James Chase - The Guilty Are Afraid

“Try him, will you?” I said. “See if he’s still around. Ask him if he’d like to make fifty easy bucks. If he shows interest, tell him I’ll be up by way of the goods elevator at seven o’clock sharp.”

Greaves thought about it. I could see he wasn’t too enthusiastic.

“You’re taking a risk. Bennauer might sell you out. There could be a reception committee waiting for you. From what I hear the bouncers working for the club aren’t a bunch of powder-puffs. You might get bounced pretty hard.”

“That’s my funeral. Go ahead and try him.”

Greaves lifted his massive shoulders, got to his feet and went over to the row of telephone booths. While he was in one of the booths I ordered a second round of beers. He talked for five minutes or so, then he came back and sat down.

“I got him,” he said. “Right now, he tells me, he’s so short of dough, he’d sell his wife for fifty bucks. It’s a deal so far as he’s concerned. It’s up to you now. I wouldn’t trust him further than I could throw him—not as far. He might go to the management and sell you out for fifty-five bucks.”

“Suppose he did? They can’t kill me. All they can do is to toss me out. I don’t bounce easy anyway. You told him seven o’clock?”

Greaves nodded.

“He’ll be waiting by the elevator. He’ll probably double-cross you. You probably won’t get further than the elevator doors. As soon as he gets the money, like as not, he’ll kiss you goodbye.”

“He won’t get it until I’ve seen what I want to see.” I looked at my watch. I had forty minutes to seven. “You wouldn’t have any suggestions about what I should take up there just in case of trouble?”

He bent his brains to the problem. After turning it over for a while he said, “Stick around. I’ll see what I can do.” He finished his beer, then pushed his way out of the booth and left the bar.

I waited, sipping my beer, looking at the newspaper and wondering what I was walking into.

He came back within the half-hour.

He was carrying a brown paper parcel under his arm and as he sat down opposite me he put out his big hand, palm upwards.

“You owe me twenty bucks.”

I took out my billfold, parted with four five-dollar bills and asked, “What does that buy me?”

He put the parcel on the table.

“A guy I know is in the brandy trade. He wants to get his liquor into the club. He hasn’t a hope, but he doesn’t seem to realize it. I kidded him you could get a sample bottle of the stuff before the management. This is it.” He tapped the parcel. “For the love of Mike, don’t drink it. It’ll raise callouses the size of tomatoes in you if you do.” He felt in his vest pocket and put a card on the table. “That’s his trade card. Now it’s up to you to take it from here.”

I picked up the card and stowed it away in my billfold.

“That’s just what I’m looking for. Thanks a lot. Well, if I’m going, I’d better go.”

“The hunk of beaten-up meat I’ll find outside the Ritz-Plaza with his brains beaten in will be you,” Greaves said soberly. “You insured?”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” I said, and picked up the parcel. “I’ve been in plenty of tough spots in my time.”

“But none tougher than this, brother,” Greaves said with feeling. “And don’t kid yourself that you have.”

II

There was a fat, elderly man guarding the goods entrance to the hotel. He gave me a sour look as I came into his vision.

“This right for the Musketeer Club?” I asked, coming to rest before him.

“Could be,” he said. “What’s it to you?”

I poked the trade card under his nose and let him browse over it.

“I have a date with the wine waiter. Big deal, pop. You’re holding up the wheels of commerce.”

He sneered at me, then jerked his thumb to the elevator.

“There’s the elevator. Right the way to the top.”

He went back to his day dreams. They couldn’t be anything to get excited about, but probably they amused him. I got into the elevator, pressed the button marked Musketeer Club and leaned against the wall while I was hauled up into the stratosphere. It took time. This was a goods elevator: there was nothing express about it. As I went up, I put my hand inside my coat and touched the butt of the .38 I had strapped on before leaving my hotel. The cold feel of the gun butt gave me a little comfort, but not much.

After what seemed an age, the elevator came to a stop and the doors slid back. My wristwatch showed me that it was exactly seven o’clock.

Facing me was a small lobby stacked with wooden cases and waiting, a cigarette hanging from his thin lips, was the character Greaves had told me about: Harry Bennauer. He was a pint-size hunk of humanity, wearing a white coat and black trousers. His face was something a headhunter from Borneo would have been proud to have added to his collection. The sunken eyes, the thin lips and the flared nostrils were arresting but scarcely beautiful.

I stepped out of the elevator and smiled at him.

“Let’s have the dough, bud,” he said, “and snap it up.”

I produced five five-dollar bills and offered them to him.

His face hardened.

“What’s this? Greaves said fifty.”

“Greaves also said you weren’t to be trusted, bud,” I said. “Half now, half later. I want to look this joint over. On my way out you collect the other half.”

“You go beyond that door and you’ll walk into trouble,” he said, putting the bills hurriedly into his hip pocket.

“You’re the boy who is going to keep me out of trouble,” I said. “What do you think you’re getting fifty bucks for? Is there anyone around out there?”

“Not right now, but they will be in about ten minutes. The boss is in his office.”

“Cordez?”

He nodded.

“The wine waiter here yet?”

“He’s in his office too.”

“Well, okay, you go ahead and I’ll follow you. If we run into trouble I’m here on business with the wine waiter. I’ve got a sample for him.”

Bennauer hesitated. I could see he didn’t like this set-up, but he wanted the other twenty-five bucks. I had an idea greed would win, and it did.

He went through the doorway. I gave him a few seconds start, then I went after him. We went down a passage to another door and into a vast cocktail lounge that was really something. It was the most elaborately equipped bar I have ever been in. There was seating for about three hundred people. The bar, shaped like the letter S, ran the length of two of the walls. The floor was made of black glass. Half the room had no roof and overhead I could see the stars. There was a terrace overlooking the sea and the ten—mile promenade. Banana and palm trees grew in enormous tubs. Flowering creepers covered the roof and the walls with a multitude of red, pink and orange blossoms.

I joined Bennauer by one of the palm trees.

“The offices are through there,” he said, pointing to a door behind the bar. “The restaurant is thataway. What else do you want to see?”

“I’d like a souvenir to take away,” I said. “Get me some of those match-folders you hand out to the boys and girls.”

He looked as me as if he thought I was crazy, but he went over to the bar, went behind it and produced a handful of the folders.

“This what you mean?”

I joined him. I took three from him, opened them and checked the back of the matches. There were no ciphers printed on them.

“This all you’ve got?”

“What do you mean? They’re match-folders, ain’t they? That’s what you asked for, isn’t it?”

“Is there any other type: the ones the boss gives away?”

“Look, Joe, cut it out, will you?” His face was beginning to grow shiny with sweat. “I’d lose my job if you were found in here. Take your goddamn matches and beat it.”