can’t you?”
She was right, of course, but I didn’t like it. Sooner or later the story would get back to
Pelotta, and Tom and Alice Roche would hear I had not only clubbed the driver, but had
stolen the car. Even if they had to think I was dead, I didn’t like the idea of them thinking I’d
turned thug.
“Listen, Johnny,” she said, coming to sit on the bed by my side, “in a little while Reisner
will be here. You’ve got to watch your step. He’s no fool. Don’t let him question you. I’ll do
the talking. So far as he’s concerned you’re suffering from concussion, and you’re not fit to
answer questions.”
I nodded.
“The one thing he’s going to find suspicious is why I’m with you,” she went on. “He’ll
wonder why Paul let me come with you from Los Angeles. He’ll probably phone the casino
and try and contact Paul. All they’ll be able to tell him is Paul’s on his way to Paris, and
Ricca on his way to Lincoln Beach, and that’s what we want him to know. If Reisner gets too
suspicious he may try to contact Levinsky in Paris. But Levinsky can’t tell him anything until
the boat Paul was supposed to be on docks. That gives us four days to swing the job, Johnny.”
“You said it would be easy.”
“It is easy. Don’t let Reisner jump anything on you. Leave the talking to me.”
She got up to look out of the window to see if there was any sign of Harkness. I looked at
her slim, square-shouldered back, and a stab of desire went through me. There was something
about her as she stood at the window that would have brought out the primitive in any man.
Uneasily I shifted my eyes away from her and felt in my pockets for a cigarette. In the hip
pocket I found a gold cigarette-case. It was then I remembered I was wearing Wertham’s
clothes, and that gave me the creeps. I lit a cigarette and pushed the case into my hip pocket
again.
97
She came back to the bed.
“Better not smoke, Johnny,” she said. “You’re supposed to be pretty bad.” She leaned
forward and took the cigarette and put it between her lips. I looked up at her, my mouth going
dry. I had to fight against the urge to grab her and pull her down beside me.
She must have realized the way I was feeling, for she stepped away from me, her face
hardening.
“Get your mind on what I’m going to tell you,” she said. “You’ve got to know something
about Paul, how he lived, the things he liked. It’s so easy to be tripped up on the small
things.”
I got a grip on myself. It wasn’t easy, but I did it.
“Go ahead,” I said huskily.
She told me where Wertham lived in Los Angeles, his telephone number, the kind of car he
drove and a lot of details about his personal life. In a very short time she had given me a heap
of facts that only a man who had lived with Wertham and worked with him could have
known.
She went on to tell me about the casino, what it looked like, the kind of tables used, the
number of croupiers employed, the amount of profit made in an evening, how much the
various members of the staff were paid, how many crooked tables there were and how they
operated. Then she switched to Jack Ricca, and gave me his background. He had joined
Wertham’s organization about a year ago. No one knew much about him. It was rumoured he
used to run a night-club in New York, but he had neither admitted nor denied it. He was a
man who said little about himself.
“Every so often he goes on a drinking jag,” Della concluded, “and it’s my bet he’s in some
sanatorium, tapering off.”
“You mean Wertham employed a drunk like that?”
“He’s sober ten months of the year. Paul said he has one of the sharpest brains in the
business. Since Ricca took over the casino they’ve trebled the take.”
“Well, you’ve told me about Wertham and Ricca,” I said, looking at her, “how about telling
me something about yourself?”
“Are you getting interested in me, Johnny?” she asked.
98
That was the wrong word, but I didn’t tell her. Without any warning, and apparently
because I had seen her at a different angle, she had suddenly touched off my blood: I was on
fire for her.
“Call it that if you like,” I said. “If we’re going to work together, shouldn’t I know
something about you?”
She gave me a jeering little smile that told me I wasn’t fooling her for a moment.
“I met Paul two years ago when I was trying to break into the movies. I was down to my
last dollar when he showed up. As a man he meant nothing to me. He was selfish, arrogant
and cruel, but he had money and he threw it around. He fell for me, and I played hard to get.
He spent hundreds on me, took me everywhere, but I was angling for marriage. Finally he got
so worked up he said he would marry me.” Her full, scarlet lips parted in a bitter smile. “He
had me for a sucker. The ceremony was phoney. He had a wife already, but I only found that
out after eighteen months of living with him. He promised to divorce her, and he did. The
divorce comes through next month, but it’s a little late. All his personal money goes to his
wife. I get nothing. I’ve lived pretty well these past two years, and I’m not going back to the
old racket again. That’s why I’m going ahead with this set-up, Johnny, and no one’s going to
stop me.”
She was still talking when we heard the door latch click up. I only just had time to flop
back on the bed and close my eyes before Jud Harkness came in.
“Did you get through?” Della asked him.
“Yeah, and he’s coming right away,” Harkness said.
There was a note in his voice I didn’t like, and I peered at him from between my eyelashes.
He was looking towards me.
“Hasn’t he come around yet?” he asked.
“I think he’s sleeping,” Della said. “He seems to be breathing more evenly.”
There was a long, uneasy silence, then Harkness said, “The party reckoned it’d take rum an
hour to get here. If it’s all the same to you I’ll turn in. I’ve got to make an early start in the
morning.”
“Why, of course. We won’t disturb you. I’m very grateful for what you’ve done.”
“That’s okay. Sure there’s nothing you want?”
99
“I have everything.” She stood up. “Don’t bother to get up when Mr. Reisner comes.” She
paused, then went on, “I’d like you to accept …”
“It ain’t necessary.” His voice sharpened.
“Oh, but you must.” I watched her open her bag. She took out a hundred-dollar bill and put
it on the table. “Can I rely on you to say nothing about this hold-up, Mr. Harkness? If anyone
should ask you … It’s a personal matter.”
He hesitated, then picked up the bill.
“Well, thanks. I don’t talk about what doesn’t concern me.”
He went into the far room and closed the door.
I lifted my head.
Della pointed to the uncurtained window.
“I think he was watching us,” she whispered.
I thought so, too.
IV
From the little Della had told me about Nick Reisner, I had imagined him to be one of those
brutal-looking characters you see after dark in Chicago’s Loop who pack a gun and a set of
brass knuckles and loll up against a wall, waiting for trouble.
But he wasn’t like that at all.
He was tall and thin and stiffly upright. Although only around thirty-eight, his hair was
chalk white and thick, taken straight back off a forehead any professor would have been
proud to own. His nose was hooked and his nostrils flared back, giving him the look of a
hawk. He got his menace from his thin, sadistic mouth and the cold, remote expression in his