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- Herausgeber: Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
Peter Cheyney is perhaps best known for his short stories and novels about agent/detective Lemmy Caution. Caution was first portrayed as a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent, and in later stories as a private detective. Another popular creation was the private detective Slim Callaghan who also appeared in a series of novels and subsequent film adaptations. He was constructed as a British response to the more hardboiled detectives of American fiction such as Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. A meticulous researcher, Cheyney kept a massive set of files on criminal activity in London, but these were destroyed during the Blitz in 1941; he however, soon began to replace his collection of clippings. He dictated his work. Typically he would "act out" his stories for his secretary, Miss Sprauge, who would copy them down in shorthand and type them up later… Contents: Lemmy Caution Books This Man Is Dangerous Poison Ivy Dames Don't Care Can Ladies Kill? Don't Get Me Wrong You'd Be Surprised Your Deal, My Lovely Never A Dull Moment You Can Always Duck Slim Callaghan Books The Urgent Hangman Dangerous Curves You Can't Keep The Change It Couldn't Matter Less Sorry You've Been Troubled Calling Mr. Callaghan Dark Novels Dark Duet The Stars Are Dark The Dark Street Dark Hero Dark Bahama Lost Novels Death Chair The Gold Kimono The Sign On The Roof The Vengeance Of Hop Fi Other Novels Ladies Won't Wait The Curiosity Of Etienne Macgregor The Deadly Fresco Dressed To Kill Short Fiction The Alonzo Mactavish Omnibus Lemmy Caution Stories Slim Callaghan Stories Other Stories
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Complete Works of Peter Cheyney
Lemmy Caution Books, Slim Callaghan Books, Dark Novels, Short Fiction
Illustrated
Peter Cheyney is perhaps best known for his short stories and novels about agent/detective Lemmy Caution. Caution was first portrayed as a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent, and in later stories as a private detective.
Another popular creation was the private detective Slim Callaghan who also appeared in a series of novels and subsequent film adaptations. He was constructed as a British response to the more hardboiled detectives of American fiction such as Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe.
A meticulous researcher, Cheyney kept a massive set of files on criminal activity in London, but these were destroyed during the Blitz in 1941; he however, soon began to replace his collection of clippings. He dictated his work. Typically he would "act out" his stories for his secretary, Miss Sprauge, who would copy them down in shorthand and type them up later…
Lemmy Caution Books
This Man Is Dangerous
Poison Ivy
Dames Don't Care
Can Ladies Kill?
Don't Get Me Wrong
You'd Be Surprised
Your Deal, My Lovely
Never A Dull Moment
You Can Always Duck
Slim Callaghan Books
The Urgent Hangman
Dangerous Curves
You Can't Keep The Change
It Couldn't Matter Less
Sorry You've Been Troubled
Calling mr. Callaghan
Dark Novels
Dark Duet
The Stars Are Dark
The Dark Street
Dark Hero
Dark Bahama
Lost Novels
Death Chair
The Gold Kimono
The Sign On The Roof
The Vengeance Of Hop Fi
Other Novels
Ladies Won't Wait
The Curiosity Of Etienne Macgregor
The Deadly Fresco
Dressed To Kill
Short Fiction
The Alonzo Mactavish Omnibus
Lemmy Caution Stories
Slim Callaghan Stories
Other Stories
Lemmy Caution Books
This Man Is Dangerous
I. THE PICK-UP
EVEN Miranda Van Zelden couldn't spoil the pipe-dream I had on the corner of Piccadilly and Haymarket.
It was one of those nights. You know what I mean. Everything was O.K., and you feelin' that you're a go-getter and that you got 'em all beat to the game. I felt on top of the world an' I don't often get that way.
Take a look at me. My name's Lemmy Caution by rights but I got so many aliases that sometimes I don't know if I'm John Doe or it's Thursday. In Chicago the place that smart guys call Chi just so's you'll know they've read a detective book written by some punk who always says he nearly got shot by one of Capone's cannoneers but didn't quite make the grade they used to call me "Two-Time" because they said it always took two slugs to stop me, an' in the other place where coppers go funny colours when they think of me they call me Toledo.
I'm tellin' you I'm a big-shot an' if you don't believe me just take a look at any dump where they got a police record and a finger-printin' apparatus an' you're mine for keeps.
All of which is very fine but it don't get you no place an' it don't do anything about that smart jane Miranda Van Zelden who is a baby who has caused me a whole lot of trouble an' I don't mean maybe.
But Haymarket was lookin' fine to me. You see I ain't never been in London any before an' I'm tickled the way I made it gettin' here. Somebody out in New York was tellin' me that these English coppers is so smart that they even arrest each other for practice; they told me that I got as much chance of bustin' the passport check-up as a nice blonde had of stayin' that way in Ma Licovat's love parlour at Greek Alley an' Twelfth... well, they was wrong.
I made it. I slipped over via Marseilles where some old punk who takes a keen pride in twicin' Customs' guys sold me a first-class American passport for four hundred dollars with a real guy's name on it an' a picture that looked like me after I'd had a smack in the puss an' everything complete.
I'm walking down Haymarket an' it's eleven o'clock, an' I've had a swell dinner an' I am wearing a tuxedo an' a black fedora. If you must know more then I'm goin' to tell you that I weigh two hundred pounds an' I got that sorta mug that dames fall for in a big way because it is a relief from the guys in the Russian ballet. I have also got brains an' some girl in Toledo nearly drunk herself to cinders on bad hooch because I gave her the air, which, they musta told you, means sex-appeal, so now you know.
I said it was a nice night. I was meanderin' down Haymarket just thinking things over quietly to myself, because I do not want you to think that I am a guy who takes a whole lot of chances that ain't indicated. This Miranda Van Zelden business wasn't no baby's play-time hour I'm tellin' you, an' I knew that there was one or two guys would iron me out just as soon as take a look at me if they had known what the real schedule was.
Maybe you folks have heard of the snatch racket. You pinch some guy or some dame, or maybe a kid they gotta be classy of course, an' you just take 'em away to some hideout until their folks cough up plenty dough. Some of the nicest guys I ever knew was in the snatch racket. It's a classy game an' pays if the Feds don't get their hooks on you.
Which brings me back to where I was just before I turned off, don't it. Feds.... Special Agents of the Federal Department of Justice G men the little fellers who can do no wrong. Well, I sorta had an idea that one of these palookas was on the boat comin' over from Marseilles... still, I guess we can come back to G men a little later on.
Presenting Miranda Van Zelden glorifying pulchritude. Ladies an' gentlemen give the little girl a hand. Now you know each other I'll wise you up about Miranda. This dame is an heiress to about seventeen million dollars does it make you gasp some? She is also as wild as they make 'em, an' she is about the swellest looker that ever a tired business man dreamt about while he was bein' kept late at the office.
The first time I ever spoke to Miranda was at the Honeysuckle an' Jasmine Inn which is out on the main Toledo Road. This was the night when Frenchy Squills decides that he will have a little argument with the Lacassar mob that is runnin' the dump. You can take it from me that the amount of jasmine an' honeysuckle operatin' that night would have stuck in your eye. It mighta been called Lead Alley because the amount of hot iron that is flyin' about that Inn is nobody's business.
It was about one o'clock in the morning an' I am leanin' up against one of the ornamental pillars in the dance room, waitin' for something nice an' hot to pop. I have also got an eyeful of Miranda who is dancin' with some gorilla of Lacassar's she was interested in mobsters at that time an' I am thinkin' that Miranda is easy to look at. She is lithe like a panther with a figure that could bust up a diamond wedding an' she dances like a fairy. I was just thinkin' that it was durn silly for a swell dame like she was to go hangin' around that sorta place just for the sake of gettin' a thrill outa rubbin' shoulders with a lot of punk that wasn't fit to clean her car sump.
Before I go any further I guess I'd better wise you up as to what the position was in Toledo with these boys. What I was doing up there is just nobody's business. I sorta go around looking for trouble any time there's anything good hanging on the end of it, and I'd gone there from Oklahoma where things was gettin' a bit hot for me at that time, also I'd heard about Miranda.
Nobody wasn't quite certain as to who was chasing who. Mr. Roosevelt, President of the United States, and a guy called J. Edgar Hoover, of the U.S. Department of Justice, had said they was goin' to run mobsters out of America. The Police Department heard 'em and said so too. But at this time whether the mobsters was chasing the police or the other way round nobody knew by rights. Repeal never stopped a thing. There was more scull-duggery an' a bigger rake-off after repeal than there ever was before.
Frenchy Squills reckoned that he was running Toledo. He was a king high bootlegger, high jacker, racketeer, an' what will you, in those parts up to the time Tony Lacassar showed up. Tony blew out of Chicago after some argument in a garage where four coppers, three G men and a travelling salesman who was so drunk that he thought he was in Oshkosh, all got filled up so full of lead that they just didn't know.
Tony got the tip to push out for a bit, so he went up to Toledo, and he took up there with him the finest bundle of go-getters that was ever in a racket. I've seen some bad guys but the Lacassar mob was just pure poison.
Tony starts to muscle in, an' when he muscles in on a dump he don't mean maybe. Frenchy tries to put up a show but after they find one of his muscle men nailed up on a tree near Maumee Bay with 4-inch nails an' a note sending Tony's kind regards to Frenchy stuck in his mouth, it looks as if Frenchy is beat to the game.
There's a meeting an' a sorta truce is arranged. Things are quiet for a bit an' even the fact that Frenchy is now only running one dump the Honeysuckle an' Jasmine Inn which is a roadhouse where anything you like can happen an' did don't satisfy Tony. He has to have that. An' it looks like he figures to take the place over on the night I'm telling you about.
I was just interested. I thought maybe when these guys was finished bumping each other off, somethin' might come my way, and I'm a patient sorta cuss. I got medals for waiting for all sorta things dough, dames, district attorneys and what have you and I was interested in something else. I knew darned well that Lacassar wasn't really the big shot. I always had a hunch that there was some guy behind Lacassar, who was just a big mouth stuck up to hide the real feller. I also had an idea that this real guy is a feller called Siegella, who is really a big guy, an' is just poison. The things that this feller Siegella had done was just nobody's business.
I was telling you, it was about one o'clock in the mornin', an' I'm leaning up against a pillar watching Miranda doing her stuff with Yonnie Malas, who is Lacassar's star machine gun man. This guy Malas is good-looking after the manner of wops and he can certainly dance. So can Miranda. I tell you that pair was good, but it sorta got me somewhere under the belt to see a nice piece of goods like Miranda, who was anyway American, dancing with a cheap yegg like Yonnie.
It was a hot night one of them nights when every time you try to breathe you wonder where you're gonna get the air from. My collar was beginning to wilt. I had the sorta feelin' that I wished it would rain or somethin' just to clean things up a bit. The dance room was big, but it was hot. Dance rooms always are hot. The whole place was full of toughs, city fakers, play boys, "come-on" girls, an' all the rest of the hoodlums that you get round a place like that. I reckon about thirty per cent of the guys in that place had got a shooting iron stuck on their body somewhere or other an' knew how to use it.
After a bit I walked over to the bar at the end of the room an' ordered myself a high-ball.
"Nice place you've got here!" I says to the bar-tender.
"Oh, yeah!" he says, "ain't you original? So what?"
"Say, listen," I says to him, "there ain't no need to get that way. I was just passing the time of day, you know."
"That's O.K. by me," he says. "Passing the time of day don't hurt nobody, but that high-ball costs a dollar."
I told him that I reckoned a dollar was a lot of money to pay for a highball, to which he cracks back to me that a dollar is a lot of money to some guys anyhow. By this time I have come to the conclusion that this bar-tender is just about as much good to me for purposes of information as a couple of sick headaches. So I walk through the dance room again, out on to the veranda and round the back.
The garage which is at the back of the Inn is a long low shed running parallel with a road which curves round behind the main road in front of the Inn. Standing at the end of the garage shed, leaning up against a post an' looking down the road is some guy. He is wearing a tuxedo an' a white fedora. He is smoking a cigarette an' just thinking about nothing at all.
I have seen guys looking that way before, an' they are usually look-out men waiting for something to break. He sees me an' he takes a look at me, an' he puts his hand into his right coat pocket, which if you have been in America as long as I have is a thing you take notice of.
I throw my cigarette stub away an' I walk over to this guy. "Howdy, pal?" I say, "can you give me a light?" I take two cigarettes out of my pocket an' I give him one. He looks at me and by the look of his eyes this guy is a dope.
There he stands smiling and showing a whole lot of fancy teeth. He brings out a lighter and he gives me a light. Then he looks down the road again.
"Don't you like it inside?" he says.
I mop the back of my neck.
"It ain't so good in there. It's too darned hot. It's bad enough out here. Why the hell a guy hangs around this sorta place, I don't know," I go on. "When you come to consider all the things a guy can do an' he has to hang around a dump like this drinking lousy liquor an' getting hot!"
He looks at me. "Don't you like it, kid?" he says. "Well, why don't you scram out of it?"
"Well, where do I scram to?" I says. "It looks to me as if you don't like it either. What about coming an' having a little drink with me?"
He puts his hand back in his pocket. "Listen, kid," he says. "If I want a drink I can go buy myself one. Supposing you scram. I'm busy!"
I knock the ash off my cigarette. "Sorry, pal," I said, "I wouldn't know that. Expecting somebody?"
He looks at me like a snake. "Listen, baby," he says. "Didn't I tell you to scram out of here. You know you're one of those curious guys who is always liable to get himself into trouble."
I threw my cigarette stub away. "Well, there ain't no need to get that way about it," I says. "I never meant a thing. Good-night!"
I take a quiet look round an' there's nobody around this place. Then I make a movement as if I'm going to turn away, but just as I do this I spin round and I smack this guy right between the eyes. He just goes out like he was poleaxed. I take him by the collar an' I drag him to the far corner of the garage which is dark, an' I prop him up behind a car. I then proceed to frisk him.
This guy has got a Smith & Wesson Special in a shoulder holster under his left arm, an' a .38 Colt automatic in his right hand tuxedo pocket. Stuck in his pants' waistband he is packing a seven-inch Swedish sailor's knife. In his left hand pants' pocket he has got a small egg bomb. I'm tellin' you the New York armoury has got nothin' on this guy.
I prop him up against the wall an' I start pinchin' his nostrils which is a good way of makin' a guy come back to earth, an' after a bit he starts to shake his head. Then he opens his eyes.
"O.K. wise-guy," he mutters. "Just you wait a bit, will you? I'm goin' to do something to you for this, sucker. When I'm done with you I guess your own mother would change you for an old pair o' pants. You wait till Lacassar gets his hooks on you."
"Skip it, baby," I says smackin' him one across the puss. "Listen to me I'm talkin' right now. I don't want to hurt your feelin's or anything, but I just want to know who you're waitin' for an' it's no good tryin' any cracks because I've got your cannons in my pockets. Now, sweetheart," I says, "do we play ball or do I bust in your face with a spanner?"
"Say, listen," he says, "I don't know nothin'. I was just takin' the air. Can't a guy take the air?"
"Hooey," I says. "I'm wise to you, pal, you're one of Lacassar's mob, ain't you? Say, do you think I'm so dumb that I ain't realised that about half the staff around this joint are his people. There's waiters in there that never waited on anything or anybody before except maybe the cops waitin' for something to break. The maitre d'hotel has got a bulge under his left arm where he's packin' a shoulder holster that makes him look like he was deformed, an' if the bar-tender ain't carryin' a Smith an' Wesson in each of his hip pockets then I'm an Indian princess with the ague. In fact," says I, "there's a sorta atmosphere around this dump tonight that smells as if there might be a gun battle at any moment. So all you got to do is to talk an' talk quick, kid, before I start my big act with this spanner."
"What the hell," says he. "I don't mind telling you what I know. Maybe there will be a bit of trouble around here tonight."
"O.K.," I says, "that's fine!"
He grins. "That's all right by me, pal," he says, "now perhaps you'll give me my shooting irons back."
I tell him not to be silly an' I hit him some more. He goes down like a log an' I truss him up with some electric wirin' I find in the corner. I then stick a handkerchief in his mouth and push him inside a saloon car with one wheel off that is nearby. I reckon nobody is going to use this car for some time.
After that I take a walk round the road an' light myself a cigarette. After a bit I go back to the garage an' look at the cars. Presently I find a big roadster with "M. van Z." on the door, an' I start her up an' drive her down the road, away from the Inn. I put this car in a little spot behind three trees, an' I leave it with the engine runnin'.
Then I walk back. About a hundred yards down the road there is a rise an' from the top of this rise I can look over the country straight down a steep road. Right away in the distance I see the lights of some autos and I reckon these will be Frenchy's cars. I also reckon that they will pull up by the side of this road, off the main road, about fifty yards away where there is a copse.
I'm right about this, because fifteen minutes later they pull up there an' I can see that the fat guy in the first car is Frenchy Squills. I reckon it's now time for me to get back to the Inn, so I slide round the back way, get in over the veranda and walk back to the dance hall. I go up to the bar, buy myself another highball an' walk over to a corner.
After a minute I signal to some cigarette girl an' she comes over. "Listen, sister," I say to her. "How'd you like to make five bucks?"
She grins up at me. She is a pretty kid.
"What can I lose," she says.
I slip her five. "You see that dame over there," I says to her, "the one dancing with a slim feller. I want you to go over to her an' tell her that she is wanted urgent on the telephone. See? An' I reckon I'd do it right now. Tell her the call's in the booth down the passage way."
"O.K.," she says, "that looks easy."
She walks straight across the dance floor and she goes up to where Miranda and Malas is dancing, an' I see Miranda stop an' say something to Malas an' walk across the floor.
Well, I reckon I've got this in time pretty good, because just as Miranda gets off the dance floor the band stops. It stops for a very good reason. It stops because some guy has shot the saxophonist clean through the guts, and this feller is yelling like hell on the band platform. Right then the glass windows on the veranda side of the dance room is bust open and without so much as by your leave some guy starts across the floor with a tommy gun right into the thick of five Lacassar mobsters who are drinking scotch at a table in the other corner. At the same time three of the waiters who are Lacassar boys unload an' proceed to open fire on the windows. In about five minutes' time the place is like a butcher's shop on Friday night.
There is some fat palooka who ought to have been home with his wife and kids and who couldn't get off the dance floor in time, trying to drag himself off it with one leg broke by a bullet from the tommy gun. But he don't make it before he gets hit again. He has one in this time through the head so he decides to remain dead.
The cigarette girl, who has still got the five bucks I give her clasped in her fingers, is hit just as she is gettin' off on the other side of the floor. She flops down with a funny surprised look on her face, holdin' one hand, with the five dollar bill in it, to her side which is dyed red... poor kid.
I just stand nice and quiet up against the wall. I've got a wooden pillar to one side of me, an' I reckon I've got as good a chance as anybody else. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Miranda, who has by this time discovered that the telephone call is phoney, an' has also heard the battle in progress, standing at the top of the passage-way leading away from the telephone booth, with her head round the corner watching the war.
Believe me that girl is a marvel, her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are bright. She has a little blonde curl which keeps swingin' over her left eye and she keeps pushing it back so as she can see better. Anybody would think that this dame had paid ten dollars an' was looking at a slug contest or a baseball game.
Presently things eases off a bit. Some of the Lacassar guys outside the Inn have opened fire on Frenchy's boys from the rear, an' the fight is proceeding to tail off down the back road towards the place where Squills has parked his cars. It looks to me as if he is getting the worst of it, and I am thinkin' he is a punk to try an' pull something on Lacassar who anyway is organised.
I think this is a good opportunity to make a move, so I start to edge over towards the passage-way where Miranda is. When I get near I call across quietly:
"Say, Miss Van Zelden," I say, "why don't you scram out of here. This ain't no place for you, sister. An' when these boys have fixed things up between themselves they're not going to get funny about bumpin' you!"
"Well, what do I do about it," she says smiling. "My car's in the garage. How do I make it. They're shooting out there now."
"Don't you believe it, Miss Van Zelden," I says. "Your car is just up the road away from the garage on the other side of the Inn. You'll find it parked just off the road behind three trees. I put it there myself. Now take a tip from me and scram out of it."
"O.K.," she says all brightly. "Say, that's nice of you, stranger, I like you for that."
"Don't worry about that," I says. "You'll be seeing some more of me sometime. So long, sister!"
She turns round and goes down the passage. I follow her and three or four minutes later from the front entrance of the Inn where I'm standing in the shade, I see the tail lights of her car going off in the dark.
This ain't so bad anyway. She was out of it. Now don't you get me wrong. Don't you think that I'm a little hero looking after forlorn women, because I ain't. No, sir! But I reckon it didn't suit me to have Miranda Van Zelden get into any spot of bother round that Inn. I had got my own ideas in pickle for that dame.
I stand there watching the tail lights of her car as they get fainter and fainter. Suddenly I get an idea that there's somebody around. I turn my head and standing just behind me looking at the tail lights too is Siegella.
In case you don't know Siegella is a tall guy nearly as big as I am. He is thin an' he has a thin white face and a thin hook nose. He has got eyes like a pair of gimlets and everything that is lousy in the world looks at you out of 'em.
He looks at me and he smiles. Then he looks at the Van Zelden rear lights again. Then he looks at me again. Then he says very quietly:
"A nice snatch, eh, kid?"
I put on a surprised look. "I don't know what you mean, pal," I says, but I'm not feeling so hot.
The fact that Siegella is around this dump at this time shows to me that my idea about his backing Lacassar is right, and any minute I expect to feel a lump of hot iron tearing into me from some place. But nothing happens.
Siegella takes a cigarette case out of his pocket and hands it to me. I take a cigarette an' he takes one. Then he brings out a lighter and lights my cigarette.
By the flame of the lighter I can see him grinning. He snaps out the lighter and puts it back in his pocket.
"Well, I'll be seeing you," he says. He nods an' walks down the passage towards the dance floor, where everything is quiet now.
I scram. I walk over to the cloakroom, take my hat. Then I slip out of the side door up the road, keeping in the shadows to where I've got my car parked in some bushes. I get in the car an' I step on it, because as I've told you before I'm not a guy who takes unnecessary chances, but I'm worried.
Whilst I am hitting up the road I'm thinking of that crack of Siegella's.... "A nice snatch, eh, kid?" I'm wondering whether Siegella is on to my game....
It's funny how quick you can think; all this has gone through my head, as I am walking down Haymarket, London. By this time I am just about opposite the Theatre Royal. The show is just over there and the folks are coming out. I stand there for a minute because getting into a car on the other side of the road I see a very swell dame, an' I'm telling you that if I say that a dame is very swell then that is what that dame is. She also has a swell car. An' as she gets into it, I sorta get the idea that she has looked at me and given me one of them "come-on" looks.
Anyhow, whilst I am ruminating on whether this is an accident or whether this dame is giving me the once-over, the car drives off. It crosses the road and it crawls down by the pavement just a few yards in front of me. Through the back window of the car I can see this dame looking at me an' she definitely smiles. Then the car stops.
I'll try anything once, and what would you have done? I walk to the car an' I take off my hat. She looks at me out of the window, and I'm telling you that this dame is as pretty as paint. She has got this an' that an' she certainly knows how to wear clothes. I've seen a lot of dames, but I've got to admit that this one has got what it takes.
"Well, Lemmy," she says, "and so you were going to pass me up!"
I grinned. "Say, listen, lady," I say. "I think you're marvellous and I reckon you'll think I'm just no good at all when I tell you that I can't even remember you and how could I forget a dame like you anyway?"
She smiles and she has little even teeth like pearls.
"Listen, Lemmy," she says. "Don't you remember that night in New York when you drank some bad hooch and somebody took you home. You know that night Scholler threw that party at the Ritz?"
I whistle. "So it was you...." I said. "Well, ain't life funny?"
I remember this dame. I got in some party an' I had some bad liquor an' bad liquor is poison, I'm telling you. This was the dame who took me home, at least that's what she said, an' it must have been her otherwise how would she know.
"Well, what do we do about it?" I say.
"Get in, Lemmy," she says, "I want to talk to you."
I tell you I'll try anything once, so I get in the car. It drives off and we turn down Pall Mall. There's no doubt that this dame knows me all right, because she is talking about people I know and places I've been. She also tells me that another dame I know called Lillah Schultz is over in England with her, and that we should drink a highball to celebrate. By this time we are in Knightsbridge. Way down in Knightsbridge we turn off some street, then we turn down another street, and then we stop in front of some swell block.
We get out and we go up in the lift; when we come to the door of the apartment she turns round and looks at me.
"You know, Lemmy," she says, "this is swell seeing you like this. It's marvellous meeting an old pal in this burg."
A lot of things is going through my head. I'm thinking that it's all wrong for me to get short-circuited with dames when I'm over here on this Miranda business. At the same time I'm also telling myself that a man must live, that this dame is a very swell dame an' I'm wondering just what she is thinking about me.
Whilst this is going on she opens the door an' we step into a hallway. She snaps on a light. "Take your things off, Lemmy," she says, "and come in."
She goes through a door on the left of the hallway. From the room inside I can hear the clink of ice in glasses which is a very nice sound to me. I hang up my hat and I follow her through the doorway, and on the other side of the doorway I stop dead, because sitting on the settee on the other side of the room with an automatic which is pointing straight at my guts is Siegella.
"Well, sucker," he says, "come in."
II. MONEY FROM HOME
WAS I surprised? I'm telling you that for about ten seconds I am having a meeting with myself and the agenda is whether I am standing on my right ear or my elbow. Because, this is London, England, and here right in front of me is the whole Siegella set-up. Siegella is parked on the settee, looking like the model of the well-dressed gent from Squire's window on Toledo Boulevard. Around the room grinning at me and drinkin' highballs are Yonnie Malas, Lefty ("Twicer") Scutterby, the English dude who bust out of Auburn prison with a dummy pistol made outa cardboard, German Schultz, Willie Carnazzi and his brother Ginto the finest bunch of hot killers that ever worked a tommy gun.
Behind Siegella is Toni Rio, Frank Caparazzi, Jimmy Rikzin the Swede, and some more thugs I don't know.
In fact if I hadn't known I was in London I mighta thought myself back in the Paris Club in Toledo or in any other mobster hang-out.
I looked at the woman. She had sat herself down on a sofa and was waitin' while Malas fixed her a highball. She was smilin' at me sorta old-fashioned.
I grinned back at her.
"Have a good laugh, sister," I says. "That was nice work I'm telling you. It was just too easy wasn't it? Just fancy framin' me like the young man who just come down from the butter an' egg farm! O.K. You're the berries an' you have your laugh whilst the goin's good because one of these bright nights I'm goin' to smack that grin off you with a wet bath towel."
They all start to laugh at me bein' so burned-up at this dame, which is just exactly what I require, because at this moment I need to do a spot of hot thinkin'. I do not like the look of this layout not one little bit.
Siegella nods to Malas and Malas walks over to me an' starts to frisk me. Now I do not mind bein' frisked by a copper, but I certainly am not goin' to have a gun I am not carryin' taken off me by Malas. So in spite of the fact that Siegella is still holdin' the gun I give Yonnie a smart Japanese clip on the neck gland an' he goes down like a skittle.
Siegella snarls but I chip in first.
"Say, listen, Siegella," I say, "I don't know what this lay-out is an' I don't care, but if you think that any of your thugs is goin' to go over me you're wrong. Try something funny like that again an' I'll make such a noise that some guy will ring a fire-alarm. If you want to talk turkey, I'm listening, but I don't want any fresh stuff from cheap mobsters. Get me?"
Siegella nods.
"I get you, Lemmy," he says. He looks at Malas who is gettin' up on his feet rubbin' his neck an' looking like a mug at bein' clipped like he was. "But ain't you gettin' a bit fresh?" he goes on.
"Look here, Siegella," I says. "Just pull yourself together will you? This ain't Toledo or Chicago or even New York. This is London, and if you think that you can get away with this sorta stuff around this burg, well, you ain't so hot as I thought you was."
Siegella looks at Malas again.
"Has he got a gun?" he asks.
Malas shakes his head.
Siegella grins.
"O.K., Lemmy," he says to me," now I'm goin' to tell you something. You're goin' to work for me. See? An' you're goin' to like it, an' the first thing you gotta learn is that if I tell Yonnie to frisk you then you're goin' to be frisked. Just so you won't forget I'm goin' to get the boys to give you a good beatin' up here an' now, an' we can talk afterwardswhen you come to!"
Siegella nods to Scutterby and Schultz an' they are just movin' over to me when I shoot out my arm, and catch Yonnie Malas in a neck crook. I hold him in front of me so that if Siegella who I can see has got a silencer on his gun starts shootin', he has got to shoot Malas first, which is a fact that Malas is appreciatin' by the amount of wrigglin' he is puttin' up.
"Listen, Siegella," I says. "Just call your cheap bums off, will you, before I break this punk's neck? An' if I get another crack outa anybody here I'll break it just as sure as you're a second class wop!"
Siegella is as white as death, but he sees that I have got the goods on him this time. He makes a motion with his hands and the boys sit down again. I think it is time that I made what the politicians call a gesture, so I make one. I throw Yonnie Malas against the wall hard an' he sorta crumples up an' flops on the floor out for ten.
Now I reckon that this is one of them moments when anything you like is liable to happen. German Schultz is already slippin' his hand around to his hip pocket, an' Willie and Ginto Carnazzi are just gettin' outa their seats previous to doin' a big rush act, when the dame starts to talk.
Mind you there is something very come-on about this dame. She ain't exactly like the usual sorta mobster's pet, not by a long chalk when you come to think of it. She has got some sorta class, an' she is tall an' graceful and her voice is sorta low an' husky. I know a whole lot of guys would have gone for that dame in a big way.
"Listen, boys," she says. "What is this a slug festival on Saturday night at the Bowery Club? Don't you think that the whole lot of you ought to be qualifying for some Home for Mental Rest. I go out of my way and I get Lemmy along here to talk turkey and before anybody can roll their own somebody has started something that looks like ending in the local morgue.
"Listen, Ferdie," she says to Siegella, "why don't you put that cannon away and be your age. You ought to know that Lemmy isn't the sort of guy to get frightened just because somebody starts doing an act with a gun. Yonnie got what was coming to him. He got fresh, and guys who get fresh always get smacked down some time. Now cut out all this palooka and let's have a drink and talk this thing out like regular fellers."
This sounds good to me, but I don't let on. I just look sorta casual, an' I walk over to where Yonnie Malas is picking himself up, an' I get hold of him by the collar an' I yank him up to his feet with a grin.
"Say, Yonnie," I say, "I'm kinda sorry I had to smack you down, pal, but you know how it is when a guy gets annoyed."
He manages to smile. He looks as kind as a couple of mocassin snakes with the earache.
"That's all right, kid," he says eventually. "Skip it, it's O.K. with me."
Siegella puts his gun away.
"Well," he says, "I reckon Connie is right. We won't do any good by startin' something here. One of you guys give Lemmy a drink an' let's talk."
I sit myself down in a big chair an' Connie mixes me a highball. When she brings it over I give her a quick once-over an' I see that she is lookin' at me very old-fashioned like. An idea runs through my head that it would be durn funny if Siegella's girl was to fall for me in a big way, an' that if she did I might manage to make things very uncomfortable for that wop. As she hands me the glass she looks right into my eyes an' believe me or believe me not I got a kick out of it... it was a swell look!
I grin over at Siegella where he is sittin' lookin' at me an' I take a drink.
"Well," I says, "let's talk."
He holds his glass up to the light an' looks at it. I am watchin' his eyes an' he looks more like a snake than ever. I'm tellin' you that this feller Siegella is pure poison.
"Well, Lemmy," he says, "here's the way it is. I reckon we need you, an' I reckon that you gotta string along with us because if you don't it's goin' to be curtains for you. You know me, I ain't the sorta guy to let anything stand in my way that I want out of it.
"I know what you're over here for. I reckon you're over here on the same racket as we are, an' I reckon I know when the idea first came into that head of yours.
"You're here after Miranda van Zelden. Well, am I right?"
I grin.
"Maybe you are, an' maybe you ain't," I says.
"O.K.," says he. "Now I've been aimin' to snatch Miranda for a long time, but I got too much sense to pull a snatch like that in U.S.A. The place wouldn't be big enough for any guy who snatched old man van Zelden's daughter.
"So we've been keepin' an eye on this dame for months. We knew sooner or later she'd come to Europe, an' I had everything set to come after her. Every guy in this mob was fixed up with a good an' proper passport an' we're all over here officially on some business or other. We're all business men.
"You gotta admit that the idea is pretty good. We snatch Miranda in England, an' we get the money out of the old boy over the long distance telephone. He don't even know which country his daughter is in. Maybe we tell him we got her hidden away in France or Germany or Italy.
"In other words he is goin' to get so scared at the idea of not knowing where his little girl is that he will pay plenty just for the chance of gettin' her back.
"We make him pay through the Dutch Bank in Rotterdam. He's got to put a credit there for us for three million dollars an' when we have drawn the dough well then maybe we'll let the girl go an' maybe we won't."
I nodded my head.
"Maybe it would be pretty dangerous to let that girl go after you got the money, Siegella," I says. "She's goin' to talk ain't she, an' we want to go back to the U.S. some time or other."
He grins.
"I don't think that we'll let her go home," he says with a leer. "Maybe I can find some other use for Miranda, an' when I've done with her, well... I reckon there's got to be some sort of accident... eh, boys?"
He takes a look around him at the mob. They are all grinnin'. You never saw such a bunch.
"O.K." he continues. "Now I had my eye on you up in Toledo, Lemmy," he says. "I guessed that you weren't hangin' around Miranda van Zelden just for the pleasure of lookin' at her, an' when she come over here an' you trailed along after, I took a couple of guesses an' I come to the conclusion that you have got some game on with Miranda yourself. Right?"
"O.K.," I says. "I might as well tell you that I had a scheme. You see, I got an idea that this dame Miranda might fall for me. I've spoken to her once or twice, an' I heard that she was a spot interested in yours truly. So I reckoned that I might come over here after her, an' rush her into a marriage. Then I calculated that when old van Zelden heard that his daughter was married to a mobster that he would pay me plenty to get her divorced quick."
Siegella nodded.
"It ain't a bad idea," he said. "but it's a piker idea compared with my set-up. Maybe van Zelden would have dropped a few grand for a divorce, but he wouldn't have paid what he's goin' to pay us for Miranda. I want three million an' I'm goin' to have it!"
Siegella gets up and walks over to me. He takes my empty glass outa my hand and mixes me another drink. Then he brings it back.
"Now, listen, Lemmy," he says, "I got you taped. I know all about you. You're the fellow who shot two coppers in Oklahoma City four years ago. You got a fifty years' sentence and you bust outa the big house sixteen months afterwards. That was a nice break, Lemmy. Sometime I'd like to know how you did it.
"You used to call yourself Price Fremer in those days, didn't you. Then you got mixed up with some mob in Kansas and you had to make a quick break outa there, because if I ain't mistaken you shot another guy round there, an' from then onwards you've been musclin' in on any job where you could muscle an' that looked good.
"You're the guy for me, Lemmy, because your record's too bad for you to rat on us and because you know me well enough to know that I don't stand any nonsense from any guy. Play ball with me and you're O.K., but get this from the moment you leave this dump tonight somebody is looking after you, an' if you as much as move half an inch either way from the schedule I'm going to give you, then it's curtains for you, because I'll have you bumped whether you're in England, Germany, France or Iceland as sure as my name's Siegella."
He meant it all right. I grinned.
"Never mind the tough stuff, Siegella," I says. "I'm playing ball if I get my deal, an' I don't want any dealing from the bottom of the pack. How do I cut in on this job?"
He brings a piece of paper out of his breast pocket.
"There's twenty-five of us in on this," he says, looking round, "and everybody's got their share fixed. Do what you're told, Lemmy, and pull this job off, and you're on 250 grand."
I whistled to myself. 250,000 dollars is a lot of money. I must say it looked as if this guy looked at things in a big way.
"That suits me," I said. "250 grand is nice dough. After that I'll retire an' start chicken farming or somethin'. But you ain't told me what I'm doing."
Siegella laughs.
"That's easy," he says. "You just go ahead with what you was going to do. Contact Miranda. That shouldn't be difficult. Play around with her, take her places, be nice to her. You know you can make her fall for you if you want to, Lemmy. Why," he looks round at the boys with a grin, "I reckon there's more women looking for you in the United States than any other guy. You certainly have got a way with dames.
"All right, we all know what Miranda's like really, she's a nice kid, but she likes to pretend she ain't. She's one of them girls who's had too much money an' too much of her own way. I reckon she'll fall for you like a sack of coke.
"Now you've got to work fast. I reckon you've got two or three weeks to make Miranda fall for you. By that time I'm going to arrange a little house party way down in the country. I've got a house fixed, a nice quiet old manor house with lots of atmosphere. It looks like a film director's dream. I'm going to throw a party down there, an' you're goin' to bring Miranda.
"You've got to tell her that this party is something very special, that she's going to meet a whole lot of funny fellows down there, that she's going to get a thrill out of it, an' you've got to fix it that she comes down by herself. We don't want any maids or secretaries trailing around."
I nodded.
"Ain't she got anybody keeping an eye on her?" I asked.
Siegella grins.
"You bet," he says. "You don't think old man van Zelden is such a fool as to let his daughter go running round Europe without a watch dog. She don't know, but he's got a private tec, a big guy called Gallat, trailing round after the dame. Wherever she goes, Gallat goes too. He parks himself in a nearby hotel and he tails her."
"What do we do about him?" I asked.
Siegella grins and looks at Yonny, and Yonny grins back.
"Listen, Lemmy," he says, "don't you worry about Gallat. We're going to take care of him, and we're going to take care of him quick. It'll be done so nice that he wont ever know what's happened to him.
