This Way for a Shroud Page 8

  “I was thinking nothing of the kind!”

  He leaned forward. There was an animal magnetism in his strength and looks that left Janey a little breathless.

  “Are you interested in etchings?”

  She shook her head.

  “Not a scrap. Are you?”

  “No. I’ve never found an etching was necessary.” His smile widened. “A good dinner, a little dancing, discreet lights and soft music are far ahead of any etching.” He pushed his chair back. “Shall we eat?”

  Janey looked at him and hesitated. She suddenly sensed that this big, goodlooking man might be taking too much for granted, and he might, as the evening wore on, become much more difficult to handle than she had first imagined. But she knew if she refused his invitation he would leave her flat, and then she would have to go back to the dreary, empty house and the still more dreary television set.

  “You’re talking in riddles,” she said, “but I’m hungry, so I will eat.”

  “Fine. While you’re powdering your pretty nose,” Seigel said, “I have a phone call to make. Let’s meet here in five minutes.”

  “It’ll take me longer to powder my nose than five minutes,” Janey said, refusing to be ordered about.

  “In five minutes,” Seigel said, smiling, and walked quickly across the bar to the lounge where a row of pay booths were discreetly concealed.

  He dialled a number, and while he was waiting for the-connection, he lit a cigarette.

  Janey puzzled him. If he hadn’t known who she was, and that she was married to Conrad, he would have been certain that she was inviting seduction. Was she playing with him? he wondered, or was she really a push-over? Was Conrad going to appear suddenly just when Seigel was ready to move in for the kill? Was that the idea? Would Conrad let his wife come here on her own and act like this just for a chance of making trouble for Seigel? Seigel doubted it, but he decided to play his hand carefully.

  A click sounded in his ear and Moe Gleb’s growling voice snarled, “Wadyawan’?”

  “I’ve got a job for you,” Seigel said curtly. “You and Pete are to handle it: the works, understand? Pete will do the hitting, you’ll take care of the wheel. Get Pete, and stick to your end of the phone until you hear from me. I’ll let you have the address as soon as I get it.”

  “Hey! Don’t we case the joint first?” Moe’s voice sounded startled.

  “You won’t have time. The job’s got to be done within a half-hour of you getting the address; after that the cops move in. It’s important; no slipping up, Moe. I’m holding you responsible; understand?”

  “Sure,” Moe said.

  “Make it a pick job: no noise and quick. I’ll call you any time from now on, so stick close,” and Seigel dropped the receiver back on its hook. He walked quickly along the passage to his office and pushed open the door.

  Maurer and Gollowitz were still in the room. Dolores, Maurer’s wife, had joined them.

  Seigel looked at her, feeling his blood quicken; something that always happened to him whenever he saw her.

  Dolores was his idea of a woman. No other woman he had ever known excited him as she did. He knew she was as beyond his reach as the snow-capped heights of Everest, but that didn’t stop him thinking about her, conjuring up dreams of her and lying awake at nights sweating for her.

  She had married Maurer for his money and his power. Seigel knew that, and he knew also she was paying a high price for the position she held.

  Maurer by now was sated with women. He had only to lift a finger for any girl to throw herself at him. His control of the movie unions, the night spots along the Californian coast and the big theatres gave him power over the big movie stars as well as the little stars. Even June Arnot, with her fabulous wealth, had thrown herself at him. To him, Dolores was just one more woman, and he treated her as such.

  Seigel’s eyes went over Dolores as she sat at the bar in a shimmering emerald green evening dress, covered with glittering sequins. She had the most perfect skin he had ever seen on a woman: like old ivory with the texture of cream. Her masses of dark-red hair set off her big, almond-shaped green eyes, and her figure, tall, lush and sensual, turned his mouth dry.

  She swung around on the high stool and smiled at him. It was a mocking smile of a woman who knew what was going on in his mind and didn’t care.

  “Hello, Louis,” she said. “How’s the romance going? I saw you with the blonde. Do you like her?”

  Seigel changed colour. He looked quickly at Maurer, then over at Gollowitz. He knew Gollowitz was crazy about Dolores, and he knew Gollowitz stood a chance. If anything happened to Maurer, he knew Gollowitz would not only take over the organization, but he would also take over Dolores. He knew Dolores hated Gollowitz as much as she hated Maurer, but so long as fat old men had money and power, the kind of money and power Maurer had and Gollowitz would have, she chose them.

  “Keep out of this,” Maurer said, frowning over his shoulder at Dolores. “If you can’t keep quiet, you’d better get out.”

  “Oh, I can keep quiet, Jack,” she returned, smiling. “Just regard me as part of the scenery.”

  Maurer’s eyes moved to Seigel.

  What’s she doing here?”

  Seigel shrugged.

  “I don’t know. She’s having dinner with me. She told me who she was, and

  she’s already a little high. The way she’s acting, she’s a push-over, but maybe she’s playing me for a sucker.”

  “Not you, Louis,” Dolores said mockingly. “Anyone else but you. I’m sure she’s just dying to feel your manly arms round her and your passionate breath against her cheek. Who wouldn’t?”

  Seigel’s face went a dusky red and a look of vicious fury jumped into his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, then stopped himself in time.

  “Go away, Dolly,” Maurer said without looking round. “I’ve had enough of you tonight. Go home!”

  Dolores slid off her stool, picked up her ermine wrap she had thrown carelessly over the back of a chair and walked across the room, trailing the wrap behind her. She moved slowly, a little smile on her red lips, and she swayed her hips slightly, attracting the attention of Gollowitz and Seigel who both watched her with intent expressions. As she passed Seigel, she wrinkled her nose at him.

  “Good night, Abe,” she said at the door.

  “Good night,” Gollowitz said with a little bow. He was careful not to look at her nor to let Maurer see the anger in his eyes.

  “Good night, Louis,” she said.

  “Oh, get out!” Maurer exclaimed angrily. “We’re busy!”

  “And good night, darling.”

  She went out, closing the door behind her.

  Maurer made an impatient gesture with his hands.

  “Damned women! If that bitch doesn’t…”

  “We shouldn’t keep Mrs. Conrad waiting,” Gollowitz put in sharply.

  “That’s right,” Maurer said. He looked over at Seigel. “Get friendly with her, Louis. She might be useful, but watch your tongue. Make sure she isn’t after information.”

  “I’ll watch it,” Seigel said.

  “Get back to her. I don’t have to tell you how to handle her, but handle her right.”

  Seigel nodded and stepped out into the passage and closed the door.

  Janey was waiting for him in the cocktail bar, and it gave him sadistic pleasure to see how worried she looked as she sat at the table. It was so obvious that she was thinking he had walked out on her, and she was once more alone.

  “Well for goodness sake!” she exclaimed when she saw him. “You said five minutes and you’ve been a quarter of an hour.”

  He grinned at her.

  “The number was engaged.” He ran his eyes over her. She was good, but not in the same class as that red-headed devil. Still, she would have to do instead. He would take her somewhere in the dark and imagine she was Dolores. She wasn’t going to forget this night with him. He would leave a scar on her mind — a scar in m
emory of Dolores.

  “Come on,” he said, taking her arm possessively. “Let’s eat.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I

  MOE GLEB flicked a fried egg on to his plate, added two thick rashers of ham, dropped the hissing fry-pan into the sink and carried the plate to the table.

  He was a thickset, undersized youth with a mop of sandy-coloured hair. His small, heart-shaped face was as white as fresh mutton fat; his small, deep-set eyes, his pinched thin mouth were hard and vicious. He looked what he was: a young hoodlum fighting with no holds barred to get into the money, as dangerous and as savage as a treed wild cat.

  He sat down at the table, poured himself a cup of coffee, and began to eat ravenously.

  From the window, Peter Weiner watched him.

  “For cryin’ out loud!” Moe snarled, looking up suddenly. “Wadjer starin’ at? Ain’t yuh seen a guy eat before?”

  “I was admiring your appetite,” Pete said quietly. “You’ve eaten twelve eggs and two pounds of ham since nine o’clock last night.”

  “So wad? I gotta do somethin’ while we wait, ain’t I? Why the hell don’t yuh eat?”

  Pete shrugged.

  “I guess I’m not hungry. How much longer do you think we’ve got to wait like this?”

  Moe eyed him; a sudden shrewd expression crossed his face.

  This guy was queer, he was thinking. Not that he could blame him. If he had that port wine stain spread over his puss like Pete had, he’d be queer himself.

  “Until that bum Louis sez we can go.” He shovelled ham into his mouth, chewed for a moment, reached for his coffee and took a long drink. “Wad gets up my bugle is why the hell yuh should be the guy to hit the frill. Why pick on yuh? Wad’s the matter wid me? I’ve hit scores of guys. Yuh ain’t hit any yet, have yuh?”

  Pete shook his head.

  “I’ve got to start some time.” He leaned forward and picked up Frances Coleman’s photograph and stared at it. “I wish it hadn’t to be her.”

  “Jay-sus!” Moe said, grinning. “That’s right. I could do plenty to her without hittin’ her. Plenty!”

  Pete stared at the photograph. The girl’s face had a queer effect on him. It wasn’t that she was so pretty; she was pretty, but not more than the average girl you saw around Pacific City. There was something in her eyes that moved him: an eager, joyous expression of someone who found life the most exciting adventure.

  Moe watched him. He took in the neat grey flannel suit, the brown brogue shoes and the white shirt and neat blue and red stripe tie. The guy, Moe thought a little enviously, looked like a freshman from some swank college: he talked like one, too.

  He couldn’t have been much older than Moe himself; around twenty-two or three. If it hadn’t been for the birth-mark, he would have been good-looking enough to get on the movies, Moe decided, but that stain would have put paid to the best-looking movie actor in the world: bad enough to haunt a house with. Moe told himself.

  “Did Seigel say why we had to do this job, Moe?” Pete asked abruptly.

  “I didn’t ask him. Yuh only ask that bum a question once, and then yuh go an’ buy yuhself a new set of teeth.” Moe poured himself more coffee. “It’s a job, see? Ain’t nothin’ to worry about. Yuh know how to do it, don’t yer?”

  “Yes, I know,” Pete said, and a frozen, hard expression came over his face. As he stood in the light from the window, his eyes staring down into the street, Moe felt an uneasy twinge run through him. This guy could be tough, he told himself. Sort of crazy in the head. When he looked like that Moe didn’t like being in the same room with him.

  Just then the telephone bell began to ring.

  “I’ll get it,” Moe said, and dived out of the room to the pay booth in the passage.

  Pete again looked at the photograph. He imagined how she would regard him when she saw him. That lively look of excitement and interest would drain out of her eyes and would be replaced by the flinching, slightly disgusted look all girls gave him when they came upon him, and he felt a cold hard knotting inside him; a sick rage that made the blood beat against his temples. This time he wouldn’t pretend not to notice the look; he wouldn’t have to force a smile and try to overcome the first impression she would have of him; not that he had ever succeeded in overcoming any first impression; they had never given him the chance.

  As if he were some freak, some revolting object of pity, they would hurriedly look away, make some excuse — anything so long as they didn’t have to stay facing him, and she would do that, and when she did, he would kill her.

  Moe charged back into the room.

  “Come on! Let’s go! We’ve exactly half an hour to get there, do the job and get away, and the goddamn joint’s the other side of the town.”

  Pete picked up a bundle of magazines, checked to make sure the three-inch, razor-sharp ice-pick was in its sheath under his coat, and followed Moe at a run down the dirty rickety stairs and out to the ancient Packard parked at the kerb.

  Although it looked old, the Packard’s engine was almost as good as new under Moe’s skilful handling, and the car shot away from the kerb with a burst of speed that always surprised Pete.

  “Here’s what we do,” Moe said, talking out of the side of his mouth. “I stay wid the heep and keep the engine running. Yuh ring the bell. If she comes to the door, give her the spiel about the magazines, and get her to invite yuh in. If someone else comes to the door, ask for her: Miss Coleman, see? Get her alone. Make out yer coy or something, see? Then give it to her. Hit her hard, and she won’t squeal. Then beat it. Use yer rod if yuh have to. Get back in the heep. We beat it to Wilcox an’ 14th Street and ditch the heep. Dutch’ll pick us up and take us to the club. We take a speed-boat to Reid Key an’ an airplane to Cuba.”

  “Okay,” Pete said irritably. “I know all that by heart.”

  “Yeah, so do I, but it don’t hurt to run over it again. The worse spot’ll be getting to the club. If we get there, it’s a cinch. Cuba! Gee! Yuh ever been to Cuba? I seen pictures of the dump. Terrific! And the women… !” He pursed his thin mouth and gave a shrill whistle. “Brother! Just wait until I get among those brown-skinned honies!”

  Pete didn’t say anything. He was scarcely listening. He was thinking that he was at last approaching the climax of his life. For months now he had thought about this moment: the moment when he would take a life; when he would inflict on someone something worse than had been inflicted on him, and he felt the cold knot tighten inside him.

  “This is it,” Moe said after five minutes’ driving. “Lennox Avenue. She’s staying with some frill called Bunty Boyd. I dunno wad yuh do about her. Hit her too if yuh have to.” He slowed down to a crawl and drove the car past a long row of four-storey houses. “There it is, across the way.” He swung the car across the road and pulled up. That’s the one; three houses up. I’ll wait here. I’ll have the heep movin’ towards yuh as yuh come out.”

  Pete picked up his bundle of magazines, opened the car door and got out. He had a sick feeling inside him, and his hands felt like ice.

  “Yuh okay?” Moe asked, staring at him through the car window. “This is important, Pete.”

  “I’m okay,” Pete said. He looked at his wrist-watch. The time was two minutes past half-past ten. He had twenty-one minutes to do the job and get clear.

  He walked quickly towards the house, emptying his mind of thought. It would be all right, he told himself, when he saw the look in her eyes. This sick feeling would go away then, and he would enjoy doing what he had come to do.

  As he walked up the path that ran between two small lawns, he saw the curtain of one of the ground-floor windows move. He mounted the steps leading to the front door. There were four name-plates and four bells by the side of the door. As he read the name-plates and found Bunty Boyd’s apartment was on the second floor, he felt he was being watched, and he looked round sharply in time to see the curtain of the ground-floor window drop hurriedly into place and the dim shadow of a m
an move away.

  Pete rang the second-floor apartment bell, opened the front door and walked across the small hall and climbed the stairs. As he reached the second floor he heard a radio playing swing music. He crossed the landing as the front door of the apartment jerked open.

  He felt his mouth suddenly turn dry and his heart skip a beat, then he found himself looking at a blonde-haired girl, wearing a white beach frock, whose young, animated face had a chocolate-box prettiness. She came forward, smiling, but the moment she caught sight of his face she came to an abrupt standstill, and her eyes opened wide and her smile went away.

  The look he had come to expect jumped into her eyes, and he knew then it would be all right. He felt a rising viciousness inside him that left him a little breathless.

  He forced himself to smile and said in his quiet, gentle voice, Is Miss Coleman in, please?”

  “Have — have you come to see Frankie?” the girl asked. “Oh! Then you — you must be Burt Stevens. She won’t be a minute. Will you wait just a moment?” She spun around on her heels and ran back into the apartment before he could speak.

  He stood waiting, his hand inside his coat, his fingers around the plastic handle of the ice-pick. If she came out on to the landing, he could do it at once. It would be easier and safer than doing it inside where the other girl might not leave them alone. A cold anger and an overpowering desire to inflict pain and fear gripped him.

  Through the half-open door he heard Bunty say in a dramatic whisper, “But he’s awful! You can’t go with him, Frankie! You simply can’t!”

  He waited, his heart pounding, blood beating against his temples. Then the door opened, and she came out on to the sunlit landing.

  She might have stepped out of her photograph, except she was smaller than he had imagined. She had a beautiful little figure that not even the severe pale blue linen dress could conceal. Her dark silky hair rested on her shoulders. Her smile was bright and sincere, and there was that look in her eyes that had had such an effect on him when he had seen her picture for the first time.