Free Spree by Max Allan Collins Page B

why he had affection for Jon? He clearly had it, despite his surly treatment of the “kid.” And Jon clearly looked up to Nolan, despite his efforts to stand up to him and be equally surly.
    She knew the story. She knew Jon had been the nephew of a man named Planner, an old guy who ran an antique shop in Iowa City, who on antique-buying jaunts would seek out, scope out and scheme out what Nolan referred to, euphemistically, as “institutional jobs.” Robberies was what they were, and when Nolan had been on the outs with those Chicago gangsters, Planner had helped him line up “one last job,” asking Nolan to take Jon along, his green, young nephew, whose criminal experience had been limited to a couple of gas station stickups with several wild friends. As a favor to Planner, and out of desperation, Nolan had undertaken the job—a bank robbery—with Jon and those two wild friends, one of them a young woman who worked at the bank in question. The “job” had gone well enough, but shortly thereafter, the Chicago gangsters descended on Nolan, who got shot up, bad.
    Jon, however, had stuck around after the “job” and spirited the wounded Nolan away, to safety and a doctor.
    Maybe it was that simple—Jon had saved Nolan’s life, once; maybe that was what linked them. She knew, too, that the old antique shop guy, Planner, had later been killed by the Chicago people, and that Nolan felt responsible, and seemed to have taken the “kid” under his wing, after that. They’d pulled a couple more jobs and faded into separate, straight lives: Nolan with Nolan’s, Jon with this rock ’n’ roll band he traveled with.
    He was also a cartoonist, Jon was, and apparently his rock ’n’ roll band had split up and his creative energy was being channeled into comic books, at the moment. He had set up a corner of the rec room downstairs, by the sliding glass doors facing the swimming pool (covered over with plastic now), where he could work in “natural light,” he said. He had a drawing board where he worked on big sheets of heavy white paper, drawing in pencil, then going over it in ink. He was really quite good—the drawings were realistic but pleasantly goofy; it was something about outer space, sort of a skewed Star Trek . She had found one of the comic books lying around and she had read it and found it amusing. She would hate to admit that, but she did find it amusing.
    He was no trouble. None at all. Quiet. Living his own life. He filled the little refrigerator behind the bar with little cans of orange juice, which seemed to be his only breakfast. She didn’t know where he took his other meals—he was in and out, driving Nolan’s Trans Am, while his own vehicle, an old light blue Ford van from his band days, was at a nearby service station for some work. What he was doing with his time away from the house, she had no idea. Mostly he spent long, long hours at the drawing board.
    The problem wasn’t Jon. The problem was his presence. This Las Vegas trip was coming up in two weeks. She had counted on having a month with Nolan to work on him. To put her plan in motion. To put it simply, her plan was to get Nolan to marry her—”on the spur of the moment”—in Vegas. In one of those charmingly sleazy little wedding chapels she’d read about. She would orchestrate it so it was his idea. Nolan was the kind of man who only acted on his own ideas; she knew that well—she’d been giving him ideas to have ever since she met him.
    But having that extra person in the house was throwing things off kilter. Their sex life was off—she was uncomfortable having sex while somebody else roamed the house. Even though Jon stayed downstairs, she found herself trying not to make noise, during lovemaking, not wanting Jon to hear. Why she cared, exactly, she didn’t know; but she did. It bothered Nolan too, whether he knew it or not—their little ritual was undone: he could no longer go downstairs to shower while she luxuriously