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CLEAN BREAK

by

Lionel White

CHAPTER NINE

1

Four years he had been waiting for it. Waiting for this day, this Saturday in the last week of July.

There hadn’t been a single day, not one of the three hundred and sixty-five days in each of those long, heartbreaking years, that he hadn’t at some time or other thought of how he would be feeling at this exact moment. The moment that he would be waking up in a strange bed in a third-rate hotel, broke, in debt, a parole violator. And knowing that before sunset he’d be either dead or he’d have found the money which would bring him the escape he had always been seeking. The escape which, for him, only money could buy.

It was the first thing that came to his mind as he opened his eyes.

He reached over and took the pack of cigarettes from the night table. He knocked one out and then fumbled around until he found the lighter. Laying back on the pillow, he inhaled deeply; slowly letting the smoke escape from between thin, well-defined lips.

He felt great.

He took another puff, and he spoke in a clear, low voice, directing his words at the dirt-encrusted ceiling. 

“Brother, this is it!”

He laughed then, realizing that he was talking to himself. Turning his head, he was able to see the face of his wrist watch where it lay on the night table beside the pack of cigarettes. It was exactly eight o’clock.

He had plenty of time.

The telephone was over on the scarred writing desk next to the door leading into the bathroom. He got up, completely naked, and went over to the chair in front of the desk. The curtains covering the single, opened window were pulled apart and he could look directly into a room across the court. The window was closed and too dirty to see much through. He knew, however, that he himself could be seen. He laughed again. It didn’t bother him in the slightest. Today, nothing bothered him.

The clerk at the desk in the lobby told him over the phone that they didn’t have room service. “Hell, we ain’t even got a restaurant,” the voice said. “I can send up a bottle and some ice and soda, though, with a bellhop,” he added.

“Too early,” Johnny said, “but you tell that bellboy to go out and get me a container of coffee, some orange juice and a couple of hard rolls and it’s worth a fast buck to him.”

“Will do,” the clerk said.

There was no shower in the old-fashioned bathroom so Johnny ran a tub full of water. He waited, however, until his breakfast showed up, before climbing in.

The bellhop brought a paper along and Johnny casually glanced at the headlines as he ate. He sat by the open window, stripped down to his shorts. His mind, however, was not on the news. He was carefully going over everything which he had done during the last couple of days since he had left Marvin Unger’s apartment to take the hotel room. He wanted to be absolutely sure he hadn’t overlooked anything.

It had been a smart move, checking into the hotel. He had found himself growing jittery, hanging around Unger. Another day of it and something would have had to give. The tension was too much. For a while he had considered staying at the room up on a Hundred and Third Street, but then he had decided against that. He wanted to keep that place for one purpose and one purpose only.

He smiled to himself as he thought of Joe Piano. Joe hadn’t liked the idea when Johnny had told him that Randy was going to stop by. Joe couldn’t understand what he was doing playing around with a cop. It had taken a little explaining. At least there was one thing about Joe; he hadn’t shown any unhealthy curiosity.

Johnny had stopped by to pick up the suitcase which held the sub-machine gun. Joe, answering the doorbell, had asked him into the kitchen; wanted him to have a glass of wine. It had happened on Friday afternoon. Then they had gone up to Johnny’s room.

“Taking this out now,” Johnny told him, indicating the suitcase. “Tomorrow afternoon a friend of mine is stopping by. He’ll leave a bundle for me. He’s a cop.”

“A cop?”

“Yeah, drives a prowl car.”

“Funny kind of a friend to have,” Joe said.

“He’s O.K. A very special cop.” Johnny winked at him. “He’s leaving this bundle for me sometime around six or six-thirty at the latest. I’ll be in early in the evening to pick it up. And that’s the last you’ll see of me.”

Joe nodded, noncommittal.

Johnny took a folded bill out of his watch pocket. It was a fifty.

“I’d like to see that Patsy gets this,” he said.

“That isn’t necessary,” Joe told him. “I can take care of Patsy all right.”

“I know,” Johnny said. “But he’s a good friend of mine.” 

Joe said nothing but he did reach out and take the bill. Johnny left soon afterward.

“The idea of that cop leaves me cold,” Joe told him as he walked down the long hallway to open the gate for him, “but any friend of the boy’s has got to be all right.”

Johnny found a cab on Second Avenue and told the driver to take him to Penn Station. He carried the suitcase into the lobby and found the bank of steel lockers. Checking the suitcase, he took the key and put it in an envelope. That night he had a messenger service drop it off at Big Mike’s apartment.

Buying the brief case had been easy. He got the kind you carry under your arm and that you close with a zipper. The duffle bag had been harder to find. He finally dug one up in a chain sporting goods and auto accessory store. It was made of heavy canvas, leather reinforced and had a drawstring at the open end. Folded flat, it just fitted into the brief case.

When he had called Fay around nine o’clock at her home, she had quickly memorized the number he gave her and then had gone out to a pay booth and called him back. She’d wanted to see him, but he had told her it would be better if they didn’t meet.

“It’ll only be another twenty-four hours,” he’d said. “Then it’s the rest of our lives, kid.”

She told him that everything was ready. He detected the slight quiver in her voice and he hung up as quickly as possible. He knew that she’d be better off not seeing him; not even talking with him.

And then he’d gone back to the hotel. There was nothing else to do. Getting to sleep had been a problem. He knew it would be and he’d considered taking sleeping pills, or perhaps a half bottle of whiskey. But he’d decided against either escape. He wanted to be sure to be in top form the next morning. He didn’t want a hang-over or even as much as the trace of one. He didn’t want the dopey feeling that the sleeping pills would be sure to leave.

The lack of sleep itself wouldn’t bother him. It would, in fact, merely keep him keyed up and tense. That he wanted.

But he had slept. In spite of everything he awakened in the morning feeling completely relaxed and completely rested.

Now, as he slowly ate his breakfast, he tried not to think of anything but the immediate moment. Everything was set in his mind, his plans were made down to the finest detail. He didn’t want to think about what might happen during the crucial hour this Saturday afternoon. Thinking about it wouldn’t help. He’d already done his thinking.

Johnny Clay left the hotel at eleven o’clock. He checked out, carrying the leather suitcase he had used at Unger’s in one hand, the brief case in the other. The suitcase held the new clothes he’d bought during the last two days. The old stuff he left upstairs. He was wearing the slacks and the checkered sports coat he would wear that afternoon at the track.

It was a warm day and he was tempted to remove the coat, but then decided against it. Under the coat he had two shirts; one a soft tan with an open collar, over that a deep blue shirt, the collar closed. He wore neutral tan, low shoes, tan socks and a soft gray felt hat with a wide brim, turned down in the front. In his coat pocket was a second rolled-up, light-weight felt hat, powder blue with a low crown and a narrow brim.

The glasses had dark green lens. His first move after leaving the hotel was finding a cab. He ordered the driver to take him to La Guardia Airport.

He checked the suitcase at the airport and then went to the restaurant and ordered coffee and toast. He spread the early edition of the World Telegram on the table and turned to the sporting pages.

At one o’clock Johnny left the airport in another cab. He was carrying the brief case under his arm.

He arrived at the race track at one-forty.

The cab driver had been willing to go along with him. Johnny told him he’d give him ten bucks for the cab and pay his entrance fee into the grandstand. And he wanted to be taken back to New York after the races.

“The only thing is,” Johnny said, “I got to leave the second the seventh race is over. Have an appointment back in town and I won’t have any time to spare. I’ll plan to be out at the parking lot by the time the race ends. I won’t wait for the results. I want you to be there and ready to leave.”

It was O.K. with the cabbie.

“Hell,” he said. “I’m getting paid, I’ll be there. Anyway, I don’t bet ‘em; I just like to see them run.”

They’d found a parking space in the lot at the south end of the track. The cab was one of the last cars in the lot, which would make it easy for them to get out. Johnny got out of the back, slamming the door. He reached through the window and handed the driver a ten dollar bill.

“Buy your ticket out of that,” he said, “and use the change to try your luck. You be here waiting when I get here and you get another ten when we pull into New York.”

“I’ll be here.”

Johnny turned toward the clubhouse. The brief case was under his arm. He walked slowly. He had plenty of time.

# # #

2

It was as he knew it would be. He never yet had gone to a track without that feeling. That strange, subtle sense of excitement. Even as he stood at the box office buying his ticket, he became infected by it. There was something about the track that always gave it to him.

The first race was already over and done with and the crowd, for the moment, was quiet. But he caught the inevitable undercurrent of excitement.

Walking through the downstairs lobby and stopping off to buy his program, he found himself unconsciously fingering the loose folded bills in his pants pocket. He laughed quietly to himself. Here he was, on the threshold of a caper which would mean more than a million dollars, and he couldn’t wait to get the program open and place a bet on the second race.

Walking up the stairs, he went through the main lobby and passed within thirty feet of the bar behind which Big Mike was rushing drinks to an impatient clientele. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the door marked “Private.” The one leading into the main business offices and the one out of which he knew he would be coming before that afternoon would be over and done with.

He also quickly looked in the direction of the other door. The door which was set flush into the wall and through which he would have to pass in order to get into the employee’s locker room. The door which would have to be surreptitiously opened from the inside to permit his entrance.

He was aware of Big Mike moving behind the bar. There was no sign of Maurice and no sign of Tex.

He went out into the stands, out into the hot yellow sunlight. He had to shoulder his way through the crowd at the door. He found a seat well up in the stands and slouching into it, he dropped the brief case between his feet on the concrete floor. He opened the program and looked over the horses in the second race. Then he looked up and checked the morning line.

When the horses reached the post for the second race, Johnny stood up. He took off his hat and left it and his program on the seat. Then he made his way back into the clubhouse. He went to the ten dollar window and put down a win bet on the number three horse. The tote board had it at eight to five.

Johnny didn’t want to start the day depending on long shots to come in.

The number three horse won by three and a half lengths.

Returning to his seat after he collected his winnings, he glanced at the clock as he passed Big Mike’s bar. His wrist watch was less than a minute slow.

He was back again at the buyer’s windows long before the fifth race started. This time he did what Unger had done several days before. There were a half dozen ten dollar windows and he went to each of them in turn. By the time he ended up he had a ticket on every horse in the race.

When he got back to his seat, just before the horses left the post, he found a large, red-faced woman sitting in it. She was holding his hat and program.

He stood in front of her for a moment, undecided. She looked up at him and grinned.

“Just had to sit down for a second,” she said, breathing heavily. “I’m exhausted.”

She started to stand up and he smiled at her.

“Stay where you are,” he said. “I’ll stand for this one.” She began to protest, but he insisted. She had handed him his hat and program, looking grateful.

He walked down through the stands to the rail as the horses were running. When the sixth horse came in, he didn’t have to search through the tickets to find the right one. He had put them in order.

He was about tenth in line at the window—George Peatty’s window.

Johnny held his thumb on the ticket as he pushed it through the grill. He was watching George’s face.

Peatty’s face was yellow and his mouth was trembling even before he looked up. And then, a moment later, as he reached for the ticket, he lifted his eyes and stared directly at Johnny. He nodded, almost imperceptibly. He counted out the money and pushed it through the grill work.

At four-twenty, Johnny was leaning against the wall some five feet from the door leading into the locker rooms. He had the scratch sheet in his hand and was resting it on the brief case. He held a pencil in his other hand and was making casual marks on the sheet. But his eyes were not seeing what his hands were doing.

His hat brim was pulled well forward and the dark glasses concealed his eyes.

Johnny was watching the end of the bar where Tex stood. He didn’t move when the fight started.

Once he had to step aside as a large man pushed past him. But he still didn’t make his move. Didn’t make it until he saw the door of the private office open.

It was while they were rushing Tex toward the exit stairway that Johnny sidled over to the entrance to the locker room. Every eye in the lobby was on Tex and the detectives surrounding him when Johnny felt the door move behind him. A second later and he turned and quickly slipped into the employees’ locker room.

George, pale and his hands shaking, quickly closed the door behind him. He looked for a moment at Johnny, saying not a word. Then he turned and a moment later had disappeared in the direction of the exit leading out behind the cashiers’ cages.

A quick glance around the room showed Johnny that there was no one in it, unless they were in one of the line of toilet stalls. Johnny didn’t have to look at the diagram he had in his pocket. He knew exactly where Big Mike’s locker was. The duplicate key was in his hand.

It took him less than half a minute to open the locker and take out the flower box. A moment later and he had slipped into one of the toilets and had closed and latched the door.

He was assembling the gun and inserting a clip of shells as the horses left the lost for the start of the Canarsie Stakes.

Johnny had opened the brief case and was taking out the duffle bag when he heard the door slam.

Two men entered the room and they were standing not ten feet away. From their conversation, Johnny knew at once that they were cashiers, taking a breather while the race was being run.

“What the hell was that fracas out there?” one voice said.

“Just some drunken bum giving one of the bartenders a hard time. Christ, did you see Frank leap into it with that blackjack!”

“It’s time one of those god damned Pinkertons earned his dough,” the first man said.

Johnny smiled grimly.

They’d be earning their dough in another three minutes, he said to himself. And if these guys didn’t get out before then, they’d be earning theirs, too.

Even as the thought crossed his mind, the two men began to move away. Johnny’s hand reached for the latch.

# # #

3

Maxie Flam couldn’t have weighed a hundred and ten pounds dripping wet. But in order to keep his weight down, now, at thirty-six, he not only had to starve himself, he had to take the pills and he had to really work out.

He was thinking, as the horses came up to the starting line, that thank God, he only had another season to go. Then he’d retire. He’d be through with the tortuous routine once and for all. And he was doing something that damn few jockeys had ever been able to do. He was retiring on the money he had saved since the day he had ridden his first mount back when he was in knee pants.

Maxie had played it smart. He’d never bet on a horse in his life. Even today, with Black Lightning’s broad back between his spindly legs, he hadn’t bet. He knew Black Lightning was going to win. Knew it just as sure as he knew his name.

Almost unconsciously his eyes went up to where Mrs. Galway Dicks sat in the box with her two daughters and the men who had accompanied them to the track.

Mrs. Dicks had been upset as she always was. It annoyed her when Maxie wouldn’t put a bet on the horse he was riding. She had wanted to get someone else, but the trainer had insisted on Maxie. The trainer was smarter than Mrs. Dicks would ever be.

“But I can’t understand, Maxie,” she had said. “You say we’ve got to win. So why don’t you put something down on the horse yourself?”

Maxie hadn’t bothered to explain.

“I never bet,” he’d said, and let it go at that.

There may have been better jockeys—although in complete and unassuming fairness, Maxie told himself that there hadn’t been a great many of them. But even the greats, Sande and the rest of them, had ended up broke. They may have booted in more winners, but they’d still ended up broke. Not Maxie. He didn’t have to be the greatest, but by God, he was one of the smartest.

At the end of this season he’d have a quarter of a million in annuities. And then he was going to quit. He’d go down to his breeding farm in Maryland and he’d never see another race track as long as he’d live. And the only thing he’d ever ride again would be the front seat of a Cadillac convertible.

Maxie was smart.

Black Lightning reared up as a horse moved in next to him and Maxie instinctively pulled slightly on the rein and his mount danced sideways. Maxie spoke softly and soothingly under his breath.

And then they were off.

Maxie didn’t rush it. He knew he had this race in the bag, but there was no reason to rush. He knew what Black Lightning could do. Not only that, but he also knew approximately what every other horse in the race could do.

Passing the grandstands on his first time around the track, Maxie kept his eyes straight ahead.

He was conscious of the crowds; he even heard, dimly in the background of his mind, the roar from the packed stands. He was aware of the color and the tension and the high excitement. But it all left him cold. He’d been in the saddle too many years to any longer feel the vicarious thrill. He was a cold, aloof, precision machine. A part of the horse itself. He was at the track for one reason and one reason only. To win the race. Nothing, nothing else at all interfered with that thought.

Going into the backstretch on the second time around, Maxie knew exactly where he stood in relationship to the other horses in the race. He spoke, in a low soft voice, almost directly into the horse’s ear from where he leaned far over Black Lightning’s neck. His crop just barely brushed the sweat soaked flanks of the animal.

He began to move out ahead.

It was like it always was when he had the right horse under him. He was in. He knew it.

He went into the far corner and he lengthened the gap between himself and the others by a half a length. And then he was starting around the three quarter mark and getting set for the stretch. He had decided he would spread the gap by about a length and a half. He was sure, dead sure. But he’d take no chances. It was always possible one of those others would open up.

His eyes were straight in front, on the dusty track about twenty yards ahead of Black Lightning’s nose.

He never knew what happened. One second and he was sitting there, almost as though he were posting a horse in a Garden Show. Knowing, never doubting for a second that in another few seconds he would hear the old familiar roar which would let him know he was coming in in front.

And then it happened.

Later on, when Mrs. Dicks saw him in the hospital and Leo, her trainer, stood beside her and they asked him about it, he was still unable to say exactly what it was.

He only remembered that everything had been fine there, for that moment.

And then, before he knew it, Black Lightning had gone to his knees and Maxie himself was flying through the air. Hitting the track spread-eagled, he was instantly knocked unconscious.

He never heard the hysterical, agonized screams of the other horses as they piled into Black Lightning. He didn’t hear the crack of breaking bones, didn’t see the blood which quickly splashed and then soaked into the soft dirt of the track.

He didn’t hear the wailing sirens of the ambulances as they raced across the infield.

He was completely unconscious of the sudden, horrified hush of that vast crowd in the stands. A hush which in the very intensity of its suddenness was more dramatic and perhaps even more terrible than would have been the wildest and most fanatic screaming and shouting.

The leaden slug from the 30-06 didn’t kill Black Lightning. It took him just below the right eye and tore into the cheek until it struck bone and then plowed upward and came out through the back of the skull leaving a huge, four inch wide gap.

The hoof of the number three horse, crashing into that bloody gash, tore Black Lightning’s brains out through the side of his head.

# # #

4

Alice McAndrews looked up from the typewriter. Her soft, sensuous mouth opened wide and her large blue eyes, upon which she had more than once been complimented, began to pop. She started to scream.

Holding the stock of the sub-machine gun under his right arm pit, Johnny Clay tightened his left hand on the neck of the crunched up duffle bag. He whipped it out and caught the girl across the face with it before the sound reached her lips.

And then he stepped back a pace and faced the four people in the room. His voice was just barely audible.

“One sound,” he said, “one sound from any of you and I start shooting!”

The two men counting the money on the top of the wide table froze. Their hands were still in front of them, half buried in green bills. The other one, the one with the forty-five strapped to the holster at his hip, stood at the water cooler, and didn’t move.

Alice McAndrews began to cry and then quickly swallowed. A second later and she slumped to the floor in a dead faint.

One of the men at the table began to move toward her. “Leave her,” Johnny said.

“You!”

He pointed his gun at the man nearest him, one of those at the table. “Take that duffle bag and start filling it. And you,” he looked at the other man, “go over and take that gun out of the holster. Be awfully careful how you do it. Take it out and lay it down on the floor. Then I want the two of you to turn around and face the wall.”

Johnny tossed the canvas sack onto the table.

It took less than two minutes to stuff the money in the bag. By that time the girl had begun to moan and move slightly. Johnny ignored her. He edged around until his back was to the door which led out into the stands. He had already snapped the lock on the door through which he had entered the room—the one from the employees’ locker room.

“Brother, you’ll…”

Johnny looked up quickly. It was the man who had had the gun strapped to his waist.

“Shut up,” Johnny said. “Shut up! I’d like to kill a cop. Particularly a private cop.”

He had to speak very clearly. The handkerchief over the lower part of his face made the words seem muffled even then.

He waited until the man at the table was through.

“Now,” he said, indicating the safe in the corner whose door hung half open, “get the rest of it.”

Through the closed door he heard the almost hysterical screaming and yelling of the crowds in the stands. He knew. He knew just what was happening out there.

It took another three minutes to get the money from the safe into the duffle bag. The bag itself was overflowing and there was still more money in the safe.

“That’s all,” Johnny said. “Pull the drawstring on the bag.”

The man, his hands shaking so badly he had difficulty managing it, did as he was directed. Then he dropped the bag to the floor.

“Pick her up,” Johnny said, motioning toward the girl. No one moved for a moment.

“You,” said Johnny, looking at the private guard.

The man reached down then and lifted the girl to her feet. 

The next minute would be the one which would decide. 

Johnny’s eyes moved quickly to the door leading from the office into the room next to it. The room which he knew held the large track staff and in which the real work was done. In that room would be some three dozen persons.

“I’m going to count three,” he said, “and then I want you to open that door. You are to go through it. When you get through,”—he stopped and looked for a second at the cop who was holding the girl—”and drag her with you,” he interrupted himself. “When you get through, just keep moving. I’m going to start firing through that door exactly fifteen seconds after you close it behind you. Now, before I begin counting, hand me that bag.”

The man who had stuffed the bag with the money lifted it and carried it across the room to where Johnny stood. He had moved over toward the single window of the room so that he commanded all three doors. The window was wide open and he felt the slight breeze at his back.

The man dropped the duffle bag at his feet and turned and walked toward the others.

Johnny started counting.

For a split second, as the door opened and the three men and the girl pushed through it, Johnny saw a couple of startled faces in the other room, looking out at him.

He waited only until the door was closed and then he reached down with his left hand and grabbed the bag. It was too heavy and he had to drop the gun.

A moment later, never looking, he heaved the duffle bag through the window.

He didn’t bother to pick up the machine gun again.

Even before he had reached the door leading out into the lobby, he had stripped the gloves from his hands. He was tearing the handkerchief from his face as he opened the door.

The whole thing had taken less than five minutes.

Johnny’s right arm was out of the sleeve of the sports coat and it was half off as he slammed the door marked “PRIVATE” behind himself. He was aware of Maurice standing next to him as he dropped the sports jacket to the floor and pulled the soft felt hat from his head. He heard the shouts then. He saw the man rushing toward them.

He was only dimly conscious of the sound of flesh against flesh as Maurice’s fist smashed into the man’s face at his side.

And then he was pushing through the crush of bodies.

A woman’s high piercing scream kept coming through the din of the crowd as Johnny shoved his way through the jammed lower lobby of the clubhouse. There were no attendants in sight as he left by the main entrance.

The sound of the sirens from the ambulances on the infield was suddenly interrupted by the shrieking of other sirens coming from outside of the track itself.

Johnny realized that the riot call had been sent in.

He found the cab driver starting to leave his seat in the taxi. “My God,” the man said, looking at him with startled eyes, “what in the hell’s going on. Sounds like…”

“The hell with it,” Johnny said. “Fight started at the end of the seventh. I don’t know what it is, but this place is going to be a madhouse in about another three minutes. I got to get into town. Let’s go.”

The driver hesitated a second, then settled back behind the wheel.

“Guess you’re right,” he said. “We get trapped in here and we’ll never get away.”

Turning into the boulevard a couple of minutes later, the cabbie pulled well over to the curb and slowed up as a speeding riot car passed them.

The police officer who had been directing traffic at the intersection was no longer guarding his post.

Johnny dismissed the cab at the subway station in Long Island City.

“In a hurry,” he said. “I’ll make better time on the subway.” He handed the man the second ten dollars.

As he started up the stairs, he was aware of the driver leaving the parked cab and heading for an adjacent tavern. The man probably wanted to hear what might be coming over the radio about the riot out at the track.

Getting off at Grand Central Station, Johnny went upstairs and ducked into the newsreel theater. He had a couple of hours to kill.

He was suddenly beginning to feel faint. He wanted to sit down.

# # #

Tune in next week for the next chapter of Clean Break!

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