Strictly For Cash Part 12

aYou're not used to money, Johnny,a she went on, lying on the divan, her wrap open, showing me her legs. aI have plans for you. You're going to get your share, but not just yet. I'm keeping it for you; investing it. I know the markets, you don't. I'll have a fortune for you in a little while. Be patient.a Neither of us believed this nonsense, but there was nothing I could do about it.

aBesides, if you want anything, you know you have only to ask me for it,a she continued, smiling at me. aI want you to be happy, darling. You are happy, aren't you?a And I'd twist up my face into a grin, and say I was happy, and hate her with my mind, brain, soul and guts, and tell myself my time would come. It was just a matter of waiting for the right opportunity.

But she didn't have it entirely her own way. She found to her surprise that no one at the casino wanted a woman boss, and when I say no one, I mean not only the staff, but the millionaires and their wives, kids, girlfriends and hangers-on.

She started off by sitting in Reisner's office, ready to do business with the visitors, ready to tell the staff what to do and what not to do. She got a big bang out of sitting behind that desk, throwing her weight about and giving orders, but it didn't last long.

The first visitor she had was Gallway Harris Brown, the steel millionaire. He came bursting into the office like a runaway train: a short, fat, purple-faced bird with battle in his eyes and cuss words queueing up behind his lips.

I happened to be in the office at the time, admiring the view, while she was lording it at the desk.

She smiled at him as he came pounding in, but he took as much notice of her as he would the invisible woman. He burned a trail across the carpet towards me.

aHey! You, Ricca?a He had a voice like a sea captain. It pretty near shattered the windows.

I said I was Ricca.

aI've no hot water in my cabin this morning. What kind of dump are you running?a Still smiling, but her eyes snapping, Della came over. aPerhaps I can help you . . .a she began.

That's as far as she got. He jumped around and glared at her, cutting her off with a wave of his hand.

aListen, young woman, when I make a complaint I deal with men, understand? This guy's Ricca, isn't he? Well, then, you keep out of ii. I'm going to swear at him.a There was nothing for her to do but to take three graceful steps to the rear and try to look ornamental. She was smart enough not to argue with a thousand dollar profit a week. But in spite of her smile, she looked as if she been bitten by a snake a" a rattlesnake at that.

I smoothed him down and had his water fixed. I said if it ever happened again, he would have the whole of his stay with us on the house.

aThat's a bet, Mr. Brown,a I said. aNo hot water; no cheque. Right?a He snorted, stamped around, then finally grinned.

aThat means I'll get hot water.a aYou'll get hot water.a It seemed the way millionaires liked to be treated. He went around telling the story, and the other visitors came to me with their troubles.

aYou go to Ricca,a he said. aHe'll fix it. That guy's a smart crook.a And they did come to me. They stopped me in the corridors or on the terrace or in the bar, and I fixed things for them. When they went to the office and I wasn't there, they said they wanted me and would be back.

Louis didn't pull any punches, either.

aBetter let Mr. Ricca handle the staff, Mrs. Wertham,a he said. aIt works better that way. A man can handle this set-up better than a woman.a She was smart enough to see that the business would suffer if she continued to boss it, and she turned the office over to me.

aGo ahead, Johnny. You're in charge of the casino now. But don't get any big ideas. I'll keep the keys, and when you want money I'll open the safe.a She also kept control of Bay Street. They didn't know Paul was dead, and they were scared of her. She went over there three evenings a week to watch her interests, as she called it, and they needed watching. That suited me fine. While she was there, I was with Ginny.

It didn't take me long to find out I was in love with Ginny. After I had got over the scare of dumping Reisner, she was all I thought about. I knew it was the real thing. I knew I was gambling with my life even to think of her, but that didn't stop me. No other girls, Della had said, and that didn't stop me either.

A couple of days after I had first met her, I wrote to Ginny. I told her I was sorry about the way I had left her.

aI guess I must have sat in the sun too long,a I wrote, hoping she would believe me. aI was feeling terrible, and I didn't want to scare you. I've been in bed, but I'm fine now. I hope you'll forgive me, walking out on you like that. May I come and see you and apologize?a By the time she received the letter I had fixed up a three-room apartment on Franklin Boulevard, a quiet district in Lincoln Beach, and that's where I told her to write.

With a hundred dollars and all found I wasn't exactly broke, but I wasn't rolling it in. I did a little gambling now and then, playing on one of the crooked tables. The croupiers let me win, and every so often I picked up a couple of hundred bucks when I needed it most. But I didn't drive it into the ground. I was careful not to take too much off the house. I argued it was a good thing for the suckers to see the boss win now and then, and that was my story if someone tipped Della what was happening.

With my hundred bucks and the odd money I won I just about afforded the rent of the apartment and its running expenses.

I told Ginny I had been transferred from the Pittsburgh office of the insurance company I was working for, and had been given the job of starting an office in Lincoln Beach.

I made out I was working every hour of the day, trying to get things started, and she believed me. I hated lying to her, but there was no other way round it. I was in love with her. I wanted to marry her, but before I could do that I had to have money, and I had to have my freedom.

If Ginny hadn't had such a good job, it might have been easier. I felt I couldn't ask her to run off with me until I had enough money to take care of us both. I played it wrong. Knowing what I know now, she would have gone with me if I hadn't a cent. But you find out that kind of thing too late: anyway, I did.

Whenever Della went over to Bay Street, I'd skip into the Buick and beat it down to Franklin Boulevard. I'd call Ginny on the phone, and she'd either come over or I'd go over to her place. I heard a lot of music while I was with her, and when she was with me, we played chess. That's a game I had never played, and she taught me. Don't think I hadn't other ideas in my head when I was alone with her, besides listening to music or playing chess, but that's the way she wanted it to be, and that's the way it was.

Some evenings we went to Raul's. I figured we were safe there. It wasn't the kind of place Della would ever show up in, nor were we likely to run into anyone from the casino there.

I soon found out that Ginny was as much in love with me as I was with her. Her two weeksa stay at the beach cabin was coming to an end. That worried both of us.

aWhat shall we do, Johnny?a she asked. We were at the Franklin Boulevard apartment. aJust how soon do you think we can get married?a We had got that far in eleven days.

I had been beating my brains out on the same problem. I had two things to do before I could marry her. I had to get my hands on a large sum of money, and I had to find someplace where we could go where Della wouldn't think of looking for us.

When Della had dragged me into this set-up she had promised me a quarter of a million. aWord of honour,a she had said. I had carried out my part of the bargain, but she hadn't carried out hers. I now considered that quarter of a million was mine by right. If she wouldn't give it to me, I was going to take it. But before I could lay my hands on it I had to find out the combination of the safe, and that wasn't easy. There was half a million in cash in that safe, and it was a good one. Unless I found the combination I had no more chance of breaking into it than I had of swimming the Atlantic.

It was a problem, and I didn't know how to solve it. All I could hope for was to hang on and wait for a break. The other thing I had to do before I married Ginny wasn't anything like so difficult. I had that already doped out: where to go when the time came.

I figured I could lose myself in Cuba. The moment I got my hands on the money, I'd charter a plane, and Ginny and I would fly to Cuba. I reckoned we'd be safe there. Della wouldn't think to look for me in Cuba, and even if she did, and even if she found me, there was nothing she could do about it.

So when Ginny said, aJust how soon can we get married?a I had part of the answer ready for her.

I told her I thought in about six weeks.

aMy boss has told me if I make a success here,a I said, ahe's going to give me the manager's job at our branch in Havana. It'll be a fine job, Ginny. We'll have all the money we need. You won't have to work anymore. How do you like the idea of living in Cuba?a She said she didn't mind where she lived so long as I was with her.

Every now and then I got scared, wondering how I was going to make good on the lies I was telling her, but it was no good worrying about that. The things I had to worry about were getting the safe open and getting away from Della.

When I wasn't with Ginny I worked at the casino. I got a big bang out of running the place. Every morning I called a meeting with Della in the chair. I insisted that Louis, the head chef, the top croupier, the housekeeper and the wine steward should sit around the conference table. Della didn't like the idea, but she soon found I was right. We got ideas from these people. They had never been consulted before, and they liked being consulted, and they gave out ideas that meant more money in the kitty. I had ideas, too. I had a piece of ground cleared and had a helicopter landing-ground constructed. I fixed with a Miami airport for a taxi service of helicopters to fly a shuttle service from Miami to Lincoln Beach. If our people got bored with the casino they could hop over to Miami, and if the playboys and girls in Miami wanted a change, they could hop over to us.

I got that idea going in the first week, and it paid dividends.

Another idea I had was to hook up with the local television station and put the casino on the air. We had a good band and cabaret every evening, and I fixed it we had a nightly spot which I gave free in return for the publicity.

aI wouldn't have believed you had it in you, Johnny,a Della said one night. We were together in her cabin. She had just got back from Bay Street, and I had just beaten her by five minutes from Ginny's place. aThat television idea of yours is going fine.a aYeah, it is. How about a token of appreciation? How about that quarter of a million you promised me a" word of honour? I can invest it as well as you.a She gave me her silky smile. I knew it was a waste of time, but every so often I punched it home.

aHave patience, Johnny. You'll get it.a aWhen?a aCome here, darling.a That was the part I hated. Making love to her when she crooked her finger. But I had to do it. I had to keep her away from Ginny. So long as I made out I was crazy about her I figured I was safe. So I made out I was crazy about her.

There were nights when I slept in my own cabin, and it was then, when I lay alone in the darkness, that I thought about Reisner. Della had said I'd forget about him after a week, but I didn't. I kept thinking of him. I even dreamed about him; imagining him outside the cabin with his cut eye and smashed face, looking at me through the window.

I thought about Hame, too. He knew the set-up. I could tell that by the way he looked at me. He knew the lions hadn't killed Reisner, although he didn't say so in so many words.

aIt's a funny thing,a he said to me on the morning after they had found Reisner's body in the pit, abut that guy had been dead at least eight hours before those lions mauled him. Isn't that a funny thing?a I said it was.

We stood looking at each other for perhaps half a minute, then he turned and walked away.

I told Della.

aHe won't do anything, Johnny,a she said, completely unruffled. aIt's too late now. He won't do anything.a And he didn't.

But whenever I met him I knew he knew, and he knew I knew he knew. He was getting seven-fifty a week from us now, and I wondered how long it would be before he wanted more. That kind always wants more sooner or later. Luckily for us we had more to give. Even if we gave him twice that amount, it wouldn't hurt us. We were coining money, or rather she was. I knew she was making much more than she expected, because every now and then she'd give me an expensive present.

aConscience money, darling,a she said. aYou really are doing a job of work here.a A couple of weeks later Ginny moved out of the beach cabin. She was going to work at the store in Miami for a while, and then she was going to Key West to make sketches of the turtle crawls down there. She wasn't sure just when she would be going, but she promised to call me.

Well, that was the set-up nearly five weeks after Reisner had died. I was skating on thin ice, but up to now the ice wasn't even cracking. I was feeling pretty confident. I had got away with murder. I had out-smarted Della. I was in love with Ginny, and, more important, she was in love with me. On the face of it, it didn't look bad.

Then Ricca showed up from Los Angeles.

chapter twenty-six.

Della and I knew, sooner or later, Ricca would turn up, and we were ready for him. We had already had a cable, addressed to Reisner, from Levinsky, saying Wertham hadn't arrived in Paris. We guessed a similar cable had been sent to Ricca.

Hoping to gain a little more time, we had cabled back that Wertham had broken his journey and was in London. We signed the cable Reisner. We had expected Ricca would telephone from Los Angeles, but he didn't. He must have suspected something was wrong, for he came without warning.

I was alone in the office working out a new idea I had for the swimming-pool. I planned to sc.r.a.p the overhead lights and put in coloured lights in the floor of the bath. I reckoned that'd be a novelty, and Della agreed.

It was a half-hour after noon: a good time to work as the staff was busy preparing for the lunch rush, and the customers were busy in the bar.

I didn't hear him come in. I learned later he had a trick of moving around like a ghost. I looked up to find him standing a few feet away from me. He gave me quite a start. He wasn't anything like I had imagined him to be, but I guessed at once who he was.

I had formed a picture of him in my mind. I had imagined him to be big and tough the way I had imagined Reisner would be. But he was nothing like that. He was short and fat: like two rubber b.a.l.l.s; one on top of the other. He was pot-bellied and his legs were thick and short. His shoulders were nearly a yard wide. He wore his thinning black hair long and plastered to his head, spreading it out carefully, but there wasn't nearly enough of it to hide the dark skin that showed between the strands of hair like the trellis work of a fence. His face was round and fat and mottled with small veins that stamped him a drunk. He had snake's eyes, flat, glittering and as lifeless as gla.s.s. His lips were thick and set in a meaningless and perpetual smile.

aI'm Ricca,a he said. aWhere's Nick?a My foot touched a b.u.t.ton under my desk that connected up with a buzzer in Della's room. We had agreed only to use the buzzer as a signal that Ricca had arrived.

aIn a little urn on the shelf in the crematorium,a I said, and eased back my chair.

His expression did not change, nor did his smile go away. He put a pudgy hand on the back of a chair and pulled it towards him, then he lowered himself into it and puffed breath across the desk at me.

aYou mean he's dead?a I said I meant he was dead.

aThat's very interesting. And who are you?a I opened a desk drawer and took out a box of cigarettes. I left the drawer half open. I had a .45 Colt automatic lying in there. All I had to do was to dip into the drawer and grab it if there was trouble. We had Ricca's reception pretty well worked out.

aI'm the guy who's running this joint,a I said.

aThat's interesting, too. His snake's eyes went to the half-open drawer. From where he sat he couldn't see the gun, but that didn't mean he didn't know it was there. aAnd who put you in charge?a aI did,a Della said from the doorway.

aThat's also interesting,a he said without looking round. He kept his eyes on me. aWhere's Paul?a Della came around the desk and stood behind me, facing Ricca.

aHow are you, Jack?a she said. aIt's a long time no see. How's Los Angeles?a Ricca crossed his fat legs. He was careful to keep his hands folded across his belly. It began to dawn on me he was dangerous. His smile was as wide and as meaningless as before, and his expression hadn't changed. He couldn't have known Della was here. He had just learned Reisner was dead. But neither of these items had dented him.

aAnswering from left to right,a he said, his eyes still on me. aI'm fine. It sure is a long time no see. Los Angeles is fine. Where's Paul?a aHe's dead,a she told him.

His expression didn't change, nor did his smile shrink.

aAnd I always thought Lincoln Beach was a healthy town. Well, well, he had to die some time, I guess. What happened to him? Did he catch cold or was he helped off this earth?a aHe was killed in a car smash,a He raised his right hand slowly and examined his fingernails. aSo you got yourself a young man and took over the casino?a he said, as if he were speaking to himself.

aThat's just what I did,a Della said calmly. aAnd there's nothing you can do about it, Jack.a His smile widened.

aI always thought you were a smart girl, Della,a he said placidly. aAnyone else beside you two know he's dead?a aNo. It's better it should dawn on them slowly.a Ricca nodded his ball-like head.

aMuch better.a He pointed a short, fat finger at me. aAnd who's this?a aThat's Johnny. For convenience he's known here as Johnny Ricca.a Ricca continued to smile. He nodded to me.

aThat's very smart. Of course Nick was under the impression this young man was me.a We didn't say anything.

aYou're a smart guy to get yourself on board this gravy train,a he went on.

aAnd I'm smart enough to keep other people off it,a I said. Even then his smile didn't fade.

Della sat on the edge of the desk. She lit a cigarette.

aLook, Jack. Let's put our cards on the table,a she said. aPaul's dead. That leaves you, Levinsky, Johnny and me. Levinsky has the Paris set-up. You have Los Angeles. We have Lincoln Beach. There's no reason why any of us should get in each other's way. It's a natural carve-up. What do you say?a aI think you've worked it out pretty well,a Ricca said. aAre you sure this guy can handle the job?a I edged my hand towards the drawer. This could be the curtain-raiser to trouble.

aI'm sure of that, Jack. He has a flair for the job. He's like Paul.a That startled me, because she sounded as if she meant it. Ricca nodded, his eyes on my hand.

aI guess that fixes it, then. I'm not complaining. I like smart people, and I guess you two are pretty smart.a Della relaxed a little, but I didn't.

aMind if I stick around for a couple of days?a Ricca went on. aI'd like to look the joint over.a aWhy, sure, Jack, we'd love to have you,a Della said, before I could chip in. aCome on outside and have a drink. Coming, Johnny?a aRight now I'm busy,a I said. aSuppose we get together for lunch around half-past one?a aRight.a Ricca got to his feet. Before I could shut the drawer he leaned forward and peered in.

aSmart fella,a he said, beaming on me. aI like a guy who knows how to take care of himself. Be seeing you.a He held the door open for Della. I sat still watching him. It wasn't until he had shut the door that I slammed the drawer to. I found I was sweating a little, and my heart was beating faster than normal.

I trusted that guy like I'd trust a tiger. He was too smooth. That stuff about having no complaint was so much eye-wash. No one, especially his kind, was going to be gypped out of a joint like this without some come-back.

I sat thinking for some minutes, then I got up and went over to the window. From there I could see part of the terrace. They were out there. He was still smiling, but he was talking, too. He was talking fast and waving his fat hands, and Della was listening; her eyes on his face and her expression tense. I wondered what they were talking about.

Around half-past one I went into the restaurant. Most times I had meals in the office, otherwise as soon as I was seen I was pestered. It was surprising the number of people who wanted to buy me a drink or to yap about their winnings or groan about their losses.

Della and Ricca were already at a table in a corner, away from the rest of the tables. Louis was taking their orders himself. I sat down.

aThis helicopter idea of yours is terrific,a Ricca said, when Louis had taken my order and had gone. aI guess I'll try it in Los Angeles. I might hook up with San Francisco.a Della smiled at me possessively.

aI told you, Jack, he's a clever boy, and they like him here, too.a aI had a look at that lion pit,a Ricca went on. aDella told me what happened to Nick. I guess you don't feed those cats yourself, do you?a I matched his grin.

aI'm too smart,a I said. aOne accident's enough.a aYeah. Had he been dipping into the reserve like Paul thought?a aA little; not much,a Della said.

aThat's a big reserve. That's twice the amount I carry.a There was a moment's silence.

aWe need every nickel of it,a Della said, her voice hard. He looked at her, then at me.

aIt crossed my mind you might feel inclined to transfer say a quarter of it to Los Angeles. Just an idea, mind you. Paul was always switching lumps of his reserve. It was a smart move. He kept everyone satisfied.a I put down my knife and fork. I suddenly wasn't hungry anymore. But Della went right on eating as if she hadn't heard.

Just for a moment the smile slipped, and I saw behind the fat, rubber-like mask, and what I saw I didn't like.

aOf course it's up to you,a he said, smiling again.