1968 - An Ear to the Ground (3 page)

They regarded each other, then Johnny stroked the side of his jaw with his thumb.

‘Ah . . . hmmm.’ He turned to Martha. ‘I think I’m going to like it here.’ He grinned and began to unbutton his double— breasted jacket. ‘Phew! I’m hot. Have you seen the beauty I’ve bought you? Look at it. The steel grey job on the drive— in.’

Martha hauled herself to her feet. She and Henry joined Gilda at the balcony rail. They all looked down at the Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham parked by the entrance to the hotel.

Martha sucked in her breath. ‘Hell! What did that cost me?’ she demanded, turning to glare at Johnny.

‘Two thousand eight hundred dollars,’ he told her. ‘It’s a giveaway price. I’ll sell it again for four thousand. You can’t lose.’

Martha peered down at the car again. She felt a tingle of excitement run up her larded spine. This was a car! This was the kind of car she had often dreamed about when shut in her cell.

‘You’re sure? You really mean you can sell it again for four?’

Johnny squinted at her: his eyes turned hard.

‘When I say something, I say something.’

Martha studied him, then she nodded, satisfied. Abe, she felt, had made the right choice. This man might be difficult, but she was now sure that he was right for the job, and that was all Martha cared about.

‘Would you like a drink, Johnny?’

He shook his head.

‘I don’t drink.’ He took off his jacket and hung it over the back of one of the chairs, then he sat down.

‘Let’s talk business. The old . . . the Colonel gave me the general outline. Now I want details.’

Martha lowered her enormous bulk into a chair near his. She relaxed back, her fingers hunting for a chocolate. Henry took a chair near hers. Gilda pulled her wrap closer and more provocatively around her and remained by the balcony rail.

Johnny looked at her.

‘Isn’t Miss Rigoletto in on this?’ he asked.

‘Of course . . . come and sit down, Gilda,’ Martha said, patting a chair near hers.

‘You yak . . . I’m taking a swim,’ Gilda said, and without looking at Johnny, she left the terrace.

***

Al Barney finished the last of his beer, then rattled the glass impatiently on the table until the barman brought him a refill.

‘All this talking makes me thirsty,’ he said, catching my eye. ‘I get scratchy at the back of my throat.’

I said I understood.

‘Well, mister, I now want to fill you in how Martha got her idea for this big steal,’ Al said after a long gulp of beer.

‘Around eight years ago, she was running a little gang of smart jewel thieves — three of them. They did a hold-up job — a little crude. There was a rich old cow loaded with jewels who went every night always at the same time to the Miami Casino. Martha just couldn’t resist the temptation. She organised the stick-up. The guys got the loot, then Martha was hit by a hurricane. What she didn’t know was the jewels were insured by the National Fidelity of California, and that is the toughest, roughest insurance company in the whole of the States. They have a man there named Maddox who looks after the Claims Department. To him, so I’m told, paying out a claim is like losing a quart of his own blood. Tangling with Maddox is about ten times as dangerous as tangling with a puff adder.

‘One of the stick-up artists had a missing finger, and in spite of being scared half-dotty, the victim of the hold-up noticed this. Maddox had the most comprehensive card index of every jewel thief in the world: big and little. He had only to press a few buttons and out came Joe Salik’s card. It took Maddox’s investigators three days to pick up Joe and then they worked him over — make no mistake about this. Maddox’s investigators play rough. Joe talked, and Martha found herself behind bars.

‘She shared her cell with a middle-aged woman who was in for embezzlement, and this woman, her name was Hetty something-or-other, was a talker. She had worked for Alan Frisby, an insurance broker in Paradise City. He acted for all the top insurance companies in the country. If you wanted to insure something special, you went along and talked to Frisby and he told you impartially which company to go to for your particular coverage, the best rates and he fixed the deal. He had a very sound, flourishing business.

‘Well, Hetty talked, and Martha listened and from what she got told, she realised how she could organise the big steal. She got from Hetty inside information that nobody should know, and it was this information that inspired Martha to make the plan that she hoped would put her on easy street for the rest of her eating life.’

Al paused, shifted his enormous body to a more comfortable position, then asked, ‘You’re following so far, mister?’

I said I was.

***

The Villa Bellevue was on Lansdown Avenue: one of the swank avenues of Paradise City. It was a compact, deluxe, ranch house type of building with four bedrooms, four bathrooms, an enormous living room, a deluxe kitchen, servants’ quarters, a big terrace and a garage for four cars. Leading down by steps from the terrace was a small, screened private beach, equipped with hot and cold showers, changing rooms and a cocktail bar. The ranch house was owned by Jack Carson, a wealthy

New York stockbroker who had bought the place as an investment. He rented it furnished for $1,500 a month. After some heavy haggling, Martha got it for $1,300 and signed up for three months. The price outraged her, but she knew that if she was going to swing this job she had to have the right background and the right address.

A day after Johnny had joined the trio, the Cadillac moved off from the Plaza Hotel, heading for Paradise City.

Johnny, in his uniform, was at the wheel. Next to him was Flo, the coloured maid, who had been with Martha now for the past three years.

Flo was a tall, thin Negress who, at one time, had been a skillful shoplifter, but eventually the cops caught up with her and, like Martha, she had decided she would never go back behind the bars again. She and Martha got along well together. Flo never asked questions. She guessed there was some job on, but she didn’t want to know about it. Her job was to supply Martha and the rest of them with meals, keep the villa clean and pick up $100 a week which was what Martha was paying her.

In the back of the roomy Cadillac were Martha, Henry and Gilda.

During the twenty-four hours that they remained at the Plaza Hotel while waiting to move to Paradise City, Gilda and Johnny probed each other out: like a dog and a bitch, not quite knowing if they would fight or make love.

There was nothing that Gilda didn’t know about men. She had had her first sexual experience at the age of fifteen. She liked sex, and had had many men during the following years, but now, at the age of twenty-five, she had decided she wanted to get married and to settle down. This job that Martha was planning would give her, she hoped, the necessary capital to have a home, possibly a husband and possibly a family.

Johnny interested her. She knew from long experience that he wanted her the moment he set eyes on her. She knew too that having Johnny as a lover would be one of the most exciting of all her sexual experiences. She liked the look of him: he could just possibly be the partner she had been hoping to find . . . just possibly. She wanted to get to know him better, so she told herself to play it cool. No matter how much he put on the pressure, he wasn’t going to have her. No ring — no bed. If eventually, there was no ring . . . then it would be just too bad.

They arrived at the villa late in the afternoon. They were all impressed with it.

‘I’ll say!’ Martha exclaimed, heaving her bulk from room to room, inspecting everything. ‘So it should be good! Look what I’m paying . . . thirteen hundred dollars a month!’

She chose the largest and best bedroom for herself, gave the second best to Henry and the other two bedrooms which were pleasant enough to Gilda and Johnny: all rooms had a view over the beach and the sea.

Gilda went immediately to her room, changed into a bikini and then ran down the steps to the sea. A few minutes later, Johnny joined her. Stripped down to brief trunks, his muscular, powerful lean body was impressive. Seeing him as he came running across the sand, Gilda again felt a stab of almost pain run through her. To be made love to by a man like this! She forced herself to turn away and she swam with powerful, professional strokes out to sea. She prided herself on her prowess as an expert swimmer and she was confident that she would not only impress him, but leave him far behind. It came as a distinct shock when she paused to find him just behind her. She shook the water out of her eyes and lifted her eyebrows.

‘You’re quite a swimmer,’ she said, treading water.

‘You’re not so bad either.’ He grinned. ‘Race you back?’

She nodded.

Martha, sitting on the terrace, holding a carton of chocolates and dipping into it from time to time with Henry by her side, watched the two as they raced back to the shore.

‘She’s showing off,’ she said as she saw Gilda was leaving Johnny behind.

Henry watched with critical interest.

‘Women show off to men . . . men to women . . . that’s nature.’

Johnny just got ahead in the last twenty yards, but only just. There wasn’t more than inches between them as he was the first to touch the sea wall.

‘Women!’ Henry shook his head. ‘Wonderful creatures. She could have beaten him by ten yards. Did you see she deliberately slowed down to let him win?’

Martha snorted.

‘Well, if it makes him happy. . .’

‘Of course it does.’ Henry crossed one stork-like leg over the other. ‘Men never like being beaten by women.’

Two

A
lan Frisby laid down a file he was studying and looked inquiringly at his secretary as she came into his office.

‘Colonel and Mrs. Shelley are here,’ she told him. ‘They have an appointment.’

‘Sure . . . send them right in.’ Frisby pushed aside the file and leaned back in his executive’s chair. He was a slim, tall man who had been in the insurance business longer than he cared to remember. Now, at the age of fifty-five, with a first-class business under his control, he was hoping very soon that his son who was at the University would qualify and then take over some of the harder work.

He was a little startled when Martha came into his office which until her appearance had seemed to him to be large, but now as she moved towards him, the room seemed to shrink by her enormous size. The tall, stork-like man who followed her was obviously Colonel Shelley, her husband.

Frisby got to his feet, shook hands and arranged chairs. Martha sat down, but Henry moved to the window, pulling at his moustache and Frisby got the impression that the Colonel was being petulant for some reason or other.

Seeing him looking at Henry, Martha leaned forward and patted his arm with her hot, fat hand.

‘Take no notice of the Colonel, Mr. Frisby,’ she said. ‘You have no idea the trouble I had getting him here . . . he just doesn’t believe in insurance.’

‘Never have done. . . never will do,’ Henry growled as he moved around the office. ‘Waste of money. You lose something, and it’s your own damned fault. The thing to do is not to lose anything!’

Frisby had dealt with all kinds of eccentrics. After giving the Colonel his professional, understanding smile, which was returned by a stony stare, he turned his attention to Martha.

‘This is really nothing much, Mr. Frisby,’ Martha said. ‘The dear Colonel has just bought me a present for our wedding anniversary and I want it insured.’

‘Damn nonsense,’ Henry said from behind Frisby. ‘If you lose it, you deserve to lose it!’

‘Don’t pay any attention to him,’ Martha said, smiling. ‘The Colonel has ideas of his own . . . I have ideas of my own. I think I should insure my present.’ With a little flourish, she put the jewel case on Frisby’s desk. ‘After all, he paid eighteen thousand dollars for it . . . you never know . . . it could be stolen.’

As Frisby picked up the case, Henry, a small piece of putty in his lean old hand, pressed the putty against the lock of the big filing cabinet that stood behind Frisby. The movement was swift, and immediately Henry came around Frisby’s desk and walked over to the window. He put the impression in a small tin box he had brought with him and dropped the box into his pocket.

‘This is beautiful,’ Frisby said, admiring the bracelet. ‘I can arrange to have it covered. You should have it insured.’

‘I deal with the Los Angeles & California,’ Martha said. ‘They take care of my other jewels.’

‘That’s fine, Mrs. Shelley. I work with L.A.&C. I can fix it. I take it you want it covered for a year?’

Martha nodded.

‘Yes . . . I would like that.’

Frisby checked his rates book.

‘Thirty dollars, Mrs. Shelley . . . that gives you full coverage.’

‘We’ll settle right now. Henry, have you thirty dollars?’

‘I have thirty dollars,’ Henry said, scowling. ‘Throwing good money away’ But he drew a thick roll from his hip pocket, peeled off three $10 bills and dropped them on the desk.

‘Where are you staying, Mrs. Shelley?’ Frisby asked as he made out a receipt.

‘Bellevue on Lansdown Avenue.’

Frisby looked impressed.

‘That’s Jack Carson’s place?’

‘That’s right. I’ve rented it for three months.’

‘Would you have your policy number?’

‘No, but you can check with them. It’s Colonel Henry Shelley, 1247 Hill Crescent, Los Angeles.’

Frisby made a note, then seeing Henry was peering at the photocopying machine on a stand by the window, he said, ‘Are you interested in these machines, Colonel?’

Henry turned.

‘Don’t understand them. Glad I’ve got out of business. Too damned old now to cope with anything.’

‘Now that will do,’ Martha said, putting the jewel case into her handbag. ‘You’re not all that old.’ She heaved herself to her feet.

When they had gone, Frisby called the Los Angeles & Californian Insurance Corporation. He always checked on strangers as Martha knew he would. He was told that Colonel Shelley was a recent client of theirs. His wife’s jewellery was covered for $150,000. He wasn’t to know, nor the Insurance Company, that Abe had loaned the jewels to Martha to get them insured. Nor were they to know that 1247 Hill Crescent was merely an accommodation address, owned by Abe, and used by any number of jewel thieves who needed a respectable background.