James Chase - Strictly For Cash

It didn’t take me long to find out I was in love with Ginny. After I had got over the scare of dumping Reisner, she was all I thought about. I knew it was the real thing. I knew I was gambling with my life even to think of her, but that didn’t stop me. No other girls, Della had said, and that didn’t stop me either.

A couple of days after I had first met her, I wrote to Ginny. I told her I was sorry about the way I had left her.

“I guess I must have sat in the sun too long,” I wrote, hoping she would believe me. “I was feeling terrible, and I didn’t want to scare you. I’ve been in bed, but I’m fine now. I hope you’ll forgive me, walking out on you like that. May I come and see you and apologize?”

By the time she received the letter I had fixed up a three-room apartment on Franklin Boulevard, a quiet district in Lincoln Beach, and that’s where I told her to write.

With a hundred dollars and all found I wasn’t exactly broke, but I wasn’t rolling it in. I did a little gambling now and then, playing on one of the crooked tables. The croupiers let me win, and every so often I picked up a couple of hundred bucks when I needed it most. But I didn’t drive it into the ground. I was careful not to take too much off the house. I argued it was a good thing for the suckers to see the boss win now and then, and that was my story if someone tipped Della what was happening.

With my hundred bucks and the odd money I won I just about afforded the rent of the apartment and its running expenses.

I told Ginny I had been transferred from the Pittsburgh office of the insurance company I was working for, and had been given the job of starting an office in Lincoln Beach.

I made out I was working every hour of the day, trying to get things started, and she believed me. I hated lying to her, but there was no other way round it. I was in love with her. I wanted to marry her, but before I could do that I had to have money, and I had to have my freedom.

If Ginny hadn’t had such a good job, it might have been easier. I felt I couldn’t ask her to run off with me until I had enough money to take care of us both. I played it wrong. Knowing what I know now, she would have gone with me if I hadn’t a cent. But you find out that kind of thing too late: anyway, I did.

Whenever Della went over to Bay Street, I’d skip into the Buick and beat it down to Franklin Boulevard. I’d call Ginny on the phone, and she’d either come over or I’d go over to her place. I heard a lot of music while I was with her, and when she was with me, we played chess. That’s a game I had never played, and she taught me. Don’t think I hadn’t other ideas in my head when I was alone with her, besides listening to music or playing chess, but that’s the way she wanted it to be, and that’s the way it was.

Some evenings we went to Raul’s. I figured we were safe there. It wasn’t the kind of place Della would ever show up in, nor were we likely to run into anyone from the casino there.

I soon found out that Ginny was as much in love with me as I was with her. Her two weeks’ stay at the beach cabin was coming to an end. That worried both of us.

“What shall we do, Johnny?” she asked. We were at the Franklin Boulevard apartment. “Just how soon do you think we can get married?”

We had got that far in eleven days.

I had been beating my brains out on the same problem. I had two things to do before I could marry her. I had to get my hands on a large sum of money, and I had to find someplace where we could go where Della wouldn’t think of looking for us.

When Della had dragged me into this set-up she had promised me a quarter of a million. “Word of honour,” she had said. I had carried out my part of the bargain, but she hadn’t carried out hers. I now considered that quarter of a million was mine by right. If she wouldn’t give it to me, I was going to take it. But before I could lay my hands on it I had to find out the combination of the safe, and that wasn’t easy. There was half a million in cash in that safe, and it was a good one. Unless I found the combination I had no more chance of breaking into it than I had of swimming the Atlantic.

It was a problem, and I didn’t know how to solve it. All I could hope for was to hang on and wait for a break. The other thing I had to do before I married Ginny wasn’t anything like so difficult. I had that already doped out: where to go when the time came.

I figured I could lose myself in Cuba. The moment I got my hands on the money, I’d charter a plane, and Ginny and I would fly to Cuba. I reckoned we’d be safe there. Della wouldn’t think to look for me in Cuba, and even if she did, and even if she found me, there was nothing she could do about it.

So when Ginny said, “Just how soon can we get married?” I had part of the answer ready for her.

I told her I thought in about six weeks.

“My boss has told me if I make a success here,” I said, “he’s going to give me the manager’s job at our branch in Havana. It’ll be a fine job, Ginny. We’ll have all the money we need. You won’t have to work anymore. How do you like the idea of living in Cuba?”

She said she didn’t mind where she lived so long as I was with her.

Every now and then I got scared, wondering how I was going to make good on the lies I was telling her, but it was no good worrying about that. The things I had to worry about were getting the safe open and getting away from Della.

When I wasn’t with Ginny I worked at the casino. I got a big bang out of running the place. Every morning I called a meeting with Della in the chair. I insisted that Louis, the head chef, the top croupier, the housekeeper and the wine steward should sit around the conference table. Della didn’t like the idea, but she soon found I was right. We got ideas from these people. They had never been consulted before, and they liked being consulted, and they gave out ideas that meant more money in the kitty. I had ideas, too. I had a piece of ground cleared and had a helicopter landing-ground constructed. I fixed with a Miami airport for a taxi service of helicopters to fly a shuttle service from Miami to Lincoln Beach. If our people got bored with the casino they could hop over to Miami, and if the playboys and girls in Miami wanted a change, they could hop over to us.

I got that idea going in the first week, and it paid dividends.

Another idea I had was to hook up with the local television station and put the casino on the air. We had a good band and cabaret every evening, and I fixed it we had a nightly spot which I gave free in return for the publicity.

“I wouldn’t have believed you had it in you, Johnny,” Della said one night. We were together in her cabin. She had just got back from Bay Street, and I had just beaten her by five minutes from Ginny’s place. “That television idea of yours is going fine.”

“Yeah, it is. How about a token of appreciation? How about that quarter of a million you promised me — word of honour? I can invest it as well as you.”

She gave me her silky smile. I knew it was a waste of time, but every so often I punched it home.

“Have patience, Johnny. You’ll get it.”

“When?”

“Come here, darling.”

That was the part I hated. Making love to her when she crooked her finger. But I had to do it. I had to keep her away from Ginny. So long as I made out I was crazy about her I figured I was safe. So I made out I was crazy about her.

There were nights when I slept in my own cabin, and it was then, when I lay alone in the darkness, that I thought about Reisner. Della had said I’d forget about him after a week, but I didn’t. I kept thinking of him. I even dreamed about him; imagining him outside the cabin with his cut eye and smashed face, looking at me through the window.