Complete works of peter.., p.159
Complete Works of Peter Cheyney. Illustrated, page 159
I give a sigh. One of these days I am gonna meet up with a dame who looks like this an' is on the side of law an' order--which will be a nice change an' almost impossible.
The boyo who has took me over says: "This is somebody from Maxie Schribner." Then he scrams.
She takes a look at me an' when I say she takes a look I mean she takes a look. She has got eyes that are limpid an' blue as they can be an' she casts 'em down to my feet an' then lets 'em ride. An' do those eyes ride? They come up--slow as slow right up my legs an' up the front buttons of my waistcoat until they get to the top of my head. Oh boy! I'm tellin' you I got a new sensation an' I didn't know it was possible. Bein' looked over by this dame is like bein' undressed to slow music by Helen of Troy an' the Queen of Sheba, with Sweet Nell of Old Drury holdin' the score card just to keep the game straight.
I just stick around an' say nothin'. I'm waitin' for this baby to start talkin'. I'm waitin' to see if her voice matches up with the rest of the outfit. But I don't haveta worry. When she speaks she talks very soft an' drawls a little bit, an' the words sorta drop out of her mouth like cream bein' spilt on rose leaves. I'm confidin' to you mugs that this dame is the ultimate berries an' I don't mean perhaps.
She says: "Hello, pal...." Her lips break into a little smile an' she stays put, lookin' at me with a bit of roll between the fingers of her right hand half-way up to her mouth.
I sit down. I don't say a thing. I think maybe I'll let her talk a bit more. It might be easier for me that way.
She says: "So you're from Schribner. I suppose he came back an' got the note?"
"Yeah," I tell her. "Somebody left a note on the seat of Maxie's car. Maxie figured he'd come around while there was nobody at the cottage an' left the note so's to make a quick contact. He asked me to come right over."
She gives me a long look. She says:
"You look to me like the sort of hombre who could dance. You ever heard of the conga?"
Is this dame surprisin' or is she? Right in the middle of a whole set-up of crime an' what-have-you-got she has to know if I can dance the conga."
"Lady," I tell her, "I practically invented the conga."
She nods. She looks up an' signals to some guy in a tuxedo on the other side of the room. He comes over.
"Tell the boys to get back on the stand an' play a conga," she says. "I want to dance."
They get back an' they start to play. She gets up an' so do I. She comes over to me an' just slides herself into my arms just like nobody's business--an' can she dance?
There is nobody else on the floor an' the band is not so bad. She cuddles inta my arms an' we get goin'. I have danced the conga before an' maybe shall dance it again, but it won't ever be like that time. This dame has one of them figures that don't even need a wrap around, an' dancin' with her is an education in itself. I just forget everythin' an' go to town.
They played five numbers before we packed it up an' went back to the table. While we have been away they have brought a bottle of whisky. She opens it an' pours a stiff one. She puts in a little soda an' hands it to me.
"What's your name, handsome?" she says. "An' what're you doin' with Maxie Schribner?"
"I'm Willy Careras," I tell her. "I usta get around with Margoni's boys in Chicago. Then it got a little hot. I got a tip that a holiday would be good for me. So I come over here a year ago. I just been hangin' around... see? Then I met up with Schribner. I've known him a long time in New York an' he said I could stick around an' maybe help him a little. He's got some business on--I don't know what it is. I'm just a sorta stooge. If you get me?"
She says: "I hope he pays you plenty. You're some stooge...." She slings me a little smile that says a lot. "I could use a stooge like you," she says.
I hand her a wicked look that woulda made Casanova look like the farmer's boy.
"Go ahead, Tamara," I tell her.
"I meant for runnin' around an' answerin' the telephone," she says, still smilin'. "That's all." She raises her blue eyes an' looks at me. Her lips twitch a little. She says sorta demure: "I wouldn't like you to think anything wrong... Willy. Please don't think I'm the sorta girl you can make in a hurry. I'm a very cold person...."
I grin at her.
"O.K. If you say so," I tell her. "But if you're cold I'm gonna use ice cream for hot packs, an' whoever taught you to dance the conga like you do musta been an expert in..."
"That's different," she says. "I like dancin'. But that's as far as I go...." She drops her eyes on her plate.
"Maybe," I tell her. "But one day you'll feel different." I sling her another wicked grin. "Maybe you haven't met the right kind of guy," I go on.
"Perhaps," she says. She sighs. "I think I'm a Yes woman who's never had an opportunity to say anything but No...."
She puts out her hand an' takes my glass. She puts it up to her lips an' just drinks a little tiny drop. Then she hands me the glass back.
"I wanted to taste it," she says. She opens a gold cigarette case an' takes out two cigarettes. She puts 'em both in her mouth an' lights 'em. Then she hands me one. When I put it in my mouth I can just sorta sense a touch of perfume. Maybe from her handbag. It's pretty good scent too. I take a quick look at her. I start thinkin' that this baby is so goddam lovely that she could become a habit almost before you knew it.
She gets up. The powder-blue georgette mantilla around her hair an' shoulders makes her look like a nun. Some nun! She says: "O.K., Willy... just you run back to Maxie an' tell him that Rudy'll be contactin' him to-morrow. Good-night, handsome." She picks up her handbag an' goes. She goes over to a door on the other side of the floor.
I finish my drink. When I look around the guy who brought me up is waitin' for me. He shows me the way down.
When I get outside it is rainin' a little an' dark. So I am not too pleased with anything. I still haven't got next to anything an' the dame I have just met has stalled me along the way she wanted to. Maybe she's waitin' for Rudy Zimman--the real one--to turn up. Maybe that's it.
I get down to the end of the carriage drive where I left the car. Right behind it is another car--a big tourer. I am just openin' the door of the heao when somebody puts a hand on my arm. I spin round. It is the dame.
"Well... well..." I say. "I'm glad to see you again, Tamara. It's a long time since we met."
She gives a little soft laugh. By the light of the parkin' lights on the car behind us I can see she has got on a persian lamb coat, an' she has tied the mantilla arrangement around her hair. She is standin' close to me an' I can smell the same perfume that came off the cigarette.
"Look, Willy," she says, "just remember this. Maybe you're gonna be busy with Schribner. Maybe he's going to have a lot of business. But when you've time come an' see me. I'd like to talk to you."
"Yeah...?" I tell her. "An' why, Lovely?"
She laughs--a little low soft laugh, right down in her throat. "You remind me of a pet canary I had one time," she says. "I'm staying at the Grange apartments, in Mount Street, London. Look in some time."
"I'll be there..." I tell her.
"That's going to be very nice," she says.
She puts up a hand that has a white kid glove on it an' she takes my lower lip between her finger an' thumb. She pulls my head down an' puts her face up an' she kisses me just like that. I'm tellin' you mugs that this Tamara is electric plus. Boy....!
She stands away from me. She says in a cool sorta voice:
"I'm inclined to be crazy about you. God knows why. But I am. Well... so long, Handsome...."
She gets into the tourer, starts it up an' backs down the drive. I stand there lookin' after the tail light.
I roll the heap back towards Betchworth nice an' easy. I got plenty to think about an' a lotta time to do it.
The rain has stopped now an' a bit of moon is showin'. The road wanders around corners like it does in this country an' I'm not even unhappy. Just sorta curious.
This set-up is goddam funny. Whichever way you look at it there ain't any beginnin' or endin'. Nothin' makes much sense--but then interestin' things never do.
I start thinkin' about this Tamara dame. That one certainly knows her cereals. She knows which way she's pointin', all the answers an' then quite a lot. That dame is no mug. Maybe nobody in this job is a mug except me.
I wonder how the guy Nikolls is gettin' along with that other dame. I wonder what her name is. I wonder what the hell she is playin' at, an' I wonder who the next dame is gonna be. Because things always come in threes. An' that goes for dames. I never met up with a case yet that produced a coupla lookers like the first dame an' Tamara without producin' a third one. Maybe we'll get a third one with a homely pan. It would be a nice change.
I park the car along a quiet lane on the side of the golf course an' start walkin' over the fairways to Schribner's dump. I have made up my mind about one thing an' that is that this Schrbiner mug is gonna talk even if I have to hold a cigarette lighter under his nostrils. That guy is through with bein' close. He's gotta open up.
I go in the back way an' ease downstairs to the cellar. I unlock the door an' go in. He has put an electric light on. He is lying up at the far end propped up against the wall, smokin' a cigarette an' he has got a lump on the side of his jaw where I clocked him.
He looks at me. He looks at me like I was the devil. Maxie has got a definite idea that he don't like me.
There is an old chair leanin' up against the wall. I take it an' stick it down a few feet in front of Schribner. I sit down on it an' look at him.
"Look, Schribner," I tell him. "The time has come when you an' me have gotta do a little talkin'. We gotta talk sense, see? It's gonna be sensible for you to talk because if you don't I'm goin to make you talk, an' if I can't do it one way I'm goin to do it another."
"Oh yeah?" he says. "Ain't you interestin'! I reckon you must be very popular with your friends, you..."
I grin at him. "Take it easy, pal," I tell him. "You ain't gonna get nowhere by losin' your temper."
I light myself cigarette.
"Here's the way it goes," I go on. "After I slung you down here I had a look around the garage an' found a note in your car. The note was sorta sarcastic. It said that when you got back you might like to look in at The Waterfall, at Capel, a dump on the other side of Holmwood. I reckon it was Rudy Zimman that wrote that note."
"What the hell do you mean?" he says. "Rudy Zimman was here. He..."
I hold up my hand. "You don't know the first thing," I tell him. "The guy that was here an' took off that dame was no more Ruay Zimman than I am. That bird was a guy I got workin' tor me. We pulled a fast one."
He says: "Jeez . .! I don't do nothin' but meet phonys."
"Right," I tell him. "That is the sorta guy you are. Everybody rour-flushes you. There have been so many Rudy Zimman s kickin' around in this business that you couid practically start a nudist colony with these guys. But don't worry," I go on. "The palooka who wrote that note an' left it in the car was the real one all right."
He says: "If that other guy was workin' for you then he didn't bump that dame."
"Right again, Brain-Trust," I tell him. "He did not bump that dame."
"I wonder who the hell she was," he says.
"Wouldn't you know?" I ask him. "Look, Schribner, why don't you make it easy for yourself? Why don't you spill it an' let's get down to cases? First of all it's as plain as the Naragansett Lighthouse that somebody put this dame in to get next to what you mugs are tryin' to do over here with this Julia Wayles dame. Somebody on the other side who was wise to everything. Now you tell me somethin'. You tell me who that somebody would be."
"I don't know," he says. "I don't know a goddam thing. Maybe somebody was tryin' to muscle in. Maybe some mob has got wise to somethin'...."
"Sure," I tell him. "Maybe you're right. It wouldn't be the first time that somebody has tried to hi-jack in a kidnap game. I suppose that somebody thought if they could snatch the Wayles baby offa your friends they'd be in the market for some jack. Maybe they thought your pals would pay 'em to return the dame. I reckon that dame has got somethin' valuable."
He shrugs his shoulders. He don't say anythin'.
I light a fresh cigarette.
"Look," I tell him, "it ought to be plain to you that you are right on the wrong end of the market. I got this dame who come over here an' four-flushed you inta thinkin' that she was Tamara Phelps. I got her. I'm gonna make her talk. I'm goin' to find out from her just who put her in an' what's goin' on at that end of the stick. Then I'm goin' to make you talk. An' then I'm goin' to make Rudy Zimman talk--the real Rudy Zimman, after which I'm all set."
"You don't say?" he says. "an' how're you goin' to make Rudy Zimman talk? We don't even know where he is."
I grin at him.
"I went over to Capel to-night," I teli, him. "I went to this Waterfall dump. By the look of it most of the guys there are friends of Rudy's. Maybe he's got an organisation over here. I suppose you wouldn't know that either?"
"I told you I don't know a thing," he says. "Not a goddam thing...."
"All right," I tell him. "We'll come to that in a minute. Well... when I get to this Waterfall dump they ask me who I want. I take a chance an' tell 'em Tamara Phelps. So they take me along to see her. Then I pull one on her. I tell her I am Willy Careras, a mobster who usta get around with the Margoni mob in the old days in Chicago. I sorta suggest to her that I'm over here for my health an' that I run inta you an' that you're usin' me as a general sorta stooge--that I don't know anythin' about what you're at, but that I'm a sorta handyman around the place. See?
"Well, she falls for this line. It sounds sense anyhow an' I reckon that she knows goddam well that you are such a lousy heel that you just gotta have somebody to do any dirty work that's goin'. Because even if Rudy Zimman an' Tamara haven't met you they know plenty about you, don't they? They got to. If they didn't know you was a dyed-in-the-wool thug they'd never have had you in on this game."
"Nuts," he says. "I'm tellin' you that I ain't done a thing up to date that the law can put a linger on me for. Not one goddam thing."
"What do I care?" I tell him. I slip him another big grin. "I reckon I'm gettin' hold of this situation," I tell him. "I reckon I got you an' this Rudy an' little Tamara just where the hair is short."
"What are you gonna do?" he asks.
"Just this," I tell him. "I'm gonna stick around here. I'm gonna wait for Rudy to show up. An' I'm gonna keep you down here. You ain't going to see that bird. O.K. When he shows up I'm gonna tell him that you're sick, that you're in the local nursing home or somethin' an' that you've told me as much as you wanted to about this business an' that I am O.K. to act as your deputy. Well, Tamara has probably told him about me. She has told him that I am Willy Careras, an' he will know that name. He will know that Willy Careras is so goddam bloodstained with crime of all sorts an' shapes that he would make Satan look like the dame who distributes tracts around San Diego port when the Navy comes in. So he's gonna trust me, ain't he? He's gonna talk. Maybe he's gonna tell me where Julia is. After which I can go to town on this case."
He don't say anythin', but he looks not very happy.
I get up an' stretch. Me--I am feelin' pretty good. I am thinkin' that I sorta got things well in hand.
"Schribner," I tell him, "I am now goin' to leave you in order to give myself a little snifter up in the sittin'-room. An' let me tell you this. Let me hear one crack outa you an' I am comin' down here to give you such a bust on the schnozzle that you will look like a Polynesian flat-face nigger who has run inta a tank. Adios, caballero...."
I lock the cellar door an' I go upstairs. Maybe this ain't gonna be such a difficult business after all. If I can pull a fast one on this Rudy when he shows up, an' if I can make that dame that Nikolls is keepin' warm for me talk, I reckon I got the whole thing in the bag.
I stop at the top of the stone steps to light another cigarette; then I ease along the passage an' go inta the sittin'-room. When I get inside I stop.
There is a guy sittin in the armchair. He is a tall, slim, rangy sorta guy. His clothes are custom made an' he is wearin' a sue shirt that cost fifty dollars. Everythin' about this boyo is tops. He has got a pan like death. His face is dead white an' his mouth looks like a slit cut with a razor; his hair is black an' sleeked back.
He takes a platinum cigarette case outa his pocket an' lights a cigarette. He looks me over nice an' quiet an' casual. Wnen he talks his voice is nice an' soft an' eas/, but sorta bitter--if you get me.
"Im Rudy Zimman," he says. "I suppose you're Willy Careras. Where's Schribner?"
"Sick," I tell him. "He's got some disease--measles or somethin'. They rushed him on to the hospital at Guildford. He told me you'd be comin' over an' to take care of anythin'. I got the note you left in the car an' went over to Capel, but I reckon I missed you...."
"Yeah," he says. He puts his hand inside his coat an' he pulls out a Mauser pistol. He points it at the pit of my stomach. He starts smilin'. The guy does not look at all nice. "O.K., Caution," he says. "You can cut out all that neat stuff. I'm wise to you, You're in a spot, pal. I'm gonna rub you out, see?"
"I see," I tell him. "It looks to me like the day-dream is over."
He goes over to the sideboard an' pours one. He drinks it nice an' easy, leanin' up against the sideboard, lookin' at me. He don't blink at all an' his eyes are sorta red. I don't like this boyo at all.
From outside there comes the noise of a car stoppin', an' just for the moment I think that maybe I'm gonna get a break--but not for long.
The sittin'-room door opens an' Tamara comes in. She looks at Rudy an' hands him a nice smile. Then she moves over to where I am. Did I tell you that when this dame walks it is a treat to watch her. She just floats, an' the guy who invented hip control musta been thinkin' of this baby.
She stands just in front of me an' opens her persian lamb coat. She takes off the mantilla arrangement she has got around her hair. Her fingers are long, an' she has got pink enamelled nails. I reckon her hands woulda kept a sculptor awake at nights. Rudy stands leanin' up against the sideboard watchin' her. He is grinnin'. This Rudy is the cruellest lookin' cuss I have ever seen.
