Hotel

16

With shock, barely believing his own deliverance, Keycase climbed the ladder in the elevator shaft. A fireman was behind. Hands reached down to help him. Arms gave support as he stepped into the lobby.

Keycase found that he could stand and move unaided. His senses were returning. Once more, his brain was alert. Uniforms were all around.

They frightened him.

His two suitcases! If the larger one had burst open! ... But no. They were with several others nearby. He moved toward them.

A voice behind said, "Sir, there's an ambulance waiting." Keycase turned, to see a young policeman.

"I don't need ..."

"Everyone must go, sir. It's for a check. For your own protection."

Keycase protested, "I must have my bags."

"You can collect them later, sir. They'll be looked after."

"No, now.

Another voice cut in. "Christ! If he wants his bags, let him take them.

Anyone who's been through that's entitled ...

The young policeman carried the bags and escorted Keycase to the St. Charles Avenue door. "If you'll. wait here, sir, I'll see which ambulance."

He set the bags down.

While the policeman was gone, Keycase picked them up and melted into the crowd. No one observed him as he walked away.

He continued to walk, without haste, to the outdoor parking lot where he had left his car yesterday after his successful pillaging of the house in Lakeview. He had a sense of peace and confidence. Nothing could possibly happen to him now.

The parking lot was crowded, but Keycase spotted his Ford sedan by its distinctive green-on-white Michigan plates. He was reminded that on Monday he had been concerned that the license plates might attract attention.

Obviously, he had worried needlessly.

The car was as he had left it. As usual, the motor started at a touch.

From downtown, Keycase drove carefully to the motel on Chef Menteur Highway where he had cached his earlier loot. Its value was small, compared with the glorious fifteen thousand dollars cash, but still worth while.

At the motel, Keycase backed the Ford close to his rented room and carried in the two suitcases he had brought from the St. Gregory. He drew the motel room drapes before opening the larger case to assure himself that the money was still there. It was.

He had stored a good many of his personal effects at the motel and now he repacked his several suitcases to get these in. At the end, he found that he was left with the two fur coats and the silver bowl and salver he had stolen from the house in Lakeview. There was no room to include them, except by repacking once more.

Keycase knew that he should. But in the past few minutes, he had become aware of an overwhelming fatigue - a reaction, he supposed, from the events and tensions of today. Also, time had run on, and it was important that he get clear of New Orleans as quickly as possible. The coats and silver, he decided, would be perfectly safe, unpacked, in the trunk of the Ford.

Making sure he was unobserved, he loaded the suitcases into the car, placing the coats and silver beside them.

He checked out of the motel and paid a balance owing on his bill. Some of his tiredness seemed to lift as he drove away.

His destination was Detroit. He planned to make the drive in easy stages, stopping when he felt like it. On the way he would do some serious thinking about the future. For a number of years Keycase had promised himself that if ever he acquired a reasonably substantial sum of money, he would use it to buy a small garage. There, abandoning his itinerant life of crime, he would settle down to work honestly through the sunset of his days. He possessed the ability. The Ford beneath his hands was proof. And fifteen thousand dollars was ample for a start. The question was: Was this the time?

Keycase was already debating the proposition as he drove across north New Orleans, heading for the Pontchartrain Expressway and the road to freedom.

There were logical arguments in favor of settling down. He was no longer young. Risks and tension tired him. He had been touched, this time in New Orleans, by the disabling hand of fear.

And yet . . . events of the past thirty-six hours had given him fresh confidence, a new elan. The successful house robbery, the Aladdin's haul of cash, his survival of the elevator disaster barely an hour ago - all these seemed symptoms of invincibility. Surely, combined, they were an omen telling him the way to go?

Perhaps after all, Keycase reflected, he should continue the old ways for a while. The garage could come later. There was really plenty of time.

He had driven from Chef Menteur Highway onto Gentilly Boulevard, around City Park, past lagoons and ancient, spreading oaks. Now, on City Park Avenue, he was approaching Metarie Road. It was here that the newer cemeteries of New Orleans - Greenwood, Metarie, St. Patrick, Fireman's, Charity Hospital, Cypress Grove - spread a sea of tombstones as far as vision went. High above them all was the elevated Pontchartrain Expressway. Keycase could see the Expressway now, a citadel in the sky, a haven beckoning. In minutes he would be on it.

Approaching the junction of Canal Street and City Park Avenue, last staging point before the Expressway ramp, Keycase observed that the intersection's traffic lights had failed. A policeman was directing traffic from the center of the road on the Canal Street side.

A few yards from the intersection, Keycase felt a tire go flat.

Motor Patrolman Nicholas Clancy, of the New Orleans Police, had once been accused by his embittered sergeant of being "the dumbest cop on the force, bar none."

The charge held truth. Despite long service which had made him a veteran, Clancy had never once advanced in rank or even been considered for promotion. His record was inglorious. He had made almost no arrests, and none that was major. If Clancy chased a fleeing car, its driver was sure to get away. Once, in a melee, Clancy had been told to handcuff a suspect whom another officer had captured. Clancy was still struggling to free his handcuffs from his belt when the suspect was blocks away. On another occasion, a much-sought bank bandit who had got religion, surrendered to Clancy on a city street. The bandit handed over his gun which Clancy dropped. The gun went off, startling the bandit into changing his mind and fleeing. It was another year and six more holdups before he was recaptured.

Only one thing, over the years, saved Clancy from dismissal - an extreme good nature which no one could resist, plus a sad clown's humble awareness of his own shortcomings.

Sometimes, in his private moments, Clancy wished that he could achieve one thing, attain some single worthwhile moment, if not to balance the record, at least to make it less one-sided. So far he had signally failed.

One solitary thing in line of duty gave Clancy not the slightest trouble - directing traffic. He enjoyed it. If, somehow, Clancy could have reached back into history to prevent the invention of the automatic traffic light, he would have done so gladly.

Ten minutes ago, when he realized that the lights at Canal and City Park Avenue had failed, he radioed the information in, parked his motorcycle, and took over the intersection. He hoped that the street lighting repair crew would take its time in coming.

From the opposite side of the avenue, Clancy saw the gray Ford sedan slow and stop. Taking his time, he strolled across. Keycase was seated, motionless, as when the car stopped.

Clancy surveyed the offside rear wheel which was resting on its rim.

"Flat tire?"

Keycase nodded. If Clancy had been more observant, he would have noticed that the knuckle joints of the hands on the steering wheel were white.

Keycase, through a veil of bitter self-recrimination, was remembering the single, simple factor his painstaking plans had overlooked. The spare tire and jack were in the trunk. To reach them, he must open the trunk, revealing the far coats, the silver bowl, the salver and the suitcases.

He waited, sweating. The policeman showed no sign of moving.

"Guess you'll have to change the wheel, eh?"

Again Keycase nodded. He calculated. He could do it fast. Three minutes at the most. Jack! Wheel wrench! Spin the nuts! Wheel off! The spare on! Fasten! Throw wheel, jack and wrench on the back seat! Slam the trunk closed! He could be away. On the Expressway. If only the cop would go.

Behind the Ford, other cars were slowing, some having to stop before easing into the center lane. One pulled out too soon. Behind him, rubber squealed. A horn blasted in protest. The cop leaned forward, resting his arms on the door beside Keycase.

"Gets busy around here."

Keycase swallowed. "Yes."

The cop straightened up, opening the door. "Ought to start things moving."

Keycase drew the keys from the ignition. Slowly, he stepped down to the road. He forced a smile. "It's all right, officer. I can handle it."

Keycase waited, holding his breath as the cop surveyed the intersection.

Clancy said good naturedly, "I'll give you a hand."

An impulse seized Keycase to abandon the car and run. He dismissed it as hopeless. With resignation, he inserted the key and opened the trunk.

Scarcely a minute later, he had the jack in place, wheel nuts were loosened, and he was raising the rear bumper. The suitcases, fur coats and silver were heaped to one side in the trunk. As he worked, Keycase could see the cop contemplating the collection. Incredibly, so far, he had said nothing.

What Keycase could not know was that Clancy's reasoning process took time to function.

Clancy leaned down and fingered one of the coats.

"Bit hot for these." The city's shade temperature for the past ten days had hovered around ninety-five.

"My wife . . . sometimes feels the cold."

Wheel nuts were off, the old wheel free. With a single movement, Keycase opened the rear car door and flung the wheel inside.

The cop craned around the trunk lid, inspecting the car's interior.

"Little lady not with you, eh?"

"I . . . I'm picking her up."

Keycase's hands strove frantically to release the spare wheel. The locknut was stiff. He broke a finger nail and skinned his fingers freeing it.

Ignoring the hurt, he hefted the wheel from the trunk.

"Looks kind of funny, all this stuff."

Keycase froze. He dare not move. He had come to Golgotha. Intuition told him why.

Fate had presented him a chance, and he had thrown it away. It mattered not that the decision had been solely in his mind. Fate had been kind, but Keycase had spurned the kindness. Now, in anger, fate had turned its back.

Terror struck as he remembered what, a few minutes earlier, he had so readily forgotten - the awful price of one more conviction; the long imprisonment lasting, perhaps, for the remainder of his life. Freedom had never seemed more precious. The Expressway, so close, seemed half a world away.

At last Keycase knew what the omens of the past day and a half had really meant. They had offered him release, a chance for a new and decent life, an escape to tomorrow. If he had only known.

Instead, he had misread the portents. With arrogance and vanity, he had interpreted fate's kindness as his own invincibility. He had made his decision. This was the result. Now it was too late.

Was it? Was it ever too late - at least for hope? Keycase closed his eyes.

He vowed - with a deep resolve which, given the opportunity, he knew he would keep - that if, through merest chance, he should escape this moment, he would never again, in all his life, do one more dishonest thing.

Keycase opened his eyes. The cop was walking to another car whose driver had stopped to ask directions.

With movements swifter than he believed possible, Keycase thrust the wheel on, replaced the nuts and released the jack which he threw into the trunk. Even now, instinctively as a good mechanic should, Keycase gave the wheel nuts an extra tightening when the wheel was on the ground. He had the trunk repacked when the cop returned.

Clancy nodded approvingly, his earlier thought forgotten. "All finished, eh?"

Keycase slammed the trunk lid down. For the first time, Motor Patrolman Clancy saw the Michigan license plate.

Michigan. Green on white. In the depths of Clancy's brain, memory stirred.

Had it been today, yesterday, the day before? ... His platoon commander, on parade, reading the latest bulletins aloud ... Something about green and white ...

Clancy wished he could remember. There were so many bulletins - wanted men, missing persons, cars, robberies. Every day the bright, eager youngsters on the force scribbled swiftly in their notebooks, memorizing, getting the information down. Clancy tried. He always had. But inevitably, the lieutenant's brisk voice, the slowness of his own handwriting, left him far behind. Green and white. He wished he could remember.

Clancy pointed to the plate. "Michigan, eh?"

Keycase nodded. He waited numbly. There was just so much that the human spirit could absorb.

"Water Wonderland." Clancy read aloud the legend on the plate. "I hear you got some swell fishing."

"Yes ... there is."

"Like to get there one day. Fisherman myself."

From behind, an impatient horn. Clancy held the car door open. He seemed to remember he was a policeman. "Let's get this lane clear." Green and white.

The errant thought still bothered him.

The motor started. Keycase drove forward. Clancy watched him go. With precision, neither too fast nor too slow, his resolve steadfast, Keycase nosed the car on the Expressway ramp.

Green and white. Clancy shook his head and returned to directing traffic.

Not for nothing had he been called the dumbest cop on the force, bar none.