Complete works of peter.., p.147
Complete Works of Peter Cheyney. Illustrated, page 147
"Yeah... " she says. "An' how're you goin' to get that?"
I take a look at her. This baby is lookin' pretty pleased with herself. An' maybe she's got a reason. She's a helluva looker an' she has got more brains than a snake. Montana is tough medicine, I'm tellin' you.
"I got an idea," I tell her. "I got an idea by which I know that I'm goin' to get a square deal when the dough is paid over, an' you an' Kritsch an' Panzetti know that you're goin' to get a square deal an' get the money paid."
"I wish you wouldn't associate me with these guys," she says. But she is grinnin' when she says it. Flashin' her little white teeth an' generally enjoyin' herself. This dame has got a sweet nerve, I'm tellin' you.
"We don't wanta argue about that," I say. "I've made arrangements to get that dough quick. All I want is action. I want to get outa this country. I wanta get back to the States with those plans in my pocket an' Whitaker on the end of a string."
"So you got the dough," she says. "Well... maybe you're wise to play it that way. Maybe those mugs are clever too."
"Not forgettin' yourself," I crack at her.
"I never forget myself," she says. "O.K. Well, what is the next move? What do I have to do?"
"I got to have a talk with Kritsch," I tell her. "I got to get this thing straightened out. An' I got an idea as to the way we can do it so that everybody's pleased."
She looks at me for a long time; then she says:
"Willie might think you're gonna make some funny business with him. He might think you're goin' to try a pinch or somethin'."
I shrug my shoulders.
"If he wants to think that I can't stop him," I say. "But what's he worryin' about. How can I pinch him. He's got Whitaker, ain't he?"
She smiles at me. She looks like the cat that has swallowed the canary.
"That's right, honey," she says. "So he has. An' even if you did pinch Willie I reckon he would still have somebody left to cut Whitaker's throat."
"Even if you had to do it yourself," I say.
She gives me a languid smile. Then she gets up an' stretches.
"So you want... what?" she says.
"I want to meet Kritsch," I tell her. "I want to meet him an' get this thing fixed. An' so does he... an' so does Panzetti an' so do you."
"Yeah?" she says. "Well... I'll see what I can do. You got a telephone number?"
I write down my number on a piece of paper.
"I'm a generous sorta dame," she says. "I always do my best to help any guy who needs it. That's always been my trouble," she says. "I'm too generous... too yieldin'."
She picks up the piece of paper.
"I'll call through to you, Lemmy," she says. "Maybe I can do what you want. Maybe I'll be able to give you a ring tonight.
She comes over close to me. I can smell the scent she is wearin'.
"But you wouldn't try anythin' funny, would you?" she says, sorta soft. "No monkey business?"
"Do I look that sorta guy... ?" I say.
"Yeah... " she says, "you do... an' then some." She smiles at me. "But this time I don't think you can make any monkey business. It looks like for once somebody has got you where they want you... just for once.... "
She stands there lookin' at me. Her eyes are shinin'.
"Well," she says, "an' that's that. What're you goin' to do now, Lemmy?"
"I'm goin' to scram," I tell her. "I owe myself some sleep."
She looks over at the bed. She locks her hands behind her neck an' takes a quick look at me.
"That's a swell bed," she says. "It's O.K. by me if you like to take a rest here."
"That's nice of you, pal," I tell her. "You're sweet, ain't you?"
"It's just the mother in me," she says. "Are you gonna stay?"
I pick up my coat.
"No thanks, honey," I tell her. "I am an old-fashioned guy. I'd just hate to wake up an' find somebody had cut my throat by mistake."
I ease over to the door.
"So long, lambie-pie," I tell her. "Don't do anything your mother wouldn't like an' don't get your feet wet."
"Nuts!" she says, but she is smilin' when she says it.
I scram.
I walk up into Regent Street an' chase around for ten minutes or so. I keep an eye open in case somebody is tailin' me. After a bit I take a cab down to Piccadilly. I pay off the cab an' go down into the subway. I find a telephone box an' call through to Herrick.
When he comes on the line he says: "Well... Lemmy... did she fall?"
"Did she?" I tell him. "She fell for it hook, line an' sinker. So all you got to do is to get that dough."
"Right," he says. "Is it to be English or American money?"
"Make it English," I tell him. "Maybe they'd like that better."
I hang up. I walk along to my dump in Jermyn Street an' go to bed. Lyin' there, lookin' at the ceilin' I get to thinkin' about some of the dames I have met on this job.
Carlette... who is no more... was just another little mug. Montana is pure poison... that dame is dangerous. And Geralda... there is a doll!
I roll over. There is one thing about a bed. It don't matter what trouble you get inta with dames you can always go to bed... by yourself I mean.
An' a bed will never let you down.
Not unless some baby has been tamperin' with the springs.
VII. THE DAME ALWAYS PAYS
I.
THERE are guys who do not like the business of sittin' around an' waitin' for something to happen. But I don't mind it. It sorta gives you time to think about things... an' dames. Thinkin' about dames has always been a hobby of mine an' it is an easy sorta thing to do an' not so risky as gettin' around with 'em.
There is a big fire in my apartment an' it is seven o'clock an' the rye tastes as good as rye always does. I sit back in my armchair an' do a little ponderin' about the dolls that have showed up in this business.
I reckon Carlette was a mug. She was the sorta mug that a big mobster like Panzetti always has hangin' around. She is a good-looker with a swell figure an' beyond that she ain't got anything. She is just one of them frails that get pushed around an' told what to do an' she does it. She spends most of her time wonderin' what is goin' to happen next an' tryin' to keep her nose clean. When something busts she is the sorta dame that the cops go for because her type is the type that always does a big squawk when it gets scared, after which somebody takes her for a ride for squealin' an' nobody gives a cuss.
The frail was just unlucky. But she was goin' to be unlucky anyhow. I don't reckon that Panzetti woulda let that baby go on livin' anyway. Maybe he woulda waited until she got back to the States an' then fanned her. She mighta guessed too much. In any event I reckon that Carlette had it comin' an' if she got it a little time before it was due that was just too bad.
I get around to thinkin' about Montana. Here is a jane that has got somethin'. She has looks. She is tough an' she has got brains. She is the sorta dame that can string along with a guy like Panzetti without gettin' her throat cut. She is the sorta baby who carries a seven-inch knife stuck in her stockin' top just so's she can open anybody up who don't agree with her at any given moment.
She is the brain baby. I reckon Panzetti put her over here to keep an eye on things generally, but not to mix in enough to make anybody take a lot of notice of her. Willie Kritsch was the executive guy. He was the bozo who has to get things done while she sticks around as a sorta sleepin' partner with one eye open.
Zokka, Frisco an' his brother Guilio Paolo an' Fratti the guy who tried to blow the dump up at Hampstead are all small-timers. Short-weight mobsters who think they are on the way to bein' big-shots, but who never get further than fetchin' an' carryin' with an occasional bump-off thrown in just to keep 'em from gettin' stale.
But the interestin' thing is that Panzetti musta done some very nice organisation. He musta known what he was about. Gettin' this bunch over here an' organisin' 'em was nice work especially, when you got a bunch of first generation wops to handle, because all this bunch are half Italian even if they are graded as American citizens.
Then there is Geralda. I start smilin' to myself when I think of this dame. I think Geralda is cute. Maybe she's a bit nutty to be stuck on this Whitaker guy, but then all the best dames are a bit nutty about somethin'... or they say they are.
I remember a bozo I knew up in Laminton, Pa. This guy was about seventy years of age an' had got himself married about eight times to different dames. The older he got the younger they got. The last time he got married he hitched himself up to some swell baby of twenty-five who had already divorced four husbands an' was still lookin' around an' sighin' for love.
He says that this is his most successful marriage an' that the dame is nutty about him an' when I ask him what it is he's got that keeps 'em so sweet he says that he always let's 'em have a hobby to keep 'em occupied an' that if their minds are sorta busy they don't get time to get bored with life.
I say that this is a swell idea an' I ask him what his present wife's hobby is an' he says good works. He says that every afternoon she gets around an' takes cripples for a walk in bath-chairs an' he reckons that it is a very good thing for her. I think so too.
An' about three afternoons afterwards I am walkin' through the woods around there an' when I get to some little clearin' I take a look through the bushes an' there I see this dame pushin' an invalid chair along a path with a guy in it who ain't got any legs an' who has got one arm in a sling.
When they come to the clearin' she pushes the chair off the path an' he gets out. He draws his legs from under him because he has been sittin' on 'em, throws the sling away, produces a bottle of Scotch from under the seat, an' proceeds to start neckin' the dame like it was his last day on earth.
All of which will show you guys that the old bozo was right an' that there is nothin' like a good hobby to keep a dame outa mischief.
Me... I reckon that Geralda has been goin' in for a bit of hero-worship. I reckon she thinks that this Whitaker hound is the berries. Even if he ain't a lot to look at an' even if he does get frightened when mobsters write him letters, she reckons that he is a genius an' that it is better to get hitched up with a genius with no looks than a guy who looks like Clark Gable but hasn't got anything to think with.
Even so I bet she thinks in her heart that Elmer is a bit of a mug an' that maybe when we get him outa this jam she will tell him off just a little bit so's he won't get around to doin' anything silly again.
Some dames are like that. But what Geralda don't realise is that if she had to live with this mug Whitaker maybe she wouldn't be so stuck on him. Right now he is a sorta little hero to her, but the bein' a hero stuff wears off pretty soon an' a guy has gotta have somethin' else besides Einstein's theory to keep a dame stringin' along an' likin' it.
Inventors maybe are O.K. When it comes to workin' out the specific gravity of somethin' or the stresses an' strains of this an' that these guys are the berries. But specific gravity is no good when it comes to givin' a dame a tumble an' the stresses an' strains that really matter to a swell baby are not those that you find on bridges. I'm tellin' you!
I reach for the rye bottle an' right at that moment the telephone decides to start janglin'. I go over an' grab the receiver.
It is Montana.
She comes through like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. She says in a soft little voice that sounds like a coupla doves cooin':
"Hey, Lemmy, is that you?"
"Nobody else but," I tell her. "An' what can I do for you, sweetheart?"
She says: "Well... it's about that little thing we was talkin' about earlier. You wanted to meet a friend of mine. Well I been able to fix it."
"Fine," I tell her. "Where do I go?"
I hear her laugh.
"You don't," she says. "This boy friend of mine is a careful sorta guy. He ain't keen on havin' his address flung around. See... ? What he says is that if you like to come around here an' pick me up we could go on an' meet him... that is providin' nobody was tailin' us to see where we was goin'."
"That's O.K. by me," I tell her. "I'll come around. When?"
"About nine," she says. "Come around an' have a little drink, Lemmy. I'd be tickled to death to see you. You're such a nice guy to have around the place. You're always so goddam polite." She gives another laugh.
"All right, Montana," I tell her. "I'll be there. So long an' don't do nothin' that you wouldn't like your ma to hear about."
"I ain't likely to," she says. "Not with you around... you human ice-box. Well... Oh, I forgot," she goes on. "My friend says that he wants this business settled good an' quick. He says he's plenty busy. I thought I'd pass that along."
"I'll remember that," I tell her. "Well... so long.... "
"I'll be seein' you," she says.
She hangs up.
I wait a minute an' then I call through to the Yard. Herrick comes right on the line.
"Look, pal," I tell him. "The baby has just been through. I reckon they wanta get the business done good an' quick. Are you ready your end?"
"Absolutely, Lemmy," he says. "And here's some information for you. We've got a reply to that telephone message we sent to Washington." He reads it out. It says:
TO L.H. CAUTION, CARE COMMISSIONER OF POLICE LONDON, SCOTLAND YARD, LONDON, ENGLAND.
PANZETTI ARRESTED AS REQUESTED ON FEDERAL CHARGE. THREATENED WITH TRIAL IN CAMERA UNDER FEDERAL SECRETS ACT AND LIFE SENTENCE IF GUILTY. HAS HANDED OVER INCOMPLETE SET OF WHITAKER D.B. BLUE-PRINTS. HE IS BEING HELD INCOMMUNICADO TILL FURTHER REPORT FROM YOU.
DIRECTOR, F.B.I. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, WASHINGTON.
"Swell, Herrick," I say. "Here's how it is this end. I'm goin' to see Montana at nine o'clock. So I reckon I shall be seein' Kritsch somewhere around ten at latest. Montana gives me the tip-off that Kritsch wants this business finished off as quick as possible. So it looks as if the big boy has got everything ready-eyed to scram out. Have you got the dough ready?"
He says yes.
"O.K.," I tell him. "That's fine. Stick around an' I'll call through later. I hope."
He says so does he. I hang up. Then I give myself a big shot of rye just to keep the cold out, a cigarette an' a big grin.
II.
MONTANA is sittin' in front of her mirror in the bedroom when the maid shows me in. She is dressed for a big killin'. An' believe it or not she looks the berries. Standin' there, lookin' at her, I get to wonderin' how it is that a dame can look so good an' be such a goddam hell-cat.
She says: "Hello, pal. You're right on the dot. Let's go have a little drink."
She gets up an' comes over to where I am. She is wearin' a black lace dinner frock, cut very plain but with a helluva nice line. It's a swell frock an' it shows off her figure like she meant it to.
She swivels herself around.
"How do I look, Lemmy?" she says. "D'you think I'll get by?"
"You'll manage," I tell her. "You'll scrape through somehow."
We go into the sittin'-room. She mixes me a drink an' one for herself. Then she sits down an' gives me a big smile.
"You're lookin' plenty pleased with yourself," I tell her.
"I'm always glad when I can do a pal a good turn," she says. "Like I have for you even if you don't appreciate it."
"Look, kiddo," I say. "You ain't still stickin' to that old old story about your not bein' in on this job, are you? Because if you are I think you ought to cut it out. It creaks."
"Maybe," she says. "But it's my story an' I'm stickin' to it an' you an' anybody else can't prove it's not true."
"You got something there maybe," I tell her. "I suppose the only guy who could really throw you down is Panzetti... an' I can't see him doin' that."
I light a cigarette.
"What did you fix with Willie?" I ask her.
She says: "We... it was darned funny, but believe it or not he called through five minutes after you'd gone. So I told him what you wanted an' he said that it was O.K. by him. He said that he could fix to see you tonight. So I'm gonna take you along."
"Swell," I say. "That's fine."
"Yeah... " she says. "I'm glad you like it. There's just one little thing.... "
"Such as?" I ask her.
"Such a don't try any funny business, Lemmy," she says. "You are a copper an' I don't like coppers. I hate 'em like hell. But I got a sorta soft spot for you. I wouldn't like to see you make a goddam mug of yourself. So take a tip from me an' don't try anythin', because there ain't anythin' to be tried... that's what Willie says."
"That was nice of Willie," I tell her. "An' what else did that big galoot haveta say for himself?"
"He wantsta get this deal done quick. He's gonna be very busy," she says, "an' he wants it fixed as quick as he can get it. I thought you'd like to know."
"Swell," I tell her. "He can fix it as soon as he likes. I've got the dough waitin'. All I want is to know that I'm goin' to get a square deal an' then I'm ready to settle everything."
"O.K.," she says. "An' thank you for returnin' my car, Lemmy. The chauffeur come through this afternoon an' said you'd brought it back."
She gets up an' stretches. Then she walks over to the drinks wagon an' pours out half a glass of neat Scotch. She sinks it like it was water.
"Come on, big boy," she says. "Let's scram outa here."
"Are we goin' to use your car?" I ask her.
"No," she says. "I'm not goin' to use it now." She smiles at me. "I reckon we'll be usin' it later," she says. "So I'm givin' the chauffeur a rest. We'll take a taxi."
"All right," I say. "Let's go."
She slips inta a fur coat an' we go downstairs. It is pitch black outside but there is a cab trundlin' past an' I grab it. She tells the driver where to go an' we get in.
The cab jolts off. It is so dark that I can't see where we are goin'. Montana wriggles up a big closer. She says: "Have you gotta gun on you, Lemmy?"
"I have not," I tell her. "Because this is one of them occasions when I don't think a rod is necessary. This is big busines not a free-for-all. I hope that Willie is lookin' at it from the same point of view."
