Manhunt. Volume 13, Number 5, September 1965

The Payment Is Death by John E. Cameron

I told Lattic he’d get Sam’s gold cigar box as a bonus when the job was done.

“Jack Colmar.” Solly’s plaintive bleat came out of the night, from somewhere behind me.

I froze. When Solly called your name on a rainswept waterfront, you had ten seconds left to live. His contracts always specified death.

As I tensed for the tearing impact of the bullet, I heard a faint scuffle, followed by a gurgling moan.

Slowly I heeled ’round. The script had been rewritten and I wanted to meet the writer.

They were barely visible in the wet gloom. Solly, his bulk unmistakable, in the twitches of death; and a thin, weedy character busy recovering a knife from Sollys’ back. Not until Solly had been consigned to the East River, did the weedy one speak.

“Ned wants to talk to you, Colmar.” The voice was surprisingly gruff, and decidedly hostile.

I fired a smoke and took a long, deep drag. Maybe I’d be better off dead.

Ned Lattic had six good reasons to talk to me. I had blown all six to hell with one bomb. Thoughts of escape chased each other through my brain like wet pupies. Weedy’s knife pricking my hide turned that idea sour, as sour as my bright idea to return to Chicago.

That I was expected at Lattic’s Bar and Grill was obvious. Torpedoes who would have blasted my guts on sight, acted like head waiters.

Lattic was needling someone on the phone when we entered the plush office. The bar and grill were legit, but Lattic’s real business and legitimacy were antonyms. He peddled everything from dames to death.

A shade under six feet, his lean, hard body, greying hair and imported clothes gave the impression of a respectable citizen. The face spoiled it. It was the kind of face that should be kept in a bag. His features had been scrambled in a dozen fights. Only the cold, grey eyes and thin, cruel lips were unchanged.

They were the real Lattic. An underworld Prince who wanted to be King.

He hung up and thumbed me into a chair.

“Any trouble?” he asked weedy.

“Solly almost had him.”

“Just as well for you he didn’t.” Lattic’s voice was like breaking glass.

His grey eyes washed over me. “You work for me now,” he stated flatly.

“Suppose I refuse?”

“Martin kills you.” He indicated weedy. “He would like that. You killed his buddies.”

It was a silly question. I waited.

“The ’vine has it you took Sam Effron for ten grand,” said Lattic.

I grinned inwardly. Before taking French leave, I had goosed Sam, my ex-boss and underworld King of the mid-West, for twice that, plus his pet babe. I had a feeling that it was the latter theft that had needled Sam into letting out the contract on me. Like all Kings, he hated to lose his Queen.

Lattic lit a four-bit cigar. “Why’d you come back, Colmar?”

“Forgot my toothbrush.” I crushed my smoke in an ashtray and watched closely for the reaction to my crack. If he needed me real bad he would let it ride.

Lattic’s eyes bored holes in my shirt front. “Try again,” he invited coldly. “How come you and Sam split?”

“Damsel in distress,” I answered levelly. “Sam was no hell as a lover.” I omitted to mention that Sam had wised up to the fact I’d been robbing him blind.

Lattic nodded. “Your first job is to kill Sam,” he said.

I jerked erect. “Hold it, Lattic,” I yelled. “That guy is better protected than Fort Knox.”

“So what?” he snapped. “You’re the best bomber in the business. ’Sides, you know more ’bout Effron and his habits than anyone else.”

“What’s my end?”

“Your life. Either Sam or I’ll take you if you blow it.” He leaned back, blow a smoke ring and watched it float up to the ornate ceiling.

“After this job you’re on regular payroll. The slate’s clean.”

“Thanks,” I said sourly. “When do you want him taken?”

“By the end of the month. Martin’s goin’ to see to it you stay healthy,” he added by way of dismissal.

As Martin and I left I wondered if I should have let my money rot. The way it stacked now, I was going to be the richest guy in the graveyard, or river.

I had twelve days. Lattic’s glib promise of life cut no ice. As Sam Effron’s liquidator-in-chief I had hurt Lattic bad. Apart from six of his boys, I’d blasted two warehouses and sundry other joints.

Lattic never forgave anyone.

I spent the first two days at the window of the apartment Lattic had fixed up. It was directly across from Effron’s office building. Sam’s fronts covered everything from insurance to imports. His headquarters were the executive suite on the fifteenth floor. From there, he ruled his empire with brutal ruthlessness bordering on sadism. I wasn’t kidding when I made the crack about Fort Knox. Even the blonde secretary outside his door packed a rod, and would burn you without batting her store-bought eyelashes.

On the third morning, Sam arrived, as usual, in a three car convoy. The first car disgorged its load of bodyguards. Two positioned themselves at the marble portals. Two more went inside to check the entrance lobby and private elevator. Sam’s Caddy came next, followed by the rearguard.

Sam emerged, closely heeled by Nick Renner, who had taken my job.

Sam was around five-five, plump, impeccably dressed and as mean as a starving alley-cat. I put the glasses on him when he looked back. His round, puffy face was whiter than usual. The beady black eyes looked like currants set in unbaked dough. He was drooling. The King was frightened.

I did not have to see through walls to know what happened next. Sam would head straight for the private elevator, his short legs pumping like pistons.

At the fifteenth floor, he would strut and preen for blondie’s benefit. Next, he would go to his private washroom. Ten minutes later, ensconced behind the huge desk, he would light up a two-dollar cigar and buzz for the first caller.

I was about to turn from the window when I saw the sleeper play. A vintage Buick cruised slowly past the door from the opposite direction. I recognized it. Hit the gas and you no longer drove that bus, you flew it. Inside were three of the best triggermen money could buy. I felt a trickle of sweat course down my neck. “Time for a drink,” I thought.

Two stiff shots later I feel better. Maybe a little relaxation would help me to think.

“Susan.” The thought of Sam’s ex-Queen made me drool. My eager fingers were two inches from the phone when a knife sprouted from the desk.

“No calls.” Martin was leaning against the bedroom door. Dried beer foam had left a tide mark on his upper lip.

Five-three, sunken cheeked and disreputable, he was an easy guy to hate. His hazel eyes looked like badly made imitations. Wearing the crumpled suit he had slept in, he was massaging an unshaven cheek with the handle of a wicked looking knife.

“Who were you thinking of calling, Colmar?”

“None of your damn business,” I rasped. During the last two days he had been morose and taciturn.

He vanished into the bedroom and brought out a newspaper. “Page two,” he crowed as he threw it at me.

My stomach crawled. Susan had been found in the gutter beneath the ‘El’. Every bone in her body broken and the body openings stuffed with ‘C’ notes.

“Throwback to the Capone era,” the news-hounds called it.

Martin gave a hollow laugh. “Your ex-boss is nice people,” he sneered.

I thought of all the promise that had been fulfilled by that sleek, seductive white body. Our six weeks of sheer heaven together. I blundered past Martin and was violently sick into the toilet.

In the few seconds of red haze that follows sickness, I saw how I was going to kill Effron. No. Not kill — destroy. You only kill people.

For kicks I belted Martin across the mouth, hard, then sat down to think. A bottle of Rye later I perfected my plan. As a bonus I added an extra twist. My sleeper play.

“Call Lattic,” I ordered Martin. “Tell him it’s set for two days from now. You can also tell him he gets Sam’s cigar box as a present.”

As I dropped off to sleep, I thought the cigar box was a nice touch. Made of solid gold, it was Sams’ proudest possession and served as a symbol of his standing.

Martin prodded me awake. A plate of greasy hash sogged on the table. After a couple of mouthfuls I pushed it away and fired a smoke.

“As a cook you’d make a good dog-poisoner,” I remarked in disgust.

“Thanks for the idea,” he intoned. “You can be my first customer. He had shaved. A red weal showed where I had hit him. It would fade, but the scar on his mind wouldn’t.”

“Got a car?” I asked.

“What for?”

“To go horseback riding,” I snapped sarcastically.

“Funny man.” His eyes glittered with hate.

I decided not to crowd him too hard — yet.

“My workshop’s on the South-side,” I explained. “I need some stuff for the job.”

“Such as?”

“Explosives.”

“Don’t blow yourself to hell,” he grunted hopefully. “O.K.” he continued, “We go when it’s dark.”

In the car I realized he was one sweet wheeler. He knew every street and alley and drove as though he had been born behind the wheel. One of Sam’s boys spotted us and gave chase. Martin lost him, fast. The incident made me revise a plan I had for disposing of Martin. He could live a little longer.

My workshop was in the basement of a rat-infested tenement. I flipped the light and aimed Martin at the beer. It would keep him out of my hair. A small shot of Scotch, well thinned with water, did me. The job on hand needed a sure hand and clear head. During the war I had seen the result of mixing booze and bombs.

Before starting I rigged a curtain around my bench. If Martin could see, he might get ideas.

Dawn, and Martins’ eyes, were both showing red by the time I had the mechanical end of the job working just right. I hustled a cold breakfast out of cans and relaxed. The tricky bit was yet to come. Loading and fusing my babies.

The explosives were in a steel-lined, concrete vault under the floor. Martin’s chair had been on top of it all night. He turned pale green when I opened it up.

I looked him straight in the eye. “For rats,” I taunted.

He drew a knife and took a step towards me. I held a bottle of clear liquid between two fingers.

“Stalemate,” I barked. He backed down, his pinched face twisted with hate.

When I finished I put everything in a case and locked it in the vault, then sat down to wait for darkness. Sleep was impossible. Martin’s hate had grown so big it might erupt if I so much as blinked.

My only hope lay in his fear of Lattic.

It was a night for ducks. Water ran down the back of my neck as we watched lights blink on and off in the building. The night watchman was on his rounds. Martin was for killing him until I pointed out that unless the check-clocks were punched within five minutes of the pre-set times, an alarm would sound.

The last of the cleaning staff left at two. When my watch showed two-thirty I picked up my case.

“O.K.” I whispered. “Let’s try our luck at the back door.” I was praying that Sam had not changed every lock in the building. He hadn’t.

The greatest risk lay in making the dash from the service stairs to the private elevator. As Martin reached for the button I grabbed his wrist.

“Push that,” I hissed, “and a buzzer sounds on the fifteenth floor. Boost me,” I ordered.

The emergency hatch in the roof of the car opened easily. Climbing up on the roof, I grabbed my case.

Once the special shoulder harness was secure I hauled Martin up and closed the hatch. My flash flared briefly to show a narrow ladder bolted to the wall and stretching up into the darkness.

“Hope you’re in good shape,” I whispered.

“Better than you’ll ever be. Get going.”

Climbing fifteen floors up a vertical ladder with a box of sudden death on your back is gut-busting work. When we finally made it I was hot and panting.

My hands and legs were on fire. Getting the door open nearly caused me to take a death dive down the shaft. Time was running out. My watch told me the watchman was doing his rounds again. A frantic scramble saw us safe in a small store room.

It was close. A steel door clanged at the fourteenth floor. After what seemed an age I heard the muted thump of the check-clock at the elevator.

I gave it five minutes.

“Why didn’t we use the back stairs?” Martin demanded angrily.

“You need a special key to unlock the alarm,” I pointed out as I led the way to my old office.

I found the switch that controlled the electric eye and killed it. The executive suite was all ours.

I positioned Martin in my old office. “Stay here,” I ordered. “If anyone comes, take him.”

Sam’s office was unchanged. The gold and cream decor, intended to be regal was garish. The solid gold cigar box sat in the center of the desk. I hesitated, then decided to get on with the main job.

The washroom was as garish as the office, and strictly private. Once, Sam had heard about picking up disease from toilet seats. The idea had taken hold and no amount of logic would shift it. I closed the door and switched on the light. Unstrapping the case, I got down to work.

My device was simple. A two by nine cylinder contained the charge and a spring loaded detonator.

The cylinder was clamped to the overflow pipe inside the tank and a wire led from the safety pin to the flushing arm. You only had to flush the toilet to explode the bomb.

The whole thing was wrapped in a waterproof cover.

To ensure that I didn’t get blown up installing it, I had added a secondary safety which could be withdrawn without disturbing the cover. I was sure of this baby.

I had used it many times when on sabotage missions during the war.

The flushing arm gave me a bad time. It was shorter than I had figured on. Salty sweat stung my eyes and trickled into my mouth as I fought to set the trigger without flushing the toilet. A flushed toilet in an empty building is sure-fire alarm signal. Finally I made it and paused to do deep breathing exercises. Once I stopped shaking I removed the secondary safety.

I had taken twenty-one minutes. Just enough time left for the cigar box.

Two years earlier I had had the idea of making a brass one and pulling a switch. The duplicate was a frost so I shelved the idea, but kept the box. Now I pulled it out of the case. It wouldn’t pass more than a casual scrutiny, but it would serve its purpose.

Switching cigars, I reloaded the gold box with a crude bomb. The bomb was on the grenade principal, the only difference being, you raised the lid instead of pulling a pin. It was like instant coffee — no waiting. I felt bad parting with so valuable an object, but when your life is up for grabs it sometimes makes sense to buy it back with gold.

“Payment in gold,” I thought as I wrapped it. “I am paying Lattic’s bus fare to hell with gold.”

We made it back to the store room with three minutes to spare.

The rain was coming down in torrents when we made the dash for the car. Maybe it was that, plus lack of sleep that made Martin careless. I did not stop to ask. A swift judo chop, delivered very inexpertly, was enough to put him to sleep and let me snatch his knives. He packed four of them. I wanted to park all four in his unwashed hide, but he was still useful to me.

He woke up half an hour later and reached for his gut-rippers.

“Guess you mislaid them,” I mocked.

For five minutes he cursed without repeating himself. It was a fascinating recital of things my Mother never told me. I turned it off with a backhand to the belly, and drove to within a block of Lattic’s house.

“Get out, weed,” I ordered, “and take this box to Lattic. He’s expecting it, so don’t get sticky fingered,” I warned.

“Bastard,” he hissed. “I’ll be seeing you again.”

“Do that,” I invited. “Just as soon as you tire of living.”

I felt like a million dollars as I ditched the car and flagged a cab. I gave Lorrie’s address.

Lorrie, a petit brunette, had a mind as broad as her waist was narrow. And a lot more besides.

As she cooked up a mixed grill I took a long drag at a smoke and downed my third straight Scotch.

“After breakfast?” The question was loaded. Lorrie never spoke, she put words to music in a way that raised goose bumps.

“Sleep,” I said positively. “It’s been a busy night.”

“I hope she didn’t wear you out,” Lorrie pouted.

“You’re the only girl in my life, baby,” I protested as she responded to my pressure on her waist.

Sometime during that long, deep kiss, I fell asleep.

When I wakened she was looking at me speculatively. “You weren’t kidding when you said you had a busy night,” she said. “It made page one.”

I grabbed the paper. They had given it banner treatment.

Sam Effron had been blasted into a million pieces, with lesser, but still fatal damage to Renner and blondie. The bomb was more powerful than I had intended. “Must be getting old,” I thought.

Ned Lattic died a golden death, along with Martin. I had banked on Lattic’s greed making my sleeper play pay off. He couldn’t wait to open the box.

The cops had the angles figured — wrong. They spread the good news that a rival boss from the East had moved in and was disposing of local talent.

I reached for a smoke. There were two vacancies at the top. A crown just waiting for a man big enough to wear it. My brain started to whirl.

It settled down when Lorrie removed the cigarette from my lips and replaced it with a hot, demanding mouth.

I decided the empire could wait for its new King. Right now it was a case of first things first.