James Chase: Strictly For Cash

Without moving his lips, Waller mumbled, “Don’t be a fool, Farrar. Go with them. I know these two.”

Pepi smiled.

“Wise guy. Sure he knows us. He knows Benno’s been mixed up in three shooting accidents already this year. Better not make a fourth.”

I got dressed while they stood around and watched me, then we went down the alley to where a big Cadillac was parked. Benno kept the gun in his hand. There was a cop standing on the edge of the kerb right by the car. He looked at Benno, looked at the gun, then hurriedly walked away. That told me faster than anything that had yet happened just what kind of a jam I was in. I got into the car and sat beside Pepi who drove. Benno sat at the back and breathed down my neck. It took less than a minute to reach the Ocean Hotel. We went in by a side entrance and rode up in a gilt-painted elevator. Neither Benno nor Pepi said anything, but Benno kept the gun pointing at me. We walked down a long corridor to a polished mahogany door marked Private. Pepi tapped, turned the handle and walked in.

The room was small, oak-panelled, and fitted up like an office.

A blonde sat pounding a typewriter, and chewing gum. She glanced up, gave me a swift, indifferent stare, seemed to think nothing of the gun in Benno’s hand, and jerked her blonde head to the door behind her.

“Go on in,” she said to Pepi. “He’s waiting.”

Pepi scratched on the door panel with his fingernails, opened the door and glanced in. Then he stood aside.

“In on your own steam,” he said to me, “and behave.”

I walked past him into one of those vast rooms you rarely see outside a movie set. The enormous expanse of bottle-green carpet was thick enough to cut with a lawn mower. A couple of dozen lounging chairs, two big chesterfields, a number of lamp standards and an odd table or two scarcely dented the space they were supposed to fill. Around the walls hung gilt-framed mirrors that caught my reflection as I moved forward, and reminded me how shabby I looked.

At a desk, big enough to play ping-pong on, sat Petelli. He was smoking a cigar, and the white slouch hat he had worn when he had come to the gym still rested at the back of his head. He waited, sitting forward, his elbows on the desk, until I was within a yard of him, then he stopped me by pointing his cigar at me.

“I’ll do the talking; you do the listening,” he said, his voice curt and cold. “You’re a good fighter, Farrar, and I could have used you, but Brant tells me you want to stay out of the game. Right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“The Kid is a good boy, too, but I don’t think he’s got the punch you carry. Well, if I can’t have you, I’ll have to make do with him. This will be his first fight as far north as Pelotta. It wouldn’t look good for him to get licked, so he’s got to win. I’ve ten grand spread on the fight, and I don’t intend to lose it. I told Brant you’re to take a dive in the third round. Now I’m telling you. Brant says you don’t like the idea. Well, that’s your own private grief, not mine. You’ve had your chance to come in with me and you’ve passed it up.” He paused to tap ash on the carpet. “This happens to be my town. I run it, see? What I say goes. I have an organization that takes care of guys who don’t do what I tell them. We’ll take care of you, too, if we have to. From now on you’ll be watched. You’re not to leave town. On Saturday night you’ll fight the Kid and you’ll put up a convincing show. In the third round the Kid’ll catch you, and you’ll go down and, stay down. Those are my orders, and you’ll obey them. If you don’t you’ll be wiped out. I mean that. I don’t intend to lose ten grand because some bum fighter is too proud to take a dive. Double-cross me and it’s the last double-cross you pull. And don’t bother about police protection. The police do what I tell them. Now you know the set-up, you can please yourself what you do. I’m not arguing about it. I’m telling you. Take a dive in the third or a slug in the back. Now get out!”

He wasn’t bluffing. I knew unless I obeyed orders he’d wipe me out with no more hesitation than he would have squashed a fly.

There wasn’t anything I could think of to say. He had put the cards on the table. It was now up to me. Come to think of it, there wasn’t anything to say. I turned and went out of the room, closing the door gently behind me.

The blonde still pounded the typewriter. Pepi and Benno had gone. Without pausing or looking up, she said, “Sweet type, isn’t he? Can you wonder he hasn’t any friends?”

Even to her I hadn’t anything to say. I went on out, down the long corridor to the elevator. When I reached the street I spotted Benno across the way. He strolled after me as I made my way back to the gym.

For the next four days and nights Benno or Pepi followed me wherever I went, not letting me out of their sight for a moment. I played with the idea of slipping out of town and making my way to Miami as best I could, but I soon discovered there was no safe way of doing it. Those two stuck to me like an adhesive bandage.

I kept the set-up to myself. It was only when Tom Roche told me he was going to bet his shirt on me that I gave him a hint of what was in the wind.

“Don’t do it, and don’t ask questions,” I said. “Don’t bet either way.”

He stared at me, saw I meant it, started to say something, but changed his mind. He was no fool, and must have guessed what was brewing, but he didn’t press me.

I didn’t tell Brant that I had seen Petelli, but he knew all right. He avoided me as much as he could, and when we did run into each other he seemed nervous, and didn’t appear to like the way I was working to get into some kind of shape.

Waller didn’t ask questions either, but he did everything he could to get me fit. By the evening of the third day I was picking my punches, and my breathing no longer bothered me. I could see both Waller and Brant were impressed by my speed and hitting power.

Petelli certainly made a swell job of the advance publicity. He had the local papers working on it, and a string of loud-mouthed guys going around the bars shouting my praise. This concentrated drive soon began to influence the betting, and by the morning of the fight I was a four to one on favourite. With ten thousand on the Kid, Petelli stood to pick up a bundle of money.

Neither he nor his muscle men had anything further to say to me. Our little talk in his office seemed to them to be enough. Well, it was. I had to dive in the third round or it’d be curtains, and I had made up my mind to dive. An outfit like Petelli’s was too big and tough to buck. If I obeyed orders I was set to make a good start in Miami, and that was what I really cared about. Anyway, that’s the way I tried to kid myself, but below the surface I was seething with rage. I was thinking of the little mugs who were putting their shirts on me. I was thinking that after Saturday night I’d be just another crooked fighter, but what really bit deep was taking orders from a rat like Petelli.

On the morning of the fight, Brant and I went down to the gym for the weigh-in. There was a big crowd to welcome me, but I didn’t get any kick out of the excited cheers as I pushed my way through the double swing-doors. I spotted Tom Roche and Sam Williams, and gave them a feeble grin as they waved to me.

Petelli stood near the scales, smoking a cigar. Pepi stood just behind him. Nearby a fat, hard-faced man in a fawn suit propped up the wall and grinned at anyone who looked at him. He turned out to be the Miami Kid’s manager.

I ducked the back-slappers and went into one of the changing booths. By the time I had stripped off the Kid was on show. I looked curiously at him. He was big and powerful, but I was quick to spot he was a little thick around the middle. As I joined him he looked me over with a sneering little grin.