“What’s the usual cut?”
“Fifty dollars, if they’re really first rate.”
It was like finding money in an old suit. I said, “You won’t know if she’s first rate unless you look at her. And one more thing, she doesn’t want to stay in this town.”
“She won’t need to. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
I went into the kitchen where Josie was putting away the dishes. “Your new boss is on the way over. He’s got even finer clients than Target had. You’re going to make a lot of money, Josie.”
She nodded, not looking at me directly. “Just so I get out of this town. I hate this town.” She took a deep breath and faced me squarely. “You are trying to do what’s best for me, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “Are you happy about it?”
“I am,” she said. “Believe me, Peter, I am.”
“My name is Joe, remember?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. For a moment, my mind—I don’t know why I should think of Peter Deutscher.” She put a hand on my arm. “That Jean is a fine girl. You be good to her, won’t you?”
“Of course, Josie.”
She was sitting on the davenport, the full skirt spread neatly, her black hair glistening in the afternoon sunlight when Jack Budd came.
His face showed his surprise. “Well,” he said. “Well and well, again.” He looked at me. “Lovely.”
Clothes will do it, every time. She did look lovely. I said, “I wouldn’t waste your time with trash, Jack. Josie is all lady.”
“Stand up, dear,” he said.
She stood up, and the full feminine attraction of her full bodied figure was outlined by the window behind her.
He took a breath and said, “Get your clothes, dear. I’ll have you on a plane for Phoenix tomorrow.”
She went to get her clothes, and he came over to slip some bills into my hand. “Experienced, is she, Joe?”
“A little,” I answered. One of Target’s upper level girls until he got the knife. High class.”
“Sure—those clothes—you can always tell.” He looked at my lip. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Walked into a door.”
Then Josie was coming with the suitboxes. She held out a hand. “Good-bye, Joe. Remember—about that girl.”
“I’ll treat her right.” Josie’s hand was warm and strong.
They went out and I checked the bills he’d given me. Two twenties and a ten.
He’d paid top dollar.
CHAPTER SIX
JEAN PHONED AT SEVEN-THIRTY to tell me they’d left for the ballet. “Want to come up here and wait until a few minutes before they’re due back?” she asked me.
“It might be risky,” I said. “I’ll stake out and wait for him.”
Her voice was cool. “In other words you don’t want to be alone with me?”
“There’s nothing I’d like better. But I’d rather put it off until we can be alone and rich.”
“Is Josie there?” There was meaning in that.
“She’s gone. Tomorrow she’ll be out of town. The man was very pleased with her.”
“All right. I’ll phone you tomorrow. Or you can phone me. Willi knows you’re investigating this Company.”
“I’ll phone you in the morning.”
As I hung up I wondered if I’d annoyed her. She was the kind of hot-head who might queer the whole deal over a slight. But she was also the kind of girl who’d cherish a man she wasn’t too sure of. I had to be solid with her. Until the pay-off.
I put a stamp on the letter Josie had written to Deutscher and put the letter in my inside jacket pocket. It was a letter Deutscher would undoubtedly destroy soon after he received it. I would need to be there when he got it.
I found a place with an eight o’clock pick-up and mailed it on the way to dinner. I had a good meal, and a few drinks and then went down Sunset to park about a half block from the luxury apartment building that housed Jean Roland.
I sat there in the Chev, figuring the angles. Of all the people involved in this steal, only Willi Clifford could run to the law. And she could only complain about Charles Adam Roland. Would Roland tell her I’d taken the money? That would be the crux of it.
If he did, the law would come for me, but he’d be implicated. They might not find me. I’d rather they didn’t even have a reason to look for me. But Roland probably wouldn’t squeal on me to the law. What he would probably do is milk Willi of a few more dollars, and take off, himself.
And here was another angle I was overlooking: would Willi run to the law? Willi was a member of a very prominent Eastern family. And a Lesbian. Would she risk the possibility of that being uncovered in an investigation? I doubted it like hell. I was probably safe from Willi. Which left the Rolands, who’d undoubtedly be miffed about my steal but hardly in a position to go to the law. I didn’t fear them any other way.
I could grab the boodle and leave town and only the Rolands would know I had the money. If I could get my hands on the money. I couldn’t plan that until I learned how the money was to be transferred. But a gun could play a big part in that. And I had a gun.
The big cars moved by, a siren wailed a few blocks down. Beyond the apartment building, I could see the lights of the city below. I turned on the radio and got a Long Beach platter program. I was still listening to it when Roland’s Cad slid in toward the curb a half block down. It was a green curb zone, which meant fifteen minutes of parking. He was probably only going to see her to the door.
He couldn’t have taken her any further than the elevator. He was out in a couple minutes and hurrying toward his car. He moved like a man who had an engagement.
He had a hundred and ninety horses under his hood. I had about ninety. That didn’t matter, in traffic, until we’d be stopped by a light. Then he’d be halfway into the next block before the Chev’s clutch took hold. In most towns a Cad’s rudder tail-lights are distinctive enough to make the car easy to spot. In this town there were too many Cads.
But I stayed with him as he cut down to Santa Monica Boulevard and headed west on that toward the ocean. He really moved on Santa Monica. There were a couple times he made a light that I didn’t and I thought I’d lost him. But he stayed right on the Boulevard all the way to Santa Monica. In Santa Monica he turned left on Lincoln Boulevard. It wasn’t hard to follow him through town. But once on the flats beyond Venice, that big heap started to move.
I kept his tail-lights in view and hoped he wasn’t going too far along this highway. Then, way ahead, I saw him swing off on Culver Boulevard, heading toward Playa del Rey. There were very few turn-offs on this road. I let him get far enough ahead so my lights wouldn’t mean anything to him.
Flat lands on both sides of us, and then the hills of Playa del Rey began to appear to our left. It’s a community on the shore, built on sand, a mixed community of very fine and very crummy homes. He cut off Culver Boulevard on Vista Del Mar, and now I had to be careful because it was hilly here and he could turn off when I was on the wrong side of a rise. And I couldn’t crowd him, not on a road as little traveled as this. This was a strangely isolated place for Charles Adam Roland to be bedding down in.
I topped a rise, and a block below I saw the Cad turn to the right. I slowed because he couldn’t be going very far down that street. It dead-ended at the ocean, a half block down. I didn’t make the turn but drove past, over the next rise, and pulled off onto the sand next to the road. I turned off the lights and walked back.
Below me now, parked in front of the small frame cottage at the beach end of the street, there were two cars. The Cad and a Plymouth that looked like Deutscher’s Rendezvous. The bastards were probably going to plan the cross. Willi must be almost ready. Or at least Roland thought she was going to come through eventually.
It was the only house beyond the intersection and there was no cover for a quiet approach to the house. I risked it anyway, walking in from the rear of the empty property that led down from the int
ersection.
California walls are thin—there was a chance I might hear something. I came in under the shadow of the low overhang and moved around toward the lighted window. I was in luck. The upper half of the window was down about eight inches from the top and they were in this room. The louvres of the Venetian blind were at a 45-degree slant.
Deutscher’s voice. “Nobody can trust Puma but let’s be frank. You don’t need me in this pitch any more than you do him.”
“Not in this transaction, no. But I do need your good will and I know you’re well thought of in this town. If you want to earn your money, you can keep an eye on Puma.”
A chuckle. “And one eye on you?”
“You are suspicious, aren’t you? Well, what if you handled the money at the pay-off?”
“I don’t like to be that involved. But with you leaving town right after the steal, it’s about the only way I’ll ever see the money.”
Silence, while to my right the waves lapped the shore. Then Deutscher said, “What do you figure a fair cut for me?”
“A third.”
“That gives you two thirds.”
No answer.
Deutscher’s voice. “What do you figure she’s good for?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m not going to rush her. A first I thought a quarter million but that seems high now. From a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand, say.”
A silence and then Deutscher’s, “Holy cow! I didn’t know you were going for that kind of money.”
“In my business there’s no point in going for peanuts. You sit as long for one as the other.”
“Make it this “way,” Deutscher said, “I get twenty grand guaranteed, a third of the take.”
“Fair enough. And I’ll arrange it so you get the cash end of the pay-off. You may have to appear in this for that. Miss Clifford know you?”
“No, but wouldn’t that queer me in town? I intend to stay in business in this town, you know.”
“You’ll be made up, by an expert, so your best friend won’t know you. Then you bring the money here, get your cut, and I take off from here. I’m actually the only one involved—and I’m gone. Clean enough for you?”
“It looks clean. I’m leery of these things that look so clean and easy.”
“Easy? Peter, I spent thirty years in the big con. I worked with the best man in the world for twelve of those years. I’ve handled better than two million dollars so far. And haven’t spent one day in the jug. This pitch we’re on isn’t easy. It’s only easy for me.”
“I suppose.”
Silence.
Then Roland’s voice: “Here’s the nub of it—who’s trusting whom? You’ll have the money.”
“If you don’t work a switch somewhere along the fine, I’ll have the money.”
Roland laughed. “Oh, Peter, you are a cynic.”
The understatement of the week. I wondered if I should take off now or wait for Peter to leave. Peter decided that for me. He said, “Well, we’ll talk it over. I’ve had a bad day and it’s late. I’ll keep in touch with you. There’s a phone here?”
“No. I’ll keep you informed, Peter, all the way.” I ducked around to the back of the house. I heard the front door close and the grind of the Plymouth’s starter, and saw the reflection of its headlights on the water. Then, as I crouched in the shadows at the rear of the house, I saw the headlights appear in the other direction and the Plymouth made the swing onto Vista Del Mar. He wasn’t heading toward my car, luckily.
As soon as the lights had disappeared over the rise, I started through the empty lots. Roland might come out to put the car away but I didn’t intend to stay here all night to find out. And if he did come out, it could be a showdown time. If we didn’t need him … We, hell, if I didn’t need him, I would have gone in right then and told him what I thought of an inside man who’d double-cross his ropers.
I came up onto Vista Del Mar and went down to my car without looking back to see if he was watching. The Chev started with a cough and a growl, shuddered as I made the U-turn, back toward Culver Boulevard. Fog was settled in all the low spots of the road, shrouded everything once I turned onto Culver. It was slow going all the way to Santa Monica.
Something was gnawing at the back of my mind but it wouldn’t come through to where I could recognize it. It seemed like a warning. The further north-east I traveled, the clearer it got. The stars came into view and the moon and the lights. The gnawing went away. Whatever had prompted it still lay in the fog of the coast.
I slept restlessly that night and woke to a dull, gray morning. The lip was less swollen, but the skin was still tight. My hand had the streak of blue and brown between the knuckles but the swelling had gone down. I thought of Manny. Was that the warning that had bothered me last night? Nothing would come but it had something to do with that coast. I thought of the cottage in Playa del Rey and wondered if Roland would go there even if Deutscher was out of the picture.
I fried some eggs and made toast and coffee. While I ate, I thought of which of my worldly possessions I’d take along when I left. There wasn’t much. There were a lot of good towns in this country and why confine my thinking to this country? There were a lot of towns in Mexico. And women in all of them. In Mexico, the dollar went a long way.
At nine, I phoned Deutscher. His voice sounded sleepy.
I said, “I got a letter this morning, Pete, a threatening letter. You didn’t get one, too, by chance, did you?”
“My mail doesn’t get here until ten. Who’s the letter from, Joe?”
“Josie Gonzales.”
“Oh. Rodriguez tried to tell me she was still alive. He thinks I lied about her.”
“You didn’t. But the doctor did. Rodriguez and I had a fight about that. You going to be home for a while?”
“Until noon. What kind of fight? You didn’t hit him, did you, Joe?”
“Knocked him colder than an ice cube.”
“Migawd, Joe, we can’t afford trouble with the law right now. This is no time for that damned temper of yours to get out of hand.”
“It’s too late to worry about it,” I said. “This letter I got bothers me more, Peter. Josie’s got a hot-blooded friend, the way it looks.”
“Well, bring the letter along when you come. I’ve got to “shower and shave and make some breakfast. We’ll talk about it.”
He’d talk about everything but where he’d been last night. I stacked the dishes and made the bed, and then gathered up all my clothes that needed dry cleaning and laundering. When I left this town, I was going to leave it clean.
Then from my bureau drawer I took the little bone-handled stiletto I’d bought in Tijuana long ago. For no reason at all. I hadn’t even known Deutscher then. I looked at it for seconds before picking it up. Deutscher had to go. Deutscher was the one participant in this steal who was armed and not afraid to shoot a man for his share of the loot. The others would talk and storm, but Deutscher would fight for his share. And he was sharp enough to know how to cover the results of his violence.
I washed the stiletto and wrapped it in a handkerchief, knotting it tightly around the guard. I put it in my jacket pocket, unsheathed.
And then, as I was checking for more laundry, I saw Josie’s cotton dress. And that would help. If through this dress McGill should discover that Josie had once lived with Deutscher, they’d have the case against Josie’s mythical friend solidified by just that much. The friend that was mentioned in Josie’s letter to Deutscher would be their logical suspect. This dress would point up the fact that Josie had lived with Deutscher and maybe add another reason for the killing by the mythical man.
I made a small bundle of the dress and wrapped it in the Mexican newspaper Josie had left behind. I took the clothes to the cleaners and then drove over to the office parking lot. I left my car there and took a bus.
The street he lived on was quiet and I kept watching the windows I passed to see if I was being observed. There was no sign of prying eyes.
I walked along the path in front of the first two units of the triplex and pressed Deutscher’s bell button. Chimes and then he was standing there in a dressing robe.
“Come in.” He looked at the lip. “Manny—?”
I nodded and came in.
He shook his head. “What a damn fool thing to do. Come on back into the kitchen; I’m still eating.”
He sat down at the small table in the kitchen and asked, “Coffee?”
“No, thanks.” A little flutter in my stomach.
He poured himself a fresh cup. “Let’s see the letter.”
“I didn’t bring it.” I studied his neck, spotting the jugular.
“Didn’t bring it—? Why not?”
“I’m too hot. I’m due to be picked up by one of McGill’s boys any minute, after my battle with Manny. I sure as hell wouldn’t want that letter on me.”
“Oh, yes.” He sipped his coffee and looked at the package under my arm. “What’s that?”
“A couple of dirty shirts. Where were you last night? I tried to get you.”
“On a case.”
“In Playa del Rey?”
He stared at me, saying nothing. His eyes showed his uneasiness.
I said, “Old double-cross Roland has had me there too. He’s trying to work us against each other, Peter. He’ll cross us both.”
Peter fought for composure and found it. “No, he won’t. But we can cross them, can’t we?”
“Quick thinking, Peter,” I said. “Then you were in Playa del Rey? I just took a shot in the dark on that one.”
Peter nodded slowly, studying me. “I was in Playa del Rey. I heard he’d moved out of the hotel and I tailed him to Playa del Rey. What’s your angle, Joe? Why are you here?”
“To find out what we’re going to do about him, about Roland. Maybe you two were planning on crossing me and maybe you weren’t. But we could plan on crossing him. I could anyway.”
Words, just words, waiting for the mail.
Peter started to say something and there was a sound like the clink of a coin. It was the mail slot cover closing. A letter fell to the rug on this side of the door. Deutscher took one glance at me, rose and went to pick it up. He sat down on the davenport in the living room and opened it.
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