James Chase - Strictly For Cash

“Oh, but you must.” I watched her open her bag. She took out a hundred dollar bill and put it on the table. “Can I rely on you to say nothing about this hold-up, Mr. Harkness? If anyone should ask you... It’s a personal matter.”

He hesitated, then picked up the bill.

“Well, thanks. I don’t talk about what doesn’t concern me.”

He went into the far room and closed the door.

I lifted my head.

Della pointed to the uncurtained window.

“I think he was watching us,” she whispered.

I thought so, too.

From the little Della had told me about Nick Reisner, I had imagined him to be one of those brutal-looking characters you see after dark in Chicago’s Loop who pack a gun and a set of brass knuckles and loll up against a wall, waiting for trouble.

But he wasn’t like that at all.

He was tall and thin and stiffly upright. Although only around thirty-eight, his hair was chalk white and thick, taken straight back off a forehead any professor would have been proud to own. His nose was hooked and his nostrils flared hack, giving him the look of a hawk. He got his menace from his thin, sadistic mouth and the cold, remote expression in his deep-set eyes.

He came into the cabin and paused just inside the doorway to stare at Della.

“Hello, Nick,” she said, and smiled. “Explanations can wait. Let’s get out of here.”

The corners of his mouth lifted in a stiff little smile. His eyes went to me.

“Ricca?”

His voice was soft, unexpectedly effeminate, and I noticed the tuxedo he wore was exaggeratedly tailored, with wide lapels and a sharply cut waist, hinting at foppishness that his mouth and eyes contradicted.

“Yeah,” I said, and got slowly off the bed.

“Look a little roughed up. Who did it?” he asked.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.

“Sure.”

He stood aside.

“Help him, Nick,” Della said. “He’s got concussion. We were held up, and the Bentley was stolen.”

“Too bad,” Reisner said, without moving. “My car’s just outside. I came on my own.”

I went past him out of the cabin, taking my time, knowing he was watching me, knowing, too, how hostile he was. Della followed, caught up with me and took my arm. The car was parked on the dirt track about twenty yards from the cabin: an Olds-mobile, as big as a battleship.

Della and I got in at the back. Reisner strolled after us and slid under the steering-wheel.

“I didn’t expect you, Mrs. Wertham,” he said as he trod on the starter. “Quite a surprise.”

“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?”

“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.

“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 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 Hitler’s storm-troopers used to wear. They saluted, their faces expressionless as we drove through the gateway.