Complete works of peter.., p.102
Complete Works of Peter Cheyney. Illustrated, page 102
She pulls her furs around her an' gets up.
"But if you cross Larvey up on this," she goes on, smilin' sorta pretty. "If he comes in with you on this an' you pull a fast one on him afterwards, I'm goin' to shoot your insides out as sure as my name's Juanella even if they fry me for it. An' have you got that?"
I grin at her, an' put my hand out.
"I got it," I tell her.
"I'll take one martini for the road," she says, "an' then we'll get along to the Quantro."
We go back to the bar an' I order the martinis.
She looks at me very old-fashioned.
"An' don't get fresh in the cab," she says. "Because even if I have got faults, I am very faithful to Larvey well, most of the time, although I've often wondered what it would be liked to be necked by a 'G' man in a taxi. An' they tell me you have got a sweet technique with dames."
"Take no notice of 'em, honey," I tell her. "They're lyin'. Me, I'm a guy who is always very respectful to women an' I owe my success in life to readin' a correspondence course entitled 'How to Read Your Sweetheart's Mind,' an' because I never eat onions in my hamburgers. Also when I am with a wonderful lookin' baby like you I get sorta nervous."
"Yeah?" she says. "I noticed that. I can see you tremblin'. Only I'm a bit stuck on gettin' back to New York some time an' I wanta get Larvey to play along with you so I do not wish to arrive at the Quantro lookin' like I have been havin' a free-for-all with a steam roller. He might think things."
"Don't worry, Juanella," I tell her. "Nothin' like that has ever sorta crossed my mind. You have got my assurance that when I am in a cab in Paris at night with a swell woman like you I just keep my fingers crossed an' keep on bein' very good."
"I know," she says with a sorta far-away look in her eyes. "That's what I was afraid of."
We get back to the Wellington at a quarter to twelve. Cy Hinks is very pleased with himself at havin' fixed for these boys to play ball an' help me along in my scheme, but he is now crackin' his brains as to how he's goin' to organise things. I tell him to get along an' see Varney at the Embassy in the mornin' an' that Varney will probably have a suggestion or two as to ways an' means.
We are just passin' the reception desk when the night clerk starts wavin' to me, an' when I go over he tells me a long spiel that makes my ears open a bit.
"This evening, m'sieu," he says, "a man comes here and asks for Monsieur Tony Scalla. He says he 'as got somezing ver' interesting for heem. We tell 'im that you are out and we do not know when you return. We suggest 'e leave a message for you. He say no. He say that 'e come back 'ere again after midnight to spik to you."
I ask him who this guy is. He says he don't know but that he is a truck driver a fruit an' vegetable truck driver, that he drives a truck in every night from Corneilles to the markets here, returning early in the morning. This guy says he will come back to the Wellington for me after he has delivered his onions an' stuff.
I say O.K. send him up when he comes back.
I take Cy up to my sittin' room for a short one an' we are there for an hour talkin' about the Larvey Rillwater set-up an' wonderin' whether these boys can work fast enough. We are in the middle of an argument about this when the night clerk comes up with the vegetable guy.
I send the clerk off an' we give this onions merchant a drink. He is a rough, peasant sorta cuss, with a nice smile. He is about thirty-five years of age an' he drinks bourbon neat like it was water.
After he has finished his drink he starts fumblin' with his cap an' after a lot of playin' around he pulls outa the linin' a bit of blue paper. He hands this to me with a big grin an' starts talkin' so fast that anybody would think he was nuts.
I look at the bit of paper. It is the corner torn off some sort of fancy paper. Maybe a magazine or paper-backed book. One side is a nice sorta blue colour an' the other the inside white. Written on the white side, in a scrawly handwriting that looks as if the guy who wrote it had got the jitters, I see something in French, an' I recognise the words "Monsieur Tony Scalla" an' "Wellington Hotel, Paris." I sling it across to Cy an' tell the Frenchman to shut up.
"What's it say?" I ask Cy.
He looks at it.
"Here's a funny one," he says. "It's written in soft-leaded pencil and it says that 'if the finder of this will take it to Monsieur Tony Scalla at the Wellington Hotel, Paris, he will be given two hundred and fifty francs.'"
I tell Cy to ask the onions guy about it. Where he got it from an' anything else he knows.
Cy starts talkin' French at forty miles an hour an' the French guy weighs in an' after a minute it sounds like an all-in wrestlin' competition with nothin' barred but double consonants.
After a few minutes they both shut up.
"Here's what he says," Cy tells me. "He says that to-night about ten o'clock he starts from Corneilles and his first stop is Brionne where he has to pick up some potatoes. Just after he leaves Brionne which would be about a quarter to eleven about ten miles down the Louviers road that's the main road to Paris he passes a big car. This auto is eatin' up the road like hell was after it and he just manages to swing his truck right into the side of the road otherwise they would have hit him.
"He pulls up and looks back out of his cab, sayin' a few words about these tourist guys, when he sees this bit of paper dropped outa the car window onto the road.
"He thinks that maybe these guys have dropped a ten franc note for him because they gave him a scare. He goes back and finds this message. So he thinks as he's this way he'll look in and ask if there is a Mr. Scalla here. He comes here and they say yes and he thinks that maybe there's a chance for him to collect a few francs. He says he don't expect two hundred and fifty because maybe the whole thing is a joke. What do I tell him?"
I turn the piece of paper over in my hands. I am lookin' at the blue side it is a funny sorta blue an' I am wonderin' where I've seen this colour blue before.
Then I get it. It hits me like a brick dropped off the roof. I get out my billfold.
"Look, Cy," I tell him. "You give this guy the two hundred an' fifty francs. Tell him I think he's a smart fellow and then get him outa here."
He does it. I sit there lookin' at the bit of paper.
"That's big dough to pay for that bit of stuff," he says when the guy has gone.
I grin.
"Listen, Cy," I tell him. "Use your nut. This handwritin' is all scrawly, ain't it? It's not like that because it was written in a car that was goin' fast it's even too bad for that. It's written as bad as it is because whoever wrote that on the inside of that cover was writin' it under a car rug, see? They had their hands under a rug an' was tryin' to write a note so that the other guys in the car shouldn't see.
"Well, this isn't all the note. The dame who wrote this note was goin' to continue writin', but she hadn't got the chance. All she could say was 'If the finder of this will take it to Tony Scalla at the Wellington Hotel, Paris, they will get two hundred an' fifty francs.' Then she was goin' on to say something else but she never got the chance. I reckon that when they nearly hit the vegetable guy's truck the rug got pulled aside or something they got a shake-up, see, an' all she could do was to tear the corner off an' get rid of it out of the car window before the other guys got wise."
"That sounds all right," he says. "But how do you know the writer was a dame? You seem to have a lot of ideas about this stunt."
"You're dead right, baby," I tell him. "You get your car around here. I'm goin' to show you somethin' funny."
We drive out to the Armine Lodge. When we get there we park the car an' go up to the door. The place is dark an' quiet. I open the front door with the key I got off Hinks's man in the mornin' an' we go in. Cy has got a gun in his fist in case there is anybody around. But there ain't, the place is empty.
We go up to the room on the first floor, the room where I saw the sandwich on the table an' the empty glasses; where I found the gun.
I switch on the light. I go over to the window ledge and grab the pile of magazines. I take the French one the one with the dame on the frontthe Magazin des Arts.
"Look at this," I tell Cy. "See it's the same colour. That bit was torn off the corner of another of these magazines. One they had in the car.
"Now you tell me something, Cy," I go on. "You take a look at these magazines. They're all American, ain't they, except the Strand an English one. This Magazin des Arts is the only French one here. So it looks as if the guy who was stickin' around here was a guy who couldn't read French. He usta go for English readin'. O.K. Then why does he have this magazine here an' why do they have another one like it in the car?"
"I don't know, Sherlock," he says. "You tell me."
I start turnin' over the pages of this Magazin des Arts. It's stickin' out a foot that whoever has been readin' this thing has not been very interested in the front part because some of the pages aren't even cut. I flip the pages over towards the back of the magazine an' there it is!
One page has the corner turned up. It is an advertisement page. An' there is a little tiny pencil tick against one of the small ads.
"What's that ad. say?" I ask Cy.
"It's an advertisement for an expert photographer, Lemmy," he says. "A guy called Raphallo Pierrin. This guy advertises expert photography of all sorts, sizes and conditions. He says he's practically the world's best in fact he hates himself."
"Where does he live?" I ask.
"He's at Dives on the coast," says Cy. "That's a little place not far from Deauville."
I start grinnin'. Boy, am I beginnin' to feel good!
"Look, Lemmy," says Cy. "What's all this mysterious stuff? How did you know that a dame had written that note? What's goin' on around here?"
"Listen, bozo," I tell him. "Last night Georgette Istria pulls a gun on me an' gets away from the Grande-Claremont. She locks me in her room. I reckoned that she had a date here with the real Tony Scalla. I was right. He was waitin' for her.
"O.K. She comes around here an' she's got a gun. She's not feelin' so good because I've told her half an hour before that somebody has bumped off Pinny Yatlin, the one time boss, in Mexico City. Georgette wonders if they are goin' to try somethin' funny with her too after she's served her turn, see?
"She comes around here an' she rings the bell, an' she's got her gun in her hand. She's goin' to look after herself, she thinks.
"Tony Scalla opens the door. He starts handin' her a lot of smooth stuff, but she still keeps the gun on him. He brings her up to this room an' he comes inside. She stands in the doorway hold-in' the gun waitin' to ask questions.
"But what she don't know is that there is another guy in the house with Tony. I saw his footmarks around the back of the house this mornin'. I saw where Tony drove around there to pick him up.
"While she is standin' in the doorway this second guy gumshoes up behind her an' knocks the gun out of her hand. I found it this mornin' under those furniture covers.
"O.K. Tony takes her downstairs an' sticks her in the car. The other guy follows 'em down, switches off the lights, shuts the front door after 'em an' then goes through to the back. He locks the door from the outside there an' waits for Tony to drive around an' pick him up.
"O.K. Well, Tony has joined up with the rest of the mob. Georgette is scared stiff. She thinks they're goin' to bump her like they bumped Yatlin an' Pedro Dominguez, so she starts writin' this note to me on the inside of the cover, but she can't finish it an' she chucks the bit she's written outa the car window so's they shan't get wise. You got that?"
"I got it," he says. "But what about the photographer's ad.? Where does that come in?"
I get up.
"Cy," I tell him. "I'm gettin' a line on this mob. I got hope. Maybe I'm goin' to ditch 'em yet. These guys have been lookin' for a photographer. An' I reckon the one they picked is this Pierrin guy just because he lives in the place they wanted a photographer to live in."
I light a cigarette an' give him one.
"Now, you big palooka," I tell him. "You're really goin' to get to work. You're goin' to work so fast that you'll wonder what's happenin' to you."
"It's O.K. by me," he says. "Maybe in 1946 I'm goin' to get some sleep."
"Let's get goin'," I tell him. "Stop at the first call box. I wanta call the Embassy. We gotta get that Varney guy out of bed. We're goin' to have one big, very swell meetin' an' then, boy, are we goin' to town or are we?"
XIII. DYNAMITE
IT is twelve o'clock when I wake up and a sweet mornin'. There is a cold winter sun an' outa the window I can see dames walkin' up the boulevards with that sorta swing that a pretty woman always puts on when she knows that her make-up is lookin' dead right against a silver fox.
I ring for some coffee an' get back inta bed. I start thinkin' about things in general an' wonderin' just how they are goin' to break.
Some lovely momma with turquoise eyes that I met up with in Tulsa one time told me that just when the whole world looked as if it was goin' to fall in on a guy's dome somethin' would always happen to set the guy on his feet. She said that life had always proved this to her an' that she had always banked on somethin' turnin' up at the right moment.
After which she gives me a hot, lingerin' look an' proceeds to sling her arms around my neck an' show me how Katherine of Russia usta slip a half-nelson on the young lieutenant of the guard who was hangin' around tryin' to get himself made a General without knowin' anything at all, just by bein' helpful to his Empress at any given moment.
An' the thing that turned up at the right moment then was some guy who said that he was her husband an' who proceeds to unlimber a gun an' shoot up the place like it was fiesta night in San Antonio.
All of which brings me to Georgette. I sit there thinkin' about this baby an' wonderin' just how she is likin' what has turned up so far as she is concerned. I reckon she is plenty surprised.
I guess she was good an' surprised in the first place when I told her about Yatlin bein' shot. But right then she was only thinkin 'about one thing. She was thinkin' about ditchin' me, gettin' away an' joinin' up with the rest of the mob.
But when she was in the cab an' on her way out to the Armine Lodge to meet up with Scalla that was the time when she began to cool off a bit an' look at things from a strictly logical point of view.
It must have hit her right then that this mob are not the sorta boys who are goin' to carry deadweight even if the deadweight is a lovely like she is. She musta got the idea inta her head that if they was prepared to bump Pedro Dominguez an' Yatlin there wasn't any reason why they shouldn't bump her too or get rid of her in one of the not-so-nice ways that gangsters have of ditchin' dames when nobody sorta wants 'em any more.
Or maybe Scalla had his eye on her. I remember how she looked when I said that he had told me that he was her brother.... I reckon that Georgette was wise to Scalla. Maybe she knew that he was thinkin' that with Jake Istria who gets himself conveniently shot by me out of the way, an' Pinny Yatlin who I reckon was bumped by Zellara on her sister Fernanda's instructions little Tony was sittin' right on top of the game an' goin' to be good an' rich by cuttin' the dough they make outa this job only two ways himself an' Fernanda because I reckon the other mugs in the game are not goin' to get a lot.
Maybe the only thing that Scalla wanted to meet up with Georgette for again, was that he was out to make her, an' I can understand that because, without fear of contradiction, I am saying that she is the sweetest looker that I have taken a quick look at.
I reckon she come to this conclusion too while she was goin' out to Neuilly in that cab an' I bet she was talkin' very cold turkey to Scalla when the other guy gumshoed up behind her an' knocked that gun out of her hand.
An' I bet she ain't feelin' quite so good now. I start wonderin' what she woulda said in that note that she started writin' if she'd been able to finish it. It might have been very interestin'!
It just shows you that some of these smart dames can sometimes be just a little bit too smart. But at the same time I feel sorta sorry for Georgette because I reckon she is in a bad spot however much she is a double-crosser.
After a bit Cy Hinks comes around. We have lunch an' Cy tells me that he is gettin' one hundred per cent support from Varney who has fixed up an appointment to see Juanella Rillwater about gettin' organised. Cy says that he has taken a short lease on some basements in the Quartier an' that Larvey Rillwater an' the boys are gettin' the machinery an' stuff put in there right now.
So it looks as if that part of the job is goin' on all right. Cy says that he never reckoned to live an' see a member of a U.S. Embassy staff playin' around an' doin' business with a mobster's baby like Juanella, but that you never know what can happen these days. He don't know how right he is. Anyhow I reckon that maybe Varney an' Juanella can both teach each other something, that is if she don't try to make Varney just to sorta keep her in hand.
After lunch Cy gets the car around an' we scram. I am lookin' forward to meetin' this photographer guy in Dives because I have got an idea way back of my head that if what I think is happenin' then maybe I can still pull a very fast one an' get my little girl friend Fernanda Martinas an' her bunch of thugs just where it's goin' to hurt 'em most.
It is five o'clock when we pull inta Dives. This is a pretty sorta place with a funny little quay an' some odd houses. It looks like one of them week-end spots that you read about in books where everybody is human an' there ain't any house-detectives.
We get around to the address of this Raphallo Pierrin as per the advertisement in the Magazin des Arts. The guy is in. He is an old bozo with white hair an' big blue eyes an' a blue beret. He also looks as if he has got some brains an' he talks English better than Cy talks French.
I give him the works. I tell him that I reckon that he is a guy who is not in business for his health, an' that whatever dough he was goin' to make outa the job that I think somebody has asked him to do, is nothin' to what I am prepared to pay him if he plays along with me. I flash a coupla thousand franc notes an' I watch his eyes glisten.
