took a creaking elevator to the fourth floor and walked down a corridor to a door on which
the numbers 247c were picked out in white paint against a glossy apple-green background.
I leaned against the bell-push. She had the door open before I could really get any weight
into it: a blonde, slim lovely, with arched eyebrows that weren’t her own, a figure you only
see in Esquire and an invitation in her eyes.
“You must have moved,” she said. “Come on in.”
She was wearing one of those house-coat things. The way it set off her figure was nobody’s
business.
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We went into a small room that was cluttered up with a settee, two armchairs, a radio and a
table. You couldn’t have swung even a Manx cat in it. She sat on the settee and I sat beside
her.
We looked at each other. I had an idea she wasn’t going to be difficult to handle.
“Have you found another job yet?” I asked.
“No. Want to give me one?” She crossed her legs, showing me a knee that might have
interested me before I met Ginny, but which I scarcely looked at now.
“I want the combination of the safe in Reisner’s office. Louis said you knew it. That’s why
I’m here.”
“Well, you certainly don’t believe in wasting time,” she said, and smiled. “What makes you
think I’ll give it to you?”
“I’m just hoping. You don’t seem surprised.”
She leaned forward and dug a long finger into my chest.
“I’m surprised you haven’t been before. I was expecting you, handsome. Your type doesn’t
sit in a room all day with a safe full of money without getting ideas. What do you intend to do
- skin her?”
“She promised me a little dough, but she’s changed her mind. I’m pulling out and I’m
hoping to take what she owes me.”
“What makes you think I’ll help you?”
“I have no reason to think you will, but there’s no harm in trying.”
She leaned closer.
“Don’t be so stand-offish. I could be persuaded. I was always a sucker for muscular men.”
I kissed her. It was like getting snarled up in a meat-mincer.
After a while she pushed me away and drew in a deep breath.
“Hmmm, not bad. With a little tuition and patience you could be good.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, wiped the lipstick off my mouth and took a sly look at the
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clock on the overmantel. It showed five minutes after five.
“I don’t want to hurry this, but I’ll have to,” I said.
“Do you think you’ll get away with it?” She had opened a powder compact and was
restoring her face.
“I’ll have a try.”
“What are you going to do? Walk out with a bundle of money under your arm? The guards
will love it.”
“I’ll take it out in a suitcase in my car.”
“About as safe as jumping out of this window.”
“Now wait a minute. Let’s get this straight. Where do you come in on this deal? What’s
your cut to be?”
She laughed.
“Do I look all that crazy? I wouldn’t touch a dollar of it. You may not think it, but I don’t
take money that doesn’t belong to me. I have other faults, but that’s not one of them. I’m
going to give you the combination because I’d like that black-haired, snooty little bitch to be
well and properly gypped. I hated Reisner, and I hate her. It’s my way of getting even for all
I’ve put up with from both of them. Go ahead, Mr. Ricca, help yourself. The more you take
the better I’ll like it.”
I looked at her-She wasn’t fooling.
“Okay, let’s have it.”
She reached over, opened a drawer in the table near by and gave me a slip of paper.
“It’s been waiting there ever since I first saw you. I knew sooner or later you’d want it.”
I looked at the row of figures, my heart banging against my ribs. Talk about a break! I
could scarcely believe it.
“Well, thanks,” I said, and got to my feet.
“Going after it now?”
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“Right now.”
“Still going to take it out in your car?”
“Any better ideas ?”
She leaned against me.
“You’re learning, handsome. There’s only one way to get that money out and be sure of it.
Perhaps you don’t know this, but at six every evening the railroad truck calls for luggage or
empty crates, or whatever’s going by rail. There’s always something. Pack the money in a
suitcase, address it to yourself at any station to be called for. The man will give you a receipt.
You’ll find him loading up at the luggage entrance. He handles the stuff himself. There’s
seldom anyone there. It’s the only way, handsome. The guards don’t check his stuff, and
when you go, you’ll go empty-handed.”
I patted her on the shoulder.
“You’re more than smarts you’re brilliant,” I said. “That’s a whale of an idea.”
She leaned more heavily against me.
“Show a little appreciation.”
It took me ten precious minutes to untangle myself from her clutches, a quarter of an hour
to buy a black pigskin suitcase with good locks, five minutes to buy a coil of thin rope and a
big meat hook, and ten minutes to get back to the casino.
As I drove in I asked the green-eyed guard if he had seen Mrs. Wertham.
“Not in yet,” he growled.
I drove fast around to the back of the casino. Twenty feet above me was my office window,
overlooking a walled-in garden that was reserved for the management, and no one else. I set
the suitcase down immediately below the window, ran back to the car and drove around to the
front entrance.
I went up the steps to the terrace three at a time. People said hello, and tried to stop me, but
I grinned at them and kept on.
When Della checked up on me she would learn I hadn’t come in with a suitcase, only a
small brown-paper parcel that contained the rope and the hook.
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I got to my office, locked the door, opened the window and dropped the hook, attached to
the rope, down on to the suitcase. I snagged it the first throw. I hauled it up, then went over to
the safe. With the combination in my hand I turned the tumblers. I was working against time.
The desk clock showed five minutes to six.
I came to the last number, turned to it and felt the tumbler fall into position. Holding my
breath, I tugged at the handle of the safe. The door swung open.
I sat back on my heels and feasted my eyes on the contents. On two shelves were neat
packages of one-hundred dollar bills: stacks and stacks and stacks of them.
I pulled the suitcase closer, opened it and began to pack the bundles in. Two hundred and
fifty of them filled the case: it was the most awe-inspiring sight I’d ever set eyes on. There
were still another two hundred and fifty bundles left on the shelves. But they didn’t belong to
me. I left them right where they were. Before I slammed the suitcase shut I took three one-hundred dollar bills out of one package, folded them small and wedged them down the side of
my shoe. Then I snapped the locks, turned the keys and put them in my pocket. I shut the safe
door and gave the knob of the lock a couple of turns. Then I dusted the safe with my
handkerchief and stood up.
I was panting with excitement and my collar was a wet rag. The hands of the clock showed
six.
I took the suitcase to the window, leaned out and dropped it. Then I hooked the hook to the
window-sill and slid down the rope. When I reached the ground I jerked the hook free, coiled
the rope and hid it under a shrub. I picked up the suitcase and bolted across the lawn.
The trucker was just through loading up by the time I got there. He had signed off and was
getting into his cab. There was no one else around.