Well Now, My Pretty.
James Hadley Chase.
1967.
chapter one.
One of the major attractions of Paradise City was the Aquarium. He had asked her to meet him by the Dolphin pool at four thirty p.m. and she thought it was a pretty crummy place for a rendezvous. She hated mixing with the tourists who made Paradise City at this time completely unbearable.
During the third week of February when it was hot, but not too hot, it was the fashionable time for the Texans, the New Yorkers, as well as the South Americans, to come in a never-ending stream of overpoweringly rich vulgarity. Between the hours of four and five, after the siesta, and when there was nothing much to do until the casino opened, crowds of tourists visited the cool, dimly lit caves that housed the most spectacular aquarium in the world.
She moved through the crowds, her green eyes restless and uneasy, her small body shrinking a little inside her simple cotton frock, as she made contact with the fat and the old, the raddled and the wrinkled who screamed, yelled, pushed and jostled to gape at the tropical fish that gaped back at them with equal incredulity.
Could she ever hope to find him here? she wondered, suddenly angry that he should have suggested such a meeting place. She felt hot fingers cup one of her b.u.t.tocks and squeeze. She jerked forward, not looking over her shoulder. This was something she had grown accustomed to. The old and the too rich were p.r.o.ne to bottom pinching. She had long ceased to care. It was a hazard she accepted in return for a neat, well-proportioned body and an attractive face . . . you can"t have it both ways, she had often told herself. You were either plain and non-s.e.xy or you had bruises. She preferred the bruises.
She made her way towards the Dolphin pool, aware that her heart was thumping, aware too of a sick feeling of fear. As she walked, her eyes anxiously scanned every face that appeared out of the dim light, praying she would meet no one she knew or who knew who she was. But as the milling noisy crowd surrounded her, pushing, laughing and yelling at each other, she began to realise that his choice of a meeting place was clever. None of her friends, no one from the Casino, would dream of coming here to be jostled by this sweating, vulgar crowd of tourists, anxious only to kill an hour or so.
She edged her way into the big cave that housed the dolphins. Here, the crowd was dense. She could hear the big creatures splashing in the water as they dived for fish thrown to them. There was a dank smell in the cave, mixed with the smell of expensive perfume and body sweat; the noise of the crowd as it enjoyed itself, beat against her eardrums, making her cringe.
Then she saw him.
He came out of the crowd with his gentle smile, his white panama hat in his hand, his tropical cream-coloured suit immaculate, a blood-red carnation in his b.u.t.tonhole. He was small and slightly built: a man in his early sixties, with a lean brown face, grey eyes and a thin mouth that was constantly smiling. His thinning blond hair was white at the temples and his nose was the beak of a hawk: a man she now distrusted, who was learning to fear, but who attracted her with the pull of an electro-magnet to steel.
"Well now, my pretty . . ." he said, pausing before her. "So we meet again."
His voice was soft, but clear. She had never had any difficulty in hearing what he said no matter where they had met, even against the noisiest of backgrounds. This was always his greeting, "Well now, my pretty . . ." She knew it was as insincere as an alcoholic"s promise but, like the bottom pinching, she had ceased to care.
When they had first met, he had told her his name was Franklin Ludovick. He had been born in Prague, and was a freelance journalist. He had come to Paradise City to write an important profile on the Casino. This was not surprising. Many journalists had come to write about the Casino. It was the top glamour spot of Florida. At this period of the high season, a million dollars could, every night, cross the green-baized tables, more often the croupiers" way than the punters . . . but who cared?
Ludovick had approached her one afternoon while she was sun bathing on the beach. His harmless, kindly manner, his deference to her youth and his smile captivated her. He had explained that he knew she worked at the Casino. He gave her an embossed card, bearing his name with the magic New Yorker magazine added as his address and his reference. He explained that he was looking for inside information about the Casino. He sat at her feet on the soft sand, his panama hat resting almost on the bridge of his beaky nose as he talked. He told her he had had an interview with Harry Lewis, the manager of the Casino. His face screwed up in a comical grimace of despair. What a man! How secretive! If he had to rely on Harry Lewis"s information, he would never produce anything to satisfy the New Yorker"s tremendously high standards. He felt he could approach her. She worked in the Casino"s vault with a number of other girls. This, he had found out. He looked up at her, his grey eyes mischievous. Well then, my pretty . . . how often had she heard him use this phrase that she had come to fear and to distrust? Suppose you tell me what I want to know and I, in my turn, will pay you for the information? What shall we say? The New Yorker is a rich magazine. Five hundred dollars? How about five hundred dollars?
She had caught her breath. Five hundred dollars! She was hoping desperately to get married. Terry, her boyfriend, was still a student. They had both agreed that if they could only raise five hundred dollars, they could take a chance and get married, and at least have a one-room walk-up . . . but how to get five hundred dollars? And here, now, was this harmless little man actually offering her just this sum to tell him the secrets of the Casino.
She was about to say an immediate yes when she remembered that warning clause in her contract a" a contract that everyone working for the Casino had to sign. No member of the staff should ever talk about the Casino"s affairs. The penalty was instant dismissal and possible prosecution.
Seeing her hesitate, Ludovick had said, "I know what you have signed, but you need not be afraid. Think it over. No one will ever know who gave me the information. After all, five hundred dollars is a useful sum. There could be more . . ."
He had got to his feet, smiled at her and walked away, swinging his panama hat, stepping around the large, overfed carca.s.ses of the rich, laid out to broil in the sun with their knotted veins, their hammer toes and their glistening fat.
That evening, when she had had time to think over his suggestion, he had called her on the telephone.
"I have spoken to the Editor. He is quite willing to pay a thousand. I am so pleased. I thought he might be difficult. Now, my pretty, can you help me for one thousand dollars?"
So, with a sick feeling of guilt and of fear of being discovered, she had helped him. He had given her five hundred dollars. The other five hundred would come, he explained with his fatherly smile, when she had given him all the necessary information. And as he probed, his questions becoming more and more disturbing, she had come to realise that he might not be after all a journalist. He might be a man planning to rob the Casino. Why so much interest in the number of guards, the amount of money that went into the vault each night and the security system . . . surely this was the kind of information that a man planning to rob the Casino, would need? Then this final request: the need for the blueprints of the Casino"s electrical system. He had asked her for this three afternoons ago while they sat in his shabby Buick coupe on a lonely beach on the outskirts of Paradise City. At this request, she had rebelled.
"Oh, no! I can"t give you that! You couldn"t possibly want that for an article! I don"t understand. I"m beginning to think . . ."
He had smiled a little crookedly, and his dry, clawlike hand had dropped gently on hers, making her draw away and shiver.
"Don"t think, my pretty," he said. "I need the blueprints. Don"t let us argue about it. My magazine is willing to pay. Shall we say another one thousand dollars?" He drew an envelope from his pocket, "And here is the second five hundred I owe you . . . you see? And now you will have yet another one thousand dollars."
As she took the envelope, crushing it into her bag, she knew this man was really dangerous, that, in spite of his appearance, he was planning a robbery and he was using her to make an impossible robbery possible. If she had another one thousand dollars she wouldn"t have to bother to get to the Casino every evening at seven and remain in the vault until three in the morning ever again. She would be free to marry Terry. Her whole drab life would be completely changed.
She abruptly decided if this little man was really planning to rob the Casino, she didn"t want to know about it. But she did want another one thousand dollars. She hesitated for perhaps seventy seconds, then she nodded.
But it wasn"t easy. Finally, she did manage to get the blueprint he needed. This was only because she had access to the general office files when she happened to work there during the day for the extra money. This smiling little man had shown his brilliance when he had chosen her to help him. But this man, whose real name was Serge Maisky, was as cunning and as dangerous as a snake. He had come to Paradise City ten months ago. He had watched and inquired discreetly about the four girls who worked in the Casino"s vault. He had finally decided to concentrate on this attractive little blonde whose name was Lana Evans. His selection proved that his instinct and judgement were faultless. Lana Evans was to give him the key to the biggest and most spectacular Casino robbery in the history of all Casino robberies.
So now, here they were, face to face, surrounded by a milling crowd of tourists in the dim-lighted Aquarium that housed, among many fish, performing dolphins. He smiled at her, taking her hand in his dry claw and leading her away from the mob to the comparative quietness of a tank that contained a bored, sad-looking octopus.
"Were you successful?"
His smile was as immaculate as his clothes, but Lana Evans could sense his desperate anxiety, and this anxiety made her frightened.
She nodded.
"Splendid." His anxiety turned off like the change from red to green of a traffic light. "I have the money . . . all of it. One thousand beautiful dollars." The grey eyes swept past her, examining the faces of the tourists near them. "Give it to me."
"The money first," Lana Evans said breathlessly. She was very frightened and the dank atmosphere of the cave made her feel faint.
"Of course." He took a fat envelope from his hip pocket. "It is all here. Don"t count it now, my pretty. People will see you. Where are the blueprints?"
Her fingers closed over the envelope, feeling the crinkling of the bills, out of sight, but now in her grasp. For a brief moment she wondered if he were cheating her, but decided to take the risk. There seemed a lot of money in the envelope. She wanted to get this dangerous transaction finished quickly. She gave him the blueprint, several pages of complicated electrical wiring that covered all the fuse boxes of the Casino"s lighting circuit, the air-conditioning system and the many burglar alarms. He took a very quick look at the pages, half turning, sharing his inspection with the octopus that moved away, taking shelter behind a rock.
"There . . ." He put her betrayal into his hip pocket. "Now we have completed a very happy transaction." He smiled, his slate-grey eyes suddenly remote as b.u.t.tons of dirty snow. "Oh . . . one more thing . . ."
"No!" Her voice sharpened. "Nothing more! I don"t care . . ."
"Please." He raised his hand, placating, soothing. "I"m not asking for anything more. I am very satisfied. You have been so cooperative, so pleasant to work with, so reliable . . . may I make my own personal contribution . . . a modest, trifling gift?" From his pocket, he took a small square packet, neatly tied with red and gold ribbon with a gold label bearing the magic name Diana. "Please accept this . . . a pretty girl like you should take care of her hands."
She took the packet, startled by this unexpected kindness. Diana hand cream was created and manufactured only for the very rich. Holding the packet in her hand, she felt even richer than he had made her feel when he had given her the envelope.
"Why . . . oh, thanks . . ."
"Thank you, my pretty . . . goodbye."
He melted into the crowd like a small, kindly ghost: one moment he was smiling at her, the next he was gone. He disappeared so quickly, it was hard to believe he had ever been standing before her. A large, red-faced man wearing a yellow and blue flowered shirt appeared before her, grinning.
"I"m Thompson from Minneapolis," he said in a loud, booming voice. "Have you seen those G.o.ddam dolphins? Never seen anything like them in my life!"
She stared blankly at him and edged away, then, when she was sure she was out of reach of his hands, she turned and made her way quietly towards the exit, clutching on to the small box of hand cream in which lay her death.
They came to Paradise City, separately, stealthily, like cautious rats coming out into the sunlight.
At this period of the high season, a constant police watch was kept on the airport and the railroad station. There were also police checkpoints outside the City on the three major highways. Police officers with photographic memories waited at the various barriers, their hard, cop eyes staring searchingly at each pa.s.senger coming through the checkpoints. Every now and then a hand would be raised and a pa.s.senger stopped. He or she would be whisked out of the slowly moving line of pa.s.sengers and taken aside.
The dialogue was always the same: "h.e.l.lo, Jack [or Charlie or Lulu] . . . got a return ticket? Better use it: you"re not wanted here."
The same form of dialogue was used at the highway checkpoints and cars were manoeuvred out of the queue and sent back towards Miami.
This police surveillance prevented hundreds of big and small criminals from operating in the City, saving the rich from being fleeced.
So the four men who had come in answer to an intriguing summons and who had been warned of the police cordon came separately and with care.
Jess Chandler, because he had no police record, came by air. This tall, handsome, debonair looking man walked without hesitation towards the police barrier, confident that his false pa.s.sport and his glibly constructed background of a wealthy coffee grower with estates in Brazil would satisfy the police scrutiny.
At the age of thirty-nine, Chandler was now recognised by the underworld as one of the slickest and smartest con men in the racket. He traded on his movie-star appearance. His lean brown face, his short nose and full lips, his high cheekbones and his large, dark eyes gave him a sensual, swashbuckling look of a confident womaniser, and some of the women, looking at him, knew this, feeling a pang of desire as they moved with him in the long queue towards the heat and the sunshine that waited for them outside the airport building.
The two waiting police officers regarded him. Chandler stared back at them, his eyes bored, his expression slightly contemptuous. He showed no fear and fear was what the officers were looking for. After only a brief glance at his pa.s.sport, they waved him through to the waiting line of taxis.
Chandler hefted his handbag from one hand to the other and grinned. He knew it would be easy . . . it had been easy.
Mish Collins had to be much more careful. He had only been out of jail for two months and every cop house had his photograph. It had taken him some hours to make up his mind how best he could get past the police cordon without being asked awkward questions. Finally, he had joined a sightseeing tour that left Miami for a tour of the Everglades and then finally a night at Paradise City, before returning to Miami. In the packed coach, loaded with noisy, happy, slightly drunk tourists, he felt comparatively safe. He had brought his harmonica with him. Ten minutes before reaching the police check point, he had begun to play to the delight of his companions. The instrument, cupped in his huge, fleshy hands, completely shielded his face. He had picked a seat with three other big fleshy men at the back of the coach and the police officer who climbed into the coach merely glanced at him, then concentrated on the other sweating, bovine faces that all grinned back at him.
In this way, Mish Collins arrived safely in Paradise City, a man who the police would have immediately turned back had he been recognised, for Mish Collins was not only one of the top safe blowers in the country, but had also earned a reputation that made many burglar alarm manufacturers quail with apprehension.
Mish Collins was forty-one years of age. He had spent fifteen years of his life in and out of jail. He was ma.s.sively built, fat, with a lumpy muscular body of great strength. His red hair was beginning to thin and there were lines of hard living, deeply etched on his coa.r.s.e, rubbery face. His small, restless eyes had a c.o.c.ky, cheerful light of cunning that somehow made the unwary take to him.
When the bus pulled into the bus station, he drew the Courier aside and told him he wouldn"t be taking the return journey.
"I"ve remembered I have a buddy here," he explained. "You cash in my return ticket and keep the change for yourself. You certainly have earned it," and before the courier could even thank him, Mish had disappeared into the swirling crowd.
Jack Perry came in his own Oldsmobile Cutla.s.s convertible, now a little shabby, but still a nice looking car. He was aware that the fingerprint department at Washington had one of his fingerprints; only one, the right forefinger, and this was the only mistake he had ever made during a long life of crime, a secret he kept to himself like a man nursing a cancer. At least, they had no photograph of him so he approached the police check point satisfied that the two bulls checking the cars would have no idea they were about to encounter a professional killer.
For the past twenty-seven years, Perry had earned a living by hiring out his gun. He was an expert shot, utterly amoral, and human life to him meant as little as something he might have stepped in on the sidewalk. But he was a free spender and was always short of money: women played a major role in his life . . . and when there were women, you spent money.
He was around sixty-two years of age: a short, heavily built man with close-cut, mow-white hair, a round fattish face, wide-s.p.a.ced eyes under bushy white eyebrows, a thin mouth and a mall hooked nose. He dressed conservatively. Now, he was wearing a slate-grey tropical suit, a blood-red tie and a cream-coloured panama hat. He was always smiling, a grimace more than a smile, and if he had had any friends he would have been nicknamed "Smiley", but he had no friends. He was a solitary, ruthless killer without a soul, and with no feeling for anyone, not even himself.
He drew up behind the car in front of him and waited while the two police officers checked the papers of the pa.s.sengers. Then, when they waved the car on, Perry let the Cutla.s.s creep up to the waiting men.
He regarded them with his fixed grin.
"Hi, fellas," he said, waving a fat hand. "Have I done something wrong?"
Patrol Officer Fred O"Toole had been on duty now for the past four hours. He was a big, dark Irishman with alert, bleak eyes. He was sick to death of all the people who had crawled past his checkpoint in their luxury cars with their corny jokes, their servile smiles, their contempt and often their arrogance. They were all heading for a good time: gambling, the best food, the best hotels, the best wh.o.r.es while he stood with burning feet in the hot evening sun waving them through, knowing as soon as they were out of his hearing, they would make some derogatory remark about this G.o.ddam Mick sonofab.i.t.c.h.
O"Toole took an immediate dislike to this fat, elderly, grinning man. He had no real reason for this dislike, but the grin, the empty washed-out blue eyes made his hackles rise.
"Got a pa.s.sport?" he snapped, resting his gloved hand on the car"s window frame and glaring down at Perry.
"What do I want a pa.s.sport for?" Perry said. "I"ve got a licence . . . that do?"
O"Toole held out his hand.
Perry gave him the licence that had cost him four hundred dollars: an expensive little item, but worth it. The right forefinger print had been most skilfully altered, and such alterations cost money.
"What"s your business here?"
"Plenty of eating, plenty of gambling and plenty of girls,"
Perry said and laughed. "I"m on vacation, buddy . . . and boy! am I going to have me a vacation!"
O"Toole continued to glare at him, but he handed back the licence. Jackson, the other patrol officer, looking at the big holdup O"Toole was causing by his questions, said testily, "Aw, for Pete"s sake, Fred, there"s a mile of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds still waiting."
O"Toole stepped back and waved Perry on. Perry"s grin widened, his foot squeezed down on the gas pedal, and the Cutla.s.s gathered speed.
Well, he had made it, he thought, as he snapped on the radio. He had fooled those two jerks and now . . . Paradise City, here I come!
Washington Smith had to be much more careful how he arrived in the City. Negroes weren"t encouraged anyway even if they were respectable, and Washington Smith was now far from being respectable. He had been out of jail for two weeks. His crime was. .h.i.tting two police officers who had cornered him and were about to put the boot in. He had been stupid enough to have taken part in a freedom-to-vote march. The march had been ruthlessly broken up, the marchers scattered and because Wash a" as his friends called him a" was a little guy, two big cops had chased him up a cul-de-sac and had got set to have themselves a ball. But Wash happened to be a welterweight contender for the Golden Gloves. Instead of meekly accepting the beating, he flattened both officers with two beautiful left hooks to their jaws. Then he had run, but not far. A bullet in his leg brought him down, and a club descending on his head knocked him unconscious. He drew eight months for resisting arrest and he had come out of jail savage and determined that from now on he would be an enemy of the Whites.
When he received the summons to Paradise City, he had hesitated. Could this be a trap? he had asked himself. The message was brief.
A very profitable job is waiting to be done. Mish recommends you. Be at The Black Crab Restaurant at 22.00 hrs on 20th February if you are INTERESTED IN MAKING A VERY LARGE SUM OF MONEY. The enclosed is for your travelling expenses. Police watch all entrances to the City. Be careful. Ask for Mr. Ludovick.
It could be a hoax, Wash had thought, but an expensive one. There had been two one-hundred dollar bills inside the envelope.
Besides, he knew Mish Collins whom he had met in jail and whoa a he liked and respected. A very large sum of money! That"s what he needed right now. Without big money, a negro had no life of his own. He decided he had nothing to lose.
He arrived in Paradise City under a load of crates of lettuces on their way to the Paradise-Ritz Hotel. He had lain hidden as the truck had been waved through the police check point, his heart thumping, his nerves crawling. So he, like the other three, beat the police cordon set up to protect the rich of Paradise City. The first move in Serge Maisky"s plan to rob the richest Casino in the world had succeeded.
The Black Crab Restaurant was contained in a three-storey wooden building, built on stilts, thirty yards into the sea and reached by a narrow jetty. It was the meeting place for the sponge divers of the Florida Marine Manufacturing Co., and very few tourists, and certainly none of the residents of Seacombe, ever visited the place. It was notorious for heavy drinking, brawls and excellent seafood.
On the top floor of the building there were three private dining rooms. They were reached by an outside staircase, and people with important matters to discuss could be sure of complete privacy. The negro waiter who officiated on the third floor was a deaf-mute.
In the largest of the private dining rooms that had a view of the distant lights of Paradise City and the harbour with its anch.o.r.ed yachts, preparations had been completed for a dinner of five covers.
Mish Collins was the first to arrive. Jos, the negro waiter, regarded him, nodded, and then silently handed him a tumbler containing a treble rum, lime and cracked ice.
Perry and Chandler arrived together, and, a minute or so later, Washington Smith slid uneasily into the room.
Mish took over the duties of the host.
"Welcome, fellas," he said. "Make yourselves at home. The dinge is deaf and dumb. Don"t worry about him." He beamed at Wash, holding out his hand. "H"yah, bud. Long time no see."
Wash shook hands, nodding, while Perry eyed him with a quizzing, bleak stare.
Chandler refused the rum and lime, and asked for a whisky and soda. Jos stared blankly at him, then returned to his task of opening oysters that lay in a tub of ice.
"Help yourself," Mish said. "The stuff"s all there. I told you, didn"t I ! . . . he"s a deaf-mute."