Free The Neon Jungle by John D. MacDonald Page B

Maybe you’ll get a break. Maybe they’ll just put you in the hospital for a long stay.”
    “Why? It was a mistake. I didn’t know. Why?”
    “Just as a lesson to somebody else who might try the same thing. I told you this was a rough game. If you’d won, you’d have taken the money, wouldn’t you?”
    “No. Just what I was playing for.”
    “You expect me to believe that?”
    “It’s the truth. Honest to God.”
    “You stay here. I’ll go try to talk to him. It isn’t going to do any good, but I’ll try.”
    “Vern. You got to get me out of this. You got to.”
    “Stop sniveling.”
    He stood in the dark corner near a billiard table and watched Vern walk back toward the cone of bright white light over the green table and sit down. He couldn’t hear what was said. Suddenly the four men got up and walked out of the room, leaving Vern sitting there. Rick heard their voices, heard one of them laugh as they went down the stairs. Rick went cautiously back to the table.
    “What… what did they say?”
    “Oh, shut up!”
    “Vern, you got to tell me.”
    “Sure. I’ll tell you. I brought you here. So whatever you get, I get too, you dumb son. They think I was in on it.”
    “But I’ll tell them it was just me.”
    “Do you think they’d believe anything we say? Not a chance.”
    “What are they going to do?”
    “I’ll tell you what they said. They said we should sit tight. They know where to find us. They’ve got an idea. It seems that there’s some friend of theirs needs a little help. If he can use us, then we can work it off that way. If not…” Vern shrugged.
    “If not, what?”
    “They send some experts around, Rick. Guys who know how to three-quarter kill you, and make the job last a long time.”
    “I’ll do anything, Vern. Anything.”
    That was a long time ago. Nearly two years ago. He knew he’d never forget the fear of those two days of not knowing. When Vern at last came and told him he’d been contacted, and it was decided they could be used, Rick almost cried with gratitude.
    The job was simple. After the first delivery on Monday each week Vern would return to the store with a package he got someplace. He wouldn’t say where or how he got it. It was generally a small box, hardly bigger than a pack of cigarettes. In it was a bunch of little packets in the form of cylinders wrapped tightly in cellophane, fastened with layers of Scotch tape. He had to hide the little box somewhere around his working area. That wasn’t hard. There were lots of places. Inside a carcass in the walk-in cooler. Behind the slicer. Lots of places. What was hard was memorizing the list. Nine names at first. Nine little packets in the box each week. Vern made him say the names over and over until he could say them in his sleep.
    It worked like this: A phone order would come in. Walter or Jana or Doris or somebody would take it. There would be a meat item on the order. It was written out, name and all, by whoever took the order over the phone. When he made up the orders on his spindle, whenever he came to one of the nine names, he would have to slice a small pocket in the meat and shove one of the little cylinders in there. Then he’d wrap and tie and weigh the meat and scribble the price and the name on the brown paper. The nine people always phoned in cash orders.
    For the first week he was too overcome with relief to question what he was doing. It was enough that he had to keep anybody from seeing what he was doing, and keep remembering the names. But when the week end came he found he had to know.
    Vern wouldn’t talk in the house, so they went for a walk on Sunday, went to a park. It was a small park and they found a bench away from other people.
    “Now what’s on your mind?”
    “These little things in the meat, Vern. What are they for? What are we doing?”
    Vern gave him a look of incredulous contempt. “Just how dumb are you, you big slob?”
    “I’m sorry, Vern. I just wanted to