Stop This Man! - By Peter Rabe Page 0,3

Catell walked over and bought a ticket to Detroit.

Twenty minutes to traintime.

Catell went to the short-order counter and sat down, but the seat faced the wrong way. He got up again, walked to the other side of the U-shaped counter, and found a seat that faced the entrance of the station. With a slight turn he could also see the gateways that led to the trains. He put his yellow leather case on the floor under the counter and ordered a glass of milk. After he had finished the milk he smoked a cigarette, ordered another glass of milk, and watched the waitress behind the counter. She was young, but nothing special. Catell watched her for the same reason he drank a lot of milk. He hadn’t had much of either for the past eight years.

Without moving his head, Catell glanced at the waitress, the entrance, the crowds, and then at the waitress again, but there was no particular expression on his face. He looked tired and lined. His long jaw had a bluish cast that made the rest of his face look like the color of wet chalk. A small muscle jumped in his cheek, but otherwise Catell sat quite still.

Ten minutes to traintime.

Catell picked specks of dust from the sleeve of his blue overcoat and wondered whether to order another glass of milk. But suddenly the thought made him sick. His forehead glistened with sudden sweat and he swallowed hard. Then the nausea passed.

Perhaps he was overdoing the milk. Catell rubbed his pale forehead. His whole face was pale, very pale. Catell hadn’t been out of prison very long.

Five minutes before traintime he paid the waitress and got up. Carrying his yellow leather case, he started for one of the train gates.

A redcap walked up behind him. “Carry that for you?” The redcap put his hand on the case.

Catell jumped. “Let go.”

But the redcap didn’t catch the tone of Catell’s voice, and he reached for the leather case again. That’s when Catell spun on the balls of his feet, his fist thudding into the porter’s stomach. Before anybody had seen a thing, Catell was walking toward the train gate, his thin face a mask, his movements controlled. The redcap lay on the floor, doubled over in groaning pain. For all of his fifty years, Tony Catell was very fast and very strong.

One minute before traintime he entered his compartment and locked the door. When the train started to move, he put the leather case on the seat, took off his hat and coat, and sat down. It was hours before the train would hit Detroit, but Catell did not make himself comfortable. He sat without leaning against the cushions, his narrow hands folded between his knees, only his eyes showing how tired he was. He hadn’t slept much during the past few days, because he had been nervous and unsure of himself. When Schumacher had explained the heist to him, Catell had felt unsure. The feeling had stayed with him when he had cased the job, when he had pulled it, and when he had haled up in that burg Hamilton City for a few hours of fitful sleep.

The job had been too easy. Catell pulled out a cigarette and then forgot to light it. He wondered if prison could have made him feel this way, broken down to the size of a gutless punk, a nervous rat. But that didn’t make sense, because he had been in prison before. He was a three-time loser, out for the last time, out for good until he died—one way or the other.

Catell jumped in his seat and made an automatic move for the leather case next to him. He had fallen asleep there, sitting there with the doubt and the fear scrambling his brain.

He cursed through his teeth, trying to shake the weariness out of his bones. He was getting too old, maybe, a crazy has-been who was trying to wrench himself back up by dreams of an old reputation; a reputation so old it didn’t even fit the picture any more. He had slipped badly; he’d slipped so hard that they’d sent him up for that third time.

But that was going to be the end of that. They didn’t know it yet but they had given him his other chance. Nobody was going to call Catell a has-been, an old broken-down three-time loser with a lot of fancy memories and a long list of dead friends.

He was going to