Manhunt. Volume 14, Number 1, February/March, 1966

Deadly Star-Dust by Larry Dane

I cradled the rifle and rubbed the smooth stock. It wasn’t a weapon... it was the key to Fort Knox.

Mary Ellen used to say it was the law of averages that changed our luck. But I think it was her ankles! She was standing on a stepladder wiping the grease off the wall over the grill that day the stranger walked in. He ordered coffee without looking at me then perched himself on the middle stool at the counter and studied Mary’s legs. The way you look at a picture, long and keen. I noticed his eyes right away... pale, wintry eyes, too light to be grey. Too dark to be white. Snake’s eyes.

I gave Mary the discipline look as I squeezed past the ladder, and she flounced down with annoyed little wrinkles in her forehead. Like Scarlett O’Hara at a plantation picnic pouting just to tease. Mary’s quite an actress when she wants to be, and she wants to be most of the time. I suppose all her ham notions started five years ago when she was twelve and full of temper and day dreams. Her mother used to think Mary was better than Judy Garland and entered her in the talent hunt at the Albion Theatre in Detroit. Come to think of it, Mary did look a little like Judy Garland, tight and breathless, holding down that inside excitement but not very well. Mary sang “Over the Rainbow” that night at the Albion and won fifty dollars... second prize. She said she put a “lot of heart” into the song, but I thought she was a little off key. That night touched it off, I think. All those crazy ideas about New York and Hollywood and being a big star.

That same year her folks got smashed up and killed in an auto wreck. I always told Joe to lay off the hard stuff when he was driving, but he had a mind of his own. Joe was Mary Ellen’s dad, my kid brother. I took care of the kid, put her through high school. And that was no cinch for a dumb bachelor like me.

You wouldn’t call Mary the easiest child in the world to raise, either. She always was a crazy, mixed-up kid full of get-rich-quick ideas and let’s pretend. She’s a little heart-breaker too... likes to get the boys “croony and swoony” (that’s her damfool lingo, not mine I)... then she gives ’em the air. Last summer I played Cupid... tried to get her interested in Stan Clark, the Greyhound bus driver. Stan has the Detroit-New York run and makes pretty fair money. They had a few dates. Most likely held hands in the movies. But Stan was poor second to her ambition. Mary Ellen called him a “square bear” and an old “stale and steady.”

“Say, Pop, how’s about that cup of joe?”

Silly darned thing. I’d held the cup under the urn spout and forgot to turn the handle! Daydreaming! Like Mary Ellen. Or maybe I’m just getting old. No one called me Pop ten years ago...

I snapped the handle so hard I whacked my knuckles against the hot urn and burned them. I cussed, under my breath, then hustled the cup over to “Snake Eyes.” I gave him the royal treatment to spite myself... napkin and water with only a cup of coffee. But that didn’t impress him, and he didn’t order anything else. He tossed a dime on the counter and I rang it up. Then I picked up the emery block and started scraping the grill. Dirty looking grill, chipped, rusty legs. But after twelve years there’s nothing you can do. Grills wear out like people. Like me.

“Cute little trick, old timer. She related to you or just a professional hash jockey?”

Funny voice. Not low and straight out like Stan Clark’s, but side-of-the-mouth with a tenor rasp. A New York accent. He tossed the question at me the way you throw a nickel to a bum. Casual and disinterested. Those funny eyes were glued on Mary Ellen who was standing at the end of the counter pushing the set-ups crooked and straightening them again. Pulling the busy act and being so godawful good about it.

“Relative,” I said. That’s all. I wasn’t going to tell him anything. None of his business anyway.

“Cute as a butterfly’s ear!” he said with a dirty purr. I went on scraping the grill, saying nothing. A fresh guy. That’s what he was. A fresh guy!

“What’s her name, Pop?”

I put more muscle on the emery and ignored him, but Mary answered for me. “Miss Mary Ellen McCrae.”

I knew what she looked like then without even looking at her. Sticky sweet with a dab of mischief in that halfway smile of hers. Looking wide-eyed and ready for anything. I’d have to speak to Mary Ellen again. This was no rock-and-roll school kid or the village Casanova.

His age I reckoned between thirty-five and forty. His face was bone-thin, with sharp cheek-bones, Chinese-slanty eyes, and black hair combed straight back and greased flat to his head. “The interesting and mysterious type,” Mary Ellen said later. He was wearing an expensive looking single breasted suit, banker’s grey, soft and rich looking, a silk black-and-white candy-striped tie, soft, button-down collar, and a pair of those fancy Italian shoes.

He’d thrown his light tweed topcoat over the next stool with a dark fedora on top. His heavy purplish ring... probably amethyst... caught the late sun and flung colored lights across the counter when he stirred his coffee.

I glanced out at the driveway, but there was no car there. That surprised me. This was no local guy. I wondered where he came from... and how he got here. I’d pegged him as the foreign car type. The kind of guy who plays the bigtown sophisticate with wide-eyed college kids.

“Little Miss Mary Ellen,” he repeated. “Nice. Rolls off the tongue like a poem.” Then he noticed the cheap vinyl peeling off the seats, the busted floor tiles, and the scarred, old wooden counter. “What’s a doll like you doing in a dump like this?” he said.

“I own a piece of the place,” Mary flipped back. “What’s your reason for being here, mister?” The guy giggled.

I gripped the emery block so hard my knuckles faded white. “What’s your excuse?” Excuse! People had to have an excuse for being in my place. The diner I’d put together with the sweat and the ache of ten lousy years...

But my trolley car diner wasn’t always like this. Before that big Detroit operator, Jim Parrish, built that big carny-looking restaurant of his across the road, my “Trolley Lunch” did O.K, I used to get most of the truck trade, and if you know the Dixie Highway between Detroit and Toledo, you know what the truck traffic is. My little place did all right. My brother Joe handled the short orders, and Kitty... Mary Ellen’s ma... took care of the counter. When I wasn’t managing the place and handling the ordering, I was drumming up business in Detroit and Toledo. I used to hit the big trucking outfits with advertising and promotion stuff, matches and blotters, and calendars. Sometimes free coffee and homemade cookies. Once inside, I’d talk my head off, whipping up word pictures about homemade soup, big bull sandwiches, and good coffee in big mugs with free warm-ups. Business was booming.

After Joe and Kitty died in that wreck, I tried to go it alone. But a jinx was on the place. Business fell off. Customers started griping about the food and the service. I hired a cook, but he was a drunk and I had to get rid of him. I hired a counter man. He was fast and glib, but he couldn’t keep his fingers out of the till.

All hell broke loose. I fell and broke my hip and was laid up for six weeks. Mary Ellen had a bad siege of pneumonia. A customer swallowed a glass chip in the mashed potatoes and sued me for five thousand dollars. I didn’t want to do it... but I had to close the place for a while. Then, Jim Parrish built that big, flashy restaurant across from mine and grabbed off my regular trade. He landed the Greyhound stop franchise, too.

The location is terrific for a food stop, so I don’t blame Parrish a bit. The next restaurant north is up in Flat Rock. But the traffic detours the town. Then there’s a chicken shack south of here near Monroe. I’m midway. Me and Parrish.

His place is really a driver’s dream. And he called it just that: “Driver’s Dream”... a big place with U-shaped formica counters and cute waitresses in bright yellow uniforms. Plus the flaming jukeboxes, the fluorescent lights, and the slot machines. I can’t compete with anything like that. But I tried to for a while. That was my mistake. I put up a half dozen shacks in the rear and a flashing neon sign in front to pull the motel trade. But no dice! It was like throwing money in the furnace.

Last year I decided to give it up... unload the “Trolley Lunch” on the first sucker I met with a bank account and a yen to go into business for himself. But then I decided to wait until Mary Ellen got married and had a couple little ones. That would knock those screwball stage ideas out of her head! Stan Clark looked like good husband-material to me. But Mary Ellen dangled him like a puppet. Mary Ellen had dollar signs and glory dust in her eyes... and definite ideas about “latching on to a gravy boat.” And this slicker with the snaky eyes looked like Mr. Gravy himself. He sat there grinning at Mary Ellen with a big mouth full of tiny teeth.

“So you own the place?” he was saying in that tenor coo of his. “High finance, eh, gorgeous?”

Mary leaned across the counter confidentially with that sick siren look on her pan. “Not too high, mister,” she whispered in that artificial stage voice. “Just in range, honey. Just in range!”

She dazzled him with a come-hither look and walked with her little rolling strut into her back room. The door to the ladies’ room was open, and Mary was smearing on lipstick and checking the cracked cabinet mirror for the results. She pivoted fast and almost collided with me in the doorway.

“Listen to me, Mary Ellen. I want you to cut it out...”

“What are you talking about, Unk?” she said. Injured innocence!

“You know what I mean. Cut it out. I don’t like his looks!”

“You don’t like anybody’s looks, Unk. Except Stan Clark’s!” She reached up and pinched my cheek. “Let me handle the women’s work, will you?” she whispered. Then she slipped into gear and went rolling out front.

The guy’s routine was like grease on his squeaky-axle voice, and he shifted expressions like you flip switches. He was wearing that admiration look now. Teeth and eye-wrinkles. “Why the lip varnish?” he said. “You don’t paint orchids or shellac lilies!”

Mary Ellen parted her smeared lips the way Marilyn Monroe did. “I bet you tell that to all the counter girls!”

“You’re no counter girl,” he answered. “You’re some hotshot princess traveling incognito. You’re a sugar bowl Cinderella!”

Mary smiled uncertainly and offered him more coffee and he answered yes. He said something nice about the coffee and Mary gave him her stock line, “Tell all your friends and relatives!”

“I don’t have any friends and relatives,” the guy said.

“Now stop it! Everybody’s got relatives!” Mary teased.

“Nope. No relatives for me, kid-do. Just creditors...”

“That’s bad?” Mary flipped. “You got to have money to have credit!”

He played with his spoon idly. “You get the idea, sugar.” Then he swung up the cup and drained it and reached for the napkin.

“What are your rates for a cabin?” he said suddenly, all business.

Mary looked carefully at the expensive clothes and said timidly, “Seven dollars.” That’s two dollars more than we usually charge. The stranger didn’t argue, though.

“I may stay a few days,” he said. “Maybe three or four. Depends.”

Mary Ellen fished the register out from under the counter, opened it in front of him, and handed him a pen.

“What’s that for?” he said suspiciously.

“Why it’s the motel register!” Mary Ellen laughed. “Sign, please.”

“You sign it for me,” he snapped. He slid off his seat quickly.

Mary Ellen seemed confused. “Well... what’s your name?”

The man looked at the coffee cup and smiled. “Just call me ‘Coffee’,” he flipped. “Joe Coffee...”

Mary scribbled in the book. “And what is the nature of your business?” Mr. Coffee looked impatient.

“I’m a salesman. That’s close enough.”

“And your license number?” Mary went on.

“No license number this trip, baby.” Coffee wriggled into his topcoat and put his hat on carefully.

“How... how’d you get here then,” Mary asked innocently enough... “without a car?”

He looked annoyed. “I saddled up a sunbeam. That good enough?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Coffee. I have to ask you these questions. You see, when you operate a motel...”

“Spare me the higher education!” he cut in. “Just give me the key to the cabin.”

That was enough from this character. I came out from the back. “I have to insist on proper identification, son. That’s the law.”

The stranger stepped back as though I’d slapped him with a wet rag. “Look, Dad. I don’t have to stay in your shack, you know. There are plenty of cabins on the road!”

“That’s right!” I managed to keep my voice even. “But all of ’em will ask you for identification. It’s the law.”

He stood there trying to glare me down, but I stood my ground. His face was pulled down into a hard thin exclamation point and the fingers of the tan gloves he wore twitched nervously. I dug into my back pocket and grabbed the roll of pennies that I keep for situations just like this one. But this time I didn’t need my knuckle-dusters. Snake-eyes showed me his teeth and said, “O.K., Old Timer. I guess you play your game with your rules.” He pulled a fat wallet from his breast pocket, thumbed a bill, and threw it on the counter. It was a fifty.

“That take care of your rules. Dad?”

I looked at the bill for all of twenty seconds. Then I said, “Thank you, Mr. Coffee,” and handed him the key to number four.

Mary Ellen had been standing like a scared chick watching. When I picked up the fifty and shoved it into my pocket, she scooted around the counter and reached for Coffee’s valise, like a bright little bellhop. Coffee moved fast. He knocked her arm away from the handle. Mary Ellen stepped back bewildered. The stranger paused and shrugged. “It’s heavy. Much too heavy for a doll to carry!” Mary Ellen’s hurt look vanished and she was in control once again. The teen-age Theda Bara!

“Go on ahead and open the door,” the man ordered, handing her the key. Mary Ellen shot him that sidelong look and minced out. Coffee followed, limping a little with the weight of the bag.

I watched from the back room window: Mary bending against the March wind, her dark hair streaming like a pennant, and Coffee at her heels, holding his hat with his left hand and the bag with the right. Mary unlocked number four and swung it open. They seemed to be talking. Then Mary Ellen entered the shack and the man followed, slamming the door. I looked at my watch. Five o’clock. Mary Ellen shouldn’t have gone into the cabin with that character. I felt uneasy. But the fifty dollar bill in my pocket was like a tonic. I touched it and felt good right away!

A couple fellows from the pistonring factory came in and ordered pie and coffee. They were second-shift workers, sounding off about production cutbacks in Detroit. Jack Gilley... he’s a retired fireman... dropped in for coffee and started talking about a traffic slowdown on the highway. “Like a funeral,” he said. “Cars all spaced even... goin’ about thirty, thirty-five.”

“Probably a wreck up the line. Or a semi broke down,” I said.

Stan Clark, the bus driver, breezed in as he usually does after work, full of the day’s doings and stale jokes that he managed to make funny again. Stan’s a husky fellow with wavy blond hair, baby-blue eyes and a straight, honest look I always liked. He glanced automatically at the back room and I knew what he was going to say before he said it. “Mary Ellen’s out back with a customer,” I said.

“A customer!” Jack Gilley piped up. “Well, whaddya know! Samboy finally hooked a flea-bag sucker!” The boys from the factory kept on eating, and I just ignored the old fathead.

Stan ordered the beef stew, and I heaped on an extra ladle of stock as I always do for Stan. And he always makes the same crack... “Best damn stew in Ohio!” This is Michigan, see?

“State cop told me there was a Cadillac abandoned up this side of Flat Rock today,” Stan said between spoonfuls. “Parked right on the asphalt near the white line. Right in the driving lane! Young kid from Wyandotte almost ran into it.”

“Who’d abandon a Cadillac?” I asked. “An idiot?”

“Gas tank was empty, Sam, and the keys were in the ignition.”

Jack Gilley chimed in again. “Sounds like somethin’ a woman would do. Run out of gas. Then leave the car and hike to a phone.”

“No,” Stan said. “The road cop told me the Caddy was stolen up in Detroit this morning.”

The factory hands stopped eating and sat listening, their elbows on the counter. Gilley was quiet for a change, also listening, his bald head cocked like a terrier’s. I fished some water glasses out of the hot rinse and clattered them on the drain board.

“Afternoon paper had a big write up on it,” Stan said.

“Didn’t get the paper yet, Stan. Boy’s late again.”

“Say, is that the car they used in the holdup today?” one of the mill hands cut in.

“What’s it all about, Stan?” I said. “I haven’t heard a thing about it. Was there a holdup in the city today?”

Stan tilted his chauffer’s cap back on his head and wiped his lips on a paper napkin. “Well, Sam, it seems like this here fellow walks into the office of a big wheel... Great Lakes Supermarket Building. He sticks up the bigshot and his secretary and walks off with the payroll. Something like twelve thousand dollars.”

“Not a bad day’s work!” Gilley horned in.

“That’s not all,” Stan went on. “The big wheel makes for the burglar alarm. And the crook plugs him right through the head. Killed him too.” Someone whistled and Stan paused for a minute.

“Then the crook walks right through that crowded building with all that loot, stops a guy right on Woodward Avenue who was driving this here ’58 Caddy... boots him out and makes off with his car! All this in broad daylight, just before lunch hour! There’s only a little gas in the car, but the crook drives until it gives out. Then he ditches the car up near Flat Rock. Cops all over the place. Floodlights and all. They got roadblocks all along 25... clear down to Toledo!”

I thought of the well-dressed slicker with the cold eyes and my stomach did a flip-flop. “What’d he look like, Stan, this gunman?”

“Hard to say, Sam. The secretary was scared stiff. The elevator guy told the police the heister was a big, hulking brute in a rainhat and a plastic raincoat. The starter claims the crook was a little guy, wearing glasses. You know how kooked up these I.D. things are.”

“More’n likely it’s a Chinaman wearing Bermuda shorts!” Gilley roared, but no one laughed.

“One thing the cops are sure of, Sam. The leather bag...”

My heart skipped a couple beats. “Leather bag, Stan?” My voice must have sounded thin and far away. Like somebody else’s.

“Yeah. He was carrying this tan leather bag. The secretary said he put the payroll money in it before he lammed out of the office.”

I thought of the phoney named “Coffee.” The way he acted when Mary Ellen reached for his bag. It was a leather bag, too. A tan leather bag!

My brain was racing like a bad clock. I reached in my pocket for a kerchief and touched the fifty dollar bill. My lips seemed parched, but my forehead was suddenly wet with sweat. “Stan...” I started to say. He looked at me with that funny, puzzled look of his. I balled the fifty into my fist. Held it hard. How many fifties in twelve thousand? How many hamburgers add up to fifty bucks? How many hunks of pie? Gross minus outlay equals net. And what the hell is my net! Thank God I don’t have a salary to pay! I’d have gone under a long time ago. And how long could I go on paying Mary Ellen with board, room, and pin money? Scatterbrained Mary Ellen with show business pulling at her like a magnet! Twelve thousand bucks in a tan bag not a hundred yards away! What couldn’t I do with twelve thousand dollars!

Right there at that battered ruin of a counter I’d varnished a dozen times... halfway between the broken grill and the rusty sink... I got the Big Idea. But Stan’s face came swimming into the Big Idea like bright yellow noodles in a thick goulash.

“Hey, get with it, Sam,” Stan was saying. Then as my mind stopped spinning with dollar signs, he said, “Anything wrong, Sam?”

I recovered fast. “No, nothing’s wrong, Stan boy. Just thinking, that’s all. Wondering what the hell this world is coming to, that’s all. All this robbing and killing. It’s not safe to get out of bed anymore, is it?”

But still that puzzled, screwed-up look on Stan’s face and those china-blue eyes of his boring into me. “How’s about some pie, Stan? Cherry’s fresh this morning.” He said O.K., and I cut him a fat wedge. But my mind went sailing again after I shoved the platter in front of him.

“How many cherry pies could I buy with twelve thousand dollars...?”

I had to work the supper rush all alone, but I’m only kidding when I say “rush.” There wasn’t a dozen customers all told from five to six o’clock, and that’s counting those factory hands and Gilley. Stan was just killing time waiting for Mary Ellen. But I didn’t tell him anything until he fired pointblank, “What the blazes is taking her so long?” I told him she was cleaning up for weekend business. I was worried stiff but would not let it show. We listened to the Detroit news out of WJR at 6 o’clock... it was full of the holdup and murder. The killer had been identified by the owner of the Cadillac from photographs in the police files. A Chicago hoodlum named Marty Klegman.

Stan left about 6:20 promising to double back about 7. He lived over in the village about a mile off the highway at a rooming house run by an old widow named Markwitch.

Ten minutes after Stan left Mary Ellen breezed in, her green eyes shining like traffic lights. She pulled a ham-pose at the door with her chin up and her hands high like a ballet dancer. She waltzed over to me, leaned over the counter, and planted a kiss on my head. “Oh, what news, Unk! What news!” Then she noticed the look on my face and laughed. “Look at the pilly Pilgrim!”

“What the devil do you think this is!” I started, but she stopped me with that patient, longsuffering look her mom used to wear.

“Now wait a minute, Unk... before you have a stroke. I just auditioned for Mr. Henderson. Joe Coffee was only a name he made up to conceal his real identity. You guessed that, didn’t you? Look, Unk. Here’s his card!”

She shoved a name card into my hand... a rich looking hunk of paper finely engraved in gold and blue: BERNARD K. HENDERSON... REGALITY PICTURES. There was a Sunset Boulevard address and a phone number. An ornamented coronet backed the name. I handed the card back to Mary Ellen and she dropped it down the front of her dress.

“He’s a real movie producer, Unk. A real Hollywood producer!”

I felt as though I’d just taken the big dip on a roller coaster. I didn’t want him to be Joe Coffee, Bernard K. Henderson, or Walt Disney! I didn’t want Snake Eyes to be anybody but Marty Klegman. The hood with twelve hot G’s in a tan bag.

“An hour and a half!” I griped. “Some audition!”

She gave that high whinny of hers that she likes to think idly is a tinkle, like in bell. She perched happily on the end stool, looking like a green and ivory pixie, all life and color and kid excitement. Jeez. I felt old looking at her...

“Mr. Henderson knew I was an actress, Unk! Think of it! I didn’t have to tell him anything about the Albion Amateurs, or the Community Players, or the Footlight Club at church. Nothing! He said he recognized talent ‘on sight’. He said I shot sparks and color. Like a Roman Candle on the Fourth of July!”

There was no interrupting her or stopping her. This was American Youth in high gear loaded with bright future and daydreams. She gushed adjectives like my old soda tap gushes fizz. I was glad the place was empty. There was enough talk in the village about Mary being fast and flighty with a cobweb head.

“He had me sing for him, Unk! I did ‘Temptation’ for him... in my sexy voice, you know... and he said he’d never heard it rendered like that before! Imagine, rendered! Then I got that ‘Complete Works’ you gave me and read Lady Mac-Beth to him. Oh, Unk! You should have been there! He wants to take me to Hollywood with him for a screen test! What do you think of that?”

I caught her wrist and held it hard. “I think you’re acting like a silly, damned little fool!” She winced at that, as though I’d punched her in the belly. “How corny can a guy get with that old Hollywood routine! That was old when they turned movies with a crank. I thought you had more brains than that!”

“Oh I didn’t believe him at first! I’m not that thick! But when he showed me those credentials and started talking about the people he knows out there — Cary Grant, and... and... Rock Hudson, and Doris Day... and all the rest of them... I just knew he wasn’t kidding me along.”

“Then, Mary Ellen, what was all that bushwash about ‘Joe Coffee’ and ‘riding in on a moonbeam’ he gave out with in here?”

“Oh, that! He told me all about that, Unk.”

“Well, haw about telling me. Just for laughs.” Mary reached up and pinched my cheek. Her hands were cool and trembling.

“You Old Doubting Thomas, you!” she giggled. “Mr. Henderson has been on a talent hunt in Detroit. Strictly q.t. Except the news leaked out, and there was a story in the paper about him, and then he was mobbed. You should have heard him tell it!”

“I wish I could have...”

“People wouldn’t let the poor man alone, Unk! Every crooner, and horn blower in town was after him. And pushy mothers with talent brats! They chased him into restaurants and bars. They jangled his phone all night long. One guy, a tap dancer, bribed the garage man to hide him in Mr. Henderson’s car so he could meet him. Can you imagine!”

“What did your Mr. Henderson say about his car, anyway? Did some talent brat take it home to play with? Or did Hardcash Henderson donate it to sweet charity?”

“Now you’re being stinky,” she pouted. “Mr. Henderson was on his way to Toledo this afternoon, and his engine conked out. He left his car at a garage in Flat Rock, but the mechanic didn’t have a... a pump... or a fuel... handle... or something like that. He had to send to Detroit for it. The car won’t be ready till tomorrow and the mechanic dropped him off here for the night.” She talked the way a teacher does, explaining to a kid that the moon was not made of green cheese.

“Who was the mechanic, do you know? Whose garage, did he say?”

“Honestogosh, Unk! You’re so darned suspicious! How do I know? I wouldn’t ask him that and he didn’t tell me!”

“Maybe he told you something about that phony monicker. That ‘Joe Coflee’ routine he was giving us in here?”

“Aw, come on! You’re smarter than that! He just doesn’t want it to get noised around that a Hollywood producer is here. I told you what happened in Detroit. Poor guy’s exhausted!”

“But don’t you wonder, Mary Ellen, why a big operator like that would choose a busted down fleabag like this? Why didn’t he grab a cab back to Detroit to wherever he was staying? Further more, first he tells me he’s going to stay a few days. Then he tells you just overnight till his car’s fixed. He don’t add, honey!”

“You don’t want him to add up! He makes darn good sense to me! A big famous man wants to stay overnight in a place where he won’t be picked and pulled to death. If you can’t understand that, then you can’t understand anything. That’s all!”

She was white hot now, poking her finger in my face. I caught her hand and forced it down. “Listen, kid. Listen hard. A guy held up a payroll office in Detroit today and shot the manager. He stole a car to make a getaway and ditched it up near Flat Rock when he ran out of gas. He carried his loot in a leather bag... a tan leather bag!”

All the grown up temper drained out of her face, and she was a scared kid again.

“I think your Mr. Coffee or Henderson or whatever his name is... I think he’s the killer, Mary Ellen. A guy called Klegman.”

“Where’d you hear about all this?” she said hoarsely. “Stan Clark got it from Mack Garrity. Radio’s full of it. And I suppose the afternoon papers, too. They even got the guy identified. Marty Klegman, that’s the name.”

Mary Ellen’s face was tightening into knots and I knew she was going to cry. I pulled her to me, put my arms around her, and let her jam her face into my shoulder. She didn’t speak for whole minutes. Then she said, “Unk... there’s a lot of tan bags around.” I waited. “And plenty of people break down in Flat Rock.” I waited some more. “Maybe... coincidence?” Pathetic!

I weighed it out in my head. Could be. Could be.

“You know, sweetheart, it could be a crazy coincidence at that!” She perked up right away. “Let’s find out, what do you say?”

There wasn’t but a handful of auto repair shops in Flat Rock, and I called them all. One was already shut for the night. The other two were all-night garages. But no tow-ins today, they said. Score: two no’s and one question mark. I told Mary Ellen.

“Think we’d better call the police, Unk?”

That brought it out into the open. “I don’t know, honey. I just don’t know.” The bag of dough was playing touch-tag with my imagination. And I wanted to be “it”.

“Unk... what if he really is the producer. Henderson. His car just might be in the garage that’s closed, you know. If we reported this to the police... and he was Henderson, like he says, then couldn’t he sue us? For false arrest? Or scandal?”

Good question. Damned good. I just had to make sure before I did anything. I picked up a long, sharp knife and tested it on my thumb. Then I put it back on the sandwich board.

“Maybe you’re right kiddo. Maybe this is the chance of a lifetime for one of us or the other. If we handle things right.”

“I don’t get you, Unk...”

“If we handle things right, we stand to make a lot of money. If the guy back there really is a Hollywood bigshot and likes you... enough to help you in the business, I mean... then you’re really in the chips. But that’s a big, fat ‘maybe’.”

“He really sold me, Unk. Showed me all kinds of identification cards and credit cards, studio passes. Everything!”

“Could have been tricked up, you know. That stuff is easy to duplicate. And a con man worth his salt can be anybody he wants to be. You know that!”

She was firm. “I believed him, Unk. I believed him.” Then, not so firm, with that Judy Garland tremor in her voice — “All I want is a chance. That’s all. A chance to be somebody.”

“That’s what I want for you, too, honey. It’s what your Mom and Dad always wanted too, God rest ’em. If that guy back there is Henderson, sure as shootin’ I won’t louse up your chance! But what if he isn’t Henderson? What if he’s the gunman Klegman?”

“Then, we call the police,” she answered promptly.

“That’s right. We call the police. But not right away!” I saw the hurt in her eyes, and I was sorry I said anything.

“You’re thinking about that bag of money, aren’t you? The money from the holdup?” Her forefinger jabbed my conscience.

“All right. So I am. So what? If that’s Klegman, why turn his loot over to the cops? What’s to stop us from grabbing that bag and hiding it away safe. Then turn the bum over to the cops!” The idea sang in my head. “What’s to stop us?”

“Oh, you’re so damned brainy, Uncle. ‘Who’s to stop us?’. Klegman for one. If he is Klegman, I mean. You think he’s going to hand you that money like a bag of peanuts? Put your hands on his bag and he’ll blow your head off. Like he did to the payroll guy he plugged. He’s got nothing to lose now...

“But if that’s Henderson in that shack, you’ll get a bag full of dirty shirts and some monogrammed shorts. If he caught you with his bag, he could get you pinched for larceny. And the place would be tagged a clip joint and closed. You’re so smart, Unk!”

“But, listen, kid. I don’t think...”

“That’s right!” she screamed. “You don’t think! And if that guy is Klegman, and by some million to one shot you get your hands on his bag and turn him in... she was breathing hard now with the bigness of the idea... don’t you think the cops can’t break you down and get the truth out of you? And the money too? Use your head! Nothing’s new. Everything’s been tried before!”

Sure, she was right. And I wanted to smack her for being right. But the front door opened just then and Mickey, the paper boy, goofed in, his red hair all spikes. He mumbled something about a busted tire on his bike, but I wasn’t listening. I grabbed the paper and slammed it down on the counter, reading frantically. The kid looked at me as if I was losing my marbles and slammed out.

The story was on the front page in big headlines. And there at the bottom spreading over two columns was a picture of the killer with a prison serial number across his chest. Mary Ellen and I hunched over the picture, studying it. The face was pudgy and boyish and smirked into the camera with a go-to-hell expression. “That’s not the man!” We both said it together. The twelve G’s started taking off like an astrojet. Disappointment hit me like heartburn. Mary Ellen stood there, happiness bouncing on her face like a sunbeam, all hope and happiness again.

“Now, wait a minute. That’s a pretty old picture. You can tell that.” I scanned the news photo again hunting for anything that would tie to the guy in the cabin. I think I prayed. And my prayer was answered in the pale eyes you could hardly see and the Oriental almond shape of them. My heart started skipping like a dollar watch, but I didn’t say anything, just “Maybe you’re right, Mary Ellen. That moon-face isn’t the one.” She smiled at me and tightened the belt of her uniform and I knew that Henderson and stardom were playing leapfrog with her imagination.

Tires rasped on the sparse gravel outside, and we both walked in back of the counter. In a minute, Stan Clark bulled into the room wearing his best smile and his Sunday blue serge. The smile drooped when he saw Mary Ellen behind the counter. “Aw, heck,” he hecked, “you’re not even ready yet.”

“Ready?” she said casually, showing more interest in the sandwich board than in Stan, “Ready for what, Mr. Greyhound?”

“Well, for crying out loud! Don’t tell me you forgot about our date!” He did look like a stunned ox, at that!

“What date do you mean, Stan?”

“You mean you forgot about the conference championship down at Toledo U.?” Stan was holding his temper in his mouth like a hot potato, and I was so embarrassed for the guy that I pretended to be busy at the sink. “The basketball game!” he groaned. “The biggest game of the season!”

“Gee, Stanny. I forgot all about it. I’m sorry.”

He looked like a funeral director at that. “Gee. I bought two tickets and everything. And they were tough to get, too!”

The big fellow was so miserable standing there holding those tiny stubs in his meaty hands that I knew she would pity him and go. Even if he was a dumb square. “Let me change, then...” She looked at me uncertainly, hoping I’d say something, but I didn’t, then she went in the back room to change her dress. Stan looked like a convict with a pardon, grinning as he tucked the tickets back into his wallet. It was hard to believe I was like that once... me, Sam MacCrae, twenty years ago, before the girl switched her valentines and married that insurance man from Cincinnati. That smashed me up a little bit. Then I put my faith in something more reliable than romance. Dollar signs. And the trolley lunch cart. But the old flame did better than I, I guess. She had four kids. And I got a busted grill and a rusty sink. Nuts.

I drew a cup of joe for Stan and folded up the paper. I didn’t want him to talk about the gunman. But the paper reminded him of the headline, I suppose, and he said, “Did you hear about the reward, Sam?” I said no. “That market chain is offering five thousand dollars for any information at all that’ll lead to an arrest. Not bad, eh?”

The fire in my head leaped up again. “Five thousand, eh?”

“That’s right. It’s right there in the Times. Page three.”

I unfolded the paper and found the story along with a picture of the man who got shot. “LARGE REWARD FOR KILLER POSTED,” it said.

Mary Ellen called me just then and I went out back. She was standing near the utility closet we stash almost everything into. The bare electric light bulb threw a sick glare on her face and yellowed the edges of her new coat and her white fuzzy beret.

“Why didn’t you say something?” she whispered. “You know I don’t want to go out with him. I don’t want to go out with anybody tonight. Not tonight!”

“Sure you do,” I said. “Get out of this grease box and have fun. You’re only young once. Go on, now, don’t keep him waiting.”

“And what about Henderson?” she said.

“So what about Henderson?” I shot back. “You can see him in the morning.” Stan hollored out just then and Mary Ellen jumped like a jack-rabbit.

“Maybe he’d like something to eat,” she said.

“Yeah, sure. Go on, now.” She started away. “Wait a minute.” She stopped. “I wouldn’t say anything to Stan about Henderson. He might not like the idea. I’m sure he won’t!”

Pure disgust at that. She pecked me on the cheek and left.

I was glad business was slow. It gave me a change to think. I took my time steel-wooling the sink and mopping the floor. It was starting to smell under the floor boards in back of the counter, so I leaned them against the cabinets and scrubbed the concrete with lye soap, flushing it clear afterwards, and mopping it dry. Once I had a colored fellow to do things like that. When I had money.

The tan leather bag bombed into my mind again. The twelve G’s jabbed me like a needle. Money could square everything. All the bum years. Once I thought I could hit it real big like those big boys. Howard Johnson. What the hell had gone wrong? I had the guts and the drive. I poured time and muscle into this dump. What had gone wrong?

Easy answer. No breaks. No dough. That’s it. Dough. Take any flop and there’s the reason. The lousy dollar sign.

I looked out across the road at Jim Parrish’s place. There’s a success story for you! But money built it. Not brains or guts or muscle. Just money. If my Trolley Lunch was big enough... bright enough, I’d give that blowhard a run for his money. There’s nothing like dough to knock out competition. And Parrish had it! If I had a few bucks twenty years ago, I never would have lost Grace to that insurance man. But that’s another story and what the hell am I thinking of that for now? I scowled at the “Drivers’ Dream”. All those flashing signs! Looked like Coney Island! But there was only one big rig parked outside his place. That made me feel good just thinking about his overhead.

Fred Chanlek from the filling station dropped in and tried to pull me into an argument about socialism. Finally, he gave up, paid his tab and left.

I helped myself to a cup of coffee and sat at the counter like a customer. It was only nine o’clock. One of the fluorescents started to flicker in the overhead socket. A few days and that would bloop out. More money out. Always money out. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, like the song says. The idea is to get rich. Then you get richer. A law of nature. A little money is the magnet for a lot of money. Now, if I had some money I’d shut this dump and move to Florida. That’s what any guy with brains does, go to Florida. Everything makes money there. Motels. Pools. That’s a good racket. Swimming pools. Or maybe a frozen custard stand on a busy highway with cute car hops. I’d call the place “MacCrae’s Main Line.” That’s a good name. Now the “Trolley Lunch”: that’s corny and old hat. Trolleys are dead. But that was my brother Joe’s idea. He thought a folksy name would pull in the truckers. Well, it did for a while.

A siren screamed up the road. Cops tightening the net on Klegman. It wouldn’t be long. Cops had issued an all-points bulletin and the roads were jammed with bluecoats. I wondered about Klegman. Maybe he was a money-nut like me, without talent or schooling or connections. A nothing. And maybe he saw his chance and grabbed and a goof got in his way and he cut him down. That’s the breaks. And Klegman had the moxie to grab his chance. God! Think of that jackpot. Twelve thousand dollars. If I worked forever I’d never make that much coin. You got to take a chance. Mary Ellen did this afternoon, rolling her eyes and wiggling her keester like a Water Street tramp. Henderson. Never heard of him. Not in the same league with Zanuck, or DeMille, or Preminger. But maybe he wasn’t in the same league with anybody.

Bells went off in my head. Those eyes. Those snake-eyes! Those were killer’s eyes. The guy didn’t talk like a movie bigwig. And he didn’t look like one, except for his expensive clothes. But anybody can put on a big front.

Excitement whipped me over to the phone... a wall phone, the kind you put money in. My fingers were shaking so bad I couldn’t get a dime in the slot. Just as well. Take a minute. Think. Five G’s reward against twelve G’s in the bag out back. Smart guys take a chance. At least one big chance in their life. Klegman took a chance today in broad daylight with the whole chicken town against him. Easy, MacCrae. Twelve less five is seven. Seven thousand beautiful bucks. That’s the difference between being smart and being a boob.

I shoved the dime back into my pocket. I remembered the bottle of whiskey in the back cabinet and finished it off. Half a pint, I guess. Maybe less. My hands stopped shaking, and I felt calm and strong.

I fished the.22 caliber out of its imitation leather case in the wardrobe closet. Sometimes I hunt rabbit and field rats back in the woods. I locked the door and yanked down the Venetian blinds. Then I cleaned the gun. While I reamed the barrel I put the pieces of my plan together. One shot through the window of his cabin. That would do it. Then grab the bag and bury it fast. Then call the cops. Sure they’d ask questions. A million of them. But I’d bluff it through. I know all these fellows. They’d believe me. An idea hit me then and I yipped with joy. I’d get the reward, too! Twelve plus five is seventeen! Seventeen thousand dollars! Hit me again, Lady Luck!

I took off my apron and tossed it on the rack. The.22 cartridges were in their box on the shelf and I shoved three in the clip. I wouldn’t need three. One would do it at close range. I cradled the rifle and rubbed the smooth stock. It wasn’t a gun, it was the key to Fort Knox!

I have a cuckoo feeling that time has stopped for me. The grubby, greasy past puffs away like smoke in the wind. The future — but I won’t think of that right now. The present, that’s all I have. Everything that happened before has led to this moment. And everything later depends on what I do now.

I step out the back door and the cold air smacks me in the face. But it’s sweet with pine and carbon monoxide and I breathe it deep. In five minutes, I’ll be a rich man! I walk lightly as I can avoiding the dead twigs that snap like a whip. The cabins are black against the gray woods. Number four... no light. Klegman must be asleep. It’ll be easy. Like killing a jackrabbit. I know exactly where the bed is. Halfway across the room with the head against the widest wall. Thirty degrees down from the horizontal. I could do it blindfolded. Maybe I’d pump two bullets in there. Or all three. Just in case. I’d have to be sure.

I skirt number three cabin and creep up on four’s rear window. It’s one of those high half-sized ones, a long oblong near the roof. I’ve cleaned that window a million times, and I leave an empty milk crate in back to stand on. There it is. I set it back a couple yards from the shack so I can sight and aim. After all, it is a rifle and not a cap pistol. No it isn’t either. It’s the key to Fort Knox!

The moonlight falls across the room inside and hits a bulky form in the bed. Better than a flashlight! I raise the stock to my shoulder, pressing it firm and quiet there. But then my hands start trembling again and I lower the rifle, hold it with my knees, and rub my hands brickly. They’re numb with cold.

“Get off that box and stick your hands straight up!”

The voice hits me like a club and I stumble off the crate. It’s that high, shrill voice with a rasp. Klegman’s. He’s standing on the far side of the cabin and his arm is sticking out at me. I can’t see the gun. But I know he’s holding one.

The strength runs out of my legs. I feel numb and sick. “Don’t shoot! For God’s sake, don’t shoot!” The words bounce off the trees and the echo comes back weak and thin.

“Get into the cabin,” he snaps. I jump and fall headlong over the milk crate. Something tells me “RUN!” but I can’t run. I scramble to my feet. My rifle is there on the ground a few feet away. But it may as well be on Mars. I raise my hands high as I can and walk into the cabin. Klegman follows me, shuts the door and locks it. He snaps on a light. “Turn around.” I turn fast. He’s standing near the door with a gun in his hand. Wicked looking thing, like a cop’s thirty-two. The whiskey starts rolling sour and sticky in my belly.

“What are you up to, anyway?” he says. He doesn’t sound angry. That’s the trouble. He’s too calm. I want him to be sore. “Speak up, damn you!”

I wet my lips twice before words can come, like priming a pump. “I’m... I’m hunting, Mr. Henderson. That’s all. Hunting...”

He gives a little sneering laugh. “It’s the truth!” I say real fast. This has to be good. “I hunt rabbits at night. It’s the only chance I get...”

He just stands there, dark and pencil thin. “You just called me Henderson...”

“She didn’t mean to tell me your name, Mr. Henderson. It slipped out, that’s all. I try to laugh and it sounds like a squeaky doll. You know how young girls are...”

“Yes. And I know what old rats are too. Don’t you think I was on to you all the time? Don’t you think I’m wise to greedy little pigs like you?”

“Please, Mr. Henderson. Please! It’s not like you think!”

“Cut out that ‘Henderson’. You know who I am...”

He brings his arm up and I can see the gun barrel flash. I try to dive, but he catches me high on the head, and I go down. The room starts spinning and the bulb seems to go out. I’m not sure of the next few minutes. He seems to be talking but I can’t hear him. Only a sound like a leaky faucet dripping water in a metal sink. Slimy, dull, irritating sound. Then the leak takes shape and becomes words splitting through the see-saw room. “You think I’m going to let a dirty little hash-man get the drop on me?” He takes a giant step, and I see his foot pull back and I try to roll under the bed. But his shoe catches me hard under the ribs.

An all-gone feeling of flying and landing all at once. I open my eyes and focus on something that looks like a long, black snake with one fang showing. The snake is crawling out of a clear crystal cave. Then the snake becomes a pen and the cave becomes an inkwell. I think I’m sitting on the hard chair now with my head on the desk, slopping in wet ooze. I can see the color now. It’s blood all over the desk pad. I try to lift my head with my hands, but I can’t. My hands are tied. Then I see him standing over me like a monster balloon in a kid parade. I try to say something, but my lips seem huge and puffy. Then I know. He must have pistol-whipped me while I was out.

“So you found out!” he’s screaming. He grabs me by the hair and snaps my head back. “You know who I am, don’t you?”

There’s nothing to lose now. I know I’m going to die. “Yes. I know you’re Klegman.” I think he’s going to hit me again and I close my eyes hard. But sirens cutting through the walls of the cabin stop him. The racket jolts him into action. He jumps over to the bed and flips open the lid of the bag. Bleary and sick as I am, I almost laugh. That was the bulky thing under the blankets I was aiming at before. Not him!

He throws on his jacket and tweed topcoat, then starts stuffing wads of bills into his pockets. When they are full, he tucks more under his belt, even in his hat. He looks like a kid playing with funny money. He sees me watching him and laughs. “Here’s a present for you, hash man.” He heaves the bag across the room at me. “They can bury you in it.”

The one light in the room becomes many lights rolling into each other slowly then out again in crazy patterns. Klegman’s only an outline now, bearing down on me like a hawk.

“You’re taking me out of here, do you hear me!” he yells. The panic has shifted now to him. Me? I don’t care any more. I mumble something about all the roadblocks.

“We’ll cut off somewhere,” Klegman says. “You must know all the roads around here. The back roads!”

I remember something. Like a dim candle in a mammoth cave. “A car. You don’t have a car.”

“But you do!” he said. “That old Ford out front. That’s yours, isn’t it?” I didn’t say anything. He rips into my pockets and finds the keys. “You drive!” he snaps.

“We won’t get out of the driveway,” I tell him. Time. That’s what I need. Just a little time. Say anything. Do anything.

“Let me worry about that!” he says. “I know cops. They won’t shoot with you at the wheel. Little crumbs like you are precious to them. They won’t shoot you!”

“What about the roadblocks?”

“Go right through ’em. And if you try anything funny, I’ll blast your brains all over the windshield!”

“I can’t see so good. You hit me on the head. I don’t think I can drive.” Say anything. Do anything.

“You’ll drive, Pop!” Klegman grabs me by the arm and hoists me to my feet. I’m surprised how strong he is. I must outweigh him by fifty pounds. He fumbles at my wrists and my hands are suddenly free. “Let’s go.” He swings open the door and I toe out like a baby trying his first step.

Strange how you remember small things. How the moonlight falls on winter ground, shadows on dead branches, the wind in the tall trees. For a minute I feel like a guy in a theatre looking at a movie. Soon, this bloody, violent picture will be over and I’ll get up and go home. I’ll say what everybody says, “This could never happen in real life.”

There’s a sharp, whisking noise. Like the noise scrubbing brushes make on a rough floor. Traffic sounds, I guess. And the snapping of wet towels on a clothesline. Twigs breaking underfoot.

Klegman prods me along with his gun and I stumble along thinking one thing now. And it’s life, death, hell, and heaven for me. Run! Get away! But I can’t. He’d cut me down in a second. His life or mine. I must have fallen. He’s heaving me up onto my feet again... like a bag of wet laundry.

I’m at the car now fumbling with the handle. Then I’m inside trying to remember where the starter is. Button on the dash, that’s it. Now, hit it! Hit it fast! There’s a gun at my head and the driveway spins like grey ribbon in the moonlight and I’m going to die.

Off the drive, onto the asphalt. Suddenly a ring of dark metal shapes, wedged tight together and moving in from the right and left... cops! God in Heaven! Cops!

“It’s a trap!” Klegman screams. “Head for that driveway!”

I slam down the accelerator and the car hops across the highway, jumping the curb of Jim Parrish’s place, and landing in the parking lot. “Keep going!” Klegman says. “Over to that door.” I wheel around fast in a big, skidding circle and hit the brakes. Klegman leaps out before the car stops, runs in jerky little steps, and falls to his knees. But he is up again. A big floodlight washes over him, and the last I see of him are those white eyes of his and those little sharp teeth.

There’s a riot of noise and dirt kicks up little puffs all over the bright circle he’s standing in. Suddenly, he lifts his arm straight out toward me. I see the gun, and I sprawl down on the seat cushion, half on the floor of the car. The windshield splits like ice in a bowl. I wait a second or two and look out. Klegman is down on his hands and knees, dragging himself out of the floodlight’s glare. Wild noises now, screams. I twist my head around and see the carhops, streaming out the front door of the restaurant, clutching at each other, yelling, their legs churning. They run over to the floodlight where the police are standing.

“All right, Klegman, you’re through!” A voice trumpets through a P.A. system. Silence. “O.K. boys. Lay it on.” All hell breaks loose and my heart is banging like a soup spoon on a kettle. Then, there’s a bigger sound. Not gunfire. But another sound, a great muffled “BOOM!” Like dynamite in a canyon. I rub my eyes with my sleeve. Everything is spinning again, and I roll over on my back trying to force the screwy jigsaw night into the right places between the looming shapes that must be tree-tops. Other shapes are running and yelling and scrambling for cover... police. I wonder at the vivid orange that splatters out of the windows then turns to wild jets of red and yellow. The whole thing is a nightmare of noise and color... I try slapping reason into my head with my hands. I seem to be sliding down into a pool of flickering lights. Then suddenly, everything is clear, as if someone had just wiped a pair of dirty spectacles clean. The “Drivers’ Dream” is belching smoke and flames, sirens are blaring on all sides, and a stampede of people is surging past my Ford toward the blazing building. I watch spellbound, like a kid at his first circus. Then I start slipping back again into that deep pool of flashing colors. Stop!

Well, there it is. I just wanted to get it down in writing. Purging the conscience, that’s all. Confession is supposed to be good for the soul, and damned if I don’t feel better already.

Jim Parrish’s place went up like a dry leaf that night, and with it went the competition that had loused me up so long. The cops said that a stray bullet may have hit the gas line, but there are people like me who believe Klegman set that place blazing himself. Going out the big way, I guess.

I’d be nuts to go to Florida now. With the “Drivers’ Dream” a heap of ashes, the whole strip from here to Monroe is mine. I put the reward money into the “Trolley Lunch”... all five G’s... renovated the whole shebang: formica counter and tables, knotty pine paneling, stainless steel fixtures, the works. I added a wing and put in a slot machines and a big flashing juke box. Jim Parrish’ll think twice before he builds again. It’s like I always say, all it takes to knock out competition is money!

The newspapers made me a public hero, going in after that gunman myself. You know the pitch: the ordinary little citizen taking the law into his own hands, dishing out instant justice. Corny, but it brings in business, and how I love to hear that cash register jingle! You know, some people come in just to stare at the scars on my face and the little stump of an ear I have left: They’re like trophies! One of the Detroit papers wrote a big story about me and called it “Counterman Courage”. I got one of those display houses to blow up the story, mural-size, and set it into the front wall.

I guess a woman’s intuition saved my life. Mary Ellen knew I was up to something that night, shooing her out on a date with Stan. I never forced her to go out with anyone before. Halfway through that basketball game, she told Stan the whole story, before she blew up with suspense or excitement or worry or whatever it was she felt for me. They called the state cops and you know the rest of the story.

Speaking of Mary Ellen, I think something happened to her that night that blew away the daydreams and Hollywood notions... and set her thinking straight for the first time in her life. I think she grew up in those few hours. She’s seeing much more of Stan Clark than she used to. Nothing like being scared to bring people together.

Just one thing I hate remembering: all that dough Klegman hauled away that night went up in smoke. Twelve thousand dollars! All that money! But what the hell. You can’t win them all.

Mary Ellen kids me sometimes. She says we had so much bad luck all our lives that something terrific just had to happen when it did. She says the law of average rigged our break.

But I think her ankles had something to do with it.