaving tomorrow night at six.”
“That’s pretty short notice. How long will I have to be away?”
“A day. You can fly back Wednesday night if you want.”
O’Bannion ground out his cigarette and lit a fresh one. The couple on the opposite bench had unclinched and she was repairing her lipstick. “What’s the catch? What do I have to do? What’s the deal?”
“Take a box of candy to a friend of mine.”
O’Bannion’s hands were steady. “What else?”
“That’s all. I’ll be there myself to pay you the five thousand.”
“If you’re going up too, why not take the candy yourself?”
Green smiled slightly and in the dim light he looked suddenly younger—no older perhaps than O’Bannion. “We don’t need to kid each other. I’ve had trouble with the police. They might stop me at the border. I’m going up on the Thruway and crossing at Niagara Falls. I don’t want them to find anything on me.”
“What is it?”
Green looked vague. “That would be telling. You only get the money if the box is delivered intact.”
It was now or never. This was the moment to back out, to go no further. But instead he simply asked, “As long as it’s not narcotics. I don’t want any part of something like that. O.K.?”
“No narcotics. What do you take me for anyway?”
“When do I get the box of candy?”
“Tomorrow afternoon, four o’clock. Right here.”
“That doesn’t give me much time to catch the plane.”
“I don’t want you to have much time. The man will be waiting for you at the airport in Toronto. You give him the candy and then get a room for the night. I’ll probably pull in Wednesday morning and pay you off.”
“How about part of it now?”
Green frowned. “I don’t have it. The money’s in Toronto. And there’s no money unless you produce the box, unopened.”
“Why don’t you just mail it to him?”
“He’s had police trouble too. They might be watching for something in the mails.”
“All right,” O’Bannion agreed at last. “I’ll see you here at four.”
Green left first, walking away fast. O’Bannion watched him go, watched him as in a dream, and wondered what he was getting into. He felt, in that moment, like a man trapped in a muddy bog. There was only Kate to save him, Kate and the children, and they were a world away. Then he remembered Shirl Webster waiting back at the bar and his spirits lifted.
“Why don’t you come with me?” O’Bannion asked after he’d finished telling Shirl about his conversation with Green.
“What? Go with you! That’s crazy, Dave. What would people say?”
“Who needs to know?”
It was crazy, but he began to think it might not be too crazy. He’d always been faithful to Kate in the nine years of their marriage—always, that is, except once in Boston with a girl he met in a bar. But now something had changed, something in him, or in Kate, or just in the times.
They talked, debated, argued for the rest of the evening, but he already knew she’d be on the plane with him.
His excuses to Kate in the morning were vague and uncertain. He would be away overnight, up in—Boston seeing about a job, a really good one right in his line. It was a damp, almost rainy day and the hours dragged till four and he met a trenchcoated Green in the park.
“Think the planes will be flying?” he asked.
Green handed over the candy, a great flat box with a ribbon tied around it. “Of course the planes’ll be flying. A little rain never stopped them.”
“This man will be at the airport?”
“He’ll be there.”
“How will I know him?”
Green thought for a moment. “His name is Dufaus. He has a little mustache and he’s always carrying a briefcase. Looks like a government bigwig.”
“All right. What about you?”
“I’ll see you sometime before noon. I plan to drive all night. There’s a little motel near the airport. Wait there for me.”
“How do I know you’ll show up?”
Green turned away. “Don’t worry. I’m trusting you, you can trust me.”
“Will Rider be there too?” O’Bannion asked on an impulse.
“Don’t you worry about Rider. He takes care of himself.”
Overhead, an unseen jet could be heard through the clouds. The planes were flying.
They held hands all the way.
It reminded O’Bannion of a youthful night on a hayride when he’d dated the most popular girl in the senior class for the first time. He’d held hands that night too, thinking and plotting all the way about how he’d work up to that first kiss, that first hand around her shoulders, on her knee. That night had ended disastrously, with the girl going home in a quarterback’s car while O’Bannion sat alone behind the barn and cried for the first time in years. A year later, in college, he’d met Kate and there’d never been anyone else. Not really.
The weather was cooler when they landed, a clear coolness you didn’t really mind. Above them the sky was full of stars and ahead he could see the flashing red-neoned MOTEL. The letters fuzzed and flickered irregularly as if the sign were tired. There to meet them at the airport was the mustached man with the briefcase, Mr. Dufaus.
He waited until they’d cleared customs and then he came up smiling. “Ah! O’Bannion?”
“That’s right. You must be Dufaus.”
“Correct. Quite correct. I have a car waiting. This way.”
They followed him to a black foreign-built automobile with low, expensive lines. He motioned O’Bannion into the front seat with him but made no effort to start the car. Instead, he held out his hand. “The candy, please.”
“No,” O’Bannion said, halfway into the car.
“What?”
“No.”
“What do you mean?”
“No candy until I get my money.” O’Bannion hadn’t really planned it that way, but suddenly he had spoken the words and there was no recalling them.
“You’ll get the money tomorrow. Didn’t he tell you?”
“He told me. You’ll get the candy tomorrow.”
Through all of this Shirl had stood behind him on the sidewalk. Now she tried to pull him from the car. “Dave, be careful.”
O’Bannion backed out of the car, still clutching the candy box. “I’ll be at the motel,” he told Dufaus. “See you in the morning.”
The man with the mustache was visibly upset. “The money cannot possibly be ready until I’ve had time to inspect the merchandise.”
“Too bad. I’m sure we can work it out in the morning.”
O’Bannion slammed the car door and walked quickly away, half pulling Shirl along with him. Dufaus made no attempt to follow.
“Dave, why did you do that? What’s the matter with you all of a sudden?”
“Nothing. I just realized that I haven’t decided about this thing yet, not really. I want more time to think. A few hours ago we were in New York, a few days ago I was still an honest man, and a few weeks ago I still had a job. Things are moving too fast for me. Too fast.”
“Life is fast. We live and die before we know it, much too fast.”
“Not by tomorrow morning. It’s not over that fast. Let Dufaus sweat about it overnight. If this thing I’m carrying is so valuable, maybe I want to keep it a while.”
They’d reached the motel, a low, long building of concrete that seemed about to crumble. The manager gave barely a flicker when they checked into a double room.
“What now?” she asked when they were alone.
“First things first. I’m going to check this candy. They didn’t give me a chance before. I suppose that’s why Dufaus risked meeting me at the airport—to get the candy before I had an opportunity to exercise my curiosity.”
He removed the garish ribbon and lifted the lid, to disclose the regular designs of foil-wrapped chocolates. “Nothing but candy,” Shirl observed over his shoulder.
“Maybe.”
He unwrapped a piece and studied it. He squeezed with his fingers and broke it open. Inside, darkened and coated by the butterscotch filling, was something sharp and glittering in the light. “It’s a—a jewel. Looks like a diamond. Still in its setting.” He tried another piece of candy and it yielded up the red of a ruby.
“Dave, what is it?”
After the third one he answered, “It looks like part of a necklace of some sort. It’s been broken at the links and separated into individual pieces so it could be hidden in the candy. Come on, help me look inside the others.”
Ten minutes later, with all forty-eight pieces of candy broken open on the bed, they had a rainbow-colored collection of gems, each set in a glistening ring of platinum. “Who’d want to wear a thing like that?” Shirl asked, wide-eyed.
O’Bannion half remembered something he’d heard or read. “It’s not for wearing, really. It’s a necklace called the Rainbow and its gems are supposed to be worth a quarter of a million dollars. It was stolen a week ago from an armed messenger.”
“You’re sure?”
He nodded. “The messenger was killed. I’m into this a little deeper than I figured.” He ran his palm across a forehead suddenly damp with sweat.
Later, sometime in the hours between midnight and dawn, when the only sound to be heard was the gentle buzz of the electric clock on the far wall, Shirl said, “Do you think they’ll come for us or something? Because you didn’t give them the candy?”
He laughed and tried to sound amused. “You’ve been seeing too many movies, gal, Nothing’s going to happen.”
“They killed one man. You said so.”
“Maybe I was wrong. Maybe these jewels are something else.”
“You’re not wrong, Dave. If you don’t think anything’s going to happen, why don’t you come to bed?”
He laughed and lit a cigarette. “I don’t know, maybe I’m shy.” Then, after a moment’s silence, “Tell me about this boy friend of yours, Shirl.”
“He’s just a guy.”
“You like him? Well enough to marry him?”
“Would I be here with you if I did?”
“I don’t know.” He blew smoke in the direction of the window, watching it as it crossed the single bar of dimly filtered light from outside. “What are you going to tell him when you get back?”
“I’ll think of something,” she said. “More to the point, what are you going to tell Green and Dufaus in the morning?”
He thought about it for a long time before answering. “I think I’ll go to the police, Shirl,” he said finally.
“The police! But—but why?”
“This is murder. If I don’t get out of it now, it may be too late.”
“But what about us? What about your wife? Do you want it spread all over the newspapers that we were up here together?”
“No, of course not. But what else can I do?”
“Give them their foolish jewels and be done with it. Take the money and just forget about it. That’s what you planned to do originally, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so, but things have changed.” Suddenly he ground out his cigarette. “All right, let’s get out of here then. We’ll get the jewels to the police somehow without implicating ourselves and be back in the States by noon.”
But she held him back with her hand. “No, Dave. I’m afraid to go out there. I’m afraid they’ll be waiting for us.”
“I’ll take a look around,” he said and slipped into his jacket.
Outside, the world was a pale dark landscape sleeping in the full moon’s glow. A car was parked at the head of the driveway. A cigarette-tip glowed like a far-off star. O’Bannion sighed and went back inside.
“What is it, Dave?”
“You were right. He’s got somebody watching the place.” He looked out the back window, but decided against risking it with Shirl. There was a twenty-foot drop to the highway. They could hardly make it without a twisted ankle or worse.
“So?”
“So we stay till morning and see what happens.”
The sun was back in the morning, already high in the sky by the time the car drew up outside. O’Bannion had been watching out the window. He saw Dufaus and Green join the man who had been watching the motel throughout the night.
“Here they come,” he told Shirl without looking at her. “Green’s with them.”
She came up to the window and stood just behind O’Bannion, watching. “Give them the jewels, Dave. We don’t want trouble.”
Then they were at the door, knocking. He opened it and looked into Green’s expectant eyes. “Well! I was worried when Mr. Dufaus told me about his troubles. Let’s get this settled now.”
The two of them crowded into the small room, leaving the third man to wait outside. Green said, “The candy. Where’s the candy?”
“We were hungry. We ate it,” O’Bannion told them.
Green’s mouth twisted into an odd sort of grin. “Look, cut out the wise talk. You’ll get your money as soon as Dufaus inspects the candy and gives me the O.K.”
“I didn’t know I was getting involved in a murder,” O’Bannion said. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”
Dufaus was suddenly agitated. “He knows too much!”
Green’s hand dropped to his pocket. “All right, we’re finished fooling, O’Bannion. I didn’t let you bring this stuff five hundred miles across the border just so you could double-cross me.”
His hand was coming out of the pocket when O’Bannion hit him, a glancing blow to the side to the head that tumbled him onto the bed.
Against the wall, Dufaus uttered a gasp of dismay. “No violence—please! I only want to purchase the gems!”
O’Bannion moved again, but this time Green was faster. The gun—a small .32—was out of his pocket, pointed at O’Bannion’s middle. “We’re through fooling,” he growled. “Shirl, where did he hide the stuff?”
Behind him, as in a nightmare, O’Bannion heard her reply, “In the toilet tank. I’ll get them.” And then, almost as an afterthought, “I’m sorry, Dave. Really I am.”
He sat on the bed, unfeeling, as Green and Dufaus counted the gems. And when she came to sit next to him it was as if a stranger had entered, a perplexing intruder.
“In the beginning I thought I was doing you a favor,” she said quietly. “You needed the money and my boy friend—how I hate that expression—he needed someone to fly to Canada with the necklace. I talked him into calling you. I never thought it would come to this. I should have risked bringing the thing over myself.”
“It wasn’t Harry Rider,” he said. That was all he could say.
“Not Rider, no. It was me. When you thought I was calling the hotel Monday night I was really calling Greeny’s apartment. I was afraid you’d notice that I dialed the number without looking it up. I was afraid you’d notice Dufaus wasn’t surprised to see me at the airport.”
“I guess I didn’t notice anything. Not a thing.”
Green came over to the bed. “Dufaus is satisfied. Let’s roll.”
“A quarter of a million?” She breathed it, like a prayer.
“Not even half, but I can’t stay to argue. It’ll get us a long way.”
“What about him?” Dufaus asked from the door, pointing at O’Bannion.
“That’s five grand I saved myself,” Green said. He brought the gun into view once more.
Shirl stepped quickly in front of him “No, Greeny. No more killing.” She held her position.
“I leave him here to tell the cops everything he knows?”
But Shirl stood firm. “He can’t tell them anything without implicating himself, with the police, and with his wife. I don’t think he wants to do that. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Green faced him with the gun for another moment, uncertain, and then pocketed it as he turned away. “All right, we’ll leave him.”
She came over to O’Bannion one last time. “Dave?”
“What?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “When he gives me my cut I’ll see you get something. A thousand or so anyway.”
“Don’t bother,” he said, turning away.
“Dave—”
“Go on. Go!”
He heard them drive away, listened to the sound of traffic reaching him through the still-open door.
After a time he went out and walked until he found the motel manager, who was watering a spring garden by the highway. He asked where there was a telephone he could use and when he found it he dialed the number of the local police.
It would be a long journey back to Kate, and he wondered if he would make it.