James Chase - Strictly For Cash

As he began to grumble, I hung up.

A couple of minutes later Maddux came in, panting, as if he had run up the two flights of stairs, his ratty face bright with expectation.

“Changed your mind?” he asked, closing the door and leaning against it. “What do you fancy...?”

I held out my hand.

“Cigarettes?”

He gave me a packet.

“There’s a little blonde...”

“Forget it,” I said, lit a cigarette, then took out two ten-dollar bills. I rustled them between my fingers.

“How would you like to earn these?”

His eyes bugged out and his mouth fell open.

“Try me,” he said.

I handed him the left-luggage receipt.

“Get that case and bring it back here.”

“What — now?”

“If you want to make twenty bucks.”

He looked at the receipt.

“I thought your name was Crosby,” he said, and gave me a quick, suspicious look.

I didn’t say anything. I folded the two bills and slid them into my pocket.

“I didn’t say anything,” he said hurriedly. “That wasn’t me talking.”

“Get that case and make it snappy.”

He went off as if fired from a gun.

While I waited I went over my meagre stock of information.

On the night of September 6th I had been driving a Buick convertible, registered in the name of John Ricca, along a road seventy-five miles from Miami. With me was a girl: whether it had been Della or not I couldn’t say. Ricca knew who she was, but Riskin didn’t. There had been a smash. Apparently I had lost control of the car, for there was no other car involved. The girl had been killed, and I had been found unconscious five minutes later by a speed-cop. There was some talk about a gun. It had her fingerprints on it, and for some reason or other Riskin seemed to think the smash had been deliberate, making it murder.

I wiped my face with the back of my hand. I had to find out who the girl was and why she had a gun. I had to find out why I had lost control of the car.

Riskin had said I had an apartment on Franklin Boulevard, Lincoln Beach. I remembered Della had said she and her husband were going to Lincoln Beach, and did I want to go with them. It seemed in those forty-five missing days I had not only lived in Lincoln Beach, but I had even set up a home there.

To judge by the suit I was wearing, and the fact I had owned a Buick, I must have got hold of a lot of money. How had I done that in so short a time?

I switched my mind to the fat man, Ricca. He had given me a lot of obscure information. According to him I was engaged to a girl called Ginny. Where had I met her and where was she now?

I recalled what he had said. You’re the guy who killed Wertham and Reisner. Who were they? Where have you hidden the money? he had asked. What money? You can walk out of here and do what you damn well like. Why should I care? She was the one who cared. Who was she? Why did she care?

I stretched out on the bed and smoked, staring up at the ceiling. There seemed no end to the questions, but how was I to find the answers? I realized I wasn’t going to get far unless I had money to help me. At the moment I had only a little over a hundred dollars. I couldn’t hope to make a thorough investigation without a substantial sum of money. I was suddenly up against a blank wall. Without money I was sunk. There could be no investigation. All I could do was to sneak out of Miami as soon as my hundred dollars ran out and get somewhere where I could lose myself.

I was still battering my brains out, trying to find a solution, when I heard Maddux coming pounding down the passage. I just had time to slap on my hat to cover my shaven head when he came in and dumped a big black pigskin suitcase on the bed.

“There you are, mister,” he said. “Jeepers! That weighs a ton.”

I was looking at the suitcase. As far as I knew I had never seen it before. There was a tie-on label hanging from the handle. It had my name on it, and it was written in my handwriting.

I tried the locks, but they didn’t budge. They were good, strong locks, and they’d need a lot of breaking open.

“That’s a nice-looking case,” Maddux said, watching me closely.

“Yeah, but I’ve lost the key. Got a screw-driver handy?”

I saw his look of suspicion, but I ignored it.

“You don’t want to bust the locks,” he said. “I’ve got a hicky that’ll open it.”

“Get it,” I said.

He went off as if he were jet-propelled.

I stood looking at the suitcase, fighting down a feeling of fear and excitement. Would this case contain the key to the missing forty-five days? Had I bought it or had I stolen it?

Maddux returned in six minutes. They seemed like six hours to me.

He bent over the case, screwed a bit of metal into the lock, twisted it and the lock flew up. He did the same to the other lock, then stood back.

“Easy, once you know how,” he said.

I gave him the twenty I’d promised him.

“See you tomorrow,” I said, anxious to get rid of him.

He looked longingly at the case, backed to the door, then hesitated.

“Well, if that’s all, I guess I’ll get downstairs.”

“That’s all.”

The moment he closed the door I shot the bolt. Then I turned to the bed. I took hold of the lid of the case and threw it open.

I don’t know what I expected to see, but certainly not what I did see. The case was crammed with money: thousands and thousands of dollars; more money than I had ever seen in my life.

For a long moment of time I stood staring. Then very carefully and with shaking hands I lifted the fat, neat packages on to the bed until the case was empty. There was nothing else in the case — just the money. A quarter of a million in hundred dollar bills!

I understood then why Ricca had been so anxious to find the money. A quarter of a million! How did it get into the case? Where had it come from?

I suddenly felt horribly faint, and I put my hand on the bed-rail to steady myself. My knees sagged, and I flopped down on the floor. But not for one moment did I take my eyes off that money.

A quarter of a million dollars!

A motive for murder! Had I really murdered two men and a woman for this? Was that what I had done?

If I hadn’t been suspected of murder I wouldn’t have touched that money. I would have taken the suitcase to Riskin and let him handle it, but what had I to lose? If I did hand over the suitcase to Riskin I might be banding him the motive he was hunting for to pin the murder rap on me. If I were caught with it, it wouldn’t make much difference, if any. I was wanted for murder, nothing else mattered.

I wanted money to make an investigation. Well, I had a quarter of a million dollars and I was going to use it.

Once I had made up my mind to use it, everything became simple. I bought Maddux, and I bought the bald-headed reception clerk. Maddux cost me a hundred bucks. The clerk became cooperative for a mere fifty. Both of them found out who I was when they read the morning papers. The papers gave my name and an accurate description of me.

“This man is wanted for questioning concerning the murder of an unknown woman,” said the account. “Anyone recognizing him from the description given above should communicate immediately with Lieutenant Bill Riskin of the Homicide Bureau.”

But they didn’t offer a reward, so the clerk and Maddux weren’t interested. They were only interested in my welfare and my dollars.

I remained in the hotel bedroom for two weeks: time for my hair to grow over the scar and for me to raise a moustache. A moustache and a pair of horn spectacles changed my appearance considerably. Only a trained observer like Riskin could have spotted me. I was sure I had nothing to fear from the man in the street who might have read the police description.