James Chase - Strictly For Cash

She looked at me.

“It’s all right. It’s working out just the way I said it would. Hame is making himself useful. We keep out of it.” She came over to me. “Pour me a drink, darling. We must celebrate.”

I gave her a whisky.

“Well, here’s to us. We’re set now. We’re rich. Life’s just beginning for us. Can you believe it, Johnny?”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

She drank the whisky, her eyes on my face, then she moved across the room, smiling, and pushed home the bolt on the door.

“No one will disturb us, darling. They’re all too busy. Let’s celebrate properly. Show me how much you love me, Johnny.”

I hated her as I had never hated anyone before. She had me where she wanted me. A word from her and they’d send me to the chair. I was fixed unless I did exactly what she told me.

No other girls.

I thought of Ginny.

“We have all the money in the world,” Della went on. “This is the biggest moment in my life. The biggest moment in your life, too. Can you believe it?”

“I can believe it all right,” I said.

She slid her arms around my neck. I stood looking down into the black, hard, triumphant eyes.

“What’s it feel like to be a millionaire?”

I said it felt fine.

“Kiss me, Johnny.”

I kissed her. I even caught hold of her, crushing her to me. I even carried her over to the divan.

Up to now she had been a lot smarter than I. If I was to save my neck I had to be the one to be smarter, and I had to be patient, too.

I knelt over her and grinned down at her. It would have been easy to have put my hands on her white throat and throttled her, but that wouldn’t have been smart. If I were going to beat this rap I’d have to out-fox her. Killing her wouldn’t help me. It would only make things worse. With her help I had covered up one murder. I knew I wouldn’t get away with another.

No, I had to out-fox her somehow. I wouldn’t do it in five minutes, but I was going to do it.

The next four weeks were spent consolidating our position as Della called it. What she really meant was she was consolidating her position. I had little to say in the matter.

Although she didn’t refer to it again, I knew she didn’t believe for one moment that I had lost myself when I had been away from the casino during those nine hours she kept guard over Reisner’s body. Nor did she believe that the girl I had said had given me a lift was a complete stranger to me. Instead of being her partner, I found myself acting as her assistant, and having to pretend I was satisfied with the position.

Trust her to be one jump ahead of me all the time. When I had left her alone with Reisner’s body, she had gone through his pockets, and had got his keys and the combination of the safe. But she didn’t tell me what the combination was, nor did I set eyes on the keys.

The agreement between us had been that we should share the reserve: a quarter of a million for her, and a quarter for me, but I didn’t get it.

“We’re in business now, Johnny,” she said, when I rather hesitantly suggested it was time my share was paid over. “We need the reserve. Being in control of a money-maker like the casino is fifty times better than a lump sum of money.”

I didn’t see it that way. With a quarter of a million I could have skipped out of the country and taken Ginny with me, but with the hundred bucks Della paid me each week, all found, including clothes, I wasn’t going to get far, and she knew it.

“You’re not used to money, Johnny,” she went on, lying on the divan, her wrap open, showing me her legs. “I have plans for you. You’re going to get your share, but not just yet. I’m keeping it for you; investing it. I know the markets, you don’t. I’ll have a fortune for you in a little while. Be patient.”

Neither of us believed this nonsense, but there was nothing I could do about it.

“Besides, if you want anything, you know you have only to ask me for it,” she continued, smiling at me. “I want you to be happy, darling. You are happy, aren’t you?”

And I’d twist up my face into a grin, and say I was happy, and hate her with my mind, brain, soul and guts, and tell myself my time would come. It was just a matter of waiting for the right opportunity.

But she didn’t have it entirely her own way. She found to her surprise that no one at the casino wanted a woman boss, and when I say no one, I mean not only the staff, but the millionaires and their wives, kids, girlfriends and hangers-on.

She started off by sitting in Reisner’s office, ready to do business with the visitors, ready to tell the staff what to do and what not to do. She got a big bang out of sitting behind that desk, throwing her weight about and giving orders, but it didn’t last long.

The first visitor she had was Gallway Harris Brown, the steel millionaire. He came bursting into the office like a runaway train: a short, fat, purple-faced bird with battle in his eyes and cuss words queueing up behind his lips.

I happened to be in the office at the time, admiring the view, while she was lording it at the desk.

She smiled at him as he came pounding in, but he took as much notice of her as he would the invisible woman. He burned a trail across the carpet towards me.

“Hey! You, Ricca?” He had a voice like a sea captain. It pretty near shattered the windows.

I said I was Ricca.

“I’ve no hot water in my cabin this morning. What kind of dump are you running?”

Still smiling, but her eyes snapping, Della came over.

“Perhaps I can help you...” she began.

That’s as far as she got. He jumped around and glared at her, cutting her off with a wave of his hand.

“Listen, young woman, when I make a complaint I deal with men, understand? This guy’s Ricca, isn’t he? Well, then, you keep out of ii. I’m going to swear at him.”

There was nothing for her to do but to take three graceful steps to the rear and try to look ornamental. She was smart enough not to argue with a thousand dollar profit a week. But in spite of her smile, she looked as if she been bitten by a snake — a rattlesnake at that.

I smoothed him down and had his water fixed. I said if it ever happened again, he would have the whole of his stay with us on the house.

“That’s a bet, Mr. Brown,” I said. “No hot water; no cheque. Right?”

He snorted, stamped around, then finally grinned.

“That means I’ll get hot water.”

“You’ll get hot water.”

It seemed the way millionaires liked to be treated. He went around telling the story, and the other visitors came to me with their troubles.

“You go to Ricca,” he said. “He’ll fix it. That guy’s a smart crook.”

And they did come to me. They stopped me in the corridors or on the terrace or in the bar, and I fixed things for them. When they went to the office and I wasn’t there, they said they wanted me and would be back. Louis didn’t pull any punches, either.

“Better let Mr. Ricca handle the staff, Mrs. Wertham,” he said. “It works better that way. A man can handle this set-up better than a woman.”

She was smart enough to see that the business would suffer if she continued to boss it, and she turned the office over to me.

“Go ahead, Johnny. You’re in charge of the casino now. But don’t get any big ideas. I’ll keep the keys, and when you want money I’ll open the safe.”

She also kept control of Bay Street. They didn’t know Paul was dead, and they were scared of her. She went over there three evenings a week to watch her interests, as she called it, and they needed watching. That suited me fine. While she was there, I was with Ginny.