“Right. Sunset goes slap through it. There’s one drugstore there—open till nine. Be there waiting a call at eight sharp tonight. Alone. And I mean alone, Gage. No cops and no strongarm guys. It’s rough country down there and we got a way to get you to where we want you and know if you’re alone. Get all this?”
“I am not entirely an idiot,” I retorted.
“No dummy packages, Gage. The dough will be checked. No guns. You’ll be searched and there’s enough of us to cover you from all angles. We know your car. No funny business, no smart work, no slip-up and nobody hurt. That’s the way we do business. How’s the dough fixed?”
“One-hundred-dollar bills,” I said. “And only a few of them are new.”
“Attaboy. Eight o’clock then. Be smart, Gage.”
The phone clicked in my ear and I hung up. It rang again almost instantly. This time it was the one voice.
“Oh, Walter,” Ellen cried, “I was so mean to you! Please forgive me, Walter. Mr. Gallemore has told me everything and I’m so frightened.”
“There is nothing of which to be frightened,” I told her warmly. “Does Mrs. Penruddock know, darling?”
“No, darling. Mr. Gallemore told me not to tell her. I am phoning from a store down on Sixth Street. Oh, Walter, I really am frightened. Will Henry go with you?”
“I am afraid not, darling. The arrangements are all made and they will not permit it. I must go alone.”
“Oh, Walter! I’m terrified. I can’t bear the suspense.”
“There is nothing to fear,” I assured her. “It is a simple business transaction. And I am not exactly a midget.”
“But, Walter—oh, I will try to be brave, Walter. Will you promise me just one teensy-weensy little thing?”
“Not a drop, darling,” I said firmly. “Not a single solitary drop.”
“Oh, Walter!”
There was a little more of that sort of thing, very pleasant to me in the circumstances, although possibly not of great interest to others. We finally parted with my promise to telephone as soon as the meeting between the crooks and myself had been consummated.
I turned from the telephone to find Henry drinking deeply from a bottle he had taken from his hip pocket.
“Henry!” I cried sharply.
He looked at me over the bottle with a shaggy determined look. ‘Listen, pal,” he said in a low hard voice. “I got enough of your end of the talk to figure the set-up. Some place out in the tall weeds and you go alone and they feed you the old sap poison and take your dough and leave you lying—with the marbles still in their kitty. Nothing doing, pal. I said—nothing doing!” He almost shouted the last words.
“Henry, it is my duty and I must do it,” I said quietly.
“Haw!” Henry snorted. “I say no. You’re a nut, but you’re a sweet guy on the side. I say no. Henry Eichelberger of the Wisconsin Eichelbergers—in fact, I might just as leave say of the Milwaukee Eichelbergers—says no. And he says it with both hands working.” He drank again from his bottle.
“You certainly will not help matters by becoming intoxicated,” I told him rather bitterly.
He lowered the bottle and looked at me with amazement written all over his rugged features. “Drunk, Walter?” he boomed. “Did I hear you say drunk? An Eichelberger drunk? Listen, son. We ain’t got a lot of time now. It would take maybe three months. Some day when you got three months and maybe five thousand gallons of whiskey and a funnel, I would be glad to take my own time and show you what an Eichelberger looks like when drunk. You wouldn’t believe it. Son, there wouldn’t be nothing left of this town but a few sprung girders and a lot of busted bricks, in the middle of which—Geez, I’ll get talking English myself if I hang around you much longer—in the middle of which, peaceful, with no human life nearer than maybe fifty miles, Henry Eichelberger will be on his back smiling at the sun. Drunk, Walter. Not stinking drunk, not even country-club drunk. But you could use the word drunk and I wouldn’t take no offense.”
He sat down and drank again. I stared moodily at the floor. There was nothing for me to say.
“But that,” Henry said, “is some other time. Right now I am just taking my medicine. I ain’t myself without a slight touch of delirium tremens, as the guy says. I was brought up on it. And I’m going with you, Walter. Where is this place at?”
“It’s down near the beach, Henry, and you are not going with me. If you must get drunk—get drunk, but you are not going with me.”
“You got a big car, Walter. I’ll hide in back on the floor under a rug. It’s a cinch.”
“No, Henry.”
“Walter, you are a sweet guy,” Henry said, “and I am going with you into this frame. Have a smell from the barrel, Walter. You look to me kind of frail.”
We argued for an hour and my head ached and I began to feel very nervous and tired. It was then that I made what might have been a fatal mistake. I succumbed to Henry’s blandishments and took a small portion of whiskey, purely for medicinal purposes. This made me feel so much more relaxed that I took another and larger portion. I had had no food except coffee that morning and only a very light dinner the evening before. At the end of another hour Henry had been out for two more bottles of whiskey and I was as bright as a bird. All difficulties had now disappeared and I had agreed heartily that Henry should lie in the back of my car hidden by a rug and accompany me to the rendezvous.
We had passed the time very pleasantly until two o’clock, at which hour I began to feel sleepy and lay down on the bed, and fell into a deep slumber.
7
When I awoke again it was almost dark. I rose from the bed with panic in my heart, and also a sharp shoot of pain through my temples. It was only six-thirty, however. I was alone in the apartment and lengthening shadows were stealing across the floor. The display of empty whiskey bottles on the table was very disgusting. Henry Eichelberger was nowhere to be seen. With an instinctive pang, of which I was almost immediately ashamed, I hurried to my jacket hanging on the back of a chair and plunged my hand into the inner breast pocket. The packet of bills was there intact. After a brief hesitation, and with a feeling of secret guilt, I drew them out and slowly counted them over. Not a bill was missing. I replaced the money and tried to smile at myself for this lack of trust, and then switched on a light and went into the bathroom to take alternate hot and cold showers until my brain was once more comparatively clear.
I had done this and was dressing in fresh linen when a key turned in the lock and Henry Eichelberger entered with two wrapped bottles under his arm. He looked at me with what I thought was genuine affection.
“A guy that can sleep it off like you is a real champ, Walter,” he said admiringly. “I snuck your keys so as not to wake you. I had to get some eats and some more hooch. I done a little solo drinking, which as I told you is against my principles, but this is a big day. However, we take it easy from now on as to the hooch. We can’t afford no jitters till it’s all over.”
He had unwrapped a bottle while he was speaking and poured me a small drink. I drank it gratefully and immediately felt a warm glow in my veins.
“I bet you looked in your poke for that deck of mazuma,” Henry said, grinning at me.
I felt myself reddening, but I said nothing. “Okay, pal, you done right. What the heck do you know about Henry Eichelberger anyways? I done something else.” He reached behind him and drew a short automatic from his hip pocket. “If these boys wanta play rough,” he said, “I got me five bucks worth of iron that don’t mind playin’ rough a little itself. And the Eichelbergers ain’t missed a whole lot of the guys they shot at.”
“I don’t like that, Henry,” I said severely. “That is contrary to the agreement.”
“Nuts to the agreement,” Henry said. “The boys get their dough and no cops. I’m out to see that they hand over them marbles and don’t pull any fast footwork.”
I saw there was no use arguing with him, so I completed my dressing and prepared to leave the apartment.
We each took one more drink and then Henry put a full bottle in his pocket and we left.
On the way down the hall to the elevator he explained in a low voice: “I got a hack out front to tail you, just in case these boys got the same idea. You might circle a few quiet blocks so as I can find out. More like they don’t pick you up till down close to the beach.”
“All this must be costing you a great deal of money, Henry,” I told him, and while we were waiting for the elevator to come up I took another twenty-dollar bill from my wallet and offered it to him. He took the money reluctantly, but finally folded it and placed it in his pocket.
I did as Henry had suggested, driving up and down a number of the hilly streets north of Hollywood Boulevard, and presently I heard the unmistakable hoot of a taxicab horn behind me. I pulled over to the side of the road. Henry got out of the cab and paid off the driver and got into my car beside me.
“All clear,” he said. “No tail. I’ll just keep kind of slumped down and you better stop somewhere for some groceries on account of if we have to get rough with these mugs, a full head of steam will help.”
So I drove westward and dropped down to Sunset Boulevard and presently stopped at a crowded drive-in restaurant where we sat at the counter and ate a light meal of omelette and black coffee. We then proceeded on our way. When we reached Beverly Hills, Henry again made me wind in and out through a number of residential streets where he observed very carefully through the rear window of the car.
Fully satisfied at last we drove back to Sunset, and without incident onwards through Bel-Air and the fringes of Westwood, almost as far as the Riviera Polo field. At this point, down in the hollow, there is a canyon called Mandeville Canyon, a very quiet place. Henry had me drive up this for a short distance. We then stopped and had a little whiskey from his bottle and he climbed into the back of the car and curled his big body up on the floor, with the rug over him and his automatic pistol and his bottle down on the floor conveniently to his hand. That done I once more resumed my journey.
Pacific Palisades is a district whose inhabitants seem to retire rather early. When I reached what might be called the business center nothing was open but the drugstore beside the bank. I parked the car, with Henry remaining silent under the rug in the back, except for a slight gurgling noise I noticed as I stood on the dark pavement. Then I went into the drugstore and saw by its clock that it was now fifteen minutes to eight. I bought a package of cigarettes and lit one and took up my position near the open telephone booth.
The druggist, a heavy-set red-faced man of uncertain age, had a small radio up very loud and was listening to some foolish serial. I asked him to turn it down, as I was expecting an important telephone call. This he did, but not with any good grace, and immediately retired to the back part of his store whence I saw him looking out at me malignantly through a small glass window.
At precisely one minute to eight by the drugstore clock the phone rang sharply in the booth. I hastened into it and pulled the door tight shut. I lifted the receiver, trembling a little in spite of myself.
It was the same cool metallic voice. “Gage?”
“This is Mr. Gage.”
“You done just what I told you?”
“Yes,” I said. “I have the money in my pocket and I am entirely alone.” I did not like the feeling of lying so brazenly, even to a thief, but I steeled myself to it.
“Listen, then. Go back about three hundred feet the way you come. Beside the firehouse there’s a service station, closed up, painted green and red and white. Beside that, going south, is a dirt road. Follow it three quarters of a mile and you come to a white fence of four-by-four built almost across the road. You can just squeeze your car by at the left side. Dim your lights and get through there and keep going down the little hill into a hollow with sage all around. Park there, cut your lights, and wait. Get it?”
“Perfectly,” I said coldly, “and it shall be done exactly that way.”
“And listen, pal. There ain’t a house in half a mile, and there ain’t any folks around at all. You got ten minutes to get there. You’re watched right this minute. You get there fast and you get there alone—or you got a trip for biscuits. And don’t light no matches or pills nor use no flashlights. On your way.”
The phone went dead and I left the booth. I was scarcely outside the drugstore before the druggist rushed at his radio and turned it up to a booming blare. I got into my car and turned it and drove back along Sunset Boulevard, as directed. Henry was as still as the grave on the floor behind me.
I was now very nervous and Henry had all the liquor which we had brought with us. I reached the firehouse in no time at all and through its front window I could see four firemen playing cards. I turned to the right down the dirt road past the red-and-green-and-white service station and almost at once the night was so still, in spite of the quiet sound of my car, that I could hear the crickets and tree-frogs chirping and trilling in all directions, and from some nearby watery spot came the hoarse croak of a solitary bullfrog.
The road dipped and rose again and far off there was a yellow window. Then ahead of me, ghostly in the blackness of the moonless night, appeared the dim white barrier across the road. I noted the gap at the side and then dimmed my headlamps and steered carefully through it and so on down a rough short hill into an oval-shaped hollow space surrounded by low brush and plentifully littered with empty bottles and cans and pieces of paper. It was entirely deserted, however, at this dark hour. I stopped my car and shut off the ignition, and the lights, and sat there motionless, hands on the wheel.
Behind me I heard no murmur of sound from Henry. I waited possibly five minutes, although it seemed much longer, but nothing happened. It was very still, very lonely, and I did not feel happy.
Finally there was a faint sound of movement behind me and I looked back to see the pale blur of Henry’s face peering at me from under the rug.
His voice whispered huskily. “Anything stirring, Walter?”
I shook my head at him vigorously and he once more pulled the rug over his face. I heard a faint sound of gurgling.
Fully fifteen minutes passed before I dared to move again. By this time the tensity of waiting had made me stiff. I therefore boldly unlatched the door of the car and stepped out upon the rough ground. Nothing happened. I walked slowly back and forth with my hands in my pockets. More and more time dragged by. More than half an hour had now elapsed and I became impatient. I went to the rear window of the car and spoke softly into the interior.
“Henry, I fear we have been victimized in a very cheap way. I fear very much that this is nothing but a low practical joke on the part of Mr. Gandesi in retaliation for the way you handled him last night. There is no one here and only one possible way of arriving. It looks to me like a very unlikely place for the sort of meeting we have been expecting.”
“The son of a bitch!” Henry whispered back, and the gurgling sound was repeated in the darkness of the car. Then there was movement and he appeared free of the rug. The door opened against my body. Henry’s head emerged. He looked in all directions his eyes could command. “Sit down on the running board,” he whispered. “I’m getting out, If they got a bead on us from them bushes, they’ll only see one head.”
I did what Henry suggested and turned my collar up high and pulled my hat down over my eyes. As noiselessly as a shadow Henry stepped out of the car and shut the door without sound and stood before me ranging the limited horizon with his eyes. I could see the dim reflection of light on the gun in his hand. We remained thus for ten more minutes.
Henry then got angry and threw discretion to the winds. “Suckered!” he snarled. “You know what happened, Walter?”
“No, Henry. I do not.”
“It was just a tryout, that’s what it was. Somewhere along the line these dirty-so-and-so’s checked on you to see did you play ball, and then again they checked on you at that drugstore back there. I bet you a pair of solid platinum bicycle wheels that was
a long-distance call you caught back there.”
“Yes, Henry, now that you mention it, I am sure it was,” I said sadly.
“There you are, kid. The bums ain’t even left town. They are sitting back there beside their plush-lined spittoons giving you the big razzoo. And tomorrow this guy calls you again on the phone and says O.K. So far, but they had to be careful and they will try again tonight maybe out in San Fernando Valley and the price will be upped to ten grand, on account of their extra trouble. I oughta go back there and twist that Gandesi so he would be lookin’ up his left pants leg.”
“Well, Henry,” I said, “after all, I did not do exactly what they told me to, because you insisted on coming with me. And perhaps they are more clever than you think. So I think the best thing now is to go back to town and hope there will be a chance tomorrow to try again. And you must promise me faithfully not to interfere.”
“Nuts!” Henry said angrily. “Without me along they would take you the way the cat took the canary. You are a sweet guy, Walter, but you don’t know as many answers as Baby Leroy. These guys are thieves and they have a string of marbles that might probably bring them twenty grand with careful handling. They are out for a quick touch, but they will squeeze all they can just the same. I oughta go back to that fat wop Gandesi right now. I could do things to that slob that ain’t been invented yet.”
“Now, Henry, don’t get violent,” I said.
“Haw,” Henry snarled. “Them guys give me an ache in the back of my lap.” He raised his bottle to his lips with his left hand and drank thirstily. His voice came down a few tones and sounded more peaceful. “Better dip the bill, Walter. The party’s a flop.”
“Perhaps you are right, Henry,” I sighed. “I will admit that my stomach has been trembling like an autumn leaf for all of half an hour.”
So I stood up boldly beside him and poured a liberal portion of the fiery liquid down my throat. At once my courage revived. I handed the bottle back to Henry and he placed it carefully down on the running board. He stood beside me dancing the short automatic pistol up and down on the broad palm of his hand.