Read Money Men for Free Online Page B

placed it in the rental locker. After glancing at the passengers in the bus terminal, he closed the locker quickly, removed the key, and pushed it into the pocket of his leather jacket.
    On the way from Red's, he had bought birthday paper and wrapped the sawed-off shotgun. Red had told him it was the best precaution against a general inspection of such lockers. He said they usually wouldn't go to the trouble of opening a gift-wrapped package. Happy birthday, mother fuckers, he thought.
    Before meeting Red, he would never have gone to such trouble. Now such precautions were a source of pride. "No bull can prove a murder case without the murder weapon," Red often said.
    It was dusk when Ronnie drove toward the Sea Horse Motel. He left the Santa Monica Freeway and headed south on Lincoln Boulevard and smelled salt air. The smell reminded him of Carol's beach apartment six years ago. He pictured her walking around the apartment naked, tits jiggling, talking a hundred miles an hour. He thought of the arrow tattoo.
    At a traffic light, a woman in tennis shorts crossed the street in snappy fashion. Her legs were long, like Carol's. Although he remembered Carol's body, he wasn't sure he would remember her face. He had not seen her since the trial, six years ago. She had sat in the dock like a penguin and testified against him. For the first months in stir he had dreamed of escaping just to kill her, but those thoughts had faded into others. Walking the yard was a mind bender.
    He knew it had been his fault. After all, he chose to live with her and let her in on the bank jobs. What the hell did he expect her to do? Carol would never ride a beef for a man. She was a loner. She was one of the few broads who had her own reputation. Carol was the Queen of Plastic. She could have written books on how to make two grand a day from a hot American Express card.
    He swung into the lot in front of a row of aqua-colored motel rooms and parked. He checked the note in his wallet. Sea Horse, room eleven. She had been easy to locate through the grapevine.
    He walked to room eleven and knocked loudly. There was no answer. After looking around, he removed the screwdriver from his pocket, jimmied the lock, opened the door, and stepped into the darkened room. Women's clothes lay on the bed; a brassiere hung on a chair. Closing the door, he moved a chair to a corner of the room and sat on it.
    He removed the switch-blade knife from his pocket, flicked it open, and cleaned his nails. The motel room was fairly clean, but small, cell-like. A print of an ocean scene hung over the bed. The room reminded him of the Burbank apartment where he had played as a child. Walls thin as paper. His mother had liked the apartment because it was near the studios, where she had worked on and off as a waitress. He remembered the cheap furniture and the hundreds of tiny bottles and jars on her dressing table, the Screen Romance magazines in the kitchen drawer, the enormous photo of Alan Ladd on the living-room wall, the smell of cold cream.
    He had spent the first night away from the apartment in Los Angeles County Juvenile Hall. The next day, good old Mom had come to pick him up, carting along a whiskey-breath boyfriend. They dropped him off at the apartment after she scolded him for breaking into a car. She hadn't even taken the trouble to find out that he had broken into a house, not a car.
    He had received a telegram about her death when he was in Chino serving three years for some gas-station stickups. After learning the news, he had finished his handball game.
    He heard a key enter the lock and he stood up quietly with the knife in his hand.
    She did not see him as she closed the door and walked to the dressing table. She turned on the table lamp; her back was to him but she saw him in the mirror and gave a sharp cry. Her hands flew to her mouth and she spun around. They faced each other across the messy bed.
    "Ronnie! Oh! Please don't kill me. The Feds made me testify.