Strictly For Cash (25 page)

"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 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?"

"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. 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 onehundred 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.

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.

"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.

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 ..."

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.