He had no difficulty finding a pawnshop. In this area there was at least one in every block. He entered the first one he saw.
The proprietor, a wizened little man in his seventies, gave the watch a cursory glance and said, “Ten bucks is all we go on watches, mister.”
“Look again,” Sands suggested.
The pawnbroker examined it more closely. Then he slipped off the back and peered at the works through a jeweler’s loupe. His eyebrows raised.
“A fine watch,” he admitted. “I loan you fifty.”
“You know what I paid for that,” Sands said patiently. “I want a hundred-dollar loan.”
“A hundred dollars on a watch!” the old man yipped.
“Never mind,” Sands said, reaching for it. “I’ll go somewhere else.”
The old man pulled it out of reach. “All right, all right. Out of the goodness of my heart I’ll loan you a hundred. But if you don’t pay, I’m stuck.”
Stuck with a fifteen-hundred-dollar Swiss watch he could easily sell for five hundred, Sands thought. His heart bled for the little man.
He asked for two-fifty-dollar bills.
As the pawnbroker handed him the pawn ticket and the money, Sands asked, “How late you open?”
“Six thirty.”
“Maybe I’ll be back before then,” Sands told him.
When he walked back into the Kit Kat Inn, he made straight for the curtained side room. The same four players sat at the table, but all but one of the kibitzing idlers had left. The dull-lidded man still lounged against the wall chewing his toothpick.
Taking a seat at the table, Sands brought his roll from his pocket and fanned it just enough to expose the two top fifties. The twenty-three dollars he had left after getting his suit pressed was all in singles and made a convincing backing for the fifties.
“Hundred dollars’ worth of chips,” he said to the brunette, peeling off the two top bills and simultaneously folding over the others before she could get a glimpse of their denomination. He carelessly dropped the roll into his suit pocket.
She counted him out five ten-dollar blue chips, nine five-dollar red chips and five one-dollar white chips.
“What’s the limit?” he asked.
“Fifty dollars,” she said in a pleasant voice.
“On all bets?”
She nodded expressionlessly, then amended, “Except down-for-double. Then you can increase it to a hundred.”
Sands said, “I’ll test my luck before I start plunging,” and set a single white chip before him.
Belle gave him another expressionless nod. The deck was only a quarter gone when he sat down, but in honor of the new player she shuffled and offered Sands the cut. Instead of burying a card, she used a joker as the stop card, he noted.
For several hands the game progressed desultorily. No one made more than a five-dollar bet and most of the bets, like Sands’, were for only a dollar. As nearly as Sands could tell, the brunette dealt all of the hands straight.
After a dozen hands he was out two dollars. Then he had a flurry of luck and won seven bets straight. Watching Belle’s deftly moving fingers as she dealt, he realized she was deliberately letting him win in the hope of inducing larger bets. He was five dollars ahead when the situation he was waiting for came up.
One of the players said, “The deck’s three-quarters gone, Belle, and I ain’t seen an ace yet. I got a hunch I’m going to hit blackjack.” He laid a blue chip before him.
The man next to him hesitated, then pushed out a blue chip also. Mass psychology set in and the other two players bet ten dollars each too.
Sands said, “I think I’m the one who is going to get blackjack,” and piled five blues in front of him.
Before Belle could deal, the door curtains parted and three men filed into the room. Pausing, Belle looked up and her expressionless face relaxed in a warm smile.
“Hello, honey,” she said to one of the men, an immaculately dressed man with an athletic build and swarthy Latin handsomeness.
He said, “Hi, baby. Go on and deal. We’re just looking.”
As she dealt the cards Sands looked over the other two new arrivals. One, a beer-bellied man in shirt sleeves with a drinker’s nose, he guessed to be the proprietor of the Kit Kat Inn by the way the dull-lidded house man leaning against the wall straightened up and tried to look alert the moment he saw him. The other, a gray-faced, gray-eyed youth of not more than twenty, gave Sands the creeps. As immaculately dressed as the swarthy man, he was lean to the point of emaciation and his thin face was as still as that of a corpse. He looked as though his hobby might be carving notches on the gun he undoubtedly wore under his arm.
By the obsequious manner in which the Kit Kat’s proprietor fawned over the swarthy man, Sands guessed him to be visiting local brass. He instantly classified the gray-faced youth as the swarthy man’s bodyguard.
He didn’t like the idea of pulling his stunt in front of the newcomers. He had contemplated having only the sleepy house man to deal with. But the bet was already laid and he had no intention of sacrificing fifty dollars. He decided to go ahead.
CHAPTER III
BELLE DEALT two cards around down, one down and one up to herself. Her exposed card was the king of diamonds.
Glancing at his cards, Sands was pleased to see he held the ace and ten of hearts. There had been the possibility that Belle would deal merely sticking hands of eighteen and nineteen all around and deal herself only a twenty hand, just enough to take all bets and simultaneously scuttle his plan. But she had taken no chances. Blackjack was the only hand in which a tie was not a push, the dealer taking all bets automatically as soon as she turned it over. As it was hardly likely Belle would let him win a fifty-dollar bet, he was certain she had an ace under.
He was also pleased that she had been careless enough to deal her face card up instead of exposing the ace. An ace up would only make for a two-to-one insurance pay-off.
Before the woman could look at her hole card, Sands flipped his over and said, “Insurance bet, Belle.” He shoved out another fifty dollars’ worth of chips.
She frowned at him. “We only take dollar insurance bets, mister.”
“You said fifty-dollar limit on all bets. I want fifty insurance.”
Belle flicked a glance at the overmuscled house man leaning against the wall. Instantly the man stepped over to the table.
Leaning over Sands, he growled, “You trying to start trouble, mister?”
Without taking his eyes from Belle’s cards, Sands reached up and grasped the man’s necktie. A powerful downward jerk slammed the man’s forehead on the table edge, jarring the table so that stacked chips spilled into piles. If the table hadn’t been round, with six solid legs spaced about its perimeter, it probably would have tilted over.
As the house man rolled to the floor in an unconscious heap, Sands slipped from his chair in a fluid sidewise motion and swung his back to the wall. He hooked fingers in his belt in a gesture which pushed back the lapels of his coat just enough to expose the black stock of a gun nestled beneath his left armpit. All the time his gaze hadn’t strayed an inch from Belle’s cards, though he kept all three of the newcomers in the periphery of his vision.
“You can turn them over now,” he said quietly.
Belle made no movement. Neither did anyone else, but the body of the gray-faced youth grew tense. Sands lifted his eyes from Belle’s cards to let them glitter at the bodyguard. There was no change in Sands’ expression and his body seemed entirely relaxed, but suddenly everyone in the room knew he was poised on the edge of violence and the slightest move would set his gun to flaming. There was no change in the gray-faced bodyguard’s expression either, but his muscles grew tauter and tauter until tension screamed in the room.
Belle was so rigid with terror, she made no attempt to switch cards now that Sands’ attention was no longer on her. The beer-bellied proprietor’s mouth hung open and his brow glistened with sweat. The other players and the
lone kibitzer were as still as statues.
Only the swarthy man seemed entirely unperturbed. He was studying Sands with the detached interest of a fight promoter looking over a ring prospect.
He said quietly, “Nose out, Joey. It’s not our beef.”
A fleeting look of surprise crossed the thin bodyguard’s face. Then his muscles slowly relaxed. Tension seeped from the room and one of the players emitted breath in a long wheeze.
“Turn ‘em over, baby,” the swarthy man said with equal quietness.
Belle gave a sidewise glance up at him. With an unsteady hand she fumbled for her hole card and flipped it over. It was the ace of clubs.
“Think I’ll cash in,” Sands said sardonically. “That’ll be four hundred and fifty-five, counting the insurance bet.”
Belle looked up at the swarthy man again, and he gave her a bare nod. It intrigued Sands that she looked to him instead of to the proprietor for instructions. From the way she had greeted the swarthy man when he came in, he guessed she was his girl, or at least regarded herself as his girl. But it was the Kit Kat’s money involved, and it seemed odd that the proprietor wasn’t even asked his opinion about its disbursement.
Belle counted out the money into a neat stack. Picking it up, Sands thrust it into his coat pocket without checking her count. He gave her a pleasant smile, nodded affably to the swarthy man and backed from the room. For a moment he stood facing the curtained doorway, waiting to see if there was going to be pursuit. When there was neither sound nor movement from beyond the curtain, he decided the swarthy man had read his mind, knew he was still standing there and had gestured the others to silence.
Turning, he strode across the room to the front door and outside.
He went straight up the street to the pawnshop and reclaimed his watch.
When Sands came out of the pawnshop, the young gray-faced bodyguard was leaning against the building to one side of the plate-glass window. A cigarette drooped from one corner of his mouth and his eyes were chilly.
Sands examined him without expression, waiting. There was no threat in the youth’s manner. He merely lounged indolently against the wall, looking Sands up and down with cold deliberation.
Eventually, tired of waiting, Sands said, “Something on your mind?”
Joey let smoke seep from his nostrils. “Not on mine, mister. Renzo wants to see you.”
“Renzo?”
“Renzo Amatti. The boss.”
“Never heard of him,” Sands said.
Joey’s normally expressionless face turned amazed. He examined Sands with suspicion, finally decided he wasn’t joking. With mild impatience he said, “The guy I was with.”
“Oh?” Sands said. “What’s he want to see me about?”
Joey shrugged. “I don’t ask questions. He says go get you. So I get you.”
Sands cosidered this. “Suppose I say no?”
The thin bodyguard straightened away from the wall. He dropped his cigarette and carefully stepped on it. “When Renzo tells me to do something, I do it.”
Sands let his eyes narrow. “He tell you to bring me, or just to ask me?”
Joey studied him with dislike. With a touch of reluctance he said, “To ask you.”
Sands grinned bleakly. “But you’ve got to make a thing out of it. You can’t just relay the message. You have to throw your weight around.”
Joey’s nostrils flared. In a carefully controlled voice he said, “You coming?”
“Sure,” Sands said. “Long as it’s such a polite invitation. Where is he?”
“Just follow me,” Joey snapped. Abruptly he turned and stalked toward the Kit Kat Inn.
Sands followed. Joey led him inside, across the barroom, past the curtained doorway to the blackjack game, to a door marked: “Private.” The bodyguard rapped on the door, opened it and strode in. Sands trailed after him, leaving the door open.
The room was a small, plainly furnished office. The swarthy man sat behind a battered desk, his feet propped on an open drawer. The beer-bellied proprietor stood to one side of the room.
The swarthy man gave Sands a pleasant nod. He said to the proprietor, “Mind if we use your office a while, Sam?”
“Sure, Renzo, long as you want,” Sam said with eagerness to please.
“Close the door on your way out,” Renzo told him affably.
The pot-bellied man blinked. Then, with an apologetic smile, he walked out of his own office and pulled the door shut behind him. Joey leaned against a side wall and lit another cigarette.
Renzo Amatti waved to a chair. “Have a seat,” he said to Sands.
Sands said, “I’ll stand, thanks.”
“As you please,” Amatti said agreeably. “Know who I am?”
“Joey said Renzo Amatti.”
“That’s just a name,” Amatti said. “I mean you know who I am?”
Sands shook his head. “Joey seemed to think I ought to. I’m a stranger in town.”
Amatti smiled slightly. “I figured that. Or you wouldn’t have pulled that stunt in front of me.”
Sands considered, then shook his head in disagreement. “I’d have pulled it no matter who you are. I had fifty invested.”
Amatti started to frown, then let his expression relax into a grin. “You’re pretty cocky, friend. What’s your name?”
“Sanford Judd.”
“That your real one?”
“Nope.”
Amatti chuckled. “I’m beginning to like you, Judd. That was a cute stunt you pulled in the game. Can you use that gun under your arm?”
“I can use it,” Sands said dryly.
“You in town for some purpose?”
Sands contemplated the question before saying, “Just drifting around.”
“The law after you?”
Sands shook his head.
“Anybody after you?”
Sands frowned. “Why?”
“I might offer you a job. If your answers are right.”
“What kind of job?”
“Muscle.”
Sands pursed his lips. “I might take it if your answers are right.”
A fleeting iciness showed in Renzo Amatti’s eyes. Then he grinned again. “Ask away,” he offered generously.
“Who’d I be working for?”
“Me.”
Sands said patiently, “As you said, Renzo Amatti’s just a name. Who are you?”
“The guy who runs Ridgeford.”
Sands elevated his eyebrows. “All of it?”
“All of it,” Amatti assured him. “I could have you arrested, tried and convicted of a murder you never committed, if I wanted to. Or I could send you into City Hall to burn the mayor in front of the whole Common Council, and you’d never even be picked up for questioning if I said hands off.”
Sands digested this. “Sounds a little exaggerated,” he decided.
Renzo chuckled. “Well, maybe I couldn’t get away with anything as raw as that. But I could cover you if you burned the mayor in a dark alley.”
“You want the mayor burned?”
Renzo frowned. “I was just giving an example. He’s my cousin and I got him elected. You want a job?”
“Maybe,” Sands said noncommittally. “Depends on the questions you ask me. I’m a little reticent about my background.”
“I figured you’d be,” Amatti said dryly. “I don’t care about your past, unless it’s likely to catch up with you and cause me some trouble. You sort of sidestepped my question about is anybody after you.”
Sands looked thoughtful. Then he shrugged. “A former employer,” he admitted. “He has some hired guns looking for me.”
Amatti’s brow creased. “Doesn’t sound like you could give very good work references.”
“I’ve worked for a dozen people who would give me top references if I asked,” Sands said. “This is a personal matter. I did my job and I didn’t cross him. He’s kind of a nut.”
“He got a name?”
Sands con
sidered again. “Mark Fallon,” he said finally.
Renzo Amatti hiked his eyebrows. “Miami? I’ve heard of him. What’s his beef?”
“I caught him second-carding in what was supposed to be a friendly game. He pulled a gun and I beat him out. He lost his right arm over the deal.”
Renzo’s eyebrows climbed even higher. “No wonder he’s got a grudge.”
“Ordinarily I don’t shoot my employers,” Sands said reasonably. “But ordinarily they don’t try to shoot me. I assume you don’t cheat at poker.”
Amatti stared at him for a moment, then grinned widely. “I guess you’ve got a point, Judd. If Fallon’s guns show here, you won’t have to run. I take care of my boys.”
“Then you’ve got a new boy,” Sands told him. “When do I start?”
The swarthy man rose from his seat. “Be at the Amatti Realty Company in the Page Building at nine in the morning. I’ll introduce you around.”
He gestured to the silent Joey, who went to the door, opened it and glanced around the barroom before passing through it. Amatti followed his bodyguard out and Sands brought up the rear.
The pot-bellied proprietor was behind the bar. Amatti stopped to introduce him to Sands as Sam Durkin.
“Judd will be working for me,” Amatti informed Durkin. “From now on an order from him is an order from me.”
“Sure, Renzo,” the proprietor said heartily. He pumped Sands’ hand with enthusiasm.
Amatti glanced at his watch. “Put somebody in Belle’s place,” he told Durkin. “And send her out here. I’m taking her to dinner.”
The proprietor scurried off to execute the command.
“See you at nine A.M.,” Amatti said to Sands in a dismissing tone.
Sands nodded and headed for the door. He glanced back once to see Joey looking after him with cold disapproval. Obviously the thin bodyguard hadn’t been as impressed by his personality as Renzo Amatti had.
CHAPTER IV
SANDS HAD dinner at the restaurant Bridget O’Rourke had recommended across the street from the Centner. A few minutes before ten P.M. he entered the hotel to keep his tentative date with the girl.
She greeted him rather coolly, but he knew at once her coolness was a polite fraud. The black knit suit she had worn that afternoon had been replaced by a green nylon dress with a slip-on jacket of lighter green. It was the sort of outfit appropriate for anything. With the jacket it was not out of place behind a hotel desk. But she had merely to slip off the jacket to be suitably bare-shouldered for night-clubbing.
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