The Living End Read Free Page A

They’re white men! He felt oddly justified and wished May were there to see.
    “The register receipts,” the man at the counter coaxed. Ellerbee’s cash register kept a running total on what had been taken in.

    “Just punch Total Tab,” the man instructed Kroll. “Let’s see what we got.” Kroll looked at Ellerbee and Ellerbee nodded. The man reached forward and tore off the tape. He whistled.
    “Nice little place you got here,” he said.
    “What’d we get? Whatd we get?” the man at the door shouted.
    Ellerbee cleared his throat.
    “Do you want to lock the door?” he asked. “So no one else comes in?” He glanced toward the third man.
    “What, and have you kick the alarm while we’re fucking around trying to figure which key opens the place?” said the man at the door. “You’re cute, you’re a cutie. Whatd we get? Let’s see.” He joined the man at the counter. “Holy smoke! jackpot City! We’re into four figures here.” In his excitement he did a foolish thing. He set his revolver down on top of the appetizer table. It lay on the tins of caviar and smoked oysters, the imported cheeses and roasted peanuts. The third man was no more than four feet from the gun, and though Ellerbee saw that the man had caught the robber’s mistake and that by taking one step toward the table he could have picked up the pistol and perhaps foiled the robbery, he made no move. Perhaps he’s one of them, Ellerbee thought, or maybe he just doesn’t want to get involved.
    Ellerbee couldn’t remember ever having seen him. (By now, of course, he recognized all his repeat customers.) He still didn’t know if he were a confederate or just an innocent bystander, but Ellerbee had had enough of violence and hoped that if he were a customer he wouldn’t try anything dumb. He felt no animus toward the man at all. Kroll’s face, however, was all scorn and loathing.
    “Let’s get to work,” the man said who had first read the tape, and then to Kroll and Ellerbee, “Back up there. Go stand by the aperitifs.”
    The third man fell silently into step beside Ellerbee.
    “Listen,” Ellerbee explained as gently as he could, “you won’t find that much cash in the drawer. A lot of our business is Master Charge. We take personal checks.”
    “Don’t worry,” the man said who had set his gun down (and who had taken it up again). “We know about the checks. We got a guy we can sell them to for-what is it, Ron, seventeen cents on the dollar?”
    “Fourteen, and why don’t you shut your mouth, will you? You want to jeopardize these people? What do you make it?”
    Ellerbee went along with his sentiments. He wished the bigmouth would just take the money and not say anything more.
    “Oh, jeopardize,” the man said. “How jeopardized can you get? These people are way past jeopardized.
    About six hundred in cash, a fraction in checks. The rest is all credit card paper.”
    “Take it,” Ron said.
    “You won’t be able to do anything with the charge slips,” Kroll said.
    “Oh yeah?” Ron’s cohort said. “This is modern times, fellow. We got a way we launder Master Charge, BankAmericard, all of it.”
    Ron shook his head and Ellerbee glanced angrily at his manager.

    The whole thing couldn’t have taken four minutes. Ron’s partner took a fifth of Chivas and a bottle of Lafitte ‘47. He’s a doctor, Ellerbee thought.
    “You got a bag?”
    “A bag?” Ellerbee said.
    “A bag, a paper bag, a doggy bag for the boodle.”
    “Behind the counter,” Ellerbee said hopelessly.
    The partner put the cash and the bottle of Chivas into one bag and handed it to Ron, and the wine, checks, and credit charges into a second bag which he held on to himself. They turned to go. They looked exactly like two satisfied customers. They were almost at the door when Ron’s partner nudged Ron.
    “Oh, yeah,” Ron said, and turned back to look at them. “My friend, Jay Ladlehaus, is right,” he said, “you know too much.”