Dead End

5—

Opening my eyes, I saw the light from the naked bulb in the ceiling. It wasn't enough light to hurt your eyes. What was the life of a bulb? The damn thing had been burning steadily now for days. I wouldn't want it to go out, to be in this trap in the dark. But we could always take a bulb out of another socket in some other part of the house. But where was the fuse box? We ought to know, in case all the lights went out or...

I told myself to stop worrying like a kid. I sat up and glanced at my watch. I'd dozed about fifteen minutes. I reached for my coat on the chair, looking for a butt. Doc was sleeping but even in his sleep my movement seemed to make him stiffen, as if ready to come awake and on his feet in a second.

Yawning, I ran my tongue over my teeth, felt of my gun, then looked over at the bags. I had a silly desire to open them, play with the money. Maybe we ought to count it; counting a million would take up a lot of time. And who would we yell to if we found we were shortchanged a few hundred?

I stepped over to Doc's cot, killing a roach on the way. Doc's coat was crumpled at the foot of his cot. I ran my hands through it, feeling the wad of money in the inside pocket, before I remembered we were out of cigarettes. Doc had smoked the last one.

He seemed to be breathing regularly, yet I'd give odds he wasn't asleep. When I stretched out on my cot again, I saw his body relax. But that didn't make sense. Was he afraid of me? And if he was, what could he have done about it, with his gun busted? I was hungry; I wanted a drag. More important, I wanted to be doing something. I thought about going into the next room, shadow-boxing the restlessness out of my system. Instead I wound my watch, looked up at the ceiling light. I guess I had a secret horror of the bights going out, never being able to open the wall, being trapped in this room. Be something, trapped to death with a million bucks. Find us years later when they would be tearing down the house. Find our bones, but the dough would still be good.

I said aloud, “Suppose I do have to go out tonight. I need a smoke.”

I don't know why I talked; Doc didn't answer. For a minute I listened to his even breathing again, and the silence of the house. My eyes went back to the bags, then returned to my newest hobby—wondering about Doc. They called him Doc because he was always studying. He claimed he'd graduated college. Maybe he had. Doc sure knew a lot of things. He liked being called Doc, said someday he would finish studying for his Ph.D. Well, he had the dough to do it, now—if we could get out of here.

There were more than a few things about the whole deal that troubled me. Behind the doubts another idea was growing. It wasn't only the risk of going out that bothered me; I was really afraid of leaving Doc alone with all the money. Maybe that's another reason I didn't want the lights to go out. I couldn't see the money then.

But not trusting Doc was dumb. He'd never given me a bum steer yet. I could be getting stir-slappy. But a few more days and we'd be on the move. The next time we holed up—if there had to be a next time—at least we'd find a room with a radio or a TV.

Knowing as little as I did about police work, I couldn't see how we'd break out of town. It didn't seem to be worrying Doc. The trouble was, nothing worried him. But I wished he'd let me in on his plans. Or was he telling the truth when he said he didn't have any plans? Doc said we'd make it and I had confidence in him.

Only I wasn't sure I had a million dollars worth of confidence in anybody.

I stared at his narrow back, the dirty shirt. When I first became his partner, Doc had told me, “Kid, partners must get to know each other so well they know automatically how the other will react to anything. It's like a marriage—you even have to know how many sugars the other takes in his coffee.”

In the year or so we'd been working together, I never really made Doc, completely understood him. But then, there was a lot he didn't know about me. I'd never told him about Nate, for example.

One thing was for sure: Doc was the smartest man I had ever known, on or off the force. Nate had been smart, but in a smalltime way. Doc wasn't afraid to take a chance. He'd stepped over the line plenty of times, but always playing it clever. He'd never been caught. And he certainly wouldn't do anything to risk his life now. As he'd said, we were in this all the way, together. He'd been the one who thought of taking the money. It was crazy; the idea never came to me. Yeah, it was Doc's show; I was just along to help spend the loot.

Still, sometimes Doc's very cool cleverness worried me—a little.