Реймонд Маршалл - The Paw in the Bottle

‘How would you like to take a crack at the Wesley furs?’ Harry stiffened. His breath whistled down his nostrils. ‘Hey! Now, wait a minute. Are you trying to get me put away for five years? I’m not all that wet, you know.’

‘That’s what I say,’ Bernstein broke in vehemently. He was a little man with a face as brown and as wrinkled as a monkey’s. His hands were covered with fine black hairs, and hair grew in coarse tufts on his wrists and showed above his shirt collar. ‘Be reasonable. It’s no use running your head against a brick wall. The Wesley furs! It’s madness!’

‘But you’ll take them if we get them?’ Mrs. French asked, her eyes hardening.

He nodded.

‘Yes; but you haven’t a hope of getting them. Why don’t you be reasonable?’

‘Are you serious?’ This from Harry. ‘You know what we’d be up against?’

‘I know.’ Mrs. French tapped ash from her cigarette on to the floor. Her mouth was a hard line. ‘It won’t be easy, but it can be done.’

‘I say not!’ Bernstein said and thumped his small, hairy fist on the desk. ‘Four have tried it. Look what happened to them. It’s too dangerous.’

‘He’s right, you know,’ Harry said, pulling a face. ‘But it would be a sweet job if we could pull it off. Still, I don’t fancy our chances, Ma.’

‘You’re talking like a fool,’ Mrs. French said angrily. ‘You don’t know anything about the job; only what you’ve heard. All right, four fools have tried to get the furs. None of them took the trouble to find out how the safe operates. They didn’t use their brains because they hadn’t any brains to use.’

‘You’re wrong,’ Bernstein said, shifting forward on his chair. ‘Frank took a lot of trouble. He spent four months casing the place, but he was nabbed before he even opened the safe. What do you say to that?’

‘We can learn from the mistakes of others. It means there’s an alarm on the safe that rings if the safe is touched. We’re going to find out about that. That’s the first thing we’re going to do.’

‘And how are we going to do that?’ Harry inquired.

‘Mrs. Wesley wants a maid. She’s tried all the other agencies, and now she’s come to me. I’ve been waiting a long time for this chance.’

‘And we put in a plant?’ Harry looked interested. ‘That’s an idea, Ma. It might even work.’

‘It will work. If we can get a girl in there who’ll keep her eyes open she might find out how the safe operates. If she does, will you take on the job?’

‘I might.’ Harry scratched his head. He thought of Parry. Only the night before last they had played snooker together. Now Parry was in a cell. A job as big as the Wesley furs would carry a five year stretch. He flinched at the thought. ‘It’ll be some job, Ma. I’d like to know more about it first. Is Theo coming in?’

Theo stopped biting his nails to say, ‘Course I am. I ain’t windy if you are.’

‘One of these days I’m going to flatten those pimples of yours, you little ape,’ Harry said amiably, ‘and I’ll flatten your face with them.’

‘We can’t do anything without the girl,’ Mrs. French broke in. ‘Know anyone who’d do the job, Harry?’

‘Well, I know a lot of girls,’ Harry said, and looked out of the corners of his eyes at Dana. ‘Depends on what kind of girl you want.’

‘I want someone smart and young with good appearance and who wants to pick up some quick money,’ Mrs. French said promptly. ‘I’ll take care of the references.’

Harry tilted back his chair and stared up at the ceiling. ‘Well, there is a girl,’ he said, after a pause. ‘She’s a smart kid. Her name’s Julie Holland. She works for Sam Hewart at the Bridge Café. Syd’s seen her. Think she’d do, Syd?’

Bernstein shrugged. A scowl darkened his wrinkled face.

‘I don’t know. She might, but she’d have to watch her temper. She’s a bad-tempered little bitch.’

Harry laughed.

‘He’s prejudiced, Ma. He pinched her bottom the other night and she caught him a slap in his puss. Laugh! I nearly bust my truss. Don’t listen to him. I think she’d do. She’s got the looks and she’s nobody’s fool. Hewart thinks a lot of her and you know how careful he has to be.’

‘Do the police know her?’ Mrs. French asked.

‘No, nothing like that. She’s kept clear of trouble, but I know she’s after big money. She’s told me a bit about herself. She’s ambitious and fed up with scraping along on a few quid a week. I think she’s reckless enough to take a chance if the money’s good enough.’

‘We can’t tell her anything. It’s too risky. And when the job’s done, we’d have to be sure she keeps her mouth shut. The police will guess it’s an inside job and they’ll pick on her. We’d have to make very sure she won’t talk if things went wrong.’

Theo leaned forward so the light fell on his face.

‘Let him find the bride. I’ll see she doesn’t talk,’ he said.

Theo was a short, stocky youth with long, dark hair that fell in lank, greasy strands over his ears and on to his coat collar. His round, pasty face was inflamed with blackheads and pimples, and his green eyes were close-set and cruel. He wore a shiny blue serge suit, baggy and shapeless, and his wreck of a hat, resting far back on his head, looked like a dead, furry animal that had been left in the gutter. There was something horribly vicious and spiteful in his expression and they looked at him, startled. There was a sudden uneasy tension in the room.

‘No violence,’ Bernstein said quickly. ‘I don’t stand for violence.’

‘Get stuffed,’ Theo said, and withdrew into the darkness again.

‘And that goes for me, too,’ Harry said sharply. ‘You’re a bit too keen on bashing girls, Pimples. One of these days you’ll get a bash yourself, right in your ugly snout.’

‘Cut it out!’ Mrs. French snapped. ‘We must have the girl or we can’t do the job. Does she like you, Harry?’

Harry grinned.

‘Well, she doesn’t exactly hate me. It’s a rum thing, but girls do go soft on me. Don’t ask me why.’ He hastily moved his leg as Dana kicked out at him. ‘Present company excepted, of course,’ he went on, winking. ‘But this kid goes all dewy-eyed when she sees me, if that means anything.’

‘Work on her,’ Mrs. French said. ‘She won’t talk if you handle her right; not if she’s soft on you.’

‘You and your damned women,’ Dana said angrily. ‘Why don’t you grow up?’

‘I’m getting along fine as I am,’ Harry said, patting her hand. ‘They mean nothing to me. You know that.’

‘Why don’t you two go somewhere and have a nice cry together? You make me spew,’ Theo sneered.

‘I’ll bash this fat ape in a moment,’ Harry said wrathfully.

‘Work on this girl, Harry,’ Mrs. French said, scowling at Theo. ‘We can’t do anything until we’ve got her. I’ll want her in about a week. Can you manage it by then?’

‘Now, wait a minute. I didn’t say I was going to do the job. What’s in it for me? It’s got to be convincing or I’m not interested.’

Mrs. French was expecting this. She picked up a pencil and pulled a pad of paper towards her.

‘The furs are insured for thirty thousand. Suppose we say we’ll get seventeen for them?’ She looked inquiringly at Bernstein.

‘It’s no good looking at me,’ Bernstein said sharply. ‘I don’t know what they’re worth until I’ve seen them. But seventeen’s too much, anyway. More like ten if they’re as good as you say they are. But I want to see the stuff before I talk prices.’

‘Then there’s the jewellery,’ Mrs. French went on, deciding to ignore Bernstein. She began scribbling on the paper while the others watched her, ‘Your cut, Harry, shouldn’t be less than eight thousand. It might be more.’