What did he mean about a girl shooting him? Mish wondered.
He poured himself another drink, lit a cigarette, then cursed when he saw he had only two more left in the pack.
He was sitting brooding when Chandler, twenty minutes later, returned.
"Okay?" Mish asked.
"I dumped it." Chandler was jumpy. "Way out on the beach behind a sand dune. Listen, Mish, on the way back I've been thinking. We better get the hell out of here . . . go back to our hotels and sweat it out. At least we have some money."
Mish grinned.
"Not a chance, boy. It came over the radio half an hour ago. They have our descriptions. You haven't a hope of getting back to your hotel or getting out of the City. We have to stay right here if we are going to survive."
Chandler stared at him, his face tight with frustrated rage.
"Do you think he's coming back?"
Mish shook his head.
"No . . . I guess he's taken us for suckers. Beats me . . . I really thought I could have trusted him. He's pulled out . . . taken everything with him and the dough."
"If ever I run into him again I'll kill him!" Chandler said.
Mish shrugged.
"One of those things, boy, but at least, we are in one piece." He looked at the unconscious Perry. "Not like him."
Chandler looked coldly at the wounded man.
"Who cares?" He dragged open his shirt collar. "If I don't have a cup of coffee, I'll blow my stack."
"Go ahead and blow it. There's not a damn thing left . . . no food . . . nothing except that whisky. You got any cigarettes?"
"Used my last one." Chandler stared at Mish. "We can't live here without food."
"We show ourselves on the street and we're cooked. We have to stay under cover." Mish thought for a moment, then asked, "Have you any friends here?"
"What do you mean?"
"Someone who would bring us supplies without asking questions?"
Chandler then remembered Lolita. Would she do it? Had she heard the radio description of him and if he contacted her would she give him away to the police? He decided he could trust her. She had been in cop trouble herself . . . nothing bad, but the cops were always shoving her around, stopping her entering the better restaurants, leaning their weight on her.
"You might have an idea," he said. "There is a girl . . . maybe she would do it. Is the phone working?"
"I don't know . . . should be."
Chandler went over the telephone, lifted the receiver and listened to the reassuring dialling tone. He concentrated for a few seconds, trying to remember the telephone number she had given him. Was it Paradise City 9911 or 1199? He decided it was the latter number. He was very good at memorising his girlfriends' telephone numbers. He dialled the number and waited. There was a long pause, then Lolita said sleepily, "Yes?"
Chandler nodded to Mish, then in his most persuasive manner, charm oozing out of his deep baritone voice, he began to talk.
Five
BY MIDDAY, Chief of Police Terrell had an almost complete picture of the Casino robbery.
Reports, telephone calls, Telex communications between Headquarters and the F.B.I. had swiftly built up a picture of the method of the robbery and a description of the men involved. A set of fingerprints had been found on the tool box left in the Casino's control room. Back came a report from Washington with Mish Collins' photograph and record. Another set of fingerprints found on the glass box at the vault's entrance identified Jack Perry, known as a vicious Mafia killer. They had Jess Chandler's description from Sid Regan, but so far had failed to turn up his record.
Terrell pushed aside the heap of reports and reached for the carton of coffee.
"Time off, Joe," he said and poured the coffee into two paper cups. Thankfully, Beigler reached for one of them and lit yet another cigarette. He had been working non-stop since the robbery and he was feeling bushed.
"Well, we are coming along," Terrell said after a thoughtful sip from his paper cup. "We know four of the men . . . one dead, but there's the fifth. It's a funny thing, Joe, but no one seems to have seen him. We have a good description of the other four, but not the fifth man. I'm willing to bet a buck, he is the man who planned the robbery. We do know he was driving the truck, but no one noticed him at the wheel. When trouble started, he took off. What I'm wondering is . . . did he rat on the others or was it agreed that if trouble started, the other men should look after themselves and he should look after the money? Lewis tells me there are two and a half million dollars missing. That's a lot of scratch. He could have been tempted to make off with it, and ditch the others."
Beigler nodded.
"Where does that get us?" he asked, not unreasonably.
"It's a thought." Terrell finished his coffee, hesitated whether to refill his cup, decided not to and picked up another report. "If he has ratted on the others and we catch any of them, they could talk. I want to find No. 5 very badly."
