Some minutes later, Keegan came through the weeds, pausing every now and then to wipe his shoes on the rough grass, then he slid under the driving wheel.
“He’s fine,” he said as he started the engine. “He’ll be as troublesome as an ant for the next two weeks. Where now?”
Silk knew and admired Keegan’s expertise. Keegan could kick a man to within a heartbeat of death, and yet the man could still survive although he would be nothing to get worked up about after the beating.
“Where now?” he repeated, pushing his hat to the back of his head. “The City Court. You leave me there. No need for both of us to check this. The Magistrate sits at nine o’clock. I’ll get a taxi back.”
“Anything you say,” Keegan said and sent the Thunderbird shooting down the dark street.
At ten o’clock, Silk walked into the Belevedere Hotel, entered the elevator and was whisked up to the penthouse suite. Here, he found Lindsey on the terrace, looking down at the bright lights far below and at the young people still bathing in the warm, moonlit sea.
Lindsey turned as he heard Silk come across the red and white tiles.
“Well?”
“Just the way you wanted it,” Silk said. “Very smooth: no trouble. She drew a week in the Pen and a twenty-five dollar fine. The Magistrate was a fat old queer who hates girls. He took one look at her and threw the book at her.”
“Sherman?”
“He didn’t know what hit him. Right now, he’s in the State Hospital: fractured jaw, four broken ribs and a beautiful concussion. He’ll survive but it will take time.”
Lindsey winced. He hated violence, but when working for Radnitz, he had found he had to live with it.
“You’ve done well.” He looked down at the screaming, happy crowd on the beach. He envied them. How uncomplicated were their lives! “This girl . . . find out when she’ll be released and pick her up. Get someone to go to her apartment, pack her things and settle her rent . . . use a woman.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Silk said and looked expectantly at Lindsey. “Anything else?”
“Not right now.”
Lindsey took a roll of $50 bills from his hip pocket and handed it to Silk.
“The big operation gets going when we have the girl,” he said. “I’ll go over the details with you at the end of the week.”
“Okay.” Silk examined the roll of bills, nodded his satisfaction, then left the penthouse suite.
Lindsey wandered to the terrace balcony and looked down at the young people, splashing in the sea. He watched them for several minutes, then leaving the terrace, he entered Radnitz’s study. He sat down at the desk and began to re-read the notes Radnitz had left him. When Lindsey had an operation in his lap, he concentrated his whole mind on it. This was the trickiest operation he had been given. It involved a madman and four million dollars. For the first time since he had worked for Radnitz, he wondered, uneasily if he would succeed.
Sheila Latimer was Keegan’s slave.
The previous summer, she had been the runner up for a Miss Florida competition, and would have won it had she been willing to have slept with two or three of the judges.
Chet Keegan was fond of young, well built girls. When he wasn’t working with Silk, he was roaming around, looking for likely material to corrupt.
Any local beauty competition was his happy hunting ground. He had regarded Sheila Latimer with approval. She was tall, beautifully built, blonde with big blue eyes and full curved, red lips. What he didn’t realize was that she was not only a virgin, but frightened of sex.
He found her drinking a Coke in a small bar that was at the moment empty except for the girl and the bartender. She was trying to console herself that she really could have been Miss Florida had the other creature who had won the title been less corrupt.
Keegan joined her. He had a very easy and deceptive manner with women. His handsomeness, his smooth manner, his confidence intrigued her. When he told her that she was his pick of all the girls who had been on parade, she naturally warmed to him. For the first ten minutes, they got along well together, but Keegan was always impatient. He didn’t believe that a woman should be wooed. The dreary, slow business of breaking the ice, manoeuvring, spending money on a woman bored him. A girl either wanted it or she didn’t. It was as simple as that.
Sheila was wearing a white bra and tight fitting red, cotton slacks. It was while she was leaning over the bar to help herself to another olive that Keegan pulled back the elastic of her slacks and slid down his hand, his fingers closing around her bare buttocks.
For a brief moment, Sheila remained motionless. Her flesh crawled with horror as she felt the smooth, soft fingers outraging her privacy. Then she swung around, jerking his hand away and slammed her handbag against his face. The metal clasp of the handbag struck his nose. As he reeled back, his face suddenly a mask of blood, she ran frantically out of the bar.
The bartender who had witnessed what had happened, offered a towel.
“A good try, Buster,” he said admiringly. “You got more nerve than me. How did it feel?”
Keegan used the towel to mop up the blood, then he tossed the towel back to the bartender. He put three one dollar bills on the counter. His small, green eyes gleamed as he said, “Thanks, Joe. You never know with women, do you?” and holding his handkerchief to his still bleeding nose, he left the bar.
Hitting Keegan was as dangerous as slapping at a black mamba. Sheila Latimer had no idea what she had started. She was furious, ashamed and revolted by what this man had done to her. She rushed back to her rented room and took a shower, vigorously scrubbing herself to get rid of the creepy feeling of the fingers that had touched her.
Out of the shower, suddenly lonely, not knowing what her future would be, sickened by this blond, baby-faced man’s behaviour, she threw herself on the bed and wept.
Sheila had no one to turn to. She had quarrelled with her parents, small minded, disapproving people who lived on a Mid-West farm and from where Sheila had escaped to Miami where she worked as a hotel receptioness. Hoping for something more exciting than coping with half drunk, idiotic tourists, she had entered for the Beauty competition. She knew no one in Paradise City where the competition had been held. As a runner up, she had been promptly dropped. The fat, bored agent who had arranged everything for her immediately lost interest when she failed to win the competition. Now, she would have to return to Miami and hope to get her hotel job back.
She spent a miserable, restless night. Every so often she woke, still feeling in her imagination the groping soft fingers on her body. A little after seven o’clock, as she was turning uneasily in her bed, wondering if she shouldn’t get up and make herself a cup of coffee, she heard the front doorbell ring. She sat up. It could be a telegram! There might be an offer from her agent! Struggling into a wrap, she ran across the room and opened the door.
Chet Keegan pushed his way in. Before she could scream, his clenched fist struck her on the side of her jaw and she fell forward at his feet. He closed the door, dragged her to the bed and threw her on it.
He collected a brief-case he had brought with him. From it, he took four short lengths of cord. He tied her ankles and wrists to the bed. Then he took from the brief-case a hypodermic syringe and a rubber topped bottle.
It took five nightmare days and nights to turn Sheila Latimer into a craven, broken heroin addict. When Keegan was satisfied that she was broken, he left her, leaving her his telephone number, sure she would call him. Two days later, she was babbling over the telephone line, hysterically begging him to help her. He went to her apartment with the necessary fix. Before giving her the fix, he used and abused her. Whatever he demanded, whatever he did to her, meant nothing to her. The needle that sank into her vein was the overwhelming need in her life.
So now, she was Keegan’s slave.
Two days after Nona Jacey’s arrest, Sheila pulled up outside Mrs. Watson’s apartment house. She got out of the Opel Kadett that Keegan had
given her and walked up the steps to the front door.
She was feeling pretty good. Keegan had given her a fix an hour or so ago, and she was relaxed and more than willing to do what she had been told to do.
She rang the bell and waited. There was some delay, then the door opened. Mrs. Watson regarded her with disapproval and suspicion.
“What is it?” she demanded, hugging her grubby shawl to her.
“I am Sheila Mason,” Sheila said, repeating the dialogue Keegan had made her memorize. “I am Nona Jacey’s cousin. As you know, Nona is in trouble. She won’t be coming back. I am here to pay her rent and to take her things.”
“That little thief!” Mrs. Watson’s face turned sour. “To think of it! Shop-lifting! Well, she deserves what she got! You don’t take her things until the rent has been paid . . . she owes me a month. That’ll be a hundred dollars!”
Pay her what she asks, Keegan had said. She is certain to rob you, but pay her.
Sheila opened her bag and took the money Keegan had given her from it. She gave Mrs. Watson two fifty dollar bills. “May I have the key, please? I want to pack her things.”
Mrs. Watson studied the two bills, then nodded. She stared at the blonde, white-faced girl curiously.
“I didn’t know she had a cousin,” she said. “She never mentioned you.”
“I’m from Texas,” Sheila said, following Keegan’s dialogue. “She will be returning with me when she is released.”
Mrs. Watson snorted.
“I wouldn’t have her back here,” she said. “Take her things and let me have the room.” She slammed the door.
Sheila mounted the stairs. Chet, she thought, would be pleased. It was really very simple. If he was really pleased, he might leave her alone tonight and he might give her a stronger fix.
She felt almost light-hearted as she unlocked the door on the third floor and entered Nona’s deserted apartment.
Lindsey decided he would have to handle personally the next phase of the operation. Neither Silk nor Keegan had the know-how to cope successfully with Dr. Alex Kuntz.
He dialled the doctor’s number and after three attempts, finally got past the busy signal. A woman’s voice, cool and impersonal, answered.
“I would like an appointment with Dr. Kuntz,” Lindsey said. “Either this afternoon or tomorrow morning.”
“I am sorry . . . Dr. Kuntz has no free time until the end of next week. Could I suggest Friday week at three?”
Expecting such an answer, Lindsey said, “No, I’m also sorry. Please consider this as an emergency. It must be this afternoon or at the latest tomorrow morning.”
“Who did you say was calling?” Her voice now was cautious.
“This is Jonathan Lindsey. Would you be kind enough to tell Dr. Kuntz that I am acting on behalf of Mr. Herman Radnitz? I believe he knows him.”
There was a pause, then the woman said, “Please hold on.”
Lindsey reached for a boiled sweet from a jar he kept on the desk. Although he didn’t smoke nor drink, he was an addict to sucking boiled sweets. There was a long delay, then the woman said, “Dr. Kuntz will see you this evening at six o’clock.”
Lindsey smiled to himself.
“Thank you . . . I’ll be there,” and he hung up.
Two minutes after six o’clock, Lindsey left his Cadillac Fleetwood, parked outside Dr. Kuntz’s impressive mansion that overlooked the yacht harbour in Greater Miami, and walked up the seven marble steps. He rang the doorbell.
A nurse came to the door: a faded, elderly experienced looking woman who gave him a hard stare and a brief impersonal smile as she led him into a big, ornately furnished waiting-room.
“Dr. Kuntz will not keep you for more than a few minutes.” she said and Lindsey recognized the voice he had heard over the telephone.
He nodded and sat down, reaching for the latest copy of Life. Four minutes later, the door swung open and the nurse said, “Dr. Kuntz will see you now.”
Lindsey followed her down a passage and paused with her outside an oak panelled door. She knocked softly, then opened the door and stood aside.
Lindsey walked into a room where a fat, short man, wearing a short sleeved double breasted white overall sat at a desk. To his right was a leather covered couch. Cabinets containing various surgical instruments lined the walls.
“Nice of you to see me at such short notice,” Linsdey said, his charming smile in evidence. He took the chair facing Dr. Kuntz and sat down.
Dr. Kuntz regarded him, his fat face expressionless. His bald head, his black bushy eyebrows, his small hooked nose and thin lips made up a picture of cold, efficient professionalism. A patient, facing him, would draw confidence from such a face: a man who knew his business and who would be impatient and ruthless with hypochondriacs.
The two men regarded each other. Lindsey, relaxed, was in no hurry to begin. He had decided that Kuntz should make the first approach. Finally, Kuntz said cautiously, “You come from Mr. Radnitz?”
“That’s right. I work for him.” Lindsey crossed one long leg over the other and regarded the glossy toe-cap of his Lobb hand-made shoe, then he looked straight into Kuntz’s eyes. “You probably remember him?”
Kuntz picked up a gold fountain pen and turned it between his fat fingers.
“I think the name is familiar,” he said finally.
Lindsey laughed. He had an easy, infectious laugh, quiet, almost a chuckle that usually set other people laughing. Dr. Kuntz remained poker-faced, his fingers turning the pen.
Again there was a long pause, then Lindsey decided he was wasting time. He came abruptly to the point.
“I have a patient for you, doctor,” he said. “It will be necessary for you to close your office and give up three or four weeks of your time while you look after this patient. He is a V.I.P. You will be paid a fee of ten thousand dollars. You will be needed in six days’ time . . . the third.”
Kuntz put down the gold fountain pen. His bushy eyebrows climbed to the top of his head.
“That is quite impossible,” he said. “I will be happy to treat your patient, but he must come here. I am far too busy to leave my office for such a length of time.”
“But have you an alternative, doctor?” Lindsey asked, smiling. “Perhaps I can bore you with a little story? In 1943, a certain brilliant-brain specialist was living in Berlin. He volunteered ― not under any pressure ― to work in a certain concentration camp, so that he could experiment on Jewish prisoners. It is on record that this man murdered two thousand three hundred and twenty-two Jews before he perfected a certain brain operation. This operation was of considerable advantage to people suffering from manic depression. It is now recognized by medical science as a major breakthrough. This doctor, whose name was Hans Schultz, made other and less important experiments. Again it is on record that he murdered some five hundred Jews without achieving anything very important. I have documentary proof of this. I have also photographs of this doctor actually at work. These photographs and the documents have been given me by Mr. Radnitz who you may remember was also active during the Nazi regime. But this is neither here nor there. It so happens we need your skill. We have a V.I.P. patient. The fee is ten thousand dollars, and of course, silence. Dr. Hans Schultz is believed dead. He can remain dead, providing you are willing to co-operate.”
The small, fat man again reached for his gold fountain pen. Again he turned it between his fingers, then he looked up and regarded Lindsey with stone cold, expressionless eyes.
“Very interesting,” he said quietly. “The third did you say? Yes, then perhaps I could arrange to be free for ― you said three weeks? Yes, I suppose that is possible.” The black, beady eyes moved over Lindsey’s relaxed face. “And who is the patient?”
“We will go into that on the third.”
“I understand.” The fat fingers moved to a bell push on the desk and hovered over it. “Then what are the arrangements?”
“I will be here at ten o’clock on the morn
ing of the third. We will drive together to a certain place and you will stay there, looking after the patient for a period of three or four weeks. You will bring everything you need. Any additional things I can collect for you.”
Kuntz nodded, then thumbed down the bell push.
“You did say ten thousand dollars?” he said, peering with greed in his small black eyes.
“Yes. You will receive your fee when your work has proved satisfactory.”
The faded, elderly nurse came into the room and Lindsey got to his feet.
“See you on the third, doctor,” he said, and nodding, he followed the nurse to the front door.
He walked to the Cadillac, humming softly under his breath. As he got under the driving wheel, he opened the glove compartment and helped himself to a boiled sweet from a number he kept there in a glass jar.
Acting on instructions and information supplied by Lindsey, Chet Keegan pulled up outside the Go-Go Club, a brash nitery that catered mainly for the nautical trade. Sailors, coming off visiting warships, needed lots of hard liquor, lots of willing girls and lots of strident music. The Go-Go Club provided all this. Since it skimmed off the rowdies, the toughies and the trouble-makers and knew how to handle them, the police were content to live and let live. It was seldom that they were called in to quell a disturbance. The Go-Go Club bouncers were professionals and could stop a fight before it got started. There were six of them. What they didn’t know about dirty fighting, the use of a cosh and the stunning blow from a fist wrapped in brass wasn’t worth knowing. There were times when some foolhardy sailors, lit up with whisky, would start trouble just for the hell of it, but the trouble was invariably cut short and the sailors invariably laid out in the parking lot to recover from a vicious beating from these six professionals, Having recovered, they would return to their ships, nursing their wounds, wiser and more prudent men.
The girls working at the Club were handpicked. They were all under the age of twenty-four. A number of them were prostitutes, the rest, girls in search of excitement. All of them were capable of handling any man. They wore as a uniform a skimpy bra and silk panties, high-heeled gold shoes and a carnation fixed over their navels with surgical tape. Across the seat of their panties were printed various slogans: Don’t Park Here. This Belongs To Me. No Place For Hands. Cul-de-Sac. No Entry, and so on.
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