Knock Knock Whos There

by James Hadley Chase

  13

  Johnny Bianda unlocked the door of his two-room apartment. He

  moved into the big living room and paused to look around. He had

  lived in this apartment now for the past eight years. It wasn’t much,

  but that didn’t worry Johnny. At least it was comfortable, although

  shabby. There were two battered lounging chairs, a settee, a T.V. set,

  a table, four upright chairs and a faded carpet. Through the door

  opposite was a tiny bedroom that just took a double bed and a night

  table with a built-in closet. There was a shower and a loo off the

  bedroom.

  He took off his jacket, loosened his tie and parked his .38

  automatic, then pulling up a chair to the window, he sat down.

  The noise from the street drifted up to him. Noise never

  bothered him. He lit a cigarette and stared through the dirty window

  pane at the apartment block without seeing it.

  Sammy had been right in guessing he had something on his

  mind. This something had been on his mind now for the past

  eighteen months. It had begun to nag him on his fortieth birthday.

  After celebrating with his girl friend, Melanie Carelli, and when she

  had fallen asleep, he had lain in the darkness and had thought about

  his past and had tried to imagine what his future was going to be.

  Forty years old! The halfway mark . . . always provided he didn’t have

  an accident, got lung cancer or stopped a bullet. Forty years old! His

  life half over!

  He had thought of the years that had moved behind him. First,

  he thought of his mother who hadn’t been able to read or write and

  who had worked herself to an early death to keep a roof over his

  head while his father who had been able to read but not write had

  slaved in a fruit-canning factory: two decent God-fearing Italian

  immigrants who had loved him and bad hoped for great things from

  him.

  Just before she had died, his mother had given him her only

  possession: a silver St. Christopher medal on a silver chain that had

  been in her family for over a century.

  “There’s nothing more I can do for you now, Johnny,” she had

  said. “Take this: wear it always: as long as you wear it nothing really

  bad can happen to you. Remember that. I’ve worn it all my life and

  nothing really bad has happened to me. It’s been hard, but not really

  bad.”

  He had been superstitious enough to have worn the medal and

  even now as he sat by the window, he put his fingers inside his shirt

  to touch the medal.

  Lying by the side of the gently breathing Melanie, he had thought

  of the years after his mother’s death. He hadn’t settled to anything.

  He had got tired of his father’s constant nagging and had left home.

  Although only seventeen, he had got a job as a bartender in a dive in

  Jacksonville. There he associated with the wild boys, the little crooks

  and the petty con men. He had hooked up with Ferdie Ciano, a small

  time heist man. Together, they had pulled a number of jobs, mostly

  gas stations until the police caught up with them. Johnny did a two-

  year stretch and that decided his fate. He came out of prison,

  educated in crime and sure that next time he wouldn’t be caught. For

  a couple of years he worked solo as a stick-up man. The money

  hadn’t amounted to anything but he was always hoping for

  something big. Then he ran into Ciano again who was now working

  for Joe Massino, an up and coming gangleader. Ciano took him along

  and Massino looked him over. He thought Johnny was made of the

  right material. He had been looking for a young, reliable man, good

  with a gun, to act as his bodyguard. Johnny knew little or nothing

  about guns. As a stick-up man he had used a toy pistol. This didn’t

  bother Massino. He had Johnny trained. After three months, Johnny

  proved himself to be a top-class shot and during the years of

  Massino’s rise to power, Johnny had killed three times, saving

  Massino’s life each time from certain death. Now, he had been with

  Massino for the past twenty years. There were no more killings.

  Massino was firmly in the saddle. He not only controlled the Unions

  in this big town, but also the Numbers racket and there was no one

  powerful enough to challenge him. Johnny was no longer his

  bodyguard. He had been assigned to take care of Sammy when

  Sammy collected the money for the Numbers pay-off. Massino

  believed in having young men to protect him. Anyone over thirty-five

  was too old, too slow for protection.

  Lying on the bed beside Melanie, Johnny had thought about all

  this and then turned his mind to his future. Forty years of age! If he

  didn’t do something soon, it would be too late. In another two or

  three years, Massino would begin to think he was getting too old to

  guard Sammy. Then what? No golden handshake for Johnny . . . that

  was for sure. He would be offered a job, probably counting Union

  15

  votes, running errands or some such god-awful thing. It would be the

  kiss-off. He had never been able to save money. His mouth had

  twisted into a wry grin as he remembered the advice he had given

  Sammy. Somehow his money bad slipped through his fingers:

  women, his fatal weakness for listening to any hard luck story and

  betting on horses that never showed. Money came and went, so he

  knew when Massino gave him the kiss-off he wouldn’t have enough

  to live on the way he wanted to live nor to do what he had always

  longed to do.

  Ever since he could remember, he had dreamed of owning a

  boat. When he was a kid he had spent all his spare time down at the

  harbour where the rich had their yachts and the fishermen their

  boats. The sea had pulled and still pulled him like a magnet. When he

  should have been at school, he was messing around in boats. He

  didn’t care bow hard he worked or what he was paid so long as be

  was allowed on board. He scrubbed decks, polished brass and spliced

  ropes for nickels. He still thought back on that time when he was a

  kid: the best time of his life!

  Lying in the dark, he again felt the compulsive urge to return to

  the sea, but not as a kid working for nickels and sweating his heart

  out just to feel the lift and fall of a deck under his feet. He wanted to

  return with his own boat: a sleek thirty-footer and he would charter

  her for fishing: going along as Captain with one crew—someone like

  Sammy: even Sammy.

  The boat of his dreams would cost money: then there was the

  heavy fishing tackle and the first running expenses. He reckoned he

  would need at least $60,000.

  He told himself he was crazy in the head to be thinking like that,

  but that didn’t stop him thinking nor dreaming. Like an aching tooth,

  the dream of owning his own boat, feeling the surge of the sea

  nagged him for as long as he could remember and was nagging him

  now as he sat at the window.

  A dream that could come true if he could lay his hands on a large

  sum of money.

  Some six months ago an idea had dropped into his mind which

  he ha
d immediately shied away from . . . shutting it away like a man

  who feels a sudden stabbing pain shuts away the thought of cancer.

  But the idea kept coming back. It even haunted his dreams until

  finally, he told himself an idea was just an idea: it could be looked at,

  couldn’t it? There was no harm in looking at it, was there?

  And when he began to look at it, he realized for the first time

  what it meant to be a loner. It would have been so much better, so

  much more reassuring if he had someone to discuss the idea with,

  but there was no one: no one he could trust. What was the use of

  talking about a thing like this with his only real solid friend: Sammy

  the Black? What use would Melanie be if he told her what was going

  on in his mind? She would hate the idea of the sea and a boat. She

  would think he had gone crazy. Even if his mother had been alive, he

  couldn’t have talked to her about it. She would have been horrified.

  His father had been too dumb, too much of a slave, to discuss with

  him any goddamn thing.

  So he had looked at this idea when he was alone as he was now

  beginning to look at it again while sitting at the window.

  Simply stated, the idea was for him to steal the Numbers

  collection, but to justify the high risk, he had, he told himself, to wait

  patiently until the big take came along as he knew it must from his

  past experience as a collector.

  And now here it was! February 29th! Something like $150,000!

  The big take!

  If I’m going to do it, if I’m ever going to own that boat, Johnny

  thought, Friday 29th is D-day! With that kind of money, I can buy a

  good boat, have money over so if the fishing charter idea flops, it

  won’t matter. With that kind of money and living carefully, I can last

  out until I die and still have the boat, the sea and nothing to worry

  about. I swear I’ll kiss the horses good-bye. I might even kiss the

  chicks good-bye and I’ll shut my ears to any future hard luck story!

  Well, okay, he said to himself, as he settled his bulk more

  comfortably in the old lounging chair, so on Friday night of the 29th,

  you go ahead and take this money from Massino. You’ve thought

  about it long enough. You have made plans. You have even gone so

  far as to take an impression of the key of Andy’s safe. You have gone

  even further than that: you have made a duplicate key from the

  impression that you know will open the safe. That was where those

  two years in jail had’ paid off: you learned things like taking key

  impressions and making keys from the impressions.

  17

  He paused here to recall just how he had got the impression and

  tiny beads broke out of his forehead when he remembered the risk

  he had run.

  The safe was a big hunk of old-fashioned metal that -stood in

  Andy’s tiny office, facing the door. The safe had belonged to

  Massino’s grandfather.

  More than once, Johnny had heard Andy complain about the

  safe to Massino.

  “You want something modern,” Andy had said. “A kid could bust

  into this goddamn thing. Why not let me get rid of it and fix you with

  something modern?”

  Johnny well remembered Massino’s reply.

  “That safe belonged to my grandfather. What was good enough

  for him is good enough for me. I’ll tell you something: that safe is a

  symbol of my power. There’s no one in this town who dare touch it

  except you and me. You put the take in there every Friday and

  everyone in this town knows the take will be there on Saturday

  morning for the pay out. Why? Because they know no one would

  have the guts to touch anything that belongs to me. That safe is as

  safe as my power . . . and let me tell you, my power is very safe!”

  But Andy had tried again.

  “I know all that, Mr. Joe,” he had said while Johnny had listened,

  “but there might be some out-of-town nutter who couldn’t resist

  trying. So why take a chance?”

  Massino had stared at Andy, his eyes like little pools of ice.

  “If anyone busts into that safe, I go after him,” he said. “He

  wouldn’t get far. Anyone who takes anything from me had better talk

  to a grave-digger . . . but they won’t. There’s no one dumb enough to

  try to take anything from me.”

  But Massino hedged his bets. He had done that most of his life

  and it had paid off. When the Numbers money was locked in the safe

  on Friday, he left Benno Bianco locked with the safe in Andy’s office.

  Not that Benno was anything special. He had once been an up and

  coming welter-weight, but he hadn’t got very far. He was pretty good

  with a gun and he looked tough: a lot tougher than he was. But that

  didn’t matter. Benno came cheap. He hadn’t cost Massino much and

  the suckers of the town were impressed by his battered face, the

  way he walked and spat on the sidewalk. They thought he was real

  tough and that was what Massino wanted them to think. With Benno

  locked in the office, with Massino’s reputation and that great hunk of

  safe, the suckers who parted with their money felt sure that when

  they came to pay-out day, the money would be there, waiting for

  them.

  Johnny knew all this. The opening of the safe and Benno

  presented no problem. He remembered what Massino had said: No

  onewouldhave thegutstotouchanything that belonged tome.

  Well, Johnny was going to touch something that belonged to

  Massino. Guts? Probably not, but the urge to get his hands on such a

  sum, the smell of the sea, the dream of a beautiful thirty-footer

  added up to a lot more than guts. A grave-digger? There would be no

  grave-digger if his planning was right, Johnny told himself.

  The big safe remained empty all the week. It was only on Friday

  that it was used. There was no combination; just a heavy old-

  fashioned key. During the months, Johnny, passing by Andy’s open

  door, got to know the key was often left in the lock. On Friday when

  the take was put in the safe, Andy took the key home with him.

  Three times, long after midnight, Johnny had entered the building,

  gone up to Andy’s office, picked the door lock and had hunted for

  the key. Third time lucky! On a Wednesday night, he had found the

  key in the safe. He had come prepared with a lump of softened

  putty. The impression had taken only a few seconds, but God! how

  he had sweated!

  No one was ever allowed inside Andy’s office. If someone

  wanted to speak to him that someone stayed in the doorway and did

  his talking but never crossed the threshold. Andy had a thing about

  this. The only exception was when Benno guarded the safe on Friday

  nights, then Andy would clear his desk, lock every drawer and

  generally behave as if vermin was invading his holy of holies.

  It took Johnny three nights to make the key, then on the fourth

  night he returned to the building, again picking the door lock to

  Andy’s office and tried out his handiwork. A touch with a file, a drop

  of oil and the key worked perfectly.

  Taking the money was now easy. Even fixing Benno was
n’t too

  19

  tricky. It was what happened when Massino found he had been

  robbed that mattered.

  There’snoonedumbenoughto trytotakeanythingfromme.

  The trick in this steal, Johnny had decided, was not to let

  Massino find out who had taken the money. Once Massino knew

  who the thief was, that thief had as much chance of surviving as a

  scoop of ice cream dropped into a furnace.

  Massino was affiliated with the Mafia to whom he paid regular

  dues. His own organization could take care of the town: he would get

  away as fast as he could. So Massino could call his opposite Mafia

  number and alert him. The whole of the Mafia organization would

  swing into action. No one steals from the Mafia or its friends without

  paying for it: that was a matter of principal. There wouldn’t be a

  town nor a city in the whole country that would be safe. Johnny

  knew all this, and his plan was to fix things so that no one could

  guess who had taken the money.

  He had thought about this a lot as his future and his life

  depended on it. When he had the money, he would rush it across the

  street to the Greyhound left-luggage lockers and dump it there. The

  money would stay there until the heat cooled off—probably three or

  four weeks. Then when he was sure Massino was convinced whoever

  had grabbed the money had got away with it, he ( Johnny ) would

  move the money to a safe-deposit bank. He wished he could do this

  as soon as he had the money, but his alibi depended on speed. The

  Greyhound bus station was right opposite Massino’s office. It would

  be only a matter of minutes to dump the bag and get back to

  Melanie’s pad. The safe-deposit bank was at the other end of the

  town and anyway it would be shut for the night.

  The whole operation involved great patience. Once the money

  was in the safe-deposit bank, Johnny knew he would have to wait

  two or three years, but he could wait, knowing when he left town he

  would have all that money to set up somewhere in Florida, get his

  boat and achieve his ambition. What were two or three years after

  waiting all this time?

  Massino had the police in his pocket. Johnny knew the police

  would be called in once the robbery was discovered and they would

  go over the safe and Andy’s office for fingerprints. That didn’t worry

  Johnny. He would wear gloves and have an unassailable alibi: he