brownish.” Judd felt suddenly depressed. Not that this was dangerous—they could take care of it—but simply that this had flawed the perfection of their deed.
“All right, we’ll wash it out!” Artie jumped behind the wheel, heading for Judd’s driveway. Judd hesitated; but it was the noon hour, and Emil would be upstairs at lunch. Anyway, what he did was none of the chauffeur’s business. And Emil was used to seeing other fellows’ cars around the house.
Artie pulled the Willys up to the garage entrance. Judd glanced at the house. Huge, silent, with most of the shades drawn, the way his father insisted since his mother had died, it had an unoccupied air.
Artie had seized a pail and was running water into it, full force, noisily. The maid came out of the house to ask if Cook should fix lunch for the two of them.
Judd felt spied on. “We’re busy,” he said, keeping his voice polite. “Thanks, but never mind. We’ll pick up a sandwich downtown.”
“I’ll just put some cold chicken on the table.” And she gave him that devoted smile of a female who knows better than men what men want.
Artie sloshed the pail of water onto the rear floorboards. Taking a rag, Judd began to rub the spots around the door handle. How could they ever have got there? The image from yesterday, the jet of blood, the whole dreadful mess, intruded for an instant, but he ruled it out from his mind. It was instantly supplanted by an image of himself as a child watching a doctor with a syringe starting to take blood from his mother’s arm, and a swooning sick feeling echoed up in him. Judd ruled it all out, out from his mind. He had full control; he could master his emotions completely. He held his mind blank, like breath shut off.
Artie was swearing—the bloody crap wouldn’t wash out—and at that moment Emil came down the garage stairs, still chewing on something. “Can I help you boys?” he said through his food.
“No. Never mind. We’re just cleaning up a car I borrowed,” Artie said, pulling his head out of the tonneau. “Boy, some party! I guess we kind of messed it up.”
“What are you using, only plain water?” Emil asked, coming close and looking. “You could use some Gold Dust.”
“It’s wine spots. We spilled some Dago red,” Artie said, laughing.
Emil turned to fetch a box of Gold Dust. “Let me do it for you.”
“No, this is good enough,” Judd said. “It’s nothing. Don’t let us interrupt your lunch.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Emil. But finally the stupid Swede seemed to get the idea; he started back upstairs. Yet he paused to ask if Judd’s Stutz was running all right today, if the squeak that Judd had complained about when he left it in the garage yesterday was gone. “I put a little oil on the brake,” Emil said. “Not too much. Too much is bad for the brake bands.”
“It’s fine now—fine, thanks,” Judd said. He looked at his watch. And to Artie: “Let’s go.”
Artie took the wheel and backed out with a roar. “Christ, you never could back a car! Watch out!” Judd complained.
They drove to Vincennes. The corner they had selected for the first message relay was a large vacant lot at 39th and Vincennes. At the curb stood one of Chicago’s metal refuse boxes, about the size of a hope chest, painted dark green. On one side, stenciled in white, were the words, HELP KEEP THE CITY CLEAN.
Artie stopped directly in front of the box. They got out. Judd drew the letter from his pocket. There were few people on the street, and anyone observing them might think they were only throwing some junk into the box.
Judd lifted the lid. He had brought along a small roll of gummed stationery tape, and now he tried to tape the letter to the underside of the lid. The tape didn’t stick. “Hold the damn lid!” he snapped at Artie, so as to get both hands free to press on the tape.
“That junk will never hold,” Artie criticized. “Jesus, I can’t leave a single thing to you! Where’s the adhesive, that roll of adhesive!”
It was a roll Judd had taken from the bathroom yesterday, to wind around the chisel blade, the way Artie said, so the wooden end could be used as a club. “You told me yourself to use the whole roll, to make it thick.”
“You stink!”
Judd glanced at his watch. “We’ve got time to drive over and buy some.”
“Hell with it!” Artie cried. He was watching the street nervously. Kids were coming along, getting curious. Artie let the lid drop, nearly catching Judd’s hand. He snatched the envelope from Judd. “We’ll leave out this stop.”
“Then how’ll he know where to go next?” Judd objected.
“When we phone him at home,” Artie snapped, “instead of sending him to this box we send him straight to Hartmann’s Drugstore for the next instruction. That’s all this crappy letter tells him to do anyway.”
“We can’t make any last-minute changes—everything will get all balled up!” Judd felt suddenly panicky. The spots on the car had been dismaying. Now he was becoming depressed. There was something vaguely ominous in little things going wrong, in changes having to be made in the plans they had so long and carefully devised.
And besides, this Help Keep the City Clean box had seemed so right, as part of the plan. It had seemed to give the entire adventure the proper sardonic flavor, this garbage box of life. The idea had been his own contribution, too. It had come to him a few months ago during one of their sessions. How to make the ransom collection foolproof had been the problem. If any specific rendezvous were named, police could appear.
Artie, half tight, had got off the subject, telling about some asinine frat party with a new stunt, a “treasure hunt” in which kids were sent all over town to the craziest places, and in each place they picked up a clue to where they had to go next.
Suddenly Judd had seen it. An actual treasure hunt in reverse! The father chasing from one place to another for his instructions to deliver the ransom! And in the same instant, as the idea itself came to him, Judd had visualized the refuse box. First stop! A portly man, he had imagined him, because during that time they had figured Danny Richman as the victim, and Danny’s father—that stuffed shirt, who never opened his mouth except to make a speech full of noble precepts, Polonius in person, even worse than Judd’s own old man, if possible—Danny’s father was it!
Artie had loved the idea. They could just see Richman père waddling toward the Help Keep the City Clean box, bending his carcass, pulling up the lid, putting on his pince-nez to read the instructions! At this image, they had hooted so loudly they had actually awakened Judd’s old man, who had called from upstairs, “Boys, boys!”
Then they had whispered, Artie nearly rolling on the floor with stifled laughter. Artie had been wonderful that night, planning all sorts of mad surprises for the father. “Hey, how about he pulls up the lid—we have a jack-in-the-box, a great big jock that jumps up at him!”
Judd improved on it. They could rig up a spring, so that when the box was opened it squeezed a bulb and—right in the face!—a fountain!
But even as Artie had gone on, with more and more ghoulish ideas, another image had crowded into Judd’s mind. He had seen the box as the place for the body itself. He had no thought of it as something
