Strictly For Cash (13 page)

"Pull yourself together!" she exclaimed, and the hard, impatient note in her voice startled me. "He's lying over there. He doesn't seem to be breathing."

I staggered over the sandy ground. Each step I took sent a stab of pain through my head, but I kept on until I reached him. He was lying on his side by the smashed Bentley, his head resting on his arm, one leg drawn up almost to his chin.

I knelt by his side. It was too dark to see much of him, but when I turned him and he flopped over on his back, his head remained on his arm. That told me his neck was broken. I touched his hand, felt his pulse, but it was a waste of time.

She dropped down on her knees beside me, her hand on my arm. I could feel her trembling. "He's dead," I told her. She didn't say anything, but her fingers closed on my arm, her nails digging into my flesh.

"Stay here," I said, getting to my feet. "I'll see if I can get someone to help us."

"Are you sure he's dead?" Her voice sounded hard and cold. "He's dead all right. His neck's broken."

She stood up and moved away from me and leaned against a twisted palmetto tree. Her sleek black hair was dishevelled; there was a six-inch rip in her skirt, and one stocking was down to her ankle. The moonlight, coming through the tangle of overhead branches, fell on her face. There was a smear of blood down the side of her nose. Her eyes seemed to have sunk deep into her head, and she was staring sightlessly at me as if her mind were furiously preoccupied with some urgent decision.

"The other car's across the road, Johnny," she said. "See what's happened to the driver."

"And Pepi's car?"

"No sign of it. Maybe they thought we were killed. But go and find out what's happened to the other car."

Moving slowly, still dazed, I made my way on to the highway. Away from the palmetto thicket the moonlight lit up the white road brilliantly, but even in that light it took me several minutes before I found the car. It had crashed into the thicket on the other side of the road, and lay on its side: a big Packard, now fit only for the scrap-heap.

I peered through the shattered window. The driver still sat behind the wheel: a young fellow with a set, fixed grin on his face and horror in his wide, staring eyes. The steeringcolumn had been driven into his body like a grotesque spear: from his neck to his waist he was pulp.

I stepped back. There was no one else in the car, and there was nothing I could do for him. I crossed the road again and went back to the thicket where she was waiting.

"Well?" she asked, her eyes searching my face.

"He's dead."

"Anyone else in the car?"

"No."

"You're sure he's dead?"

"Yes."

She gave a funny little strangled gulp.

"What a marvellously lucky break!"

I stared at her. It suddenly occurred to me that the smash, the death of her husband and the death of the other driver were utterly remote to her. She wasn't thinking of them at all. There was something else occupying her mind: something so urgent and important to her that even the shock of being thrown out of a car at over sixty miles an hour had made no impression on her.

"What's the matter with you?" I demanded.

"I want my handbag, Johnny."

"To hell with your handbag! Are yon all right?"

"Yes." She moved unsteadily towards the smashed Bentley. "Help me find my handbag."

"There are more important things to do than look for your bag," I said sharply. "I've got to fetch the police."

"We've got to get them here," I said impatiently. "What's the matter with you?" My head was pounding, my nerves were flayed and I was shouting at her. "We've got two bodies on our hands! We've got to report this . . ."

"I must have my bag, Johnny," she said with an obstinacy that infuriated me. "There's something very valuable in it. I must find it before we worry about the police."

"All right! All right! We'll find it!" I said, and went over to the Bentley and wrenched opened the door.

"Let me look," she said, pushing me aside, and began groping about on the floor of the car.

I went around to the off-side, but the door was jammed and wouldn't open.

"I can't see a thing!" she exclaimed. "Haven't you a match?"

I struck a match and held the flame through the shattered window. She found the bag wedged between the brake and clutch pedals.

"Okay, now you have it, you'd better sit down and take it easy," I said, stepping away from the car. "I'll hunt up a phone."

She came around the car to where I was standing.

"No, Johnny. We won't bother about the police. No one must know he's dead."

"They'll find him sooner or later. They'll identify the car..." I stopped and stared at her. "What is all this? Why shouldn't they know he's dead?"

"I can't explain now; later, Johnny. Don't look so worried. It's all right. I'll tell you later."

"You're suffering from shock," I said sharply. "Sit down. I'm going for the police."

She dipped her hand into the bag and brought out a .38 automatic.

"You'll stay where you are," she said softly, and pointed the gun at me.

II

Neither she nor I moved. The moonlight fell directly on the glittering barrel of the automatic: the gun looked menacing and large in her hand.

"Don't do anything stupid," she said, and her voice was as hard and as cold as a chunk of ice.

"Have you gone crazy?" I said, not moving. "Put it down!"

"I believe this is the most important moment in my life," she said. "You and I are the only two who know Paul is dead. You don't realize yet how essential it is that no one else should know. Now listen, Johnny, you can either come in with me or I'm going to kill you. There's no other way I can be certain you'll keep your mouth shut."

I thought she had taken leave of her senses, but that didn't alter the fact that she meant what she was saying. I felt a little prickle run up my spine.

"There isn't time to tell you what it's all about," she went on. "But if you come in with me you'll make money: big money, Johnny. What's it to be?"

"What do you want me to do?" I said, and my voice was husky as yours would have been if you had seen those glittering eyes and the hard, ruthless line of her mouth.

"Take his clothes off and put yours on him," she said.

"They've got to think it was you who died in the car."

"Me? They know me in Pelotta. They'll identify me."

"No, they won't. You're going to put him back in the car and set fire to it."

"I can't do that! Now wait . . ."

"You'll do it or I'll have to get rid of you, Johnny. There's no other alternative."

The bang I had taken on my head when I was thrown out of the car made clear thinking impossible. If I hadn't been so punch-drunk I might have tried to get the gun from her. As it was, I knew I hadn't a chance to reach her before she fired, and she would fire, th
e l
ook in her eyes told me that.

"Get going," she said softly. "We've wasted enough time already."

"But tell me why!"

"Later. Are you going to change clothes with him ?" There was a fixed, awful little smile on her lips now, and her knuckle showed white as she took in the slack of the trigger. I was one heart-beat away from being shot. I knew it, and she could see I knew it.

"Yes."

She relaxed, and the smile went away.

"Hurry, Johnny."

With cold sweat on my face I walked over to where he was lying and began to strip him. Apart from his broken neck he wasn't hurt and hadn't bled. I changed into his clothes while she watched me, the gun covering me. Then I got my clothes on him. It was a gruesome job, but I did it. But when I came to put my shoes on his feet, I gave up.

"I can't do it."

"Throw them in the car," she said, and her voice was as unsteady as mine. "It's all right. They'll think they came off in the crash. Get him in and put him behind the steering-wheel."

I dragged him over to the car. He was no light weight, and it was all I could do to get him into the car. I propped him up against the driver's door. He fell forward across the wheel.

"Loosen the carburettor pipe," she said, "then tie your handkerchief over the leak and touch it off with a match."

"They could send us to jail for this," I said, breathing heavily. "Get on with it! The tool case is clipped inside the hood. You want a spanner . . . hurry!"

I loosened the carburettor pipe, burning my hand against the cylinder head as I did so. I was working in a trance. My head kept expanding and contracting, and my legs felt as if they were made of rubber. I did exactly what she told me to do. I tied one end of my handkerchief around the leaking pipe.

"Now set fire to it."

I struck a match. A moment later a long tongue of flame shot out of the car's engine, and spread in a hot, glaring mass to the coachwork.

I jumped back just in time.

She came running towards me. "Come on!" she said. "Before anyone comes."

I went with her because there was nothing else to do.

We moved fast, and in silence, until the glare of the burning car died away in the distance, and we came out on to the soft white sand of the beach.

"Wait, Johnny," she said, and stopped.

I turned to look at her. She still held the gun, but it was no longer pointing at me.

"There's not much time, but I have to talk to you," she said. "I wish I knew more about you. It's fantastic we should meet like this, and be in this position together. Do you realize that from now on you and I have got to trust each other, work with each other, and stay with each other as if we had known each other for years? What sort of nerve have you got? Just how ambitious are you? I wish I knew what kind of man you are."

"And do you realize they could send us to jail for what we've done?" I said. "Have you gone crazy . . .?"

"Don't worry about that. They won't find out. Do you want to get your hands on some money? Real money, Johnny? If you have the right kind of nerve we can help ourselves to half a million dollars: half for you and half for me."

I stiffened. A quarter of a million dollars! That was the kind of money I had always dreamed of making.

"You're lying," I said.

"Sit down. We haven't much time, but enough for me to explain the set-up to you. Go on, Johnny, sit down and listen."

I sat down. She sat a few yards from me, the gun in her lap, the moonlight on her face, and in spite of her dishevelled hair and the streak of blood down the side of her nose, she still looked lovely.

Speaking rapidly, she told me the dead man was Paul Wertham, a big-time gambler, the owner of three casinos.

"He's the head of an organization worth millions," she said. "The moment it's known he's dead, the vultures will move in and grab. He has a manager for each casino. They'd grab everything and leave me to whistle for my share. But so long as they think he's alive," it can be handled. That's the set-up. I can't handle it on my own. I can handle it with your help. The take is half a million, and you'll get half of it: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It's easy. All you want is nerve, and if you do what I tell you, we can't go wrong."

That was my cue to say no: when I should have walked away and taken the chance of getting a slug in the back; when I should have remembered what Tom Roche had said about big and sudden money leading to trouble.

But I didn't say no. I suddenly realized she was deadly serious. She actually meant half a million, and I started to think what that much money could buy.

"How can you keep his death quiet?" I asked. "How long do you think it'll be before they find out?"

Then she smiled and relaxed because she knew I was on the hook and all she had to do was to hit the line to sink the barb in too deep for me to jump off.

"We have only to keep it quiet for three or four days: not longer; and the money's ours. It's as easy as that." "Go on; keep talking."

"Each casino has a large cash reserve in case there's a run on the bank. The casino at Lincoln Beach caters for millionaires. The reserve there is half a million in cash. Each casino is in charge of a manager. Jack Ricca runs the Los Angeles place. Nick Reisner takes care of Lincoln Beach, and Pete Levinsky, the Paris end." She was leaning forward, speaking fast and softly, and I didn't miss a word of what she was saying. "Paul was going to Paris when he was tipped that Reisner was dipping into the reserve to cover his own gambling losses. He had to act fast. The Paris trip was important so he arranged for Ricca to go to Lincoln Beach. He phoned Reisner and told him Ricca was on his way and was to have access to the books. But at the last moment Ricca went on a drinking jag. Every so often he gets the urge and hides himself away with a crate of whisky, and that's all anyone knows about him until he reappears again. Paul had to cancel his Paris trip. There was no time to tell Reisner he was coming in Ricca's place. He and I were on our way when we stopped at Pelotta to watch the fights." She reached out and put her hand on my knee.
"Reisner doesn't know Paul was
coming in place of Ricca, and Reisner has never seen Ricca
. You're going to be Ricca for just as long as it takes us to collect that reserve. That's the set-up. How do you like it?"

I sat looking at her.

"And my cut will be a quarter of a million?"

"Yes, Johnny, word of honour. There can be no blowback to this. I've as much right to it as Reisner has. I have more right to it. Every nickel of it belongs to Paul. If he had made a will he would have left it to me."