Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 63, No. 11 & 12, November/December 2018

Going-Away Money by Michael Bracken

1957

Sean sat at the bus station’s lunch counter, knapsack in his lap, and stared out the window at the thick layer of snow covering everything within reach of the building’s lights. He watched in dismay as the white blanket grew ever thicker. His bus had rolled into the station just before midnight, less than an hour after the first flake drifted from the night sky, and he had been sitting at the counter ever since.

He was one of three passengers the bus had carried. The other two — an older couple who had boarded the bus west of St. Louis — sat in one of the four booths lined up along the window and stared glumly at one another without speaking. He hadn’t seen the driver since exiting the bus.

“Looks like you’re stuck here tonight, hon,” said the blue-eyed waitress standing on the other side of the counter. She was a few years older than Sean, and her pink uniform, which buttoned up the front and had white detachable trim around the short sleeves, did little to hide her bottom-heavy figure. Over it she wore a frilly white apron that was less practical than decorative. Her strawberry-blonde hair had been pulled into a tight bun on the back of her head and she’d pinned a pink-and-white cap into her hair. Her thick-soled orthopedic shoes squeaked against the linoleum floor as she turned and reached for the coffeepot. She refilled his cup. “You might as well finish that pie.”

Sean glanced at his plate. All that remained was a smear of filling, a cherry, and a bit of crust. He ate the cherry, left the crust, and pushed the dessert plate across the counter.

The waitress whisked it away and replaced it with a handwritten ticket as he downed his second cup of lukewarm coffee. He examined it — blue-plate special of meat loaf, mashed potatoes, corn, and biscuit; cherry pie; and coffee — and dug in his pocket for a buck and a quarter, enough to pay for his meal and then some.

As the waitress scooped the coins from the countertop into the palm of her hand, Sean rose with the knapsack held tight, still surprised at how much fifty thousand dollars weighed. He carried it into the station’s lobby and found a place where he could sit with his back to the wall to watch everyone who entered and exited the building.

No one did.

As far as Sean could tell, he was one of seven people in the entire station — the three passengers and the driver from the bus parked outside, the short-order cook and the waitress in the diner, and the old man snoring behind the ticket counter. The maintenance crew had inspected and refueled the bus before heading home.

After a while, the coffee he’d downed with dinner wanted release and Sean made his way to the men’s room. He was standing at the urinal holding the knapsack with his free hand when the bus’s other male passenger entered and stood beside him. Only a thin rectangle of metal jutting from the wall separated them. The man slid his foot under the divider until his worn brown wing tip pushed against Sean’s black high-tops. Sean knew what the man’s wide stance meant but he tried to ignore the signal.

When the man persisted, Sean asked, “What about your wife?”

“She’s not my wife, kid. I’m not married.”

“So the woman you’re traveling with is—”

“A Pinkerton. We’re both Pinkertons.”

Private eyes.

Sean finished and backed away from the urinal. A moment later the Pinkerton joined him at the two-basin sink, and Sean watched his reflection in the mirror. Over a wrinkled white dress shirt, the barrel-chested man wore a thin red-and-black striped tie affixed to his shirt with a gold tie clip, an off-the-rack, gray-checked, two-button sport coat, and dark gray slacks. His nose had been flattened once too often, and his graying hair had been cut into a flattop held upright by a liberal application of butch wax. When he leaned forward over the basin to wash his hands, his jacket fell open and Sean saw the butt of a revolver sticking out of a shoulder holster.

The Pinkerton’s reflection gazed back at him. “So, you’re not interested?”

Sean shook his head.

“I’ve got a few bucks,” the man said. “I could make it worth your while.”

Sean thought about the money in the knapsack and knew he would never have to do that again. “I’m fine, thanks.”

“Young guy like you, traveling across country alone,” the Pinkerton said, “he needs a friend to take care of him.”

The last friend who had sworn to take care of Sean had been shot to death. “I can take care of myself.”

“Suit yourself, kid,” the Pinkerton said. He dried his hands and exited the restroom, leaving Sean to stare at his own reflection.

Many hours earlier, Sean’s finger-length auburn hair had been combed into a ducktail. While he slept with his head against the bus seat, the duck-tail had lost its shape. He didn’t have a comb, so he used his fingers to push his hair back into place before he returned to his seat against the lobby wall. He pulled the knapsack into his lap and hugged it like the teddy bear he’d had as a child in Centralia.

“Mind if I sit here?” Without waiting for an answer, the waitress dropped into the seat next to Sean, lit a cigarette, and took a long drag. After she blew out the smoke, she asked, “You got a name, hon?”

“Sean,” he said. “My name’s Sean.”

“I’m Helen.” She tapped her name badge. “Where you headed?”

“Seattle.”

“What’s in Seattle?”

Nothing. He’d purchased a ticket on the first bus leaving St. Louis with a West Coast destination. He couldn’t think of a lie quick enough, so he shrugged.

“Then what’re you running from?”

A dead body in a fleabag hotel. He hadn’t killed the man, but he had watched him die. He didn’t tell the waitress any of that.

“If you ain’t running toward something,” the waitress continued, “then you’re running from something. It has to be one or the other. Me? I’m running from an ex-husband who thinks I’m a punching bag whenever he gets a snootful. That is, I was running, but this Podunk town is as far as I got. These days I got to fend off Elmer every time I go in the kitchen.”

“So where would you go if you could leave here?”

“Seattle seems like a nice place.”

“You wouldn’t mind the rain?”

She placed one hand on Sean’s arm and his heart skipped a beat. “Hon, I’ve lived with worse.”

Across the lobby, the Pinkerton sat to the right of his traveling companion, a woman equally thick bodied, as if it were a Pinkerton employment requirement. Her amber and black cotton print dress had a matching belt that defined her waist by its presence. She wore fur-lined calfskin boots and thick support hose. Their overcoats were piled on the seat to her left, and she sat with her purse in her lap.

They still hadn’t spoken.

Sean felt like everyone but the snoring man at the ticket counter was staring at him, and he hugged the knapsack even tighter.

“You’re shaking, hon,” said the waitress, still smoking a cigarette beside him. “You afraid of me? I ain’t gonna bite.”

“No, I—”

“You’re cold. That’s it, ain’t it? You leave your coat on the bus?”

“Didn’t think to bring one.” He hadn’t had time to pack or to shop before he left St. Louis, and he wore nothing but loose-fitting blue jeans and a green short-sleeved, button-up shirt.

The waitress finished her cigarette. Then she crossed the terminal lobby, stepped behind the counter, and kicked the sleeping man’s chair. He woke with a grunt and wiped at his eyes.

“Move your ass, Clyde,” she said. “I need to get into the lost and found.”

The oldest person in the bus station, the ticket agent’s weathered face was a road map of hard miles. He wore a white dress shirt, sweat-yellowed at the collar and beneath the arms, and high-waisted, black dress slacks frayed at the waist and the cuffs.

“And for God’s sake, don’t breathe on me.”

The ticket agent scooted forward, his left knee knocking against the pump-action shotgun under the counter, and the waitress opened the door behind him. A moment later she returned to Sean with a red-and-black plaid hunting coat someone had left on one of the buses. He put it on without releasing his hold on the knapsack, and he found gloves and a watch cap in the pockets.

At the counter, the ticket agent took another nip from the mason jar of shine he kept in the bottom desk drawer, and he watched the man in the gray-checked sport coat stand and cross the lobby.

The Pinkerton stopped in front of Sean. “I’ve been watching you with that knapsack, kid,” he said. “You never let go of it, so what’s so god-awful important about it?”

When Sean didn’t respond, the Pinkerton grabbed the knapsack and jerked. Sean held tight, but one of the buckles broke and three banded stacks of ten-dollar bills spilled across the floor.

Everyone stared.

“Where’d you get the money, kid?”

A bagman for the mob had shoved it in Sean’s arms and had pushed him out the hotel room window just before a pair of triggermen kicked the door open. Sean watched through a gap in the curtains as they shot the bagman, and then he hightailed it down the fire escape, ran seventeen blocks, and bought a ticket on the first bus leaving the city for the Coast. He left behind everything he owned but for the clothes he wore.

Sean had no desire to give up the knapsack, so he dove onto the cold slate floor and scrambled to retrieve the scattered currency. The sound of a shotgun being pumped stopped him and he looked up.

The old man stood a few feet away, the shotgun from beneath the counter pointed at Sean’s head. “Leave go of the bag, son.”

Before Sean could, the Pinkerton tore it from his grip.

“How much is in there?”

The Pinkerton dumped out the contents and stacked the banded tens as he counted to fifty thousand.

The old man whistled. “That’s an awful lot of money, son. You rob a bank?”

“I ain’t no thief.”

“It don’t matter where he got it. What matters is what we’re going to do with it.” The Pinkerton looked around the room. “There’s ten thousand each.”

The short-order cook heard the commotion in the lobby and stepped out of the diner, a carving knife gripped in one hand held low against his thigh. He had a pack of Camel cigarettes rolled up in the left sleeve of his food-stained white T-shirt. An equally stained white apron tied around his waist hung to his knees over blue chinos, and he wore military-issue black lace-up boots. Anchors tattooed on his forearms were souvenirs from his stint in the Navy, and the Polynesian hula girl tattooed on his right bicep danced when he flexed his muscles.

The ticket agent saw the short-order cook behind the Pinkerton and said, “There’re six of us.”

“It ain’t yours,” the waitress protested as she rose from her seat. “Y’all give it back.”

The other Pinkerton also rose. “Butch—”

“I can handle this, Marge,” the Pinkerton said. He reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved a worn brown wallet containing his ID and badge. He flipped it open to show everyone. Then he made a motion toward his female companion and said, “We’ve been tailing this kid for a while.”

Sean knew better. The couple hadn’t been tailing anyone. He’d overheard them on the bus discussing a new job in Kansas City.

The Pinkerton glared at Sean. “This kid won’t put up a fuss long as we don’t run him in.”

“But—” the other Pinkerton said.

“Let it go, Marge.”

The Pinkerton scooped up the banded stacks of tens and stuffed them in the knapsack. He pushed himself to his feet, unaware of the carving knife in the cook’s hand.

Sean scrambled to his feet and reached for the knapsack. The waitress saw the look in the short-order cook’s eye as he stepped forward. She grabbed Sean’s arm and pulled him back. The hula girl danced as the cook thrust the carving knife into the Pinkerton’s lower back. The blade became entangled with the private eye’s cheap jacket, so the blade did not bite deep. Even so, the Pinkerton staggered and half-turned toward the cook.

“That’s my going-away money,” the cook said.

He drew the knife back and thrust it toward the Pinkerton’s exposed belly. The Pinkerton blocked it with the knapsack.

The ticket agent swung the shotgun around and blew off the cook’s face. Then he jacked another round into the shotgun and pointed it at the Pinkerton. The spent shell bounced across the floor. “Elmer’s right. That is going-away money. Drop the bag and kick it over here.”

The Pinkerton dropped the knapsack. Sean tried for it again but couldn’t pull himself free of the waitress’s grip on his arm. Harshly, she whispered, “Don’t.”

No one was paying attention to the other Pinkerton. She pulled a .32 from her purse and said, “Put down the gun, mister.”

The ticket agent swung the shotgun in her direction and she drilled three shots into his chest before he could complete his turn.

She kicked the shotgun away from the dead man’s hands. Once she felt confident that the ticket agent wouldn’t rise, she asked her traveling companion, “You okay, Butch?”

“Yeah.” The Pinkerton retrieved the money-filled knapsack, settled onto a chair, and pulled it into his lap.

“You two.” The other Pinkerton waved her revolver at Sean and the waitress. “Get back where you were.”

The waitress pulled Sean backward until they were both seated.

The other Pinkerton looked at her partner. “You’re bleeding, Butch.”

“It’s nothing,” he said. “I’m fine.”

She hesitated a moment and then returned to her seat beside him.

The two couples sat in silence for several minutes, staring at one another across the lobby, before the waitress turned to Sean. “You ever hit a woman?”

“No. Never.”

“You ever kissed one?”

Sean looked away. He’d only ever kissed Big Moe, and he hadn’t liked it.

“That’s okay, hon,” she said. “Ain’t nothing to be embarrassed about.” Sean had run away from home when he turned fourteen and had been living on the streets of St. Louis, begging for handouts until he met Big Moe, the bagman who had taken him under his wing and into his bed. Big Moe had treated him better than his father, buying him clothes and providing a clean place to sleep in exchange for physical affection.

The waitress pressed her thigh against Sean’s and his body responded. She smelled nice, when she wasn’t blowing smoke in his direction. Sean had never been with a woman and wondered what it would be like.

“Maybe I’ll let you kiss me later.”

They watched blood drip off the edge of the Pinkerton’s seat and pool on the floor beneath him, but neither Sean nor the waitress said anything. When the other Pinkerton noticed, she sent the waitress for towels. Before the waitress could return with them, she turned to her traveling companion.

“Let me take a look, Butch. You might be bleeding out.” She reached for the knapsack to move it out of the way.

“Don’t touch the money.”

“We need to stop the bleeding.”

As she pulled the knapsack from his lap, the Pinkerton raised his .38 and shot her once between the breasts. “I told you not to touch the money.”

She collapsed beside him as the waitress returned with the towels.

“Give me those.” The Pinkerton waved his revolver at her. “Just toss them over here.”

She did as she was told before returning to the seat beside Sean.

The Pinkerton shoved the towels behind his back, and the pressure slowed the bleeding. He readjusted the knapsack in his lap and pointed his .38 across the lobby at the Sean and the waitress. “Don’t try nothing.”

They sat in silence until Sean asked, “Don’t you want to know where the money came from?”

“Don’t matter none to me, hon,” the waitress told him. She dug a bent cigarette from her pocket and straightened it. “But now I know why you’re running. You think whoever it belongs to might want it back.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“What about the Pinkertons? Were they really tailing you?”

Sean shook his head. “They didn’t know nothing about it until he got curious.”

She lit the cigarette with a paper match, inhaled deeply, and slowly let out the smoke. “They’re right, you know. You got a nice pile of going-away money. Money enough to go away somewhere and never look back.”

“I don’t have nothing but trouble.”

The Pinkerton’s blood loss had him fighting to retain consciousness. His chin hit his chest. He jerked his head upward and brought his revolver up at the same time. He saw that the waitress and Sean had not moved.

“I told you,” the Pinkerton said. “I told you—”

Sean and the waitress watched as the Pinkerton slipped from his seat and landed face first on the floor. Several minutes passed before they crept across the lobby, alert to any signs that the Pinkerton was breathing. He wasn’t.

Sean retrieved the knapsack.

“We need to leave, hon,” the waitress said. “If we stay, things will get worse.”

She had no idea. She didn’t know what he was running from.

“Where will we go?”

“Seattle, same as before.”

“But—”

“Stick with me, hon,” she said. “I know what to do.”

She walked to the ticket counter and then called back. “What’s your last name, hon?”

“Why?”

“I still got my wedding ring in my purse. We can tell people we’re married. They won’t know no different.”

“O’Malley,” he said.

“That’s a nice name,” she said as she prepared herself a one-way ticket to Seattle. “I think I’m going to like it.”

“Don’t you have stuff at home you need to get?”

“I came here with nothing,” she said. “If I leave with you, then I’m leaving with something.”

In the darkness outside, a snowplow roared past the bus station, clearing the street.

The waitress led Sean into the diner, where she took off her nameplate and dropped it in the trash. Then she removed the cap, apron, and detachable white trim from the sleeves of her uniform. After she unpinned her hair and let it fall to her shoulders, she no longer looked like a waitress. She looked like the kind of girl Sean might have taken to a sock hop if he hadn’t run away from home.

The former waitress dug through her purse, found her wedding ring, and slipped it on her finger. “Say, ‘I do.’”

“I do.”

“Good.” She kissed Sean’s cheek and he blushed. “We’re good as married.”

After she pulled on her galoshes and a heavy winter coat, she poured a cup of lukewarm coffee and put a three-day-old Danish in a bag. Sean followed her out the rear of the bus station, the knapsack gripped even tighter than before. They crossed the back lot through knee-deep snow, and they found the driver sleeping on a cot inside the maintenance shed, his uniform hanging on a peg beside the door.

They woke him.

“Is it morning already?” he asked as he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“Close enough.”

“I need to get some breakfast.”

The waitress handed the driver the coffee and the bag containing the Danish. “That’s all you’re going to get. The cook ain’t made it in this morning.”

“But—”

“And you best hurry up,” she said. “We let you sleep late as we could, but you got to leave in ten minutes.”

He drank the coffee, pulled on his uniform, and ate the Danish as they walked to the bus, then he settled into the driver’s seat.

Sean and the former waitress were the only passengers when the bus exited the station’s parking lot and headed west on Main Street. Several minutes later, with the town miles behind them, Helen leaned against Sean and looked out at the snow piled up alongside the two-lane highway. She took Sean’s free hand in hers and said, “Rain will be a nice change.”