The Outfit by Richard Stark Page B

boss. Got it?"
    "All – all right."
    LaRenne couldn't be sure if Kobler was on the up and up or not. He'd never seen Kobler around before, but that didn't mean anything. And what could happen to him in the terminal? He'd stall Hanks and make a phone call. If the call proved Kobler a liar, then LaRenne could signal Hanks for help. Anyway, LaRenne already believed that Hanks was planning to walk off with the money. Hadn't he thought about doing the same thing himself?
    They walked into the terminal, Kobler one step behind LaRenne. LaRenne saw Hanks strolling across the terminal floor towards the luncheonette. LaRenne nodded briefly but kept walking away from the luncheonette at an angle. Hanks stopped and frowned, and LaRenne motioned with his head for Hanks to go on, trying to get the idea across that Hanks should wait a minute – that he should go on into the luncheonette and wait a minute. Hanks started walking again, but very slowly, watching LaRenne with a puzzled frown on his face.
    Kobler hadn't known what Hanks looked like, but by following LaRenne's signals he spotted the frowning puzzled man in the brown suit. He murmured to LaRenne, "I'll keep him busy. Hurry up with the call." Then he veered away from LaRenne and went over to talk to Hanks.
    Hanks saw him coming, and looked more puzzled than ever, and also a little alarmed. He started angling away from Kobler, not wanting to talk with him, but Kobler caught up with him and asked, "Where's the others?"
    "What? You got the wrong man, friend."
    "You're Hanks, aren't you?"
    Hanks debated denying it. Was this guy law or what?
    Kobler hurried on. "Where's the others, god damn it? You want him to get away?"
    "What? Who?"
    "LaRenne! Didn't you people get the telegram?"
    "What telegram?"
    "Oh, for God's sake!" exclaimed Kobler. "LaRenne's figuring to walk off with the seventy-five G's. We just found out about it. I barely got on the same plane with him. He doesn't know me, see, he's never seen me around. Where the hell's he gone?"
    Automatically, Hanks answered, "Back by the phone booths."
    "Yeah, We figured he had somebody with him. Are there any more phone booths around here?"
    "Listen," said Hanks. Things were going too fast for him. He'd thought of walking off with seventy-five G 's lot of times, but he'd never had the guts to try it. He couldn't get used to the idea that maybe somebody else did have the guts. He was so shaken, he couldn't get his mental balance back.
    And Kobler wouldn't give him the chance. "Phone booths, dammit!"
    "Yeah, over there by the lockers. But-"
    "No time! I don't want him to see you phoning nobody. Go over there to those other booths and call your boss and see didn't the telegram get there yet. Tell him to send two or three boys out here. We don't know who's with LaRenne or how many, and I'm not sure I can handle it by myself. Get going!"
    "But-"
    "I can't lose LaRenne!" said Kobler, and hurried away.
    Hanks didn't know what to do. But LaRenne was acting funny, and the big guy had given him a reason for it, so he did what the big guy told him to do. He hurried across the echoing floor towards the other bank of phone booths on the far side of the terminal by the baggage lockers.
    Kobler meanwhile went after LaRenne. He had disappeared into a double rank of phone booths. If you stood between the ranks, you couldn't be seen from the terminal proper. There were three people besides LaRenne closeted in booths, all of them talking like mad and paying no attention to the outside world. Kobler took out the Blackhawk, held it by the barrel, and opened the door of LaRenne's phone booth. He clipped LaRenne with the gun butt just as the operator finally made the connection with Argus Imports.
    A tinny voice sounded, "Hello?"
    Kobler put the phone back on its hook, and stripped off LaRenne's coat. He stuffed coat and gun into the briefcase, closed it, and shut the phone-booth door. He walked over to the self-service baggage counter where the baggage from