Strictly For Cash (22 page)

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 flood-lit

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. 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 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.

I'll see you tomorrow. Thank you so much, Captain." She listened, laughed, and said, "Goodbye, 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.

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 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

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.

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.

"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 gambling 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.