James Chase - Strictly For Cash

I thought about Hame, too. He knew the set-up. I could tell that by the way he looked at me. He knew the lions hadn’t killed Reisner, although he didn’t say so in so many words.

“It’s a funny thing,” he said to me on the morning after they had found Reisner’s body in the pit, “but that guy had been dead at least eight hours before those lions mauled him. Isn’t that a funny thing?”

I said it was.

We stood looking at each other for perhaps half a minute, then he turned and walked away.

I told Della.

“He won’t do anything, Johnny,” she said, completely unruffled. “It’s too late now. He won’t do anything.”

And he didn’t.

But whenever I met him I knew he knew, and he knew I knew he knew. He was getting seven-fifty a week from us now, and I wondered how long it would be before he wanted more. That kind always wants more sooner or later. Luckily for us we had more to give. Even if we gave him twice that amount, it wouldn’t hurt us. We were coining money, or rather she was. I knew she was making much more than she expected, because every now and then she’d give me an expensive present.

“Conscience money, darling,” she said. “You really are doing a job of work here.”

A couple of weeks later Ginny moved out of the beach cabin. She was going to work at the store in Miami for a while, and then she was going to Key West to make sketches of the turtle crawls down there. She wasn’t sure just when she would be going, but she promised to call me.

Well, that was the set-up nearly five weeks after Reisner had died. I was skating on thin ice, but up to now the ice wasn’t even cracking. I was feeling pretty confident. I had got away with murder. I had out-smarted Della. I was in love with Ginny, and, more important, she was in love with me. On the face of it, it didn’t look bad.

Then Ricca showed up from Los Angeles.

Della and I knew, sooner or later, Ricca would turn up, and we were ready for him. We had already had a cable, addressed to Reisner, from Levinsky, saying Wertham hadn’t arrived in Paris. We guessed a similar cable had been sent to Ricca.

Hoping to gain a little more time, we had cabled back that Wertham had broken his journey and was in London. We signed the cable Reisner. We had expected Ricca would telephone from Los Angeles, but he didn’t. He must have suspected something was wrong, for he came without warning.

I was alone in the office working out a new idea I had for the swimming-pool. I planned to scrap the overhead lights and put in coloured lights in the floor of the bath. I reckoned that’d be a novelty, and Della agreed.

It was a half-hour after noon: a good time to work as the staff was busy preparing for the lunch rush, and the customers were busy in the bar.

I didn’t hear him come in. I learned later he had a trick of moving around like a ghost. I looked up to find him standing a few feet away from me. He gave me quite a start. He wasn’t anything like I had imagined him to be, but I guessed at once who he was.

I had formed a picture of him in my mind. I had imagined him to be big and tough the way I had imagined Reisner would be. But he was nothing like that. He was short and fat: like two rubber balls; one on top of the other. He was pot-bellied and his legs were thick and short. His shoulders were nearly a yard wide. He wore his thinning black hair long and plastered to his head, spreading it out carefully, but there wasn’t nearly enough of it to hide the dark skin that showed between the strands of hair like the trellis work of a fence. His face was round and fat and mottled with small veins that stamped him a drunk. He had snake’s eyes, flat, glittering and as lifeless as glass. His lips were thick and set in a meaningless and perpetual smile.

“I’m Ricca,” he said. “Where’s Nick?”

My foot touched a button under my desk that connected up with a buzzer in Della’s room. We had agreed only to use the buzzer as a signal that Ricca had arrived.

“In a little urn on the shelf in the crematorium,” I said, and eased back my chair.

His expression did not change, nor did his smile go away. He put a pudgy hand on the back of a chair and pulled it towards him, then he lowered himself into it and puffed breath across the desk at me.

“You mean he’s dead?”

I said I meant he was dead.

“That’s very interesting. And who are you?”

I opened a desk drawer and took out a box of cigarettes. I left the drawer half open. I had a .45 Colt automatic lying in there. All I had to do was to dip into the drawer and grab it if there was trouble. We had Ricca’s reception pretty well worked out.

“I’m the guy who’s running this joint,” I said.

“That’s interesting, too.” His snake’s eyes went to the half-open drawer. From where he sat he couldn’t see the gun, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know it was there. “And who put you in charge?”

“I did,” Della said from the doorway.

“That’s also interesting,” he said without looking round. He kept his eyes on me. “Where’s Paul?”

Della came around the desk and stood behind me, facing Ricca.

“How are you, Jack?” she said. “It’s a long time no see. How’s Los Angeles?”

Ricca crossed his fat legs. He was careful to keep his hands folded across his belly. It began to dawn on me he was dangerous. His smile was as wide and as meaningless as before, and his expression hadn’t changed. He couldn’t have known Della was here. He had just learned Reisner was dead. But neither of these items had dented him.

“Answering from left to right,” he said, his eyes still on me. “I’m fine. It sure is a long time no see. Los Angeles is fine. Where’s Paul?”

“He’s dead,” she told him.

His expression didn’t change, nor did his smile shrink.

“And I always thought Lincoln Beach was a healthy town. Well, well, he had to die some time, I guess. What happened to him? Did he catch cold or was he helped off this earth?”

“He was killed in a car smash,”

He raised his right hand slowly and examined his fingernails.

“So you got yourself a young man and took over the casino?” he said, as if he were speaking to himself.

“That’s just what I did,” Della said calmly. “And there’s nothing you can do about it, Jack.”

His smile widened.

“I always thought you were a smart girl, Della,” he said placidly. “Anyone else beside you two know he’s dead?”

“No. It’s better it should dawn on them slowly.”

Ricca nodded his ball-like head.

“Much better.” He pointed a short, fat finger at me. “And who’s this?”

“That’s Johnny. For convenience he’s known here as Johnny Ricca.”

Ricca continued to smile. He nodded to me.

“That’s very smart. Of course Nick was under the impression this young man was me.”

We didn’t say anything.

“You’re a smart guy to get yourself on board this gravy train,” he went on.

“And I’m smart enough to keep other people off it,” I said. Even then his smile didn’t fade.

Della sat on the edge of the desk. She lit a cigarette.

“Look, Jack. Let’s put our cards on the table,” she said. “Paul’s dead. That leaves you, Levinsky, Johnny and me. Levinsky has the Paris set-up. You have Los Angeles. We have Lincoln Beach. There’s no reason why any of us should get in each other’s way. It’s a natural carve-up. What do you say?”

“I think you’ve worked it out pretty well,” Ricca said. “Are you sure this guy can handle the job?”

I edged my hand towards the drawer. This could be the curtain-raiser to trouble.

“I’m sure of that, Jack. He has a flair for the job. He’s like Paul.”