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By Root 364 0

Store, where they "bought" an elaborate motion-picture camera." Cameras are your best investment," Dick informed Perry. "Easiest thing to hock or sell. Cameras and TV sets." This being the case, they decided to obtain several of the latter, and, having completed the mission, went on to attack a few more clothing emporiums - Sheperd & Foster's, Rothschild's, Shopper's Paradise. By sundown, when the stores were closing, their pockets were filled with cash and the car was heaped with salable, pawnable wares. Surveying this harvest of shirts and cigarette lighters, expensive machinery and cheap cuff links, Perry felt elatedly tall - now Mexico, a new chance, a "really living" life. But Dick seemed depressed. He shrugged off Perry's praises ("I mean it, Dick. You were amazing. Half the time I believed you myself"). And Perry was puzzled; he could not fathom why Dick, usually so full of himself, should suddenly, when he had good cause to gloat, be meek, look wilted and sad. Perry said, "I'll stand you a drink." They stopped at a bar. Dick drank three Orange Blossoms. After the third, he abruptly asked, "What about Dad? I feel - oh, Jesus, he's such a good old guy. And my mother - well, you saw her. What about them? Me, I'll be off in Mexico. Or wherever. But they'll be right here when those checks start to bounce. I know Dad. He'll want to make them good. Like he tried to before. And he can't - he's old and he's sick, he ain't got anything."

"I sympathize with that," said Perry truthfully. Without being kind, he was sentimental, and Dick's affection for his parents, his professed concern for them, did indeed touch him. "But hell, Dick. It's very simple," Perry said. "We can pay off the checks. Once we're in Mexico, once we get started down there, we'll make money. Lots of it."

"How?"

"How?" - what could Dick mean? The question dazed Perry. After all, such a rich assortment of ventures had been discussed. Prospecting for gold, skin-diving for sunken treasure - these were but two of the projects Perry had ardently proposed. And there were others. The boat, for instance. They had often talked of a deep-sea-fishing boat, which they would buy, man themselves, and rent to vacationers - this though neither had ever skippered a canoe or hooked a guppy. Then, too. there was quick money to be made chauffeuring stolen cars across South American borders.("You get paid five hundred bucks a trip or so Perry had read somewhere.) But of the many replies he might have made, he chose to remind Dick of the fortune awaiting them on Cocos Island, a land speck off the coast of Costa Rica. "No fooling, Dick," Perry said. "This is authentic. I've got a map. I've got the whole history. It was buried there back in 1821 - Peruvian bullion, jewelry. Sixty million dollars - that's what they say it's worth. Even if we didn't find all of it, even if we found only some of it - Are you with me, Dick?" Heretofore, Dick had always encouraged him, listened attentively to his talk of maps, tales of treasure, but now - and it had not occurred to him before - he wondered if all along Dick had only been pretending, just kidding him. The thought, acutely painful, passed, for Dick, with a wink and a playful jab, said, "Sure, honey. I'm with you. All the way."

It was three in the morning, and the telephone rang again. Not that the hour mattered. Al Dewey was wide awake anyway, and so were Marie and their sons, nine-year-old Paul and twelve-year-old Alvin Adams Dewey, Jr. For who could sleep in a house - a modest one-story house - where all night the telephone had been sounding every few minutes? As he got out of bed, Dewey promised his wife, "This time I'll leave it off the hook." But it was not a promise he dared keep. True, many of the calls came from news-hunting journalists, or would-be humorists, or theorists ("Al? Listen, fella, I've got this deal figured. It's suicide and murder. I happen to know Herb was in a bad way financially. He was spread pretty thin. So what does he do? He takes out this big insurance policy, shoots Bonnie and the kids, and kills