1972 - You're Dead Without Money

by James Hadley Chase

  Nisson followed them without difficulty to the Blue Heaven motel, watched them check in and go to one of the cabins, then he called Orson.

  ‘They’ve shacked up at the Blue Heaven motel, Harry,’ he reported. ‘Want me to stay with them?’

  ‘See if you can find out who he is, Fred.’

  ‘I’ve got that from his licence tag.’ Nisson read off the details he had jotted down which Orson noted.

  ‘Can you get into the cabin next to theirs? I’d like to hear what they’re talking about.’

  ‘No can do. The cabins either side are occupied. Besides, from the look of them, there’s not going to be much talking.’

  ‘Okay. It’s early yet. There’s a chance they won’t spend the whole night there. Stick around until 02.00, then if there’s still no sign of them I’ll send a relief and you can go home.’

  ‘Go . . . where?’ Nisson said bitterly. ‘Since when have I a home?’

  Orson passed the details he had got on Vin to Lessing who in his turn telexed the F.B.I. Washington for an immediate report back.

  Oblivious of this activity, Vin was occupied with Judy. When they had had enough lovemaking, Vin got off the bed, made two stiff whiskies and then returning to the bed he gave his attention to business.

  ‘With your help, baby,’ he said, I’m sure I can get those stamps, but there are things I must know and you can tell me. You say there’s an electric switch that controls all the drawers and the switch is in a steel box let in the wall of the stamp room and kept locked. Right?’

  Judy nodded.

  ‘I want you to find out the name of the maker of the steel box. Lock makers are so proud of their safes they invariably have their name on the door. Do you think you can do that?’

  ‘If it’s there I can.’

  ‘The same applies to the burglar alarm. There’s certain to be a fuse box somewhere in the house. Find out where it is and see if the maker’s name is on the box. You say there’s a close circuit TV covering the stamp room?’

  ‘Yes. It was installed by Security Guards and the monitor is in their office.’

  Vin nodded.

  ‘I know the system. In a city like this it would be popular. They have a big room where screens are hooked to cameras protecting people’s homes and one guard watches all the screens. It works pretty well.’ He paused to think. ‘How come your old man thought of installing a system like that?’

  ‘They have one at the City Hall covering the Kennedy memorial. My old man saw it and fell for it.’

  ‘Why should they have a scanner in the City Hall?’

  Judy giggled.

  ‘A year ago, some joker splashed paint on the statue. The City Hall blew its cool and had one installed. Why should they worry . . . it’s the taxpayers’ money.’

  Vin filed this piece of information away in his mind.

  ‘Your old man’ keeps the door to the stamp room locked?’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘How about the windows?’

  ‘When he’s not there, there are steel shutters to every window.’

  ‘Is the lock on the door something special?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Okay, baby, that’s something you find out. Do you think you could get hold of the key?’

  ‘Not a hope.’

  Seeing she was getting bored with his questions, Vin began to wonder if she was going to be as helpful as he had hoped.

  ‘When does he play golf?’

  ‘Every Tuesday afternoon.’

  ‘Could you get me into the house when he’s at the club?’

  ‘Not a hope.’

  He resisted an urge to slap her.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The lousy staff are always fiddling around. Anyway they wouldn’t let you in. I’m not allowed to take my friends home.’

  ‘Use your head,’ Vin said impatiently. ‘There must be some way you can get me in. How about at night? How do you get in with the alarms set? Don’t tell me your old man sits up for you.’

  ‘I have my own entrance. The door from my apartment to the house is always locked after ten o’clock.’

  Vin got off the bed.

  ‘I’ll take a shower.’

  While standing under the cold water, he turned over in his mind the information Judy had given him. When he returned to the bedroom, he said, ‘Get dressed. We have work to do.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Judy squirmed down in the bed. ‘I want to sleep. Look at the time!’

  Vin was putting on his clothes.

  ‘Never mind about the time. Get dressed!’

  Grumbling, she got out of bed and pulled on her panties.

  ‘You know something, Superman?’ she said, struggling into her see-through blouse, ‘you’re beginning to bore me.’

  ‘That’s too bad.’ Vin was now dressed and was writing on a pad he had brought with him. ‘Does a million bucks bore you too?’

  He tore the page off the pad and gave it to her.

  ‘A reminder. I want all this information tomorrow night. I’ll pick you up at the house at nine.’

  She read what he had written.

  ‘Okay . . . I don’t promise anything.’

  ‘I want this information!’ Vin snapped. ‘You’re in this for a million . . . so work for it!’

  She was startled to see the cold hardness in his eyes.

  ‘Well, don’t shout at me.’

  ‘Now I want you to draw a plan of the house.’

  Her eyes widened.

  ‘So you’re really going to try?’

  ‘That’s it, baby,’ he said staring intently at her. ‘I’m really going to try.’

  * * *

  Soon after 11.00 the following morning, Lessing came briskly into Holtz’s office.

  ‘I’ve found Elliot,’ he announced as he shut the door.

  ‘About time.’ Holtz was always grudging with praise. ‘I’ll tell Mr. Radnitz. He may want this direct from you.’

  Lessing stiffened. Radnitz scared him.

  ‘Don’t do that. I . . .’

  But Holtz had already gone out on to the terrace and a moment later he returned and beckoned to Lessing.

  Lessing approached Radnitz like a mouse approaching a cat.

  Radnitz was reading a document and Lessing waited, his sweating hands gripped tightly behind his back. Abruptly Radnitz put down the document and stared at Lessing, his eyes hooded.

  ‘Where did you find Elliot?’ he asked.

  ‘He is staying at the Seagull, Seaview Boulevard, sir: a small, four bedroom bungalow that is rented to people on vacation.’

  ‘Who owns it?’

  ‘A Mrs. Miller of Miami.’

  ‘Did Elliot rent it from her?’

  Lessing was thankful he had made thorough inquiries before reporting to Radnitz.

  ‘No, sir. A man called Joe Luck rents it from her. He has rented it for the season now for the past three years. He is living there with his daughter and a man called Vin Pinna.’

  ‘Elliot is living with these three?’

  ‘It would seem so.’ Lessing went on to explain how his men had seen Pinna meet Judy Larrimore, how they had followed them to the Blue Heaven motel and then had followed Pinna to the bungalow. ‘A watch was kept on the bungalow and at 09.00 Elliot came into the back garden which is screened from the road. He was joined by the other three and they had breakfast together.’

  ‘Who are these three?’

  ‘We have no information as yet on Luck or his daughter, but Pinna has a record. I have an F.B.I. report on him, sir. He is an expert lock man, has served three years for robbery but is not wanted right now.’

  Radnitz nodded.

  ‘I want a watch kept on Elliot and on these other three. I want a daily report. On no account are they to know they are being watched . . . understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Lessing said, thinking this was easier said than done.

  ‘I want a watch kept on Claude Kendrick. Elliot may
contact him. Keep a watch on Larrimore’s house and also continue to watch his daughter.’

  Realizing the profit he was going to make from this operation, Lessing put on his most efficient air.

  ‘I’ll take care of it, sir.’

  Radnitz regarded him. His hooded eyes were like tiny pools of ice.

  ‘If there is one mistake, Lessing,’ he said, his voice soft, ‘then even I will be sorry for you.’

  He picked up the document and again began to study it.

  Shaken, Lessing looked hopefully at Holtz who ignored him, then he went quickly from the terrace to where Ko-Yu, giving him a sly little grin, opened the front door.

  * * *

  Fred Nisson and Alec Ross were men of considerable experience in tailing suspects. They worked together: one in front of the suspect and the other behind. They had an efficient set of signals with which they communicated with each other. To look at they were just a couple of middle-aged men on vacation who were wandering around the City, gaping at shop windows, wandering around the stores and being generally harmless.

  At 10.30, they saw Joey and Cindy leave the bungalow and drive off in the Jaguar. Both men were startled to see Cindy apparently had become heavily pregnant. Having seen her in the garden an hour ago having breakfast this abrupt transformation foxed them.

  ‘Think it’s her twin sister?’ Ross asked as he drove after the Jaguar.

  ‘Can’t be anything else,’ Nisson returned. It looks the same girl, but goddamn it, she can’t be. This one looks as if she’s going to lay an egg any minute.’

  Still baffled, they followed the Jaguar into the big parking lot of the Central Self-Service store and both men separated, one going ahead of Joey and Cindy, the other lagging behind. If it had been anyone else but Joey, Nisson and Ross would have been just two men in a crowd, but Joey had a built-in antenna that warned him of danger.

  The antenna began to quiver as he walked with Cindy into the store. Immediately he looked to right and left to see if there was a store detective around, but he couldn’t see one.

  Cindy was planning to cook a beef stew and she made her way briskly to the meat counter.

  A balding man wearing a blue and white shirt and blue slacks moved on ahead of her. Joey eyed his back and his antenna really came alive.

  He touched Cindy’s arm.

  ‘No operation, honey,’ he said softly. ‘I’ve got a feeling . . .’

  During the years of going around with her father, Cindy had come to respect his ‘feelings’. Once she had ignored his warning and they had narrowly escaped disaster. A store detective had been lurking out of sight and it was only because Cindy appeared to be so heavily pregnant that he didn’t take action, but told them to get out fast. So now when her father said ‘No operation,’ she obeyed.

  They bought what they wanted and while Cindy joined the queue at the paying station, Joey walked through the barrier and waited for her. While he waited, he looked around. The man in the blue and white shirt had bought a bottle of Coke and was standing immediately behind Cindy. Joey’s antenna fluttered and he looked away.

  Together Cindy and he walked back to the Jaguar.

  ‘I think we’re being tailed,’ Joey said. ‘Take the car. I’ll go over to the kiosk and buy cigarettes. You circle for a few minutes, then pick me up at the kiosk.’

  Cindy got into the Jaguar and drove away. Joey wandered slowly across the parking lot, pausing to examine a Capri as if the car interested him. He saw the man in the blue and white shirt driving after Cindy. But his antenna still fluttered and he felt sure there was a second tail watching him. He went over to the kiosk and bought a pack of cigarettes and also the Paradise Herald. He paused to scan the headlines, then glanced around but there were so many people that he was unable to spot the second tailer although he was sure he was there.

  He continued to appear to be reading the paper until the Jaguar pulled in to the parking lot. Joey got in and Cindy drove off.

  ‘Where to, dad?’ she asked.

  Joey shifted the driving mirror so he could watch the cars behind. He saw another nondescript looking man wearing a green shirt get in the car beside the man in the blue and white shirt and the car moved after them.

  ‘We are being tailed,’ Joey said, his voice unsteady. ‘They don’t look like cops, but they could be private eyes. Keep going. We’ll go up into the hills and see if they really mean business.’

  ‘Why should they be tailing us?’ Cindy asked, her eyes growing round.

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t like it.’

  Once free of the heavy traffic, Cindy put on speed and turning off the highway, she took a side road that led up into the hills. After a minute or so, Joey again checked the driving mirror. There was no sign of the following car.

  ‘Keep going,’ he said. ‘I think we’ve lost them, but they could be foxing.’

  In the following car, Ross cursed softly as he saw the Jaguar turn off the highway.

  ‘I think they’ve spotted us, Fred,’ he said. If I go up that road after them, they’ll know for sure they are being tailed.’ He pulled into a lay-by. ‘How the hell did they get on to us?’

  Nisson, acutely aware of Lessing’s instructions that the suspects were on no account to know they were being tailed, broke out in a gentle sweat.

  ‘I don’t understand it, but I think you’re right. Let’s get back to the bungalow. From now on, Alec, we’ve got to be a damn sight more careful with these people. Maybe I’d better report to the old man.’

  ‘And get chewed to hell? We don’t know for sure they did spot us. Let’s wait and see how it works out.’

  When Joey was sure they had lost the following car, he told Cindy to take the loop road that would bring them back on to the highway.

  ‘We’ll go home,’ Joey said. ‘Don will want to know about this.’

  When Joey told Elliot he stared in disbelief.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I wouldn’t swear to it, but I think so.’

  ‘Well, let’s take it they were tailing you,’ Elliot said. ‘They could only be tailing you because they suspect you have been helping yourselves in the various stores. Why else should they tail you? Now listen, from now on, we pay for everything we want . . . understand? We don’t want you two arrested on a shop lifting charge just when we are starting this operation.’ He turned to Vin who had been listening and frowning. ‘You too, Vin. Keep your eyes skinned just in case these two men are also interested in you. If you think you are being tailed, act normally. Don’t try to lose the tailer. The time to start losing them is when we go for the stamps.’

  ‘But why should they be tailing us?’ Joey asked. ‘These two weren’t cops. I can smell a cop a mile away.’

  ‘Could they have been store detectives?’

  ‘I don’t think so . . . maybe they could have been, but I reckon I know all the store dicks by sight in this City and don’t tell me store dicks would follow us in a car.’

  Elliot shrugged.

  ‘Anyway, you think you lost them?’

  ‘No question about that.’

  ‘Okay, watch it . . . let’s all watch it. Maybe it was a false alarm.’

  * * *

  That night Vin picked Judy up outside the Larrimore house. Conscious of Elliot’s warning, he checked several times in his driving mirror to make sure he wasn’t being followed.

  Nisson, much more careful now, had got a second car. While Ross drove ahead of Vin, Nisson, in the second car, kept in touch with Ross by a transceiver and followed Vin by using the side streets.

  As soon as Vin pulled up to let Judy get into the car, Nisson alerted Orson, watching from the empty villa and Orson told him in which direction Vin was driving. In this way Nisson was able to follow Vin without being spotted to the Coq d’Or restaurant.’

  Vin was feeling good. As soon as Judy had got into the Jaguar he had asked her if she had the information he wanted and she said she had.

  ‘Fine baby . . . I
’ll buy you an expensive dinner.’

  Judy refused to tell him what she had found out until the dinner was ordered. Then while waiting for the lobster soufflé she handed him the sheet of paper on which he had written the reminders for her and he saw she had scribbled in the answers.

  He studied the information and nodded his satisfaction. He now had the name of the firm who had installed the burglar alarms and also the name of the people who had arranged the electric switch controlling the drawers that contained the stamps. He knew both these firms and he knew just how to handle their appliances. This would be easier than he had thought.

  ‘This is fine, baby,’ he said and called for a bottle of champagne.

  Judy regarded him.

  ‘Does this mean something to you?’

  ‘Sure . . . sure.’ He grinned. ‘It means we are that much closer to those stamps and to all that lovely bread.’

  ‘But how are you going to find the stamps?’

  He patted her hand.

  ‘I’ll find them.’

  Later, both feeling relaxed with the good food, Judy said, ‘I feel like being screwed. Let’s go to the Blue Heaven.’

  ‘Not tonight, baby,’ Vin said. ‘We’re going to your pad.’

  She stiffened.

  ‘That’s something we don’t do!’

  ‘Come on, baby.’ Vin signalled for the check. ‘We’re in business . . . remember? I want to take a look at the lock on your door to the house.’

  ‘You’re crazy! I’m not taking you home!’

  He smiled at her. Settling the check with the money Elliot had given him, he got to his feet. ‘Let’s go.’

  Nisson on his transceiver alerted Ross that the Jaguar was heading his way. Ross set his car rolling and in a few moments, he saw the Jaguar’s headlights in his driving mirror. He kept going.

  Seeing the direction in which Vin was driving, Nisson guessed he was taking Judy home. He told Ross to speed up and get to the house before Vin did.

  Vin pulled up outside the Larrimore gates, cut the engine and got out of the car.

  ‘Come on, baby . . . let’s go,’ he said.

  Judy hesitated, then getting out of the car, she went with him up the drive towards the house.