52 pickup

The plan: he was going to go home and pack a few things, his new double-knit houndstooth check, stop by the studio, get whatever dough was in the box, lock the place up and move to a motel, maybe out around Pontiac somewhere, contact Mitchell in a day or two and talk to him again about going to the cops. Maybe cops never smiled but they could be understanding and they were known to make deals. Give one guy a year, something like that, for blackmail, to get two guys for airtight first-degree murder. That was the plan.

But when he got home to the flat in Highland Park, he started worrying again what he should do with his mother's things, all her clothes and crappy jewelry. He should have sold the place and her stuff a year ago, right after she died. Now he'd have to leave it for God knows how long. He was sure somebody would break in and steal everything and wreck the place. The goddamn neighborhood was going to hell, becoming overpopulated with heads and freaks and hustlers, people supporting their habits. So he worried about that for a while. Until he decided he'd better take a couple of downers and sleep off some of the vodkas and Seven. He didn't have a glow now; he had a headache and a timed, heavy feeling.

When he woke up it was dark. By the time he got to the model studio it was after ten.

He emptied the metal box in his office, thirty bucks, got some pills, hair spray and after-shave out of the drawers, stuffed them in his coat pockets, went out to the desk in the lobby and checked the box there, empty, which he knew it would be but checked anyway. He was sitting there thinking. Okay, don't waste anymore time, go downtown or out to Pontiac but do it now.

He looked over and saw Bobby Shy watching him, over by the hallway and near the furniture, standing there with his hands in his pockets, watching him.

Leo said, "How'd you get in? Man, I didn't hear a sound."

"I walked in the back," Bobby Shy said.

"The door was locked. How could you walk in?"

"I don't know," Bobby said, "but here I am."

"Where you been? I been looking all over for you, for two days."

Bobby said, "Where have I been? I was where I was. What you mean where have I been?"

"Two days I haven't seen either of you. Man, I was starting to wonder."

"We're fixing up something to take care of the man," Bobby said. "I need his piece."

"You're go

"That's the idea."

"Tonight?"

"You want to know all that?" Bobby said. "Why don't you get me the piece, not worry about it?"

They went back to the office. Leo opened the top drawer of the file cabinet, felt around and came out with the.38 Smith amp; Wesson.

"I almost forgot I had it. I don't have the bullets," Leo said. "Alan kept them."

"I'll see Alan about that," Bobby said. He took the revolver and put it in the right-side pocket of his jacket.

Going back to the lobby Leo said, "I'll tell you the truth, I was starting to get nervous. I don't know what happened to you guys, where you could be. Then, you know, you start imagining things, like something's going on and they're leaving me out of it."

"We wouldn't leave you out," Bobby said. "You part of the group."

"You know how you start thinking when you don't know what's going on."

"Man," Bobby said, "sit down at the desk and take it easy. Think about nice things."

"I'm not worried now," Leo said. "I was a little nervous, but I'm okay now."

Bobby steered Leo over to the desk and gently, with his hands on his shoulders, sat him down.

"What're you doing?" Leo said. "Hey, what's going on?"

"Nothing going on," Bobby said. "I want you to sit down and rest, man, take it easy."

"Yeah, but I don't get it."

"What's to get? Sit there, man, don't move for a while. Let your body relax, feel at peace. There now."

Bobby walked away from the desk to the front door counting one, two, three, four and a half steps. He opened the door, gave Leo a nod and a little smile and walked outside.

The place next to the nude-model studio, also closed but with a light burning inside, was a dirty-book store. Bobby stepped into the alcove of the doorway, stood with his back to the street and the headlights of the cars passing, took the Smith amp; Wesson and five.38 cartridges out of his jacket and loaded the revolver. Glancing at the street, at the few cars going by but not studying them or worrying about them, he walked back to the front door of the model studio, counted one, two, three, four and a half steps past it, stopped, faced the black-painted plate glass in front of the D in nude models, raised the revolver belt-high and fired it at the glass, getting the heavy report and a hundred and twenty square feet of shattering glass and the D disappearing in front of him, gone, all at the same time. There was Leo still sitting behind the desk like he hadn't moved. Bobby didn't know if Leo had been hit. He extended the.38 in front of him and shot Leo four times, hitting him dead center in the chest, getting that last one in before Leo slid down behind the desk. Bobby didn't need to go in and check. He knew Leo was dead about the time he reached the floor.

17

Mitchell said, "Tell him I'll call him back," and hung up the phone.

He was in the Engineering office, sitting on a high stool under the bright fluorescent lights. He leaned over the drafting table again to study the cutaway drawings he had made of a clasp lock assembly. They were crude drawings, rendered freehand, without using the T-square. Lying open on the table was the black attache case he had received the day before. Next to the case was the switch actuator he had taken out of the scrap bin, also the day before.

He drew a rectangle, representing the open case, looking down into it; then drew a top-view indication of one of the two clasp locks that were on the facing of the case.

Vic, his superintendent, came into the Engineering office and stood looking down at the board.

Mitchell said, "Yeah?"

"That five hundred feet of number eight rod was due yesterday, it's not here yet."

"Call them up."

"I did call them. They said they'd see what they can do."

"Call them again," Mitchell said. "Tell them the rods aren't here by noon they can bend them around their ass and make Hula Hoops, we'll go someplace else."

"They'll say okay, and the rods'll get here about four, five o'clock."

"But you'll have them," Mitchell said.

Vic was staring at the drawing. "What're we in, the luggage business now?"

"I'm trying to figure out," Mitchell said, "how to snap this open-see, it's one of the clasps-and make an electrical co

"For what?"

"For example, if you wanted a light to go on when you opened the case."

"Like a refrigerator."

"Only the case isn't plugged in."

"You got to have a battery inside."

"I know that," Mitchell said. "I'm trying to figure out how to co

"It's a pretty nice case."

"You see the problem?"

"I think that switch actuator's too big. All you need's a little spring of some kind."

"Maybe you're right."

"Well, I guess you'll think of a way," Vic said, "if that's what you want to do, light up a briefcase."

"It's kind of what I want to do," Mitchell said.

He had the attache case with him when he went back to his office and stopped at Janet's desk.

"You remember the name of the place this came from?"

"I wrote it down, in case you wanted me to check on the card."

"I found the card," Mitchell said. "It was in here all the time."

Janet said, "Oh?" and waited.

"What I'd like you to do, go there sometime today and get me another case, just like it."