extra beds.”
“No. I’ll stay at a motel.”
Tisor didn’t argue with Nolan. He drove him to the Suncrest Motel. He let Nolan out at the office and waited for three minutes while Nolan got himself set with a room. Nolan came back with key 8, which put him in a little brown cabin close to the end. There were ten cabins, stretched out in a neat row. Nolan walked to his and waved at Tisor to follow him.
Nolan started unpacking his clothes as soon as he got inside the cabin. Tisor said, “You want me to leave now?”
“Wait a minute. We’ll grab some food at the diner across the road. But no talk about your problem till I’ve had a night’s sleep.”
Tisor again didn’t argue with Nolan. He was used to putting up with the ways of the man. He knew Nolan’s mind was his own and it was no use trying to change him. He would just go along with him and everything would work out all right.
The diner was boxcar style, and the two men took a postage-stamp table by a window. The place was cheap but clean, which was all it took to please Nolan. Tisor ordered coffee, Nolan breakfast.
“You were smart to get scrambled eggs,” Tisor said. “Breakfast’s always the best thing a diner serves.”
“Right.”
Damn you, Nolan, Tisor thought. Why is conversation such a task for you, you goddamn hunk of stone?
“You care if I ask you what you been doing the last six years or so?”
Nolan lit a cigarette. “Go ahead.”
Tisor leaned over the table and whispered. “What’s this I been hearing about you robbing the Boys blind? I hear they can’t wipe their ass without Nolan’s stole the toilet paper.”
Nolan decided he might as well tell Tisor everything, so he’d have it out of the way—Tisor would hound him till he got it all, anyway.
“It started,” Nolan said, “with them chasing me. They sent guns wherever I went. Mexico, Canada, Hawaii. Didn’t matter.”
“You ran.”
“Sure I did. At first.”
“At first?”
“Running gets tiresome, Sid. The first month I ran. After that I took my time. I knew the Boys, knew how they thought. Knew their operations. So when my original bankroll of twenty G’s ran out, I went back for more. Looted any of the Boys’ operations that were handy.”
Their food came and they shut up till the waitress laid the plates down and left.
“How do you work it?”
“Huh?” Nolan said. He was eating.
“When you loot ’em. How do you work it?”
“Quick hit, planned a day or so in advance. Just me. Once in a while outside help, on a full-scale operation. Lots of pros working free-lance these days. Not even the Family controls professional thieves. Not many pros are afraid to help me, not with the money that’s in it.”
Tisor didn’t bother Nolan any more. Now that Nolan had his food and was eating, he wouldn’t like to be bothered.
Tisor sipped his coffee and thought about his cold, old friend. What balls the guy had! Nolan had some stones bucking odds like that. And the hell of it was, if he kept moving, Nolan just might be hard enough a character to beat the Boys at their own game.
When both had finished, they got up from the table, Nolan paid the check and Tisor tipped the waitress a quarter. The two men walked out into the raw night air and waited for an opening to jaywalk back across the highway to the motel.
Tisor stood with his hands in his jacket pockets, watching his breath smoke in the chill, while Nolan got his key out and opened the door to the cabin. Nolan did not invite Tisor in.
He said, “See you tomorrow, Sid.”
“Okay, Nolan . . . Nolan?”
“Yeah?”
“You mind if I ask you something else? Just one more thing, then I won’t ask you any more questions.”
Nolan shrugged.
“How much you made off the Boys so far?”
Nolan grinned the flat, humorless grin. “Don’t know for sure. It’s spread around, in banks. Maybe half a million. Maybe a little less.”
Tisor laughed. “Shee-it! How long you gonna keep this up?”
Nolan