She was standing there.
She had been at the door, listening, all the time.
“Get the gun.”
She picked it up and stood there.
I pulled him to his feet, threw him over one of the tables, and bent him back. Then I beat him up.
When he passed out, I got a glass of water and poured it on him.
Soon as he came to, I beat him up again.
When his face looked like raw beef, and he was blubbering like a kid in the last quarter of a football game, I quit.
“Snap out of it, Kennedy.
You’re talking to your friends over the telephone.”
“I got no friends, Chambers.
I swear, I’m the only one that knows about—”
I let him have it, and we did it all over again.
He kept saying he didn’t have any friends, so I threw an arm lock on him and shoved up on it.
“All right, Kennedy.
If you’ve got no friends, then I break it.”
He stood it longer than I thought he could.
He stood it till I was straining on his arm with all I had, wondering if I really could break it.
My left arm was still weak where it had been broke.
If you ever tried to break the second joint of a tough turkey, maybe you know how hard it is to break a guy’s arm with a hammerlock.
But all of a sudden he said he would call.
I let him loose and told him what he was to say.
Then I put him at the kitchen phone, and pulled the lunchroom extension through the swing door, so I could watch him and hear what he said and they said.
She came back there with us, with the gun.
“If I give you the sign, he gets it.”
She leaned back and an awful smile flickered around the corner of her mouth.
I think that smile scared Kennedy worse than anything I had done.
“He gets it.”
He called, and a guy answered.
“Is that you, Willie?”
“Pat?”
“This is me.
Listen.
It’s all fixed.
How soon can you get out here with it?”
“Tomorrow, like we said.”
“Can’t you make it tonight?”
“How can I get in a safe deposit box when the bank is closed?”
“All right, then do like I tell you.
Get it, first thing in the morning, and come out here with it.
I’m out to his place.”
“His place?”
“Listen, get this, Willie.
He knows we got him, see?
But he’s afraid if she finds out he’s got to pay all that dough, she won’t let him, you get it?
If he leaves, she knows something is up, and maybe she takes a notion to go with him.
So we do it all here.
I’m just a guy that’s spending the night in their auto camp, and she don’t know nothing.
Tomorrow, you’re just a friend of mine, and we fix it all up.”
“How does he get the money if he don’t leave?”