The World in My Pocket

I

A little after eight o’clock the following morning, a black, dusty Buick Century slid to a standstill a few yards from the entrance to the Welling Armoured Truck Agency. On either side of the broad street were parked cars, left overnight, and the Buick immediately blended in the scene as just another parked car.

Morgan sat at the wheel, his greasy stained hat tilted over his nose, a cigarette hanging from his thin lips. Ed Bleck sat at his side.

The two men looked over at the high wooden gates of the Agency. There was nothing to see except barbed wire tangled on the top of each gate, a glittering brass knob that was the bell-pull and the big sign screwed to one of the doors on which was printed in bold red letters on a white background the following legend:

‘They seem to think a lot of themselves,’ Bleck said when he had read the sign. ‘Well, they’re due for a surprise.’

‘Or we are,’ Morgan said with his jeering grin.

‘I have a hunch we’re going to get away with this job,’ Bleck said. ‘This frill has really worked it out, hasn’t she?’

‘Yeah.’ Morgan took his cigarette from between his lips and stared at the glowing tip. ‘The plan’s right, but all depends on the way it’s carried out. There’re a number of weak links. Gypo bothers me. It’s crap for the girl to say we have all the time in the world to bust open the truck. We haven’t. Okay, we have a certain amount of time, but that’s all. Once they start searching for it, the heat will be on good, and the quicker we bust it, the safer for us it’s going to be. So Gypo will have to work under pressure. That’s something he’s never done. It’ll be nervy work. He could flip his lid.’

‘Then it’s up to us to see he doesn’t,’ Bleck said. ‘I’m not worrying about him.’ He glanced at Morgan, his pale eyes hard and restless. ‘The more I think about the setup the more obvious it becomes we’ll have to kill these two guys. If we don’t, they’ll have a description of us, and that could cook us.’

Morgan shrugged his shoulders.

‘Yeah, I know, but you don’t have to spread it around. The other two are jittery enough already.’

Bleck looked at him.

‘She isn’t.’

‘That’s a fact.’

‘Who is she, Frank?’

Morgan shrugged his shoulders.

‘I don’t know. She doesn’t belong to this town. It’s my bet she’s worked with some outfit before.’

‘That’s what I think.’ Bleck glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Know what? I don’t believe she worked this plan out herself. I don’t believe a kid of her age could dream up all the answers the way she claims to have done. It wouldn’t surprise me some mob has already worked on the job — a mob she was in with — and they either got cold feet or they’re going to pull the job and she’s stolen their plan and is trying to beat them to it. Maybe they wouldn’t give her a big enough cut. We’ve got to watch her, Frank. It wouldn’t do for another mob to move in at the same time as we do, and it wouldn’t do for them to beat us to it.’

‘Yeah.’ Morgan pushed his hat to the back of his head irritably and frowned. ‘I’ve thought of all that. We’ve got to take a chance. We can’t do it before Friday week, if then. There’s a lot to be done. How’s the time?’

‘Just on half-past eight.’

‘The bus is due then.’

‘Yeah.’

They looked down the road to the bus stop where a group of people were waiting.

‘She’s a sexy piece, isn’t she?’ Bleck said, staring through the windshield. ‘She’s got a shape on her like a roller coaster.’

Morgan stiffened. His flat, black eyes moved on to Bleck’s face.

‘Since you’ve dragged up the subject, let me tell you something,’ he said, his voice harsh. ‘This girl’s to be left strictly alone. There’s going to be no monkey business. She’ll be with us for a couple of weeks; probably longer. The way we’ll be living could make it tricky. She’s going to be right bang in the middle of us for twenty-four hours of the day. I don’t want any of you to get wrong ideas about her. No monkey business. Let’s get that straight from the start.’

Bleck lifted his eyebrows, a cynical expression on his handsome face.

‘Have you reserved her for yourself, Frank?’

Morgan shook his head.

‘No. I’m telling you: this is strictly business. This setup is much too important and the take much too big for us to have woman trouble as well. There’s going to be no monkey business and I mean that. Whoever tries to start something with her is going to walk into a belly load of trouble from me.’

Bleck met the cold, snake’s eyes and grinned a little uneasily.

‘Have you talked to Kitson? He’s the boy to watch. He was staring at her last night like a stricken bull.’

‘You all three want watching,’ Morgan said curtly. ‘You’re no plaster saint yourself nor is Gypo.’

A little gleam of anger appeared in Bleck’s eyes.

‘Did you polish your halo this morning, Frank?’

Morgan started an angry retort, but then stopped short as he saw the bus coming around the corner.

‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Keep your eyes skinned.’

Both men leaned forward to stare through the windshield.

The bus pulled up at the stop and two men got off. One of them was short and skinny; the other was around six foot tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted and he held himself stiffly upright. He was wearing the bluff blouse and slacks of the Welling Armoured Truck Agency’s uniform. Set squarely on his head was the peak cap with its glittering cap badge His shoes had been polished until they looked like patent leather, so too was his pistol belt and holster. He walked with a quick, springy step, and his movements were those of an athlete in training.

The two men in the Buick watched him pull the brass bell knob at the gate.

‘That him?’ Bleck asked.

‘Yeah.’ Morgan’s eyes were running over the man and what he saw gave him a little stab of uneasiness. ‘That’s Dirkson. Thomas will be on the next bus, coming the other way.’

‘He could be a sonofabitch,’ Bleck said, also not liking the look of the guard. ‘He’ll be as quick as a snake, and he’s got guts. Look at that chin!’

Dirkson had turned and was looking indifferently towards the parked Buick, not seeing it. He was around twenty-five or six. He couldn’t be called good-looking, but there was strength and character in his face that Morgan was quick to recognize.

‘She’ll have to kill him,’ Bleck said and he felt sudden damp patches under his arms. ‘Has she seen him yet?’

‘Yeah. She saw him yesterday. He doesn’t scare her. She says she can handle him.’

The gates had opened and Dirkson disappeared from sight, the gates closing behind him.

‘A fast, determined joker with a lot of guts,’ Bleck said soberly. ‘I guess Kitson was right. This guy isn’t going to cry quits, Frank. We’ll have to take him.’

‘That’s going to be your job. We can’t leave it to the girl. He’ll probably be much too fast for her,’ Morgan said, not looking at him. ‘I’ll take care of the driver. You’ll be out of sight with a rifle. When he leaves the truck, you’ve got to have him covered all the time. If he starts anything with the girl, you’ve got to kill him. Understand?’

Bleck felt his mouth turn dry but he nodded.

‘Sure. I’ll take care of him.’

‘Here comes the other bus,’ Morgan said. ‘Here comes my piece of meat.’

Thomas, the driver, was a tall, rangy man with a fiddle-shaped face, widely spaced, cold eyes, a jutting chin and a thin, tight mouth. He was immaculate as Dirkson had been and carried himself upright the way Dirkson had carried himself. He looked the older man: around thirty or thirty-three. He moved with an assurance that impressed Morgan, who screwed up his snake’s eyes, wrinkling his nose.

‘He’s another,’ he said in disgust. ‘They’ve certainly picked two bright boys to handle their truck, haven’t they? Both of them spell trouble. I’ll have to kill this beauty. I’m not kidding myself about that. He’s not going to quit.’

Bleck took off his hat and wiped his forehead. His heart was thumping unevenly.

‘If we queer this, Frank, we’ll be in a hell of a jam.’

‘The take’s a million dollars,’ Morgan said. ‘The way I see it is this: I’m forty-two. Fifteen years of my life have been spent in jail. The other years were just another kind of jail. The only thing in life that means a damn is money. Without money, you’re nothing. With money, you’re somebody. It’s as simple as that. Two hundred thousand bucks in my pocket means I’ll be alive. Without it, I might just as well be dead. So what? That’s the way I look at it. No one; no smart, tough guard is going to stop me getting my hands on that amount of dough. So okay, we slip up and we’re in a jam. That’s a fact. I’m not disputing it, but can’t you see we’re in a jam right now — all of us? Who cares if any of us is dead? Who cares if any of us is alive? Who cares about us anyway? But if each of us has two hundred thousand bucks in his pocket, then that’s another story. We suddenly become people and that’s what I’m going to become. That’s what you’re going to become too — right?’

Bleck put on his hat.

‘I feel that way too, but know what I think? I think Kitson and Gypo were influenced by the girl. I think they didn’t want her to think they hadn’t the guts to go through with this job. I think that’s why they voted with us.’

‘So long as they voted why should we worry?’ Morgan said.

‘Now, they’ve got to go through with it.’

‘If their nerve lasts.’

‘It has got to last.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ Bleck said and made a gesture. ‘If those two…’

‘If we get the truck,’ Morgan said, speaking slowly and distinctly, a threat in every word, ‘we’ll bust it open with or without the other two. You don’t imagine I’d get so far and then quit?’

Bleck nodded.

‘Okay. Then there’s another thing. Looks like we’ll have to raise at least two thousand bucks to finance this thing. That was something we didn’t go into last night. How do we raise the dough?’

‘We’ll have to do a job,’ Morgan said. ‘A small one, something that won’t get us into trouble. I’m thinking about it. With the big one ahead of us, I’ve got to watch it not to pick on something that’ll put the cops on our tails.’

Bleck sucked at his cigarette.

‘How about the filling station on Highway 10? The one on the left as you leave Dukas.’

‘Maybe,’ Morgan said. ‘It could be knocked over for two thousand, but I’d rather pick on something a little quieter, not on the highway. I was thinking of that all-night cafe on Maddox

Street. After the theatres it gets pretty full and the people who go there have money. We might pick up a lot more than two thousand if we have any luck. It would be a straightforward heist job. I’m working on it now.’

Bleck grimaced.

‘It could be rugged, Frank. I don’t like that kind of job. You never know if someone’s going to turn hero.’

‘It’ll be good training,’ Morgan said with a grim smile. ‘We know for sure these two will be heroes. We may as well get used to the idea. That cafe could be worth three grand if we’re lucky. Besides, we’ll take the girl along with us. I want to find out for sure if her nerve is as good as she makes out it is.’

‘Who else will be on the job?’

‘Kitson will handle the car. You and me will handle the heaters and the girl collects the dough.’

‘Gypo on the easy end of it again?’ Bleck asked with a sneer.

‘Look, Ed, you’re always making those cracks about Gypo. We don’t want him on a job like this. He’s our technical man. He’s no good on a caper like this and you know it. He is going to bust open the truck. No one else in this outfit can do it, so he’s going to be reserved for that job and that job alone. Get it?’

‘Oh, sure. One of these days I’ll learn to be a technical man myself,’ Bleck said shrugging. ‘Where are we going to get the caravan from?’

‘There’s a place that sells them at Marlow. As soon as we get the dough I’ll send Kitson and the girl there. Their story will be they’re going on honeymoon together.’

Bleck smiled.

‘Watch out Kitson doesn’t try to kid himself that’s what he is really going to do.’

‘Will you skip it?’ Morgan snarled. ‘We’ve enough on our plates without woman trouble. I’m telling you once and for all: there’s going to be no monkey business. Kitson’s the youngest of the four of us. It’s his job to act the husband, but that doesn’t mean a thing. If he thinks it does, then he has me to talk to.’

‘How about the frill?’ Bleck asked. ‘Have you consulted her on how she’s going to conduct her sex life?’

Morgan drew in a slow, deep breath.

‘I saw this coming,’ he said, his voice low and savage. ‘As soon as I saw her with that body of hers, I knew you three punks would try to reach for her. I told her: if she starts any monkey business, she’s out.’ His lips twisted into a hard smile. ‘It would have surprised you if you had seen her when I said that. Make no mistake about this: there’s only one thing in that baby’s life, and if s not sex. It’s money. Don’t kid yourself otherwise. Neither you nor Kitson nor Gypo are going to get anywhere with that girl. It’s money first and last with her. If Kitson tries to start trouble with her, he’s in for a shock. That goes for you and Gypo too. So get your mind adjusted. She says no monkey business. I say no monkey business, and that means no monkey business. Now do you get it?’

Bleck laughed.

‘Sure. It sounds to me there’s going to be no monkey business.’

Morgan put his cold, thin fingers around Bleck’s wrist and tightened his hold. Startled, Bleck looked quickly around and met the glittering black eyes.

‘I’m not fooling, Ed,’ Morgan said softly. ‘This is my big chance to break out of the prison that’s been my life. This is the big take. If you imagine you can queer my show because you’ve got hot pants for a twenty-year old girl, you have another thing coming. I’ll put a slug in your back if I think you’re going to foul up this job. Remember that. This is the once-in-a-life-time chance, and I’m not having it put on the skids because you or Gypo or Kitson gets a sex itch. Is that understood?’

Bleck’s smile was forced as he said, ‘What’s the matter with you, Frank? I was only fooling.’

Morgan leaned forward slightly. His tobacco-tainted breath fanned Bleck’s face.

‘You’d better be fooling.’

There was a long, tense pause as the two men stared at each other, then Bleck, making an effort to speak lightly, said, ‘Think this car can tow the caravan? It’ll be as heavy as hell.’

‘It’s got to tow it,’ Morgan said, relaxing back in his seat, his nicotine-stained fingers drumming on the steering wheel ‘There’re no really bad hills. The first half-hour will be the toughest. We’ve got to get as far away from the bottleneck as we can in that time. After that it’ll be easy. I want you to check this car, Ed, and I mean check it. If we have a breakdown when we have the truck, we’ll really be in trouble.’

‘Sure. I’ll give it a thorough check over. You can leave that to me. We’ll have to knock off a car for the girl. When do we do that?’

‘A couple of days before we do the job. You and Gypo will have to get new plates for it and Gypo must do a body spray job on it. We mustn’t take any chances of the car being spotted when she’s handling it.’

Bleck gave Morgan a sudden nudge as he saw the big wooden gates of the Armoured Truck Agency swing open.

‘Here it comes.’

Through the gateway came the armoured truck. They were seeing it for the first time, and both of them stared at it, photographing it in their minds.

Bleck was surprised to see how small it was. He had expected something much bigger. It was like a steel box on wheels, plus the driving cab. They could see Thomas and Dirkson through the windshield. Dirkson was sitting upright, looking ahead. Thomas had that easy stance of a born driver, his hands at two o’clock on the steering wheel. He edged the truck out into the flow of traffic as Morgan turned on the ignition of the Buick and moved it out into the traffic, two cars behind the truck.

‘I thought it was going to be bigger,’ Bleck said, trying to get a view of the rear of the truck, around the Lincoln that was in front of them. ‘It doesn’t look so tough.’

‘Yeah? Maybe it’s small, but don’t make any mistake about it not being tough,’ Morgan said.

He saw a gap in the traffic, touched the gas pedal and slid in front of the Lincoln. Ahead of him now was a low-slung sports car, and both men could get a clearer view of the rear of the truck.

Painted across the rear door was a sign that read: THE WELLING ARMOURED TRUCK SERVICE

You are looking at the safest truck ever invented.

If you have anything of value to transport, make use of us.

The safest and best trucking service in the world.

Bleck found he was breathing heavily as he stared at the truck that moved smoothly and fast through the morning’s traffic. It looked like a cube of solid steel on wheels. Instinctively he felt that this moving cube of steel not only offered a challenge to his future but also to his life.

‘On your right,’ Morgan said suddenly.

Bleck’s pale eyes swivelled to his right.

A traffic cop, sitting astride his motorcycle, had just started his engine and had steered his machine into the traffic.

‘Time we shoved off,’ Morgan said. ‘They’ll have this joker with them now until they leave town. If we hang on to them, he’ll want to know why.’

He swung the wheel and steered the Buick out of the flow of traffic and into a side street.

The last glimpse Bleck had of the truck was its steady movement forward with the speed cop riding at its side. He had a feeling of relief when he had lost sight of the truck.

Morgan slowed, swung to an empty parking space and pulled up.

‘Well, you’ve seen it now.’

‘Yes: a steel box. Seeing it doesn’t mean much. Did you get the exact time it left the Agency?’

‘Yes: eight forty-three.’ Morgan took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘Three hours from now, it should go through the bottleneck. I bet Gypo and Kitson are sweating it out there in this heat, waiting for them.’

‘Seeing the truck and the two guys brings the job to life,’ Ed said, shifting lower in his seat. ‘You’re right, Frank: this is the big one and it’s going to be tough.’

‘If we get the breaks, it’ll be okay,’ Morgan said. ‘We’ll take a look at that all-night cafe now. I want to see what the escape route’s like. We may have to leave fast. This is the one job, Ed, where we mustn’t make a mistake.’

‘This and the big one,’ Bleck said, half closing his eyes. ‘From now on — no mistakes, huh?’

Morgan nodded, then moved the car out of the parking space and headed up town.

II

A little after eleven-thirty a.m., Kitson and Gypo arrived at the bottleneck two miles from the entrance to the Research Station in Gypo’s battered Lincoln. Kitson was driving and because Gypo loathed walking, he stopped at the bottleneck to let Gypo out, and then drove on for a quarter of a mile to a wooded thicket where he could hide the car. Leaving the car out of sight from the road, he walked back to the bottleneck.

The sun was hot and blazed down on his unprotected head, and, pretty soon, he was sweating.

He was wearing an open neck, navy blue shirt, a pair of jeans and sneakers. He moved easily, swinging his big fists, his head up, his breath coming in sharp snorts through his broken nose. He welcomed the chance to stretch his long, powerful legs, and as he walked, he examined the terrain either side of the dusty, rain-parched road.

It was certainly rugged country, he thought as he strode along, kicking up the dust and hunching his shoulders, taking a pride in the way his muscles rolled under the sweat-soaked shirt. But there was plenty of cover, and this bottleneck was a cinch for a pile-up.

Coming upon the bottleneck, he paused to examine it.

The road sharply narrowed at this point, hemmed in by two gigantic rocks that had come down off the sloping hill either side of the road. Either side of these rocks were shrubs and scrubland, offering excellent cover.

Looking over the ground, he could see no sign of Gypo, although he knew he was right there watching him. The fact that Gypo was able to conceal himself so well bolstered Kitson’s sagging confidence a little.

He was scared of this job. He was sure that before Dirkson and Thomas gave up someone was going to get hurt. For the past six months, since he had quitted the ring, Kitson had been under Morgan’s influence. Morgan had been the only one who had stayed with him in his dressing room after his ignominious beating by a man half his size and seventeen pounds lighter, but whose fighting brain was much superior to his own. That was when Kitson’s manager had tossed two ten-dollar bills on the rubbing table and had told Kitson he was through. His manager had walked out and Morgan had walked in. Morgan had helped him dress and had led him, half blinded still and stunned from the beating he had taken, out of the Stadium to Morgan’s car. Morgan had even taken him home.

‘So you’re through with getting your brains bashed into a pulp,’ Morgan had said when Kitson was flat on his back on his bed in the sordid little room he called his home. ‘So what? You and me could work together, kid. I’ve seen the way you can handle a car. I’m getting together a small mob: boys who can do a job sweetly and quickly and make themselves some money. What do you say?’

At twenty-three, Kitson realized he had reached the bottom of his ladder of ambition. He had hoped to become the Heavyweight Champion of the World, but this beating told him, as nothing else could, that this was now a pipe dream and he was just one more fighter in the trash bin. He had twenty dollars in his pocket, no friends and his future looked bleak. Even at that he hesitated. He knew Morgan by reputation. He knew Morgan had served fifteen years in jail, that he was violent and dangerous. He knew that he was asking for trouble if he joined Morgan’s mob, but he was more scared of being left on his own, to try to make a future for himself than of being hooked up with Morgan, so he had thrown in with him.

The five jobs he had done with Morgan’s mob had earned him enough money to live fairly well. They were jobs without much risk: small and carefully planned, and he knew, if he had been caught, he would have had to serve only three to six months in jail as a first offender.

But he was intelligent enough to know that these jobs were merely a rehearsal for a big job. He knew enough about Morgan to realize that Morgan would never remain content to continue on such a small scale. Sooner or later, Morgan would plan a big job that would carry a twenty-year sentence, and Kitson would be involved.

While he had been trying to make a name for himself in the fight game, Kitson had worked as a driver for the Welling Armoured Truck Agency. He had lasted exactly ten days. The discipline of the Agency had defeated him. His shoes had never been as well polished as those of the other drivers. His driving had been just that shade more careless to earn him bad marks. His punctuality lagged behind. His shooting practice had made the instructor bitter and sarcastic. It came as no surprise to him when the foreman had given him his pay and told him not to come back.

But he had, in those ten days, learned enough about the Agency’s methods and their men to realize that Morgan was taking on a world-beater. It was as if he himself had had the audacity to get into the ring with Floyd Patterson. He might perhaps have a million to one chance of beating the champion, but the chance was so small as to be laughable.

He knew that neither Thomas nor Dirkson would quit, and that meant a gunfight. Someone would get killed. If he were caught, he faced a twenty-year sentence or the electric chair. He had made up his mind as soon as Morgan had outlined the plan not to touch it. Rather, he would walk out on the mob. He would have done exactly this if it hadn’t been for the copper-haired girl.

No girl had ever spoken to him nor looked at him as she had done. Up to the moment when he had faced her and seen the contempt in her eyes and realized her complete lack of fear of him, he had imagined that he had had power over women.

Granted, he did have some kind of animal power over the women who were the camp followers any fourth-rate boxer will find tagging along behind him, but this copperhead had shown him for the first time that the power he had been so proud of was strictly limited. She had made an impact on him that had badly shaken him, and now he was so acutely aware of her that he could think of little else.

So it was because of her, and only because of her that he was going ahead with this job. He knew he was moving into something that was too big for him, that could be his finish, but he hadn’t the moral courage to face her contempt. He stood looking around the scrubland that surrounded the bottleneck, but he failed to see Gypo.

‘Okay, so you’re good,’ he called. ‘Where are you?’

Gypo’s moon-shaped face appeared from behind two boulders, and he waved to Kitson.

‘Here, kid. Pretty good, huh? Me and the invisible man like this,’ and he held up two fingers pressed tightly together.

Kitson walked off the road and joined him.

‘This is some place for an ambush,’ he said, squatting down beside Gypo. He looked at his watch. ‘They should be along in twenty minutes if they’re going to have a fast run.’

Gypo stretched out on his back. Taking a splinter of wood from his pocket, he began to explore his teeth while he stared up at the brilliant blue of the sky.

‘See that sky, kid?’ he said. ‘It reminds me of my home town. No sky like it in the world.’

Kitson glanced at him. He liked Gypo. There was a kind, sympathetic streak in the fat man that made companionship with him worth having. Gypo wasn’t like Ed Bleck who was always boasting of his conquests with women, who was always ribbing people, picking on them and playing practical jokes. Ed was smart, and had plenty of nerve, but he wasn’t the man to go to if you were in trouble, whereas Gypo was. Gypo would lend you his last dollar with no questions asked, but you’d never get anything out of Bleck unless there was a string tied to it.

‘Where’s that, Gypo? Where’s your home town?’ Kitson asked, stretching out on his stomach and lifting his head so he had a clear view of the road.

‘Fiesole, near Florence in Italy,’ Gypo said, screwing up his small eyes and wrinkling his fat nose. ‘You been to Italy, kid?’

‘No.’

‘No country like it in the world,’ Gypo said with a heartfelt sigh. ‘I haven’t been there for twenty years. That’s too long. Know what I’m going to do when I get my share of this dough? I’m going out there. I’m going to take a first-class passage in the ship. I’m going to buy an Alfa Romeo as soon as I arrive, and then I’ll drive to Fiesole. That’s going to give my old ma a hell of a bang. I’m going to buy me a little villa on the hill that looks down on Florence. My old man died about ten years ago, but my ma will be there, waiting for me. I’ll get married and I’ll settle down and have a lot of kids. Money can fix anything. Like Frank said: we’ll have the world in our pockets. He’s right. That’s what I’ll have: the world in my pocket.’

Unless you get shot, Kitson thought. Unless the cops catch up with you before you get on that ship.

Gypo looked at him, rolling his head on his arm, grinning.

‘What are you going to do with your dough, kid? Thought about it yet? What are your plans?’

Listening to Gypo, Kitson thought, was like listening to a child talking.

‘I guess I’ll wait until I get it,’ he said. ‘It’s too early to make plans. Maybe we’ll never get it.’

Gypo pulled a face.

‘You know something, kid? Making plans is the nicest thing in anyone’s life. Maybe they don’t ever jell. Maybe something goes wrong and the plan goes pooh! But the fun is in making the plan. I like to look ahead and plan things. I’ve been doing it for years. Okay, I admit it: none of the plans I’ve made so far have jelled, but this one might. Two hundred thousand bucks! Think what you could do with all that money!’

Kitson shrugged his shoulders.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’ve thought about it, but we haven’t got it yet.’

‘I bet you’ll buy a big car,’ Gypo said, digging his fat fingers into the sandy soil and lifting a handful of it and letting it trickle through his fingers. ‘That right? I’ve never known another guy handle a car the way you do. You deserve a fast, big car, the way you drive, then you’ll find yourself a girl: a car and a girl, and maybe some sharp clothes.’ He shook his head, grinning. ‘What about this Ginny Gordon: some dish, huh? What did you think of her, kid? That shape, huh? I’ll tell you something: that’s the way the best Italian girls are built with that solid behind, the narrow waist and the water wings. I guess she’s a little young for me, otherwise I’d think about her, but she’s okay for you, kid. She and you would look right. You don’t have to worry about the way she acts. That’s just on the surface. When a woman has her build, she’s made for love. You could melt her down. All that hardness, those eyes of hers; it doesn’t mean a thing: it’s her heart you have to talk to.’

Kitson listened, feeling the hot sun burning down on the back of his neck. If anyone but Gypo had talked to him like this, he would have told them to shut up, but Gypo was different. Gypo said exactly what was in his mind, and thinking about what he had said, Kitson wondered about the girl. Maybe Gypo was right. Maybe she was made for love, but when he remembered the cold, impersonal sea-green eyes he doubted it.

‘Look, kid, you talk to me,’ Gypo said, his eyes closed and his moon-shaped face offered to the sun. ‘You tell me what’s in your mind. I’m interested in you. Maybe that strikes you as funny, but I mean it. Last night, after I had made up my mind to do this job, I thought about you. I knew you were like me. You didn’t want this job, did you? I didn’t either, then suddenly you said yes. Why did you do it, kid?’

Kitson wiped his face with the back of his hand. ‘Why did you, Gypo?’

‘There was something about that girl,’ Gypo said. ‘When she came into the room, looking the way she looked, and when she came out with her plan, I got a feeling of confidence. When Frank explained the job, I didn’t want anything to do with it. Then when that girl came in — I don’t know, somehow she made it seem possible. I suddenly realized what all that money could buy. I thought what a bang my ma would get to see me drive up in an Alfa Romeo and in a good suit — it sort of made all the things I’ve dreamed about jell.’

‘Yeah, there was something about her,’ Kitson said uneasily. ‘I felt the same way.’ He hadn’t the courage to admit to Gypo that he had voted with the rest of them because he was afraid of the girl’s contempt. He had no hope that this job would succeed. It was a bad one; too big for them; he was sure of that, and he felt a sudden surge of pity for Gypo because he was living out a dream: this was the one job they wouldn’t get away with.

‘It’s funny, isn’t it?’ Gypo said. ‘She’s only a kid, and yet there’s that thing about her,’ he broke off abruptly and lifted his head, his small black eyes suddenly alert.

Kitson stared at him.

‘What is it?’

‘I heard something,’ Gypo said. He was motionless, listening. ‘Something moved. It wouldn’t be a snake, kid?’

‘A snake? So what? A snake wouldn’t come near us,’ Kitson said irritably. He wanted to continue the conversation about the girl. She was the most important subject in the world to him.

‘This could be snake country,’ Gypo said. His fat squat body was rigid. ‘I’ll tell you something, kid. I’ve a horror of snakes. I thought I heard something move over there.’

Frowning, Kitson rolled over on his side and looked to where Gypo was pointing.

‘Forget it,’ he said, annoyed with Gypo for having broken the trend of the conversation. ‘No snake is going to get anywhere near you unless you bother it.’

‘My kid brother was killed by a snake,’ Gypo said, his voice tense. ‘He was lying just the way I am and this snake came from nowhere and bit him in the face. He died before I could get him home. He was around ten: imagine that: a lovely kid; fat like butter and as brown as a nut. This snake …’

‘For the love of Mike!’ Kitson broke in. ‘Why the hell should I want to hear about your brother? Okay, so he was bitten by a snake. It could happen to anyone. Let it lie, will you?’

Gypo lifted his head and looked at him reproachfully.

‘You wouldn’t talk like that if he had been your brother,’ he said. ‘It’s something I’ll never forget. It’s given me a horror of snakes.’

‘How the hell did we get talking about snakes?’ Kitson said. ‘We were talking about this girl, and then all of a sudden we have this crap about snakes and your brother.’

‘I thought I heard something.’

‘So okay, you heard something. So what? Get this snake crap out of your mind, will you?’

Gypo started to say something when he saw in the distance a cloud of dust. He put his hand on Kitson’s arm and pointed.

‘Think that’s them?’

Kitson stared down the long, twisting road and he felt a sudden cold lump of fear form at the back of his throat. Instinctively, he wedged his body closer into the ground, and he put out his hand, pressing Gypo down as he said in a whisper, ‘Yes: here they come!’

Both men remained motionless, watching the approaching truck.

It came at a surprising speed, scattering dust as it approached the bottleneck. Taking the bend, it was for a moment lost to sight, then it came around the bend, moving more slowly and more cautiously and Kitson glanced at his wristwatch, noting the time as the truck passed through the bottleneck.

They had a brief but impressive view of the driver and the guard as the truck swept past.

Gypo sat up, his eyes taking in as much of the truck as his brain could memorize.

They watched the truck turn the next bend and disappear in a cloud of dust, and then both men relaxed, looking at each other uneasily.

‘It looks tough,’ Gypo said and started to scratch under his armpit. ‘Did you see those two? Santa Maria! They look pretty tough too!’

Kitson had had a good view of both the driver and the guard as the truck had gone past. He knew these two men fairly intimately. He had warned Morgan about them, but now, seeing them sitting behind the windshield of the truck, he realized how formidable they were, and he had a cold clutch of fear when he thought that in a few days, he would be having a showdown with them.

‘What are you worrying about?’ he said as casually as he could. ‘You don’t have to tackle them. Okay, so they’re tough. What do you think we are — powder puffs, like she said?’

Gypo shook his head, his face uneasy.

‘Those two look mean to me. I’m glad I don’t have to tackle them.’

Kitson took out his notebook and wrote down the time the truck had passed through the bottleneck.

‘Who asked you to tackle them anyway?’ he said curtly. ‘Morgan and Bleck will take care of them.’

‘And the girl,’ Gypo said. ‘She has the toughest end of it. A girl like that. I keep thinking what she said about if he grabbed her gun she would shoot him. Do you think she meant it?’

Kitson had been thinking about that too and he had wondered about it. He could see the sea-green eyes, her tense expression and he grimaced.

‘I don’t know.’ He got up on to his knees and looked up and down the road. ‘Let’s get going. How do you feel about busting open that truck?’

‘Frank says I can have three to four weeks to work on it,’

Gypo said. ‘That’s a cinch. Give me the right tools and that amount of time and there’s nothing ever made that I couldn’t bust into. No matter how tough the job is, so long as you’ve got the time, you can fix it. Frank says three to four weeks. Okay, in that time, I’ll fix it.’

‘That’s what Frank says,’ Kitson said looking at Gypo, ‘but suppose something goes wrong; suppose the pressure’s on, how fast could you bust that truck, Gypo?’

Gypo’s fat face showed sudden uneasiness.

‘Why talk like that? Frank says three or four weeks. Okay, up to now Frank has been right, hasn’t he? That’s a tough truck. Even a guy like you with no experience of metal or locks can see that. It wants working at: slow, steady, with plenty of time. You couldn’t bust that one open fast.’

‘I’ll get the car,’ Kitson said. ‘You wait here.’

Gypo watched him go, his fat face worried.

Then he thought of the girl with her cold assured sea-green eyes, her arrogant stare as she had faced Kitson, and he felt more confident.

Why make too much fuss about this job? he thought, feeling the hot sun beating down on him. Frank had said it was all right and up to now, everything Frank had said was all right, had been all right. This girl had all the confidence in the world about the job. He wouldn’t have the dangerous end of the job to handle. His job was to bust open the truck, and Frank had promised him he would have from three to four weeks to work at it. Anyone who worked in metal and knew locks could get into anything, no matter how tough, in that time.

The Welling Armoured truck drove on towards the Rocket Research station. Neither the driver nor the guard was aware that they had been timed and scrutinized.

They continued on their way, leaving a cloud of white dust behind them.