Just Another Sucker (4 page)

As the bus carried me along the beach road, I whistled under my breath.

This was the first time since I had gone to jail that I had felt like whistling.

Life was coming alive again.

II

Soon after nine o’clock the following morning, I went down to the offices of the
Herald
.

Nina had told me that she had some pots to deliver and she wouldn’t be back until midday. This suited me. If Malroux’s wife did telephone, I would have the place to myself. I certainly wasn’t telling Nina what had happened until I knew what the job was going to be.

I walked into the reference room of the
Herald’s
offices. There were two girls in charge. I had never seen them before, and they didn’t know me. I asked one of them to let me have the back files of the
Herald
from January, two years back.

It didn’t take me long to dig out the information I was looking for. I learned that Felix Malroux had married Rhea Passary five months after the death of his first wife. Rhea Passary had been a show girl at the Lido, Paris. After a whirlwind courtship that lasted scarcely a week, Malroux proposed and she accepted him. It was pretty obvious she wasn’t accepting him, but his money.

I returned home and sat down to wait. Exactly at eleven o’clock the telephone bell rang. I knew it was her before I lifted the receiver. My heart was beating fast and my hand as I reached for the receiver, was shaking.

‘Mr. Barber?’

There was no mistaking that clear, hard voice.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘We met yesterday.’

I decided this was the time to slip in a fast one.

‘Why, sure, Mrs. Malroux, at Joe’s bar.’

It was a good one. There was a pause. I wasn’t sure but I thought I heard her catch her breath sharply, but it could have been imagination.

‘Do you know East Beach where the bathing cabins are?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I want you to hire a cabin: the last cabin on the left. I meet you there at nine o’clock tonight.’

‘I’ll hire the cabin, and I’ll be there,’ I said.

There was a pause while I listened to her breathing, then she said, ‘Tonight then at nine,’ and she cut the connection.

I replaced the receiver and lit a cigarette. I was excited. The situation intrigued me.
An element of
risk.
It would be interesting to learn what she wanted. Maybe she was in some kind of jam – blackmail.

Maybe she wanted me to help her get rid of an unwanted lover. I shrugged. It was no use speculating.

I looked at my wrist watch. The time was ten minutes past eleven. I would have time to take a bus out to East Beach, book the cabin and get back before Nina returned.

I went out there. The man in charge of the cabins was Bill Holden: a large muscular hunk of meat who was a life-saver as well as the cabin attendant.

The cabins at East Beach were the luxury kind. You could sleep there if you wanted to. They stood in a long row, facing the sea, and I could see at this hour most of them were occupied.

Holden knew me, and when he saw me, he grinned.

‘Hello, Mr. Barber, glad to see you again.’

‘Thanks.’ I shook hands with him. ‘I want to hire a cabin. The last one on the left. I’ll need it tonight at nine. Can you fix it?’

‘We shut at eight, Mr. Barber,’ he said. ‘There won’t be anyone here, but you can have it. I’ve got no all-night customers this week so I’m not staying on. Okay?’

‘That’s all right. Leave the key under the mat. I’ll settle with you tomorrow.’

‘Anything you say, Mr. Barber.’

I looked along the crowded beach. The sand was covered with near naked bodies.

‘Looks as if you’re doing all right,’ I said.

‘I survive, although the season’s not what it should be. The all-night let is a flop. If it doesn’t pick up soon, I’m going to drop the idea. No point hanging around here after eight if I’ve got no customers. Are you doing all right, Mr. Barber?’

‘I’m not grumbling. Well, I’ll be along tonight. See you in the morning.’

On my way back home, I puzzled my brains to know what to tell Nina. I had to give her a reason why I would be out this night. Finally, I decided to tell her I was working for Ed Marshall, doing night work, counting cars in the A.A.A. traffic check up.

When I did tell her, I felt a bit of a heel to see how pleased she was.

‘I might as well pick up fifty a week,’ I said, ‘as sit around here doing nothing.’

At half past eight that evening, I left the bungalow and went around to the garage. We owned an ancient Packard that was pretty well on its last legs. As I coaxed the engine to start, I told myself if this job paid off, the first thing I’d do would be to buy a new car.

I reached East Beach at three minutes to nine o’clock. It was deserted. I found the key of the cabin under the mat and I unlocked the door.

There was a lounging room, a bedroom, a shower room and a kitchenette. The cabin was air conditioned. It had a TV and radio set, a telephone and a bar. There was even a bottle of whisky and charge water on one of the shelves behind the bar. It was all very lush and plush.

I turned the air-conditioner off and opened the windows and the door. I sat on the veranda in one of the cane lounging chairs.

It was lonely and quiet. The only sound came from the gentle movement of the sea. I was pretty tense, wondering what this woman wanted me to do, wondering too how much she was willing to pay for what she wanted done.

I waited for twenty-five minutes. Then just as I was beginning to think she wasn’t coming, she materialised out of the darkness. I didn’t see her arrive. I was sitting there, just about to light a third cigarette, when I saw a movement. I looked up, and there she was: standing quite close to me.

‘Good evening, Mr. Barber,’ she said, and before I could move, she sat down in a lounging chair close to mine.

I could see little of her. She had a silk scarf over her head that partially concealed her face. She was wearing a dark red summer dress. Around her right wrist was a heavy gold bracelet.

‘I know quite a lot about you,’ she said. ‘A man who will turn down a ten thousand dollar bribe and refuse to work with gangsters must have a nerve. I’m looking for a man with nerve.’

I didn’t say anything.

She lit a cigarette. I was aware she was staring at me. She was sitting in the shadows. I would have liked to have been able to see the expression in her eyes.

‘You take risks, don’t you, Mr. Barber?’

‘Do I?’

‘When you took my money, you risked going to jail for at least six years.’

‘I was drunk.’

‘Are you willing to take a risk?’

‘It depends on the money,’ I said. ‘I want money. I don’t make any bones about it. I want it, I need it, and I’m willing to earn it, but it has to be money, not chick feed.’

‘If you’ll do what I want you to do, I will pay you fifty thousand dollars.’

It was like taking a hard punch under the heart.

‘Fifty thousand. Did you say
fifty thousand dollars
?’

‘Yes. It’s a lot of money, isn’t it? I’ll pay you that if you will do what I want you to do.’

I drew in a long slow breath.

Fifty thousand dollars! My heart began to thump at the thought of so much money.

‘And what’s that?’

‘You sound interested, Mr. Barber. Would you take risks for such a sum?’

‘I’d take a lot of risk.’

I was thinking what I could do with all that money. Nina and I could leave Palm City. We could start a new life together.

‘Before we go any further, Mr. Barber,’ she said, ‘it’s only fair to tell you I haven’t any money except the allowance my husband makes me. My husband believes that his daughter and I should be able to manage on the allowance he provides. I admit they are generous allowances for reasonable people, but it so happens neither my stepdaughter nor I are reasonable people.’

‘If you haven’t the money, why offer me fifty thousand dollars?’ I said impatiently.

‘I can show you how you can make it.’

I stared at her and she stared at me.

‘Tell me – how do I make it?’

‘My stepdaughter and I need four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. We must have this money within two weeks. I am hoping you will help us get it, and if you do, you will be paid fifty thousand dollars.’

I studied her and decided she wasn’t crazy. On the contrary, I had never seen a woman who looked more sane.

‘But how do I do it?’ I asked.

But she wasn’t to be hurried.

‘Of course my husband could provide the money without any difficulty,’ she said. ‘Naturally, he would want to know why we wanted such a sum, and that is something neither of us can tell him.’ She paused to tap ash off her cigarette. ‘But with your help, we could get the money from my husband without having to answer awkward questions.’

My first surge of excitement was waning. This sounded like a confidence trick. I was now very alert.

‘Why do you want all this money?’ I asked.

‘You were clever to find out who I am.’

‘An idiot child could have found that out. If you want to remain anonymous, don’t drive that Rolls.

Are you being blackmailed?’

‘That doesn’t concern you. I have an idea to get this money, but I need your help, and I’m willing to pay you fifty thousand dollars.’

‘Which you don’t have.’

‘But with your help, I shall have.’

I was liking this less and less.

‘Let’s get to the point. What is this idea of yours?’

‘My stepdaughter is going to be kidnapped,’ she told me coolly. ‘The ransom money will be five hundred thousand dollars. You will get ten per cent of that. My stepdaughter and I divide what is left.’

‘Who will do the kidnapping?’

‘Why, no one. Odette will go away somewhere, and you will make the ransom demand. That is why I need your help. You will be the threatening voice on the telephone. It is simple enough, but it will have to be well done. For making the telephone call, and for collecting the ransom, I am offering you fifty thousand dollars.’

Well, the cat was out of the bag now. I felt my mouth turn dry.

Kidnapping was a capital offence. If I was going to touch this job, I would have to be more than careful. A kidnapper went to the gas chamber if he was caught.

This idea of hers could be as dangerous as murder – it carried the death sentence.

I

A small dark cloud drifted across the face of the moon. For the space of a minute or so, the sea looked suddenly cold and the beach dark and uninviting, then the cloud passed, and once more there was silver on the water and brightness on the beach.

Rhea Malroux was looking at me.

‘There is no other way of raising such a sum,’ she said. ‘It will have to be kidnapping. It’s the only way to make my husband part with the money. It is easy enough. It’s just a matter of working out the details.’

‘Kidnapping carries the death sentence,’ I said. ‘Have you thought of that?’

‘But no one is being kidnapped,’ she returned, and stretched out her long, beautiful legs. ‘Just supposing something went wrong, then I will tell my husband the truth, and that will be that.’

To me, she was as convincing as a carpet salesman trying to sell me a fake Persian rug.

But at the back of my mind was the thought of fifty thousand dollars. Maybe, I told myself, if I handled the set-up, worked out all the details myself, I could sink a hook into that money.

‘You mean your husband will just laugh and tell you you and your stepdaughter are naughty girls and do nothing more about it? The fact that I have telephoned him, telling him his daughter has been kidnapped and demanding money, won’t mean a thing – he’ll treat it as a joke? You think he’ll tell the Federal Agents this is just some fun dreamed up by his wife to rook him out of five hundred thousand dollars?’

There was a long pause, then she said, ‘I don’t like your tone, Mr. Barber. You are being impertinent.’

‘So sorry, but I once was a newspaper man,’ I said. ‘I know, perhaps a lot better than you do, that if the daughter of Felix Malroux is kidnapped, it will make headline news all over the world. It could turn out to be another Lindberg case.’

She shifted in her chair and I saw her hands turn into fists.

‘You’re exaggerating. I won’t allow my husband to call in the police.’ Her voice was sharp and impatient. ‘The situation will be this: Odette will disappear. You will telephone my husband and tell him she has been kidnapped. She will be returned if my husband will pay five hundred thousand dollars. My husband will pay the money. You will collect it and Odette returns. That’s all there is to it.’

‘You mean that’s all you hope there is to it,’ I said.

She made an impatient movement.

‘I know that’s all there is to it, Mr. Barber. You tell me you are prepared to take a risk if you are well paid. I am offering you fifty thousand dollars. If that isn’t enough, say so and I’ll find someone else.’

‘Will you?’ I said. ‘Don’t kid yourself. You would have quite a time to find anyone to take on a job like this. I don’t like any of it. There are all kinds of snags. Suppose your husband calls in the police, in spite of what you say? Once you have the police in your hair you have them there until someone gets arrested, and that someone could be me.’

‘The police won’t come into it. I’ve told you: I can handle my husband.’

I thought of an ageing millionaire, dying slowly of cancer. Maybe he had lost his grip on life. Maybe she was right. Maybe she had the power to persuade him to part with five hundred thousand dollars without a fight. Maybe…

But against this sudden prick of conscience was the thought that if this worked, I would own fifty thousand dollars.

‘Your stepdaughter agrees to this idea?’

‘Of course. She needs the money as much as I do.’

I flicked my cigarette butt into the darkness.

‘I’m warning you,’ I said, ‘if the Federal Agents get onto it, we’ll all be in trouble.’

‘I’m coming to the conclusion you’re not the man I am looking for,’ she said. ‘I think we are wasting each other’s time.’

I should have agreed with her and let her walk away into the darkness as silently as she had come, but there was this nagging thought in my mind of the fifty thousand dollars she was offering me. The amount fascinated me. I realised, as I sat there in the moonlight, that if the Police Commissioner had put on his desk fifty thousand dollars in new crisp bills I would have fallen for his bribe. I realised, with a sense of shock, that my integrity was proof against a bribe of ten thousand dollars, but not against an offer of fifty thousand dollars.