Strictly For Cash (14 page)

"Can we get away with it?"

"Yes. It just needs nerve."

This was the chance I had been waiting for. I knew it meant trouble, but money that big had to mean trouble. Well, the opportunity was there: right in my lap. I wasn't going to pass it up.

"Count me in," I said.

III

"Are you all set, Johnny?" she asked, stopping. "You know what to do. You're suffering from concussion. Leave all the talking to me."

"I know what to do."

I flopped down on the sand and stretched out while she went on towards the cabin. While I waited I tried to keep my mind blank, but it couldn't be done. I kept thinking of the trouble that was piling up for me, but I wasn't going to side-step it. Come hail, come sunshine, I was going to have that money.

I heard voices. I heard her say, "He just passed out. I think its concussion." The anxious, frightened note in her voice even fooled me.

A man said, "I'll get him in, miss. Just you take it easy."

Hands turned me over on my back. I let out a groan to tell him how bad I was, and looked through my eyelashes as he bent over me. I couldn't see much of him in the half darkness. He seemed short and powerfully built, and that was about all I could see.

He was powerful all right, for he got me to my feet as if I weighed a few pounds. I made an effort to keep upright, then slumped heavily on him.

"Take it easy," he said. "It ain't far. Lean on me as hard as you like."

They got me on to a bed. I lay still, my eyes closed. I heard him say, "He sure is knocked about. What do you want me to do, miss? Get a doctor?"

"How far is it to the nearest telephone?" she asked.

"About half a mile down the road."

He had moved away from me now, and I took a peep at him. He was elderly, with a tanned, lined face and stubbly white hair. I looked from him to her. She had dropped into a chair. Her face was tight and hard, and as white as a bone. She must have been tough to have withstood the shock of the crash and her husband's death and still be able to plan and act as she had done. But now she looked ready to flop, and the old guy seemed to think so too. He went hastily to a cupboard and brought out a bottle of whisky. He poured her a stiff drink, and she put it down as if it were water.

"Our car was stolen," she said huskily. "We were held up. My friend was hit on the head. It's important we should get to Lincoln Beach at once. I wonder if you would telephone to our friends and ask them to come and pick us up?"

"Why, sure. I'll do it right away. The name's Jud Harkness. I'll be glad to do anything I can for you."

"I can't say how grateful I am, Mr. Harkness," she said, and smiled at him. "We were on our way to Lincoln Beach when this hold-up happened. If you could phone ..."

"Give me the number, miss, and I'll do it. Want me to call the cops?"

"I want to get him home first. I'll report the hold-up from Lincoln Beach. The number is Lincoln Beach 4444. Can you remember that?"

"Sure, that's an easy one,"

"Ask for Nick Reisner. Tell him Ricca has met with an accident and for him to come out here as soon as he can. Will you do that?"

Harkness repeated the message.

"I can't thank you enough."

When he had left the cabin I sat up.

"What's the idea of the hold-up? That'll bring in the police."

She looked at me, a far-away expression in her eyes, as if she were thinking of other things besides what I was saying.

"The car might be traced to Paul. I don't think there's much chance of it because the plates are phoneys, but they might trace it. If they do, the car has to be stolen. You can see that, can't you?"

She was right, of course, but I didn't like it. Sooner or later the story would get back to Pelotta, and Tom and Alice Roche would hear I had not only clubbed the driver, but had stolen the car. Even if they had to think I was dead, I didn't like the idea of them thinking I'd turned thug.

"Listen, Johnny," she said, coming to sit on the bed by my side, "in a little while Reisner will be here. You've got to watch your step. He's no fool. Don't let him question you. I'll do the talking. So far as he's concerned you're suffering from concussion, and you're not fit to answer questions."

I nodded.

"The one thing he's going to find suspicious is why I'm with you," she went on. "He'll wonder why Paul let me come with you from Los Angeles. He'll probably phone the casino and try and contact Paul. All they'll be able to tell him is Paul's on his way to Paris, and Ricca on his way to Lincoln Beach, and that's what we want him to know. If Reisner gets too suspicious he may try to contact Levinsky in Paris. But Levinsky can't tell him anything until the boat Paul was supposed to be on docks. That gives us four days to swing the job, Johnny."

"You said it would be easy."

"It is easy. Don't let Reisner jump anything on you. Leave the talking to me."

She got up to look out of the window to see if there was any sign of Harkness. I looked at her slim, square-shouldered back, and a stab of desire went through me. There was something about her as she stood at the window that would have brought out the primitive in any man. Uneasily I shifted my eyes away from her and felt in my pockets for a cigarette. In the hip pocket I found a gold cigarette-case. It was then I remembered I was wearing Wertham's clothes, and that gave me the creeps. I lit a cigarette and pushed the case into my hip pocket again.

"Better not smoke, Johnny," she said. "You're supposed to be pretty bad." She leaned forward and took the cigarette and put it between her lips. I looked up at her, my mouth going dry. I had to fight against the urge to grab her and pull her down beside me.

She must have realized the way I was feeling, for she stepped away from me, her face hardening.

"Get your mind on what I'm going to tell you," she said. "You've got to know something about Paul, how he lived, the things he liked. It's so easy to be tripped up on the small things."

I got a grip on myself. It wasn't easy, but I did it.

"Go ahead," I said huskily.

She told me where Wertham lived in Los Angeles, his telephone number, the kind of car he drove and a lot of details about his personal life. In a very short time she had given me a heap of facts that only a man who had lived with Wertham and worked with him could have known.

She went on to tell me about the casino, what it looked like, the kind of tables used, the number of croupiers employed, the amount of profit made in an evening, how much the various members of the staff were paid, how many crooked tables there were and how they operated. Then she switched to Jack Ricca, and gave me his background. He had joined Wertham's organization about a year ago. No one knew much about him. It was rumoured he used to run a night-club in New York, but he had neither admitted nor denied it. He was a man who said little about himself.

"Every so often he goes on a drinking jag," Della concluded, "and it's my bet he's in some sanatorium, tapering off."

"You mean Wertham employed a drunk like that?"

"He's sober ten months of the year. Paul said he has one of the sharpest brains in the business. Since Ricca took over the casino they've trebled the take."

"Well, you've told me about Wertham and Ricca," I said, looking at her, "how about telling me something about yourself?"

"Are you getting interested in me, Johnny?" she asked.

That was the wrong word, but I didn't tell her. Without any warning, and apparently because I had seen her at a different angle, she had suddenly touched off my blood: I was on fire for her.

"Call it that if you like," I said. "If we're going to work together, shouldn't I know something about you?"

She gave me a jeering little smile that told me I wasn't fooling her for a moment.

"I met Paul two years ago when I was trying to break into the movies. I was down to my last dollar when he showed up. As a man he meant nothing to me. He was selfish, arrogant and cruel, but he had money and he threw it around. He fell for me, and I played hard to get. He spent hundreds on me, took me everywhere, but I was angling for marriage. Finally he got so worked up he said he would marry me." Her full, scarlet lips parted in a bitter smile. "He had me for a sucker. The ceremony was phoney. He had a wife already, but I only found that out after eighteen months of living with him. He promised to divorce her, and he did. The divorce comes through next month, but it's a little late. All his personal money goes to his wife. I get nothing. I've lived pretty well these past two years, and I'm not going back to the old racket again. That's why I'm going ahead with this set-up, Johnny, and no one's going to stop me."

She was still talking when we heard the door latch click up. I only just had time to flop back on the bed and close my eyes before Jud Harkness came in.

"Did you get through?" Della asked him.

"Yeah, and he's coming right away," Harkness said.

There was a note in his voice I didn't like, and I peered at him from between my eyelashes. He was looking towards me.

"Hasn't he come around yet?" he asked.

"I think he's sleeping," Della said. "He seems to be breathing more evenly."

There was a long, uneasy silence, then Harkness said, "The party reckoned it'd take rum an hour to get here. If it's all the same to you I'll turn in. I've got to make an early start in the morning."

"Why, of course. We won't disturb you. I'm very grateful for what you've done."

"That's okay. Sure there's nothing you want?"

"I have everything." She stood up. "Don't bother to get up when Mr. Reisner comes." She paused, then went on, "I'd like you to accept . . ."

"It ain't necessary." His voice sharpened.

"Oh, but you must." I watched her open her bag. She took out a hundred-dollar bill and put it on the table. "Can I rely on you to say nothing about this hold-up, Mr. Harkness? If anyone should ask you . . . It's a personal matter."

He hesitated, then picked up the bill.

"Well, thanks. I don't talk about what doesn't concern me."

He went into the far room and closed the door.

I lifted my head.

Della pointed to the uncurtained window. "I think he was watching us," she whispered.

I thought so, too.

IV

From the little Della had told me about Nick Reisner, I had imagined him to be one of those brutal-looking characters you see after dark in Chicago's Loop who pack a gun and a set of brass knuckles and loll up against a wall, waiting for trouble.

But he wasn't like that at all.

He was tall and thin and stiffly upright. Although only around thirty-eight, his hair was chalk white and thick, taken straight back off a forehead any professor would have been proud to own. His nose was hooked and his nostrils flared back, giving him the look of a hawk. He got his menace from his thin, sadistic mouth and the cold, remote expression in his deep-set eyes.

He came into the cabin and paused just inside the doorway to stare at Della.

"Hello, Nick," she said, and smiled. "Explanations can wait. Let's get out of here."

The corners of his mouth lifted in a stiff little smile. His eyes went to me.

"Ricca?"

His voice was soft, unexpectedly effeminate, and I noticed the tuxedo he wore was exaggeratedly tailored, with wide lapels and a sharply cut waist, hinting at foppishness that his mouth and eyes contradicted.

"Yeah," I said, and got slowly off the bed.

"Look a little roughed up. Who did it?" he asked.

"Let's get out of here," I said.

"Sure."

He stood aside.

"Help him, Nick," Della said. "He's got concussion. We were held up, and the Bentley was stolen."

"Too bad," Reisner said, without moving. "My car's just outside. I came on my own."

I went past him out of the cabin, taking my time, knowing he was watching me, knowing, too, how hostile he was. Della followed, caught up with me and took my arm. The car was parked on the dirt track about twenty yards from the cabin: an Olds-mobile, as big as a battleship.

Della and I got in at the back. Reisner strolled after us and slid under the steering-wheel.

"I didn't expect you, Mrs. Wertham," he said as he trod on the starter. "Quite a surprise."

"Paul thought I'd cramp his style in Paris," she said, and laughed. "Besides, he wanted me along with Johnny."

"Johnny?" Reisner said, driving the car slowly up the dirt track towards the highway.

"I call him Johnny. I prefer it to Jack. Any objection?"

"Paul didn't say you were coming," Reisner said, ignoring the sharp note in her voice.

"He made up his mind at the last moment. Besides, we thought it would be a nice surprise for you."

"Yeah." He didn't seem to think much of that remark. "So you were held up? What happened?"

"I guess we asked for it. We gave a fellow a ride. When we reached a lonely stretch of road he hit Johnny over the head, made me stop, tossed us out and went off with the car."

"Told the cops yet?"

"No. I wanted to get Johnny to Lincoln Beach first."

"Like me to handle it? Hame will keep it out of the newspapers."

"I wish you would."

"What was this fella like to look at?"

"He was big, built on Johnny's lines. He looked as if he had been in a fight. He wore a white tropical suit. I didn't notice anything special about him."