“You mean about this babe walking in her sleep?”
“Certainly.”
“Persuading Redfern to believe a yarn like that should be fun.”
“If you are careful it won’t, come to that.”
“I hope it doesn’t.” I finished my drink, rolled up the blue print. “I’ll study this in bed. Anything else?”
“Do you carry a gun?”
“Sometimes.”
“You better not carry it tomorrow night.”
We studied each other.
“I won’t.”
“Then that’s all. We’ll go out tomorrow morning and look Brett’s place over. The lay of the land is important,”
“It strikes me it’d be easier to let that stripper do it in her sleep. According to Fatso, if she has anything on her mind she sleep-walks at the drop of a hat. I could give her something for her mind.”
“You’re being impertinent again.”
“So I am.” I collected a bottle of Scotch and a glass from the sideboard. “I’ll finish my supper in bed.”
“We don’t encourage people we hire to drink.” He was very distant and contemptuous again.
“I don’t need any encouragement. Where do I sleep?”
Once more he had to struggle with his temper, and went out of the room with a little flounce that told me how mad he was.
I followed him up the broad stairs, along a passage to a bedroom that smelt as if it had been shut up for a long time. Apart from the stuffy, stale air, there was nothing wrong with the room.
“Good night, Jackson,” he said curtly and went away.
I poured myself out a small Scotch, drank it, made another and walked to the window. I threw it open and leaned out. All I could see were tree-tops and darkness. The brilliant moonlight didn’t penetrate through the trees or shrubs. Below me I made out a flat roof, a projection over the bay windows that ran the width of the house. For something better to do I climbed out of the window and lowered myself on to the roof. At the far end of the projection I had a clear view of the big stretch of lawn. A lily pond that looked like a sheet of beaten silver in the moonlight held my attention. It was surrounded by a low wall. Someone was sitting on the wall. It looked like a girl, but I was top far away to be sure. I could make out a tiny spark of a burning cigarette. If it hadn’t been for the cigarette I would have thought the figure was a statue, so still was it sitting. I watched for some time, but nothing happened. I went back the way I had come.
The chauffeur was sitting on my bed waiting for me as I climbed in through the window.
“Just getting some fresh air,” I said as I hooked my leg over the sill. I didn’t show I was startled. “Kind of stuffy in here, isn’t it?”
“Kind of,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I’ve seen you somewhere before, ain’t I?”
“Along the waterfront. Jackson’s the name.”
“The dick?”
I grinned.
“That was a month ago. I’m not working that racket any more.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. The cops picked on you, didn’t they?”
“The cops picked on me.” I found another glass, made two stiff drinks. “Want one?”
His hand shot out.
“Can’t stay long. They wouldn’t like me being up here.”
“Did you come for a drink?”
He shook his head.
“Couldn’t place you. It sort of worried me. I heard the way you spoke to that heel Parker. I thought you and me might get together.”
“Yeah,” I said. We might. What’s your name?”
“Max Otis.”
“Been working here long?”
“Started today.” He made it sound as if it was a day too long. “The dough’s all right, but they kick me around. I’m quitting at the end of the week.”
“Told them?”
“Not going to. I’ll just take it on the lam. Parker’s worse than Gorman. He’s always picking on me. You saw the way he behaved . . .”
“Yeah.” I hadn’t time to listen to his grievances. I wanted information.
“What do you do around here?”
His smile was bitter.
“Everything. Cook, clean the house, run the car, look after heel Parker’s clothes, buy groceries, the drinks. I don’t mind the job: it’s them.”
“How long have they been here?”
“Like I said — a day. I moved them in.”
“Furniture and all?”
“No . . . they’ve rented the place as it stands.”
“For how long?”
“Search me. I wouldn’t know. They only give me orders. They don’t tell me nothing.”
“Just the two of them?”
“And the girl.” So there was a girl.
I finished my drink and made two more.
“Seen her?”
He nodded.
“Rates high on looks, but keeps to herself. Calls herself Veda Rux. She likes Parker the way I do.”
“That her out in the garden by the pond?”
“Could be. She sits around all day.”
“Who gave you the job?”
“Parker. I ran into him downtown. He knew all about me. He said he’d been making inquiries and would I like to earn some solid money.” He scowled down at his glass. “I wouldn’t have touched it if I’d known the kind of rat he is. If it wasn’t for the gun he carries I’d take a poke at him.”
“So he carries a gun?”
“Holster job, under his left arm. He carries it as if he could use it.”
“These two guys in business?”
“Don’t seem to be, but your guess is as good as mine. No one’s called or written; no one telephones. They seem to be waiting for something to happen.”
I grinned. Something was going to happen all right.
“Okay, pally, you shoot off to bed. Keep your ears open. We might learn something if we’re smart.”
“Don’t you know anything? What are you here for? What’s cooking? I don’t like any of this. I want to know where I stand.”
“I’ll tell you something. This Rux frail walks in her sleep.”
He looked startled.
“You mean that?”
“That’s why I’m here. And another thing, she takes off her clothes at the drop of a hat.”
He chewed this over. He seemed to like it.
“I thought there was something crummy about her,” he said.
“Play safe and take your hat to bed with you,” I said, easing him to the door. “You might be in luck.”
CHAPTER THREE
IT WASN’T until the following afternoon that I met Veda Rux.
In the morning, Parker and I drove over in the Packard to Brett’s house. We went around the back of the foothills and up the twisting mountain road to the summit where Ocean Rise has its swaggering terminus.
Parker drove. He took the bends in the mountain road too fast for comfort, and twice the car skidded and the rear wheels came unpleasantly near to the edge of the over-hang. I didn’t say anything: if he could stand it, I could. He drove disdainfully, his finger-tips resting on the steering-wheel as if he were afraid of getting them soiled.
Long before you reached it, you could see Brett’s house. Although surrounded by twelve-foot walls, the house itself was built on high ground and you could get a good view of it from the mountain road. But when you reached the gates the screen of trees, flowering shrubs and hedges hid it from sight. Halfway up the road, Parker stopped the car so I could get an idea of the layout. We had brought the blueprint with us, and he showed me where the back door was in relation to the house and the plan. It meant scaling the wall, he told me, but as he hadn’t to do it, he didn’t seem to think that would be anything to worry about. There was a barbed-wire fence on the top of the wall, he added, but that too was something that could be taken care of. He was a lot happier than I was about the set-up. But that was natural. I was doing the job.
There was a guard
standing before the big iron gates. He was nearly fifty, but looked tough, and his hard, alert eyes held us as we pulled up where the road petered out about fifty yards beyond the gates.
Parker said: “I’ll talk to him. Leave him to me.”
The guard strolled towards us as Parker made a U-turn. He was short and thickset, with shoulders on him like a prizefighter’s. He had on a brown shirt, brown corduroy breeches and a peaked cap, and his short thick legs were encased in jackboots.
“I thought this was the road to Santa Medina,” Parker said, poking his slick head out of the car window.
The guard rested one polished boot on the running-board. He stared hard at Parker, then at me. If I hadn’t been told he was an ex-cop I would have known it by the sneering toughness in his eyes.
“This is a private road,” he said with elaborate sarcasm. “It says so a half a mile back. The Santa Medina road branches to the left, and there’s a notice four yards square telling you just that little thing. What do you want up here?”
While he was shooting off his mouth I had time to study the walls. They were as smooth as glass, and on top was a three-stranded barbed-wire fence. The prickles on the wire looked sharp enough to slice meat — my meat at that.
“I thought the road to the left was the private road,” Parker was saying. He smiled emptily at the guard. “Sorry if we’re trespassing.”
I saw something else too: a dog sitting by the guard’s lodge — a wolf-hound. It was yawning in the sunlight. You could hang a hat on its fangs.
“Beat it,” the guard said. “When you’ve got the time, learn yourself to read. You’re missing a lot.”
Around the guard’s thick waist was a revolver belt. There was no flap to the holster and the butt of the .45 was shiny with use.
“You don’t have to be impertinent,” Parker returned gently. He was still very distant and polite. “We all make mistakes.”
“Yeah; your mother made a beauty,” the guard said and laughed.
Parker flushed pink.
“That’s an objectionable remark,” he said sharply. “I’ll complain to your employer.”
“Scram,” the guard said, growling. “Take this lump of iron the hell out of here or I’ll give you something to complain about.”
We drove away the way we had come. I watched the guard in the driving-mirror. He stood in the middle of the road, his hands on his hips, staring after us: a real twelve-minute egg.
“Nice fella,” I said and grinned.
“There’s another like him. They’re both on duty at night.”
“See the dog?”
“Dog?” He glanced at me. “No. What dog?”
“Just a dog. Nice teeth. If anything he looked a little tougher than the guard and sort of hungry. And the barbed wire. Good stuff. Sharp. I guess I’ll have to ask for a little more dough. I’ve got to get me insured.”
“You’re not going to get any more money from us, if that’s what you mean,” Parker snapped.
“That’s what I do mean. Pity you missed the dog. It should be a lot of fun having that cutie roaming around in the dark. Yeah, I guess you’ll have to dip into your sock again, brother.”
“A thousand or nothing,” Parker said, his face hardening. “Please yourself.”
“You’ll have to revise your ideas. I’m in a buyer’s market. You know, Brett might pay me for information. Don’t tell me to please myself unless you want me to.” I glanced at him, saw his eyes narrow. That hit him where it hurt.
“Don’t try that stuff with me, Jackson.”
“Talk it over with Fatso. I want another five hundred or I don’t go ahead. Fatso didn’t tell me about the guards or the dog or the alarms or the wire. He made out it was a soft job: a job you could do in your sleep.”
“I’m warning you, Jackson,” Parker said between his teeth. “You can’t monkey with us. You made a deal and you’ve accepted part payment. You’re going through with it.”
“That’s right. But the fee’s jacked up to fifteen centuries. My Union don’t let me fool around with dogs.”
“You’ll take your thousand or you’ll be sorry,” he said, and his hands gripped the steering-wheel until his knuckles turned white. “I’m not going to be blackmailed by you, you cheap crook.”
“Don’t blame me. Blame Fatso. I’m not a sucker.”
He began to drive fast and we got back to the house in half the time it took us to leave it.
“We’ll see Gorman,” he said.
We saw Gorman.
Fatso sat in a chair and stroked his hard pink face and listened.
“I told him he couldn’t make a monkey out of us,” Parker said. He was white and his eyes had a feverish look.
Gorman stared at me.
“You’d better not try any tricks, Mr. Jackson.”
“No tricks,” I said, smiling at him. “Just another five hundred to take care of the insurance. You want to see the guard and you want to take a gander at the dog. When you’ve seen them, you’ve seen plenty.”
He brooded for a long minute.
“All right,” he said suddenly. “I didn’t know about the guards or the dog myself. I’ll make it another five hundred, but it’s the last you’ll get.”
Parker let out a little explosion of sound.
“Don’t get excited, Dominic,” Gorman said, frowning at him. “If you knew about the guards you should have told me.”
“He’s blackmailing us!” Parker stormed. “You’re crazy to pay him. Where’s it going to stop?”
“Leave this to me,” Gorman said, cool as a cucumber. Parker stood glaring at me, then he went out.
“I’ll have the dough now,” I said. “It wouldn’t be much use to me if I run into that dog.”
We argued back and forth. After a while we agreed to split it and Gorman handed over two hundred and fifty.
I borrowed an envelope and a sheet of notepaper and prepared another surprise for my bank manager. There was a mailbox just outside the house. I went down the drive and mailed the letter while Gorman watched me from the window.
Well, I was coming along. I had collected four hundred and fifty iron men for nothing so far, and they were where neither of these guys could reach them.
All the same I didn’t like the easy way Gorman had parted with the money. I knew I wouldn’t have screwed it out of Parker. But Gorman was a lot trickier than Parker. When he had parted with the money, his face had been expressionless. But that didn’t fool me. I began to think it was going to be a lot harder to collect the balance of the money when I had handed over the compact. I was all right now, but the moment I had handed it over I had a feeling Gorman would go into action. I felt it the way you feel a hunch, and it kept growing. I remembered what Max had said about Parker’s gun. Right now they wanted me to do a job Gorman was too fat to do and Parker hadn’t the guts to do. But when I’d done it, I’d be of no further use to them. I’d be a danger to them. That’s when I should have to watch out. And I told myself I’d watch out all right.
Later, Max came to tell me lunch was ready. I was sitting on the terrace overlooking the lawn, and when I was going to speak to him he frowned a warning.
I glanced over my shoulder and there was my pal Parker standing in the French windows watching us. He came over, a little stiff, but controlled.
“I have everything you need for tonight,” he said when Max had gone away. “I’ll come with you as far as the wall and I’ll wait there in the car.”
“Come in with me. You can take care of the dog.”
He ignored this, and we went into the dining room. The lunch was nothing to rave about. While we toyed with the food, Parker told me what he had got together for me.
“You’ll want a knotted rope for the wall. I have that with a hook at one end. I have a good pair of cutters for the wire. You’ll need a flashlight. Anything else?”
“How about the dog?”
“A leaded cane will take care of the dog,” Gorman put in. “I’ll t
ell Max to get one.”
“And the combination of the safe?”
“I’ve written that down for you,” Parker said. “You’ll find a wire running along the side of the safe. Before you touch the safe, cut the wire. That’ll put the alarm out of action. Don’t touch any of the windows?”
“Sounds simple, doesn’t it?” I said.
“For a man of your experience it is simple,” Gorman said smoothly. “But don’t take any chances, Mr. Jackson. I don’t want any trouble.”
“That makes two of us,” I said.
After lunch I told them I’d take a nap in the garden, and that’s when I met Veda Rux. I went down to the lily pond hoping I’d run into her and that’s where I found her. She was sitting on the low wall surrounding the pond the way she had been sitting the previous night. Her feet in sandals hung a few inches above the water. She wore a pair of canary-colored corduroy slacks and a thin silk shirt of the same color. Her almost black hair hung loose to her shoulders in a kind of Dutch bob, only she had waves in it. She was small and compact and curved, and there was strength in her. It wasn’t that she was muscular; it was something you guessed at rather than saw. You had the impression her wrists had steel in them and the curve of her thighs would be as hard as granite if you touched them.
Her face was pale and small and serious. Her lapis-lazuli eyes were alert and watchful. Plenty of girls have pretty faces and curves you can’t improve upon. You look them over, get ideas about them, and forget them as soon as they’re out of sight. But this girl you wouldn’t forget. Don’t ask me why. She had something. She was as different as gin is to water. And the difference, as you know, is there’s a kick in one of them. Veda Rux carried a kick like a mule.
As soon as I saw her I knew there was going to be trouble. If I’d had any sense I’d have quit there and then. I should have told Gorman I’d changed my mind, given him back his money and got out of this house like a bat out of hell. That would have been the sensible thing to have done. I should have known from the way this girl made me feel that from now on I was going to have only half my mind on my job. And when a guy gets that way he’s leaving himself wide open for a sucker punch. I knew it, and I didn’t even care.
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