Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 4, August, 1961

Womack kept the rig rolling at sixty-five. He fought down the urge to drive faster. He couldn’t risk being stopped by a cop. Not now. Not with the load he was carrying.

1

It had begun to rain when he picked up Highway 77 outside of Friersville. Now, nearly a hundred and fifty miles west, water rattled down on the tomblike cab of the big tractor like showers of hail.

The driver — his name was Johnny Womack — chewed at a sandwich. He had nearly white hair, cropped close to his head like fine toothbrush bristles, but his face was young. The jaw was lean and hard, faintly corded with muscle. He had dark gray eyes. They squinted against the glare of an onrushing car. Cursing softly under his breath, he cut his speed back to forty, left it at that after the car had passed. He was satisfied to be making even forty through the drifting sheets of water.

The big rig moved well. It was nearly seven years old, one of the old stick-shift jobs, with ten forward gears — but it was dependable. And it was nearly his.

If he didn’t miss any more payments.

He thought about the empty van in back. His lips made a bitter expression. He had hauled a full load of cotton to Denver, hoping to get some kind of load for the trip back to El Centro, without success. It had been a bad deal from the start. The cotton run hadn’t paid well and he had been forced to come back empty.

And there was Emma. This would be the first time in ten years that he wouldn’t be returning to her. Emma. His lips made the bitter expression again. Not that he blamed her. Ten years is a long time to hang around while your husband is on the road — especially with bills coming in faster than money. Even when two people are in love, it’s no good without money. And he knew now, had known ever since she ran out on him, that she hadn’t been in love with him — not really in love.

He took another bite of sandwich and put the uneaten portion on the seat beside him. He felt let down and depressed. His face half bitter, half angry, he shook his head. The thought slipped in and out of his mind that he had felt let down and depressed for most of his life.

He rolled on, still knocking off forty, headlights stuck out before him like the probing antenna of a giant bug. The rig was running low on gas. He would reach Stanton around midnight and he could tank up there. Maybe. The oil company had let his credit card expire — he owed them nearly three hundred bucks — and he had only a few dollars left in his pocket.

Shifting hands on the wheel, he groped under the dash for the big .45 suspended there from metal clips. He had bought the gun for protection on long overnight hauls. Emma had wanted him to have it. He hefted it in his hand. The metal gleamed in the glow from the dash-lights. He remembered the first time he had held a gun. A long time ago. He had been a little boy. He had picked it off the floor by the body of his father.

Shrugging, as if to resolve some problem that bothered him, he hefted the gun and then put it back in the clips.

He would hock it, if he had to, or sell it. That would be better than using it. He had spent part of his youth in a reform school. It had taught him something. If he ever used a gun, it would be for something big. Something really big. Like a million dollars.

He laughed out loud. A million bucks was more money than there was in the world.

2

There were three of them. One was a soldier. He wore his tailored summer gabardines with the deliberate casualness of one who could never quite accustom himself to army discipline. The gabardines were obviously of expensive quality. They were the kind that the officers wear. But the shirt bore no insignia of rank — only the collar brass of an enlisted man.

He was younger than the others. His narrow, colorless face was heavily pockmarked, as if the skin had been gnawed by a rodent. He said softly, “Quit sweating, Wibber.”

“Who’s sweating?” The man called Wibber mopped at his face. He was very fat. He lay sprawled on his back on the cheap hotel room bed, perspiration-stained Western hat perched on his mountainous stomach, looking straight at the ceiling. “I just don’t want us to screw up, that’s all. I know this town. I know how they’ll react to a heist like this. It’ll be the biggest thing ever hit this place... and I don’t aim to get caught in the middle.”

“You don’t know nothing. None of you know nothing. If you did, you wouldn’t be scrabbling for peanuts in a penny-ante berg like this.” The soldier — his name was Sammy Travis — reached for his cigarettes. His fingers were slim and white, almost like the fingers of a woman, only the tips were stained dark yellow with nicotine. He got to his feet and said tersely, “What time is it?”

The third man — his name was Bernie White — looked at his watch. He had the dirt-clogged nails and blunted fingers of a man who works with engines. He said, “Twenty-seven after.”

“Three minutes,” Travis said.

Wibber moaned softly and swung his feet to the floor. The bedspread was sweat-sopped where his body had lain. He said, “How can you guys stand it?”

Travis said, “Eh?”

“How can you stand it?”

“Stand what?”

“The heat?”

White said, “You should take off some of that blubber. It ain’t hot.”

Travis didn’t answer. He went to the window and pulled back the drapes. Sunlight came in. What might have been a smile pulled at his lips as he said, “Right on schedule.”

Wibber and White joined him at the window. For exactly four minutes they watched something that was going on in the street four floors below. Then, without speaking, Travis closed the drapes and walked to the dresser. He took out a half pint of whiskey and divided it equally into three glasses. When he had distributed the glasses, he sat down in a chair and lit a cigarette.

Travis’ glass was empty and he was on his third cigarette when the phone rang. Before lifting the receiver he looked at White. “Time?”

White said, his voice edgy, “Eleven after.”

“Exactly thirty-seven minutes.” Travis let the phone ring three times, lifted the receiver, then replaced it without talking into it. The ringing stopped. He said purposefully, “All right. Let’s try to get it straight in our minds.”

“We’ve checked the timing on every run for the past three months, and it’s consistent. That’s important. Perfect timing is the difference between the right way or wrong way of doing a thing.” Travis grinned acidly. “That’s one of the things they taught me in the Army.”

“I ain’t convinced.” Wibber grunted on the bed. “Knocking off an armored car ain’t like maneuvers. Christ, every successful armored car heist in history has been an inside job, and we ain’t on the inside.”

“And that ain’t an armored car.” Travis lit a cigarette from the stub in his hand. The gesture was quick, nervous. “It’s a 1938 klunker that’s about to rust off its axels. Hell, if it wasn’t for the Army payroll, it’d be carrying nothing but cash receipts from the Saturday night Bijou.”

Wibber grunted, fanned his face with his hat.

Travis said, “Now then. Here are some of the things we know. The semi-monthly payroll for the base, discounting civilian employees who’re paid by check, is about seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Cash. Beautiful green cash. Almost all of it in small bills.”

“How do you know?” Wibber stopped fanning.

White said, “Wibber, weren’t you ever in the Army?”

“What if I wasn’t?” Wibber fanned. “What’s so goddamned hot about the Army?”

“If you were,” Travis interrupted, “you’d know something. Three quarters of a million, divided into a couple of thousand pay envelopes, ain’t much. Twenties, mostly, except for some fifties they use for the officers.”

Travis laughed softly at his own humor. “The money is transferred to the base by the local armored transport service. Big deal. Three quarters of a million clams floating around in a klunker that would fall apart if you leaned on it. The trip from the bank to the base takes thirty-seven minutes. Add four minutes at each end for transfering the dough and it gives us exactly forty-five minutes from vault to vault. Forty-five minutes to knock this hick town on its ear.”

Wibber said, “You’ve worked on the car, Bernie. What do you think?”

“It’s old. But it’s tough.” White looked at Travis. “We won’t be able to crack it open. If we’re going to stand any chance at all, we’ll have to think our way in.”

“Just like that, huh?” Wibber mopped his face again, eyes still pinned on the ceiling. “There are two security guards to handle the transfer at the bank — three, counting the regular bank guard — and the whole U.S. Army is on hand to unload. What do you figure they’re gonna be doing while we clean house?”

“So we don’t hit ’em during the transfer,” Travis said quietly. “We wait until they’re out on the road. Then—”

“One thing that’s still bothering me,” White broke in. He stabbed his finger at a red line on the roadmap spread between Wibber’s feet. “Route 77 is the only road in or out of Valerie. A hundred and eighty miles to the California border, nearly the same distance to the nearest town east, and nothing but sand in between. Assuming we figure a way to make the heist... how do we get the dough out of the state?”

Travis pulled back the curtain and looked down into the street again, at the busy sidewalk in front of the First Trust and Savings Bank of Valerie, where less than an hour before he had watched canvas sacks containing seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars loaded into an armored car.

He stood at the window for several minutes. When he turned to look at the others his face was expressionless. He half closed his eyes as he said, “Working out the details is my problem. You two just make sure you’re ready to go... two weeks from today.”

3

Bernie White slammed closed the hood of the big tractor, motioned for Womack to cut the engine, and walked around by the pumps.

“Sounds like maybe you got a bent rod,” he said.

Womack cursed softly. “You sure?”

“Nope.” White shifted a wad of something in his mouth. “I’ll have to get inside and take a look.”

“How long will that take?”

White shrugged. He mopped his face and neck. “Can’t tell. I’m the regular mechanic, but the boss is off today, sick; so I’ve got to handle the pumps, too. Depends on how many people come in for gas. Hour, maybe.”

“Okay.”

“You in a hurry?”

“Yeah.” Womack was in no particular hurry, but he didn’t want to be stuck in this burg any longer than was absolutely necessary, not with heat shimmering up out of the pavement like steam in a Turkish bath. He climbed down out of the tractor and said, “Where can I drink a beer and cool off?”

“Frank’s Place is about as cool as any.” White pointed a puffy, freckled forearm. “It’s about two blocks down the main drag. Can’t miss it. You want I should come and get you as soon as I take a look?”

“Yeah. If I’m not back by then, you come and get me.”

White watched the big truck driver walk down Mainstreet toward Frank’s Place and thought how good a beer would taste. Then he went in by the grease rack for his tools. An armored car — PHILLIPS ARMORED TRANSPORT SERVICE said the sign on the side panels — was up on the rack.

White moistened his lips and looked for a long moment at the truck. They brought it in every week to be serviced and, although White had only worked at the garage for four months, he knew it like the back of his hand.

It was an old model, squat and ugly, like some thick-skinned prehistoric animal, but one which, if you could ever slit open its belly, would spew forth three quarters of a million clams.

In spite of the heat, White was whistling a happy tune when he walked back outside to work on the rig.

4

Frank’s Place may have been as cool as any, Womack thought — but that wasn’t very cool.

It was a combination bar and cafe like a dozen Womack had stopped at along Route 77 in Arizona. The shades had been drawn in a vain attempt to keep out the heat. The only light was from imitation candles, made even more feeble by cheap cardboard shades, on the bar and in the booths along one side. Womack sat in a booth. The seats were covered with imitation leather, decorated with livestock brands, like the old West.

A thin-faced guy in a white apron sat on one of the bar stools reading a newspaper. He was slightly built, about forty-five, with protruding shoulder blades.

The only other person in the place was a girl. Womack couldn’t help thinking that she didn’t belong there. That is, she looked like she should have been at the bar in some swanky New York hotel, instead of in this hick-town greasy-spoon.

She was sitting at the far end of the bar, wearing an obviously expensive cocktail dress, absently twirling a frosted glass. The glass was fully nine inches tall. It contained a smoky, pink-colored liquid. Her dress was green, with thin, rhine-stone-covered halter straps that looked as if they might snap under the strain. She wore expensive shoes, separated from the dress by what looked like yards of sexily-curved legs.

The skinny guy with the apron came over and stood disinterestedly while Womack glanced at the menu.

“Soup. And a beer.”

“What kind of beer?”

“Any kind. Hamm’s.”

“Chicken or split pea?”

“Chicken. And some crackers.”

He took a pad from his pocket and wrote on it. “Chicken. You want the Southern fried steak or raviolli?”

“Just the soup.”

Tight Face looked at him disgustedly. “You want dessert?”

“No.”

Womack grabbed a handful of sugar cubes and stuffed them into his pocket. The way his money was holding out, the sugar might be his only other meal between Valerie and El Centro. If he ever made El Centro. He wondered how serious the trouble with his rig was...

He lit a cigarette and looked at the girl. She had swung around on the stool and was gazing at him openly, elbow on the bar, cheek resting in the palm of her hand. Like the dress, and the fancy beehive hairdo, she looked expensive. Too expensive. He’d never been able to afford dames like that. With a faint smile he realized that he hadn’t even been able to afford Emma — and she had come pretty cheap. Emma. He wondered how long the little bitch had been playing around while he was on the road...

The girl got off the stool and crossed the room to the juke box. It was still light out, but she obviously had been drinking for most of the afternoon. She handled her body provocatively, like a stripper on a stage, accentuating the rising full breasts and narrow waist and rounded hips. She selected an Ella Fitzgerald record and went back to the bar. While she listened, she continued to look at Womack. It made him uncomfortable. Before the record was over she took her glass and slid into the seat opposite him.

She fumbled in her purse for a cigarette, put one in her mouth, and looked expectantly at him. He lit it.

“That stool wasn’t very comfortable,” she said softly. “Do you mind?”

“No.” He answered guardedly. He had forgotten how stupid this sort of thing could be.

“Car trouble?”

“Not exactly.”

“Truck trouble, then.”

“How’d you guess?”

“Why else would anyone stop in Valerie?”

Womack glanced around, thankful for the diversion. “So this is Valerie.”

“Uh-huh. Practically all of it... unless you like Western movies.” She closed her eyes, opened them, let them roam flirtatiously over his face. The look triggered a powerful response from somewhere deep down inside of him...

Christ, he thought. She oozes sex like a toothpaste tube. Those eyes, that hair, those breasts...

“On your way to L.A.?” she asked.

“El Centro.”

“In a hurry to get across the desert, I’ll bet.”

“Uh-huh.” His soup and beer arrived. He broke open the crackers and sat slurping the soup, thankful for something to do. He was beginning to feel kind of foolish.

“That’s too bad,” she said pointedly. She reached over and tugged absently at the curled white hairs on the back of his hand. “If you were going to be around for awhile I could show you the town. What there is of it.”

Womack looked at her. He felt the response again...

She smiled, gave him a searching look with slanted, green-tinted eyes. She reminded him somehow of Emma, except that she had nearly-black hair, while Emma was a blonde. But the figure was the same, full and ripe-breasted, yet softly female.

He said, “Maybe next time.”

“You mean next time your truck breaks down.” She laughed over her drink. Somehow she managed to make even holding a glass look sexy. She was obviously a fun-loving girl with fun-loving ideas stuck in a no-fun town.

Womack looked at his soup. He had to force himself to eat. Under different circumstances a beautiful bundle like this would have had him dusting off a pitch. But, even though this one seemed willing, there was nothing in it for him. Not with the way things were — with a few dollars in cash and a hand full of sugar cubes between him and El Centro.

Womack drank the top off his beer.

She lifted her own glass and said, “What’ll we drink to?”

“Anything you say.”

“Okay.” She beamed. “I’ll drink to you and you drink to me. Okay?”

“Sure.” He took another swallow of his beer.

She put down her glass.

“You act like you’ve got a wife in El Centro.”

“You could call it that—” Emma was no wife, no wife at all. Not anymore. He didn’t even know whether she was in El Centro or not.

“Is she pretty?”

“I guess she’s okay.” He began chasing a chunk of chicken. It was lousy soup.

“Prettier than me?”

Her voice was so low that Womack didn’t understand the words. But there was something in her tone that made him lift his gaze from the soup. He looked at her.

She was leaning forward, elbows on the table, offering him an unimpeded look down the front of her dress. It was worth the look. He had known that it would be.

“Well,” she said lazily. The alchohol had made her voice husky. “Is she?”

5

Womack found himself thinking bleakly of Emma. How stupid could a guy be? There were other dames — like the one sitting opposite him. There had been other dames. But not this time. Not with his truck on the blink and only a few bucks in his pocket. He said, “Listen. You’re a beautiful girl. You don’t have to prove that to me.”

“I was beginning to wonder—”

“Under different circumstances you’d have me falling all over my feet, but under different circumstances you wouldn’t even know I was alive, all of which goes to prove something.”

“What”

“That Valerie probably is even duller than it looks.” He drank some of his beer. He felt suddenly relieved — and disappointed. “What you need, kid, is a change of scenery. Buy a ticket on a bus. Go somewhere — anywhere — it doesn’t make any difference. Go where the bright lights are. Win a beauty contest and get in the movies—”

“I’ve been in the movies,” she said acidly. She got to her feet, stood smoothing the dress over her hips, picked up her drink. She smiled, but the warmth was no longer there. “Well, have a nice trip... to El Centro.”

She turned, wobbling slightly, and headed back toward the bar.

“Wait—” Womack half rose to his own feet, settled back down with his beer, suddenly contented to let things ride.

He signaled for the waiter, making a mental calculation of how much he owed, and dug a couple of bills from his pocket. He was still waiting for his change when the man from the garage came in.

Bernie White acknowledged Womack with a nod, strode straight to the bar, and ordered a beer. Perspiration gleamed on his face. He downed the beer with one tilt of the glass, Adam’s apple working, then sat down opposite Womack in the booth. There was beer foam on his lip. He said, “How long did you drive with the rod bent?”

“How the hell do I know?”

“Well, don’t make no difference now.”

“It’s bad, eh?”

“Pretty bad.” He swiped at the foam with his hand. “She been pulling hard on the grades?”

“No. No worse than usual.”

“Well, I can fix ’er. But it’s going to take a couple of days to get ’er running good.”

“How much?”

White took out a scrap of grease-smeared paper with some writing on it. “Got it figured right here. Parts and labor should run you around a hundred and seventy-five bucks. Of course, that’s just an estimate, but I always figure kind of heavy.”

Womack sat there, thinking absurdly to himself, it might as well be a hundred and seventy-five thousand. Because, either way, I ain’t got a chance in hell of getting my hands on the dough.

“Okay.” Womack had no choice. “Fix her up.”

“Don’t worry.” White got to his feet. “I’ll have her running sweet as sugar.”

Womack picked up his change and made another mental calculation. With the cash remaining in his pocket, and if he also picked up the dime he’d left as a tip, he would be worth exactly twenty-three dollars.

He left the dime where it was. It wouldn’t do him any good. Neither would the twenty dollars remaining in his pocket. During the next couple of days, if he was to get his truck back to El Centro, he would have to figure a way to get his hands on some real dough. In the meantime, he could sleep in the rig.

Womack was about to follow White outside, when he noticed the girl again. She really had a sensational body. He thought about the way her breasts had looked inside the halter of her gown, startlingly white and pink-tipped, and a faint warning bell sounded down inside his stomach somewhere.

He didn’t heed the warning.

6

They had a few drinks together at the bar, beer and whatever it was she was drinking, while the bartender fed an occasional nickel into the jukebox. They were his only customers and he apparently wanted to keep them around.

At exactly seven o’clock he turned on the television screen high up over the bar. The fights were on. Womack found that he could barely hear the sound over the blare of the jukebox. He didn’t care. You don’t have to hear the fights. But it seemed strange to see the two men pawing at each other to the strains of the Missouri Waltz.

Womack gradually became engrossed. During one of the frequent commercials he turned his head slightly to look at the girl sitting next to him. Since joining her at the bar, they had said very little, just small talk. Her name was Lila. That much she had told him. Lila, a slender, dark-haired stranger with slanting green eyes and a sensuous mouth.

She stared up into his face. There was something strange about her, something different. Every word he had said, no matter how trivial, she had listened to attentively. It was as if it was important to her to have someone to talk to. And, yet, she had seemed contented to just sit while he watched the fights.

Womack took a swallow of beer and said, “You like the fights?”

Before she could answer, their attention was diverted by a soldier entering from the street. He was short and stocky, with damp sweat-spots under his arms and beneath his belt. He looked directly at Womack and the girl, as if he were using them to adjust his eyes to the reddish glow within the bar, then sat down on one of the stools. When he had paid for his beer he fished a dime from the change on the wet-stained bar and walked back to an inside phone booth in the rear.

Womack looked at the girl once more. Her face was very white, her eyes wide and frightened, and he wondered if she was going to be sick. He said, “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” She sipped her drink. “It’s the heat. It makes me a little woozy at times.”

“Would you like to go somewhere else?”

She started to speak and hesitated—

“Some place where we can get a little air. It’ll do you good.”

“I thought you wanted to watch the fights.”

“They’re a couple of pugs.”

“There’s a place out on the highway... the Blue Note. They only have a band on Saturdays... but there’s a dance floor and a jukebox. We could drive out there.”

“No wheels.” Womack grinned. “Isn’t there someplace close?”

Lila nodded. “No. But we can take my car.”

“Okay. Drink up.”

They finished their drinks, had a final round for the road, then got to their feet. Womack felt a pleasant constriction building in his throat. He was dimly aware that he was getting drunk. He decided that he didn’t give a damn.

He settled the bill and followed her outside and down the street to her car. It was a new Thunderbird convertible, white, with the top down. Somehow the car didn’t surprise him. It went with the expensive dress and the forty dollar shoes and the sophisticated-sounding sigh she exhaled as she pressed close beside him.

Womack heard the warning bell again. It sounded in his stomach, causing the muscles there to tighten. It was all wrong somehow. A girl with this much class...

He said, “Some rig.”

“It’s all mine.”

“Lucky girl.”

She laughed. “Would you like to drive it?”

Womack opened the door for her and helped her in, then walked around and slid under the wheel. When he pulled away from the curb he could feel the tremendous, silent power under the hood. It never failed to give him a thrill.

Lila edged closer to him. Her shoulder touched his. The wind pulled at her skirt and rippled the halter of her gown, exposing flashes of milky flesh, startlingly white against the dark tones of her arms and shoulders. Her hair brushed his face. It had a smell of wild flowers in it.

There was not much traffic on the road, only an occasional car, and the road was straight. Womack put his foot down hard on the accelerator. The car lept forward.

Lila laughed softly. There was excitement in her voice as she said, “Not too fast, Johnny.”

He let the needle hover at eighty. The hell with it. He felt good.

He glanced into the rear-view mirror once, noticed a set of headlights and wondered vaguely why the car behind them was following so close, then dismissed it from his mind.

He continued out Route 77 to a point where it intersected with a secondary county road. Near the intersection were a couple of acres of gravel-covered land with a shoddy motel and a combined gas station and cafe. A sputtering neon light alternately blinked The Blue Note... GAS... The Blue Note... GAS...

Womack swung the Thunder-bird onto the parking lot, gravel spraying the underside of the fenders, and stopped beneath the drooping branches of a tree that grew between the motel and the cafe. As he got out he noticed that the car he had seen in the rear-view mirror was stopping also.

It wasn’t until the car’s doors swung open that Womack saw the sheriff’s star painted on one of them. The two men who got out and started toward him were strangers. One was big and burly, with a thick neck and shoulders, the other nearly as tall but lighter and small-boned. They were obviously county deputies. Despite the boots, and the big campaign hats, they lacked the sharpness of state troopers.

The smaller of the two said, “Hold it, Mister.”

There was no doubt about it now. They had been following him. Womack wondered why. He had had the Thunderbird over eighty on the straightaways, but there had been a minimum of traffic, and there was no posted limit. What bothered him now was the fact that he had been drinking.

Stuffing a cigarette in his mouth, to disguise the alchohol on his breath, Womack walked forward to meet them. Lila watched him from the car. Even in the dim light, Womack could see that her face had gone white again.

The deputies halted directly in front of him. The big one shoved his hat away from his forehead, wiped at his face with a balled handkerchief, and smiled through rotten teeth.

Then, before Womack could return the smile, they began beating him with their fists.

7

A half-forgotten recollection of his childhood flashed quickly across Womack’s mind. He had stood this way many times before, on the streets of New York’s West Side tenement section, while fists lashed out at his face. Nothing had changed. Someone was trying to hurt him and he knew only one thing: fight back, fight until he no longer had the strength to lift his arms. He staggered backward. A fist crashed into his face, bringing blood into his mouth, and another fist landed sickingly against his temple. Gravel crunched beneath his feet. There was a muttered curse. He spit some of the blood at a face that bobbed suddenly before him — he didn’t know which — and slammed his own right into the pit of a muscular stomach. He struck out again, blindly, his vision blurred by a sudden burst of pain. He felt a second burst of pain, exactly as before, and went to his hands and knees. He couldn’t see the ground. He was aware of nothing but the pain.

A heavy boot landed against Womack’s ribs. His arms and legs crumpled beneath him. The boot landed again and he rolled over on his back. Pain waved through his eyes. He saw the dark outlines of the two men standing over him.

One of the men was holding something white against his face.

“Come on,” the other one said. “Let’s get the bastard into the car.”

They each took an arm, hauled Womack to his feet, and put him into the back of the car. He was on the floor and he pulled himself to his hands and knees again. He felt very sick. He was aware of the car being put into motion. Then something solid struck the back of his head and he was no longer aware of anything.

Womack heard the voice before opening his eyes.

It said, “What in Christ’s name is the matter with you guys? Can’t you make a simple pinch without getting your dumb faces kicked in?”

Womack opened his eyes — gingerly. The voice belonged to a very fat guy seated behind a battered wooden desk. He had a round, florrid face, and his hair had receded to a few strands over each ear. A badge with the word Sheriff was pinned to the front of his sweat-sopped khakis.

Womack moved his head. The two deputies stood against the far wall. They were looking at the sheriff. The small one held a bloodstained handkerchief to his nose. Blood was splattered down the front of his shirt.

The burly one said, “Christ, Wibber—”

“Don’t Christ me.”

“How did we know the bastard was going to start swinging at us?”

“That’s just it. You didn’t.”

“We did the best we could.”

“Then I’d hate to see your worst.” Wibber shifted his gaze from Womack to the two men. “Now get into some uniforms that don’t look like you been killing chickens in them.”

Wibber waited until the door had closed. Then he looked at Womack and said, “You a tough guy, Womack?”

Womack, tongue-tied by the pain in his head, only sat there.

Wibber went on. “Maybe you think this is some kind of hick town, that we don’t know how to handle tough guys, is that it?”

The base of Womack’s skull was a dull consistency of pain. He sat upright in his chair and said, “It might interest you to know, Sheriff, that your trained apes out there came at me first.”

The sheriff’s western hat sat before him on the desk. He shoved it to one side, leaned forward, and put his weight on his elbows. “Now, why would they do that?”

“I’m hoping the judge will ask that question.”

Wibber smiled mockingly.

“It ain’t funny. Your guys jumped me out there and I’m going to find out why.”

“That’s your story.”

“You’re goddamned right that’s my story.” Womack could feel the anger flooding in over the pain. “It’s the story I’ll tell in court... when I sue you for putting these bumps on my head.”

Wibber held onto an impulse to raise his voice. He said, “You’re not going to sue anybody, Womack. Not in this county. Because you’re getting out of it.”

“Now listen—”

“You listen, Mister.” Wibber looked at him disgustedly. “We got laws to protect the citizens of this town. They’re strict laws and we make ’em stick. We don’t hold with drunks behind the wheel of a car... and we don’t like transients molesting our women.”

So that was it. Womack reached for his cigarettes. He should have known. He had known. But he had been too stupid to heed his own warning. A dame like that — with a too-high price tag — had to belong to somebody big. Maybe, Womack thought, she belongs to this fat bastard with the badge.

“So I’m a sex maniac, eh?” Womack said thickly.

Wibber was silent for a moment, gazing at Womack through small, hard eyes. Then he said, “I don’t know, Womack. Is that what you are?”

Womack blurted out, “Come off it, Sheriff! Quit talking nonsense. Hell, if anything, the broad picked me up. We had a few beers. What’s the law against that?”

Wibber belched, his face tight with pain, and rubbed his stomach. “It’s like I said, Womack, that’s your story.”

There was no use talking. Womack could see that now. The cards were stacked. They had always been stacked against him. He said resignedly, “So I made a mistake.”

“Eh?”

“I said I made a mistake.”

“You bet your sweet life you made a mistake.”

“Okay. Okay.” Womack studied the backs of his hands. They were covered with thin scratches. He said, “It ain’t exactly going to break my heart to leave this town. I wouldn’t be here now if my rig hadn’t broken down. As soon as it’s fixed, in a couple of days, I’ll be moving along.”

Wibber’s stomach seemed to be bothering him. He belched again to make himself feel better. He said, “If you’re smart, Mister, you’ll be moving on right now. Tonight.”

“I can’t do that, Sheriff. And you can’t make me. If you want to lock me up... that’s something else. But you had better make darn sure you can make it stick.”

“Say, listen, don’t you worry about that. I can make it stick. You damn right. We know how to take care of punks in this county.”

“Is this your county, Sheriff?”

“Just what does that mean?” Wibber’s voice was a rough whisper.

Womack paused to light his cigarette. “I was just wondering who owns you, Sheriff.”

Wibber’s face turned purple. He was obviously thrown off stride. He blurted, “One more crack like that and I’ll lock you up right now. I mean it.”

“So go ahead, Sheriff. You’re dying to do that anyway. Lock me up... and see what it gets you.”

“That’s all you’ve got to say?”

“I’ve got a question.”

“What is it?”

“When can I go?”

Womack’s wallet was on the desk. Wibber picked it up and thumbed through it. “Johnny Womack, eh?”

“That’s right.”

“When can your rig roll?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

Wibber tossed the wallet to Womack. “You make sure you’re out of town by then.”

8

It was like waking up after being drunk the night before — only really drunk — when you don’t remember what happened and you’re conscious only of the killing pain in your head.

Womack listened to the knocking on the window of the tractor and debated about opening his eyes. He didn’t want to open them. But the fist pounding against glass only aggravated the ache in his head so he climbed down from the sleeper finally and opened the door.

The sun wasn’t up yet. Womack was glad for that. This way he could gradually accustom his eyes to the light.

Bernie White, dressed in clean coveralls and a black skull cap with the words ABC Garage, stood with his hand on the door. He said, “Didn’t know you were going to sleep in the rig. There’s an extra cot in the back of the garage. You could have used that.”

“Thanks.” Womack looked at the dark sky. The stars were still out. “What time is it?”’

“Five-thirty.” White already had a wad stuck under his lip. “Thought I’d get an early start. Maybe have ’er running for you by tomorrow morning.”

“That would be just fine.”

White grinned at him. “Rough night, eh?”

“Yeah. Pretty rough.” Womack touched his face.

“The washroom is unlocked if you want to clean up.”

“Thanks.”

There was no warm water in the washroom but Womack shaved anyway, using the coarse latherless soap, careful to avoid the bruises on his face. When he had finished he toweled off and examined his face in the mirror. There was a nasty bruise under one eye and his fingers discovered a deep cut at the base of his skull but, aside from those two things, no serious damage. Only the pain.

He ordered a plate of eggs in a little diner directly across the highway from the garage. From his stool at the counter he could see Bernie White’s legs sticking out from under the tractor.

He used to like to watch the sun come up on the desert. It always gave him a thrill. There was something clean and fresh and invigorating about the air in the morning, before the sun made it stale. But this morning he felt nothing, absolutely nothing.

The eggs were tasteless and the coffee like scalding water. He looked at the date on a soiled calendar over the grill and with a bitter grimace remembering that it was his birthday. Happy birthday, sucker. Johnny Womack, the guy everybody said was going to set the world on fire, broke, wife gone, stuck in a two-bit burg with a broken-down rig and no dough to cover the tab.

Womack gave a short, hard laugh.

He put down his cup and looked across the highway. White had crawled out from under the tractor. The mechanic was talking to someone over by the pumps. Womack knew right away who it was. He cursed softly under his breath.

White was talking to the sheriff. Wibber looked very big and imposing and official in the western hat. It was only a few minutes past six and already the sheriff was mopping at his neck with a diaper-sized handkerchief. It was going to be hot. The sheriff stopped talking once and gazed over at the diner. Womack couldn’t see his face beneath the wide hatbrim but he got the impression that Wibber was looking directly through the window at him.

Womack wondered if trouble was boiling up again.

He found that he didn’t much care. He had the feeling that there would be nothing but trouble for him now wherever he went. Thanks to Emma, he hadn’t a dime to show for the ten years he’d saved so that he could have his own rig, because she’d skipped out with everything — every last cent. It was an even chance now that he would have to get rid of the rig or be chewed up with finance charges.

Womack had a sudden vision of the gun concealed beneath the dash in the big tractor. For a moment, the vision gave him confidence, and he knew that everything was going to be all right. But the confidence was replaced by a sudden sense of fear. He took a sip of coffee, its bitterness like black bile in his throat, and reached for the sugar.

He was thinking like a fool. He was being ridiculous. He wasn’t about to risk another stretch in reform school — in prison, this time — for some penny-ante heist.

He had a second cup of coffee and watched the sun come up and felt the sweat forming damp spots under his shirt.

9

When Sammy Travis unlocked the door at four-thirty that same afternoon, Lila was in the bathroom, adding tapwater to a couple of highballs.

“I heard you coming up the stairs,” she said. “I figured you might want one of these.”

He didn’t wait but went in the bathroom.

Lila had her hair tied back in a loose pony tail and she was wearing a robe. She handed him a glass and he took a long swallow before saying acidly, “You been wearing that robe all day?”

“It’s hot. I was getting ready to take a shower.”

He put a hand on her arm and pulled her around to face him. She didn’t move. He said, “I told you not to go out last night.”

She looked nervous and on edge. He could tell that she had already been drinking. She said, “We going to fight?”

“It’s up to you.”

“I don’t want to fight, Sam.” Her eyes softened.

He released her arm.

She walked past him into the bedroom. “What’s the sense of staying home all the time? You’re never here.”

“I’m in the Army, remember?” He followed her. “I ain’t no general, either. I come to town whenever I can.”

“Whenever you’re not chasing around after some girl.”

“That sounds great, coming from you.”

“What’s happened to us, Sam?”

“You can answer that as well as I can.”

“Thanks.”

“What’s the matter with you, anyway? You weren’t this way in New York.”

“This isn’t New York, Sam.” The room had twin beds. She sat down on one of them. “What am I supposed to do, just sit around this crummy room while you play soldier?”

“I told you. It won’t be for long.”

“It had better not be.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re the smart guy. You figure it out.”

Travis removed his tie and sat down on the bed, not looking at her, and said, “Who was the guy?”

“How do I know? He seemed like an okay guy. He wanted to have a few drinks and dance. What’s wrong with that?”

“You tell me.”

“Don’t make it sound dirty.” She looked at him. “I don’t sleep with every guy who comes along.”

“Only the ones who ask.”

“You’ve got a rotten mouth.”

“It’s a rotten world.”

“Only because you think it’s rotten, Sam.” A look of sorrow came over her face. “Why can’t you be like other people? Why do you have to own everyone so completely? Like Sheriff Wibber. He had that man almost killed last night... because he’s afraid of you... of what will happen to him if he doesn’t do exactly as you say.”

“Wibber’s a hick.”

“You say that because you own him. But you can’t own everyone, Sam. Not everyone. I hoped that being drafted into the Army would teach you that.”

“The Army’s no different than anything else, baby. Only bigger.” He sipped his drink and stretched out on the bed. “And before I get through... it’s going to be three quarters of a million bucks poorer.”

The thought seemed to please her. She spread her robe on the bed so that the air would get to her bare legs. She sipped her drink.

“Sam?”

“Eh?”

“I didn’t fix anything to eat.”

“I don’t want anything.”

“I thought maybe you could take me out.”

“Sure, baby. Sure”

“Sam, honey—”

“Eh?”

“Sweetie.”

“What?”

“I love you.”

Travis lit a cigarette, following her every movement, as she got out of the robe. She wore nothing but a bra and panties underneath. They were very brief and very white against the mahogany brown of her skin. Travis said, “You’ve got one hell of a body, baby.”

“It’s not bad,” she admitted. She unfastened the bra, teasing him, walking toward the bathroom like a stripper on a stage.

Lila finished undressing in the bathroom with the door closed and while he listened to the shower running Travis sipped his drink and smoked. It was only a matter of days now. Nine, to be exact, and there was still one gaping hole in his plan. But he was confident that he would find a way to plug it. He had to. This was the big one... the million dollar heist that would make him a legend.

Travis laughed out loud. In exactly ten days he and Lila would be in Mexico with all the time and all the money in the world, and nothing to do but live it up.

“That’s the coolest I’ve been all day,” Lila said as she came out of the bathroom. She was naked. Water still glistened on her body. Her breasts looked very big and cold and dominating. There was a strong scent of gardenias in the room.

Travis put down his glass and stared at her, fascinated. She opened her mouth. He got to his feet and pulled her to him.

“Sam, don’t, you’ll get all wet.”

“Who cares?”

“Sam—” She melted against him, whispering fiercely, her eyes tightly closed.

There was a knock on the door.

“Christ—” Travis released Lila, removed an Army .45 automatic from the drawer of the bedside table, and went to the door. Without opening it, he said, “Who is it?”

“It’s me. Open up.”

“Who?”

“Wibber.” The voice was clattery. “For Christ’s sake, open the door.”

Travis stuffed the .45 into his hip pocket, released the night latch, and stepped back as Wibber came into the room. He said, “What’s the idea coming here?”

For a moment Wibber stood there rooted, his puffy eyes slitted, riveted on Lila.

She hadn’t expected Travis to open the door. It had happened so quickly that she was still frozen by the bed, completely naked, water dripping from her body onto the napless carpet.

“My God, Sam. My God,” she moaned slowly. Her eyes pleaded. “Don’t you even care?”

Travis said acidly, “Shut up and get your robe on. Nobody asked you to stand there.”

Savagely, Lila pulled the cheap chenille spread from the bed, used it to cover her nakedness. Walking into the bathroom, she slammed the door.

Wibber eyed the water on Travis’ khakis. He licked his lips. He said, “I sure picked a bad time.”

“I told you never to come here without calling first.”

“I figured you’d want to hear what I got to say.”

“Whadda you mean?”

“It’s about the guy we picked up last night. The one that was... bothering... your wife.”

“I didn’t tell you to beat the guy.”

“You said you wanted him out of town.”

“Yeah. But I didn’t tell you to beat him. We don’t want any trouble right now.”

“Don’t worry.”

“What about him.”

Wibber reached for his handkerchief and grinned. “Only that the bastard is the answer to our problem.”

Later, after they had discussed Wibber’s idea, Travis forced his mouth into something probably meant to be a smile and said, “It might just work.”

“Hell. I know it’ll work.”

Wibber was pleased. It made him proud that Travis liked his plan. Not that it actually was his plan— White had given him the main idea and he had simply added the details — but at least now maybe Travis wouldn’t think he was the only guy in the world with any brains.

Travis said, “One thing bothers me.”

“What’s that?”

“How do we know he’ll go along?”

“He’ll go along.” Wibber grinned out of the corner of his mouth. “I’ve done some checking. The guy’s got a record. And he’s obviously down on his luck.”

“That ain’t no guarantee he’ll come in on a heist like this.”

“We got the best guarantee in the world.”

“What’s that?” Travis looked at him.

“A chance at three quarters of a million bucks.”

10

On Thursday morning, the day the rig was supposed to be ready to roll again, Womack went to a loan company on Mainstreet.

A perspiring, slightly bald man with distrustful eyes stood behind a waist-high counter that ran the full length of the room. Beyond the counter was a row of four wooden desks, three of which were also occupied by perspiring, slightly bald men. At the fourth desk a girl in a white blouse and pleated white skirt sat working an office calculator. In one corner was an open, chest-high partitioned office with a cardboard Manager sign affixed with tape to the opaque, pebbled glass.

Womack stopped in front of the man behind the counter and said, “I’d like to borrow some money.”

“Do you have an account, Mr...?”

“Womack.”

“Have you borrowed from us before?”

“No.”

“What amount would you like to borrow?”

“Three hundred dollars.”

“I’m sorry.” The man smiled thinly. “We limit first borrowers to one hundred dollars. If you would like to fill out this application...”

Womack looked at the form. “How soon can I have the money?”

“Are you a resident of Valerie, Mr. Womack?”

“No.”

“Of Arizona?”

“California.”

“Oh.” The man looked at him distrustfully. “It normally takes three to four days to process out-of-state applications.”

Womack looked at the form again. It reminded him of the complicated, meaningless forms he was required to fill out upon entering the reform school.

“Never mind,” he said. “I’ll be leaving town today or tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry.” The man’s eyes narrowed further. “If you would care to speak to our manager, Mr. Marmor...”

“No thanks.”

Womack gave the man a hard look and headed for the door. He walked down Mainstreet to the ABC Garage. White was standing by the big tractor, wiping his hands on a grease rag, a wad of tobacco stretching one cheek out of shape. He smiled and kicked one of the big tires with the toe of his shoe. “All ready to roll. Plenty of guts, too. I had ’er out on the road this morning.”

“How’s the compression?”

“Went up two or three points at least.”

“That’s good.”

They went into the cluttered office. White presented Womack with the bill. The estimate had been fairly close. The job came to a little over one hundred and eighty.

Womack said, “Can I mail you a check? I’m a little short on cash.”

“I ain’t supposed to do that, Mr. Womack.” White took a Coke from the dispenser and popped the cap off. “The boss is out sick, or you could talk to him, but I reckon he wouldn’t mind if I took your check... now.”

“I doubt if it would be much good.”

“Sounds like the trucking business ain’t much good right now.” White put his feet on the desk and eyed Womack critically.

“Business is bad all over.”

“Buddy, you’re right. You’re so goddamned right it hurts.” White swallowed half of the Coke. “It’s them union bosses. A bunch of racketeers. Crooks, just lousy crooks. Stuffing their own pockets while the rest of us work our tails off.”

“You’re telling me.”

“Did you ever think what it would be like to have all the cash you wanted? Think of the liquor you could drink... and the thick steaks... and the women. For Chrissakes think of the women.”

Womack looked at him, his face blank.

White continued, his voice hoarse, a funny gleam in his eyes. “Suppose, just for the hell of it, you knew of a way to get your hands on some real dough. Cash. Lots of it. Say three quarters of a million dollars. Maybe a million. Think what you could do with that kind of dough...”

They talked for the better part of an hour.

In the end it was easier than even Wibber had imagined.

11

There were four of them now.

They met late at night in the rear of the ABC Garage, behind carefully locked doors, with only the light from one naked bulb to illuminate the map spread on a greasy workbench. Big, perspiring Wibber. Bernie White, his face drawn, his hands swollen from hours of frantic last-minute preparation on the rig. Sammy Travis, nervous and irritable, smoking incessantly — but whose nerves suddenly jelled when he held a gun in the face of danger. Womack, hands thrust into the pocket of his jacket, thinking oddly of his father’s suicide and of Emma, his wife, and of the twelve bitter years in a reform school. And there was Lila — actually, Lila made it five — standing apart from the others but very much a part of the group.

“This whole deal,” Sammy was saying, “depends on everybody — I mean everybody — doing exactly what they’re supposed to do at exactly the right time.”

He looked at Womack.

“If anybody screws up — if anybody loses his head and panics — he’s going to have to answer to me. I mean it. So you all had better understand that from the start.”

Travis’ eyes left Womack and made a quick tour of the others. There didn’t seem to be any argument. He looked at White and said, “Bernie, you’re the key to the whole exercise. You carry off your end and we should be able to walk through without a scratch.”

“Don’t worry about my end.” White’s voice carried complete conviction. “It’s all taken care of. They brought the truck in yesterday... just like always... to have it serviced. I’ve been working on it for three months now. It’ll be like cracking an egg.”

“I guess I came in late,” Womack said. “You want to tell me how you plan to crack it?”

There was silence and then Travis said, “You tell him, Bernie.”

“Sure.” White’s voice was intense, a curious blend of pride and suspicion, as he said, “You know the problem. Two armed security guards accompany the Army payroll in the truck. Besides the driver, there’s a guy sealed in the back, armed with a sawed-off shotgun and a .38 Special.”

“It’s the guy in the back that’s the kicker,” Wibber interrupted.

“That’s right,” White went on. “No matter what happens to the driver... we’ve got to take care of the guy in back before we can get our hands on the dough.”

Womack said, “That’s one of the things that have been bothering me. How do you figure on getting him out?”

Wibber’s thick lips opened in a grin. “That’s the beauty of the whole operation. We don’t!”

“Huh?”

“That’s my idea,” Travis said. “Instead of wasting a lot of valuable time trying to bust open that truck... we seal the guard inside... where he can’t do us any harm. Not bad, eh?”

“Not bad,” Womack said. “Only what’s he going to be doing with that shotgun while we’re loading the truck into the van?”

“Bernie.”

“That’s my department again.” White opened a drawer in the workbench, removed a heavy object wrapped in an oil-soaked rag, and held it under the light. “I machined it right here in the shop after hours. This one and four others like it. They screw into the gun ports in the back of the truck. There’s enough steel in each of them to stop a bazooka shell. And once they’re in they can’t be loosened from the inside.”

Womack whistled softly.

He said, “You mean the gun ports are threaded?”

“They are now.” White looked at him and grinned.

“That ain’t all,” Travis said. “There’s an ignition cut-off switch and an emergency brake in the back of the truck. That’s so the guy riding shotgun can stop the truck and kill the engine if anything happens to the driver.”

“They don’t mess around.”

“Neither do we.” Travis lit a cigarette. “Bernie here has taken care of that too.”

“What if they check out the truck each morning. The way they check an airplane before taking off.”

“They won’t find a thing,” White said. “I’ve rigged both the ignition cut-off and the brake so they’ll work just fine... until I loosen a bolt and a couple of wires beneath the truck.”

Womack said, “Sounds like you’ve got it pretty well covered.”

“We told you we did.”

“One more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“How about the driver?”

“I’ve been waiting for you to ask. It’s the sweetest part of the plan.” White’s humor soared. He looked at Travis. “Tell him, Sam.”

Travis half smiled. He said, “It’s like Bernie says. The driver is the easy part, a pushover, perched in there behind the armor plate and bullet-proof glass like a sitting duck. He won’t even know what hit him.”

There was a silence and then Wibber giggled faintly. He said, “I get a bang out of just thinking about it.”

“What’s amusing the sheriff,” Travis said, “is the fact that the cab of that truck is like a fortress. Armor plating like a tank and safety glass that’ll take six .38 slugs point blank at the same spot and not even wrinkle.”

“I’m afraid I don’t get the joke.”

“Don’t you?” Wibber laughed out loud. “Man, there ain’t no safety glass in that truck.”

Womack looked at White.

White grinned and said, “Wibber’s partially right. Safety glass don’t look no different than regular plate. I replaced the pane of glass on the driver’s side with regular plate the last time I serviced ’er. Took me about eleven minutes. Then I cleaned all the windows as usual... so the phony wouldn’t look no different from the rest.”

“You know the rest of it,” Wibber said. “All you got to do is get in that rig of yours and drive on to glory.”

Womack looked at Wibber. “I ain’t exactly sure what your part is, Sheriff. You going to be around during the actual heist, or is your job just making suggestions?”

“You ain’t one to talk, Womack,” Travis said quickly. “If it wasn’t for Wibber here, you wouldn’t be in on the operation. It was his idea.”

“I was just wondering.”

“Well don’t.” The two men locked eyes. “Any questions of that kind will come from me. Wibber has an important part in the operation. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be here, so forget the smart remarks. You just make sure you’re ready to roll when the time comes.”

Womack braced himself against the workbench, his arms spread beside him, fingers pressing hard into the greasy wood. The fingers quivered in spite of his pressure to keep them still.

After tomorrow, he thought, there’ll be no more kidding yourself. After tomorrow you’ll be a thief — maybe even a murderer — and it won’t be like in the war. Kill a guy in the war and they pin a medal. But tomorrow will be different.

Womack looked at the others, at Lila who stood slightly apart, smoking silently. His mind went to Emma, back over a life that had led him to this, and he raised his hands.

Womack’s eyes swept over the others, a half smile on his face, as he said, “I’m ready to roll right now.”

12

Julio Silvera looked at his five-year-old daughter. She sat with him at breakfast, studying him with warm brown eyes, round face resting in the palm of her hand.

They had a way — especially at breakfast — of communicating by means of a mystical, silent language known only to father and daughter. This morning something in Julio’s eyes was saying, “Don’t put so much jam on your toast.”

And in his daughter’s eyes: “I love you, Daddy.”

For some reason — perhaps it was faint uneasiness that drained the appetite from his stomach — the silent line of communications seemed to be breaking down so that Julio, wrinkling his paper impatiently, said aloud, “Finish your milk, Debbie.”

Carole, his wife, came in from the kitchen. She looked immaculate even in the worn-out robe, hair pulled straight back and secured with a rubber band, then falling to her shoulders in a long pony-tail. She was very fair. He liked the lightness of her hair and complexion. It always gave him a strange sense of satisfaction when others, startled by the contrast of his own dark skin, turned to stare.

Carole poured the coffee and sat down opposite her husband. Moving the jam jar out of the reach of her daughter, she said pleasantly, “Drink your milk, Debbie.”

“Carole—”

She looked at him and he could tell — had known all morning — that she sensed something on his mind. He had been a fool to wait this long to tell her. Now he didn’t quite know how.

She waited and when he didn’t speak she said, “Have you talked to Mr. Phillips? I mean... about your vacation.”

I might as well get it over, he thought

“There won’t be any vacation. Today is my last day.”

“Julio!”

He shrugged. “I told you when I took the job it might only be temporary. Mr. Phillips wants to retire. He’s tired. And starting next month the Army is going to handle the payroll transfer. I think that’s what finally made him decide. The Army’s his biggest account. Without the Army, he’d just be losing money anyway.”

“And us?” She looked up, her eyes wet. “What about us?”

“We’ll make out okay.” He tugged at his daughter’s pony-tail and, bending over, kissed her lightly on the nose. He repeated the process — it was part of the morning ritual — with his wife. “I stopped off to see Mr. Burton last night. He’s short-handed at the lumber yard again. He wants me to work through the summer and maybe stay on permanently if business picks up.”

“Did he say how much he’ll pay?”

“No. We’ve just been talking, kind of. I’ll go by and see him again tonight.”

“Well. I’ll miss seeing you in your uniform. You’re really very handsome, you know.” She adjusted the collar of his shirt — Phillips Armored Transport Service said the triangular patch on the short sleeve — and stood back to survey the effect. “But I don’t mind telling you that I’m a little relieved now that it’s all over. I never liked the idea of your being responsible for all of that money. It’s just too risky.”

“No more risky than a lot of jobs.” He grinned. “If it was, the pay would be better.”

Carole walked as far as the back screen porch with her husband, kissed him lightly, and watched as he backed their second-hand Volkswagen out of the garage.

Although it was the beginning of another hot day in July, inexplicably, she shivered.

13

Lila and Sammy Travis checked out of the hotel before breakfast on that same Tuesday morning. They left in the white Thunderbird and Lila was driving. She was dressed in shorts and a sleeveless blouse. Sammy wore a sportshirt, open at the neck, and a pair of lightweight golf slacks. His jacket was tossed over the seat between them. The inside pocket contained his three-day-old discharge papers. He reached over and patted the pocket. Then, placing his head back on the seat, he smiled as the warmth of the early morning sun touched him. Lila found a parking place on Main-street and the two of them went into a cafe and ordered a leisurely breakfast. Their watches had been carefully checked. They had time to kill.

Bernie White ate breakfast in the little diner across the highway from the ABC Garage. He was neatly dressed and he had a battered suitcase. Yesterday had been his last day at the garage but Mr. Hitt, who was back on the job now, had allowed him to sleep overnight on the old Army cot. He had four eggs, over easy, a side order of country sausage, fried potatoes, toast and coffee. He reflected that it had been this way when he was in the war. He had always been hungry just before going into action. A picture came into his mind. It was of a man in his company who had been killed during the Battle of the Bulge. The bullet had smashed the man’s face so that he could not breathe. He had choked to death. The thought did not affect White’s appetite. He put the image from his mind and continued eating.

Womack went without breakfast that morning. Waking up a little before eight a.m. he walked along Mainstreet until he found a barber shop that was open. He had a shave, trying to relax, but his mind spun crazily. He closed his eyes beneath a steaming towel and listened while the barber filled him in on the news. It was bad, as always. Somehow, the thought that the world was in a mess seemed to cheer him. When he came outside the sun was up full and for some reason he felt better. He walked south for a block and a half, past the cafe where Lila and Sammy sat over a leisurely breakfast, then west for two blocks to where the big rig was parked. As he climbed behind the wheel he looked at his wristwatch. Exactly nine-fifty. Right on schedule. He kicked the engine over and crawled out into traffic. Five minutes later he hit the highway. The sun broiled white and hot on the concrete. He could feel the sweat forming damp spots under his arms and beneath the belt around his waist. For a moment he had the feeling that the whole thing was ridiculous, that no one in his right mind could possibly take a thing like this seriously, that he should laugh at the whole deal and keep right on rolling until he hit El Centro. But for Johnny Womack the feeling passed.

Sheriff Adam Wibber woke up that morning in a tangle of sodden sheets, sweltering and suffering, gas pains like gnawing worms in his stomach. He heard someone groaning and realized that it was himself. Still groaning, he got to his feet, and walked into the kitchen. He stood in the middle of the floor, his two-hundred-and-forty pound body stripped to the waist, his bare feet splayed out over the faded linoleum. For one brief, unpleasant instant, he thought of his wife, Sarah. They had been divorced for over twelve years and in all of that time he thought of her only when confronted with the prospect of getting his own breakfast. He took a pan from the stack of pans in the sink and started water boiling for his cereal.

An hour later Wibber left the house and got into the tan-and-white car with the star on the side. He drove very carefully leaving Valerie and headed west on Route 77 until it intersected a secondary county road. He checked his watch. It was ten thirty-two. At ten forty he got out of the car. Lighting a phosphorous flare, he dropped it onto the highway, in the westbound lane. Then he dug out his handkerchief and mopped the sweatband of his western hat.

He belched, thinking that after today he would never again have to fix his own breakfast.

14

In the sweltering, glass- and steel-enclosed cab of the armored car, Old Man Phillips — his first name was Cornell — removed his battered uniform cap and placed it on the seat. He wiped his lined face, thinking that this was the last time he would have to bake through the day in an oven on wheels. He would receive no gold watch when he retired, had no family to spend his extra leisure time with — but he had had enough of working.

Turning his head slightly, Phillips glanced through the small window separating the body of the truck from the cab. Julio Silvera sat on the small seat that hinged down from the wall. A sawed-off shotgun rested across his knees. Phillips sighed. He felt a faint pang of guilt, closing up shop this way, leaving the kid high and dry. Not that there was anything he could do. It was fate that the Army had decided to transfer the payrolls themselves from now on. And there was nothing anybody could do about fate...

When Phillips returned his eyes to the road he saw the flare and flashing red light.

“What’s up, Mr. Phillips?” Julio’s voice, filtered through the bulletproof steel mesh of the voice vent, had a recorded sound.

“Don’t know.” Phillips brought the heavy truck to a stop, engine idling, and glanced alertly over the surrounding terrain. “Looks like the Sheriff. Got a flare in the road. Must be a wreck up the highway somewhere.”

“See anything?”

“Not a thing.”

Wibber crossed in front of the truck, dabbing at his neck with his handkerchief, and slowly approached the gun vent in the door of the cab. Phillips watched him. He had never cared much for the sheriff. He looked at Wibber’s uniform, soaked through with perspiration, and imaged that he could almost smell his body odor through the gun port. His voice sounded surprisingly loud through the vent as he said, “What’s the trouble, Sheriff? Wreck?”

“Uh-huh. Bad smash-up about two miles up the road. Some bastard rammed a produce truck pulling out of the Wilbert place. Cabbages all over the place.” He laughed. His eyes were little round holes of heat in the perspiring face. “Guy following the first car barreled right into the wreckage. Got the road pretty well blocked.”

“Anybody killed?”

“All but one. They’re trying to cut him loose with acetylene. Take another hour probably. Passenger cars can get around by driving on the shoulder, but the sand is soft, so we’re routing the trucks and heavy vehicles over the old Murray Road.”

“That’s kind of a long way around, ain’t it?”

Wibber shrugged. “Better’n waiting here all day. Not that I give a damn. You can do what you want.”

Without further words, Phillips released the clutch, backed the truck a few yards and turned onto the connecting road.

Wibber watched until the truck disappeared around a turn in the road. Then, working quickly, he scuffed out the flare and tossed the dead end into the brush. He had been lucky. Only a few cars had come along and he had waved them through without explanation. And there had been no other trucks.

He whistled happily as he drove back toward town.

15

At exactly ten-fifteen Bernie White settled his bill at the diner and, pausing long enough to purchase cigarettes from a vending machine, went outside and stood by his suitcase near the edge of the highway. It was a beautiful day.

Three minutes later Lila and Sammy Travis picked up White in the Thunderbird convertible. The radio was playing. White tossed his suitcase in the rear seat, jumped in beside it. Then the three of them drove to where Womack had parked the tractor-van on the old Murray Road.

Lila stopped just long enough for Travis and White to get out. A few minutes later she was back on the highway heading for El Centro.

Womack was having trouble with the truck. At least, to anyone who happened along on the road, it would appear that way. The heavy, left-hand hood was raised and Womack, a greasy towel spread over the fender, was working on the engine with a big wrench.

Without speaking to Womack, Travis and White went around to the rear of the van and, opening the big double doors, jumped up into the interior. Then they closed the doors behind them.

They found two flashlights in a rack just inside the van. Moving quickly, but with practiced precision, the two men made a last minute inventory.

At the far end of the van, near the cab, an army cot had been set up and bracketed to the floor. Two blankets lay folded on it. Underneath was a box of medical supplies. White flashed his light quickly inside. On top was a package containing a half dozen morphine surettes. At one end of the cot were two large jars of drinking water and several cardboard cartons of food.

“No beer?” White’s gutteral laugh sounded very loud in the closed van.

“In a couple of hours you’ll be able to buy all of the beer in the world. A swimming pool full of beer, with dames in it, swimming back and forth naked.”

“Man! I’d dive right in. I’d—”

Travis dug out a key, unfastened the lid of a government issue foot-locker, opened it. They shined both of the lights inside. It was the stuff Travis had swiped from the Army: two carefully-oiled submachine guns, two .45 automatics, an assortment of ammunition clips.

Travis removed one of the submachine guns and cradled it in his arms. Closing the footlocker, he crossed over to where an acetylene tank and two cutting torches were secured by rope and metal hooks to the side of the van. Smiling thinly, he patted the side of the tank, then he motioned for White and the two men jumped back down to the road.

Womack was still pretending to work on the engine. He was surprisingly calm. In fact, he wasn’t at all nervous, and that fact alone seemed to disturb him. He should have felt something. The knowledge that there was danger in what he was about to do, that he might actually die during the next few minutes, should have terrified him. But he felt good. Felt fine.

Travis came over and grinned at him. “Jittery?”

Womack shook his head.

“Good.” Travis looked at White. “How about you?”

“Not me.” White smiled at him wryly. “It’ll be just like at the Bulge. Only them Kraut tanks had thicker skins.”

“Remember, anybody panics...” Travis caressed the stock of the submachine gun to make clear his meaning. Then, motioning for White, he walked through a shallow gully and squated down be-hind two rusted oil drums that had been placed in a dense thicket.

White, carrying a long metal device and dragging a heavy burlap sack, knelt beside Travis. It was a good hiding place. They had selected it only after several trips along the road.

Travis looked at his watch.

White wiped his glistening face with a corner of the burlap sack. It left a red welt on his cheek. He said, “You reckon Wibber will handle his end okay?”

For a long time, Travis didn’t answer.

He looked at his watch again. He dug out a handkerchief and mopped at his face.

Then, when he saw the armor-plated truck appear several hundred yards down the road, he smiled thinly and said, “Don’t worry about Wibber. Just make sure you get under that truck when I open up with the chopper.”

16

It was exactly ten fifty-one when Old Man Phillips brought the armored car to a stop several yards behind the apparently stalled rig.

He swore under his breath. If he had lived a few minutes longer he might have reflected on the coincidence of another delay so soon after the first. But his first thought was of the heat. It became almost unbearably hot whenever he stopped completely.

The van blocked almost two-thirds of the road. There was a possibility that he could drive around. He put the truck into gear. He was about to inch forward when he saw a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked. A man was standing beside the road. Phillips swore when he saw what the man was holding. He thought, the fool. He must be crazy...

Travis squeezed the trigger on the submachine gun. The Army had spent hours teaching him that. But his aim was bad. The first bullets hammered against metal. He raised the barrel slightly. The sound the bullets made was deafeningly loud. They smashed the phony safety glass. They tore apart Phillips’ head, killing him instantly, before his brain could register the excrutiating pain.

While Travis still squeezed the trigger, White was on his feet, running headlong toward the rear of the armored car. His eyes were wide with terror. The sack was painfully heavy and it slammed against his knees. He stumbled ahead. The air was saturated with the smell of burned powder.

Stumbling, panting, White closed the distance between himself and the truck. He felt his heart beating faster. At one of the windows in the side of the truck a dark face appeared for a split second. He felt the impact of a bullet tearing through the fleshy part of his forearm. He made an incredible leap forward, sack held before him like a shield, kicking wildly with both legs until he was safely under the truck.

White lay there, pain stabbing savagely through his arm, listening. There was a sudden stillness. He raised his head and gazed along the ground. He saw Womack, framed between two long rows of tires, lying in a similar position under the big tractor.

“White!” Womack’s voice sounded choked with dust. “You hit?”

White did not answer right away. A strange lethargy prevented him from moving. He thought he heard scratching noises from inside the truck. He raised his head to listen. Blood was trickling down his arm. He felt weak and sick.

“White!” Travis was pinned behind the thin protection of the oil drums.

“Okay! Okay!” White answered impatiently. Slowly, he twisted his body, so that he was lying with his head toward the rear of the armored car. He took care of the emergency brake and the ignition cut-off. Then, gritting his teeth, he began to inch forward.

“White!” Travis’ voice was clattery. “We ain’t got all day!”

“You want to come out here and take care of it yourself?” White turned his head and spit. Just like that bastard! He cursed himself for a fool for having been talked into this part of the operation.

When he was almost directly beneath the rear bumper he took two half-inch steel bolts from his pocket and inserted them into freshly-bored holes in the truck frame. Then, with the door bolted closed, he went about the business of plugging the gun ports.

The metal bar was very ingenius. It was Travis’ idea. The two-inch metal plugs fit into a ratchet device at one end, allowing White to screw them into the gun ports while lying on his back on the ground, with only his head and arms sticking out from under the truck. Even partially exposed this way, he was perfectly safe, because the man in the truck could not fire directly down at the ground.

There was one gun port in the back, two on each side, five in all. The pain in White’s arm made the going slow. He had to stop several times. Once, while he lay there catching his breath, he heard the thud of bootheels on the metal directly above his head. Suddenly the terrible thought struck him that the man might be able to open a trap door in the floor and shoot him while he lay helplessly on his back. He ignored the pain and began to work faster.

When he finally crawled out from under the truck, Womack and Travis were waiting. The big double doors of the van were open. Travis looked at White’s shoulder and said, “Bad?”

“I don’t know. It hurts like hell.”

Womack ripped the sleeve of White’s shift and examined the wound. He said, “It’s not too serious. The bullet didn’t stay in. But you should do something to stop the bleeding.”

“Not now. Let’s get moving first.”

Without further words, Womack and Travis pulled out two heavily-constructed, steel-and-wood tire ramps from the back of the van. They were heavy and it took several minutes to get them into position. They had to be bolted to the frame of the van.

When the ramps were in position, White climbed into the front seat of the armored car. He had to move the body of the dead driver before he could get the truck into gear. He began to inch forward. Womack, standing inside the van, directed him with hand signals. In a matter of seconds, the car was inside.

White could not leave the front seat of the armored car without looking through the connecting window at the guard. It gave him a sudden chill. The guard, a surprisingly young-looking Mexican kid, was seated calmly on a seat that folded down from the wall. He was holding a sawed-off shotgun.

White looked into the man’s eyes. The expression he saw there made him clinch his teeth. It was as if the man were already dead.

While White stared, fascinated, the man raised the shotgun and fired it directly at White’s head. The sound it made was like a grenade going off. Shot rattled against the shatter-proof glass like birdseed.

Despite the pain in his arm, White threw back his head and laughed.

When he climbed down from the front seat of the armored car, the big van doors were closed, and the rig was moving.

17

From start to finish — from the instant Old Man Phillips brought the armored car to a halt to the instant Womack swung the rig onto Route 77 and began barreling west — the operation took nearly nineteen minutes. That was exactly nine minutes longer than Travis had estimated. And, in their race to get the money out of the area, nine minutes could spell the difference between success and failure.

By eleven-twenty a.m., the telephone lines between the bank, Army post and sheriff’s office had begun to overload. It was as if a bomb had landed on Mainstreet. There were frantic charges and countercharges, admonitions and threats, declarations and denials.

Then the general himself got on the phone.

“Is this the sheriff?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re in authority? I mean... this sort of thing falls under your jurisdiction?”

“Well, sir, it does until somebody tells me it don’t.”

“What does that mean?”

“The FBI will take over eventually. In the meantime... I reckon I’m in charge.”

“What’s your plan of action?”

“Plan?”

“What are you doing about the armored car?”

“We’re looking for it, General.”

“Now, see here, Sheriff.” There was a tone of annoyance in the general’s voice. “A truck that size can’t simply disappear. Not in the middle of the desert. The idea is preposterous.”

“That’s the way we look at it, General.” Wibber grinned into the telephone. “We’ve set up roadblocks on every road leading out of the county. They try to drive the money out... we’ll nab ’em.”

“You are of the opinion that the vehicle is still in the county?”

“That’s right. It has to be. Even if they took the money out of the truck, they’d need a car, or another truck to carry it. You can’t stuff that kind of cash in a lunch pail or a paper sack.”

“Obviously.”

“My guess is that they’ve hidden the armored ear out in the desert someplace... it’s a big desert... waiting for things to cool down so they can smuggle the money out a little at a time.”

“How about an airplane? Maybe they flew the money out—”

“Not a chance. We’ve checked with the airport and I’ve got a man out there now. Nothing’s taken off for the past hour and a half.”

“The bus station, then. Or the train—” The general was getting frantic.

“We’ve covered all that. Everything is under control. The only thing to do now is wait.” The sheriff belched, not bothering to take his mouth away from the telephone, and rubbed a hand over his stomach. “It’s like I said, General. They’ll lie low for a while... then try to skip the dough out a little at a time. Trickle it out. I know both of those security guards personally, General, and I know just how they’ll react. They won’t be able to sit tight for long. They’ll get restless and make their move in a day or two. And when they do... you’ll get your pay, General.”

“I’m not worried about my pay.” The words sounded as if they came through clinched teeth. “The Army has been robbed of a great deal of money. I want it returned. Now... what makes you think the security guards were responsible?”

“You mean, how do I know it was an inside job?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, now, General.” Wibber couldn’t surpress a chuckle. “It had to be an inside job... unless somebody figured out a way to steal a three ton armored car right off a crowded highway. And that ain’t possible.”

18

Route 77 is a good truck road, straight and flat, with only an occasional hill. Womack kept the rig rolling at sixty-five — five miles faster than called for in the plan — in order to make up time. A lot still depended on timing. Still, he fought down the urge to drive even faster. He couldn’t risk being stopped by a cop. Not now. Not with the load he was carrying.

He flicked a half-smoked cigarette through the window, reached in his pocket for some gum, while he fitted together in his mind the remaining segments of the plan. He raised no questions, made no guesses, made no attempt to evaluate their chances. He simply ran his finger down a mental checklist, his mind curiously numb.

Lila would be waiting with the Thunderbird in El Centro. According to the plan, she would meet them at a junction on the other side of town, then follow them along Highway 80 into the mountains. There was a road near Laguna that led to an abandoned logging camp. It was wide enough and straight enough to handle the big logging rigs. That’s where they planned to get rid of the armored car and divide the money.

Afterwards, they would go their separate ways — Lila and Sammy Travis to Los Angeles in the Thunderbird, Womack and White back to El Centro in the rig. And Wibber? Womack wondered about Wibber. Supposedly, when things cooled off, he would join Travis in LA to get his share...

That was Wibber’s problem.

Womack wasn’t sure that he heard the siren. Glancing into the rear-view mirror, he spotted the patrol car about a quarter of a mile back, red light flashing. He came as near to panicking then as he ever had. Every nerve told him to push the gas pedal to the floor. His hands tightened on the wheel. He knew that if he ran now it would be the end.

Gritting his teeth, he braked the rig gradually, pulled as far to the right as he could. The car was right behind him. It’s siren wailed. He pushed a button under the dash that activated a red warning light in the van.

Womack could see the faces of the troopers as the car rushed past. They were looking straight ahead. One of them had a rifle wedged stock-down between his legs. They were obviously hurrying to set up a roadblock somewhere ahead...

Womack reached for the button under the dash, flicked it twice, then resumed his normal speed. He concentrated on his driving. He didn’t want things to go wrong because of him. The plan was too good. Too perfect. There wasn’t a flaw in it. He looked at his watch again. Things were going off like clockwork.

Sweating, his face lined with concentration, Julio Silvera leaned close to the inside of the armored car, his ear a filter, sifting the faraway roar of the engine for a sound that might tell him something.

It was pitch dark in the hot cubicle, like the inside of an empty boiler, but he had managed to study the faces of the two men as they taped newspaper over the windows. He wouldn’t have to worry about recognizing them again. Their features were filed away in his brain. The problem now was staying alive...

With a frustrated sign, Julio groped his way back to the folding seat, and gave himself over to trying to work out a plan. His uniform was saturated with sweat. He couldn’t think clearly. The heat was beginning to fog his brain.

The interior of the van was lighted by two naked bulbs suspended from the ceiling at each end. They gave off only enough light for the two men to work by.

Bernie White crouched near the box of medical supplies. His face was twisted in pain. There was a bandage on his arm. Rolling up his sleeve, he jammed the hollow needle of a morphine surette into his arm at a point just above the bandage, then squeezed the morphine into his blood. In a few minutes the pain was completely gone and he was able to continue with what he had been doing.

He spent the next few minutes attaching a fifteen-foot length of garden hose to the exhaust of the armored car. He was thankful for the morphine in his system. It made this part of the job a little easier. Still, his fingers quivered in spite of his efforts to keep them still. He tried thinking about the money. Three quarters of a million dollars. He grinned. He was actually taking part in one of the biggest heists in criminal history. Hell... the Bulge was nothing compared to this.

And a lot of guys had to get killed at the Bulge, he rationalized. Besides, this part of the plan was Travis’ idea. He had to hand it to Travis. Travis was ruthless — without feeling, even — but he left nothing to chance.

At last White got the hose attached and passed the other end up to Travis who was stretched in a prone position on top of the armored car. There was only a foot and a half of space between the roof of the armored car and the top of the van — but Travis had been able to climb on top with amazing agility.

With aluminum foil and masking tape, Travis had sealed off the three air vents on top of the car. Poking a hole in one of the pieces of foil, he inserted the end of the hose, then he climbed back down.

“Okay, partner,” Travis said. “Turn ’er over.”

White looked very pale. He said, “You do it. My arm is killing me.”

“Sure. Sure.” Travis grinned acidly. “Remember. Just like the Bulge.”

Travis climbed into the front seat of the armored car, put his foot on the clutch pedal, shifted the transmission into neutral. Then he started the engine...

Julio felt rather than heard the engine start. He was trying desperately to think but the heat was making his head grow dizzy. Sweat trickled down his face. He opened his eyes wide but there was absolutely no light in the truck. A sudden fear rose in him. He had the feeling that it would always remain this dark for him. Frantically, he got to his feet and began groping around the truck.

Travis let the engine run for fifteen minutes, checking the hose connections frequently, careful to insure that none of the deadly carbon monoxide leaked into the van. The sound of the engine was low and steady. Once Travis thought he heard a faint moaning and catlike scratchings from the inside of the armored car. He pressed his ear against the warm metal. But there was no other sound.

At the end of the fifteen minutes, Travis climbed back into the cab of the armored car. Peeling the masking tape away from the connecting window, he flashed his light into the back. It illuminated what appeared to be a dozen canvas money sacks. Sprawled awkwardly on his face, as if he had been shot crawling under barbed wire, was the young Mexican kid. He didn’t even twitch.

Smiling thinly, Travis cut the engine, got out of the cab.

“Is he dead?” White asked.

“You try it in there for fifteen minutes.”

“The crazy bastard.”

“Eh?”

“Any guy takes a job hauling that kind of dough... he’s bound to get it sooner or later.”

“Sure.”

For the next ten minutes the two men used the acetylene torches on the heavy armor plating of the rear door. When they had sliced through the locking mechanism, Travis stepped to one side, removed the .45 automatic from the belt of his trousers. Pulling the action back, he eased a bullet into firing position.

White looked at him, thinking the bastard wouldn’t take a chance on a three-cent lottery.

Nevertheless, White opened the door slowly, as if he were entering a nursery and was afraid of disturbing a sleeping child. The current of foul air hit him in the face. For a moment he hesitated. He flashed his light inside, ran the beam over the canvas money sacks, held it on the dark oblong of the guard sprawled like a ragdoll.

Then a strange thing happened.

White blinked his eyes in terror.

The guard raised his head slowly from the floor.

There was nothing White could do. He stepped back a pace. The sight of the guard’s face, staring at him through grotesque eyes that were like flower blossoms, shocked him. He opened his mouth to express some half-formed thought but before he could speak the guard shot him in the chest. The second shot caught White in the jaw, abruptly closing his still-open mouth, but failing to stifle the scream that reverberated through the van.

Julio’s visibility was hampered by the flat eyepieces of the gasmask. It was the thing that cost him his life. He had to turn his head slightly to bring the gun to bear on Travis. Before he could fire again, before he could take aim, Travis shot him. The bullet went through the center of the gasmask, between the anonymous eyepieces, into the brain.

Silvera managed to fire one more shot. But he was already dead, the tightening of his finger a reflex, sending the bullet thudding into a money sack.

Travis pumped another bullet in, just to make sure, then stood looking down at White.

“I kept trying to tell you,” he said aloud. “Carelessness can mean the difference between living and dying. You should have listened. You should have paid attention to what I told you...” Then a startled expression came to Travis’ eyes. He coughed spasmodically.

20

Gradually, as she sat waiting in the Thunderbird at the junction of Route 77 and Highway 80, a lot of things came clear to Lila. Actually, her feelings had been crystalizing over the past few weeks. But it was during those precise moments, while she waited for the big van to appear over a low hill, that she realized with certain finality that everything was wrong. All of it. This impossible robbery, her life with Sammy, all of it wrong.

Before her, so deep that she could not see the bottom of it, was a black abyss. She could no longer ignore it. There was still time for her to turn her back, to walk away, but she knew now that she could no longer pretend that the blackness didn’t exist.

She looked for the twentieth time at her watch. It was an expensive watch, a gift from Sammy. She found herself absently counting the jewels in the band and she felt a sudden coldness in her chest and in her mind. It was so hopelessly ridiculous, so terribly idiotic, that for a moment she thought about starting the car and heading back for New York. Or she might go visit her mother in Biloxi.

Somehow the thought left a foul taste in her mouth. She had never cared for her mother and father and they had cared little about her. There would be nothing but unhappiness if she went home.

What then? She no longer fooled herself. It would always be the same with Sammy. The money, if they were successful, would change nothing. They would go right on living the same meaningless life, doing the same meaningless things, regulating their existence by the turn of a card or a senseless whim. And why? For love?

It was odd how her life had been shaped by incidents rather than true feelings. She had slept with Sammy because she liked his looks, had lived with him because she had nowhere else to live, had married him because marriage offered a solution to her problems.

Now, this way, she knew there could be no solution...

She was about to start the engine of the car when she suddenly saw the rig — its lights came on, went out, came on again — rumble past with a faint tap on the horn. Without realizing it, Lila sighed deeply, her mind curiously numb. Almost without thinking she moved the Thunderbird into the line of traffic.

The rig was almost a half mile ahead.

As she pressed down on the gas pedal, she had the momentary sensation that she was driving headlong over the side of a bottomless abyss.

21

It was nearly dark when Womack stopped the rig next to a ramshackle lumber shed in the logging camp. The dirt road continued on for about a hundred and fifty yards, sloping down sharply, ending at a big pond where they intended to get rid of the armored car.

According to Travis, the pond was about thirty feet deep. Womack got out of the tractor and walked down by the edge of the water. It was very muddy. A couple of ducks floated near a marsh on the far side.

Womack walked back up the slope. His shoes left dark pock marks in the wet dirt. They would have to be careful about that.

Before he got back to the rig, Lila drove into the clearing, parked the Thunderbird under the overhanging branches of a tall pine tree. The camp was surrounded by pines. They reminded him of the pines that grew around the CCC camps where he worked for a few years after leaving the reform school.

The big double doors of the van were still closed. Womack pounded on the metal with his fist. There was no sound from inside.

“Travis!”

Still no sound.

“White!”

Womack got the .45 from the tractor, pumped a shell into the chamber, and approached the doors. They had risen quite a few feet from the floor of the desert and there was a chill in the air.

Womack was aware of Lila standing beside him.

“What’s happened?” she said.

“I don’t know.”

“Why don’t they open the doors?”

“I don’t know.”

Standing there in the clearing, Womack was touched by fear, enveloped by it. But there was only one thing to do, and he did it.

As the doors opened, a stifling wave of carbon monoxide poured out. Coughing and chocking, they stared incredulously into the van. Then Lila screamed shrilly. The sound of it came down like a club on Womack’s head. He slapped her and the scream broke off in the middle, punctuated by the sudden, stifling silence.

They were dead — all of them: White, sprawled face down just inside the van; the young security guard, staring unblinkingly through blood-spattered goggles; the armored car driver; and Travis — entangled in the canvas money sacks he had been removing from the truck, his thin face twisted and blue.

“Go back to the car,” Womack said.

Without a word Lila turned and walked away over the blanket of pine needles.

Womack’s mind was suddenly alert. He would have to work fast. Climbing up into the van, he removed the remainder of the money sacks from the armored car, put the two bodies inside with the guard. When he jumped back to the ground there was a sticky mess on his fingers.

It took a full five minutes to back the van down to the edge of the pond. The slope was very muddy. Muck rose up over the rear wheels, but he continued backing slowly, until the van was actually part way out in the water.

He had to wade through water up to his knees in order to get inside the van again. The work wasn’t easy. But he managed. When the heavy planks were in position, they formed a ramp leading right down into the water. Starting the engine and shifting into reverse, he backed the armored car until the rear wheels were part way down the ramp. Then he pulled on the emergency brake and got out. He made sure the front wheels were straight. Then he opened the door, released the brake, and shut it quickly. The car rolled down into the water, descending very slowly at the last, but continuing down until it was finally out of sight.

Womack climbed back in the tractor and lit a cigarette. His fingers shook. He gritted his teeth. The worst of it was over. There would be deep tire tracks, on the slope, and he would have to be careful to smooth them away, but except for that he was finished.

He took a few drags on the cigarette and started the engine.

The rig wouldn’t move!

Again and again he tried to gain some traction on the muddy slope, but the tractor only sank deeper into the muck, as if something below the surface of the mud were trying to devour the rig.

Womack shut off the engine. His clothes were soaked. He shivered. He could feel nothing at all. The crowns of the pine trees made a scratching noise in the wind. After a while Womack got out of the rig abruptly and walked over to the Thunderbird.

Lila looked as if she might faint. She was very pale. He opened the door and got in beside her. For a while there was no sound but the swish of the trees. Then Womack said, “The rig is stuck. I can’t get it back up the slope.”

She didn’t answer. It was as if she hadn’t heard. She hesitated a moment and said, “Are you sure they were all...”

“Dead?” he said acidly.

“Yes.” He realized that it was the first time they had really spoken since that night in the cafe. “Both guards. And White. One of the guards shot him twice...”

“And Sammy?”

“Sammy, too.” He didn’t tell her how Sammy had died. He didn’t want to talk about it. He said, “What now?”

“I don’t know.”

“We could head north. San Francisco, maybe.”

“We?”

“Of course.”

She looked at him, amazed.

“Listen.” Womack’s mouth was grim. “We’re in this thing together. Until we get in the clear... if we ever do... we might as well stick together.”

“Why?”

He hesitated a moment. “Because I’d feel safer if you were with me.”

“You mean you don’t trust me.”

“I’d feel safer, that’s all.”

“And the money?”

“The money belongs to us now.”

“I want half.” There was a strange tone in her voice. She looked at him suspiciously.

“Are you crazy?”

“No.” Her mouth was grim when she answered. “The money is the only thing that matters to me now. I figure I’m entitled to half. I want it. Suddenly I want it more than anything in the world.”

Womack said hesitantly, “We can work that out later.”

“And in the meantime?”

“It’s like I told you.” He reached over and removed the keys from the ignition of the car. “In the meantime we stick together.”

Womack walked back to the rig. It was getting dark. He transferred the money from the sacks to several of the cardboard cartons that had contained food. It gave him a strange sensation to actually handle the money and he swallowed once from emotion.

Using his flashlight, he removed the registration papers and license plates from the rig and tossed them out into the center of the pond. With a hammer and chisel he mutilated what identifying marks he could find on the engine. He would never be able to prevent them from tracing the rig, he knew, but this way he might delay them for days — weeks maybe.

There were six cartons of money. Womack made six trips between the Thunderbird and the rig. By then it was completely dark. The silhouette of the pine trees emerged pitch black against a sky sprinkled with stars.

Womack removed two suitcases from the trunk of the car and put them on the back seat. It was very cold and he began to shiver. He put the money cartons in the trunk.

Lila was smoking quietly when Womack got into the car. He studied her face; in spite of the darkness he could make out her expression, and her calmness impressed him.

She said, “There are some clean khakis in the suitcase. You had better get out of those wet trousers.”

“I’ll stop at a filling station on the road.” He started the engine. “Right now I want to get out of this place.”

In the beam of the headlights, the rig looked like a giant ox stuck in a mudhole, waiting patiently to die.

Womack could not shake off the feeling of sadness as he spiraled down the mountain road to the highway.

22

The first thing they did was get rid of the Thunderbird. It was in Lila’s name — a gift from Sammy. They traded it for a three-year-old Ford and eleven hundred dollars cash. Actually, they needed the money. It would be a long while before they would want to touch any of the cash from the robbery.

The used car dealer helped Womack transfer the cartons of money. When he had loaded the last one in he wiped his fat, bespectacled face and said, “What are you carrying in there... bricks?”

“Yeah.” Womack smiled at him. “Bricks.”

The trunk wouldn’t close all of the way. They had put the suitcases in also. Womack waited while the salesman got a ball of heavy twine, then fastened the trunk lid securely, trying not to work too fast — trying not to give the impression of someone in hasty flight.

They gased up in town and had a quick meal. When they emerged from the cafe, Lila stopped abruptly, rummaged through her purse. When she had found what she wanted, she scrawled the words Just Married in cherry red lipstick on the door of the car. Then she repeated the message on the opposite side.

“There,” she said, smiling thinly, and returned the lipstick to her purse. “Who would ever think we were a couple of criminals?”

Womack looked at her, tried to read some other meaning in her eyes, discovered nothing.

Two hours later they turned onto Highway 101, headed north toward San Francisco. It was getting late and there was a slight fog. Womack could hear the ocean breaking on the beach to his left. The sound was like a drumbeat. He could feel his lips compressed to a taut line. His shoulders ached. He thought, relax. Get a grip on yourself. The worst is over. From now on in, things are going to be rosy as hell...

Lila stirred beside him. She had tried closing her eyes but whenever she did she saw the huddled figures on the floor of the van. The image frightened her. She had never before seen a dead man. She felt a sudden chill. She had put a coat on over the playsuit and she pulled the collar around her throat.

Deliberately, she looked at the man next to her, wondering at the events that had brought them together. They hadn’t spoken since leaving Riverside. She found that she wanted to talk. She said, “Do you know anyone in San Francisco?”

“No. It will be better if we don’t.”

“What will we do?”

“I don’t know.” He said nothing for several moments. Then: “Find someplace to live.”

“You take it for granted that I will live with you?”

“Why not?”

She looked at him silently. Then she said calmly, “If you don’t know why not, you’re a bastard.”

He remained silent, saying nothing.

She looked at him. It was almost as if Sammy were beside her. She wondered if all men were the same. Her mind concentrated on the men she had known — her father, the ugly years with him in the small, cluttered waterfront apartment. The few casual boy friends. Sammy.

There was a hollow, drawn feeling in her stomach. She searched for an explanation. When she could find none she began to cry softly.

Womack noticed her crying and said, “What’s the matter?”

“Can’t you see?” Her voice was distant. “I’m frightened.”

“Don’t worry.”

“I can’t help it.”

“Go ahead and cry, then. It’ll do you good.”

“They’re going to catch us.”

“That’s crazy.”

“No it’s not. We can’t possibly carry this much money around without being caught. Boxes of it. It’s so... unbelievable... somehow.”

“We’ll hide the money.”

“It won’t do any good,” she said tonelessly.

“Dammit! Knock it off. We’ve got no choice now.” His anger surfaced quickly and then subsided. He said quietly, “We’re both tired. We should stop for the night.”

They lapsed back into silence. The fog grew thicker. He could no longer make out the sand dunes to the left of the road. But he could still hear the ocean, and the wind had an odor of seaweed.

In Santa Barbara they looked for a place to stay. The first four motels were full. The fifth one had a room left and he registered as man and wife. It was a small room, but clean, with twin beds.

“It’s the only one they had,” he said when they were inside.

“Is it?”

Her sarcastic tone unsettled him.

He said, “I stopped because I thought you were tired. We can drive all night for all I care.”

She gave a forced laugh.

Angrily, he turned and went into the bathroom. When he returned, a few minutes later, the room was empty. The door stood open. He cursed savagely and ran outside, his face white as plaster, his head filled with one thought.

She sat waiting for him, the engine running, headlights cutting yellowly through the fog. He got inside and was slammed against the seat as she jerked the car forward. In a moment they were back on the highway.

“You could have driven off without me,” Womack said.

“I know.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I wanted you with me.”

Her voice sounded different. Her face, too, was different. He studied her face. It really was, he thought, remarkably beautiful. The passing headlights and the wind coming in through the open window played tricks in her hair. He wanted to touch it, to feel it against his face, and he discovered that it wasn’t just the money that made him glad she had waited.

He wondered if she had meant what she said. That she had wanted him with her...

Womack looked back at the road and saw the car. It came at them out of the fog. It wasn’t until the headlights were almost on top of them that he realized that Lila wasn’t in her own lane, that she was heading straight for the other car, so close that there was no time even to turn the wheel.

During the last few seconds, even as the darkness washed its black waves over and around him, the questions formed in his mind.

Was it an accident? Had she gotten confused in the fog?

Or was this the reason she had waited for him...

23

Later, the police estimated that nearly a thousand dollars had been picked up by the thrill-seekers who stopped to look at the wreckage. But the rest of it was recovered by an alert state trooper who found the cardboard cartons in a shallow gully about thirty feet from the point of impact.

The trooper — his name was Carter-locked the money into the trunk of the patrol car and radioed into headquarters. He was instructed to make a thorough search of the area.

Another patrol car pulled off the highway behind Carter. He knew the two troopers who emerged. He told them about the money as they moved down into the gully.

The Ford sedan lay on its side. Most of the people crowded around it. The front end was completely pushed in. The trunk lid had sprung open.

“Anyone alive?” one of the troopers asked.

Carter said, “The woman in the Ford keeps moving. We’ll have to wait for the wrecker so we can cut ’em loose.”

The trooper shone his light on the lipstick-scrawled writing. He whistled through his teeth.

“Poor bastards.” They heard a moan from inside the car. “But in a way it was a break for us.”

“Huh?”

They walked over to where an old-model pick-up truck lay on its back. The body of a man was pinned underneath. The body of another man lay under a blanket nearby.

Carter shone his light on the man under the truck. He wasn’t a man, really; just a kid, barely out of his teens. Carter said, “If it hadn’t been for the accident, we might never have caught them.”

“It don’t seem possible, somehow.”

“What doesn’t?”

“That a couple of juvenile delinquents could pull off one of the biggest heists of the century... and with a broken-down pick-up.”

They walked back up to wait for the wrecker.