’One moment, please, gentlemen.’ he said.
They turned around towards him.
He went on: ‘I’m the manager here, gentlemen. Would you mind telling me how you got here? This is a private club.’
Janin was flustered. ‘I have my card right here.’ he finally said.
The manager looked at it ‘Did you take this gentleman’s cheque?’ he asked the cashier.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, you’ve won this bet.’ he said to them. ’The money is yours. We’ll put this cheque through the bank, and if they approve it you’ll be paid off. We’ll impound your winnings right here. When the bank reports back, you’ll get them.’
Janin was red with embarrassment. ‘I…I’d prefer that you did not bank this cheque immediately/ he stuttered.
‘What’s that?’
‘I…I’ll have the cash deposited in a local bank very soon, in a matter of days, and you can clear it through. But—right—now—I’m a little embarrassed for funds in my own bank.’
The manager was severe. ’Then you shouldn’t have written that cheque. It’s illegal, monsieur.’ There was a pause while he considered the position. Then he said: ‘It’s most irregular, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You must either deposit the fifteen million francs in our bank, or bring it here to the Club within the week. That will show you could have paid the bet, if you had lost Good day, gentlemen.’
Poor Harris! How his face fell to see all that money—real money—right in front of him, and to be reaching out to take it, and to be stopped.
So a very disappointed man came back to the hotel with Janin to talk it over with me. We had to raise fifteen million francs within a week. We discussed the ways and means. Janin said he could manage three and a half million. I looked at Harris. ‘Could you raise the other eleven and a half million—about thirty-seven thousand American dollars?’ I asked.
‘I’ve been thinking about it, Lime, on the way over. Most of my money back in the States is tied up in real estate. Far as I figure it, I can’t raise more than twenty-eight thousand, in a hurry. That leaves us stuck for nine thousand.’
It was my turn to be generous. ‘Well, I hope my principals don’t get to hear about it,’ I said, ‘but I guess I can get hold of the other nine thousand until this thing is cleared up. It shouldn’t take long.’
They both sighed with relief.
Before they went I managed to get a word with Harris alone. I told him that I didn’t think that Janin was too trustworthy, and would appreciate it if he, Harris, would keep an eye on him for me. In fact, it might even be wiser if he moved into Janin’s hotel.
Of course, my reason for this was to make Janin’s job of keeping Harris from talking to the wrong people easier. The next day or so is so crucial in these matters. Until Harris’s cash would be cabled from the States, I had to be sure that he was kept on ice. Twenty-eight thousand dollars! It’s worth all that time and effort.
Three days later his money arrived. We went to the Club de Turf together, Janin carrying the fifteen million francs. As we got to the Club, I looked up from -decoding a cablegram, handed to me as we left the hotel.
‘Mai de Mer, in the third race.’ I said sotto voce. The two of them went to the cashier, and collected their winnings—a bundle of seventy-eight million francs. I got back from checking up the odds on the next race, just as the bundle was being pushed across the counter.
‘Mai de Mer is three to one.’ I remarked.
There was a pause. Then I suggested: ‘Why don’t we place it all on Mai de Mer.’ At that moment a bell sounded, and I moved off to watch the marker. They moved back to the betting window. Soon they rejoined me with their ticket. Harris laughed shakily. ‘Great heavens! It will mean a win of half a million dollars for me.’
Janin said, ‘I hope nothing goes wrong. Here’s the ticket, Lime.’
I looked at it. Then I exploded. ‘Good Lord, man, yet bet the horse to win! I said place! That horse will run second!’
’Oh, my God!’ exclaimed Harris.
’Oh, you dumb ox, Janin!’ I went on more loudly.
‘My nine thousand dollars! I ought to thrash you…’
The manager came up. ‘Gentlemen, please…he said.
I flew at Janin. A crowd began to collect. Harris moaned: ‘He’s ruined me, too.’
’Take your hands off me!’ Janin cried, as I grabbed him by the collar. Then, as I stepped back and put my hand in my pocket, he yelled in terror: ‘No! No!…Lime…don’t…’
There was a shot. Janin fell to the ground, and I grasped Harris’s arm. ‘Quick, we’ve got to get out of here,’ I whispered.
He was stunned. ‘You shot him! ’
‘Come quick, the police…’ I was saying as we pushed through the dumbfounded crowd.
Of course, as we left my specially rigged club, as we left Janin sprawled in a welter of blood, Harris was stark, sheer one hundred per cent terrified. But don’t you worry. This was all just fun for the kiddies—just horseplay.
The bullets I fired were blanks. The blood all over Janin’s shirt front was chicken blood, spurting out of a punctured bladder. And we had Harris’s twenty-eight thousand American dollars, hadn’t we?
So our only problem was to terrify him into leaving town without peeping to the police. And that wasn’t hard to do. All I did was to point out that he was an accomplice in the eyes of the law, and asked him whether he had an Italian visa.
Half an hour later he was on the train to Rome.
I sat back, sipping a highball, and mentally spending my lion’s share of his twenty-eight thousand dollars. My expenses were certainly no more than eight thousand. What a wonderful Horseplay it had been to be sure.
Janin interrupted my musings. I welcomed him like a long lost brother. But he was in no mood for a reunion. ’The cops.’ he wailed, ’they raided the Club. Right after you left. Seized all the cash they could lay their hands on, arrested Louis, and Berton and Rene, and the whole crowd/
‘What!’
‘It’s the truth. See here…all I could grab before I beat it.’ He showed me a bundle of crumpled notes.
‘How much?, I hardly dared to ask.
’Our original stake, Harry…and a small profit.
‘How much profit?’
’Two mille franc notes, Harry. One apiece.’
So we netted just two dollars and fifty cents.
But I enjoyed it, and it was one of the most successful failures I’ve ever had. There’s a sunny side to it, too: I am still at liberty, and not in prison. And I’m not at all depressed, for I know that this lovely world is full of Jack Harrises. And I know that I will meet another very shortly.,
Until then, if you’re going to spend money on horses, be sure that they’re on the merry-go-round where the most that you can lose is the brass ring!
WORK OF ART
by
Bud Lesser
Buenos Aires, July 1944, and the Argentinian papers were full of the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler. The town was full of those who had once been high in Nazi councils and they had brought with them money, jewellery, and art treasures. Now, more than ever, the cosmopolitan city was alive with gaiety. In the lavish nightclubs one saw dazzling displays of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. Everywhere one turned there were reassuring signs of wealth spilling out of careless hands. That was why I had come to South America.
Yes, I was there in Buenos Aires: just a clean-cut young American boy looking for a chance to make a dishonest living.
A friend had given me a letter to Señor Juan Ferendez, a gentleman with a handsome face, impeccable manners, and no morals. My informant had indicated that the señor might be helpful in guiding me along my chosen path. But when I called at his art galleries, he refused to see me.
Well, there were always other sources of income to be found without Señor Ferendez’s help, and the bar at the Casa del Oro seemed an ideal place for a young man to start a career.
T
he bartender offered me a ’speciality of the house*, but I refused, and ordered my usual absinthe.
‘You make a mistake in ordering absinthe where rum is the popular beverage.’ said a man on the stool beside mine.
‘What? Why?* I grunted.
He went on: ‘And your clothing. You should buy clothes in the stores of Buenos Aires as soon as possible/
‘Miss Emily Post, I presume.’ I said sarcastically.
He laughed. ‘No, my name is Ferendez. And I do not make these suggestions for the sake of etiquette, Mr. Lime, but for the sake of business.’
We moved to a little table in the corner, where our conversation could not be overheard. He explained that I had been injudicious to come to his art galleries. The business in the front rooms was regular, but the transactions in the back rooms was a bit less orthodox. It was important that his front-room clients should not meet his back-room friends. We must remain casual acquaintances, meeting in bars, not business associates.
‘You’re not giving me your full attention.’ he said suddenly.
‘How could I?* I replied. ‘Did you just see what came through the door?*
He smiled. ’The beautiful señorita with the off-the-shoulder dress? *
I remarked that he didn’t miss much. He ^acknowledged the compliment. Then I asked him if he knew who she was.
‘If you and I come to terms, señor.’ he answered, ‘she is your first assignment.’
Señor Ferendez was about as communicative as a penguin. With a display of the ultimate in old-world manners, he refused to say another word about the slender, dark-eyed beauty who had suddenly set my pulse pounding.
Instead, he turned the conversation to other types of beauty—those found in paintings and sculpture. He began to test my knowledge of the arts, and also, perhaps, my conversational abilities. Apparently, my proficiency in the latter made up for any deficiencies in the former, for we soon came to ’terms’.
It wasn’t until a second meeting, however, that the exact particulars of my new trade were explained by the master. We had met ‘accidentally’ at a roadside refreshment stand near the suburb of Belgano.
He told me that many of the newcomers to Buenos Aires had a great deal of money, but that a large portion of it was in jewellery, art treasures, antiques, and the like. He wished me to make friends with the new residents, get invitations to their homes, and go through their private galleries.
’That sounds interesting,’ I said. ‘I might even get a job later as a tourists’ guide.’
He laughed politely. Then he went on to explain that my job would be to guide some of his ’friends’ to the finest, most expensive works of art in town. I would have to equip them with full descriptions of the galleries, the servants, the entrances and the exits. So I was to be the ’finger’. He was to be the ’fence’.
I asked him how much I was to get for doing him this service; he replied that my share would be twenty-five per cent. Those who took the- greatest risk would get fifty per cent. He and I would divide the balance equally.
So far, so good. I agreed to his terms after a few moments, thought. ‘And now to that first assignment you spoke about—the señorita.’
Little was known of Señorita Melissa Corday. She had come to Buenos Aires a few months ago, rented an expensive villa, and only a few close friends had seen her art treasures. But according to reports she was the owner of the most valuable painting in the town—an original Rubens, that was worth a fortune.
’Even if she was the owner of a mere Cezanne, I wouldn’t mind getting friendly with her.’ I said as we got up from our table.
My job seemed to be ideal. I wasn’t going to be doing any of the actual stealing: nothing could happen to me. My job merely consisted of being charming…and observant.
During the next few weeks I managed to exercise my charm on half a dozen of the local gentry. I was invited to their homes; I made polite compliments to my hosts and extravagant ones to my hostesses. You know, it’s amazing how much information you can get, if you say the proper things about a woman’s choice of dresses or a man’s choice of wines.
Señor Ferendez paid me handsomely for my information, but both of us were still primarily concerned with Señorita Melissa Corday, and she proved as elusive as the olive at the bottom of a Martini. However, by this time we were both members of Buenos Aires society, and an eventual meeting was inevitable.
As a matter of fact I managed to meet her often.
Unfortunately—and unusually—she found me quite easily resistible. My invitations for lunch, for dinner, for cocktails, for dancing—every one of them was turned down.
But I was determined to succeed. Two things were driving me towards Melissa Corday: my determination that I would pierce that core of cold steel, and my desire to get the Rubens. Eventually my patience was rewarded. One Saturday evening, Señorita Corday was giving a large dinner-party for a visiting American diplomat I wouldn’t say that I ‘gatecrashed’ the party, but I did manage to arrive at it together with one of the guests—an Under-Secretary of the British Consulate, whom I had been cultivating for the past week—in circumstances that made an invitation inevitable…though unwilling.
One’s hide has to be tough in my line of business, and, after a few minutes’ awkward silence, Melissa invited me in to join the party.
Would I have a drink, she asked.
‘I don’t think so,’ I replied. ‘I don’t want to chance dulling my senses. I understand you have an art collection that is really worth while seeing.’
She looked at me with surprise. ‘You’re interested in art? Somehow I didn’t think you would be.’
‘I’m very interested.’
‘Perhaps I’ve been wrong in my estimate of you, Mr. Lime.’ She hesitated for a moment, and then added. ‘I’ll be glad to show you my gallery, after dinner, if you really think you’d enjoy it.’
‘Honestly, Miss Corday, nothing could fascinate me more!’ The small talk was so small, that it was almost non-existent, but for one thing I could be thankful—my pal, the Under-Secretary, had forgotten me in his absorption with a moustached Peruvian woman. He was probably fascinated by the task of counting her chins—no mean job, since she was constantly quivering with laughter.
At any rate, dinner was over in what seemed like a mere a few months, and after a ‘decent interval’, I persuaded Melissa Corday to take me on a Cook’s tour of her gallery.
For a time we walked round in comparative silence. Then I spotted the painting.
‘A Rubens!’ I exclaimed. ’That is a Rubens, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she answered sadly. ‘When I first got it I thought it was the answer to all my dreams.’
‘And isn’t it now?’
‘It’s almost worthless.’
My hand brushed hers, as I turned to look into her eyes. ‘Melissa, you can make things worthwhile again. You can learn how to dream again.’
There was a silence, then she said softly: ‘Please, Harry, you’re hurting my hand.’
‘And you’re hurting my heart! Melissa, I don’t know what’s holding you back, but sometimes when we’ve been hurt, we build a wall around ourselves. I know, because I’ve been hurt, I’ve been lonely. Maybe neither of us has to be lonely again.’
I laid my hands gently on her beautiful shoulders. My lips had barely touched hers when she drew back.
‘I…I think I’d better go back to my other guests. Look around the gallery, Harry. Take your time, have your fill of it. When you’re ready to rejoin the others, just pull the door firmly. It’s self-locking.’ And I was alone with the Rubens.
I looked about me. The gallery was in a separate wing of the house—connected to a small sitting-room—with only the self-locking door between. The sitting-room had a large french door that led to a small balcony. And the street was only seven or eight feet below. On the other side of the sitting-room was a boudoir—Melissa’s. The servant’s quarters must be miles away.
It was
a ‘set-up’, and Harry Lime wasn’t going to give this set-up away for any twenty-five per cent of the Rubens’ value. Let Ferendez take his twenty-five per cent. It was going to be seventy-five for me.
I wedged a match in the lock, and then I rejoined the gay party of doddering diplomats. As- soon as possible, I made my farewells and went into the hallway.
There I got into conversation with the doorman, a character rejoicing in the name of Pedro. I showed him one of the buttons on my jacket that had worked loose. Would he do the great favour of bringing me a needle, thread, and razor blade?
In a few moments he was back and offering to undertake the repairs. I hated to keep troubling him, but somehow I had become unbearably thirsty. Would he fetch me a glass of water?
‘But certainly, Señor,’ he said as he went off.
This was the one dangerous element of the whole scheme—my being seen now. I waited until the obliging Pedro was out of sight, and then slipped down the corridor. I hoped that he wouldn’t start a fuss when he found me gone.
The guests and servants were all busy, and I reached the gallery wing undetected. I slipped through the little sitting-room, and into the room containing my Rubens. I took the little matchstick out, and heard the lock click reassuringly. But just in case someone should come in, I took up a position behind a heavy velvet curtain.
Hours later I heard the other guests taking their departure. Then the servants locked the doors and windows. Someone rattled the doorknob of the gallery and then went away. I heard Melissa’s door open and close, but I still remained motionless.
I waited until almost dawn, until the silence was thick and heavy.
Stealthily I approached the priceless painting. I took the razor, slit the canvas neatly from the frame, rolled it up, and slipped it into the lining of my coat. A few hurried stitches took care of the rip I’d made for it.
I held my breath as I tiptoed to the door and opened it gently. Then I crossed to the french window that led to the balcony. Below was the street, and safety. The latch worked easily, and I started to turn the handle.
The Lives of Harry Lime v1.0 Page 11