by John Creasey
The cabby squinted.
“Cheese, naw,” he said; “you paid me.”
“This is for waiting for the next hour,” Rollison said, “say opposite number 38.”
“Sure, that’s okay, then,” the cabby conceded. “It’s not as if I need any sleep.” He pocketed the twenty. “Bud,” he said, “you wouldn’t be walking into any trouble, would you? Not like that guy who was beaten up on 47th. Ain’t none of my business, but you’re a stranger around here, and some of these guys”
“Just a good girl friend of mine,” said Rollison, “mixed up with the wrong boy friend.”
The cabby said: “Well, if it’s okay, okay. Take good care of yourself.” He drove off, and Rollison turned away from the taxi and approached Number 48. He already knew that this was East 13th Street.
As he reached Number 48, two men leapt at him from the doorway. The light shining from it showed them to be the two who had attacked the hipless wonder.
7
THIRD FLOOR BACK
The two men made one mistake as they fell upon Rollison; they came one at a time. Probably, the first was meant to floor the victim, the other to start the kicking and hacking process. It did not quite work out that way. The first man, hands raised as he plunged and feet ready to hook Rollison’s legs from under him, felt his right arm grabbed. The world suddenly turned upside down. Rollison saw him curving a neat arc, about eight feet off the ground, but didn’t wait to hear him fall; for the other man was not far away, and this other man had a knife.
Rollison shot out a leg.
The second assailant had no time to back away; at full pelt he ran into the foot which was stiff and straight, as if fastened to the end of an iron bar. The breath was driven out of his body in a long, anguished groan. The knife flickered and flashed, but he didn’t let it go. Seeing him staggering back, Rollison glanced round to make sure that the first man was still on the ground and taking little notice, then went bodily into the attack. He was not simply annoyed, or just acting in self-defence. He was savagely angry, for he could see the hipless wonder in his mind’s eye. Fist to stomach brought a gusty groan; fist to jaw brought a crack that sounded like bone breaking; another to the jaw tipped the man almost head over heels. This time he lost his grip on the knife and it went flying.
Then, two things happened.
A car or cab turned into the road, and the first man leapt. He also carried a knife. The faint light from the doorway showed a face which might have been a model for Epstein; as brutish as human faces come, with expression to match. As the car or cab came hurtling on, Rollison went like a bullet to meet this jungle throwback, and his left hand shot out, to grip the wrist of the knife-hand.
For a moment, they were locked together; gasping as they struggled.
Next, the brute went staggering back, and his right arm hung limp by his side; the knife dropped from his fingers, and he began to utter little whimpering sounds. Rollison went in fast and savagely again, giving himself time to smack right and left to the jaw, and put his man down. Then, he turned, to find his cabby coming from the cab, mouth wide open, eyes rounded in disbelief when he saw the pair of jungle beasts.
“Caw!” he breathed.
“Pardner,” said Rollison, breathing very hard, “it’s none of your business, and you’ll be crazy if you get yourself mixed up with it. But if these guys happened to get locked in the trunk of your cab, you’d qualify to belong to the State of Texas.”
As he spoke, he was bending down over the first man he had knocked out. He ran through his pockets, then moved him so that he was stretched out on his back.
“You could even take them to hospital,” went on Rollison, “and say you found them two or three blocks away.”
“Bud,” said the cabby, “it’s none of my business, but you’ve got something. Cheese! They might gimme a reward for hospitalising the guys, eh? Okay. Give me a hand with them.”
The job took a fraction under two minutes; the first man was put in the taxi’s trunk, which Rollison knew as the boot; and the other on the floor in the back of the taxi. This man’s right arm was broken, but the other did not seem to be badly hurt. The cabby was in a tearing hurry to get off.
“I’ll be back,” he flung over his shoulder. “Don’t go far, bud.”
Rollison watched him drive off, smiled, and said in a curiously mild voice:
“Bless your stout heart. Bud.”
Then, he turned towards Number 48, putting into his own pockets everything he had taken from the men’s.
The street door was still ajar, and Rollison stepped in and closed it. The house was silent. Light came from a ceiling light in the hall, which was narrow with a flight of stairs leading off at one side. Men’s hats, some plastic raincoats and some oddments were on a hallstand. The door by the side of the hallstand was closed. A black card hung from a nail, reading: Ask Here. He didn’t, but started up the stairs. They were carpeted, but nothing could stop them from groaning. He kept to one side of them, close to the wall; that way, he kept the sound to a minimum. As he neared the next landing, he saw that passages led both ways; short, narrow, ill-lit. At the end of each was a door, and beneath one door a strip of light. He approached the door which was in darkness, taking out a penknife which had several odd blades. One was a skeleton key. He used it, swiftly, the sharp, dexterous turns making little sound. He knew that he was piling risk on risk; things he could get away with in London, where he knew the police, might run him into outsize trouble in New York; but this wasn’t the time to be fainthearted.
He opened the door.
Silent darkness greeted him.
He closed this door and approached the other, and then went to the lighted apartment; as he drew nearer, he heard the drone of radio or television, and didn’t think it likely that Brian Conway or the others were sitting back and having fun.
They might have the radio on, to drown any sound.
He used the key again, as deftly as before, but this time opened the door much more cautiously. Light came through; and beyond was another open door, showing a television set and the feet of a man and a woman sitting just out of his line of vision.
He went out.
The two doors on the next floor led to empty rooms.
On the third floor, one door looked to be in darkness, the other had light round it, but no sound came. Rollison used the key again, quickly but very cautiously; for this was the top floor of the building - if he judged it rightly, the third floor back. There was nowhere else for Valerie to be.
Valerie Hall didn’t like any of what happened.
From the time they had bustled her into the taxi, on Broadway, she hadn’t liked it at all. There’d been too much haste, and the grip on her arm had been much too tight. When they’d got in the taxi, Conway had sat one side of her and the stranger the other; and both men had held her arms, and looked ready to clap a hand over her face. They had been breathing hard and interested in something happening in the street, which Valerie hadn’t noticed.
She was more scared then ever, in case anything had happened to the man Rollison. But she didn’t spend much time thinking about Rollison, then, except to remember what he had advised her to do.
She relaxed, and sat back.
The others relaxed, too.
The narrow-faced man had called an order to the driver - 48 something street. Now, they travelled very fast. At first other traffic was close on their heels, some cars actually passed them. Lights were vivid at first, but soon became much less powerful. Valerie could look down streets which were almost in darkness. As the lights dimmed, her hope dimmed too, and her fears rose. Rollison’s first advice had been best - stay indoors.
She knew that she couldn’t have done so.
Now and again, the man with the narrow face looked round, obviously to find out whether they were bei
ng followed. Conway’s manner had changed, and now he kept patting her hand, and saying:
“It’s okay, Val, it’s okay.”
She didn’t like his touch; or him.
She liked the narrow-faced man much less.
He had been waiting in the restaurant, where Brian Conway had said that he would be, solitary, dark, oddly frightening; a man who looked as if he could be really bad.
They had talked a lot about ‘dough’ and ‘Wilf’, keeping their voices low. Valerie had fought hard to make sure that she didn’t raise hers. She had been determined not to hand over the diamonds or the money until she had seen Wilf, but at heart she had known that she might have to; she would do anything to give Wilf a chance. Conway had tried to make her less adamant, as if he was frightened of the narrow-faced man. Perhaps he was.
Valerie had told herself that she hadn’t a hope of gaining her point, that she might even be putting Wilf in great danger by holding out.
Then, abruptly:
“Okay, okay,” the narrow-faced man had said, “you can see him. Okay.”
So, they’d left the restaurant.
Valerie hadn’t seen Rollison anywhere near.
Twenty minutes later, the narrow-faced man opened the door of a room in a dark, gloomy building a long way from Times Square. There was a smell of stale cooking, and a sickly smell of paint. The stairs creaked. There was dust on window-ledges and on the banisters. She was in front of both men, and they came up single file. She could easily have screamed. The sight of lights beneath some of the door didn’t reassure her. She was hopelessly confused; there was the hope of seeing Wilf as well as fear that she would not, fear that this was simply a trick.
The narrow-faced man had opened a door with a key, and thrust it back.
“Listen, you’re on the level, aren’t you?” Conway asked, in a timid-sounding voice. If he knew the man, would he be so timid? Was there any chance that she and Rollison were wrong about him? Or was this just part of the act?
The narrow-faced man gave a one-sided grin.
“Sure,” he said, “this is on the level. It’s on my level.” He slid his right hand to the inside of his coat, and before Valerie realised what he was doing, he produced a gun. He didn’t point it at her or at Conway, just held it casually. “Sure,” he repeated; “you don’t have to worry. Inside.”
“Listen, you said . . .“ Conway breathed. Was he genuinely frightened?
“I don’t have to listen,” the narrow-faced man said. “Inside.”
They went in.
The only light was the one which the man had switched on. There was no sound. When the door closed it seemed to shut them off from the world. They were in a tiny lobby, with arched doorways without doors leading off it in two directions. The narrow-faced man manoeuvred so that both of them were in front of him, and then said:
“Put on that light.”
Conway obeyed.
He was nervous - wasn’t he? It wasn’t just pretended.
Valerie looked round a sitting-room, with some armchairs, a threadbare carpet, a table against the wall. The only hint of luxury was in the big television which filled a corner. Compared with the suite at the Arden-Astoria, this was a slum apartment. It was empty; of course it was; but Valerie couldn’t stop herself from saying:
“Where - where is he?”
“You want to see your brother?” sneered the narrow-faced man. “Okay, you can see him.” He went to a small bureau in another corner, and picked something up, brought it across and thrust it into Valerie’s face. “That him?”
It was an enlargement from a coloured snap of Wilfred Hall, taken while he had been here in New York. It couldn’t have been a better likeness. Smiling, nice-looking, strong, healthy, and radiating a kind of confidence. He was their father all over again, the true son of the man who had built up the Hall millions half-way round the world.
Valerie hadn’t seen him for three months.
She looked up into the narrow face. Had Rollison seen her then, he would have recognised most of the emotions which chased one another.
“I want to see him in the flesh,” she said, very firmly, “and until I do . . .“
The narrow-faced man said smoothly, nastily: “Don’t get me wrong, sister. You’re not seeing your brother until we’re ready to show him, and that’s not now. Where’s the dough and where are the jewels?”
“I’m not giving them to you until I’ve seen Wilf,” Valerie said. By some miracle, she managed to keep her voice steady, to sound determined. She stared at the man, defiantly. She felt her heart thundering with such fear that she could hardly breathe, but didn’t drop her eyes. “You said”
“Val,” muttered Brian Conway, “take it easy; don’t make him mad.”
“That’s good advice,” the narrow-faced man said; “why don’t you take it? And you’ll sure make me mad if you don’t hand over. Come on, sister.”
He put out a hand; it was long and narrow - and dirty. Even palm upwards, the tips of dirty nails showed. Yet it was very steady, with the fingers curled slightly upwards, like a claw.
“Val, I told you not to come,” Conway muttered; “I warned you what would happen. You’d better hand over; this guy doesn’t care whether you’re a girl or not; he wants the jewels. Don’t be crazy, Val; don’t get yourself hurt.”
She blazed up at him.
“You snivelling little coward, what do you think you are to tell me what to do? Why don’t you do something, instead of standing there looking as if you’ll melt into the floor? If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a coward! That’s what you are, a hopeless, helpless, snivelling coward; if you had half Wilf’s guts you’d wade into this beast.” Her eyes were blazing and her fists were clenched and she shook them at Conway, not at the narrow-faced man, who had first been startled, and now began to grin as if this was a great joke. “Why, I’ve seen braver men than you crawl” Valerie cried, and took a step forward as if to strike Conway. “Why don’t you do something?”
Conway thrust out a hand defensively.
“Val . . .“ he began.
Then, she sprang round towards the narrow-faced man and struck the gun out of his hand.
He was taken completely by surprise, and as the gun fell and he backed away, Valerie jumped towards the door.
8
MOUSE INTO LION
The door, in fact, was some way off; Valerie had to go through an arched doorway to reach it. She had a good start, for the narrow-faced man was off his balance when she actually reached the archway, and Conway was gasping:
‘Val, be careful, Val!”
That didn’t deter her for a moment. She reached the actual door which led to the passage, and as she did so, the narrow-faced man called:
“Stop right there!”
“Stay where you are or he’ll shoot,” Conway cried in desperation.
He sounded as if he knew it was true.
Valerie didn’t stop to think whether it was or not, but snatched at the door-handle; and as she did so, her foot caught against a rug and she pitched into the door. Thus she lost her only chance even of reaching the locked door. The narrow-faced man moved, swift as a fox, and reached her before she could pick herself up. He had the gun in his right hand, but didn’t use it. He put an arm round her waist and lifted her clear of the floor; she was so small that it didn’t need a strong man. Then he half-dragged and half-carried her back to the inner room, where Conway stood pale-faced and shaky of limb, moistening his lips, and looking anywhere but at Valerie.
The narrow-faced man dropped Valerie on to a couch, and when she tried to scramble up, he slapped her face.
“Don’t do that,” Conway muttered.
A moth fluttering against the light would have attracted more attention.
The narrow-f
aced man pulled Valerie’s handbag from her fingers, opened it, and emptied the contents on the table. Small leather boxes which might be jewel-boxes fell out. He looked at these with glinting eyes; and with gloating satisfaction, He opened one box, and a slender diamond pendant winked and shimmered up at him, all colours of the rainbow scintillating about the room.
“Sure,” he said softly; “that’s real ice.” He closed the box and slid it into his pocket, then put the others into his pocket without looking inside them. Next, he picked up a roll of dollars which were held together with a rubber band. He didn’t trouble to take the band off when he tucked them away.
There was nothing else of value in the bag.
The man looked at Valerie’s ears.
The ear-rings looked like a thousand dollars.
“Okay,” he said, “take ‘em off.”
Valerie was now sitting upright on the couch, with her knees close together, and her hands folded tightly in her lap. Her lips were pressed into a thin line, as if she was trying to hold back her fury. Her eyes glittered as brightly and as hard and dazzling as the diamonds.
“If you want these,” she said defiantly, “come and get them.”
“Val, don’t” squeaked Conway.
She showed no sign that she had heard him, but glared at the narrow-faced man. He stood with one hand at his hip for a moment, the other in his pocket. He grinned. He had a small mouth, and when he smiled it opened just enough to show even teeth set in a small jaw.
“The pocket Venus wants to mix it, does she?” he said nastily, and stretched out his hand. “Don’t argue, gimme.”
She didn’t move.
“Val!” came from Conway as a muted shriek.
The narrow-faced man stopped grinning; obviously there was an end to his admiration for feminine courage. He went forward, hands thrust out and fingers claw-shaped; as if he were going to choke her before wrenching the ear-rings away. She hadn’t room to get up, just sat there with her hands clenched now, fury keeping fear away.
