Why Pick On ME?

by James Hadley Chase

  MacAdams immediately moved to the door, but Kara and Chicho hesitated, looking inquiringly at Homer to see if he supported Corridon’s order.

  “Get out!” Ames snarled, seeing their hesitation. “Didn’t you hear what he said?”

  “Wait!” Corridon said, and stood up. “I want a complete understanding about this. These three must be under my control. I won’t take on the job unless they understand what I say goes. My orders must be obeyed, and if any of them even question what I say, he or she is to be punished.”

  “Yes,” Diestl said. “We agree to that.” He looked at the three. “You understand? Corridon is to be obeyed.”

  Kara smiled. The other two stared at Corridon with blank faces.

  “All right,” Corridon said. “Now please wait in the lounge for me.”

  When they had gone, he sat down again.

  “Now for the plan,” he said. “Ritchie has a house in Stratford Road, a few minutes from Knightsbridge Underground Station. There are only twelve houses in the road; six on each side. The north end runs into Kensington Road, the south end into the Brompton Road. The road itself is quiet and lonely. Ritchie’s house is the last but one from Brompton Road end.” He leaned forward and took a sheet of paper from Homer’s desk. “I’ll draw a plan for you.” He made a quick rough sketch. Diestl and Ames came to the desk, and the three men watched Corridon’s pencil at work. “Ritchie leaves his house at ten o’clock every evening for a stroll in the Park,” Corridon went on as he completed the sketch. “He has done this for years.”

  “A dangerous habit surely?” Homer said, raising his bushy eyebrows.

  “Actually it isn’t. For one thing only those he trusts – and they are very few – know where he lives, and for another, he can more than look after himself.”

  “And by that you mean…?” Diestl said.

  “He is one of the best shots in the country, and that is saying something. He is a man of ferocious courage and has a highly-developed instinct for danger. He can draw a gun and kill you before you could wink an eyelid, and I am not exaggerating. That is why I say the job is highly dangerous. The chances of getting back here alive are small – unless the thing goes like clock-work. Even then I don’t guarantee we won’t have casualties.”

  “If we take him by surprise…” Diestl began.

  Corridon laughed.

  “There’s no such word to Ritchie. Our only hope is for one of your gunmen to draw his fire while the other kills him. Naturally we need not go into that with MacAdams or Chicho, but I think you can be fairly sure one of them isn’t coming back alive.”

  “So long as Ritchie goes,” Ames said with a brutal smile, “I don’t give a damn if neither of them come back.”

  “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Corridon said. “It’s possible none of us, except possibly Kara, who will be in the car, will get back, but Ritchie will be wiped out – that I promise you. Now look at this sketch. Here is Ritchie’s house. Here is a pillar-box a few yards from his front door and on the opposite side of the road. I propose to station Chicho behind this box. On the same side as Ritchie’s house there is a telephone booth. I shall stand in that, pretending to phone. From there I shall have an uninterrupted view of the road and the house. Neither MacAdams nor Chicho know Ritchie. There must be no mistake. I’ll signal to them when he appears. MacAdams will stand here by this tree. He will be in full view. It is his bad luck, but it is essential Ritchie should see him and suspect what he is up to. Ritchie will concentrate on MacAdams. I am hoping he won’t spot Chicho. MacAdams will fire first – if he gets the chance. It is almost certain Ritchie will fire. While he is concentrating on MacAdams, Chicho will pick him off. There’ll be no second chance. If Chicho fails, then we’re sunk. That’s why I want to satisfy myself both of them can shoot.”

  “They can,” Ames said, “but by all means satisfy yourself.”

  “And how will you get away?” Homer asked.

  Corridon tapped the map.

  “Kara will be in the car, parked at Brompton Road end of the street with the lights off. When the shooting is over, we sprint to the car and she’ll drive down the Brompton Road, up Exhibition Road to the Park. I want another car to be parked at Marble Arch Gate. We’ll leave Kara’s car, separate and make our way to the other car. If we are pursued, I will go in the car and the other three – or what’s left of them – will spilt up: Kara going by underground to Shepherd’s Bush, Chicho to Hammersmith Broadway and MacAdams to Park Royal. I’ll pick them up as we go.” He glanced at Ames. “Will you handle the second car?”

  “Of course,” Ames said. He seemed pleased to be included in the plan.

  “Wouldn’t it be better if MacAdams remained in Kara’s car and shot from there?” Diestl said. “It would give him some protection.”

  Corridon smiled without humour.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to make up your mind to lose MacAdams. If Ritchie spotted a parked car outside his house he would be firing long before MacAdams ever raised his gun. Besides, the car would give Ritchie shelter from Chicho’s fire.”

  “He’s right,” Ames said impatiently. “It’s a good plan. I approve.”

  “Yes,” Homer said.

  Diestl nodded.

  “Yes, I’m satisfied. You can be ready in ten days?”

  “In a week. From now until the day I will hold rehearsals. I propose to use part of the drive and construct the scene there. I take it I can use who I want to help me?”

  “You do exactly what you think best,” Homer said, rubbing his fingertips together.

  “The three must see the actual ground,” Corridon went on. “Can I send them separately to look at the road and house?”

  “Of course,” Diestl said.

  “I take it you would be reluctant to let me go down there on my own?” Corridon said with his jeering smile.

  Homer waved his hands apologetically.

  “When this assignment has been successfully concluded, you will be free to go where you like, Mr. Corridon. You appreciate that until Ritchie has been liquidated it would be a little lax on our part to let you out alone.”

  “That’s all right,” Corridon returned. “I know the road well. I don’t need to go.” He felt in his hip pocket and pulled out his cigarette-case. “Then there’s only my fee to be considered. A thousand, I think we said. Five hundred down, and five hundred when the job is done.”

  “A thousand when the job is done,” Diestl said quickly. “I’m sorry, Corridon, but your reputation is against you. I’ve heard about your down-payments.”

  “Wait,” Homer said. “I feel we should make a concession. Mr. Corridon has been doing most useful work. He is practically a member of this organization. If he is to trust us, I think we should trust him.”

  “I agree,” Ames said and gave Corridon a sly smile.

  Diestl hesitated.

  “I might point out,” Corridon said, getting to his feet, “that you don’t run any risk. Until the job is done I shall have an escort when I go out. I can’t see what you are worrying about.”

  “All right,” Diestl said, shrugging. “Then pay him.”

  “I’ll have the money in cash for you the day after tomorrow,” Homer said. “Is that all right?”

  “Yes. Have I permission to go to my bank if I am accompanied by someone?” Corridon asked, and glanced at Ames.

  “I’ll go with you,” Ames said, promptly.

  As they left the office together, Ames went on, “We’ll fix up to see the girls when we go to the bank. I don’t believe in wasting opportunities.”

  “Nor do I,” Corridon said, and concealed a grin.

  II

  MacAdams came into Corridon’s room and put the model on the table.

  “I think this is about right,” he said. “If you’ll check it over…”

  Corridon examined the model. It was exactly what he wanted.

  Three days had passed since the meeting in Homer’s office. He had been to the bank
and paid in the five hundred pounds given to him in cash by Homer. While at the bank, he had left instructions for a hundred pounds to be sent to his solicitor for Susie Lawes’ use. Ames, who had been listening, glanced at him enquiringly.

  “Believe it or not, she’s my god-child,” Corridon said. “I owed Milly the money. I’m paying it to get it off my conscience.”

  Ames plainly thought Corridon was eccentric, but he didn’t say anything. His mind was too preoccupied with his thoughts of Hildy, and as soon as Corridon had finished his business at the bank, Ames drove him to Curzon Street.

  Corridon had no trouble in getting Ritchie on the telephone. He gave him the details of the plan, the time and date, warning him the affair might end in disaster if he wasn’t very much on his guard, but Ritchie seemed confident enough.

  “You take care of Chicho,” he had said. “I’ll look after MacAdams.”

  “Have police cars within reach,” Corridon warned him. “Don’t underestimate Kara. She can drive. I don’t want her to get away.”

  Ritchie said he would take care of everything at his end, and told Corridon not to worry.

  Corridon had put the three through a searching test. Ames was correct when he had said both MacAdams and Chicho were good shots, but they were nothing like as quick as Ritchie, although Corridon made out to both Ames and Homer that they were. The one person who really did worry him was Kara. If anything, she was a better shot then Chicho or MacAdams, and she handled the big Buick in a way that made Corridon’s hair stand on end. Her judgment of distance was astonishing. Driving along the road to Baintrees with Corridon at her side, she had suddenly accelerated, shooting the car down the narrow lane at eighty miles an hour, and then, to Corridon’s horror, had swung the car through the gateway which had barely two foot of clearance each side of the car. She seemed to think nothing of threading the big car through small gaps at impossible speeds, and with Ames sitting at the back, she had driven Corridon along Western Avenue early one morning, taking the roundabouts at fifty miles an hour. He had thought Ames was a mad driver, but this girl was incredible. He wondered uneasily if the police would be able to stop her. Well, he had warned Ritchie, but for all that he was worried.

  He had wanted a model of Stratford Road, so they could study the layout and know exactly the parts they had to play. MacAdams volunteered to make it, and within two days he had finished it.

  Corridon thought the model was excellent, and said so. MacAdams merely grunted, but there was a pleased expression on his thin face.

  Of the three Corridon liked MacAdams the best, but he knew him to be a dangerous fanatic. Chicho he disliked. The boy had no intelligence, but only a ferocious lust to kill with his gun. It was all he seemed to think about, and when he wasn’t shooting on the range at the back of the house, he was practising pulling the gun from his belt.

  Now he had the model, Corridon intensified the rehearsals. He got Yevski to play the part of Ritchie. Yevski was as good a shot as MacAdams and Chicho, and more often than not he got in the first shot. Soon the word got round what they were doing, and each afternoon quite a crowd collected to watch the rehearsals.

  Corridon had selected part of the drive that resembled the shape of the Stratford Road. He had erected a dummy phone booth and pillar-box. A garden gate represented Ritchie’s house.

  He enacted the scene again and again, watching from the phone booth to see exactly how Chicho crouched behind the pillar-box. This was vital, for Corridon had to put him out of action before he had a chance of shooting Ritchie.

  Both Homer and Ames came to see the rehearsals, and they seemed impressed with Corridon’s thoroughness.

  But it was still Kara who worried Corridon. She seemed dissatisfied and restless with her passive role of remaining in the car, and while Corridon was instructing Chicho to come farther round the pillar-box so he could see him, making out he would be less likely to be seen by Ritchie in that position, she got out of the car and came over to him.

  He turned and frowned at her.

  “Did I tell you to leave the car?”

  She gave him her insinuating hard little smile.

  “I want to make a suggestion.”

  Ames, who was standing nearby, joined them.

  “What is it?” Corridon asked impatiently.

  “I would like to cover Chicho,” she said. Mac fires first; then Chicho, then I could fire from the car. Isn’t that a good idea?”

  “No,” Corridon said curtly. “Your job is to drive the car. It’s not necessary to cover Chicho. You are to remain in the car and keep the engine running. That’s your job, so stick to it.”

  For a moment she hesitated, looking towards Ames, but Ames gave her no encouragement. She lifted her shoulders in an angry little shrug.

  “Very well, but you may be sorry.”

  “That’s my business,” Corridon said curtly. “Will you return to the car?”

  She walked away, her back stiff.

  “Wouldn’t it be wiser to let her join in?” Ames asked, as soon as she was out of hearing. “If Ritchie’s as dangerous as you say, three guns would be better than two.”

  “Her job is to concentrate on driving,” Corridon said, anxious Ritchie shouldn’t have a third opponent. “We may have to get out in a hurry, and if she’s blazing away, her mind is off her real job.”

  “Well, it’s your business,” Ames said. “I’ll leave it to you.”

  That evening Kara came into Corridon’s room. He was relaxing in his armchair with a book, and he looked up, startled to find her standing in the doorway.

  “What do you want?” he asked, curtly. “I didn’t hear you knock.”

  She closed the door gently and came farther into the room.

  “I was lonely,” she said, watching him from under her eyelashes. “I thought I would come and talk to you.”

  Corridon waited.

  She took out a leather cigarette-case, lit a cigarette, and held the case between her slim, strong fingers.

  “Will you be sorry when Ritchie is dead?”

  Corridon laid his book in his lap, his finger marking the sentence he was reading.

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “Ritchie is an expert shot, isn’t he?”

  “He can shoot.”

  “He was in Russia during the war,” she said lightly. “I met him. He is the best shot in this country.”

  This was so unexpected that Corridon had difficulty in suppressing a start.

  “He was, but he is getting old now,” he said cautiously.

  “And yet you are not anxious for me to cover Chicho?”

  “That has nothing to do with it,” Corridon snapped, realizing this could be dangerous. “Your job is to drive the car.”

  “I know.” She blew a cloud of smoke to the ceiling. “You won’t be armed, will you?”

  “Where’s all this leading to?” Corridon demanded. “What are you driving at?”

  “I don’t think either Mac or Chicho are coming out of this alive,” she said and smiled. “I don’t care very much. They mean nothing to me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Ritchie doesn’t die.”

  Corridon studied her for a moment, then got up, walked across the room, opened the door and went out. He walked quickly along the passage to Ames’ room and went in.

  Ames was lying on his bed, smoking, and going through a book of photographs.

  He looked up and grinned.

  “Here, have a look at these…” he began, but Corridon made a gesture that brought him to his feet.

  “What is it?”

  “Come to my room,” Corridon said. “Kara’s there. I would like you to hear what she has been saying to me.”

  Ames’ face darkened.

  “What’s she been saying?”

  “She’ll tell you.”

  Corridon returned to his room with Ames at his heels. Kara was moving to the door as they entered. There was a cold, wolfish look in her eyes and when she saw Ames, her mouth tightened.r />
  “Tell Ames what you have just said,” Corridon said.

  She hesitated while Ames stared at her coldly.

  “It was nothing. Besides, it’s nothing to do with him,” she said at last.

  “Tell him!” Corridon snapped.

  She gave him a look of angry hatred, and made to move to the door, but he grabbed her wrist and jerked her round. She broke loose with a quick twist that staggered him, and again made for the door.

  “Wait!” Ames said, his voice like the click of a trap.

  She paused.

  “It’s nothing…” she began.

  “I think it is,” Corridon said. “She said she didn’t think either MacAdams or Chicho were coming out of the shooting alive, and Ritchie will escape.”

  Ames looked at her.

  “Why do you say that?”

  Again she hesitated, and Corridon guessed she was trying to make up her mind how to get out of the situation.

  “I – I was joking,” she said. “I didn’t mean it.”

  Ames’ fist shot out and his knuckles crashed into her mouth, sending her reeling back. She tried to regain her balance, then sat heavily on the floor.

  “Don’t joke about such things,” he snarled. “Now, get out!”

  She got slowly to her feet, her hand covering her mouth, blood running from her nose. She didn’t look at Corridon or Ames.

  When she had gone into her room and shut the door, Ames said, “She’s getting too damned cocky. She’ll be all right now.”

  Remembering the concentrated hatred in the green eyes, Corridon was uneasy.

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t have hit her.”

  Ames smiled.

  “It’s the language women and dogs appreciate,” he said. “You’ll have no further trouble with her.”

  Corridon hoped he was right.

  It was only later that evening, when he was sure he wouldn’t be disturbed, that Corridon opened the bottom drawer in the wardrobe for the Mauser pistol he had taken from Bruger. He had decided to check the weapon and clean it. It was essential to his plan.

  He had hidden the gun under the white boiler suit he had put in the drawer, but when he lifted the boiler suit, the gun had gone.