Delphi collected works o.., p.124
Delphi Collected Works of Peter Cheyney Illustrated, page 124
“That’s the way it goes,” I say.
She goes back an’ flops inta her chair.
“For cryin’ out loud,” she mutters. “So what now?” She starts thinkin’. “Look, Lemmy,” she says. “What happened to these two guys?”
“Plenty,” I tell her. “Last night at that supper party Edvanne Nakorova slipped me a note. She told me she wanted to see me. I reckon she was scared.
“O.K. Well I went around to her apartment an’ waited for her. She was sorta playin’ around on the edge of things tryin’ to do a deal with me. She practically admitted that Nakorova had been behind the Buddy Perriner snatch. The next thing was she was goin’ around to see him an’ try to get him to talk. When I get around there they are both dead. She killed him.”
Juanella purses up her lips an’ whistles.
“What do you know about that screwy dame?” she says. “An’ what the hell did she wanta do that for?”
“Did you know she was Sergius’ wife?” I tell her.
She shakes her head.
“No,” she says. “But I wouldn’t be surprised at anythin’.”
“Well, she was,” I say. “Edvanne Nakorova was a French woman. I think she was pretty stuck on Sergius too. It would have to be a pretty tough job of work that would make her bump him, but she did it.”
“But what for?” she says. “What would she wanta do a thing like that for?”
“She wanted Nakorova to come clean an’ spill the beans,” I say. “Nakorova wasn’t havin’ any. He pulled a gun on her an’ said if she didn’t behave herself he’d give her the works. So she poisoned him an’ she poisoned herself afterwards.”
“Yeah,” says Juanella, “but you’re not tellin’ me why.”
“I’m tellin’ you now,” I say. “Sergius was a Russian an’ Edvanne was French.”
“So what?” she says. “Does every dame who’s not got the same nationality as her husband have to poison the guy?”
“Not always, Juanella,” I say, “but this time that’s how it was.”
I go over to the sideboard an’ give myself another little drink.
“Look, baby,” I tell her, “I reckon things are movin’ pretty fast in this job. Pretty soon there’s goin’ to be some real fireworks. If you take a tip from me you’re goin’ to cash in right from the start.”
She says: “There’s nothin’ else to do. This job’s gettin’ beyond me. What do you wanta know, Lemmy?”
“First of all,” I tell her, “you tell me why it was that Willis Perriner went bail for you comin’ outa the United States, an’ why was it that his attorneys fixed your passport, an’ why did you come over here an’ start cavortin’ around with Geraldine without Larvey knowin’ anythin’ about it?”
She says: “Well, that’s easy. I wanted to pull a fast one on Larvey. Things ain’t been so good with us lately. Ever since Larvey an’ I have been under that suspended sentence that you fixed for us, business has been bad an’ it looked to me that here was a chance to make some legitimate money.” She leans forward. “You know Sam Fremer’s Bar, Lemmy?” she says.
I nod my head.
“I was kickin’ around there one night,” she goes on, “an’ I heard somethin’ I wasn’t supposed to hear. Willie Lodz was a bit high. He was shootin’ his mouth off to some smart dame he’d got with him. He was tellin’ her that pretty soon they’d be in the red, that they were goin’ to be worth a lotta money. He mentioned Borg’s name. Well, you know Borg. If there’s ever been a tough kidnappin’ stunt in the U.S. Borg was somehow mixed up in it. He was just born in the snatch business.
“I didn’t think anything much about it, but after he’s had a few more drinks I hear Lodz say ‘Perriner,’ an’ I get wise. Everybody around town was wonderin’ what had happened to Buddy Perriner. I got the idea in my head that he’d been snatched. So I went along an’ saw Willis Perriner an’ I gave him a little advice.”
“Such as?” I tell her.
“Such as that Buddy had been grabbed off by a very tough crowd an’ that I thought maybe I could help, that I was lookin’ for a little easy dough on the side, that I wasn’t afraid of anything an’ that maybe I could get into a lotta places where coppers couldn’t get.”
“Ain’t you the little smart dame?” I crack. “So what did Willis say?”
“Willis told me about Nakorova,” she says. “He told me that he thought Nakorova was behind the snatch. He also said that he was over her in Paris an’ that Geraldine, who was nuts about him, was over here too. He said he’d stake me to come over here to wise up Geraldine as to what I thought, an’ tell her what sort of a guy Nakorova really was. He said the thing for me to do was to play this thing on my own, to get over here, stick around with Geraldine, to look after her an’ to see that she didn’t make a goddam fool of herself with this Sergius guy.”
I nod my head.
“An’ I suppose it was you who told Willis not to let me know anythin’ about it?” I say.
“You’re dead right, cutey,” she says. “Because first of all I thought if you knew you’d give me the air, an’ secondly thought I might be a bit smart an’ pull a fast one on you. I reckoned it would be good goin’ for me to get that Perriner boy back again right under your nose. Besides I wanted the dough. Anyhow,” she goes on, “Willis Perriner was so desperate that he fell for the idea.”
She shrugs her shoulders.
“I wasn’t to know I was comin’ over on the same boat as you,” she says. “I spotted you the first day out an’ I got plenty scared. I radioed Geraldine that I was on my way to see her from her pa an’ that if she wanted to send any message to me she’d better sign it ‘The Boy Friend.’ I fixed this in case you tried to get at the radio guy aboard. I wasn’t so pleased at you bein’ on the Fels Ronstrom. That was just too tough.”
“It mighta been tough on you,” I say. “It mighta been tough if I’d had you wiped up for obstructin’ me around here. As it is you might be more of a help than a hindrance. Tell me somethin’ : Who do you think was in on this snatch? Who were the guys who actually did it?”
“Three of them,” she says. “There was Borg, Willie Lodz an’ some dame I don’t know, some classy dame. You know what that kid Buddy Perriner is — he falls for any woman who’s got a nice shape an’ a sweet face. So I think they got one for him. It was the dame who got him down to the place where they snatched him.”
“You wouldn’t know what that dame looks like?” I say.
She shakes her head.
“Why?” she says. “Is she important?”
I grin.
“Listen, honey,” I tell her. “I’ll tell you something funny. This mornin’ when you were gettin’ your hair done I came up here an’ had a look around your rooms here. I’d already found out that Geraldine had scrammed. I thought she mighta sent you a note or something before she went. I got a pass key from downstairs an’ I came up here snoopin’.
“While I was in your bedroom I heard somebody kickin’ around in the bathroom. I took a peek through a crack in the door an’ there was some fancy dame searchin’ around tryin’ to find something. Now this dame had a good shape an’ a face to match it. She looked as if she might be a nifty number. I wonder if that was the dame that Willie an’ Borg used. Maybe she was Lodz’ girl.”
“How would she be over here?” says Juanella.
“Why not?” I tell her. “Borg talked as much as he knew to-night. He admitted that they’d snatched Buddy, but he wouldn’t say who his pals were. If Borg can be over here I don’t see why Willie Lodz can’t be over here an’ the dame they used. Anyhow there was some dame up in these rooms, so it looks like its gotta be that dame.”
She nods her head.
“What are you aimin’ to do, Lemmy?” she says. “If Nakorova’s dead, what is there to worry about?”
“Plenty,” I tell her. “First of all at the present moment we don’t know where Buddy Perriner is. Secondly we don’t know where Geraldine is.”
“Have you got any ideas?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I tell her, “but I’m not tellin’ you. I’m beginnin’ to get some very sweet ideas in my head. The first thing that you’ve got to get inta yours is that you have gotta play ball, behave yourself. You gotta be a good girl. See?”
“I’m playin’ ball,” she says. “I feel all washed up. I’m worried sick about that kid Geraldine.”
“Me too,” I tell her. Because I am too although I’m not tellin’ her why.
I give myself another cigarette.
“The point is,” I tell her, “that this guy Zeldar who is secretary to this business Nakorova was supposed to be runnin’, was around to see me this morning like we arranged. He came round to show me that Nakorova was on the up-an’-up. Now maybe Zeldar knows something about this business an’ maybe he don’t. We have got to find out. Do you know where he lives?”
She says she does. She says that after I left the party at the Cossack, Zeldar said that he was stayin’ around at the Miramar apartments off the Rue de la Paix.
I look at my watch.
“O.K.,” I tell her. “This is what you’re goin’ to do, Juanella. It is twenty minutes to three now. At three-fifteen you ring through to this Miramar dump an’ you get Zeldar on the telephone. You tell him you gotta see him. Say you’ve got some very important information for him. Say he’s got to come around to see you right away, otherwise hell will be poppin’.”
“O.K. That guy oughta be around sometime about three forty-five. I’m goin’ back to the Grand Hotel now, an’ I’m goin’ to hang on the end of my telephone wire. If you can fix it so Zeldar comes around to see you you ring through to me an’ let me know.”
“O.K.,” she says. “An’ what do I tell him when he gets around here?”
“I do not give a damn what you tell him,” I say. “Make up something. Tell him some phoney story about Nakorova or Edvanne. Tell him that you can’t find Geraldine, an’ that you’re worried sick. Don’t let on that you know that Nakorova’s dead.
“Sorta suggest to Zeldar that you are a pal of Borg’s an’ somehow mixed up in the Perriner snatch in America. See what he says an’ let me know. The main thing is to keep Zeldar around here talkin’. You got that?”
She says O.K. an’ I grab my hat. I have just got to the door when she says:
“Hey, Lemmy! An’ what do I get for actin’ as your unpaid stooge. Can’t you say goodnight to a girl like a human bein’?”
I go back an’ I give her a kiss. She puts her arms around my neck an’ just gives. I’m tellin’ you that this baby has got temperament plus.
When I break away it is like tearin’ porous plaster off Grandpa’s chest. She says sorta weak:
“There’s one thing about you, handsome. You may be a cold son of a so-an’-so but you gotta honey of a technique. Any time you start a harem just give me a job mixin’ the sherbert at night an’ I’ll slay put!”
She puts a curl back in place. Then she says:
“Don’t worry, kid. I’m sold. I’ll keep this guy Zeldar around here even if I haveta do a fan dance. I’m just another dame whose heart is breakin’. But I’m still smilin’. Scram, Casanova!”
When I get back to the hotel I give myself a hot shower after which I dress an’ lay down on the bed an’ start doin’ some very serious ruminatin’ because this mix-up is gettin’ to be very interestin’.
With what I got outa Borg an’ what Juanella has told me I get this story:
Nakorova goes over to New York an’ makes a play for Geraldine Perriner in order to get next to Buddy. He fixes it so that when the time is ripe Borg, Willie Lodz an ‘some good-lookin’ dame that they are usin’ to string the kid along are goin’ to snatch Buddy.
O.K. Well, the snatch comes off an’ Nakorova beats it for Paris. Geraldine, who still thinks she is nuts about him, comes after him. Willis Perriner gets the jitters about Buddy an’ gets the F.B.I. on the job, an’ Wilks is told off to keep an eye on things over here.
Juanella Rillwater, kickin’ around New York an’ lookin’ for some pickin’s, hears enough of a conversation in Fremer’s Bar to put two an’ two together an’ get wise to the kidnappin’ trio. Bein’ a smart baby, an’ thinkin’ that she can do a bit of good for herself, she does not go to the cops but gets along to Willis Perriner an’ tells him what she has heard.
Pa Perriner tries to be smart. He don’t say anything to the F.B.I. but he fixes with Juanella to come over to Paris pronto, see Geraldine, prove to her that Nakorova is really a bad guy, an’ stick around an’ generally keep her eye on Geraldine so that nothin’ happens to her. He cables Geraldine that Juanella is comin’ over on the Fels Ronstrom.
I come over on the same boat. I radio Geraldine off the boat an’ tell her that I am Hickory an’ want to see her. She shows the cable tee Nakorova because she does not know at that time that he is the kidnappin’ guy.
An’ then she radios Juanella on the boat sayin’ that she is interested in me an’ signs the radio ‘The Boy Friend.’ So it was Geraldine who sent this cable to Juanella an’ not Sergius.
Sergius now gets wise to the fact that some trouble is goin’ to break. He has found out that Rodney Wilks has been stickin’ around findin’ out a thing or two, so he puts Edvanne in to get Wilks outa the way an’ meet me pretendin’ to be Geraldine an’ stall me along until such time as he can bump me off.
But he does not tell Edvanne that the stuff he gives her will kill Wilks. He says it is just a Mickey Finn that will put him nicely to sleep for a bit, an’ she believes him.
Soon after I arrive an’ after I have seen Geraldine the first time, Juanella blows along an’ tells her what she knows. Geraldine is smacked clean outa the field for a home run. She knows now that Sergius is bad medicine but she sticks around pretendin’ to be still stuck on him because she thinks that this way she has got a chance of findin’ out where Buddy is. Juanella probably tells her that this is the way to play it because that baby is mad keen to rescue Buddy before me an’ touch Willis Perriner for a big hand-out for services rendered.
So everything is all right up to there. Zeldar is put in by Nakorova to prove that he has really got a business an’ stall me off for a bit so that they will have time to do something — what?
By this time Willis Perriner has heard from the kidnappers. They tell him that they have got Buddy an’ that unless he gets the Federal Bureau to lay off they will bump the kid. Perriner goes haywire. He knows if he tells headquarters this they will not take any notice so he sends me that wire direct hopin’ I will lay off. As you guys know I pretend to do this.
But there is something screwy about all this. If they have got Buddy an’ are waitin’ for the ransom why does Sergius take a chance an’ get Edvanne to kill Wilks. They must know that whatever else they could have got away with they cannot get away with this. By killin’ Wilks Nakorova was spoilin’ his own game. So why did he do it?
I can guess the answer to that one. Sergious didn’t mind havin’ Wilks killed because he still thought the could get away with it. He thought he could get away with it so much that he wasn’t even scared when Edvanne told him that I was on his tail. He had somethin’ up his sleeve that made him feel safe.
An’ he told Edvanne what that somethin’ was an’ she didn’t like it an’ that’s why she killed him an’ herself too.
In the meantime Borg an’ his pals are worryin’ about their rake-off. Somebody has got enough jack to finance Geraldine to try an’ graft me to keep outa this job, but they have not got enough jack to pay off Borg an ‘the boys who did the kidnappin’, so Borg comes over to Paris to get his dough an’ for all I know Willie Lodz — who is a sweet murderer who would bump his dyin’ grandmother for ten dollars — is over here too an’ the dame who was in it with ’em, an’ for all I know this is the nice-lookin’ baby that I saw givin’ a quick once over to Juanella’s bathroom — an’ what the hell was she lookin’ for?
But Borg don’t know where Buddy is. An’ I believed him when he said this because the job has been played so sweet that I reckon Nakorova would not let the actual snatchers know where Buddy was goin’ to be finally kept.
An’ here is the joke. Supposin’ Nakorova has fixed it so that he is the only person who knows where Willis Perriner is sendin’ the ransom? Supposin’ he is the only guy who knows where Buddy is?
But I reckon I have still got a chance. I reckon that if my little theory about why Edvanne preferred to bump Sergius an’ herself rather than let somethin’ happen is right, then maybe I can still get next to this business. Anyway time will show as the guy said when he sat down on the electric bomb.
An’ the last thing is Geraldine. Where is this baby? Why does she suddenly scram off an’ leave everybody, includin’ Juanella, up in the air? Why don’t she let anybody know?
Well... maybe I know the answer to that one, an’ if you guys are as smart as I think you are I reckon you can make a good guess too!
So there you are!
I have just concluded these deep thoughts when the telephone starts janglin’.
I slip off the bed an’ grab it. I look at my watch. It is twenty-five minutes past three. Juanella comes through.
“Look, you great big blond an’ beautiful beast,” she says. “This guy Zeldar is on his way around to see me right now, an’ I wish I knew what I am gonna tell him when he gets here.”
“Swell, Juanella,” I tell her. “You tell him what I told you. Keep him stringin’ around for half an hour or so. Keep him there as long as you can.”
“Like hell,” she says. “It’s nearly half-past three. Supposin’ this guy tries to make me. What the hell!”
“That’s O.K.,” I crack back at her. “It wouldn’t be the first time that some guy tried to make you an’ won a smack on the schnozzle in the attempt. How did he sound?”
“Goddam suspicious,” she says. “He wanted to know what the trouble was about an’ I told him that Geraldine was gone off some place an’ I was worried sick. I said that I thought that she’d taken a run-out powder with Nakorova an’ that I thought of ringin’ the police department an’ gettin’ them to put an alarm out. That seemed to get him. He said all right, he’d come come around.”
