In Buck’s room, next to mine, the door opened and footsteps went down the hall. Then the screen door squeaked. Pretty soon I caught the smell of a cigarette. I got up, put on some clothes, and went outside. Buck was squatting on the ground, in pants, coat, undershirt, and shoes, smoking, and staring at the lights of the town. I sat down too. “Kind of restless, boy?”
“Jack, what do we do it for? Tramp. Steal. Rat.”
“I don’t know.”
“Why, stead of catching the goddam freight, don’t we let the freight catch us? You know any good reason we should roll away from those wheels?”
“Tell me something, Buck. This guy with the gun—?”
“... Hosey’s friend?”
“Where does he keep it? If you know?”
“In his room. Different places. Mostly places he lets Hosey see, so Hosey don’t get any idea he might go in and begin feeling around. Anyhow, that’s how I dope it.”
“Could you find it?”
“Couldn’t you? What locks are there in this dump?”
“You sure he doesn’t carry the gun, Buck?”
“I think not. Why?”
I told him what I’d heard in the filling station. “I figured, for a while at least, we could take care of things by getting ourselves a little dough.”
“I’d call that a little risky.”
“O.K., but I’ve noticed something.”
“Which is?”
“It’s a wide-open town, same like Kansas City, only more so. On account of Boulder Dam the girls have flocked here.”
“Listen, Jack, I’m listening, but—”
“Yeah, but how long?”
“Then O.K.”
He stretched out and began to talk the gloomiest kind of way about women and how he’s no good any more and never will be, and I calmed him down a little by owning up I was in exactly the same shape. But, I said, what we needed was rest and grub and water on our skins once a day and maybe now and then a couple of jokes. He said to hell with this idea we were just going to steal a little bit, and I said: “Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.” That was it, Buck said. After a while we heard something, and when we looked there was Hosey. “Couldn’t seem to sleep.”
“... Oh. Neither could we.”
“Hot.”
“Yeah, Hosey, sure is.”
“I heard what you guys was saying. I couldn’t help hearing. All I got to say is: You got the right idea.”
“You mean—?”
“Count me in.”
Next morning Buck slipped in, while I was shaving. “Well? Jack, what do we say on letting Hosey in?”
“I guess it’s off.”
“... I’m not so sure.”
“Him? I wouldn’t trust him— Listen, Buck, it’s not that I don’t think he likes us, or that he wouldn’t give all the right answers if we asked him how he felt about us, or whatever. It’s just that I don’t think he’s got anything left any more. Hell, I think they could break him with the smell of coffee. You don’t go to war with a bunch of goddam cripples.”
“And we, we have got something left, hey?”
“More than he’s got.”
“Jack, we can use him.”
“For what?”
“Watching, for one thing. He can smell a cop further than—”
“All right.”
“If either one of us had anything left, we wouldn’t be pulling something like this. We’re trying to get it back. Maybe he is, too. Maybe—”
What he really meant was that Hosey had it on us whether we liked it or not, and if we were going to pull this job instead of waiting to pull some other job we had to take him. He was more use than we expected. He went over there to this flagship later that morning, dropped dead in front of the door, and when they brought him to with ice water he came up with stuff about not having eaten for three days, and they let him make a buck cleaning the place off with a squeegee. He came away with a pretty good idea of where everything was, and said as far as he could see there wasn’t any safe, that the money was kept in a cash drawer out by the pumps, that they opened every time a customer paid. He drew up a plan of the station, with all streets marked, and distances in yards. He had the names of the station manager and the boss of the chain.
In the late afternoon I figured to get the gun. It’s when most guys want a drink, and while we didn’t have much money left, we did scrape together for some liquor and one or two things. I got a pint, with some fizz water, at a drugstore, and they gave me some ice in a container. There was a phone booth in there and I rang a picture theater and got the time of the feature, the newsreels, and all the rest of it, for Hosey. I checked on a bus he’d have to ride, to join up with us later. When I got back to the motel it was around five.
“Buck, you got a beer opener?... Oh, I beg your pardon. I thought this was my friend’s room. I was thinking of throwing a drink together, but I’ve got nothing I can use to open my carbonated water. Well, have you got one?”
“No, I wish I could accommodate you, but—”
“I’ll find something.”
“Would — pliers do?”
“I bet they would work.”
“You’re welcome to try, if you think—”
“Well, say, why don’t you try?”
“Is that an invitation?”
He was a shriveled little guy, maybe forty, with wrinkles around his eyes, a little red mustache, and a jut-out chin that slewed over sidewise from his jaw, just about what you’d expect somebody to look like that had a.38 in his bureau drawer. How quick he found the pliers was funny, and we went in my room. They didn’t work, but by a funny coincidence, the screw driver on my jackknife did. I unscrewed the top of the whisky, that was so cheap it didn’t even have a cork, got out the glasses, poured drinks, and said: “Here’s how.” Right away he got friendly and began asking me if I wasn’t from Virginia. I said no, Tennessee, just outside Chattanooga, and he said he knew it was below the line somewhere. We talked along, I poured more drinks, said: “Here’s how” again. But about that time somebody outside began whistling Casey Jones and I started out. “Excuse me just a second — be right back. Help yourself to the liquor.”
“Thanks.”
Outside, crossing the street, were Buck and Hosey. A block away, I caught up with them. We strolled along and I made Buck show me the gun, to make sure he had it. He spread his coat pocket and I looked in. It was an automatic. We went over it then with Hosey, what he was to do, and explained it to him once more, that it was all part of his alibi, in case he had to prove one. He was to buy a ticket at the theatre, and sit in a loge seat at the back. If no usher bothered him he was to stay there. If an usher did ask to see his ticket, he was to show it to her and put up an argument, but kind of a rube’s argument, without much steam in it, enough that she’d remember him, not enough he’d get thrown out. Then he’d move and stay in his new seat till the newsreel started, which would be a few minutes after nine o’clock. Then he was to leave, by one of the fire doors marked “Exit,” so nobody could say exactly when he left. Then he was to walk down to Highway 91 and take position about a half block away from the filling station. At anything that even looked like a cop he was to signal us. “O.K., now. Put your fingers in your mouth and try that screech whistle we’ve got to have if you’re going to be any good out there.”
“Listen, Jack, I’ve whistled that way ever since I was—”