The Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 20 Classic Mysteries!

False Start

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, October 1964.

In our suite at the Diamond Shores on Miami Beach, Gervasi packed the money, two hundred thousand dollars of it, in an innocent-looking overnight case.

He snapped the case closed and lighted a cigar. Trim and excellently tailored, his careful Florida tan contrasting with the snow white hair, Gervasi looked like the titular head of a very wealthy old family.

He handed me the overnight case. “Call me immediately from Dallas, Nick.”

“It goes without saying,” I said. I paused at the mirror to adjust my necktie as Gervasi and I strolled toward the door. I had an excellent tan of my own. The face in the mirror was clean-cut with friendly eyes of brown. If Gervasi looked like the titular head, I gave the appearance of the bright young scion who would one day traditionally fill his shoes. Actually, there was no blood relationship between us. Merely the relationship in business, in the similarity of desire to have the best in life that big money can buy. Perhaps this was the strongest kind, after all.

Gervasi opened the door, laying his other hand on my shoulder. “Have a good trip, Nick.”

“Thanks. I will.”

I crossed to the elevator and rode down to the plush lobby. Through the tall glass doors I saw my car pulling up under the outside canopy.

Johnny, the bellhop, leaped out of the car and held the door for me when I came out. He’d already brought my twin suitcases down and stowed them in the car trunk.

He glanced at the overnight case in my hand. “Would you like that in the trunk also, Mr. Ramey?”

“You needn’t bother.”

I handed him a dollar, and he thanked me with a short bow. I got in the car and Johnny closed the door gently but firmly. He stepped clear of the car, just a hotel fixture, like the plumbing.

The morning was a monotony of endless miles of flat terrain. I was impatient to get through with the Texas trip and back to Miami for the opening races at Gulfstream. But I kept my foot lightly on the accelerator, never exceeding the speed limit. I certainly didn’t want a nosy, rube cop stopping me.

Shortly after mid-day, I drove into a sun-baked town in central Florida which offered no likely place to have lunch, so I continued driving.

On the northern outskirts, I saw a fresh, new motel with spacious, landscaped grounds, swimming pool and restaurant. I turned in and found a spot in the crowded parking area near the restaurant. I guessed that this was the favorite eating place for the local business gentry.

I carried the overnight case inside. With the case securely wedged between me and a wall of the booth, I lunched on an excellent shrimp creole.

With the overnight case firmly in my grip, I paid the check, went out of the restaurant, and moved the short distance to my car. With my free hand, I was reaching in my pocket for the car keys when a hard object jabbed me unpleasantly in the back. It felt exactly like the business end of a gun barrel, an item with which I’d had previous experience.

“Easy! I’m not resisting,” I said with dry-throated candor. My gaze flicked to the surrounding cars. All were empty, their occupants inside eating, talking insurance and real estate and fishing and bird hunting.

“How about we use my car, Mr. Ramey?” the man behind me said.

The voice was vaguely familiar. I turned my head slowly, looking over my shoulder. I saw — really saw — the face of Johnny, the bellhop, for the first time. It wasn’t a bad-looking face at all, even features, dark hair growing to a slight widow’s peak over a high forehead. But the dark eyes were too calm, too quietly determined to quench the acid of alarm that was stinging through me. The face reminded me a great deal of my own.

The eyes went a shade colder. He was carrying the gun in his jacket pocket. He nudged me with it “This way, Mr. Ramey.”

The primary moment of nauseating surprise had passed. The eruptions of the shrimp creole became less violent. I made a casual move to drop the overnight case into my car.

He laughed thinly. “No, Mr. Ramey. We’ll take the case along — and keep the other hand in the pants pocket until the gun is safely out of the shoulder holster.”

“All right, Johnny,” I said pleasantly. “We’ll do it your way, for the moment.”

“I won’t need many moments, Mr. Ramey.”

“You may not have many,” I reminded him.

Herding me toward a five-year-old Ford a short distance away, he said, “I’ve thought about it, waited for it a long time. I’m willing to take the gamble. It’s a big country. I can lose myself easily.”

He reached cautiously around my body, lifted my gun. A prod from his weapon forced me into the car on the right-hand side.

“Now slide across the seat,” he instructed. “You’ll drive, while I have a look at the case.”

I started the car. It was as clean inside as a new one. The engine hummed with vibrant, leashed power. It was evident the car had received meticulous care from hands with an aptitude for mechanics.

“Drive north,” he said, resting the overnight case on his knees, while he held his gun steadily on me.

I eased the car onto the highway. Traffic northward on the two-lane macadam was just about nonexistent. Insects hummed over the palmetto fields. In the distance, tall pines and cypress stood lonely and gaunt against the backdrop of glaring, tropical sky.

“I assume,” I said, “that you located me simply by following me.”

“Right,” he said. “I had the horse waiting near the employees’ entrance at the Diamond Shores. All I had to do was fall in behind you.”

“Maybe you were spotted.”

“You kidding?” he laughed. “Who sees the coming and going of a bellhop? It’ll take awhile for even the bell captain to realize I’m not around the hotel. You know, it was good of you to drive sensibly this morning.”

“Watchfully, too, Johnny,” I said on a hollow note.

“Sure,” he grinned, “but not for an old car that showed behind you a time or two. Guess you figured it was a farmer’s car.”

My reply was a bleak silence. The truth is, I hadn’t noticed the old Ford at all. Nobody who was questionable to Gervasi and me in Miami, or anyplace else, drove an old Ford.

“Don’t let it get you down, Mr. Ramey,” Johnny said in enjoyment “We all make mistakes now and then.”

“A good point for you to remember, Johnny.”

“Thanks, I will. But up to now I haven’t made any. I had plenty of time to change from the monkey suit in the back seat of the car, while you were having lunch. It was really simple. I just sat on the rear bumper of the car next to yours and rested until you came out.”

“It will get less simple, Johnny.”

“Oh, sure.” He patted an imitation yawn.

My hands were in hard knots on the wheel. A drop of sweat crept into the corner of my eye and began stinging and making me blink. “Johnny, you’re very young to start out like this.”

“Younger the better.”

“You ought to think of the years ahead.”

“Now you dig, pops,” he said warmly. “Now you’re getting with it I’ve thought of nothing else for a long time.”

“You’re a nice, clean-cut young man, Johnny, with a future. Unless you...”

“This?” he said in mock horror. “This? Coming from you?”

“Why not from me, Johnny?”

“Oh, nuts!” he said, slouching slightly against the car door. “Now don’t start boring me.”

“What do you think you know about me, Johnny?”

“I don’t think. I know. I know that I know! Most all of us know.”

“Most all of us, Johnny?”

“You wouldn’t dig. You’ve never been a hotel employee. We’re not quite real people. Never really there. You know? Like unseen hands keeping a big, luxury palace afloat. Like spooks with a world all our own, the bellhops, cooks, waitresses, linen women, maids, maintenance men. We eat together, talk together, party together, live together. We got bitter enemies and bosom pals in our own ranks. You know?”

“I don’t think I ever really thought anything about it, Johnny.”

“Who does?” he asked. He was silent a moment; then he laughed softly. “Sometimes we know more about you than you know yourselves. Waitresses overhear those bitter, whispered arguments of elegant people at dinner. A switchboard girl knows the origin of a secret phone call. A swimming pool attendant knows why a wife swims every afternoon while her husband is looking after his stocks. A bellhop delivers hangover medicine or more liquor to a falling-down, talkative drunk. Now do you know, Mr. Ramey?”

My vision reddened slightly. Gervasi and I were going to take a certain hotel apart, if and when I got back.

“How did you find out what’s in the overnight case, Johnny?” I asked thickly.

“I don’t know. Not yet.”

I gave him a quick frown.

He returned a smile. “I know about you and Mr. Gervasi,” he said. “I know about the phone calls to certain people in Dallas. I know you’ve hung onto the case like you were a bleeder and it held your spare blood. Finally, I know that you, personally, Gervasi’s top dog, are making the trip. It all adds up to something very big. Big enough for me.”

“I have to admire your nerve,” I admitted, although with reticence.

“Not nerve,” he shook his head slowly. “I’m not so long on nerve. Just hungry, Mr. Ramey. I ache with the hunger. I wake up at night thinking about it I just can’t live with it any longer. I’m hungry, Mr. Ramey, for a place in that world I and the other spooks help keep afloat.”

“And you think the case is full of bread?”

“I’m absolutely sure of it,” he said. “Bread in one form or another. Bread I’ll never again have the chance to pick up so easy. What is it Mr. Ramey? Drugs? Hot jewels? Dough for a big gamble that’s been rigged? How about the key?” He snapped his fingers. “Give me the key, Mr. Ramey.”

“I don’t have a key, Johnny. Gervasi has one. There is another in Dallas.”

“Okay,” he said. “That makes sense. So I’ll have to blow the lock with the gun.”

“Johnny, there’s two hundred thousand in that case.”

His face went blank for an instant. Then a laugh of pleased surprise ripped out of him. “Even better than I thought!”

“Johnny...”

“Oh, no!” he said. “No deals. You’re not buying me off with peanuts. I’m a pig, Mr. Ramey. And my risk is no greater if I take it all.”

“We’ll hunt you down, Johnny.”

“Where? Hong Kong? Paris? Rome? Rio? Don’t talk crazy and spoil the picture I’ve always had of you, Mr. Ramey.”

“There is something I must say...”

“Please, please,” he gestured with his hand. “You’re spoiling that picture of a man who set his sights and never let anything stand in his way. Why, Mr. Ramey, you’ve been my idol, my inspiration! I wouldn’t think of harming you, unless you forced me. I’m not dumb enough to kill somebody and get the cops after me. After all, their organization is a little bigger than yours. They make it tougher for a man to hide.”

“When you take the money at the point of a gun...”

“When I take the money,” he said, “I’m damned sure you and Gervasi won’t go to any cops. If your deal was honest you wouldn’t be taking the risk of transporting the money this way.”

“You got it all figured, Johnny.”

“I sure have. And we’ve talked more than plenty. I want to open the case. I want the fine, slick feel of the money against my fingers. I want to go someplace private and count it a couple dozen times before I start spending it.”

He held the overnight case as if he were hugging it. “There’s a side road turning into those pines up ahead,” he said, giving the road a long look. “Take it.”

“Johnny...”

“One more peep, Mr. Ramey, and I’m going to start not liking you.”

I slowed the car, turned the wheel. The shadow of the swaying, scraggly pines sent a shiver down my spine. We were on a sandy, rutted trail that led toward the distant swamplands, a little-used logging road. The narrow state highway fell behind. Now it was hidden from us by the piney woods. The world became very desolate, as if it were empty, deserted except for the two of us.

His breathing was thinning out, beginning to rasp slightly. “Stop the car, Mr. Ramey.”

I braked, opened the door. He let the overnight case slide to the floor and moved across the seat behind me.

I timed the passing seconds with the sensitivity of raw nerves. There was a rustle of clothing as the gun came down, aiming at the back of my head.

I slipped to one side, lashing out with my foot, and dropping to the sandy carpeting of pine needles.

A meaningless sound caught in his throat. My heel had caught his kneecap. He thudded against the car.

Spinning and lunging toward him beneath the gun, I glimpsed his pain-contorted face. He forced the throbbing knee to support him, shifted his position, and the gun was swinging down again.

I slammed into his middle, grabbing for his wrist. I had it momentarily, but he was sweating. He slipped loose as we fell.

I tried to turn on him a second time. I had lost the advantage of surprise. He took a side step. A fresh look of viciousness was in his face. Halfway to my feet, I suddenly covered my head with my arms. The impact of the gun barrel made my right elbow feel as if it had dissolved.

I stumbled backward, concerned only with defense now. He danced in and out, in and out. The third or fourth blow with the gun knocked me cold. I’m not sure which. Johnny had ample time for a clean getaway.

I suppose an hour or more passed. The fog began to clear. I rolled over on the pine needles and sat up. The trees around me did a dizzy dance. I groaned, and cradled my throbbing elbow, lowered my aching head, and finally tried to brush away the swarm of sweat bees that made life right then even more hellish.

Another thirty minutes passed before I staggered onto the highway. I looked up and down the road, aching for the sight of a car, or a farmer in a truck. The road was devoid of all movement, except for the shimmering heat waves that made the road look like black water in the distance.

I started walking. A southbound car passed at last, but swooped by without even slowing for my frantic, waggling thumb.

I was on the point of passing out again when I reached the motel. I needed a doctor, but that could wait.

In an outside phone booth. I placed a call to Gervasi. He wasn’t in his room. I guessed a faceless bellhop had to page him.

His cultured tones reached me at last, “Gervasi speaking.”

“Nick Ramey here.”

He took a breath. “You couldn’t be anywhere near Dallas yet. What went wrong?”

“I lost the stuff.”

He let the breath out. “Are you — confined?”

“No.”

“Can you return under your own power?”

“Yes,” I answered him bereftly.

“Then it wasn’t the police?”

“No, Gervasi. It was a punk bellhop who followed me from the hotel.”

“A what?”

“Look,” I groaned, “I’m nearly dead. I’ll give you the details later. He got the money. He got away. I did the best I could, and I won’t apologize.”

He gave himself a moment for it to sink in. When he spoke again, his voice was less strident “I know you always do your best, Nick. Did he take the car?”

I looked across the motel parking lot where my car was still parked. “No, just the money. All of it. He didn’t give me a chance to tell him, either. He kept shutting me up.”

“Then you’d better get back here as fast as you can, Nick.”

“You don’t have to tell me.” I was practically weeping. “Better start winding up things right now. That bellhop is going to have Federal men like a dog has fleas, when he hits the first bright spot and starts scattering two hundred grand of counterfeit dough...”