James Chase - Like a Hole in the Head

What happens if Savanto drops dead?” I asked, flicking the butt of my cigarette into the darkness.

“He won’t drop dead. He’s built to last.”

“But suppose he does drop dead. What happens?”

Raimundo stiffened. He got the message.

“Timoteo would take over. The peasants wouldn’t do so well but they would survive. But Savanto isn’t going to drop dead.”

I lit another cigarette.

“I think it’s time he did.”

We looked at each other.

“It can’t be done, soldier,” Raimundo said, shaking his head. “The red light has gone up. This is the first thing Savanto would think of now he knows the operation has turned sour. By now he is surrounded by his button men : men trained for just this job. Get that idea out of your mind.”

“Do you want to be in on this?” I asked. “Or are you chickening out and sitting here waiting to be slaughtered?”

“You don’t know what you’re up against, soldier.”

“Haven’t you the guts to try? What have you to lose?”

He hesitated.

“What do I do?”

“I’m going to kill this man,” I said. “He came into my life with promises. Now you tell me he is going to kill my wife and kill me. Okay, I believe you. He branded me.” I put my fingers through my shirt opening and felt the scar on my chest. “No man can regard himself as God. I don’t give a damn if he is the father of a lot of starving peasants if this is the way he works. I don’t believe these peasants would think anything of him if they knew the kind of animal he is. There is a hell of a lot of talk about tradition. Well, I have traditions too. No one brands me or threatens me and gets away with it. He called me a professional killer. I am just that.” I got to my feet. “You tell me I’ll be dead, but I tell you Savanto will be dead before me. I’m going to kill him!”

Raimundo shook his head.

“I go along with all you say, soldier, but you won’t kill him. He is organised. Getting a shot at Diaz is kid’s stuff to getting a shot at Savanto.”

I crossed the roof to where I had left the rifle and I picked it up.

“Listen to me, soldier,” Raimundo went on. “No one can hope to knock off Savanto when he is alert, and now, he is very alert. He thinks ahead all the time. Do you imagine he doesn’t know you will come after him? He knows now the set-up has turned sour. He knows Timoteo has taken off with your wife. He’s smart. He knows you will be after his blood. How do you imagine he has survived for so long? Because he’s lucky?” He took a cigarette from his pack that I had left on the parapet and lit it. This is going to kill me, but if I don’t smoke I’ll flip my lid.” He coughed like a man with lung cancer as soon as the smoke reached his sore throat and cursing, he threw the cigarette away. “That’s the way you and I will go, soldier… like dead butts.” He waited a moment while he wheezed, then went on. “He knows you will come after him. He is a judge of men. I’ve worked for him since I was a kid of fifteen and he is an expert in judging men, so he knows you now plan to fix him. But lie has a trained organisation to take care of guys like you. He is up in his lush suite at the Imperial Hotel. He likes living there. The staff drop on their knees and beat their stupid heads on the carpet at the sight of him and he loves that. So a punk like you, soldier, won’t shift him out, but he knows the danger points.” He gave a snorting, derisive laugh. “You’re aiming to nail him as he sits on the balcony of his suite, aren’t you? You aim to use the apartment block across the way to get at him.”

“That’s the way I’ll get him,” I said.

Raimundo threw up his hands in despair.

“Do you imagine he hasn’t thought of that? He thinks of everything.”

“I’ll kill him from there.”

“You’re just sounding off,” Raimundo said angrily. “By now, that apartment block will he swarming with his button men. You’d never get within a hundred yards of it! That is the one place Savanto can be got at and that’s why it will be made safe!”

I swung the rifle from one hand to the other.

“Because it is safe, it is the one place I can get at him,” I said.

Raimundo gaped at me.

“It’s because he is sure and his men will be sure the place is safe that it ceases to be safe,” I said. “They will be so damn sure it’s safe they will he looking elsewhere for the action to start. There are twenty floors in this building with around fifteen rooms to a floor and each room is empty. That offers me three hundred hiding-places, apart from the corridors. How many men do you think will be guarding this block of apartments? At a guess, ten men who are quick on the trigger and very alert. Where will they be? Five of them will he covering the entrances. There will be a couple of men covering the elevators and there are certain to be at least two men on the top floor which overlooks the hotel. They will be so satisfied that the other guy is alert, they will cease to be alert after they have been at action stations for more than three or four hours. They will be no different from Army sentries and I know how they behave. I’m going to take a look at the place. Do you want to come?”

He remained sitting on the parapet for a long moment, then he got to his feet.

“What have I to lose? I still think you’re crazy, but anything is better than sitting here, waiting for a bullet.”

“Have you any money?”

He cocked his head on one side.

“I’ve a couple of hundred in my room.”

“That’ll do.”

As he started towards the trap door, I caught hold of his arm.

“You take the rifle. I’ll go first. You wait here… I’ll call you.”

I saw his eyes widen in the moonight.

“You think they could be here already?” His voice sank to an uneasy whisper.

“They could be. From now on, I’m taking no chances. Give me your gun.”

He hesitated, then he picked up the automatic and handed it to me as I handed him the rifle.

I moved to the trap door and listened, then holding the gun in my hand, I swung myself down into the darkness. I heard nothing and nothing happened. It wasn’t until I had been through the whole house, moving like a shadow, that I was satisfied that Raimundo and I were still on our own. I returned to the foot of the ladder and called to him.

He came down and I took the rifle from him.

“Get the money and a suitcase,” I said. “We might have to go to a hotel.”

Ten minutes later we were heading for Paradise City.

The night porter of the Palm Court Hotel was an elderly negro who was sleeping peacefully behind the reception desk. The flyblown clock behind his nodding head showed 02.22

We had had some luck. On our way to Paradise City we had come on a car with a hag of golf clubs in the rear seat. I had stood on the brake pedal and had nearly sent Raimundo’s head through the windscreen.

This car had been parked outside an ‘Eat-’n-Dance’ joint, the kind that litter Highway 1 until you reach Paradise City.

“Get it!” I said.

Raimundo read my thoughts. He slid out of the Volkswagen, grabbed the golf bag, emptied the clubs on to the back seat and was back in the car within ten seconds.

So we arrived at the Palm Court Hotel with the Weston & Lees rifle hidden in the golf bag and a suitcase full of nothing : like two respectable guys on vacation.

The old negro came awake and blinked at us. After a lot of fumbling with the register, he found us a double room with twin beds on the second floor. We signed in as Toni Franchini and Harry Brewster. I told him we didn’t know how long we’d stay and he didn’t seem to care. He took us up in a creaking elevator, unlocked a door and showed us into a big, shabbily-furnished room. He had tried to take the suitcase and the golf bag, but when I told him I was giving my muscles some exercise, he gave me a dismal smile as if he were sure I was going to gyp him out of his tip. I gave him a dollar after he had proved the plumbing worked and he went away, happy.