James Chase - Figure It Out for Yourself

‘If you don’t save Nick, I’m going to get Barratt,’ she said in a hard, tight voice. ‘That’s something I’ve promised myself.’

I parked the car in the shadows, a few yards from Delmonico’s Bar.

‘Let’s concentrate on saving Nick,’ I said. ‘There’ll be plenty of time to take care of Barratt if we can’t do it the legal way. Have you ever been in this joint?’

‘Of course I have. Nick used to come here practically every night.’

‘I want to look at the room in which Nick and Betillo played cards. Can you swing that?’

‘I can if no one’s using it’

‘Let’s go in and find out.’

We walked up the five wooden steps that led into the bar. Inside was brightly lit and full of people. A juke-box was churning out the Ha rry Lime Theme. Bi g, tough-looking men propped up the bar. At the tables scattered around the room girls in halters and shorts were trying to convince their male companions that there was more fun upstairs than sitting in smoke-laden room, drinking rot-gut whisky. They didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

It was the kind of scene you can see in any Warner Bros movie. All you needed was a tracking shot up to Humphrey Bogart and you’d feel at home.

Myra seemed to know her way around. She walked across sawdust-covered floor up to the bar and crooked a finger at one of the barmen.

I stood behind her, waiting for trouble.

Four or five men, as wide as they were tall, who were up at the bar, stopped talking and looked at her.

They looked over their shoulders at me, sneered, turned their attention to Myra again.

‘Hello, girlie,’ one of them said softly.

This, of course, I thought, is where trouble starts. I was a fool to have brought her here. Instead of getting evidence, I was going to get into a fight with a bunch of toughs as big as Carnera.

Myra turned slowly, looked the four men over, said four words with unbelievable viciousness that froze them in their tracks, turned back to the bar again.

Silently, as if they had peeped into a room in which something was going on that shocked even their unshockable minds, they drifted away from the bar and sat at one of the tables.

Myra whispered to the barman, who looked at her narrowly, nodded his head and jerked his thumb to the stairs.

‘Come on,’ she said to me. ‘We can go up.’

We pushed our way through the crowd to the stairs.

‘You have quite a way with you when you’re aroused,’ I said as we mounted the stairs.

I can take care of myself. The bigger they are the softer the centre. I haven’t kicked around with men all my life for nothing.’ There was a cold, brooding look on her face. The barman says Betillo’s got a poker game up here in half an hour.’

‘Will he tip him?’

She shook her head.

‘He’s a friend of mine. What do we do? Wait until he shows and grab him?’

‘Let’s look the territory over first.’

We reached the head of the stairs. Before us stretched a long passage, lined on either side by doors.

‘Room 15,’ Myra said, walked along the passage, paused outside a door, turned the handle and pushed the door open. She groped for the light switch, turned it on and we went in together.

The room was big. Under green-shaded lights was a round table, equipped with decks of playing cards and two wooden racks containing poker chips. There were about ten chairs grouped round the table; a couple of brass spittoons completed the furnishing.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Now where’s the back exit which Nick used?’

She turned out the light and we went to the far end of the passage. A door opened on to a veranda, overlooking an alley. A steep flight of wooden steps linked the veranda with the alley.

‘Right. We’ll wait for him inside. If he shows fight, I’ll rap him on the dome, but if we can, we’ll try to persuade him to walk. He’s no light weight.’

We moved back into the passage again.

‘Any of these other rooms empty, do you know?’

‘Look and see,’ she said, opened the first door she came to and groped for the light switch. There was an angry yell, and a flood of violent language, and she turned off the light hurriedly.

‘That one isn’t,’ she said, moved to the next door.

‘Wait a minute,’ I said, grabbing her arm. ‘We’ll have a riot up here if you keep doing that. Let’s try the door opposite 15.

We went farther down the passage and paused outside the door opposite 15. I rapped gently. There was a sound of movement and the door opened.

A tall, tired-looking blonde in a none-too-lean wrap peered at me. Her painted face brightened a little, the smudged lips forced a smile.

‘Hello, honey, looking for me?’

Then she saw Myra and her face turned to stone.

‘What do you want?’

Her face was familiar. My mind groped back into the pa remembered a night when I’d been in trouble, had come through the skylight into this passage and the blonde had saved me.

‘Remember me? We had a little fun about two years back,’ I said, moving so the light from her room fell on my face. I went out of the window with half the cops in Coral Gables after me.’

She stared, frowned, then her face brightened again.

‘Jeepers! I’d forgotten you. I remember. You spoilt one of my best sheets, sliding out of that window. What are you doing here ? More trouble ?’

‘Could we come in and talk?’

She looked at Myra.

‘She too?’

‘Yeah; this is business.’

She must have remembered I hadn’t been tight-fisted last time we met, and she stood aside.

‘Well, come on in. It’s not much of a place for visitors,’ she meant Myra.

We went into the room which was small and stuffy and skimpily furnished. A bed, a chest of drawers, a toilet basin and a threadbare rug were the only luxuries it could boast of.

‘I never got your name last time,’ I said, propping myself up against the wall.

‘Lola,’ the blonde said and sat on the bed. She wasn’t at ease with Myra in the room.

Myra rested her hips against the toilet-basin. She looked around the room with unconcealed curiosity. Lola watched her, waiting for some remark that didn’t come.

‘I’m after Betillo again,’ I said quietly. ‘Remember? The last time we met I’d been to see him with a club in my hand.’

‘What’s he done to you this time?’ Lola asked, looking interested. ‘I still hate that heel.’

‘Nothing to me personally, but to her boy friend.’ I said, waving a hand towards Myra. ‘Nick Perelli.’

Lola’s eyes opened.

‘The guy who snatched Dedrick?’ she asked. ‘Gee! I’ve been reading about that business.’ She looked enviously at Myra. ‘Did your honey get away with five hundred grand?’

‘Wait a minute,’ I said hastily as Myra’s pale little face hardened. ‘You’re on the wrong number. Perelli didn’t pull the Dedrick snatch. He was framed for it. He was playing cards with Betillo at the time of the kidnapping, but Betillo has sold him to the cops. That’s why I want Betillo.’

‘That rat would sell his first-born to the cops,’ Lola said in disgust.

I had a sudden idea.

‘You didn’t see Perelli leave, did you?’

‘Leave where? What do you mean?’

‘He was playing cards with Betillo in Room 15. He said he left Betillo at ten-thirty. Betillo said it was nine-thirty. The kidnapping took place just before ten.’

Lola closed her eyes in the effort to think.

‘I don’t remember seeing him,’ she said at last. ‘But then I see so many men during the evening, honey,’

‘He wore a white linen suit,’ Myra said. ‘A navy blue shirt and a white, hand-painted tie.’

Lola gaped.

‘Was that the guy? Why, sure I know him. He told me his name was—’ She broke off suddenly and, probably for the first time in twenty years, she blushed.