"A life on Alcatraz is a lot of years," he said stolidly. "Never mind the dough. Just see that Marty keeps his mouth shut. Maybe we can do something about the dough afterwards."
Even then he kept his belief in his lucky star, although the benefit it had conferred on him was somewhat ambiguous. A more captious man might have quibbled that a price ticket of one hundred thousand dollars was an expensive present, but to Luckner it represented fair value. Nor did he feel any compunction about the use to which he proposed to put the gift.
In this respect, at least, Toscelli was able to agree with him without placing any strain on his principles. The chief load on his mind was the responsibility of the cargo of twenty-dollar bills which he had collected from various places during the afternoon; and he felt a certain amount of relief when ke arrived at the rendezvous and found a closed car parked by the roadside and waiting for him exactly as the Saint had promised that it would be. Even so, he kept one hand on his gun while the Saint received the heavy packages of currency through the window.
Simon examined each packet carefully under the dashboard light and satisfied himself that there was no deception.
"A very nice little haul," he murmured. "You must be sorry to see it go, Luigi… By the way, you can let go your gun — I've got you covered from here, and you're a much better target than I am."
Toscelli wavered, peering at him sombrely out of the gloom. It was true that it grieved him to see so much hard cash taken out of his hands; but he remembered Luckner's warning, and he had heard of the Saint's reputation himself.
"Where do we go?" he growled.
The shiny barrel of the Saint's automatic, resting on the edge of the window, moved in a briefly indicative arc towards the north.
"Straight on up the Parkway for exactly three miles. Park your wagon there and wait for results. He'll be travelling south, looking for a car parked exactly where you're going to be — but he won't expect you to be in it. You won't make any mistake, because I've marked his car: the near-side headlight has a cross of adhesive tape on the lens, and I hope it will give you pious ideas. On your way, brother… "
Simon drove slowly south. In about half a mile he pulled in to the side of the road again and stopped there. He flicked his headlights two or three times before he finally switched them out, and he was completing the task of distributing a measured half of Toscelli's hundred-thousand-dollar payment over his various pockets when a subdued voice hailed him cautiously from the shadows at the roadside.