‘Mr. Claude okayed him?’ the bouncer asked.
‘Of course he has,’ Welliver said, and taking me by the arm, he shoved me towards the double doors, leaving the two bouncers staring suspiciously after us.
We moved into a big room full of men and women, soft lights, cigarette smoke and a buzz of excited conversation.
In the middle of the room was a roulette table. Clustered around it was a bunch of the upper strata of Palm City’s social register. Welliver had said the stakes were high. I had only to; look at the piles of chips out on the table to see he hadn’t been letting his imagination run riot. There could have been around forty to fifty thousand dollars out on the table for this one throw.
‘Let this one ride,’ Welliver muttered to me after casting an expert eye over the stakes. ‘We don’t want to tangle with crazy men.’
Everyone’s attention was rooted on a fat, elderly man with a vast pile of chips in front of him. As I moved closer, he leaned forward and pushed a stack of chips on number five black.
A number of people, betting small, followed his example, then the wheel began to spin, the ball was tossed in, and after a while it made up its mind and settled in five black.
There was a soft sigh around the table as the croupier, a dark, poker-faced Mexican, scooped in the losers’ chips and then shovelled more chips towards the fat man.
I found myself behind a blonde woman who smelt a little too strongly of Chanel No. 5. I edged my way forward until I was against the back of her chair. From there I had an uninterrupted view of the whole table. The lights were strong, and lit up the mass of chips before the big gamblers. It was the perfect angle for a picture.
Buckley had told me all I had to do was to stand square to the table and press the shutter release I had in my pocket. The lens was so fast and the film compensated to such a degree, I couldn’t go wrong.
I saw Welliver had moved away from me, hunting for a seat. I got myself in the right position and my fingers closed over the push button of the shutter release. I held my breath and myself steady, as Buckley had told me to do, then I gently squeezed. I was vaguely aware of hearing a very faint click that told me the shutter had operated.
Then things happened.
I’ll never know if the guys who were watching the players, keeping check on the bets, spotted me or if I gave myself away by my tense expression or if the croupier had spotted the tiny lens in my buttonhole. Anyway, that is neither here nor there: what mattered was I suddenly felt two hard bodies move against mine. Hands that felt like steel braces caught and held my wrists: a man on each side of me.
With my heart doing a rock ‘n’ roll, I looked first to the right and then to the left.
These two guys weren’t bouncers: they were professionals. Two thin-faced men, almost twins in their cold, remote professionalism. One was a little taller than the other: one was fair and the other dark; both had hatchet-shaped faces; bleak eyes; flat and expressionless; both had lipless mouths and square jaws.
They both looked hard, tough and ruthless, and they both looked very, very lethal.
‘Okay, buster,’ the fair one said softly. ‘Don’t let’s have any trouble. The boss wants a word with you.’
There was a professional method in which they gently eased me out of the crowd. Both my arms were paralysed in their grips. I suppose I could have kicked and screamed, but the idea didn’t occur to me.
Welliver, who had just found a seat at the table, glanced over at me, his face showing surprise, but he had found a seat and he wasn’t going to lose it, so he smiled drunkenly at me and said something about seeing me later.
As the two men moved me out of the crowd, I had an unpleasant feeling deep down inside me that I would be lucky if I saw anyone later.
The fair one said: ‘Take it easy, buster, let the legs walk. We can handle it if you want to get rough.’
They released my wrists but, like two expert sheep dogs, they managed to keep me moving by jostling me gently forward with their shoulders.
No one in the crowded room paid any attention to us.
I suppose I could have started to sling punches and yell for help, but I was sure it wouldn’t get me anything except a blackjack behind the ear while the fair one or the dark one explained to the crowd I was just another tiresome drunk.
So I walked with them across the room to a door which the dark one opened. They eased me through as if I were a millionaire invalid with four days to live and who hadn’t as yet paid his doctor’s bill.
We went down a short passage to another door.
The fair one knocked while the dark one breathed gently down the back of my neck.
A voice said: ‘Come in,’ and the fair one turned the handle and pushed open the door.
The dark one nudged me into a room that didn’t seem to know quite whether it was an office or a sitting room. It had a desk by a big window hidden by flame-coloured drapes. There was an executive chair behind the desk and to the right was a steel filing cabinet. The rest of the room was full of lounging chairs, a radio set with a separate corner horn, a small bar and a divan covered with a Spanish shawl.
Behind the desk, in the executive chair, sat a fat, big man in a tuxedo. His hair was a mixture of grey and red; his fleshy face was set in one of those bland expressions that mean nothing; his small, ice-grey eyes were motionless and slightly out of focus as if he were thinking of something pretty important when we interrupted him by coming in.
At a guess, he was around fifty-five to sixty, still in good physical shape in spite of his fat. His hands, slightly freckled and covered with fine red hair, lay relaxed on the snowy white blotter on his desk.
The dark one edged up to the desk while his companion shut the door. I could have been mistaken, but I was pretty sure I heard the key turn in the lock.
I was feeling uneasy by now. If they found the camera on me, I would be in trouble.
The man at the desk stared at me, then looked inquiringly at the dark one and lifted his eyebrows.
‘Non-member,’ the dark one said in a soft drawl.
The fat man who I guessed would be Jack Claude shifted his ice-grey eyes on me again.
‘Sorry about this, friend,’ he said in a deceptively mild voice, ‘but you can imagine we don’t welcome gate-crashers. Could I have your name?’
‘I’m Chester Scott,’ I said. ‘What’s all the excitement about? Phil Welliver brought me up here. He’s a friend of mine.’
Claude didn’t seem particularly impressed.
‘Where do you live, Mr. Scott?’ he asked.
I told him.
He reached forward, picked up the telephone book that was lying on his desk and checked my address.
‘Mr. Welliver should know by now he can’t bring friends up here without my say-so and unless his friends pay the subscription fee.’
I began to get less flustered.
‘I didn’t know that,’ I said. ‘Welliver didn’t mention a fee. I’m willing to pay it. How much?’
‘Twenty-five bucks,’ Claude said. His eyes shifted away from me to the dark one who still remained at my side.
‘Do we know anything about Mr. Scott?’
‘He was in last night,’ the dark one said. ‘He went backstage and talked to Miss Lane.’
I began to sweat again.
A remote look came into Claude’s eyes. He shifted in his chair, then, as polite as a dentist asking me to open wide, he said: ‘You know Miss Lane, Mr. Scott?’
‘No. I heard her sing,’ I said. ‘I thought she was pretty good. I asked her to have a drink with me.’
‘And did she?’
‘No.’
‘But you talked to her in her dressing room?’
‘Yes: we talked. Why all these questions?’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘This and that,’ I said. ‘What makes it your business?’
Claude looked at the dark one.
‘Anything else?’
‘Not that I know of.
’
There was a pause, then Claude said: ‘Sorry to be bothering you, Mr. Scott. That’ll be twenty-five bucks.’
I took out my wallet, found two tens and a five and laid them on the desk.
He wrote a receipt and handed it to me.
‘We have to be careful, Mr. Scott,’ he said. ‘I don’t have to tell you that. I hope we see you here often.’
‘You probably will,’ I said, not believing it had smoothed out this easy.
The dark one and the fair one had moved away from me. Their faces were now bored and disinterested.
I put the receipt in my wallet and my wallet in my pocket.
‘Well, thanks,’ I said and began to back away.
Then I heard the door open behind me and I looked around.
Oscar Ross came in.
He had on his barman’s coat and he carried a tray on which stood a bottle of Scotch, a glass and a container of ice.
He didn’t see me until he was halfway into the room, and then he didn’t recognize me until he had put the tray down on Claude’s desk. Then he stared at me as if he wasn’t sure if he could believe his eyes.
I started across the room to the door, trying not to run, but covering the ground to the exit at a pretty fast clip.
Ross stood rooted, staring at me.
I turned the door handle, but the door was locked.
The fair one moved towards me to unlock the door when Ross said in a strangled voice: ‘Hey! Don’t let him out of here!’
The fair one paused.
The key was in the lock. I turned it and as I was opening the door, the fair one moved like a swift shadow and his foot jammed against the door.
‘What’s he doing in here?’ Ross demanded.
The fair one, obviously puzzled, looked over at Claude for guidance.
I set myself and slammed a right at his jaw. My knuckles connected and I felt a jar run up my arm. He went over backwards and his head crashed against the wall.
I turned the key and opened the door.
‘Hold it!’
This was from the dark one.
I looked quickly at him. He had a .38 automatic in his right fist and it was pointing at me.
I decided recklessly that it was more than he dared do to let off the gun in the confined spaces of the club and ignoring his threat, I jerked open the door.
Ross came at me fast. His hands were seeking me, his eyes were vicious and alarmed.
I got into the corridor as he arrived to close with me. His right fist sailed towards my face as I spun around to grapple with him. I got my face out of the way just in time and I planted my fist in his mouth. He reeled backwards and I turned and hared down the passage to the door into the roulette room.
Something that felt like a tank thudded into the back of my knees and brought me to the floor. I twisted over as the dark one slammed a punch at my jaw. I managed to get my head moving, but the punch connected, just a shade too high up to cause much damage, but hard enough to make me grunt.
I kicked the dark one away and got unsteadily to my feet as Ross came charging out of the room and towards me.
If there was one thing I wanted more than another, it was to get one more bang at him. I slipped the punch he tossed at me, moved in close and hooked him with a right-hand punch that had all my weight and most of my strength behind it.
But that was as far as I got.
I had a vague idea that the dark one had picked himself off the floor and was moving towards me with the speed and the grace of a ballet dancer.
He came at me too fast for me to do anything about it I started to turn so I could face him, but I was much, much too late.
I heard the swish of a descending cosh and I tried to get my head out of the way. As the softly lit passage exploded before my eyes, I knew I had shifted that second too late. After all he was a professional. When he sapped you, you stayed sapped.
chapter fourteen
I
I came out of darkness to feel hot sunshine on my face and a blinding light against my closed eyelids.
There was also a feeling of movement. It took me several seconds to realize I was in a car, being driven somewhere at high speed.
I wanted to groan because the back of my head was expanding and contracting and pain crawled up my neck over the top of my head and into my eyes like a beetle with red-hot feet.
But I didn’t groan. I let myself stay limp and slack and I rolled with the motion of the car until I felt good enough to open my eyes and take a quick look around.
I was on the back seat of my hired Buick. There was a man sitting beside me. I recognized the iron-grey suiting of his trouser leg. It was the dark thug: the one who had sapped me.
Sitting in front, driving, was the fair one. He had put on a light grey slouch hat which he wore at a jaunty angle over his nose. Keeping my eyes half closed, I checked out of the window to see where we were.
We were passing through one of the back streets of Palm City: empty as a hole in the wall on this hot Sunday afternoon.
I kept quiet and wondered where we were going. I didn’t have to wonder for long.
The next five minutes saw us leaving Palm City behind us, and we got on to the highway leading to the beach road where I lived. I decided they were going to dump me back in my bungalow.
There was a light travelling rug across my knees to hide my wrists and hands. My wrists were crossed and strapped with what felt like adhesive tape. They were strapped so tightly I could feel tie blood pounding in my veins, and although I very gently tried to ease them a little, they were tight against each other as if screwed down in a vice.
Turn right at the intersection, Lew,’ the dark one said suddenly. ‘His joint is three hundred yards down on the right: a nice lonely spot for a guy to live in: I wouldn’t mind living in it myself.’
Lew, the fair one, laughed without humour.
‘Why not ask him to leave it to you in his will?’ he said. ‘He won’t be needing it now.’
‘Aw, hell! I don’t want it that bad,’ the other said.
The car drove on.
I found myself suddenly short of breath, but I didn’t have the time to wonder what they meant, for the car suddenly slowed down and finally stopped.
‘This is it,’ the dark one said.
‘Okay, let’s get him out,’ Lew said.
I remained limp, my eyes closed, my heart slamming against my ribs.
I felt the dark one leave the car, then I heard the offside door open. Hands laid hold of me and pulled me out of the car.
As I slid on to the ground, Lew said: ‘You didn’t hit him too hard, did you, Nick? He should have come to the surface by now.’
‘I hit him right,’ Nick, the dark one, said. ‘He’ll snap out of it in a few minutes.’
Between the two of them they half carried me, half dragged me up the path and dumped me on the front step.
‘Got his keys?’ Nick asked.
‘Yeah. This is the one.’
I heard the lock on the front door snap back, then I was dragged across the hall and into my lounge and dumped on the settee.
‘You sure he’s all right?’ Lew asked.
A hand moved on to my neck: expert fingers touched my pulse.
‘He’s fine. He should be up and coming in another five minutes.’
‘He’d better be.’ There was an uneasy note in Lew’s voice. ‘Galgano will be mad if this punk croaks before he can talk to him.’
‘Relax, big head. He’s all right. When I tap ‘em, I tap ‘em right. In five minutes, he’ll be dancing the can-can.’
I gave a low groan and moved a little.
‘You see? He’s coming out of it already. Gimme the rope.’
I felt a cord tighten around my chest, pinning me to the settee. I opened my eyes as Lew was fastening the cord to the legs of the settee. He stared at me, his face expressionless, then he stepped away.
‘That fixes it,’ he said and leaning over me, he patted my
face. ‘Relax, buster. The boss wants to talk to you. He’ll be along in a little while.’
‘Come on,’ Nick said impatiently. ‘Let’s get out of here. Have you forgotten we’ve got to walk?’
Lew cursed.
‘Why couldn’t that punk Claude have sent a car?’
‘You ask him,’ Nick said.
He came over to me and examined the rope across my chest critically, then checked the tapes around my wrists. He grunted, stepped back, and stared at me and a tight, meaningless smile hovered on his thin lips.
‘So long, sucker,’ he said.
They went across the lounge and out into the hall, pulling the lounge door half shut. I heard them open the front door, then close it behind them.
After a second or so a silence settled over the bungalow that made the ticking of the clock on the overmantel sound unnaturally loud.
I exerted a useless effort for a minute or so against the tape around my wrists and found there was no way of breaking free so I lay still, panting a little from my exertions.
It was then that I remembered Lucille who I had left tied on my bed. Maybe she had managed to get free. Maybe she would set me free.
‘Lucille!’ I called. ‘Lucille! Can you hear me?’
I listened, but there was no sound except the ticking of the clock and the gentle flapping of a curtain against a window as the breeze disturbed it.
‘Lucille!’ I raised my voice to a shout. ‘Are you all right?’
Again silence, and I suddenly felt cold sweat on my face. Had something happened to her? Or had she got free and left the bungalow?
‘Lucille!’
Then I did hear something. A soft movement of a door opening: a door somewhere down the passage, possibly my bedroom door.
I lifted my head to listen.
The door squeaked a little and that told me it was my bedroom door. I had been meaning to oil the hinges for weeks and had been too lazy to do it.
‘Is that you, Lucille?’ I said sharply.
I heard someone move out into the passage: a slow, heavy step, and I was suddenly more frightened than I had ever been before in my life.
Lucille couldn’t have moved like that. The slow, stealthy footfalls I was listening to were too heavy for a woman’s. It was a man coming down the passage: a man who had come out of my bedroom where I had left Lucille trussed and helpless on the bed,
1958 - Hit and Run Page 20