Night My Friend (12 page)

“It’s a nice day,” he said, to make conversation.

“Just great.”

“Still upset because I went to Rider?”

“Why shouldn’t I be? Dave, there are employment agencies, friends, relatives—why go to Harry Rider for a job?”

“I didn’t know you felt that strongly about it.”

“You knew—you knew darned well. I have a little pride left, even if you haven’t.”

Anger growing within him, he spun around and started from the room. Then he paused to face her once more. “Do you happen to know how much we have in the bank? I figure it’s just about enough to keep us going for another three weeks. Then we either stop eating or stop paying on the house and car.”

Her lips were a thin line of—what? It almost could have been contempt. “Maybe you should have thought about the money before you quit your job,” she snapped.

“Sure, sure! Maybe I—” The ringing of the telephone cut into any retort he would have made. He decided it was probably just as well and went to answer it.

“Is this Mr. Dave O’Bannion?” a strange voice asked. Male, perhaps a bit muffled.

“Yes.”

“Mr. O’Bannion, I understand you are presently at liberty. I have a position available, temporary work, which I’d like to discuss with you.”

“Sure. Who is this calling?”

“My name is Green. Could you meet me tomorrow to talk it over?”

“Certainly. Where are you located?”

“I’ll be in Room 344 at the Ames Hotel, anytime after ten. It must be tomorrow, though, as I’m leaving for Canada on Tuesday.”

O’Bannion assured him it would be tomorrow. Even this mysterious temporary sort of job was worth looking into. But when Kate questioned him about the call he implied it was from someone he knew, someone he’d contacted the previous week. He had a growing feeling in the pit of his stomach that the strange Mr. Green in his hotel-room office would prove somehow to be an associate of Harry Rider.

Green, if that was really his name, proved to be a tall man in his mid-thirties. He didn’t really belong in the hotel room. He seemed more like a man made for the outdoors, a man who might venture inside only for a drink or necessary food. He was obviously ill at ease in the surroundings of impersonal luxury such as one found at the Ames.

“You’re O’Bannion?” he asked, frowning as if he might have expected someone older.

“That’s right.” He held out his hand and Green shook it. Then they both sat down and O’Bannion added, “You have a job open?”

Green leaned back in his chair. “A temporary position. It would involve a trip to Canada.”

“For how long a period? I wouldn’t want to be away from my family.” He said the words because they sounded right. Just at the moment Kate and the boys were far from his thoughts.

“Only a day or two. And the pay would be good.”

“How good?”

The man shrugged. “Perhaps five thousand dollars.”

His worst fear realized, O’Bannion got suddenly to his feet. “I guess you’d better tell Mr. Rider I’m not interested.”

“Who?”

Why had he gone? Why had he gone to Rider when he’d known all along that this would be the only sort of job the man could offer? Across the border for five thousand dollars.

“Harry Rider. I believe that’s a name you know.”

Green was blocking him at the door, holding him back. “Wait, wait. Look, there’s no risk, if that’s what’s worrying you. It’s safe.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll give you something to take with you. All you do is deliver it to an address in Toronto and you’ll be paid the money.”

“Five thousand dollars for no risk? Why don’t you take it yourself?”

Green was nervous now, unsure of himself. “All right,” he decided suddenly. “I guess I got the wrong guy. Go!”

O’Bannion went.

The remainder of the day he spent in a sort of twilight, wandering from office to office, filling out applications for jobs he neither wanted nor qualified for, existing in a world of mere minutes adding up slowly to hours. Again and again his thoughts returned to the man in the hotel room, to the five thousand dollars he’d offered for the flight to Canada.

O’Bannion tried to guess what would have been involved. Harry Rider’s interests were mainly gambling, horse racing, and the like, although he occasionally dabbled in politics. Perhaps it was nothing more than transporting betting slips or some political material.

The afternoon was sunny, even now when it was almost ended, even with its twilight rays filtered through the blossoming branches of the park trees. He walked with a lengthened, broken shadow behind him, destination undetermined. Then, the random thought just crossing his mind, he started down the street toward his old office. They’d be leaving now, not a minute too early because the old man was always watching, but not a minute too late either. He stood in the shadow of a building, watching faces and figures already receding from memory after only a week’s time. Then he saw Shirl Webster, walking very quickly along the curb, head down against the sunset.

O’Bannion crossed the street and intercepted her at the next stoplight. “Hello, Shirl,” he called from a few paces behind her.

“Dave! I mean—”

“I told you Dave was all right. How are you?”

“Fine. I was just this minute thinking about you, wondering how you were coming along.”

“Got time for a drink?” he asked, and as the words left his mouth he wondered just how accidental this meeting had been. Didn’t he subconsciously seek her out rather than return home to Kate?

“Just one. I have to meet my boy friend.”

He chuckled. “I thought you were too old to call them that.”

“On days like this I feel younger. We going to the Nightcap again?”

“Why not?”

Over a drink, with the candle flickering on the table between them, he suddenly found himself telling her about his interview with Green in the hotel room. It was an odd sort of feeling she gave him and he wondered how he could have worked with her all those months without being affected by the sensuality of her presence.

“So you walked out on him,” she summed up, making it a simple statement.

“I walked out on him. Wouldn’t you?”

She toyed with the plastic stirring rod from her scotch-and-water. “I don’t know. Five thousand dollars is more money than I make in a whole year. I don’t know what I’d have done.”

“It’s obviously something crooked, with Rider involved.”

She frowned into the glass. “The Rider you mention—if he is such a shady character, why did you go to him in the first place?”

Why? It was the sort of question Kate had asked too.
Why?
Was it purely a spirit of revolt against his wife’s wishes, or was there more to it than that? “I don’t know why,” he answered finally. “Not really.”

He lit her cigarette and watched while she settled back in her chair. “I think you’re like me, Dave. I think you’re sick of working your life away for someone like the old man, who doesn’t care about anything but the profit and the overhead.”

“You think I should have done it? What Green wanted me to do?”

“I don’t know. I think you should have asked a few more questions, thought about it a little more.”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” He signaled the waiter for another drink.

“Are you going to discuss it with your wife?”

“How can I? She’s already barely speaking to me because I went to Rider. Am I going to tell her now that she was right all along about him being a crook?”

“Are you asking me what you should do, Dave?”

He wasn’t really. Until that moment he’d been convinced that he’d followed the right course of action. Now she had planted a doubt. “You’d have asked more questions.”

“Go back and see him again, Dave. Why not?”

“He’s gone. On his way to Canada.”

“Maybe not. He might be looking for someone else to make the trip.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t be sitting in that hotel room still. How’d he know I wouldn’t come back with the police?”

“What could you tell the police? What do you know to tell them?”

“Nothing,” he admitted glumly.

“Let me call the hotel for you, see if he’s still there.”

“I don’t know. I’m getting in so deep—”

“It’s a great deal of money, Dave. Enough to carry you over till you can find a really good job.”

“Well, I suppose you could call. I know he won’t be there.”

She rose from her chair. “You said it was the Ames Hotel?”

“Yes.”

She stepped into a phone booth near the door and he watched her dialing the number. She spoke a few words and then motioned quickly to him. When he joined her at the booth door she covered the receiver with her hand and said, “He’s still there. I’ve got him on the line. You want to go over?”

“I—” He felt suddenly weak in the knees.

“Mr. Green,” she said, returning to the phone. “I’m calling for Dave O’Bannion. He was up to see you this morning. Yes—Yes. Well, he’d like to reconsider your offer.”

O’Bannion started to protest and then changed his mind. Well, why not? It was five thousand dollars, wasn’t it?

He took the phone from her and heard the familiar voice of Green in his ear. “I’m glad you’ve reconsidered.”

“Yes.”

“You just caught me as I was checking out.”

O’Bannion grunted.

“Can we meet someplace else? How about the park behind the library?”

“All right. What time?”

“It’s almost six-thirty now. Make it seven o’clock.”

“Fine. I’ll be there.”

“Alone.”

“All right,” O’Bannion agreed without hesitation. He hadn’t even thought about taking Shirl with him.

He hung up and joined her back at the table. “All set, Dave?”

“All set. But he wants me to come alone.”

“Oh.” She seemed disappointed.

“I could meet you back here after if you’d like.”

His words brought a smile to her lips. “I’d like.”

“What about that boy friend?”

“I’ll call him.”

He tossed a couple of bills on the table. “Get yourself something to eat. I’ll be back in an hour or so. Maybe sooner.”

He left her and walked across the street to another bar. There he had a quick drink and phoned Kate at home, making some excuse about a possible job that sounded phoney even to his own ears. Then he started for the little park behind the library, his heart beating with growing excitement. He didn’t know whether the excitement was caused by Green or Shirl or both. He only knew that Kate had no part in it.

The park was almost dark by seven, lit only by the random lamps in standards twined by ivy. It was a lunchtime spot for summer secretaries, a strolling place for evening couples, a clubhouse for after-dark drifters. Though he was only a hundred feet from the street O’Bannion still had a sense of fear.

He found Green lounging on a bird-specked bench deep in shadow, his eyes caught by a necking couple across the path. “Look at that,” he said to O’Bannion. “At seven o’clock.”

“Yeah.”

“Cigarette?”

“I’ve got my own, thanks.”

“Who was the girl?”

“My secretary.”

“I thought you were out of a job.”

“She used to be my secretary.”

“Oh.”

“Now what about this deal?”

Green was grinning in the flare of his match. “You’re ready?”

“I’m ready.”

“All right. I have a plane ticket here, round trip to Toronto, leaving tomorrow night at six.”

“That’s pretty short notice. How long will I have to be away?”

“A day. You can fly back Wednesday night if you want.”

O’Bannion ground out his cigarette and lit a fresh one. The couple on the opposite bench had unclinched and she was repairing her lipstick. “What’s the catch? What do I have to do? What’s the deal?”

“Take a box of candy to a friend of mine.”

O’Bannion’s hands were steady. “What else?”

“That’s all. I’ll be there myself to pay you the five thousand.”

“If you’re going up too, why not take the candy yourself?”

Green smiled slightly and in the dim light he looked suddenly younger—no older perhaps than O’Bannion. “We don’t need to kid each other. I’ve had trouble with the police. They might stop me at the border. I’m going up on the Thruway and crossing at Niagara Falls. I don’t want them to find anything on me.”

“What is it?”

Green looked vague. “That would be telling. You only get the money if the box is delivered intact.”

It was now or never. This was the moment to back out, to go no further. But instead he simply asked, “As long as it’s not narcotics. I don’t want any part of something like that. O.K.?”

“No narcotics. What do you take me for anyway?”

“When do I get the box of candy?”

“Tomorrow afternoon, four o’clock. Right here.”

“That doesn’t give me much time to catch the plane.”

“I don’t want you to have much time. The man will be waiting for you at the airport in Toronto. You give him the candy and then get a room for the night. I’ll probably pull in Wednesday morning and pay you off.”

“How about part of it now?”

Green frowned. “I don’t have it. The money’s in Toronto. And there’s no money unless you produce the box, unopened.”

“Why don’t you just mail it to him?”

“He’s had police trouble too. They might be watching for something in the mails.”

“All right,” O’Bannion agreed at last. “I’ll see you here at four.”

Green left first, walking away fast. O’Bannion watched him go, watched him as in a dream, and wondered what he was getting into. He felt, in that moment, like a man trapped in a muddy bog. There was only Kate to save him, Kate and the children, and they were a world away. Then he remembered Shirl Webster waiting back at the bar and his spirits lifted.

“Why don’t you come with me?” O’Bannion asked after he’d finished telling Shirl about his conversation with Green.

“What? Go with you! That’s crazy, Dave. What would people say?”

“Who needs to know?”

It was crazy, but he began to think it might not be too crazy. He’d always been faithful to Kate in the nine years of their marriage—always, that is, except once in Boston with a girl he met in a bar. But now something had changed, something in him, or in Kate, or just in the times.