by Mark Walker
The man with the tall hair, Boss Bruno Stilton, was well and aptly named. For one thing, his many opponents frequently used his initials, B.S., as fodder when referring to him; for another, Boss Stilton’s breath was dreadful and faintly reminiscent of a particularly odoriferous cheese from the town likewise named Stilton. The cheese itself, though pungent, is quite tasty, and this is no reflection upon it, but rather upon Boss Stilton. He often wondered why he was frequently being offered candies, mints, and chewing gum, when he preferred cigars.
The head of the Black and Blue Hand was little known outside the communities that he frequented. Outwardly he was the protector and champion of the poor. But in reality, it was his own business practices as a slum lord and gambling house owner, backed by blackmail and intimidation, that kept most of his supporters in poverty and continually dependent on him. His most recent venture and coup was the notorious nightclub and gambling house, the Tip Top Club, built for an astronomical sum, and set smack in the heart of the slums of the East End.
On its top was a huge, stylized roulette wheel that turned very slowly, where guests could lounge on pleasant nights; and at its center stood a giant translucent cocktail glass, lit by pinkish-red spotlights from the four corners of the roof. The glass appeared to contain some liquid, and a giant toothpick with three olives that would light up sequentially and flash on and off whenever someone scored against the house. This was just another gambit that kept the public coming back for more; but now, with the addition of floor shows, torch singers, dancing girls, and gimmicks like “camera nights,” he had succeeded in surpassing many popular West End nightspots. Callous to the core, it was the boss’s opinion that his customers could all go to blazes; his own fortunes and power were all that mattered.
He had tried a career in politics (for he noticed that professional politicians always seemed to be “in the money”—buying votes and gaming the system), but his own unsavory reputation proceeded him and his breath made even little babies cry, so he was not a success in that world. Boss Stilton was, in fact, such a phony that the usually complacent public could not stomach him, even as a politician.
Bruno Stilton’s phoniness began at his very core. He lied constantly, consistently, and with the greatest of ease, even about the smallest of things: his age and weight, a game of golf, the money he made, agreements and deals made with his own gang. He cheated on his women. He even cheated himself at solitaire. Yet he had an ingratiating manner and a folksy charm that concealed his real intentions; these had always stood him in good stead in getting ahead.
Physically, he was imposing and handsome, though this was also somewhat of a lie as well. Vainglorious, he dyed his greying hair black, and combed it into a huge pompadour so as to give himself more height, and wore lifts in his shoes to make him even taller. A girdle held in some of his middle-aged girth, but still the impression he gave was one of pudgy masculinity, enhanced by the most expensive suits with padded shoulders, flashy neckties, and big fat cigars. For Boss Stilton only the best of everything would do, especially if it were stolen. He often wore a smirk or curl of the lip that said, yes, it’s nicked and I can get away with it. He could not, however, do anything to mitigate his rather bulbous nose, nor his perpetual five o’clock shadow. He had taken elocution lessons to improve his smoky colloquial drawl, which was now reminiscent of a smooth screen villain like Herbert Marshall or James Mason.
He was slick without being too oily, manipulating his fellow beings and corrupting with pure evil every person and enterprise that fell victim to him.
Boss Stilton’s tele-chamber was tricked out befitting his grandiose vision of himself. When he wasn’t stealing something, the boss would spend whatever was necessary to acquire the latest and very best gadgets. The entrance through which he had just entered was a stainless steel pocket door with four interlocks. It was outfitted with an expensive alarm, and on the inside, the door was padded in red leather. A white bowl light was affixed above the door. There was only one other door, hidden in one of the curved walls of the sewer. These walls were covered floor to ceiling in padded black leather with chrome studs. The walls were not only quite stylish but also helped deaden the nefarious utterings and sounds which emanated from the chamber.
Boss Stilton sat in a tall black leather wingback chair, behind a highly polished semicircular desk. The only items on its granite top were a chrome Deco lamp, a silver telephone, and several colored buttons inset into the granite. The chair and desk faced the end of the room, which held a bank of six brand-new televisor screens, surrounded by black leather and recessed into a stainless steel wall. The boss was dressed in evening clothes, puffed up, an evil penguin, smoking a huge cigar. By his side stood a small chrome cylinder acting as an ashtray.
The secret door in the wall slid open and a Babe walked in. Not just any Babe. She was a Babe and a Half. Ginger Vitis posed in the doorway, the light behind her, then slunk majestically and triumphantly forward, a shaker and two cocktail glasses in her hands.
She was dressed in a shiny, clinging, crushed black velvet evening dress with a very low-cut neckline. Her heavy, burnished, dark coppered hair was coiffed to fall heavily over her shoulders. Despite her red hair she had no freckles, and the skin of her bare shoulders and décolletage was a deathly bone white. Combined with her dark eyes and blood red lips, this gave her a dangerous and otherworldly appearance. The pallor of her complexion perfectly set off the twin Blood Stars that spilled from the necklace round her throat into her mountainous, top-heavy cleavage. She stroked her twin prizes and leaned forward. The Blood Stars clacked together in a kiss.
Besides avarice and deceit, these two had one other thing in common: the dreadful breath of extreme halitosis. But as she kissed him, he noticed the Blood Stars and his eyes widened in fury. She sensed the change in him and pulled back.
“So, it was you, yesterday, wasn’t it?” snarled Stilton. “You’ve been playing me the whole way on this one, haven’t you?”
Now she smiled in triumph, looking down at him. “Uhm …” She shook the shaker, laughing almost casually, and then poured two glasses almost to the rim with the pinkish-red mixture. She handed him his. “Here you are, lover. Here’s to my success! Oh, I mean our success.” She raised the Cosmo cocktail glass in her long-gloved hand to her blood red lips and drank hers halfway down, before frowning. “Not quite right on the cranberry juice,” she said in an unusual self-critical statement. “Anyway, we have it all now, dahling; why, we’re the biggest thing in London. This even tops the Tip Top Club! Don’t you think so?”
“You don’t know what those bloody stones have cost me.”
“Stars, dahling. They’re the Blood Stars.”
“Stones, stars, whatever, but you have ’em now. Isn’t that enough? You just had to interfere. You had to make it more complicated than it ever should have been. I would have gotten the Star for you. I had it all arranged. In fact, we had it. Even after you interfered with the robbery! And now this. You only had to wait another day!”
“I needed it for the opening tomorrow night.’’
“And now Minnie is dead…”
“Well, you like your loose ends tied up, don’t you? Yes, she’s dead. And good riddance to her. That woefully thin old hag of yours. She was old news, anyhow, ancient news, and now she’s out of the picture.”
“Out of the picture? Old news? She is the news! That’s all that’s on the bloody GDRs! You took that upon yourself as well, didn’t you? Why the blazes did you go there last night? I had it all arranged so no one would know a thing. Tex had a doctor’s kit all set to go. After that business in the square—in broad daylight! How could you be so stupid? Both times in the same bloody widow’s outfit you used in stealing the gem in the first place? Unbelievable!
“And back to Minnie. I had her long before I met you. And long after. Yes, that’s right! Oh, don’t look so shocked!”
“I can see right through you. Why, why … of course I knew, knew all the time.” Her e
yes were sparkling with insinuations.
Boss Stilton drained his Cosmo all at once. “You’re right, it’s the cranberry juice,” he said. “I told you to use concentrate.” He poured the rest of the shaker into his glass and took a swig.
Ginger Vitis sat on the arm of his chair and said, “Well, my dream was to have them both. And you never let me get involved with anything. I had to prove to you I’ve got more assets than just little me.” She teased him with her fingers. “And you have to admit, these little devils sure optimize a Babe’s already proven assets.” She shook her glorious burnished locks.
He smiled glumly, surprised she knew the word optimize. Inwardly, he cursed his folly for having given in to her. Now he was in a fix.
She continued, “I want to wear the necklace in public just once for all the world to see. Right out there in the open. Completely proud and unashamed. I dare you to let me wear them. Let me show them what we can do. And then let them try and catch us!”
Boss Stilton exploded, causing her to quit the arm of the chair. “Are you barmy? Are you bloody insane? Wear them in public? Right out in the open? For all to see? Even Scotland Yard? That’s completely out of the question! Isn’t backing a West End bloody show enough for you?”
It was time for Ginger Vitis to press her case. She finished off her Cosmo, set it aside, and strode up and down, slowly, sensually, using all her Babe-and-a-Half wiles. “Dahling, you’re right. It is a bit much of me, wanting more. But you see that’s what you’ve always done. You’ve always wanted more, and you’re never afraid to go after it. They said you couldn’t build the Tip Top Club, yet here it is. You fought for it, made it happen. You were so bold, so daring. Be daring here. Let me be daring.”
She was beside him now, rubbing his shoulders and stroking his stubbled cheek. “I had to prove myself, dahling, prove that I could be just as daring. I was in on the robbery, so why not take what was going to be mine anyway. Yes, I lost my head when I saw her, but there’s absolutely nothing to connect me with your old librarian. So let me continue to be daring. Let me show them all, and then let them wonder! I have the gown already picked out, and the Blood Stars will be the hit of the night. Dahling, you’ll be standing next to the most delicious Babe in London, and the most daring. Just imagine the looks we’ll get. Why, everyone there will be envious. No one will be able to do a thing. Just let them try. Keep some of your bodyguards around us to keep them back. If there’s trouble, I could make these little beauties disappear with ease.” She stroked her prizes. “Right into one of your favorite places, down between the Alps into the Valley of the Deep.” She indicated their path with a smooth gesture.
He puffed on his cigar and blew some smoke rings. He knew when he was beaten, though it never would have occurred to him to think of himself as henpecked. His eyes narrowed and his mouth twitched before he said, “I’ve always stayed clear of jewels and diamonds ’cause they’re so damned hard to get rid of. You can’t trust the fences these days; they’d sooner turn you in and collect the reward themselves. I would never have contemplated stealing the Blood Star in the first place if it hadn’t been for you. I’ve done all this for you, and now everything’s on the line.
“Well, that settles it,” he said, grinding out his cigar. “After your show opens and you have your little fun, I’m getting rid of those bloody Blood Stars! Both of ’em! I’m gonna auction ’em off to the highest bidder. I’ll use the televisors, by gad, and set up an auction for tomorrow night right after the show!”
chapter twenty-two
Too Hot to Handle
“NO, BRUNO, NOT both of them! I get to keep mine! It was already mine. You gave it to me. It’s mine.” She fingered her prizes nervously, a crease of concern between her darkly penciled brows.
“No, no, no. They’re just too hot, honey! And it goes back too far. I took a man’s life to get that stone in the beginning, all those years ago, and there’s no statute of limitations on murder. But now they’re too hot to handle, and with all the trouble this has caused, I’ve got to put an end to it. I’m not budging on this. The Blood Stars go up for auction tomorrow night! Now go make one more batch of Cosmos, then go on up to the penthouse. I still have business to take care of down here.”
Fire smoldered in the eyes of Ginger Vitis. She made her exit, knowing when she, too, was beaten, though she had already achieved most of her objective. Besides, by making a small retreat now, she could come back to fight another day, which she thoroughly intended to do.
He switched off the desk light and pushed a button on the desk. The bowl light came on above the door behind Boss Stilton, leaving him in the shadow cast by the high-backed chair. This was not to disguise his features, as his gang knew what he looked like, but to obscure his expressions and subtly intimidate his audience. Then he pressed six buttons in succession and turned a dial. The six round eyes of the televisor screens hummed to life in front of him, wavering and buzzing as the tubes warmed up and each began to fizz on. All this Flash Gordon science was a great thing, he thought to himself, as long as he could harness it for his own crooked purposes.
Slowly, one by one, the bug fights disappeared, and a different ugly face appeared on each of the round screens, their dull green light flickering faintly across Boss Stilton. Six of the Hand’s toughest “faces”: on the top row, Nino Bartolo, Blackie Sneed, and Nigel Pushpin; on the bottom row, Rocky Sengue, Cosh Finnegan, and Braggs Galloway. Each of these toughs represented a sector of Stilton’s crime kingdom.
Boss Stilton was still cross after his fight with Ginger Vitis, not to mention the state of his crime kingdom at that moment. But he was in for more bad news when Braggs Galloway, sector six, informed him of the night’s debacle at the Prescott house.
The railing and cursing of Boss Stilton could be heard through the soundproof padding of the inner sanctum, and Ginger Vitis thought it best to stay out of his way later on. She finished shaking the Cosmo mixture and whisked back through the secret door, delivered his cocktail, and left again. But what she heard gave her pause again, and she began to scheme for herself.
After haranguing his gang with an onslaught of profanities and profundities, Boss Stilton settled down. His act was no less than amazing. He relit his cigar and sipped his cocktail. Time was critical, for there were now fewer than twenty-four hours to go. First he arranged to set up the auction on the televisor stations they were currently using. This could quickly be settled using the present facilities, and Boss Stilton could conduct it from where he sat now. He decided to get his hands on the Stars right after the show. Cosh Finnegan and Braggs Galloway were assigned to the task of contacting the heads of the other London gangs. Quit of them, he pressed two buttons. The images of Finnegan and Galloway disappeared into tiny electronic dots and the screens went blank.
Boss Stilton, furious that two of his members were in the clink, now decided he needed to deal with Scotland Yard. Any spanner he could throw into their works might delay them and put them off the track, if only long enough for him to get rid of the Stars. He spoke to Nino Bartolo and Blackie Sneed.
“Find the detective who’s in charge of the case and take care of him.” That meant only one thing. He pressed a switch and Bartolo’s and Sneed’s screens fizzed out. Then he spoke to the two remaining faces, Rocky Sengue and Nigel Pushpin. They were both large men and would be perfect to range around Ginger Vitis at the opening. He briefly went through the sequence of events after the premiere and leading up to the auction. Then he turned off the televisors and the last two faces disappeared. He sat in silence for a few moments.
He was indeed behind the proverbial eight ball. Yet despite all the setbacks, Bruno Stilton had not achieved his success by a lack of nerve. Although the situation was critical, he had pulled out of tight situations before. Just one more day, and then he would be done with this disastrous business: auction off the Blood Stars to the highest bidder he could find in the underworld, and be done with them. Take the money and get out of the country.
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But it was not only the Stars that were too hot to handle, for the other matter which also caused him more than a modicum of concern was what to do about Ginger Vitis. They had been together for several years, and although it was not in his nature to love, he had, at the least, grown attached to her and her ways. But he was not about to let her keep the other Blood Star, on that he had set his mind firmly. No, he would either placate her in some other way, or she, too, would have to go. Then he would have to replace both her and Minnie.
There was one more call to make. He picked up the phone and rang a West End number. “Tex?” He spoke for a few minutes and hung up abruptly. Then he drained his Cosmo, closed up his lair, and went back up to his penthouse pad at the top of the Tip Top Club.
chapter twenty-three
Premiere Preview
AFTER THE EXCITEMENT OF THE EARLY hours, the attack on the house, the assault of Constable Dickens, the arrest of one Hand face and the death of another, Riggs had finally gotten some much-needed sleep. He arrived, showered and refreshed, back at the Yard by 10:00 a.m. Friday morning. Riggs checked the wireless, and learned to his surprise that it would be an Anti-Gravity Day. He had to make quick adjustments to the Dasher’s tires before leaving. He was already making plans for that night’s premiere at the Criterion, and had enlisted Mrs. Wiggins to steam and brush his evening clothes. His first act on entering the office was assigning Mrs. Peach to do whatever was necessary to get tickets for the performance for Brendalynn, the children, Bellows, and himself. But most of all, he was anxious to discover what might have been learned from Mr. Slade of the Black and Blue Hand.
