Strictly for Cash Page 13

“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.

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  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.”