Strictly for Cash

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“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

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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?”

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“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.”

“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

We had been walking maybe for ten minutes when we saw a light shining in the darkness.

Another twenty yards brought us to a small wooden cabin, facing the sea.

“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.”

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I felt Della take my arm, and supported between the two of them I made a slow, staggering

journey across the sand to the cabin.

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.”

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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.

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She came back to the bed.

“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.

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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?”

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“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?”

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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?”

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“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.”

“Why did you give him a ride?”

“He seemed in a hurry to get out of town. It wasn’t as if he; looked a tough. He said he was

heading for Miami and his car had broken down, and could we take him as far as Lincoln

Beach.”

“What town?”

“Pelotta.”

“Okay, I’ll fix it. Paul won’t like losing the Bentley.”

“He certainly won’t.”

Reisner was driving fast now, and for some minutes none of us spoke, then he said, “You

don’t talk much, Ricca. Kind of a quiet character, huh?”

“You wouldn’t talk either if you’d had a lump of iron bounced on your skull,” I said.

“Yeah, I guess that’s right. You look as if you’d been in a fight yourself.”

“You don’t think Johnny let this thug hit him and get away with it, do you?” Della put in.

“Although he was practically out on his feet, he made a fight of it.”

“A strong as well as a silent character,” Reisner said, and the sneer in his voice was

unmistakable. “Not like you, Mrs. Wertham, to stand on the sidelines and cheer.”

“What should I have done - joined in the brawl?” she said sarcastically.

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“I was under the impression you always carried a gun. Not much use carrying it if you

don’t use it when you have to.”

I saw her clench her fists. He had scored a point there.

“I wasn’t carrying a gun.”

“You weren’t? About the first time, isn’t it?” He glanced at her in the driving mirror.

“Well, well, it always rains when you haven’t an umbrella.”

I was getting the idea he wasn’t talking just to hear the sound of his own voice. He was

suspicious, and although there was a bantering, don’t-give-a-damn-if-you-answer-or-not tone

in his voice, he was after information.

I touched Della’s knee, and when she looked at me I cautiously pointed to her handbag,

then to myself. She got it the first time. Keeping the bag below the level of the driving seat so

Reisner couldn’t see what was going on, she took out the gun and passed it to me. I slid it in

my pocket. It wouldn’t do to let him spot the outline of the gun in her bag as we got out of the

car. Our story had to stick.

“How come you stopped at Pelotta?” Reisner asked suddenly.

Della and I exchanged glances. I didn’t need any prompting. Now was the time to show

him he couldn’t go on asking any questions that came into his head.

“Look,” I said curtly, “do you mind if we cut out the small talk? I’ve a head on me like a

ten-day hangover. I’d just as soon catch up some sleep as answer your questions.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then he said, “Sure. Think nothing of it. I’ve always been a

little gabby.”

He increased speed, and the big car raced along the broad highway, skirted on one side by

palmetto thickets and on the other side by the ocean. After a while we began to climb, and

when we got to the top of a steep hill I could see in the distance the lights of a fair-sized

town.

“Lincoln Beach,” Della said.

I sat forward to stare out of the window. The town was laid out in a semicircle, facing the

sea and sheltered by rising ground. We were moving too fast to see much of it, but what I

could see told me it was quite a different proposition from any of the other coast towns I’d

seen up to now. Even at two o’clock in the morning it was brilliantly floodlit. Blue, amber

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and red lights outlined the long promenade. Many of the white buildings were plastered with

neon lights. From the hill road the town looked like something out of fairyland.

“Pretty nice,” I said.

“That’s the casino: the floodlit building at the far end of the bay,” she said, pointing.

“Looks good, Nick.”

“So would I if someone spent a million bucks on me,” Reisner said indifferently.

It took us twenty minutes by the dashboard clock to negotiate the twisting hill road, to drive

through the town and reach the casino.

The fifteen-foot high gates were guarded by two men in black uniforms, not unlike those

Hider’s storm-troopers used to wear. They saluted, their faces expressionless as we drove

through the gateway.

The mile-long, palm-lined drive was floodlit with green lamps that created the

extraordinary illusion of driving under water.

“I had these lamps fixed a couple of months ago,” Reisner said. “There’s scarcely a square

foot of the place now that isn’t lighted. Funny how the mugs go for lights. Business has been

pretty good since I put this lot in.”

His voice was soft and remote, as if he were talking to himself. He didn’t seem to expect

Della or me to make any comments, and when Della began to say how well it all looked, he

interrupted her as if her remarks were of no interest to him to point out a big bed of giant

dahlias that were floodlit by daylight lamps.

“Every flower has its special lighting,” he said. “Paul was crabbing about the cost, but it’s

worth it. We get mugs from miles around coming to gawp at the flowers: then, of course, they

visit the bar and the restaurants and spend their dough.”

The drive suddenly opened on to a vast stretch of lawn, and; facing us was the brilliantly lit

casino. It was the most impressive and ornate building I have ever seen, like something out of

the Arabian Nights: a huge, white building of Moorish architecture^ its six domed towers and

bulbous minarets piercing the night sky.

Amber, white, green and red lights, controlled by automatic time switches, played

alternately on the front of the building.

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“You have nothing like this in Los Angeles, have you, Ricca?” Reisner said. “We spent ten

grand lighting this joint.”

He continued to drive along the broad carriageway, past the casino and on through the

pleasure gardens, past the floodlit swimming-pool where a number of men and women were

still swimming or lounging in hammocks in spite of the late hour through another double

gate, also guarded by two stiff-necked men in uniform, pait a pitch-and-putt course to a

colony of beach cabins built in a semicircle a hundred yards or so from the ocean, each

screened from the other by palms and tropical flowering shrubs.

He pulled up outside one of the cabins.

“Here we are. Everything’s ready for you, Mrs. Wertham,” he said, twisting around in the

driver’s seat to look at Della. “Your usual cabin. Where do you want me to put Ricca?”

“He can have the cabin next to mine: the one Paul has,” she said, and got out of the car.

“Want me to get the doc down to look at him?” Reisner asked, not moving from behind the

wheel.

“I’m okay,” I said, joining Della. “Nothing that a good sleep won’t put right.”

“Suit yourself,” he returned, making no attempt to conceal his indifference.

“Don’t wait, Nick,” Della said. “We’ll have a talk in the morning. Thanks for picking us

up.”

Reisner smiled. His eyes went from Della to me, and back to Della again.

“Well, so long. Call up at the office around noon. We’ll have a drink and a get-together.”

The big car moved off. Della and I stood watching its bright twin rear lights until they had

disappeared, then she drew in a deep breath.

“Well, that’s Reisner,” she said. “What do you think of him?”

“Tricky.”

“Yes. Well, come in. I could do with a drink.”

She led me into the cabin and switched on the lights. The place consisted of one large room

that served as a sitting-room by day and a bedroom by night, a bathroom and a kitchenette.

105

No expense had been spared to make it luxurious and comfortable. It was unbelievably lavish

with its press-button gadgets that operated the windows, the curtains and let down the wall-bed and opened the built-in cupboards. Everything in the place seemed to be worked by

pressing buttons.

“Like it?” she asked, flopping on the bed. “Paul had a flair for this kind of thing. There are

thirty other cabins on the estate, each with its own special decor, but I like this one best. Get

me a drink, Johnny. You’ll find whisky in that cabinet over there.”

“I’ll say I like it,” I said as I mixed a whisky and soda. “And the casino! He must have

spent millions on it.”

“He did.” She leaned back on her elbows and looked fixedly at me. The white silk blouse

pulled hard across her breasts, and her thick, dark hair fell away from her face and neck,

showing the white column of her throat. “All this could be mine if it wasn’t for Reisner.”

“Would you know what to do with it if you had it?” I said, not paying much attention to

what I was saying. The sight of her like that had got me going again.

She took the whisky.

“Wouldn’t you, Johnny?”

“I don’t know.” I went over to a panel in the wall on which were a number of ivory buttons.

I pressed one of them marked curtains, and watched the dark-green plastic curtains swing

smoothly across the big double windows. “Can you imagine Reisner parting with half a

million? I can’t.”

“He will if we handle him right.” She looked down and noticed the rip in her skirt. From

where I was standing I could see, through the tear, the white line of her flesh above the top of

her stocking. “I must look a wreck,” she went on, got to her feet and stared at herself in the

mirror that concealed the door to the bathroom.

I came up behind her and we stared at our reflections in the mirror.

Apart from her dishevelled hair, the little cut on the side of her nose, and her ripped skirt,

she still looked good - too good for my present mood.

Our eyes met in the mirror. She looked fixedly at me, her dark, glittering eyes suddenly

tense.

“Better go to your cabin now, Johnny.”

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“No.”

My hands were shaking, and I was suddenly short of breath.

“It’ll happen sooner or later if we’re going to work together,” she said, “but I don’t want it

to happen now. Please go, Johnny. Not now. It’s not safe.”

My hands closed over her shoulders. I felt a shiver run through her. I turned her, pulling her

against me.

“You’ve had your say ever since we met,” I said. “You’ve dictated the terms and I’ve

jumped through the hoop. It’s going to be different now. I’m having the say and you’re

jumping through the hoop.”

Her arms came up and slid around my neck.

“I like you when you talk like that, Johnny.”

V

I had finished a regal breakfast served by a Sphinx-faced Filipino, and had wandered out on

to the verandah to smoke a cigarette in the sunshine when I saw Della coming from her cabin

towards me.

The sight of her in a sky-blue, off-the-shoulder linen dress, a big picture hat and a pair of

sun-glasses the size of doughnuts started my heart thumping. I ran down the steps to meet

her.

“Hi, Johnny,” she said, smiling up at me.

“You look good enough to eat.”

“You don’t look so bad yourself.” Her blue eyes approved the white slacks and the sweat-shirt the Filipino had laid out for me. “And they fit, too.”

“They sure do. Where did they come from?”

“I fixed it. I’ve been busy fixing all kinds of things this morning. We’ll go down to the

tailor’s shop some time and get you properly fitted out. You have to dress the part here.”

“I can’t believe this is happening to me. I expect to wake up and find myself in a truck

heading for Miami.”

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She laughed.

“It’s happening all right. Come and look at the place before we talk to Nick.”

We spent an hour wandering around the vast estate. There wasn’t a trick Wertham had

missed. There were acres of pleasure gardens, an aquarium and sunken lily ponds. Not far

from the casino was an arcade of shops where you could buy anything from a diamond

necklace to an aspirin tablet. An artificial waterway surrounding the estate, screened by oak

trees, hung with Spanish moss, offered a fine hiding-place for you and your girl if you wanted

to go for a tour in an electrically driven canoe. There was even a zoo at the back of the casino

where peacocks, flamingoes and ibis strutted on the vast stretches of lawn.

“Come and look at the lion pit,” Della said. “This is Reisner’s pet idea. He’s crazy about

lions. You’d be surprised how many people come here just to gape at them.”

We stood side by side, our arms touching, and looked down into the deep pit, guarded by

steel railings where six full-grown lions sprawled lazily in the sunshine.

“I can gape at them, too,” I said. “There’s something about a lion …”

“Reisner feeds them himself. He gives up all his spare time to them.” She turned away.

“Well, we’d better get on. There’s still a lot to see.”

Farther along the broad carriageway we passed an open-air restaurant with its glass dance-floor. A fat, middle-aged Italian in a faultlessly cut morning-coat and a white gardenia in his

buttonhole hurried towards us.

“Johnny, this is Louis who looks after our three restaurants,” Della said as he bent to kiss

her hand. “How are you, Louis? I want you to meet Johnny Ricca.”

The Italian gave me a quick, appraising stare, bowed and shook hands.

“I have heard about you, Mr. Ricca,” he said. “Is all well in Los Angeles?”

“Certainly is,” I said, “but we’ve got nothing to touch this.”

He looked gratified.

“And Mr. Wertham? He is well?” he asked, turning to Della.

“He’s fine. On his way to Paris, the lucky man.”

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“Paris?” Louis lifted his shoulders. “Well, they have nothing as good as this in Paris either.

You will be lunching in the restaurant?”

“I guess so.”

“I will have something very special for you and Mr. Ricca.”

“Fine,” I said.

“See you later, Louis,” Della said, and moved on.

“You mean we eat in that place for all our meals?” I asked as soon as we were out of

hearing.

“Or the other two restaurants. Why not? They’re all Paul’s, and until they find out he’s

dead, they’re mine, too.”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling as if I’d suddenly walked into a brick wall. “I hadn’t thought of

that.”

She gave me a sharp glance and lifted her shoulders. We walked towards the casino in

silence. There were a few men and women on the wide verandah. They seemed to be catching

up with the sleep they had missed the previous night. Some of the women were good enough

to go into an Art magazine. I found myself gaping until Della said tartly, “Must you act like a

half-wit?”

I grinned.

“Sorry, but this place gets me.”

Then I noticed a convertible Buick, drawn up outside the main entrance of the casino.

“Some car,” I said.

It was a glittering black job, with scarlet leather upholstery, disc wheels and built-in head

and fog lamps.

“Like it?” she said. “It’s Paul’s. He always used it when he stayed here. It’s yours, now,

Johnny.”

“Mine?” My voice croaked.

“Why, yes.” She smiled, but her eyes were as hard as stone. “Yours, until they find out he’s

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dead. I don’t suppose they’ll let you keep it then.”

I felt suddenly creepy. That was the second time she had cracked that one in ten minutes. I

didn’t like it.

“What’s the idea, Della?”

“No idea.” She walked over to the car, opened the offside door and got in.

I leaned on the door, looking down at her.

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Get in, Johnny. They’re watching you.”

I looked up. A few of the rich sofa-pets were hanging over the verandah rail staring at us. I

got in under the steering-wheel.

“We’ll go and look at the town,” she said. “Drive to the gates and I’ll tell you from there.”

I switched on, trod on the starter and drove the car down the broad carriageway.

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

She turned her head: her face was expressionless, and the dark-green sun-glasses masked

her eyes.

“I’m not trying to tell you anything. All this is yours and mine until they find out he’s dead.

That’s a fact, isn’t it, Johnny?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s right, but there’s still the half million. You make it sound as if that

was nothing. It’ll buy something, won’t it?”

“Do you think it could buy the casino and all that goes with it?”

“I guess not, but it could buy this car and a lot of other things.”

“Have you thought how long a quarter of a million would last you, Johnny?”

“I’d invest it. It’d pay off a respectable income. What are you getting at?”

“You wouldn’t have a lot left to invest by the time you had bought a car, a house and a

wardrobe. I know I wouldn’t.”

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“What’s on your mind?” I asked, sure now she was preparing the ground for something. “I

thought all you wanted was the half million.”

“Turn right at the gates and then follow the main road,” she said, and leaned forward to

wave to the guards who were opening the gates. “Nothing’s on my mind - yet. I’m wondering

how we’ll feel in a year or so, knowing Reisner’s the boss of Lincoln Beach, and you and I

have only a lump sum that’ll melt like snow in the sun, and not a chance of making any

more.”

“Now, wait a minute,” I said. “We’re talking about half a million. That’s not going to melt

all that fast. You’re exaggerating, and besides, we haven’t even got that yet.”

“That’s right, Johnny.”

I couldn’t figure out what she was getting at, but I didn’t like her tone nor the hard look in

her eyes.

“We’re going to Bay Street,” she said, opening her bag for a cigarette. “Ever heard of Bay

Street?”

“No. What’s special about it?”

“Paul built every brick of it. They call it the Kasbah of Florida. I don’t know what the take

is, but I do know Paul collects fifteen per cent, and it’s free of tax.”

“This husband of yours must have been quite a guy.”

“He was. None of the others have the magic touch Paul had.”

Eventually we arrived at Bay Street: a misnomer to call it a street. Actually it was no better

than an alley, about a hundred yards long and scarcely wide enough to take two cars - but

what an alley!

I had thought the honky-tonk district of Pittsburgh was an eye-opener, but it had nothing on

Bay Street. Packed shoulder to shoulder, amid blatant signs that left nothing to the imagination, were burlesque bars, saloons, palaces of peel, gambling-dens, brothels, a couple of

dubious looking hotels, restaurants and gin dives.

“Pull over to the parking-lot,” Della said. “We’ll walk.”

“You mean Wertham owns this as well as the casino?” I asked, as I drove into the lot and

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cut the engine.

“He leases it to a syndicate with a controlling interest. He knew sooner or later the

millionaires, their wives and girl friends would get tired of the luxury of the casino. So he

created Bay Street where they could work off their repressions, and he could still make

money out of them. Handled properly, vice pays dividends, and nowhere is it better handled

than here.”

We walked across the street to a large building plastered with neon lights and crude, life-size pictures of half-dressed showgirls.

“Liberty Inn,” Della said. “It’s run by Zoe Eisner. She’s big people in Bay Street. You’d

better come in and meet her. And, Johnny, remember you’re big people, too. Ricca is well

known by reputation heed.”

We went in and met Zoe Eisner: a gigantic, middle-aged, chemical blonde who must have

weighed over two hundred pounds. She made a great fuss of Della and treated me with a

deference that embarrassed me, insisting on serving champagne while we talked. The

speciality of Liberty Inn, she told me with a leer, were muscle dancers and strippers.

“They’re hand picked, Mr. Ricca. We change them every month, and they come from the

four corners of the earth. You want to come in around midnight when we’re really kicking the

can around. It’s someihing to see.”

From the Liberty Inn we went across to the Pump Room, a plush and gold gambling saloon,

where I was introduced to Jerry Itta, a hawk-faced man in shirt sleeves who ran the joint. He

told me the poker game in session at the moment had been on for three days.

“We get ten per cent of the final hand,” he said, chewing on his dead cigar. “And by the

look of it, it’ll be worth five grand.”

Both Zoe Eisner and Itta seemed scared of Della, and they enquired after Wertham with

bated breath. It was the same story wherever we went. Our visits were brief, our reception

royal, and Wertham’s power always obvious.

“Time we got back,” Della said after we had met a dozen or so characters and looked over

most of the sin-dives. “We have a date with Nick.”

“There must be a fortune tied up in that alley,” I said as I got into the car. “Don’t the cops

interfere with this set-up?”

“They would if they weren’t taken care of,” Della returned, and laughed. “Captain of Police

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Hame collects five hundred a week from Reisner. You’ll meet him before long. He’s all right

80 long as he gets his money, but if it stopped, he’d slam us shut overnight.”

“How do you reckon this set-up will make out now Wertham’s dead ?” I asked, steering the

Buick through the stream of traffic.

“I don’t think Nick can handle it. Zoe and Itta have ideas, and would like to break away

from us if they dared. That’s why I wanted them to meet you.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” She gave me a queer little smile. “It may have plenty to do

with it, Johnny.”

VI

Reisner was sitting behind a big, flat-topped desk, a cigarette drooping from his thin lips.

To his right, lounging in an armchair, was a short, thick-set man whose iron-grey hair was

clipped short, and his square, brutal face burned red by the sun. He jumped to his feet when

he saw Della, a wide grin lighting up his face.

“Why, Mrs. Wertham, this is a surprise and a pleasure,” he said, taking her hand. “It must

be almost a year since we last met. How are you? Still looking as beautiful as ever, I see.”

Della gave him a bright, provocative smile, and allowed him to hold her hand a little longer

than necessary.

“It’s nice to see you again. I’d like you to meet Johnny Ricca who’s in charge of the Los

Angeles casino.” Turning to me, she went on, “This is Captain of Police Jim Hame. He’s a

very good friend of ours.”

Hame lost his smile as he shook hands with me. He tried to crack my knuckles, but my grip

was a little stronger than his.

“Glad to know you, Ricca,” he said curtly. It seemed he only kept his charm for the ladies.

“I’ve been hearing about you.”

I said I had been hearing about him, too. Reisner got to his feet and began to mix cocktails.

“Jim has bad news for you, Mrs. Wertham,” he said as he gave Della a dry martini. “Tell

her, Jim.”

Hame settled himself in his armchair again. He took a highball from Reisner with a grunt of

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thanks.

“We’ve found your car,” he said.

“You have?” Della’s expression was a nice blend of surprise and admiration. “Why, that’s

quick work, Captain.”

“It was easy,” Hame said, and his cold, blue eyes brooded over her face. “A report came in

last night, and when Nick phoned this morning it clinched it.”

“Clinched - what?”

“There was a smash on the road out of Pelotta last night. Both drivers were killed. One of

them was driving your car. It’s completely burned out.”

Her look of startled consternation was just right.

“Burned out? Paul will be furious!”

“Yeah, that was a swell car,” Hame said, stroking his heavy jowl. “How come you give this

fella a ride?”

While Della was going through the story again, Reisner came over to me.

“What’ll you drink? Scotch?”

Without thinking I said, “I don’t touch the stuff. I’ll have a beer.”

The black eyes surveyed me. “I thought you lived on Scotch.”

Then I remembered Ricca was a whisky-soak and my heart skipped a beat.

“I’m on the wagon now. I’ve taken up beer.”

I don’t know if he spotted my shifty look, but his face was expressionless as he opened a

can of beer.

Hame was saying, “Dangerous to give a stranger a ride, Mrs. Wertham. You should know

that.”

“I had Johnny with me. It never crossed my mind.”

I thought it was time I showed a little interest in the proceedings.

“Who was the guy, anyway?”

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Both Reisner and Hame looked at me.

“There wasn’t much left of him by the time we got him out of the car,” Hame said, “but

he’s been identified. His name is Johnny Farrar: a third-rate fighter who was hitch-hiking his

way to Miami. He stopped off at Pelotta and got himself a fight at the stadium. After the fight

he disappeared. He must have taken a liking to the Bentley.”

“You certainly have collected a lot of information fast,” I said. “Nice work.”

“Nothing to it, once you know how and have got the organization,” Hame said, lifting his

massive shoulders. “Farrar had a silver medallion in his pocket. A woman who runs a cafe in

Pelotta gave it to him. She identified it, and a guy named Brant, who gave Farrar a suit of

clothes, identified what was left of the suit.”

“Well, I don’t give a damn who he was,” Della said. “It’s the car I’m worrying about. Paul

will be furious. He had the body specially built.”

“Just one of those things,” Reisner said. “I’ve contacted the insurance people. They’ve

agreed to settle.”

“Thank you, Nick.”

“Just to keep the record straight,” Hame said, looking at me, “can you give me a description

of Farrar? I have one from Brant and this woman. I’d like to see if it checks with your man.”

I hadn’t thought of that angle. Did they suspect I was Farrar ? For a moment I was

flustered.

Della cut in smoothly before I could think what to say.

“Funnily enough he wasn’t unlike Johnny to look at: same build, fair and tall. He wore a

white linen suit, a green and brown tie and a cream silk shirt.”

“That’s the fella,” Hame said. “Well, what do you know? Nick and I were a little foxed.

The description of Farrar seemed oddly like Ricca. We couldn’t figure it out.”

“He was very like Johnny,” Della said, completely unruffled. “But Johnny wouldn’t have it.

I pointed it out at the time, but I guess he thinks he’s a lot better looking than he really is.”

That got a laugh from Hame, but Reisner continued to stare thoughtfully at me.

Hame rose to his feet.

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“Well, I guess that takes care of that,” he said. “I’ll be running along. We won’t need either

of you at the inquest. Our yarn to the coroner will be that Farrar stole your car from the

parking-lot, and you didn’t catch sight of him. Okay?”

“That’s very sweet of you,” Della said.

“Glad to save you any bother, Mrs. Wertham.” Again she let him hold her hand longer than

necessary. “Look me up when you’re passing headquarters. Always glad to have a beautiful

woman in the office.” He nodded to me, “So long, Ricca.”

When he had gone, I said, “Nice obliging cop.”

“So he should be,” Reisner said curtly. “We pay him enough.” He moved to his desk and

sat down. “Well, now we’ve got that straightened out, let’s get down to business.”

“Yes,” Della said, “Paul wanted Johnny and me to check the books, Nick.”

Reisner favoured her with a cold stare.

“You? First time you’ve had anything to do with the business, isn’t it?”

There was a short pause while they looked at each other, then Della laughed.

“I have to make a start sometime. As Paul couldn’t come himself, he asked me to represent

him.”

Reisner picked up a paper-knife and began to dig holes with it in his blotter. There was a

vague littie smile hovering around his thin lips.

“So you’re his representative? That’s interesting. Have you got it in writing?”

Della’s eyes snapped.

“Writing? Are you trying to be funny, Nick?”

“No.” Reisner leaned back in his chair. “Paul told me Ricca was to check the books. Okay,

he can check them, but Paul didn’t say anything about you taking a look, and you don’t until I

have Paul’s authority.”

“Paul told me she and I were to work together,” I said, feeling it was time I took a hand in

this. “He said she was to see everything.”

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Reisner dug more holes in the blotter.

“I’m not interested in what Paul said to you. He didn’t say it to me.”

“Now, look …” I began heatedly, but Della cut in.

“Keep out of this, Johnny. I can handle it.” She stood up. “Paul thinks you’ve been dipping

into the reserve,” she went on to Reisner. “We’re here to check it. A stall like this won’t get

you anywhere. If you don’t want to get the heave, you’ll give me the keys.”

Reisner threw back his head and laughed. He seemed genuinely amused.

“Who’s going to give me the heave?” he asked. “That’s funny. When Paul walks in here

and tells me to get out, I’ll get out, and not before. If you and Ricca imagine you can push me

around, you’ve got another think coming. You’re both off your home ground, and you’ll find

out just how far off you are if you crowd me much more.”

“Don’t be a fool, Nick,” Della said, her face white. “That’s not the way to talk to me, and

you know it!”

Reisner lifted his eyebrows mockingly.

“But it’s you who’re putting on the pressure. I’m merely obeying orders. Ricca can look at

the books whenever he likes. If Paul wants you to stick your pretty nose into the business -

and I doubt very much if he does -I want a written order from him. Sorry, Mrs. Wertham, but

that’s final!”

I thought she was going to hit him, but she didn’t. She moved away from his desk, her fist

clenched, her eyes dark explosions.

“We’ll see about that,” she said, then turning to me, went on, “Come on, Johnny, we’ll

have lunch.”

She went out of the room without another look at Reisner. I got slowly to my feet.

Reisner put down the paper-knife and reached for a cigarette.

“Women are funny animals,” he said as he lit up, “and she’s no exception. Well, any time

you want to get down to business, you’ll find me right here.”

“You’re playing this wrong,” I said. “I heard Paul tell her to check the books.”

“Too bad I didn’t,” Reisner said, and smiled. “Too damned bad.” He slipped his hand into

his pocket and took out a gold cigarette-case. “By the way, Ricca, you left this lying around

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in your cabin. Your servant brought it to me.” He laid the case on the desk and poked at it

with a long finger while his eyes searched my face.

I stared at the case, then my heart turned over. It was Wertham’s case; the case I had found

in his suit and had been fool enough to keep instead of throwing away.

“Why, thanks,” I said, and my voice was husky. “Careless of me.”

I reached forward to pick it up, but his hand covered it.

“Is it yours?”

“What do you mean?”

“I was under the impression it belongs to Paul. It has his initials on it.”

“What of it?”

“I’m curious to know why you have it. Did he give it to you?”

We stared at each other. I don’t suppose I looked any more guilty than any sneak-thief

caught in the act.

“He lent it to me. I liked the design. I was going to have it copied.”

Even to me it sounded terrible.

Reisner’s eyes bored into my face.

“You were ? I see. You’d better take more care of it.” He lifted his hand and sat back. “Not

like Paul to lend his things. He’s always been funny about that.”

“Not with me.” I picked up the case, feeling a trickle of sweat run down the back of my ear.

“Well, I guess I’ll get along.”

“Oh, Ricca …”

I turned at the door, wondering what was coming.

“Who did you leave in charge in Los Angeles?”

Who was it Della had said? For a moment I was rattled, then I remembered.

“Hollenheimer. Why?”

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“Curiosity,” he said. He picked up the paper-knife again and began punching more holes in

the blotter. “I’m a very curious man, Ricca.”

VII

“We’d better dust while we can,” I said.

Della reached for a cigarette. She lit it and put the lighter down with exaggerated care. She

was lying on the divan near the window. The sunblinds were drawn, and there was a subdued,

restful light in the room. Out on the beach I could hear voices and laughter. There was quite a

crowd lounging on the sands, but no one was bathing. It was too soon after lunch.

She had taken off her dresss and was wearing a blue silk wrap. There was a cold, brooding

expression on her face, and she drew on the cigarette hungrily, blowing a long stream of

tobacco smoke to the ceiling.

I stood in the middle of the room, my hands in my trouser pockets, my nerves jumpy, my

eyes on her. Slowly she turned her head until she was looking at me.

“Scared, Johnny?” she asked, and her eyebrows lifted.

“It is not a matter of being scared,” I said. “It’s a matter of knowing when you’re licked.

We’ve played our best card, and he’s trumped it. I don’t know the first thing about checking

his accounts, but that’s neither here nor there. Even if I could read a balance sheet that still

doesn’t give us access to the reserve. I always thought this was a screwy idea. What made

you think he would hand over his keys?”

She stared at her cigarette, flicked ash on the floor, and smiled secretively to herself.

“So you want to run away?”

“There’s no alternative. Can’t you see that? All he has to do is to put a call through to

Hollenheimer and ask him for a description of Ricca: then up goes the balloon.”

“There was always that risk. You don’t think I hadn’t taken that into consideration?”

I stared at her.

“Had you?”

“I thought it was more than likely he’d check with Hollenheimer. Nick’s no fool.”

I moved closer and stood at the foot of the divan.

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“What’s the answer, then? What do you suggest we do when he finds out I’m not Ricca?

He’s probably found out by now.”

“Let’s not worry about that,” she said. “There are more important things to think about.”

“Not for me there aren’t. Suppose Reisner gives Hame the story? Then it’ll all come out,

and we’ll go to jail for what we did to Wertham.”

“Poor Johnny,” she said, and laughed. “How fussed you’re getting. Can’t you see Reisner

will be as anxious as we are that no one should find out Paul’s dead? When a kingdom loses

its king, there’s always a scramble to grab. Zoe, Itta, Hame and Ricca - especially Ricca -

aren’t going to stand aside and let Reisner take over, and he knows it. He’ll be as anxious as

we are that no one should know Paul is dead until he has got control of the casino. He won’t

tell Hame. He won’t tell anyone. Now do you see why we haven’t a lot to worry about?”

I sat on the foot of the divan. This was something I hadn’t figured on.

“That guy’s dangerous,” I said. “Okay, suppose he keeps his mouth shut? What’s he going

to do about us?”

She lifted a long, slender leg and examined it critically.

“He’ll probably put a bullet through our heads,” she said calmly. “It would be the most

sensible thing to do so far as he’s concerned. He’s good at arranging accidents. Does that

scare you, Johnny?”

Did it? Maybe it did, but I wasn’t going to admit it.

“That doesn’t come into it.”

“Are you sure? It would be easy. He could fix Hame. You’d be surprised what Hame does

for money.”

“But not murder. You don’t kid me he’d cover up murder.”

“I didn’t say murder. I said an accident.”

I got up and began to move restlessly about the room.

“What’s on your mind, Della? All day you’ve been hinting at something. Let’s have it.”

“I haven’t been hinting at anything. I’ve been showing you a kingdom you can inherit.

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Hasn’t it sunk into your head yet the casino and the rake-off from Bay Street are yours for the

taking? Yours and mine? Can’t you see that?”

“No, I can’t. What are you getting at?” Looking at the intent, set expression on her face I

suddenly felt my mouth go dry.

“With me behind you, Johnny, you could run this place. Between us we could clean up a

fortune. Do you really think I’m so cockeyed as to imagine Reisner would let us walk off

with the reserve?”

I was getting rattled now, and I came and stood over her.

“But that was the idea, wasn’t it? That’s why you brought me here!”

“That’s what I told you,” she said, and swung her legs off the divan and stood up. “I wanted

you to see the set-up. It was a bait to bring you here. Well, you’ve seen it. Haven’t you the

itch to take it? And you can. You can take over right away - if you have the guts.”

I lit a cigarette; My hands were unsteady: whether from excitement or fear I didn’t know.

“So there’s no half million ?”

“Of course there is. That goes with the casino, but we can’t walk off with it. Take over the

casino and you take over the reserve.”

“And Reisner? What’s he supposed to do? Welcome me with open arms? Dust off his desk

chair for me? A moment ago you said he was going to put a bullet in me.”

“I said if you had the guts, Johnny. Reisner must meet with an accident.”

Well, it was out now. At the back of my mind I had known this was coming. The way she

had talked all the morning pointed to it, but I had refused to believe it. Now the cards were on

the table, face up.

I stubbed out my cigarette, not looking at her.

“Get rid of Reisner,” she went on as calmly as if she were discussing the weather, “and the

casino and Bay Street automatically fall into our laps. By the time Ricca tries to move in it’ll

be too late. Once we get our hands on the reserve and books, he’ll have to make a deal with

us. We’ll keep Lincoln Beach. He can have Los Angeles, and Levinsky can have Paris. Then

we’re set for life.” She moved closer. I could smell the perfume in her hair. Her hands slid up

to my shoulders while she looked into my eyes. “What are you going to do about it, Johnny?”

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I knew right away what I was going to do about it. She had made one mistake, and she

didn’t know it. She was certain she had sunk her hook in too deep to come out, but she

hadn’t. All right, I was sold on the place. The idea of taking control of a set-up like this was

something that got me by the throat, but not at that price.

“You talk about an accident,” I said, “but it won’t be an accident: it’ll be murder.”

She continued to look at me, her face as set and as cold as granite.

“It’s your life or his, Johnny. As soon as he finds out you’re not Ricca he’s coming for you

with a gun. You’ve got to get in first. That’s not murder: it’s self-defence.”

I shook my head.

“Don’t let’s kid ourselves. It’s murder.”

She moved away from me and walked over to the window.

“This is what we tell Hame,” she said, her back to me. “Reisner has been dipping into the

reserve. We came down to check the books. He is caught, and he knows it. There’s no out for

him, so what does he do? He walks to the window of his office and keeps walking. They find

him lying on the terrace with a broken neck.”

“Do you think Hame would believe that? Reisner’s not the suicide type.”

“He would believe it. It would cost money, but he’d believe it. Use your head, Johnny. The

casino is yours if you’ve got the nerve to take it. All you have to do is to give Reisner a push.

That’s not asking much, is it?”

“It’s murder,” I said. “And I’m not touching it. I don’t care how much it pays off. It’s

murder.”

She sat on the divan and held out her hand to me.

“Come and sit down,” she said. “Don’t look at me like that. You love me, don’t you?”

I didn’t move.

“We’ll leave love out of it,” I said. “Look, maybe I am only a third-rate fighter, but I hope

I’m not a dope. You worked this out ten seconds after you found Wertham was dead, didn’t

you? You knew unless you could get rid of Reisner you were sunk. Someone had to kill him,

and you picked on me. You thought all you had to do was to show me this place, give me a

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car and throw yourself in as a make-weight, and I’d take murder in my stride. Well, you’re

wrong. I can only hope you don’t realize what it means to commit murder. It’s a thing you

live with for the rest of your life. Maybe you haven’t thought of it like that. I hope you

haven’t. Even if we could fix Hame, we have still ourselves to live with, and every now and

then the thought will drop into our minds we killed Reisner, and that thought will poison any

happiness we can get out of this place. We’ll never know if Hame will continue to keep his

mouth shut. He’ll have us on a spot for the rest of our days. He’ll want more money and more

power as he gets used to the idea. It won’t be long before he’ll want to run the casino himself.

He might even do a deal with you. He might pin the murder on me and take my place. Oh, no,

I’m not getting into a jam like that. I’m not all that crazy. Murder is out! I’m not doing it: not

for you nor the casino nor for all the money in Lincoln Beach!”

She sat still, watching me while I talked, her face expressionless, her eyes hot and intent.

“You don’t really believe that, Johnny,” she said, and got up. “It’s not true.” She came over

to me and put her hands on my arms, looking up at me. “I do love you. I didn’t give myself to

you for any other, reason except I love you. I couldn’t refuse you last night. I knew it was

dangerous. I knew we were taking a risk that could ruin my plans, but I couldn’t refuse you.”

Her arms went round my neck. “Oh, darling, I’m crazy about you. I’ve never felt like this

before about any man. You must believe me! I know you’re right about Nick. But what are

we to do ?” She was clinging to me now, her face pressed against mine. “If we don’t get rid

of him, he’ll get rid of us. Can’t you see that? We’ll have nothing. We’ll be lucky to get out

of here with our lives. It’s he or us, Johnny. You must see that!”

I started to say something, but her mouth covered mine, and I felt her breath against the

back of my throat. We stood like that for a long moment of time; my heart was hammering,

blood pounded in my head.

“Johnny …”

She pressed herself against me. Her eyes were closed. Only she and I mattered at this

moment; the rest of it, Reisner, the casino, the money and murder were a bad dream after you

had wakened up.

My fingers sank into the hard, firm flesh above her hips. She gave a soft little moan and her

mouth opened against mine.

“All right, break it up,” Reisner’s soft voice said from the doorway. “There’s a time and

place for everything.”

I felt her shudder and stiffen, and she tore herself away from me with a strangled scream.

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Her face had gone blue-white like the colour of ice. I turned.

Reisner was standing just inside the room. His mouth was fixed in a stiff little smile, and

the .45 automatic in his hand looked as big as a cannon.

“And don’t make any silly moves,” he went on, not raising his voice. He jerked the gun to

an armchair near me. “Sit down, Farrar. And you, Mrs. Wertham, sit on the divan. If either of

you make a move I’ll drill you and think up a reason for it after,”

Della collapsed on the divan. She looked as if she were going to faint. I sat in the armchair,

a tightness in my throat that made breathing difficult.

“That’s fine,” he went on, came farther into the room and closed the door with his heel.

“Well, you two certainly know how to pass the time.’* He moved to the centre of the room.

The gun pointed to a spot just between us. “Played it pretty rough, didn’t you?” he said.

“Didn’t it occur to either of you I’d come back last night to see what you were up to? Imagine

my surprise when I found one of the cabins empty.” He looked at me, his eyes glittering.

“What have you done with Wertham?”

Neither of us said anything.

“Is he dead?” He hooked a chair towards him and sat down.

“Did you kill him?”

“Are you crazy?” Della said. Her voice sounded as if she were speaking through locked

teeth. “He’s on his way to Paris.”

“On his way to hell, you mean,” Reisner said. “Did you really think you could get away

with this wet idea? The moment I saw you I knew something was phoney. Paul wouldn’t let

you travel with Ricca or anyone else all the way from Los Angeles to Lincoln Beach without

someone to keep an eye on you. You’ve quite a reputation for taking a tumble in the hay

whenever there’s an opportunity, and Paul knows that as well as I do.”

“How dare you talk to me like that!” Della said furiously.

“There were three of you in the car: you, Wertham and Farrar. One of you died,” Reisner

went on, crossing his legs. “This guy isn’t Ricca, so that makes him Farrar. It makes the dead

man Wertham. The set-up’s gone sour. You may as well admit it.”

“Wait, Nick,” Della said, leaning forward, her clenched fists pressed tight between her

knees. “You, I and Johnny can do a deal. No one but we three know Paul’s dead. Cut us in on

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half shares and we’ll work our passage. You can do with help now Paul is dead. You know

I’ve picked up a lot of his ideas. I could be useful to you, Nick.”

Reisner seemed surprised. He glanced at me.

“Where does he come in? Why should I cut him in on anything?”

“Take a look at him,” Della said. “Don’t you think he’d scare Ricca? He’s a gunman as

well as a fighter. You’d need someone like him around once the news leaked out.”

I sat still, listening, as surprised as Reisner seemed to be.

“And suppose I didn’t want to share?” Reisner asked quietly. “What then?”

Della licked her lips. Her face was still white, but she had steadied herself. She was

gambling with her last buck. You could tell that by looking at her. She was playing a king,

and only an ace could beat it, and she wasn’t sure if Reisner held the ace.

“Then we talk, Nick. We tell Hame, Ricca, Itta and Zoe, and let them move in. I don’t think

you’re big enough to handle them all.”

Reisner smiled.

“So he really is dead. Well, well, that’s the best news I’ve heard in thirty-eight years. Paul

dead, huh? And a damn good riddance. It’s something I’ve been praying for.”

Della’s hand closed on a yellow and red cushion lying at her side. She gripped it, a fixed

smile on her white face.

“When we hit that car, he was thrown out,” she said. “He broke his neck.”

“That’s your story,” Reisner returned, still smiling, “but suppose you two killed him? Has it

crossed your minds I could slap a murder rap on you both and make it stick? Hame would

frame you two for a grand. He’s a little short of money.”

I felt suddenly cold.

“That still wouldn’t stop the news leaking out,” Della said, but her face stiffened.

“That’s right,” Reisner said, “but maybe it can’t be helped. Now look, this is the way I see

it. I happen to overhear you two talking, and I get the idea you killed Paul. I walk in on you

and Farrar pulls a gun. I beat him to the draw. I’m pretty quick with a rod, and Hame knows

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it. You pull a gun, too. So you both get shot. I then put a proposition up to Hame. He gets a

slice from the casino if he takes care of me. He might even be persuaded to toss Itta and Zoe

in the can until I get things organized. There’d be no difficulty in making a charge against

them. Then by the time Ricca’s got over his drinking jag - oh, yes, Hollenheimer told me

about that - it’d be too late for him to start trouble. How do you like it?”

“You wouldn’t want to cut Hame in,” Della said, and shifted forward. “He’d take the lot in

time. He’s like that, and you know it.”

Reisner gnawed at his lower lip, his eyes thoughtful. “Maybe,” he said, “but it’s a way out

of this mess.” “There’s another way,” Della said softly. “What’s that?”

She turned to look at me. The expression in her eyes set my heart pounding.

“We could kill you, Nick. That’d be the best way. We were talking about it when you came

in.”

Reisner continued to smile, but his eyes turned to ice.

“Yeah, I heard you. That’s why I like my idea, and that’s why it’s going to be my idea.”

“Not with the safety-catch on, Nick.”

It was well done. Even I looked at the gun. Reisner’s eyes shifted from us and looked

down. Della threw the cushion she had been grasping in one swift, violent movement. It

caught Reisner in the face. She flung herself off the bed and clamped her hands on his hand

and the gun, wedging her finger against the trigger so he couldn’t fire.

I jumped from my chair as Reisner, swearing softly, staggered to his feet, his fist raised to

club Della as she hung with all her weight on his gun arm.

I hit him on the side of his face with a long, looping right that exploded on his cheek-bone

with the impact of a steam-hammer. He wasn’t built for a punch like that. I felt the bone

splinter as he shot backwards, dragging her with him. He cannoned into the wall, bounced

away and began to sag as I stepped up close and smashed a right to his jaw. He went down,

his face coming squarely on a big glass bowl of floating dahlia heads that stood on a table.

The bowl flew into fragments, and the table smashed like matchwood. Water and flowers

scattered over Della and the carpet.

She screamed as the water hit her, but she didn’t let go of the gun until I grabbed her wrist

and pulled her to her feet.

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We stood side by side, looking down at Reisner. He had rolled over on his back. A long

splinter of glass from the broken bowl, like a tiny dagger, had gone deep into his right eye.

His lips were drawn back from his teeth in a snarl of pain and fear, and his right cheek was a

pulp of splintered bone, teeth and blood. He looked terrible.

Della drew closer to me. I could hear her breathing: quick, short gasps, rasping in a dry

throat.

Neither of us moved. We just stared down at him.

He was dead.

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PART FOUR

FADE-IN

I

IT was like a movie-projector operating inside my head, throwing images of the

past on to the white screen that was my mind. I saw again the room and Della in her blue

wrap that hung open to show her long, slender legs and the beauty of her body. I saw myself

with blood out of my face, my fists clenched, and a sick feeling deep inside me, knowing I

had killed him, and that I’d carry the image of his battered face with me to the grave.

“He’s dead, Johnny.”

She gave a little sigh, then stepped back, gathering her wrap about her, turning to look at

me.

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. This was murder. All right, I hadn’t meant to kill him, but

I had killed him, and he was there, dead on the floor, and that made it murder.

“He’s bleeding!”

She ran into the bathroom and came back with a bath-towel and did something I couldn’t

have done. She caught hold of his long, chalk-white hair, lifted his head and slid the towel

under it.

There was blood on her hands when she stood up, and I looked at the red stains in horror.

“Johnny!”

“I’ve killed him!”

“Pull yourself together!” Her voice was sharp. “No one knows but you and I. This is what

I’ve been praying for.”

I remembered Reisner had said the same thing when he had heard Wertham was dead.

Some prayers to have! That made them a pair.

“But they’ll find out,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

She came up to me.

“Don’t be a fool! Can’t you see this is what we want? This is the set-up! He’s dead, and we

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can take over. There’s no one to stop us now!”

I stared at her. There was a ruthless look of triumph in her black, glittering eyes, and her

scarlet lips were parted. There was no fear in that hard, lovely face: only triumph, and a

suppressed and violent excitement.

I grabbed hold of her arm and shook her.

“It’s you who’re the fool!” I shouted at her. “We’ve killed him - you and I! They’ll come

after us! They’ll catch us and they’ll fry us! Don’t you think you’re going to get away with

this! You’re not! Maybe we can hide the body for an hour or so, but they’ll find him …”

She put her hand over my mouth.

“Sit down, Johnny, and be quiet. It’s going to be all right. Keep your nerve: that’s all you

have to do. I know how to handle this. It’s going to be all right.”

I sat down, my back to Reisner’s body. All right, I admit it. I was in a bad way. I had killed

a man, and it was like taking a punch in the belly.

“What are you going to do?” I managed to jerk out.

“Look at his face. Doesn’t that tell you what to do?”

I couldn’t look at his face.

“What are you getting at? You make me sick! Haven’t you a spark of feeling? How can you

look at his face?”

She came around the bed to stand in front of me.

“Perhaps I’ve more guts than you, Johnny. Aren’t the stakes worth while? He was going to

shoot us! You killed him in self-defence. Why should you care about him?”

“It’s murder! It’s something that’s going to live with me! It’s something that’ll poison my

whole goddamn life!”

“In a week you’ll have forgotten he ever existed. But if you don’t pull yourself together and

help me, we’ll both go to the chair. Can’t you see that, you poor, frightened booby?”

Slowly I turned and looked at him. He was still a horrible sight, with the splinter of glass in

his eye and his face smashed and bloody.

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She bent over him and gently pulled out the glass. It was the most gruesome thing I’d ever

watched. I couldn’t look away, and the horror of it brought me out into an ice-cold sweat.

She squatted back on her heels, the splinter of glass between her finger and thumb, and

looked at the battered dead face, her brows drawn down in a frown of concentration.

“He could have been mauled by an animal,” she said softly. “And that’s what they are

going to think.” She glanced up. “Don’t you see the way out, Johnny? All we have to do is to

drop him into the lion’s pit. It’s as simple as that. He feeds them. He even goes into their

cages. Sooner or later there was bound to be an accident. Everyone knows the risks he took.

Hame knows, and that’s important. They won’t think anything of it if we don’t make

mistakes. It’s fool-proof.”

I could only sit and stare at her.

“You mean you’ve just thought that up?”

“Why not? You have only to look at him to see it’s the way out.”

Spider’s legs ran up my spine. She was incredible. The moment she was in a jam, her brain

devised a way out. Wertham hadn’t been cold before she had thought up how she could use

me to gain control of the casino. Reisner hadn’t stopped bleeding before she had a fool-proof

idea to explain away his death. And it was fool-proof if we could only get him to the pit

without anyone seeing us. She just wasn’t human.

“It’s all right, isn’t it, Johnny?”

She looked up at me, her black eyes glittering, her fingers blood-stained, and she was like a

lovely, gruesome ghoul.

“Yes, it’s all right if no one sees us.” Already I was beginning to breathe more freely, and

my heart eased off its violent hammering. “We can’t do it until after dark.”

“No. Stand up and let me look you over. Show me your hands.” Her examination was

searching and thorough, but finally she satisfied herself I had no blood on my clothes.

“You’re all right. Now, listen: go out into the grounds and be seen. Go and play a round of

golf. If you can get someone to play with you, so much the better. Don’t come back until

midnight. If anyone asks you where Reisner is, tell them he’s with me, and we’re not to be

disturbed.”

“Golf? Do you think I could play golf with this on my mind ?” I was almost yelling at her.

“Are you crazy? Haven’t you a spark of feeling?”

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“It’s you who are crazy. If you can’t play golf, have a swim or walk around or go to the

bar! Do anything you damn well please, but get out of here and let them see you! You’ve got

to keep them away from here. That’s your job. You’ve got to make them think he and I are

too busy to be disturbed. Get a grip on yourself. Play this wrong, and we’re sunk!”

I drew in a deep breath.

“And what are you going to do?”

The awful little smile I had seen when she was a split second away from shooting me

flickered across her mouth.

“I’m staying here - with him. I’m making sure no one gets in and finds him. That’s what

I’m going to do.”

“You’ve got nine hours of it.”

“That won’t kill me. I’ve things to think about. You won’t think I’m scared to be alone with

him, do you? He’s dead. I’m not squeamish, even if you are. I’ve got my life to plan.”

I longed to get away from that ghastly room, from her, from him. I wouldn’t have stayed

with that battered body for nine hours for all the money in the world.

I moved to the door.

“And, Johnny …”

I paused.

“What is it?” Out of the corner of my eye I could see his white and brown shoes and his

gaudy yellow socks. I hurriedly looked away.

“We have to trust each other, Johnny,” she said, as still as a statue. “Don’t lose your nerve

and run away. You might be tempted, but don’t do it. If you did I couldn’t cover this up. I

must have your help. So don’t run away.”

“I’m not going to run away.”

“You might be tempted. A nine-hours’ start is tempting, but if you did bolt I’d have to tell

Hame it was you who killed him, and Hame would believe it.”

“I’m not going to run away,” I said, and my voice was a croak.

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She came to me and put her arms around my neck, and I felt a shudder run through me at

her touch.

“You still love me, don’t you, Johnny? It’s going to be all right. It’s going to work out the

way we planned. We’re set up for life now.”

All I could think of was that her fingers, stained with his blood, were touching the back of

my neck. I wanted to shove her away from me, but I didn’t because I knew she was as

dangerous as a rattlesnake, and there was nothing to stop her going to Hame and pinning the

murder on me. So I kissed her, and the touch of her hot, yielding lips made me feel sick, and

the sight of him lying there with his head wrapped in the towel made me feel even sicker.

“I’ll be waiting for you,” she said, her face against mine. “Keep your nerve, Johnny. It’s

going to be all right.”

Then I was outside, with the hot afternoon sun on my face and nine hours of hell in front of

me. I had a frantic urge to run and keep running until I’d put miles between me and that cabin

where she was keeping watch over his dead body, but I knew I wasn’t going to run away

because she had me in a trap from which, as far as I could see, there was no way out.

II

The bar-room with its sun awnings and lavish fitments, its mahogany, horseshoe-shaped

bar, and its pink-tinted mirrors was empty when I walked stiff-legged across its expanse of

parquet flooring. The square-shaped clock above the rows of bottles told me it was twenty-five minutes past three: not the hour to start drinking, but that wasn’t going to stop me. If I

didn’t get a drink inside me quick I’d flip my lid.

The barman appeared from behind a jazz-patterned curtain and looked at me with polite

enquiry. He was a tall, thin bird with a high, bald dome, shaggy eyebrows and a long, beaky

nose. His white coat was as clean as soap and water could make it, and as stiff with starch as

a bishop watching a muscle dance.

“Yes, Mr. Ricca?”

I wasn’t expecting to be recognized, and I flinched.

“Scotch,” I said. My voice sounded like a gramophone record with a crack in it. “Set up the

bottle.”

“Yes, Mr. Ricca.”

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He reached up to a shelf and took down a bottle still wrapped in tissue paper. His long,

bony fingers ripped off the paper, and he put the bottle in front of me.

“Four Roses, sir,” he said, “or would you prefer Lord Calvert?”

I picked up the bottle and poured myself a slug. My hand was shaking and I slopped the

stuff on the polished counter, I felt him watching me.

“Get the hell out of here,” I said.

“Yes, Mr. Ricca.”

He went away behind the jazz-patterned curtain.

I knew I shouldn’t have snarled at him, but I wanted that drink so badly I couldn’t control

myself, and I knew I couldn’t have carried the glass to my mouth with him there to watch the

unsteady journey.

And it was unsteady. I slopped most of it, but I got the rest down. I poured myself another

slug. I hoisted that one without spilling a drop, and the tight horror that was coiled up inside

me began to loosen up.

I lit a cigarette, and dragged down smoke, staring at the face of the clock just above my

head. Eight and a half hours! What in hell was I going to do with myself all that time?

I poured another slug. The back of my throat was burning, but I didn’t care. It had to be

Scotch or I’d dive off the deep end. I kept thinking of the black Buick out there below the

terrace, and how easy it would be to get in it and get out of here. In that car I’d be miles away

with an eight-hour start.

I drank the Scotch and dragged down more smoke. I was feeling steadier now; not so

scared. My nerves weren’t jumping; maybe fluttering, but not jumping any more, and the

Scotch was hot, comforting and good. I reached for the bottle again when from behind the

curtain a telephone bell began to ring. The shrill sound made me jump, and I nearly knocked

the bottle on to the floor.

I heard the barman say, “He’s not in the bar, miss. No, I haven’t seen him since lunch-time.

He looked in around one o’clock, but I haven’t seen him since.”

I stubbed out my cigarette. The muscles in my face had stiffened until they hurt.

“Yeah, if I see him,” the barman went on, “I’ll tell him.”

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He hung up.

They were looking for Reisner already! I had to do something. She had said my job was to

keep them away from the cabin. If they began looking for him …”

“Hey! You!”

The barman pushed aside the curtain and came out. His eyes went to the bottle. I could see

him counting the number of slugs I had had.

“Yes, Mr. Ricca?”

“Who was that on the phone?”

“Miss Doering, Mr. Reisner’s secretary. She has an urgent call for him. Would you know

where he is, sir?”

I knew where he was all right. Just to hear his name brought up a picture of him, lying on

his back, his face smashed in and his right eye cut in half.

I wanted to pour another slug, but I was scared he’d see my hand shaking. Without looking

at him I said as casually as I could, “He’s with Mrs. Wertham, but they’re busy. They’re more

than busy, they’re not to be disturbed.”

I felt, rather than saw, him stiffen. He had got beyond the bees and flowers stuff. He knew

what I meant.

“Better tell Miss Doering,” I went on. “Nothing is as important as what they are doing right

now.”

“Yes, Mr. Ricca.”

The shocked, cold tone in his voice told me I’d driven it a shade too far into the ground. He

went back behind the curtain.

I nearly knocked the bottle over again in my haste to fill my glass.

I heard him say, “Mr. Ricca is in the bar. He says Mr. Reisner is with Mrs. Wertham, and

they are not to be disturbed. That’s right. It doesn’t matter how important it is.”

I wiped the sweat off my face and hands with my handkerchief. Well, I’d played it: a little

rough, perhaps, but I’d played it.

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The Scotch was hitting me now. I felt a little drunk. Regretfully I put the cork back in the

bottle. I couldn’t risk getting plastered. She had said I was to go out and show myself. That’s

what I had to do.

I walked out of the bar and on to the terrace. It was hot out there. Below stood the Buick.

All I had to do … I dragged my eyes away from it and walked along the terrace, down the

steps, not thinking where I was going, but aware of the need to get away from the car and the

temptation to bolt.

A sudden noise brought me to a standstill: a deep-chested, guttural sound that seemed to

shake the ground, and which ended in a coughing grunt.

For a moment that sound had me going, then I realized it was the roar of a lion. I was

heading towards the zoo, and that transfixed me. The vision of throwing Reisner’s dead body

into the pit floated into my mind, and I felt my knees give under me.

I looked back over my shoulder. The Buick still stood there in the sunshine. What was I

waiting for ? I had to get out of here. I had seven hours and fifty minutes start. In that car I

could be four hundred miles away before they even began to look for me.

All right, I was plastered, and I was scared. The roar of the lion, reminding me what I had

to do at midnight, stampeded me. I turned and walked to the car, got in, trod on the starter and

slipped the gear stick into second. I took a quick look over my shoulder. No one shouted at

me. No one tried to stop me. The car moved away smoothly, gathering speed as I changed in

top. I drove along the wide carriageway, thinking in another minute or so I’d be out on the

highway where I could tread on the gas and go.

Ahead of me I could see the massive gates. They were closed, and the two uniformed

guards were standing in front of them, their hands on their hips. I touched the horn button,

slowed down, waiting for them to open up, but they didn’t. They just stood, watching me,

their faces expressionless under the hard peaks of their black caps.

I pulled up.

“What do you expect me to do - drive through those goddamn things ?”

I didn’t recognize my voice. It sounded as harsh as a file on rusty iron.

One of the guards sauntered up to me: a tough-looking bird with close-set eyes and a nose

that spread over his face, as if someone had given him the heel some time in his life.

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“Sorry, Mr. Ricca,” he said. “But I gotta message for you.”

I looked at him, my hands gripping the steering-wheel until the muscles in my arms ached.

“What is it?”

“Mrs. Wertham said if you come this way we were to turn you back. She and Mr. Reisner

want to see you.”

I knew I could take him. He was leaning forward, wide open for a hook to the jaw. My eyes

shifted to his companion. He was standing away to my left, his hand on the butt of a gun he

carried in a holster at his hip. He looked ready to go into action.

“That’s okay,” I said, trying to smile. “I’ve seen them. Get those gates open. I’m in a

hurry.”

The guard’s cold, green eyes sneered at me.

“Then I guess they want to see you again. The call’s just come through. Sorry, but orders is

orders.”

“Okay,” I said, knowing I was licked. “I’ll see what they want.” I slid the gear stick into

reverse.

They stood watching me as I made a U-turn. They were still watching me as I drove back to

the casino.

I parked the Buick below the terrace and got out. I was trembling, and blood hammered

against my temples. I might have guessed I wasn’t going to outsmart her quite so easily. She

thought of everything: even with Reisner bleeding on her rug, she still had time to take care

of me.

I walked down towards the beach. A car sneaked up beside me, and a girl’s voice said, “I’m

going your way. Let’s go together.”

I stopped and looked at her: a cute blonde with bed in her eyes and a pert little face that

knew all the answers, and the questions, too. She was in a yellow, strapless swimsuit that

gripped her curves and set off a figure that’d make a mountain goat lose its foothold. On her

fair, flurry head was a big picture hat of plain straw, with a rose pinned to the under-brim.

She was the kind of girl I wouldn’t have tangled with sober, but the kind I wanted the way I

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was feeling now.

I opened the offside door of the car and got in beside her. She drove on towards the beach,

her small hands patting the steering-wheel in time to the swing that was coming over the car

radio, and she kept looking at me out of the corners of her eyes.

“As soon as I saw you I knew I had to know you,” she said. “I like big men, arid you’re the

strongest, biggest man I’ve ever seen.”

I couldn’t think of anything adequate to say to that one, so I let it ride.

“What are you going to do - swim?” she asked, giving me a cute little smile that was

supposed to have me on my hands and knees begging for favours.

“That’s the idea. Do you swim in that outfit?”

“Don’t you like it?”

“It likes you - I can see that.”

She giggled.

“We can always go somewhere where I needn’t wear it. Shall we?”

“It’s your car,” I said.

She spun the wheel at the next intersection and increased the speed.

“I know a place. We’ll go there.”

I sat staring through the windshield, asking myself if this was what I wanted. I didn’t know.

I didn’t think so, but it had dropped out of the sky into my lap, and it might blunt the edges of

what lay ahead of me.

“You’re Johnny Ricca, aren’t you?” she said as she drove the car along a narrow road lined

on either side by royal palms.

“How did you know that?”

“Everyone is talking about you. You’re the big-time gambler from Los Angeles. Someone

said you were a gangster. I love gangsters.”

“Well, that’s good news. And who are you ?”

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“I’m Georgia Harris Brown. Everyone knows me. My father is Gallway Harris Brown, the

steel millionaire.”

“Does he love gangsters too?”

She laughed.

“I never thought to ask him.”

She swung the car off the road and bumped over grass, over sand and pulled up on a lonely

stretch of beach, screened by blue palmettos and palm trees.

“Nice, isn’t it?” she said, taking off her hat and tossing it on the back seat. She slid out of

the car on to the sand. “Well, I’m going to have a swim. Coming?”

As I got out of the car I suddenly decided I wasn’t going ahead with this. I shouldn’t be

here. I should be where I could be seen; where anyone looking for Reisner could ask me if I

had seen him. I must have been crazy to have come with this blonde in the first place. If I

couldn’t get away from the casino, the least I could do was to try to safeguard my own neck,

and I wasn’t doing that by remaining in this out-of-the-way spot with this blonde who was

one jump lower than an animal.

“I guess not,” I said. “I’ve just remembered I’ve work to do. You wouldn’t like to drive me

back?”

The cute little smile went away as if wiped off by a sponge.

“I don’t get it,” she said, and her voice went shrill.

“Never mind: I’ll walk,” I said. “You go ahead and have your swim.”

I knew she’d take a swing at me, and she did. I gave her the satisfaction of landing on me.

It would have been easy enough to have slipped inside her flying hand, but I didn’t want her

to feel all that frustrated. For her size she carried a good slap. It made my cheek burn.

“So long,” I said, and walked away. I didn’t look back, and she didn’t yell after me.

Instead of keeping to the road I moved through the palmetto thicket, heading back the way I

had come, but not paying much attention to where I was going. After a while I realized I had

been walking for some time and I was still not within sight of the casino.

I paused to look around me. Over to my right I could see the blue, almost motionless ocean

through the trees. To my left was a forest of mangroves. I had no idea now if I were walking

away from the casino or towards it, and knowing I should get back there, I got worried.

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This stretch of beach was as lonely and as deserted as a pauper’s funeral, and I was in two

minds to turn back and make a fresh start when I heard a girl singing. She was singing

Temptation a song that had always given me a creepy sensation whenever I’d heard it.

She wasn’t tearing into it as most singers do, but singing it in an absent-minded kind of

way, as if her mind were only half concentrating on the song.

I moved forward cautiously, wanting to catch a glimpse of her before she saw me. From the

sound of her voice she’d be around the next clump of mangroves.

My shoes made no sound in the soft sand. I got behind a shrub and peered over it.

She was sitting on a camp-stool, an artist’s easel in front of her, and she was painting in

water-colours. I couldn’t see the painting, for she was facing me, and I wouldn’t have

bothered much if I could have seen it. I looked at her: she was the only picture I wanted to

look at.

She wore a blue, and white bolero jacket that left her midriff bare, a pair of white shorts,

and blue plastic and cork sandals. She was bare-headed, and her thick, short hair looked like

burnished copper in the strong sunlight. She was as different from the blonde curie as a Ming

vase is from a vase you win at a shooting-gallery, and lovely without being sensational. Her

eyes were big and blue and serious; her mouth, with just the right amount of lipstick, wide

and generous, and her figure neat, compact and curved where it should be curved.

I stood looking at her. The Scotch was still giving me a false sense of security. I seemed to

have stepped out of the darkness into the sunlight, and to have turned my back on something

that was as unreal as a bad dream. Just to look at this girl, singing to herself, unaware of me,

made Della and Reisner, and the immediate horrible future, go out of my mind the way dirty

water leaves a sink when you pull out the plug.

III

I stood for maybe a minute, listening to her song, and watching her sun-browned hand and

the paint-brush at work, wondering who she was and how she came to be in such an out-of-the-way place. Then suddenly she must have felt me watching her, for she looked up and saw

me. She gave a little start and dropped her brush.

I came out from behind the shrub.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I heard you singing and wondered who it was.”

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Not a very brilliant approach, but it was, at the moment, the best I could do. For the first

time since I had left the cabin my voice didn’t sound like the croak of a frog.

She bent to pick up the brush.

“I’ve missed my way, and I think I’m lost,” I went on. “I’m trying to find the casino.”

“Oh.” The explanation seemed to reassure her. “It’s easy to do that. I suppose you came

through the mangroves.”

“That’s right.” I moved to one side so I could see her painting. The sea, sand and palms and

the blue of the sky made a vivid and attractive picture. “That’s good,” I said. “It’s absolutely

lifelike.”

That seemed to amuse her, for she laughed.

“It’s supposed to be.”

“Maybe, but a lot of people couldn’t do it.”

I fumbled in my hip pocket for a packet of cigarettes, flicked out two and offered them.

“No, thank you. I don’t smoke.”

I lit up.

“Just how far away am I from the casino?”

“About three miles. You’re walking away from it.”

She began to clean the brush that had dropped into the sand.

“You mean I’m off the casino’s beach?”

“Yes; you’re on my beach.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to trespass.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” she said, smiling. “It’s all right. Are you staying at the casino?”

It flashed into my mind that I didn’t want her to know me as Johnny Ricca, gambler and

gangster. It didn’t matter to me that the blonde, Georgia Harris Brown, should think so, but

this girl was different.

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“I’m only staying a few days. Some place, isn’t it?” Then I asked her, “Do you live around

here?”

“I have a beach cabin close by. I’m collecting background material for display work.”

“What was that again?”

I dropped on the sand, away from her, watching to see if she disapproved, but her

expression didn’t change.

“I work for Keston’s in Miami. It’s a big store. You may have heard of it,” she explained.

“I provide sketches and colour schemes for window dressing and special displays.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“Oh, it is.” Her face lit up. “Last year I went to the West Indies and did a series of

paintings. We turned one of the departments into a West Indian village. It was a terrific

success.”

“Must be a nice job,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind me holding up your work. I’ll get

along if you do.”

She shook her head.

“It’s all right. I’ve just finished.” She began putting away her brushes. “I’ve been working

since ten. I guess I’ve earned some lunch.”

“A little late for lunch, isn’t it?”

“Not when you live alone.”

She studied the painting, and I watched her. I decided she was the prettiest and nicest girl

I’d ever met.

“I think that’ll do,” she said, and stood up. “The easiest way back to the casino is for you to

walk along the beach.”

“I’m Johnny Farrar,” I said, not moving. “I suppose I couldn’t carry your stuff back for

you? There seems a lot of it.”

“Sounds as if you’re inviting yourself to lunch,” she said, smiling. “I’m Virginia Laverick.

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If you haven’t anything better to do …”

I jumped to my feet.

“I haven’t a thing. I guess I’m sick of my own company, and meeting you …”

I picked up the easel and her other stuff when she had packed it, and went with her across

the hot sand.

“I can’t ask you in,” she said suddenly, “I live alone.”

“That’s okay,” I said, only too glad to be walking at her side. “But I’m harmless, or maybe

you don’t think so.”

She laughed.

“Big men usually are,” she said.

After a short walk we came to a bungalow, screened by flowering shrubs, with a green-painted roof and gay flowers in the window-boxes and a wide verandah on which were

lounging chairs, a radio set and a refectory table.

“Sit down,” she said, waving to one of the chairs. “Make yourself at home. I’ll get you a

drink - Scotch?”

“Fine,” I said.

“I won’t be a minute.”

But she was a lot longer than that, and I was pacing up and down the verandah, my nerves

on the jump again, by the time she reappeared. I saw why she had been so long. She had

changed out of the sun-suit which she had probably decided wasn’t suitable to be wearing

when entertaining a strange man in an empty bungalow, and she was now in a white linen

dress, shoes and stockings. I gave her full marks for good sense.

She carried a tray on which were bottles, glasses and plates of sandwiches. She set down

the tray on the table, smiling at me.

“Go ahead and fix yourself a drink,” she said. “If you feel like eating, there’s plenty.”

I poured myself a big slug of Scotch, splashed ice water in it, while she flopped into an

armchair and started on the sandwiches.

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“You look as if you’ve been in a fight,” she said.

“Yeah, I know.” I felt my nose, embarrassed. It was still a little sore and swollen. “I got

into an argument with a guy. It looks worse than it feels.” I took a mouthful of Scotch. It hit

the spot all right.

She was drinking orange juice, and I was aware she watched me just a little uneasily.

“It’s nice of you to take pity on me,” I said. “I was feeling pretty low. You know how it is.

I’ve been around on my own, and got sick of my own company.”

“I thought there were lots of attractive girls staying at the casino.”

“Maybe there are, but they don’t happen to be my style.”

She smiled.

“What is your style?”

I never believe in pulling punches, in or out of the ring. I let her have it.

“Well, you are, I guess,” I said, and added hastily, “and don’t think that’s your cue to yell

for help. You asked me, and I’ve told you, and another thing while we’re on the subject, I’m

not the type who makes a girl yell for help.”

She looked steadily at me.

“I didn’t think you were or I wouldn’t have asked you here.”

That took care of that. Anyway, it cleared the air. She started talking about her work. From

what she told me it seemed to be well paid, and she seemed to do more or less what she liked,

and go where she liked.

I was happy enough to sit there in the sunshine and listen. The Scotch was taking care of

my nerves, and she was taking care of my thoughts. For the first time since that car crash I

relaxed.

After a while she said, “But I’m talking too much about myself. What do you do?”

I was expecting that one, and had the answer ready.

“Insurance,” I said. “I’m a leg man for the Pittsburgh General Insurance,”

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“Do you like it?”

“It’s all right. Like you, I get around.”

“It must pay well if you can stay at the casino.”

I had to get that straightened out at once.

“I promised myself I’d live like a millionaire for a couple of days, and I’ve saved for years

to pull it off. Well, this is it, but I’ll be moving into the town on Tuesday.”

“Do you like being a millionaire?”

“There’s nothing like it.”

“That’s the last thing I’d want to be.”

“Well, I guess I’ve never had enough money,” I said, surprised at her emphatic tone. “It’s

my greatest ambition to get my hands on a roll and spend it. The casino is a kind of dress

rehearsal.”

“You mean really big money?” She was looking at me with interest.

“You bet I mean big money.”

“Well, how will you get it?”

That stopped me. I suddenly realized I was talking too much.

“I haven’t an idea. It’s all a pipe-dream, of course. Maybe someone will die and leave me a

fortune.” I didn’t get the joke over, and I noticed she looked curiously at me.

I was floundering around to change the subject when she remembered they were giving a

recording of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on the radio.

“Toscanini is conducting,” she said. “Could you bear it?”

“Go ahead.”

I had never heard Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony; for that matter I had never heard any

symphony, and I had only the vaguest idea what it was all about. But when the music came

pouring out into the sunlit silence, its richness and its surging onrush had me gripping my

chair. And when it was finally over, Virginia leaned forward and shut off the radio and

looked at me enquiringly.

144

“Well?”

“I’ve never heard anything like that before,” I said. “I’ve steered clear of that kind of

music. I thought it was only for highbrows.”

“Does that mean you liked it?”

“I don’t know about that. It did something to me, if that’s anything. All that sound, the

movement, the way that fella built it up - well, I guess it was something.”

“Like some more?”

“Is there any?”

“I have records inside. The Ninth’s even better. The choral’ll make your hair stand on end.”

“Then I’d like to hear it.”

She stood up.

“Come and help me load up. I’ve one of these record-changing gadgets.”

I followed her into the big lounge: a comfortable, well-furnished room, full of books and

water-colours I guessed were hers.

Against the wall was a massive radiogram, and by it a cabinet full of records.

“Is this place yours?” I asked, looking round.

“Oh, yes, but I don’t come here often. I don’t get the chance. When I’m not here I rent it to

a girl friend who writes novels. She’s in New York right now, but she’ll be back in a couple

of weeks.”

“And where will you be?”

“Anywhere. I might be in China, for all I know.”

That was a disturbing thought.

“But you’re here for a couple of weeks?”

“Possibly three.”

She loaded the record holder, putting on Beethoven’s Ninth and the Eroica.

145

She sat on the settee away from the radiogram and I sat in an armchair near the open

casement windows where I could see the beach.

She was right about the choral in the Ninth. It did make my hair stand on end. When the

Eroica came to an end she loaded the record holder with a symphony by Mendelssohn and

another by Schubert, saying she wanted me to hear the differences in their technique.

It was getting on for seven o’clock by the time we were through playing records, and that

still gave me five more hours before midnight.

“You wouldn’t care to go some place for dinner?” I asked. “Nowhere very grand. I don’t

want to go back and change. But maybe you’ve a date, or something.”

I waited for her to turn me down, but she didn’t.

“Have you been to Raul’s yet?”

“No. Where’s that?”

“Oh, it’s part of your education to go to Raul’s. It’s on the waterfront. Let’s go. It’s fun.”

We went to Raul’s in her Lincoln convertible. It was a small Greek restaurant full of lighted

fish tanks set in the walls, plush seats and gilt-framed mirrors.

Raul himself, a fat, cheerful Greek, waited on us. He said he knew just what we’d like. He

didn’t consult us, and started us with bean soup, then turtle steaks and young asparagus

shoots and baked guava duff to follow.

While we ate, we talked. Don’t ask me what we talked about. All I can remember was she

was the easiest person in the world to talk to, and there wasn’t one moment’s silence during

the whole meal.

We went on the verandah, overlooking the waterfront, and had coffee and brandy, and

talked some more. By the time we had finished the coffee I was calling her Ginny and she

was calling me Johnny. It seemed like we had known each other for years.

Later we walked along the waterfront and watched the fishing-boats going out for a night’s

fishing. She told me she had gone out in one of them the last time she was in Lincoln Beach.

“You must go, Johnny,” she said. “Out beyond the bar the water is phosphorous. It’s like

sailing through a sea of fire. And the fish are phosphorous, too, and when they pull in the

nets, it’s marvellous. Let’s go, Johnny, one night. It’ll be fun, and you’ll love it.”

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“Why, sure,” I said. “We will. Maybe you can …” I broke off as a street clock not far away

started to chime, and I stood still, counting the chimes, and each stroke was like a bang under

the heart with a mail-clad fist.

Ten … eleven … twelve.

“What’s the matter, Johnny?” she asked, looking at me.

“Nothing. I’ve got to get back. I’ve just remembered a very important date …” That was as

far as I could get. It came to me like a punch in the face that for the past eight hours I’d been

living in a pipe-dream.

“I’ll drive you back. We won’t be ten minutes.”

We got into the car. My mouth had dried up and the back of my throat ached, and my heart

was going like a steam-hammer. She must have guessed something was wrong, but she didn’t

ask questions. She drove fast. We reached the casino gates in seven minutes. I knew that

because I kept my eyes glued to the clock on the dashboard.

I got out of the car. My knees were shaking. Reisner, Della and the lion pit were now as

real as the warm wind against my cold, sweating face.

“So long, and thanks,” I said, and my voice croaked. I wanted to say something else, make

a date, let her know how wonderful I thought she was, but the words wouldn’t come.

“Are you in trouble, Johnny?” she asked anxiously.

“No. It’s all right. I’ll look out for you.”

I left her sitting in the car, wide-eyed and startled, and I walked towards the gates of the

casino.

The guards opened them. The one with the green eyes gaped at me, and caught his breath

sharply, but I walked on past him and headed up the long, green-lit carriageway.

IV

I pushed open the door of the cabin and walked in. The radio was playing muted swing, and

every light in the room was on.

Della was lying on the divan, a cigarette between her lips, her face as expressionless as a

china mask, and as hard. She still had on the blue wrap, and her hands were clasped behind

her head.

147

My eyes flickered from her to where he had been lying, but he wasn’t there, and I felt my

heart contract.

“Where is he?”

“In there.” She pointed to the bathroom. “Where have you been?”

“Killing time. Did anyone …?”

“I told you to keep them away from here, didn’t I?” There was suppressed fury in her voice.

“I did.”

“They phoned three times, and Louis came rapping on the door. Do you call that keeping

them away?”

“I told them you weren’t to be disturbed.”

“That was at half-past three. When you left here. What happened after that? At six o’clock

they really began to look for him. That’s when you should have been around. Where were

you?”

I was more scared of her than I was of the dead body in the bathroom. I knew instinctively

she must never find out about Ginny.

“I got lost. I went down to the beach.” The words ran out of my mouth in a blurred stream.

“I took the wrong turning. I got snarled up in a forest.”

She studied me, and I couldn’t meet her eyes.

“You tried to run away, Johnny.”

I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say.

“You’re lucky I told the guards to stop you. You’d be under arrest by now.”

“I wasn’t trying to get away,” I said. “I was going for a ride. I went instead for a hell of a

long walk, but I came back.”

She stared at me for a moment or so, then shrugged.

“Well, they’re still looking for him. I had to tell them he left me at six. I said I thought he

148

was going for a swim.”

“Who’s looking for him?”

“That fat fool Louis and Miss Doering.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “I’ve done my share

in this. You’d better do yours. You know what to do. Be careful. They’re still out there

searching the beach.”

I went over to the liquor cabinet and poured myself a shot of Scotch.

“What do I do?”

“You take him down to the lion’s pit and you throw him in.”

I drank the Scotch. It was like drinking water.

“And what do you do while I’m doing it?”

Her lips moved into a frozen smile.

“I stay here. What do you think I’m going to do?”

“You’d better come with me. If I ran into anyone …”

“I’m staying here, Johnny. You haven’t been much help up to now. Go ahead and make

yourself useful. You killed him, lover. I didn’t.”

The thought of tackling this job alone scared the daylights out of me.

“Now, wait a minute. You’re in this, too. You got his gun. If they’re out there looking for

him …” I stopped, the words freezing in my mouth. A sharp rap had sounded on the door.

I looked at her and she looked at me. Very slowly I put down the half-finished Scotch. I

was as stiff as a statue.

The rap came again.

“Are you there, Mrs. Wertham? This is Hame.”

His voice sounded sharp and impatient.

I was so scared I couldn’t move or even think. I stood there while she slid off the divan.

149

“One moment, Captain,” she called, her voice steady and calm, but I could see by her eyes

she was nearly as shaken as I was. “Go in there,” she breathed, pointing to the bathroom.

“Don’t make a sound.”

I opened the door, slid into darkness and closed the door, holding on to the handle so the

catch wouldn’t make a noise.

There was a five-second pause, then Hame said, “Sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Wertham.

You’ve heard Reisner’s missing?”

“Come in,” she said. “Hasn’t he turned up yet?”

“No.” His heavy footfalls creaked across the carpet. “Miss Doering is worried about him.

She phoned me so I thought I’d call up.”

“But there’s nothing to worry about, surely?” Her voice sounded mildly amused. “I expect

he’s over at Bay Street.”

“He hasn’t left the grounds.”

“Do sit down. Won’t you have a drink?”

I stood with my head pressed against the door panels, my heart pounding, and listened.

“I guess not.” His voice was curt. “I’m on duty.”

“Nick’ll be very flattered when he hears you came up here because his secretary was lonely

without him,” Della said, and laughed.

“This may be serious. He was with you all the afternoon, I understand?”

“Why, yes. He left at six. He said he was going for a swim.”

“No one saw him on the beach.” There was a pause, then he asked, “Were you two talking

business?”

Again there was a pause. I could imagine her looking at him: he wasn’t likely to rattle her.

“Perhaps, after all, Captain, I’d better take you into my confidence,” she said. “Please sit

down.”

Once again there was a lengthy pause, and I guessed there was a clash of wills going on.

Then a chair creaked, and I knew she had got her way.

150

“And a drink, Captain. I don’t like drinking alone.”

“Looks like you were managing all right before I showed up,” Hame said. “There’s a glass

of Scotch on the cabinet.”

“No wonder you have such a reputation for being a clever police officer,” she said, and

laughed.

“I guess I don’t miss much.”

He sounded mollified.

I heard her splash soda into a glass.

Then he said, “Well, here’s how.” He grunted. “That’s pretty good Scotch. What’s this you

were saying about taking me into your confidence?”

“Perhaps you have wondered why Ricca and I are here,” she said. “Paul sent us. Nick’s

been dipping into the reserve to cover his gambling losses. Ricca had orders from Paul to

heave him out. Well, he’s gone.”

I had to hand it to her. She was ready for any emergency. Her voice, now cool and matter-of-fact, was very convincing.

“You don’t say.” Hame sounded startled. “Much missing?”

“We don’t know for certain - something like ten thousand. We haven’t had time for a

thorough check. He didn’t deny it. He could have been difficult, but as he handed over the

keys and didn’t make trouble, I promised him twelve hours start. I didn’t anticipate that fool

of a girl would bring you into it.”

“So that’s it. Well I’ll be double damned.” There was a pause, then Hame said reluctantly,

“Want me to do anything about him?”

“No. He knows too much. He might talk.”

“I was thinking of that. Where’s he gone?”

“I have no idea. He must have gone by way of the beach. That’s why the guards didn’t see

him.”

“Must have. Funny thing, he hasn’t packed. I checked his room.”

151

I held my breath while I waited for her to talk herself out of that one.

“He keeps a lot of stuff with Zoe. He knew this wouldn’t last and was ready to skip.”

There was no hesitation in her voice.

“He was no fool,” Hame said, his voice ponderous. “It’ll be odd not to have him around.”

“It won’t make any difference to you. Ricca and I will be taking charge.”

“Did Wertharn say it wouldn’t make any difference?”

“He said more than that,” Della said coolly. “He left instructions about you. He said we

should do a little more for you.”

“Is that right? What did he mean by that?”

There was a pause, then she said, “We think you’re doing a good job for us, Captain. Paul

had already spoken to Nick about you, but Nick said you were getting enough. Paul wanted to

show his appreciation, but Nick blocked him off. Well, Nick’s gone now. We thought another

two-fifty a week might be useful. Paul said it should be back-dated six months. I’d planned to

pay it into your account tomorrow as a little surprise.”

“That’s pretty nice of you,” Hame said, suddenly jovial. “I guess I could use it. I got

expenses same as anyone. Sounds as if we’re going to get along together all right. Where’s

Ricca?”

Again I held my breath.

“I have an idea he’s enjoying himself at Zoe’s place. I don’t know, but that’s my guess.

Come up and see him tomorrow. There’ll be things to talk about.”

“I will, Mrs. Wertham.” The chair creaked as he stood up. “Guess I won’t keep you any

longer. Had I better have a word with Miss Doering? They’re still searching for Reisner.”

“Perhaps you’d better. Don’t tell her what’s happened. We don’t want it talked about. You

might say you’ve heard he’s in town. We’ll straighten things out tomorrow.”

“I’ll do that. Well, good night. I’m looking forward to working with you two. I’m looking

forward to it very much.”

“And so are we, Captain.”

152

I listened to him tramp across the room.

“I’ll be dropping in on my bank tomorrow afternoon.”

“We’ll be there before that, Captain.” I could imagine the smile she gave him. “Good

night.”

The door shut.

We waited: she out there, and I in the darkness with Reisner’s dead body somewhere

behind me. We heard a car start up and drive away.

She pushed open the bathroom door.

“Well, I handled him, Johnny.”

“Yes.” I moved out of the darkness.

There was that cold, triumphant gleam in her eyes I had seen before.

“Better get going,” she said. “We’re practically in the clear now. They’ll think he went to

say good-bye to the lions and got too close. Get going, Johnny.”

I looked over my shoulder into the dark bathroom. I didn’t want to do it, but I could think

of no other way out. The thought of carrying him through the darkness brought me out in

goose-pimples.

“My car’s outside,” she said, speaking softly. “Put him in it and follow the carriageway

around to the back of the casino. You know where the pit is. It shouldn’t take more than five

minutes. Hurry, Johnny.”

“Maybe you’d better handle the car …”

“I’m staying right here. This is where you earn your share of the money, Johnny. Make a

mistake and it’s all yours. You killed him; you fix it. Get going!”

I went into the bathroom and turned on the light. He was lying on his back, his head still

wrapped in the towel. I kept my eyes averted as I took hold of him. His muscles were

wooden, and he was heavy. I got him across my shoulder and stood up. Sweat ran down my

face, and I had trouble with my breathing. As I came out of the bathroom with him, she

turned off the lights and opened the door.

As I passed her she jerked at the towel, pulling it away. I didn’t stop. The car was where

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she had said it would be. It was an open convertible, and I dropped him in the back seat

without any trouble. She came up with a blanket and spread it over him.

“Good luck, Johnny,” she said. “Come straight back. I want to talk to you.”

I got in the car, trod on the starter and drove away without looking at her. The clock on the

dashboard showed twenty to one. In the distance I could see the bright lights around the

swimming-pool. People were out there, bathing. The casino was lit up like a Christmas tree. I

could see men and women, in evening dress, on the verandah, caught glimpses of them

through the windows of tlje gambling rooms, and heard their hard, strident voices, raised in

excitement.

I drove slowly, with only the parking lights on, and followed the carriageway past the

casino. There were too many lights, and it was like driving with a searchlight focused on me.

But beyond the casino it was dark. I kept the car moving. I could smell the lions now. One of

them gave a sudden grunting cough. I slowed down. Ahead of me I could just make out the

white posts supporting the iron railings around the pit. I stopped the car and turned off the

lights.

For a minute or so I sat motionless, my eyes searching the darkness, my ears straining for

any sound. I saw nothing. I heard only the restless movement in the pit: the soft pad, pad, pad

of one of the lions as it paced up and down. I got out of the car, crossed the grass verge to the

railings and looked down. It was too dark to see anything: the smell of the lion came up to

me; the padding suddenly stopped. I looked to right and left. No one was likely to be here.

There was nothing to see. The zoo was the only place on the estate Reisner hadn’t floodlit

Drawing in a deep breath I returned to the car. I pulled the blanket off him and carefully

folded it, putting it on the seat next to the driving seat. Again I looked to right and left, then I

caught hold of him and heaved him out of the car. His stiff, claw-like hand brushed across my

face as I got him over my shoulder, and I nearly dropped him. I was panting, and my heart

was jumping about in my chest like a flea on a hot stove. I staggered with him across the

close-cut grass. The lion below must have smelt him. It gave a sudden choked roar.

I leaned my heaving chest against the railings and bent forward. Reisner’s body began to

slide slowly off my shoulder. I shoved it into the darkness. It went easily enough. I continued

to lean against the railings, my eyes closed, my hands gripping the iron spikes. I heard his

body thud on to the concrete below. It was a thirty-foot drop. There was a rushing sound as

the lion bounded forward.

I pushed myself away from the railings, gulping in warm air, turned and moved unsteadily

back to the car. Well, it was done. The horrible sounds coming out of the dark pit told me I

was safe. By the time they found him no one would know I had killed him.

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I crossed the grass, trying to shut out the snarling, flurrying rush of the other lions as they

came out of their cave. The roaring, snarling and growling filled the silent night with a

hideous pandemonium.

I began to sweat as I got hurriedly into the car. I hadn’t reckoned on this awful noise. I had

to get away quick. My foot went down on the starter. Nothing happened. I could see the

brightly lit verandah of the casino, not a hundred yards away. Men and women, sitting under

the lights, were getting up and coming to the verandah rail, looking in the direction of the pit.

Again I trod on the starter, still nothing happened. Sweat was running off my face. I had to

control a crazy impulse to get out of the car and run. I had to get it started! Then it flashed

through my mind I hadn’t turned on the ignition. As my shaking hand reached for the key I

saw three or four men running down the terrace steps. I touched the starter again and the

engine fired. Keeping in bottom gear I let the car move silently forward. I was shaking like a

leaf. I got around the bend as the first of the men came pounding across the lawn. Shifting

through the gears, I kept the car moving. They couldn’t hear the engine above the hideous

uproar that was coming from the pit.

I increased speed. A couple of minutes later I saw the lights of Della’s cabin. I pulled up,

got out and walked up the path. She stood in the doorway waiting. Even as far away as we

were now from the zoo, we could hear the choked roars and screams of the lions.

I pushed past her, went into the cabin and slopped myself a big whisky.

She came in and shut the door. Her face was pale, and her eyes wide and shadowy.

“Did they see you?”

I shook my head.

“Better pull yourself together,” she said impatiently. “Hame may be back.”

“Easy for you to talk !” I snarled at her. “You didn’t have to do it.”

“I had to sit with him for nine hours. I’ve done my share.”

I finished the Scotch and poured another.

“Go into the bathroom and smarten yourself up. If Hame sees you like this, he’ll know you

did it.”

I went into the bathroom. She had cleaned up the mess in there. I caught sight of my face in

the mirror. I looked like hell: my face was running with sweat, my hair hung over my eyes

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and my skin was the colour of a fish’s belly.

I ran cold water into the basin and stuck my face in it. I rubbed my skin h*rd with a towel

until it got back a little colour. I fixed my hair, I was still trembling.

She stood in the doorway, watching me.

Then suddenly she said softly, “Who was she, Johnny?”

I didn’t think I had heard right.

“What was that?”

“Who was she?”

I went on combing my hair, but my insides turned cold.

“Who was who? What are you talking about?” Somehow I managed to keep my voice

steady and my face expressionless.

“The girl who brought you back. The guards told me. Who was she?”

“How the hell do I know?” I said, and turned to face her. “I’d lost my way. I told you. I was

late. I wanted to get back quick. She passed and I thumbed a ride. I didn’t ask her who she

was. What does it matter, anyway?”

She stared at me, and I stared right back.

“I only wondered,” she said. “You’re good at thumbing rides, aren’t you?” She moved into

the sitting-room, and I followed her. “From now on, Johnny, our future lies together. Even if

we didn’t happen to love each other, we know too much about each other ever to pan. You do

understand that, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but went right on, “I think we’d

better have an understanding together. There must be no other girls. I mean that. I’d never

share you with anyone. I told Paul the same thing. I just won’t tolerate cheating. If the idea

that you can play around with other women ever enters your head, I’ll get rid of you, and

there’s only one way to do that. I’ll turn you over to Hame.”

I started to say something when the telephone bell rang. She walked swiftly across the

room, picked up the receiver and said, “Hello?”

I stood and watched her. She listened to the excited voice for what seemed a long time, then

she said, “I can hear the noise now. How awful. He was always a fool, going into their cages.

Paul warned him time and again. Yes, Ricca’s here. He’s just got back. No, we’ll keep clear

of it. Will you handle it? We don’t want to get mixed up with the newspaper men. That’s fine.

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I’ll see you tomorrow. Thank you so much, Captain.” She listened, laughed, and said, “Good-bye, now,” and hung up.

She looked at me.

“It’s all right. It’s working out just the way I said it would. Hame is making himself useful.

We keep out of it.” She came over to me. “Pour me a drink, darling. We must celebrate.”

I gave her a whisky.

“Well, here’s to us. We’re set now. We’re rich. Life’s just beginning for us. Can you

believe it, Johnny?”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

She drank the whisky, her eyes on my face, then she moved across the room, smiling, and

pushed home the bolt on the door.

“No one will disturb us, darling. They’re all too busy. Let’s celebrate properly. Show me

how much you love me, Johnny.”

I hated her as I had never hated anyone before. She had me where she wanted me. A word

from her and they’d send me to the chair. I was fixed unless I did exactly what she told me.

No other girls.

I thought of Ginny.

“We have all the money in the world,” Della went on. “This is the biggest moment in my

life. The biggest moment in your life, too. Can you believe it?”

“I can believe it all right,” I said.

She slid her arms around my neck. I stood looking down into the black, hard, triumphant

eyes.

“What’s it feel like to be a millionaire?”

I said it felt fine.

“Kiss me, Johnny.”

I kissed her. I even caught hold of her, crushing her to me. I even carried her over to the

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divan.

Up to now she had been a lot smarter than I. If I was to save my neck I had to be the one to

be smarter, and I had to be patient, too.

I knelt over her and grinned down at her. It would have been easy to have put my hands on

her white throat and throttled her, but that wouldn’t have been smart. If I were going to beat

this rap I’d have to out-fox her. Killing her wouldn’t help me. It would only make things

worse. With her help I had covered up one murder. I knew I wouldn’t get away with another.

No, I had to out-fox her somehow. I wouldn’t do it in five minutes, but I was going to do it.

V

The next four weeks were spent consolidating our position as Della called it. What she

really meant was she was consolidating her position. I had kittle to say in the matter.

Although she didn’t refer to it again, I knew she didn’t believe for one moment that I had

lost myself when I had been away from the casino during those nine hours she kept guard

over Reisner’s body. Nor did she believe that the girl I had said had given me a lift was a

complete stranger to me. Instead of being her partner, I found myself acting as her assistant,

and having to pretend I was satisfied with the position.

Trust her to be one jump ahead of me all the time. When I had left her alone with Reisner’s

body, she had gone through his pockets, and had got his keys and the combination of the safe.

But she didn’t tell me what the combination was, nor did I set eyes on the keys.

The agreement between us had been that we should share the reserve: a quarter of a million

for her, and a quarter for me, but I didn’t get it.

“We’re in business now, Johnny,” she said, when I rather hesitantly suggested it was time

my share was paid over. “We need the reserve. Being in control of a money-maker like the

casino is fifty times better than a lump sum of money.”

I didn’t see it that way. With a quarter of a million I could have skipped out of the country

and taken Ginny with me, but with the hundred bucks Della paid me each week, all found,

including clothes, I wasn’t going to get far, and she knew it.

“You’re not used to money, Johnny,” she went on, lying on the divan, her wrap open,

showing me her legs. “I have plans for you. You’re going to get your share, but not just yet.

I’m keeping it for you; investing it. I know the markets, you don’t. I’ll have a fortune for you

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in a little while. Be patient.”

Neither of us believed this nonsense, but there was nothing I could do about it.

“Besides, if you want anything, you know you have only to ask me for it,” she continued,

smiling at me. “I want you to be happy, darling. You are happy, aren’t you?”

And I’d twist up my face into a grin, and say I was happy, and hate her with my mind,

brain, soul and guts, and tell myself my time would come. It was just a matter of waiting for

the right opportunity.

But she didn’t have it entirely her own way. She found to her surprise that no one at the

casino wanted a woman boss, and when I say no one, I mean not only the staff, but the

millionaires and their wives, kids, girl friends and hangers-on.

She started off by sitting in Reisner’s office, ready to do business with the visitors, ready to

tell the staff what to do and what not to do. She got a big bang out of sitting behind that desk,

throwing her weight about and giving orders, but it didn’t last long.

The first visitor she had was Gallway Harris Brown, the steel millionaire. He came bursting

into the office like a runaway train: a short, fat, purple-faced bird with battle in his eyes and

cuss words queueing up behind his lips.

I happened to be in the office at the time, admiring the view, while she was lording it at the

desk.

She smiled at him as he came pounding in, but he took as much notice of her as he would

the invisible woman. He burned a trail across the carpet towards me.

“Hey! You, Ricca ?” He had a voice like a sea captain. It pretty near shattered the windows.

I said I was Ricca.

“I’ve no hot water in my cabin this morning. What kind of dump are you running?”

Still smiling, but her eyes snapping, Della came over.

“Perhaps I can help you …” she began.

That’s as far as she got. He jumped around and glared at her, cutting her off with a wave of

his hand.

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“Listen, young woman, when I make a complaint I deal with men, understand? This guy’s

Ricca, isn’t he? Well, then, you keep out of it. I’m going to swear at him.”

There was nothing for her to do but to take three graceful steps to the rear and try to look

ornamental. She was smart enough not to argue with a thousand dollar profit a week. But in

spite of her smile, she looked as if she been bitten by a snake - a rattlesnake at that.

I smoothed him down and had his water fixed. I said if it ever happened again, he would

have the whole of his stay with us on the house.

“That’s a bet, Mr. Brown,” I said. “No hot water; no cheque. Right?”

He snorted, stamped around, then finally grinned.

“That means I’ll get hot water.”

“You’ll get hot water.”

It seemed the way millionaires liked to be treated. He went around telling the story, and the

other visitors came to me with their troubles.

“You go to Ricca,” he said. “He’ll fix it. That guy’s a smart crook.”

And they did come to me. They stopped me in the corridors or on the terrace or in the bar,

and I fixed things for them. When they went to the office and I wasn’t there, they said they

wanted me and would be back. Louis didn’t pull any punches, either.

“Better let Mr. Ricca handle the staff, Mrs. Wertham,” he said. “It works better that way. A

man can handle this set-up better than a woman.”

She was smart enough to see that the business would suffer if she continued to boss it, and

she turned the office over to me.

“Go ahead, Johnny. You’re in charge of the casino now. But don’t get any big ideas. I’ll

keep the keys, and when you want money I’ll open the safe.”

She also kept control of Bay Street. They didn’t know Paul was dead, and they were scared

of her. She went over there three evenings a week to watch her interests, as she called it, and

they needed watching. That suited me fine. While she was there, I was with Ginny.

It didn’t take me long to find out I was in love with Ginny. After I had got over the scare of

dumping Reisner, she was all I thought about. I knew it was the real thing. I knew I was gam-160

bling with my life even to think of her, but that didn’t stop me. No other girls, Della had said,

and that didn’t stop me either.

A couple of days after I had first met her, I wrote to Ginny. I told her I was sorry about the

way I had left her.

“I guess I must have sat in the sun too long,” I wrote, hoping she would believe me. “I was

feeling terrible, and I didn’t want to scare you. I’ve been in bed, but I’m fine now. I hope

you’ll forgive me, walking out on you like that. May I come and see you and apologize?”

By the time she received the letter I had fixed up a three-room apartment on Franklin

Boulevard, a quiet district in Lincoln Beach, and that’s where I told her to write.

With a hundred dollars and all found I wasn’t exactly broke, but I wasn’t rolling it in. I did

a little gambling now and then, playing on one of the crooked tables. The croupiers let me

win, and every so often I picked up a couple of hundred bucks when I needed it most. But I

didn’t drive it into the ground. I was careful not to take too much off the house. I argued it

was a good thing for the suckers to see the boss win now and then, and that was my story if

someone tipped Della what was happening.

With my hundred bucks and the odd money I won’t just about afforded the rent of the

apartment and its running expenses.

I told Ginny I had been transferred from the Pittsburgh office of the insurance company I

was working for, and had been given the job of starting an office in Lincoln Beach.

I made out I was working every hour of the day, trying to get things started, and she

believed me. I hated lying to her, but there was no other way round it. I was in love with her.

I wanted to marry her, but before I could do that I had to have money, and I had to have my

freedom.

If Ginny hadn’t had such a good job, it might have been easier. I felt I couldn’t ask her to

run off with me until I had enough money to take care of us both. I played it wrong. Knowing

what I know now, she would have gone with me if I hadn’t a cent. But you find out that kind

of thing too late: anyway, I did.

Whenever Della went over to Bay Street, I’d skip into the Buick and beat it down to

Franklin Boulevard. I’d call Ginny on the phone, and she’d either come over or I’d go over to

her place. I heard a lot of music while I was with her, and when she was with me, we played

chess. That’s a game I had never played, and she taught me. Don’t think I hadn’t other ideas

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in my head when I was alone with her, besides listening to music or playing chess, but that’s

the way she wanted it to be, and that’s the way it was. Some evenings we went to Raul’s. I

figured we were safe there. It wasn’t the kind of place Della would ever show up in, nor were

we likely to run into anyone from the casino there.

I soon found out that Ginny was as much in love with me as I was with her. Her two weeks

stay at the beach cabin was coming to an end. That worried both of us.

“What shall we do, Johnny?” she asked. We were at the Franklin Boulevard apartment.

“Just how soon do you think we can get married?”

We had got that far in eleven days.

I had been beating my brains out on the same problem. I had two things to do before I

could marry her. I had to get my hands on a large sum of money, and I had to find some place

where we could go where Della wouldn’t think of looking for us.

When Della had dragged me into this set-up she had promised me a quarter of a million.

“Word of honour,” she had said. I had carried out my part of the bargain, but she hadn’t

carried out hers. I now considered that quarter of a million was mine by right. If she wouldn’t

give it to me, I was going to take it. But before I could lay my hands on it I had to find out the

combination of the safe, and that wasn’t easy. There was half a million in cash in that safe,

and it was a good one. Unless I found the combination I had no more chance of breaking into

it than I had of swimming the Atlantic.

It was a problem, and I didn’t know how to solve it. All I could hope for was to hang on

and wait for a break. The other thing I had to do before I married Ginny wasn’t anything like

so difficult. I had that already doped out: where to go when the time came.

I figured I could lose myself in Cuba. The moment I got my hands on the money, I’d

charter a plane, and Ginny and I would fly to Cuba. I reckoned we’d be safe there. Della

wouldn’t think to look for me in Cuba, and even if she did, and even if she found me, there

was nothing she could do about it.

So when Ginny said, “Just how soon can we get married?” I had part of the answer ready

for her.

I told her I thought in about six weeks.

“My boss has told me if I make a success here,” I said, “he’s going to give me the

manager’s job at our branch in Havana. It’ll be a fine job, Ginny. We’ll have all the money

we need. You won’t have to work any more. How do you like the idea of living in Cuba?”

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She said she didn’t mind where she lived so long as I was with her.

.Every now and then I got scared, wondering how I was going to make good oh the lies I

was telling her, but it was no good worrying about that. The things I had to worry about were

getting the safe open and getting away from Della.

When I wasn’t with Ginny I worked at the casino. I got a big bang out of running the place.

Every morning I called a meeting with Della in the chair. I insisted that Louis, the head chef,

the top croupier, the housekeeper and the wine steward should sit around the conference

table. Della didn’t like the idea, but she soon found I was right. We got ideas from these

people. They had never been consulted before, and they liked being consulted, and they gave

out ideas that meant more money in the kitty. I had ideas, too. I had a piece of ground cleared

and had a helicopter landing-ground constructed. I fixed with a Miami airport for a taxi

service of helicopters to fly a shuttle service from Miami to Lincoln Beach. If our people got

bored with the casino they could hop over to Miami, and if the playboys and girls in Miami

wanted a change, they could hop over to us.

I got that idea going in the first week, and it paid dividends.

Another idea I had was to hook up with the local television station and put the casino on the

air. We had a good band and cabaret every evening, and I fixed it we had a nightly spot which

I gave free in return for the publicity.

“I wouldn’t have believed you had it in you, Johnny,” Della said one night. We were

together in her cabin. She had just got back from Bay Street, and I had just beaten her by five

minutes from Ginny’s place. “That television idea of yours is goingfine.”

“Yeah, it is. How about a token of appreciation? How about that quarter of a million you

promised me - word of honour? I can invest it as well as you.”

She gave me her silky smile. I knew it was a waste of time,

but every so often I punched it home.

“Have patience, Johnny. You’ll get it,”

“When?”

“Come here, darling.”

That was the part I hated. Making love to her when she crooked her finger. But I had to do

it. I had to keep her away from Ginny. So long as I made out I was crazy about her I figured I

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was safe. So I made out I was crazy about her.

There were nights when I slept in my own cabin, and it was then, when I lay alone in the

darkness, that I thought about Reisner. Della had said I’d forget about him after a week, but I

didn’t. I kept thinking of him. I even dreamed about him; imagining him outside the cabin

with his cut eye and smashed face, looking at me through the window.

I thought about Hame, too. He knew the set-up. I could tell; that by the way he looked at

me. He knew the lions hadn’t killed Reisner, although he didn’t say so in so many words.

“It’s a funny thing,” he said to me on the morning after they had found Reisner’s body in

the pit, “but that guy had been dead at least eight hours before those lions mauled him. Isn’t

that a funny thing?”

I said it was.

We stood looking at each other for perhaps half a minute, then he turned and walked away.

I told Della.

“He won’t do anything, Johnny,” she said, completely unruffled. “It’s too late now. He

won’t do anything.”

And he didn’t.

But whenever I met him I knew he knew, and he knew I knew he knew. He was getting

seven-fifty a week from us now, and I wondered how long it would be before he wanted

more. That kind always wanted more sooner or later. Luckily for us we had more to give.

Even if we gave him twice that amount, it wouldn’t hurt us. We were coining money, or

rather she was. I knew she was making much more than she expected, because every now and

then she’d give me an expensive present.

“Conscience money, darling,” she said. “You really are doing a job of work here.”

A couple of weeks later Ginny moved out of the beach cabin. She was going to work at the

store in Miami for a while, and then she was going to Key West to make sketches of the turtle

crawls down there. She wasn’t sure just when she would be going, but she promised to call

me.

Well, that was the set-up nearly five weeks after Reisner had died. I was skating on thin ice,

but up to now the ice wasn’t even cracking. I was feeling pretty confident. I had got away

with murder. I had outsmarted Della. I was in love with Ginny, and, more important, she was

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in love with me. On the face of it, it didn’t look bad.

Then Ricca showed up from Los Angeles.

VI

Della and I knew, sooner or later, Ricca would turn up, and we were ready for him. We had

already had a cable, addressed to Reisner, from Levinsky, saying Wertham hadn’t arrived in

Paris. We guessed a similar cable had been sent to Ricca.

Hoping to gain a little more time, we had cabled back that Wertham had broken his journey

and was in London. We signed the cable Reisner. We had expected Ricca would telephone

from Los Angeles, but he didn’t. He must have suspected something was wrong, for he came

without warning.

I was alone in the office working out a new idea I had for the swimming-pool. I planned to

scrap the overhead lights and put in coloured lights in the floor of the bath. I reckoned that’d

be a novelty, and Della agreed.

It was a half-hour after noon: a good time to work as the staff was busy preparing for the

lunch rush, and the customers were busy in the bar.

I didn’t hear him come in. I learned later he had a trick of moving around like a ghost. I

looked up to find him standing a few feet away from me. He gave me quite a start. He wasn’t

anything like I had imagined him to be, but I guessed at once who he was.

I had formed a picture of him in my mind. I had imagined him to be big and tough the way

I had imagined Reisner would be. But he was nothing like that. He was short and fat: like two

rubber balls; one on top of the other. He was pot-bellied and his legs were thick and short.

His shoulders were nearly a yard wide. He wore his thinning black hair long and plastered to

his head, spreading it out carefully, but there wasn’t nearly enough of it to hide the dark skin

that showed between the strands of hair like the trellis work of a fence. His face was round

and fat and mottled with small veins that stamped him a drunk. He had snake’s eyes, flat,

glittering and as lifeless as glass. His lips were thick and set in a meaningless and perpetual

smile.

“I’m Ricca,” he said. “Where’s Nick?”

My foot touched a button under my desk that connected up with a buzzer in Della’s room.

We had agreed only to use the buzzer as a signal that Ricca had arrived.

“In a little urn on the shelf in the crematorium,” I said, and eased back my chair.

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His expression did not change, nor did his smile go away. He put a pudgy hand on the back

of a chair and pulled it towards him, then he lowered himself into it and puffed breath across

the desk at me.

“You mean he’s dead?”

I said I meant he was dead,

“That’s very interesting. And who are you?”

I opened a desk drawer and took out a box of cigarettes. I left the drawer half open. I had a

.45 Colt automatic lying in there. All I had to do was to dip into the drawer and grab it if there

was trouble. We had Ricca’s reception pretty well worked out.

“I’m the guy who’s running this joint,” I said.

“That’s interesting, too.” His snake’s eyes went to the half-open drawer. From where he sat

he couldn’t see the gun, but; that didn’t mean he didn’t know it was there. “And who put you

in charge?”

“I did,” Della said from the doorway.

“That’s also interesting,” he said without looking round. He kept his eyes on me. “Where’s

Paul?”

Della came around the desk and stood behind me, facing Ricca.

“How are you, Jack?” she said. “It’s a long time no see. How’s Los Angeles?”

Ricca crossed his fat legs. He was careful to keep his hands folded across his belly. It began

to dawn on me he was dangerous. His smile was as wide and as meaningless as before, and

his expression hadn’t changed. He couldn’t have known Della was here. He had just learned

Reisner was dead. But neither of these items had dented him.

“Answering from left to right,” he said, his eyes still on me. “I’m fine. It sure is a long time

no see. Los Angeles is fine. Where’s Paul?”

“He’s dead,” she told him.

His expression didn’t change, nor did his smile shrink.

“And I always thought Lincoln Beach was a healthy town. Well, well, he had to die some

time, I guess. What happened to him? Did he catch cold or was he helped off this earth?”

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“He was killed in a car smash.”

He raised his right hand slowly and examined his fingernails.

“So you got yourself a young man and took over the casino?” he said, as if he were

speaking to himself.

“That’s just what I did,” Della said calmly. “And there’s nothing you can do about it, Jack.”

His smile widened.

“I always thought you were a smart girl, Della,” he said placidly. “Anyone else beside you

two know he’s dead?”

“No. It’s better it should dawn on them slowly.”

Ricca nodded his ball-like head.

“Much better.” He pointed a short, fat finger at me. “And who’s this?”

“That’s Johnny. For convenience he’s, known here as Johnny Ricca.”

Ricca continued to smile. He nodded to me.

“That’s very smart. Of course Nick was under the impression this young man was me.”

We didn’t say anything.

“You’re a smart guy to get yourself on board this gravy train,” he went on.

“And I’m smart enough to keep other people off it,” I said. Even then his smile didn’t fade.

Della sat on the edge of the desk. She lit a cigarette.

“Look, Jack. Let’s put our cards on the table,” she said. “Paul’s dead. That leaves you,

Levinsky, Johnny and me. Levinsky has the Paris set-up. You have Los Angeles. We have

Lincoln Beach. There’s no reason why any of us should get in each other’s way. It’s a natural

carve-up. What do you say?”

“I think you’ve worked it out pretty well.” Ricca said. “Are you sure this guy can handle

the job?”

I edged my hand towards the drawer. This could be the curtain-raiser to trouble.

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“I’m sure of that, Jack. He has a flair for the job. He’s like Paul.”

That startled me, because she sounded as if she meant it.

Ricca nodded, his eyes on my hand.

I guess that fixes it, then. I’m not complaining. I like smart people, and I guess you two are

pretty smart.”

Della relaxed a little, but I didn’t.

“Mind if I stick around for a couple of days?” Ricca went on. “I’d like to look the joint

over.”

“Why, sure, Jack, we’d love to have you,” Della said, before I could chip in. “Come on

outside and have a drink. Coming, Johnny?”

“Right now I’m busy,” I said. “Suppose we get together for lunch around half-past one?”

“Right.”

Ricca got to his feet. Before I could shut the drawer he leaned forward and peered in.

“Smart fella,” he said, beaming on me. “I like a guy who knows how to take care of

himself. Be seeing you.”

He held the door open for Della. I sat still watching him. It wasn’t until he had shut the

door that I slammed the drawer to. I found I was sweating a little, and my heart was bearing

faster than normal.

I trusted that guy like I’d trust a tiger. He was too smooth. That stuff about having no

complaint was so much eye-wash. No one, especially his kind, was going to be gypped out of

a joint like this without some come-back.

I sat thinking for some minutes, then I got up and went over to the window. From there I

could see part of the terrace. They were out there. He was still smiling, but he was talking,

too. He was talking fast and waving his fat hands, and Della was listening; her eyes on his

face and her expression tense. I wondered what they were talking about.

Around half-past one I went into the restaurant. Most times I had meals in the office,

otherwise as soon as I was seen I was pestered. It was surprising the number of people who

wanted w buy me a drink or to yap about their winnings or groan about their losses.

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Della and Ricca were already at a table in a corner, away from the rest of the tables. Louis

was taking their orders himself.

I sat down.

“This helicopter idea of yours is terrific,” Ricca said, when Louis had taken my order and

had gone. “I guess I’ll try it in Los Angeles. I might hook up with San Francisco.”

Della smiled at me possessively.

“I told you, Jack, he’s a clever boy, and they like him here, too.”

“I had a look at that lion pit,” Ricca went on. “Della told me what happened to Nick. I

guess you don’t feed those cats yourself, do you?”

I matched his grin.

“I’m too smart,” I said. “One accident’s enough.”

“Yeah. Had he been dipping into the reserve like Paul thought?”

“A little; not much,” Della said.

“That’s a big reserve. That’s twice the amount I carry.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“We need every nickel of it,” Della said, her voice hard.

He looked at her, then at me.

“It crossed my mind you might feel inclined to transfer say a quarter of it to Los Angeles.

Just an idea, mind you. Paul was always switching lumps of his reserve. It was a smart move.

He kept everyone satisfied.”

I put down my knife and fork. I suddenly wasn’t hungry any more. But Della went right on

eating as if she hadn’t heard.

Just for a moment the smile slipped, and I saw behind the fat, rubber-like mask, and what I

saw I didn’t like.

“Of course it’s up to you,” he said, smiling again.

“I said we needed every nickel of it, Jack,” she said, without looking up.

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“Maybe you do.”

The waiter came and switched plates. Ricca started talking about the casino at Los Angeles.

The moment had passed, but I wasn’t kidding myself. He’d try again. How far he was

prepared to push it remained to be seen, but he wasn’t the type to give up easily.

We had coffee and brandy on the terrace. I was in the middle of explaining to Ricca my

idea of lighting the swimming-pool when I saw him and Della look up and past me. I glanced

up. There was a girl standing right by me. For a moment I didn’t recognize her, then I saw

she was Georgia Harris Brown, and she was drunk.

I hadn’t seen her since that day we had parted on the beach, and seeing her again came as a

shock to me.

“Hello, handsome,” she said, and put her hand on my shoulder. “Remember me?”

She was wearing a pair of linen slacks and a halter. Her cute, pert little face was flushed,

and the whites of her eyes were bloodshot.

I got up. Ricca got up too. Della watched me, the way a cat watches a mouse. I had an idea

I was heading for trouble.

“Is there anything I can do?” I asked stiffly.

“Sure.” Her fingers gripped my coat to steady herself. “That’s why I’m here.”

“You know Mrs. Wertham?” I said. “This is Jack Ricca. Ricca, I’d like you to meet Miss

Harris Brown.”

Ricca bowed, but she ignored him.

“I thought you were Ricca,” she said.

“So I am. He’s my cousin, on my father’s side.”

“It surprises me a louse like you had a father,” she said.

The words hung in empty space. I didn’t say anything. Ricca didn’t say anything. Della lit a

cigarette.

“Hello, bastard,” Miss Harris Brown went on.

I was aware Ricca was watching me with interest. Della’s face had gone pale, but she

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didn’t make a move. They were my cards, and I had to play them.

“What do you want?” I said.

Della and Ricca weren’t the only two looking at me now. Everyone on the terrace was

looking.

She pushed her breasts out at me, and her red-painted lips curved into a smile that was as

vicious as her eyes.

“I want to know who the whore is you’re going around with,” she said. “The pretty little

trollop with red hair. The one you take to your rooms on Franklin Boulevard. The one you

slop over at Raul’s. Who is she?”

I went hot, then cold. My brain closed up. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out of it.

Ricca said, “She’s his sister by his mother’s side. Now go away, you drunken little fool.

Your eyes are watery, your nose is red, and you’ve got a stinking, rotten breath.”

Someone in the audience laughed.

Miss Harris Brown collapsed like a pricked balloon.

I watched her run across the terrace, down the steps and towards her cabin. Then I looked at

Ricca.

“It was easier for me to do it,” he said, “but if I spoke out of turn, I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” I said. “She was drunk.”

Then I looked at Della.

“Where’s Raul’s Johnny?” she asked, smiling, but her eyes were like chips of ice. “Or

shouldn’t I ask?”

“You heard what I said: she was drunk.”

“We get them like that in Los Angeles,” Ricca said soothingly. “You don’t have to pay any

attention to them. They are kind of crazy in the head.”

Della got up.

“Jack and I are going over to Bay Street,” she said, without looking at me. “We’ll be seeing

you.”

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She walked down the steps towards her car.

Ricca patted my arm.

“Women are funny animals,” he said, “and she’s no exception.”

It might have been Reisner talking.

“Don’t let it bother you, Johnny.”

He went after her, and his smile was a mile wide.

VII

I sat at my desk, a cigarette smouldering between my fingers, my brain busy. The writing

was on the wall. I didn’t kid myself I could bluff Della. She was too smart. By tonight she

would have found out about Ginny, my apartment on Franklin Boulevard and Raul’s. Then

would come the show-down.

She wouldn’t have to give me away to Hame. She’d team up with Ricca and let him take

care of me. This was my out. I had to skip before it was too late.

I twisted around in my chair and looked at the safe. Behind that heavy steel door was a

bundle of money belonging to me. If I could get to it, I hadn’t a worry in the world. But I

hadn’t a hope of opening that door without the combination.

For nearly four weeks I had sat around hoping the combination would drop in my lap. I

now had three hours, possibly four, to get it if I was ever going to get it.

I wouldn’t get it from Della: I was sure of that. Then who else knew it beside Della? For

the first time I really began to bend

my brains on the problem. Reisner had known it, but he was dead. The firm who made the

safe would know it, but they wouldn’t part with the informarion. Would Louis know it? There

was a chance he might. I picked up the telephone and called his office.

“Louis? This is Ricca. I’ve got a problem. Mr. Van Etting is in my office. He wants to cash

a cheque in a hurry. Mrs. Wertham’s out. You wouldn’t know the combination of the safe?”

I did it well. My voice was business-like, but casual.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Ricca, but I do not know it,” Louis said, and from the sound of his voice he

would have told me if he had known it.

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“Aw, hell!” I said. “What am I going to do? This guy’s getting in a rage.”

“Maybe you could reach Mrs. Wertham,” Louis said. “She may be at Bay Street.”

“I’ve already tried. She’s not around. You haven’t three thousand bucks in your office,

have you?”

He said he never kept big sums in his office.

“Okay, forget it, Louis. Sorry to have bothered you. I guess Mr. Van Etting will have to get

into a rage.”

I wasn’t disappointed. It had been a hunch, and it hadn’t come off. I was about to replace

the receiver when he said, “If Miss Doering had been with us she could have told you.”

Miss Doering? I stared at the opposite wall. Reisner’s secretary ! Della had given her the

sack. She had been furious with her for calling Hame when Reisner hadn’t shown up.

I gripped the receiver until my hand ached.

“Did Miss Doering know the combination ?”

“Why, yes, Mr. Ricca. When Mr. Reisner was out she took care of the money.”

“Well, she isn’t here,” I said, making out I wasn’t interested any more. “Never mind.

Forget it, Louis, and thanks.”

I hung up and sat thinking for a moment or so, then I grabbed the telephone again and got

through to the staff supervisor.

“This is Ricca. Can you give me Miss Doering’s address?”

She asked me to hold on. The minute I had to wait seemed like an hour.

“247c Coral Boulevard.”

“Got her phone number?”

Another wait.

“Lincoln Beach 18577.”

“Thanks,” I said, broke the connection, paused long enough to wipe the sweat off my face,

then got on the phone again.

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“Get me Lincoln Beach 18577.”

I hadn’t had any previous dealings with Miss Doering. Della had handled her, and from

what she had told me, she had handled her pretty roughly. I had seen her, and she had seen

me. I had given her a smile now and then because she was a looker. I had no idea what she

thought of me, and I knew I couldn’t put this across over the telephone. I had to see her.

The line clicked and buzzed, then a woman said, “Hello?”

“Miss Doering?”

“I guess so.”

“This is Johnny Ricca. I want to see you. I could be with you in fifteen minutes. How about

it?”

There was a pause, then she said, “What about?”

“If I told you that I shouldn’t see you, and I want to see you. Okay for me to come over?”

“If that’s the way you feel about it.”

“I’m on my way.”

I walked out of the office, along the corridor to the elevator. I rode down to the ground

floor and tramped across the lobby to the terrace. Someone spoke to me, but I didn’t look to

see who it was. I kept right on. The Buick was waiting at the foot of the terrace. I got in and

drove down the carriageway. The guards opened the gates as soon as they saw me. I was

doing seventy before I hit the highway.

247 Coral Boulevard was a sprawling mansion that had been converted into apartments. I

took a creaking elevator to the fourth floor and walked down a corridor to a door on which

the numbers 247c were picked out in white paint against a glossy apple-green background.

I leaned against the bell-push. She had the door open before I could really get any weight

into it: a blonde, slim lovely, with arched eyebrows that weren’t her own, a figure you only

see in Esquire and an invitation in her eyes.

“You must have moved,” she said. “Come on in.”

She was wearing one of those house-coat things. The way it set off her figure was nobody’s

business.

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We went into a small room that was cluttered up with a settee, two armchairs, a radio and a

table. You couldn’t have swung even a Manx cat in it. She sat on the settee and I sat beside

her.

We looked at each other. I had an idea she wasn’t going to be difficult to handle.

“Have you found another job yet?” I asked.

“No. Want to give me one?” She crossed her legs, showing me a knee that might have

interested me before I met Ginny, but which I scarcely looked at now.

“I want the combination of the safe in Reisner’s office. Louis said you knew it. That’s why

I’m here.”

“Well, you certainly don’t believe in wasting time,” she said, and smiled. “What makes you

think I’ll give it to you?”

“I’m just hoping. You don’t seem surprised.”

She leaned forward and dug a long finger into my chest.

“I’m surprised you haven’t been before. I was expecting you, handsome. Your type doesn’t

sit in a room all day with a safe full of money without getting ideas. What do you intend to do

- skin her?”

“She promised me a little dough, but she’s changed her mind. I’m pulling out and I’m

hoping to take what she owes me.”

“What makes you think I’ll help you?”

“I have no reason to think you will, but there’s no harm in trying.”

She leaned closer.

“Don’t be so stand-offish. I could be persuaded. I was always a sucker for muscular men.”

I kissed her. It was like getting snarled up in a meat-mincer.

After a while she pushed me away and drew in a deep breath.

“Hmmm, not bad. With a little tuition and patience you could be good.”

I ran my fingers through my hair, wiped the lipstick off my mouth and took a sly look at the

175

clock on the overmantel. It showed five minutes after five.

“I don’t want to hurry this, but I’ll have to,” I said.

“Do you think you’ll get away with it?” She had opened a powder compact and was

restoring her face.

“I’ll have a try.”

“What are you going to do? Walk out with a bundle of money under your arm? The guards

will love it.”

“I’ll take it out in a suitcase in my car.”

“About as safe as jumping out of this window.”

“Now wait a minute. Let’s get this straight. Where do you come in on this deal? What’s

your cut to be?”

She laughed.

“Do I look all that crazy? I wouldn’t touch a dollar of it. You may not think it, but I don’t

take money that doesn’t belong to me. I have other faults, but that’s not one of them. I’m

going to give you the combination because I’d like that black-haired, snooty little bitch to be

well and properly gypped. I hated Reisner, and I hate her. It’s my way of getting even for all

I’ve put up with from both of them. Go ahead, Mr. Ricca, help yourself. The more you take

the better I’ll like it.”

I looked at her-She wasn’t fooling.

“Okay, let’s have it.”

She reached over, opened a drawer in the table near by and gave me a slip of paper.

“It’s been waiting there ever since I first saw you. I knew sooner or later you’d want it.”

I looked at the row of figures, my heart banging against my ribs. Talk about a break! I

could scarcely believe it.

“Well, thanks,” I said, and got to my feet.

“Going after it now?”

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“Right now.”

“Still going to take it out in your car?”

“Any better ideas ?”

She leaned against me.

“You’re learning, handsome. There’s only one way to get that money out and be sure of it.

Perhaps you don’t know this, but at six every evening the railroad truck calls for luggage or

empty crates, or whatever’s going by rail. There’s always something. Pack the money in a

suitcase, address it to yourself at any station to be called for. The man will give you a receipt.

You’ll find him loading up at the luggage entrance. He handles the stuff himself. There’s

seldom anyone there. It’s the only way, handsome. The guards don’t check his stuff, and

when you go, you’ll go empty-handed.”

I patted her on the shoulder.

“You’re more than smarts you’re brilliant,” I said. “That’s a whale of an idea.”

She leaned more heavily against me.

“Show a little appreciation.”

It took me ten precious minutes to untangle myself from her clutches, a quarter of an hour

to buy a black pigskin suitcase with good locks, five minutes to buy a coil of thin rope and a

big meat hook, and ten minutes to get back to the casino.

As I drove in I asked the green-eyed guard if he had seen Mrs. Wertham.

“Not in yet,” he growled.

I drove fast around to the back of the casino. Twenty feet above me was my office window,

overlooking a walled-in garden that was reserved for the management, and no one else. I set

the suitcase down immediately below the window, ran back to the car and drove around to the

front entrance.

I went up the steps to the terrace three at a time. People said hello, and tried to stop me, but

I grinned at them and kept on.

When Della checked up on me she would learn I hadn’t come in with a suitcase, only a

small brown-paper parcel that contained the rope and the hook.

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I got to my office, locked the door, opened the window and dropped the hook, attached to

the rope, down on to the suitcase. I snagged it the first throw. I hauled it up, then went over to

the safe. With the combination in my hand I turned the tumblers. I was working against time.

The desk clock showed five minutes to six.

I came to the last number, turned to it and felt the tumbler fall into position. Holding my

breath, I tugged at the handle of the safe. The door swung open.

I sat back on my heels and feasted my eyes on the contents. On two shelves were neat

packages of one-hundred dollar bills: stacks and stacks and stacks of them.

I pulled the suitcase closer, opened it and began to pack the bundles in. Two hundred and

fifty of them filled the case: it was the most awe-inspiring sight I’d ever set eyes on. There

were still another two hundred and fifty bundles left on the shelves. But they didn’t belong to

me. I left them right where they were. Before I slammed the suitcase shut I took three one-hundred dollar bills out of one package, folded them small and wedged them down the side of

my shoe. Then I snapped the locks, turned the keys and put them in my pocket. I shut the safe

door and gave the knob of the lock a couple of turns. Then I dusted the safe with my

handkerchief and stood up.

I was panting with excitement and my collar was a wet rag. The hands of the clock showed

six.

I took the suitcase to the window, leaned out and dropped it. Then I hooked the hook to the

window-sill and slid down the rope. When I reached the ground I jerked the hook free, coiled

the rope and hid it under a shrub. I picked up the suitcase and bolted across the lawn.

The trucker was just through loading up by the time I got there. He had signed off and was

getting into his cab. There was no one else around.

“Just in time, I guess,” I panted.

He looked me over, hesitated, then gave a resigned grin.

“Where to, mister?”

“Got a label?”

He found one.

I printed my name on it.

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John Farrar,

Sea board Air-Line Railway, Grt. Miami,

To be called for.

He wrote out a receipt.

“Sorry to hold you up,” I said, and gave him ten bucks. “Keep the change.” He nearly fell

off the truck.

“I’ll take care of this for you, sir. It’ll be right there waiting for you.”

I hoped it would.

I stood back and watched the truck drive away. It made me sweat to think of all that money

going on that journey without me to guard every yard of it.

But she was right. It was the smart thing to do. If those two guards spotted the suitcase they

would want to know what was inside it: especially the green-eyed guard. He had it in for me.

I folded the receipt the trucker had given me into a narrow ribbon. Right now that scrap of

paper was worth a quarter of a million dollars. I took off my slouch hat and tucked the ribbon

of paper behind the sweat band.

Things were working out better than I had imagined. I had got the money out, now I had to

get myself out.

I remembered the .45 Colt automatic I had left in my desk drawer. I might need that gun, I

decided to get it.

It took me a couple of minutes to reach the office. I stopped short just inside the doorway.

Della and Ricca were sitting near my desk. Ricca had the Colt in his hand, and it was

pointing at me.

VIII

“Come in, Johnny,” Della said.

I closed the door and walked across the expanse of fawn carpet, somehow keeping my face

expressionless, and cursing myself for coming back.

As I made for the desk, Della said, “Don’t sit there. That’s no longer your place, I want you

to meet my new partner,” and she waved to Ricca.

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“So that’s how it is,” I said. “Did he talk you into it or did you talk him into it, and what’s

the idea of the gun?”

“Neither,” Della said. “Miss Harris Brown talked you out of it.”

I took out a packet of cigarettes together with the keys of the suitcase. Without letting them

see the keys I let them slide into the side of the chair. I lit a cigarette and blew smoke at her. I

could tell by the way she was breathing that there was going to be an explosion before long.

She was only keeping control of herself because she wanted to prolong what she imagined

was my agony. She was pale, and her eyes were deadly, and her breasts were rising and

falling under the thin stuff of her dress as if she were suffocating.

“I told you at the time,” I said, “that little mare was drunk.”

“I know what you told me, Johnny,” she said her voice going shrill. “But I haven’t been

wasting my time this afternoon. I have been making enquiries. You may not know it, but the

guards log all cars that come to the gates. It didn’t take long to find the number of the Lincoln

that brought you back the night you killed Reisner. It didn’t take long for Hame to find out

the owner of the car is Virginia Laverick who has a beach cabin not far from here. Nor did it

take long for me to find out she works at Keston’s in Miami, and Raul under a little pressure

told me you and she often go there for dinner.”

I wasn’t surprised. I knew she might dig out all this information as soon as she had left me

after the scene on the terrace.

“Do we have to go into this with Ricca here?” I said. “It can’t be much fun for him.”

Ricca’s smile widened.

“I thought it might be safer for you if I stuck around,” he said. “Della’s temper is a little

uncertain. She wanted to shoot you as you walked in. I had trouble persuading her to change

her mind.”

“Maybe you’d better stay, then,” I said.

“Do you deny you have an apartment on Franklin Boulevard, and this girl visits you there?”

Della cried, leaning forward and glaring at me.

“No, I don’t deny it,” I said. “What are you going to do about it?”

She sat back, and there was a long moment of silence.

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Ricca said, “Let’s skip the next piece and go right into the last act. We’re wasting time with

this guy.”

I was glad he was there. She looked ready to blow her top, but his cold flat voice kept her

under control.

“Yes,” she said. “We’ll skip the next piece. Well, Johnny, you’ve been warned. I told you

to lay off other women.”

“I know what you told me.”

“Then you’ll rave to take the consequences,” she said. “I’m going to throw you out of here

the way I picked you up: a third-rate fighter without a dollar to your name. How do you like

that?”

The least I expected was she would have me beaten up. I took a casual stare at the safe. It

was shut. She couldn’t know I had tampered with it!

“Now wait a minute,” I said, sitting forward, “you can’t get away with that. We made a

bargain. I want my dough!”

If I didn’t make out she was scoring off me, she might still decide to put a bullet in me. The

rage and dismay I got into my voice even surprised me.

“We made another bargain,” she said, “you’re forgetting that, Johnny.” Her eyes were

bright with spite. “I said no other women - remember? You’ve gypped yourself out of a

quarter of a million. How do you like that? Was Miss Laverick worth all that money,

Johnny?”

I twisted my face into what I hoped was a mask of infuriated rage and started up.

“Sit down!” Ricca said, and the gun covered me.

I sat down.

“Throw me out if you like, but I’m going to have that money!” I snarled at her.

“You’ll leave here without a dime and on your feet!” she said. “The guards have been told

to let you out only if you are walking and you’re not carrying a bag. You’ll have a nice long

walk ahead of you, and I hope you’ll enjoy it!”

“Don’t imagine you’ll get away with this!” I shouted. “If you think you can gyp me …”

181

She was revelling in it now. I made out I was going to spring at her. Ricca stood up,

threatening me with the gun.

“Empty your pockets on the desk,” Della said.

“Make me!” I said. “I’d like to see either of you get close enough to make me!”

“That won’t be necessary,” Ricca said. “Do what she says or I’ll shoot you in the leg and

you’ll damn well have to crawl out of here!”

I thought of those three one-hundred-dollar bills I had hidden in my shoe, and I had trouble

in keeping a straight face.

“I’ll fix you too!” I snarled at him, and began emptying my pockets on the desk.

When I was through she made me pull out the linings of my pockets to make sure I’d kept

nothing back. I was glad I had stashed the keys in the chair. If she had seen those she might

have looked in the safe. All the time I had been in the room I had kept my hat on. The receipt

for the suitcase was burning a hole in my head, but neither of them thought to look inside my

hat.

“Okay, Johnny,” Della said, “now you’re all set to go. I hope you’ll be hungry tonight. I

hope no one gives you a ride. I hope you rot in hell!”

“I’ll fix you for this!” I yelled at her, and moved to the door.

“Better get going fast, Johnny,” she said, and a cruel little smile lit up her face. “I said I’d

throw you out as I found you, didn’t I? Pepi and Benno are on their way over. They should

arrive any moment now. They seemed very interested to hear you were here. So this is where

you came in, darling. You’re on the run again, and I hope they catch you!”

I started to say something when the door opened and Louis walked in. Ricca hid the gun

behind his back.

“What do you want?” Della demanded. “Can’t you knock?”

Louis’s fat face looked startled. “I thought Mr. Ricca was alone.”

“Well, he isn’t. What do you want?”

I went cold. I knew what he wanted. He had come to ask if I had managed to get the safe

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open.

“You talk to them,” I said to him. “I’m clearing out. That fat boy’s your new boss.”

I shoved past him, jerked open the door as Della cried, “Wait!”

But I didn’t wait. In three or four seconds she would know I’d beaten her to the punch. I

had to get out and get out fast.

I jumped into the elevator and rode to the ground floor. Moving fast, I crossed the lobby,

pelted down the steps and vaulted into the waiting Buick.

I shot away from the casino steps and down the carriageway like a bat out of hell. Half-way

down I lowered the windshield until it was lying flat. I crouched down in the seat. By the

time I saw the gates ahead of me I was driving at sixty miles a hour.

The two guards were there. The green-eyed one had his gun in his hand. They had heard me

coming, and probably she had phoned I was to be stopped, but I wasn’t stopping.

Those gates looked big and impressive, but they had two weaknesses. They opened

outwards and they were held shut only by a single bolt. Moving at this speed I didn’t reckon

they would hold me, and they didn’t.

The guards jumped clear as I swept down on them. I held the steering-wheel as tightly as I

could and lowered my head. The solid steel bumpers smashed into the gates, and they flew

open. The car rocked and swerved, but I straightened it, shoving my foot down hard on the

accelerator. I heard the bang of a gun, but I didn’t care. I was through those gates and on to

the highway. I went on feeding petrol into the cylinders: the speedometer needle flickered up

to eighty. They would have to move to catch me!

A couple of miles down the road I came to the bends: the climbing switchback that led

across the dunes to the Miami Highway. I had to cut speed, but that didn’t worry me. They

would take a few minutes to get after me, and they couldn’t go faster on this road than I

could.

Well, I had beaten her! I wanted to sing and yell. I had outsmarted her in spite of her

smartness. I’d got the money and I was out, and before she could get things moving I’d be

safely hidden in Cuba. I was riding higher than a kite!

After driving for fifty miles or so, I turned off the highway and got on to the secondary

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road. The Buick was an obvious car to spot, and I was less likely to be noticed on the

secondary road than on the highway. Before long I would have to get petrol.

I was running low.

As I drove I remembered Ginny was staying with a girl friend in Miami, and I knew her

telephone number. I decided I’d stop at the next filling-station and call her. I’d get her to

charter a plane this night, and if I could persuade her to go with me to Cuba, and I thought I

could. I’d be sitting on top of the world!

About a couple of miles farther on I spotted a filling-station and I pulled in.

An old guy with a goatee beard came waddling out of the shabby little office.

“Fill her up,” I said. “Have you a phone here?”

“Right in there, mister.”

I suddenly remembered I had only three one-hundred-dollar bills on me. I bent down and

flicked them out of my shoe.

“I got nothing smaller than a C. Can you give me change?”

“Sure. You go right ahead and phone. I’ll get you change.”

The phone was on a battered desk by an open window. I called Ginny’s number. The light

was fading now. It was getting on for nine. I could see the old guy pumping petrol into the

Buick. On the desk was a packet of Camel’s. I took one and lit up.

“Hello,” a girl said over the line. It wasn’t Ginny.

“Miss Laverick there?”

“No, she’s out, but I’m expecting her any minute now.”

I cursed silently.

“Okay. I’ll call back in five minutes.”

I hung up and went outside to see how the old guy was getting on. He was screwing on the

cap. “She’s full, mister.”

“Get me the change will you? I want to phone again in five minutes.”

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He got me the change and sold me a packet of cigarettes. I hung around and wasted eleven

minutes before I finally got Ginny. By then I was getting a little uneasy. A fast car can cover

a lot of miles in eleven minutes. I wasn’t kidding myself they wouldn’t be after me by now.

“Why, Johnny, darling!”

“Now, listen, kid. I’ve a surprise for you. I’ve got that job. Yep. I heard only just now. And

I’ve another surprise for you. I’m on my way to you now.”

“Why, Johnny, does that mean … ?”

“Yeah, it means just that, but hold everything and listen. I’m to start work in Havana

tomorrow. I want you to call the airport and charter a plane to Havana to be ready to take off

in four hours. I want to know if you’ll come with me.”