Ричард Деминг - She’ll Hate Me Tomorrow

“I like you, too, Lieutenant,” Ross said. “I hope you make captain, so you can sit at a desk and don’t have to go out on these exhausting raids.”

It was seven p.m. before the police finally left. Their presence had excited some curiosity among the patrons of the downstairs club, but as the raiding party hadn’t disturbed any of the customers, no one left. The place was pretty well crowded when Ross walked into the dining room and told Oscar the headwaiter that he’d like a table for dinner. Oscar placed him at one of the tables for two along the side wall.

The gambler had finished eating and was sipping his coffee when Sam Black carried an extension phone over to his table, set it down and plugged it into a wall jack.

“Call for you,” he said. “I think it’s Bix Lawson.”

Lifting the phone, Ross said, “Ross speaking.”

“I guess you think you’re pretty cute, don’t you?” Bix Lawson’s voice growled in his ear.

“I do my best to stay a jump ahead of dummies like you,” the gambler informed him. “I take it you’ve had word of the result of the raid.”

“That was only the beginning, Clancy. Until you put that girl in my hands, you can expect a raid every time you try to open your casino. You’re out of business unless you wise up.”

“I think I can squeeze by on income from the downstairs club, Bix. Don’t worry about me starving.”

“Are you going to come up with that girl?” Lawson demanded.

“Of course not.”

“Then maybe I’ll put you out of business downstairs, too,” Lawson said, and hung up.

Ross didn’t understand the meaning of the racket boss’ remark until the following evening when another call came from Whisper. The call came about ten p.m., at a time when Sam Black happened to be conferring with Ross in the second-floor office, so that Black heard Ross’ side of the conversation.

“Thanks for the fifty,” the informer said in his gravelly voice. “I picked it up from Oscar.”

“You’re welcome,” Ross said.

“I got another tip that ought to be worth a C.”

“All right, shoot.”

“The word is out that Bix Lawson has declared war on you.”

“That’s no tip. I’ve been expecting it.”

“Yeah? Well, do you know where the first hit is going to be?”

“That information might be worth something to me,” Ross conceded.

“Your joint is going to be messed up by a grenade after closing tonight.”

After a moment of silence, Ross said, “That’s worth a C. Do you know exactly when?”

“Only that it’ll be after closing. Bix don’t want no innocent bystanders hurt. He just wants to run you out of business.”

“I see. Thanks for the word, Whisper. You can pick up your money any time.”

When he hung up, Ross stared thoughtfully off into space for a few moments.

Black said resignedly, “This time it’s real trouble, huh?”

The gambler looked at him. “We have a little problem,” he admitted.

“Little, hell. When you get that expression on your face, it’s big trouble.”

“What expression?”

“Like you’re considering killing somebody. You’ve already got Bix Lawson, The syndicate, and the local cops mad at us. What happened now? Has the Marine Corps declared war on us?”

Ross gave him a humorless smile. “It’s only Bix. The downstairs club’s going to be bombed after closing tonight.”

Black’s expression became one of outrage. Though Ross was sole owner of Club Rotunda, the downstairs manager tended to regard the legitimate night club portion of the building as his private domain.

“Bix is going to bomb my club!” he said, coming to his feet.

Drawing a forty-five automatic from beneath his arm, he drew back the slide far enough to inspect the shell in the chamber, let it slam home again, set the safety and reholstered it. He started for the door.

“Where are you going?” Ross asked.

“To shoot the sonovabitch.”

“Whoa!” Ross said in a tone of command. “Come back here and sit down.”

Pausing with his hand on the knob, Black stared belligerently at his employer for a moment, then reluctantly returned to his seat. Ross regarded him curiously.

“Usually you try to put the brakes on me,” he said with ironic amusement. “This is kind of a switch.”

“Well, nobody’s blowing the hell out of my night club.”

Ross refrained from pointing out that it wasn’t Black’s night club. “You’d never get to Bix,” he said reasonably. “Now that he’s declared war, he’ll be surrounded by an army. We’ll handle it some less direct way.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” Ross admitted. “But two guns against Lawson’s army of hoods sort of precludes a frontal attack. We’ll have to devise some way to hit him on the flank.”

Sam Black gazed at him in astonishment. “You mean you’re not going to wade right in with your customary disregard for odds? You’re actually going to do some thinking first?”

“I always think before I move,” Ross said with a touch of irritability. “Usually I think fast, is all. This is going to take a little more concentration than usual. We have several hours to make counterplans. Get out of here and leave me alone for a while.”

Black rose to his feet.

“And don’t get any ideas about independent action,” Ross said. “I’ll be downstairs to brief you as soon as 1 decide what to do.”

“All right, Clancy,” Black said stoically. I’ll be waiting with bated breath.”

After some thought, Ross discarded all plans to prevent the bombing by setting a trap and taking the bombers in the act. He knew this would only delay matters until another time, and next time the bombing might come unexpectedly. He decided to let Lawson get in the first blow, then strike back before the racketeer knew what was happening.

A hand grenade exploding in the center of an empty room can do a lot of damage, however. The furnishings of Club Rotunda were expensive, and in addition to tables and chairs, there were mirrors, draperies, the solid glass bar and the bottled stock on the back bar to consider. Metal fragments from an exploding grenade could wreck all this.

Ross toyed with the thought of closing early and taking the precautionary measures of removing most of the furnitures and placing some kind of shield in front of the bar. But he knew that during the inevitable police investigation which would follow the bombing, the law would be bound to ask embarrassing questions about why he didn’t report to them when he’d been led to expect an attack. In the end, he decided to leave things as they were.

He had no desire to risk the lives of any of the help, though. At midnight he went downstairs and briefed Sam Black on his plans. Black immediately spoke to Oscar and told the headwaiter he wanted all customers out of the place exactly at two a.m., and all employees out within five minutes after that.

“But we have to clean up, sir,” the headwaiter protested.

“Skip the cleaning,” Black said. “By five minutes after closing I don’t want a soul in the building.”

Oscar’s eyebrows raised and his expression suggested that he realized the night club manager expected something unpleasant to happen shortly after closing time. But he had been associated with both Black and Ross too long to ask any questions.

“I’ll see that the place is empty by five after, sir,” he murmured.

The only direction from which the attack could come was from the front of the building. While several windows faced the alley, they gave access only to the kitchen, the rest rooms and the dressing rooms used by the floor show. On one side of the club was an office building, on the other a theater, and the club had joint walls with both of them. The only way a bomber could get a grenade into the main room was by hurling it through the plate-glass window in front.