Later on they’d driven up to the place in the Catskills, the farm that belonged to one of Jake’s “Mr. Smiths,” and Jake had taken the machine gun out of the case and had let Dommie get familiar with it. Dommie had shot off one clip, and right away he knew what Jake had been talking about. He’d had to be satisfied with the single clip as Jake didn’t want to take any chances on creating curiosity and attracting attention.
Dommie was finishing his drink when Jake walked into the tavern. Jake didn’t look at either of them, but went at once to the men’s room. Vince turned away from the juke box and went out and climbed into the rear of the Ford sedan standing at the curb a couple of doors down the street. The parking lights were on and the engine was idling.
Dommie got in a moment later, sitting in the front, and then Jake was back behind the steering wheel and they were pulling away from the curb.
“Any trouble about the car?” Vince asked, leaning forward as Jake swung into Northern Boulevard and headed east down the island and away from Corona.
“None. Don’t talk.”
He’s touchy, Vince thought. Edgy. Well, he couldn’t blame him. They were all edgy. Hell, who wouldn’t be, starting out on a caper like this?
It is an ironic coincidence that at this very moment, the moment Jake Riddle, driving east on Long Island, ordered Vince not to talk, Gerald Hanna should have pushed his hand into the discard, yawned widely and said, “There’s too much talk.”
Gerald leaned back in his chair and looking a little bored and a little amused, shrugged his shoulders and continued.
“I think I’ll just call it quits for the night and take off,” he said. “Have to be up early, you know. I’m about even and I should be getting…”
They didn’t give him a chance to finish.
“It’s early, kid,” Herb Potter said. “You can’t quit now. We need you. Stick it out for another hour. You’ll bust up the game if you leave now. Come on boy, just another hour.”
Gerald sighed as the others joined in with Potter, urging him to stay.
Well, what the hell. He might just as well hang on for a little longer. It really didn’t matter too much. The game bored him, but so did everything else. Even the idea of leaving and going home and getting the sleep which he wanted and needed, bored him.
“O.K,” he said. “O.K, deal ’em out, boy. If you insist on making me a rich man, what can I do about it?” Gerald laughed and pushed his ante toward the center of the table.
“I guess you’re right. It really doesn’t make any difference if I leave now or I leave later.”
He couldn’t, of course, have been more wrong. It made all the difference in the world and to a great many persons, none of whom, with the exception of Maryjane Swiftwater, Gerald’s fiancee, he had ever met or even suspected existed.
Jake drove at a reasonable speed, careful about stoplights and signs. He tried to concentrate on his driving and think of nothing else, but it was impossible to devote his entire attention to the road, methodically unfolding in front of his headlights. His mind kept going back to Sammy.
My God, Jake thought, in another few years Sammy would be as old as that punk in the back seat. In less than six months the boy would be having his bar mizvah, and then, if time went as fast as it had been going these last few years, before he knew it, the boy would be a man. A man in body and in heart and in mind.
Well, there was one thing for sure. Sammy wasn’t going to turn out like young Dunne, or like Dommie, sitting here beside him. Sammy was going to keep on going to school. To high school and then to college and after that, by God, if he wanted to be a doctor or something, he could still go on learning. Jake was going to make sure of that, if it was the last thing he ever did. Sammy wasn’t going to end up like these other kids. He was going to learn something, going to be a gentleman.
Sammy was his and Belle’s son, their only child. But it wasn’t even that which mattered. If they’d have had ten kids, he’d have felt the same way about it. They would all have the same opportunities, all be brought up right. To have respect for their parents and to be good, decent members of society.
Yeah, if he, Jake Riddle, had to knock off a hundred jewelry stores, if he had to rob and murder or anything else, his kid was going to have the best. Sammy deserved the best. He was a fine boy; a good boy. Smart. A damned sight smarter than his old man, sitting here driving a hot car on a hotter job.
They arrived in Manhasset in just under thirty minutes. The movie theater was in the center of the block, on the right-hand side of the street and someone had just cut out the marquee lights as the last show was already underway and the box office had been closed for the night.
The theater was a segment in a series of buildings recently constructed and the builder, fully conversant with both modern design and modern necessity, had arranged so that a large area in back of the structures could be devoted to a parking area. An alley leading into this parking lot lay between the theater itself and the block of stores next to it on the eastern side. Jake held out his hand and signaled before making the turn and swinging the car down the long ramp.
The lot was still pretty well filled with cars of theater patrons and they found a place to park near the back fence, between a Caddie and a Pontiac station wagon.
Jake cut out the lights and the three of them got out. They left everything in the car. Jake checked to be sure that the right key was on the ring, and then locked the doors after winding up the windows.
A man and a woman were getting into a car in the next aisle and they waited a moment or two, until the man had started his motor and pulled away. Then they walked quickly to the rear of the theater.
Candy was there, where he’d promised to be, next to the door with the dim, red-lighted EXIT sign over it. He was in his uniform and he looked like a frail, black ghost. He was looking down at the luminous dial of his wrist watch and his voice was a thin, nervous whisper.
“O.K,” he said. “O.K, snap it up. I been here too long already. They’ll be wondering up front.”
He stepped aside and they quickly entered. Candy closed the door after them and locked it and then brushed past them, leading the way down the long hall and to the stairs. He went down first, muttering a whispered warning that they watch their step.
He didn’t wait once they were in the tiny, unused dressing room, a throwback to the mistaken idea of the ex-manager who had hoped to put on amateur nights.
“No noise,” he said, “an’ don’t smoke. No lights.”
He flicked on a cigarette lighter giving them time to find the folding chairs and seat themselves and then stole out of the room like a soft breath of wind.
None of them spoke. They sat there, each silent and buried in his own thoughts.
At least I’ve told the truth up to this point, was the thought going through Vince Dunne’s mind. He smiled secretly to himself. He’d told” Sue he was going to the movies and he was in the movies. It would be a little tricky, later on, after he got his cut, but he’d figure out something. Give her a song and dance about a job and so be able to account for the money he’d have. But he’d have to be awfully damned careful about it. He was still on parole; a ward of the state until his twenty-first birthday. So-he’d just be careful, that was all.
He began then to think about the next couple of hours and in spite of himself, he could feel the sweat coming out on his forehead. It was going to be big time all right.
Dommie was thinking about girls. He didn’t want to think about what they were going to do. He’d been in on other jobs before, but nothing quite like this. Nothing in the real money. It was new to him and he wasn’t at all sure of himself, but he didn’t have any real worries about it. He knew that everything was planned down to the last detail. Knew that Jake, and that other one, the real big guy, had everything laid out.