James Chase - Strictly For Cash

“And don’t make any silly moves,” he went on, not raising his voice. He jerked the gun to an armchair near me. “Sit down, Farrar. And you, Mrs. Wertham, sit on the divan. If either of you make a move I’ll drill you and think up a reason for it after.”

Della collapsed on the divan. She looked as if she were going to faint. I sat in the armchair, a tightness in my throat that made breathing difficult.

“That’s fine,” he went on, came farther into the room and closed the door with his heel. “Well, you two certainly know how to pass the time.” He moved to the centre of the room. The gun pointed to a spot just between us. “Played it pretty rough, didn’t you?” he said. “Didn’t it occur to either of you I’d come back last night to see what you were up to? Imagine my surprise when I found one of the cabins empty.” He looked at me, his eyes glittering. “What have you done with Wertham?”

Neither of us said anything.

“Is he dead?” He hooked a chair towards him and sat down. “Did you kill him?”

“Are you crazy?” Della said. Her voice sounded as if she were speaking through locked teeth. “He’s on his way to Paris.”

“On his way to hell, you mean,” Reisner said. “Did you really think you could get away with this wet idea? The moment I saw you I knew something was phoney. Paul wouldn’t let you travel with Ricca or anyone else all the way from Los Angeles to Lincoln Beach without someone to keep an eye on you. You’ve quite a reputation for taking a tumble in the hay whenever there’s an opportunity, and Paul knows that as well as I do.”

“How dare you talk to me like that!” Della said furiously.

“There were three of you in the car: you, Wertham and Farrar. One of you died,” Reisner went on, crossing his legs. “This guy isn’t Ricca, so that makes him Farrar. It makes the dead man Wertham. The set-up’s gone sour. You may as well admit it.”

“Wait, Nick,” Della said, leaning forward, her clenched fists pressed tight between her knees. “You, I and Johnny can do a deal. No one but we three know Paul’s dead. Cut us in on half shares and we’ll work our passage. You can do with help now Paul is dead. You know I’ve picked up a lot of his ideas. I could be useful to you, Nick.”

Reisner seemed surprised. He glanced at me.

“Where does he come in? Why should I cut him in on anything?”

“Take a look at him,” Della said. “Don’t you think he’d scare Ricca? He’s a gunman as well as a fighter. You’d need someone like him around once the news leaked out.”

I sat still, listening, as surprised as Reisner seemed to be. “And suppose I didn’t want to share?” Reisner asked quietly. “What then?”

Della licked her lips. Her face was still white, but she had steadied herself. She was gambling with her last buck. You could tell that by looking at her. She was playing a king, and only an ace could beat it, and she wasn’t sure if Reisner held the ace.

“Then we talk, Nick. We tell Hame, Ricca, Itta and Zoe, and let them move in. I don’t think you’re big enough to handle them all.”

Reisner smiled.

“So he really is dead. Well, well; that’s the best news I’ve heard in thirty-eight years. Paul dead, huh? And a damn good riddance. It’s something I’ve been praying for.”

Della’s hand closed on a yellow and red cushion lying at her side. She gripped it, a fixed smile on her white face.

“When we hit that car, he was thrown out,” she said. “He broke his neck.”

“That’s your story,” Reisner returned, still smiling, “but suppose you two killed him? Has it crossed your minds I could slap a murder rap on you both and make it stick? Hame would frame you two for a grand. He’s a little short of money.”

I felt suddenly cold.

“That still wouldn’t stop the news leaking out,” Della said, but her face stiffened.

“That’s right,” Reisner said, “but maybe it can’t be helped. Now look, this is the way I see it. I happen to overhear you two talking, and I get the idea you killed Paul. I walk in on you and Farrar pulls a gun. I beat him to the draw. I’m pretty quick with a rod, and Hame knows it. You pull a gun, too. So you both get shot. I then put a proposition up to Hame. He gets a slice from the casino if he takes care of me. He might even be persuaded to toss Itta and Zoe in the can until I get things organized. There’d be no difficulty in making a charge against them. Then by the time Ricca’s got over his drinking jag — oh, yes, Hollenheimer told me about that — it’d be too late for him to start trouble. How do you like it?”

“You wouldn’t want to cut Hame in,” Della said, and shifted forward. “He’d take the lot in time. He’s like that, and you know it.”

Reisner gnawed at his lower lip, his eyes thoughtful. “Maybe,” he said, “but it’s a way out of this mess.”

“There’s another way,” Della said softly.

“What’s that?”

She turned to look at me. The expression in her eyes set my heart pounding.

“We could kill you, Nick. That’d be the best way. We were talking about it when you came in.”

Reisner continued to smile, but his eyes turned to ice.

“Yeah, I heard you. That’s why I like my idea, and that’s why it’s going to be my idea.”

“Not with the safety-catch on, Nick.”

It was well done. Even I looked at the gun. Reisner’s eyes shifted from us and looked down. Della threw the cushion she had been grasping in one swift, violent movement. It caught Reisner in the face. She flung herself off the bed and clamped her hands on his hand and the gun, wedging her finger against the trigger so he couldn’t fire.

I jumped from my chair as Reisner, swearing softly, staggered to his feet, his fist raised to club Della as she hung with all her weight on his gun arm.

I hit him on the side of his face with a long, looping right that exploded on his cheek-bone with the impact of a steam-hammer. He wasn’t built for a punch like that. I felt the bone splinter as he shot backwards, dragging her with him. He cannoned into the wall, bounced away and began to sag as I stepped up close and smashed a right to his jaw. He went down, his face coming squarely on a big glass bowl of floating dahlia heads that stood on a table. The bowl flew into fragments, and the table smashed like matchwood. Water and flowers scattered over Della and the carpet.

She screamed as the water hit her, but she didn’t let go of the gun until I grabbed her wrist and pulled her to her feet.

We stood side by side, looking down at Reisner. He had rolled over on his back. A long splinter of glass from the broken bowl, like a tiny dagger, had gone deep into his right eye. His lips were drawn back from his teeth in a snarl of pain and fear, and his right cheek was a pulp of splintered bone, teeth and blood. He looked terrible.

Della drew closer to me. I could hear her breathing: quick, short gasps, rasping in a dry throat.

Neither of us moved. We just stared down at him.

He was dead.

It was like a movie-projector operating inside my head, throwing images of the past on to the white screen that was my mind. I saw again the room and Della in her blue wrap that hung open to show her long, slender legs and the beauty of her body. I saw myself with blood out of my face, my fists clenched, and a sick feeling deep inside me, knowing I had killed him, and that I’d carry the image of his battered face with me to the grave.

“He’s dead, Johnny.”

She gave a little sigh, then stepped back, gathering her wrap about her, turning to look at me.

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. This was murder. All right, I hadn’t meant to kill him, but I had killed him, and he was there, dead on the floor, and that made it murder.