Luders smiled faintly. «You put all the stuff in the car, Charlie?»
«One more suitcase coming right up,» Charlie said.
«Better take it on out, and start the engine, Charlie.»
«Listen, it won’t work, Luders,» Barron said urgently. «I got a man back in the woods with a deer rifle. It’s bright moonlight. You got a fair weapon there, but you got no more chance against a deer rifle than Evans and me got against you. You’ll never get out of here unless we go with you. He seen us come in here and how we come. He’ll give us twenty minutes. Then he’ll send for some boys to dynamite you out. Them were my orders.»
Luders said quietly: «This work is very difficult. Even we Germans find it difficult. I am tired. I made a bad mistake. I used a man who was a fool, who did a foolish thing, and then he killed a man because he had done it and the man knew he had done it. But it was my mistake also. I shall not be forgiven. My life is no longer of great importance. Take the suitcase to the car, Charlie.»
Charlie moved swiftly towards him. «Not liking, no,» he said sharply. «That damn heavy suitcase. Man with rifle shooting. To hell.»
Luders smiled slowly. «That’s all a lot of nonsense, Charlie. If they had men with them, they would have been here long ago. That is why I let these men talk. To see if they were alone. They are alone. Go, Charlie.»
Charlie said hissingly: «I going, but I still not liking.»
He went over to the corner and hefted the suitcase that stood there. He could hardly carry it. He moved slowly to the door and put the suitcase down and sighed. He opened the door a crack and looked out. «Not see anybody,» he said. «Maybe all lies, too.»
Luders said musingly: «I should have killed the dog and the woman too. I was weak. The man Kurt, what of him?»
«Never heard of him,» I said. «Where was he?’
Luders stared at me. «Get up on your feet, both of you.»
I got up. An icicle was crawling around on my back. Barron got up. His face was gray. The whitening hair at the side of his head glistened with sweat. There was sweat all over his face, but his jaws went on chewing.
He said softly: «How much you get for this job, son?»
I said thickly: «A hundred bucks but I spent some of it.»
Barron said in the same soft tone: «I been married forty years. They pay me eighty dollars a month, house and firewood. It ain’t enough. By gum, I ought to get a hundred.» He grinned wryly and spat and looked at Luders. «To hell with you, you Nazi bastard,» he said.
Luders lifted the machine gun slowly and his lips drew back over his teeth. His breath made a hissing noise. Then very slowly he laid the gun down and reached inside his coat. He took out a Luger and moved the safety catch with his thumb. He shifted the gun to his left hand and stood looking at us quietly. Very slowly his face drained of all expression and became a dead gray mask. He lifted the gun, and at the same time he lifted his right arm stiffly above shoulder height. The arm was as rigid as a rod.
«Heil Hitler!» he said sharply.
He turned the gun quickly, put the muzzle in his mouth and fired.
FOURTEEN
The Jap screamed and streaked out of the door. Barron and I lunged hard across the table. We got our guns. Blood fell on the back of my hand and then Luders crumpled slowly against the wall.
Barron was already out of the door. When I got out behind him, I saw that the little Jap was running hard down the hill towards a clump of brush.
Barron steadied himself, brought the Colt up, then lowered it again.
«He ain’t far enough,» he said. «I always give a man forty yards.»
He raised the big Colt again and turned his body a little and, as the gun reached firing position, it moved very slowly and Barron’s head went down a little until his arm and shoulder and right eye were all in a line.
He stayed like that, perfectly rigid for a long moment, then the gun roared and jumped back in his hand and a lean thread of smoke showed faint in the moonlight and disappeared.
The Jap kept on running. Barron lowered his Colt and watched him plunge into a clump of brush.
«Hell,» he said. «I missed him.» He looked at me quickly and looked away again. «But he won’t get nowhere. Ain’t got nothing to get with. Them little legs of his ain’t hardly long enough to jump him over a pine cone.»
«He had a gun,» I said. «Under his left arm.»
Barron shook his head. «Nope. I noticed the holster was empty. I figure Luders got it away from him. I figure Luders meant to shoot him before he left.»
Car lights showed in the distance, coming dustily along the road.
«What made Luders go soft?»
«I figure his pride was hurt,» Barron said thoughtfully. «A big organizer like him gettin’ hisself all balled to hell by a couple of little fellows like us.»
We went around the end of the refrigerator car. A big new coupé was parked there. Barron marched over to it and opened the door. The car on the road was near now. It turned off and its headlights raked the big coupé. Barron stared into the car for a moment, then slammed the door viciously and spat on the ground.
«Caddy V-12,» he said. «Red leather cushions and suitcases in the back.» He reached in again and snapped on the dashlight «What time is it?»
«Twelve minutes to two,» I said.
«This clock ain’t no twelve and a half minutes slow,» Barron said angrily. «You slipped on that.» He turned and faced me, pushing his hat back on his head. «Hell, you seen it parked in front of the Indian Head,» he said.
«Right.»
«I thought you was just a smart guy.»
«Right,» I said.
«Son, next time I got to get almost shot, could you plan to be around?»
The car that was coming stopped a few yards away and a dog whined. Andy called out: «Anybody hurt?»
Barron and I walked over to the car. The door opened and the little silky dog jumped out and rushed at Barron. She took off about four feet away and sailed through the air and planted her front paws hard against Barron’s stomach, then dropped back to the ground and ran in circles.
Barron said: «Luders shot hisself inside there. There’s a little J ap down in the bushes we got to round up. And there’s three, four suitcases full of counterfeit money we got to take care of.»
He looked off into the distance, a solid, heavy man like a rock. «A night like this,» he said, «and it’s got to be full of death.»