“Never mind that for now. Come on.”
I looked at him in surprise. “Man, you got the wrong idea. I’m not going out there with you.”
Litwhiler blinked in surprise. “The hell you’re not, Lowney.”
“I got other things to tend to,” I said. “You take the key and bust in there yourself.”
“Crap on that,” Litwhiler snorted. “We aren’t going to go roaming around the woods hunting for this place. You’re going to show us exactly where it is. And then you’re going to lead us inside and take us upstairs to where the engraver is kept. We don’t even know what the old man looks like, Lowney. You’re essential, get me? So come on.”
There was cold menace in his hard little eyes. The two goons shifted their feet uneasily, as if a little bashful about having to commit mayhem in such a glossy new hotel lobby.
The lobby itself was practically deserted. There was a night clerk behind the desk reading the papers, a bellhop sitting near the front door, and a janitor swabbing the marble floor. But our conversation had been carried on in low tones, and nothing could be heard.
I said stiffly, “There wasn’t anything in our arrangement that said I was going with you to the place, Litwhiler. I got other fish to fry tonight.”
“I say you’re going. If you want your dough, you will.” He looked at his watch again. “It’s eleven minutes to three. You’re using up valuable time.”
The two goons moved closer to me. One of them murmured in a thick, fuzzy whisper, “Look, bud, why doncha just do what the boss wants, huh?”
I was boxed in. The last thing I wanted was to go way the deuce out to the Casablanca tonight and get mixed up in whatever might be happening there. On the other hand, this might be one pretty good way of finding out who Chavez had decided to doublecross.
I scowled. “This is a pain in the neck, Litwhiler,” I muttered irritably.
“You’re a bigger one. Come on,” he hissed. “Or am I going to have to make you?”
Giving him a dirty look, I said, “You win. Let’s get the show on the road.”
FIFTEEN
Two cars were parked right in front of the hotel—a huge Continental and a smaller, rather battered Buick. Both cars were full of hoods.
Litwhiler said, “We’ve got some room in the Continental for you, Lowney.”
I shook my head. “I’ve got my own car in the parking lot here. I’d rather drive that.”
Shrugging, he said, “Suit yourself. We’ll follow along behind you. Phil, go with him.”
Phil was a hulking ape, about six feet six, with long dangling arms. I went around to the parking lot, with the ape shambling along behind me. The night attendant brought the Caddy out front, and I got in back of the wheel. Friend Phil settled ponderously next to me.
“Jeez, mister, you got a pretty car,” Phil rumbled as I got the Cadillac started.
“Glad you like it, pal.”
“Musta cost a pretty penny, huh? Like ten grand, maybe?”
“Someone gave it to me for a present,” I said. I swung the car around to the right, into the street. The Continental and the Buick both started their engines. I drove slowly west along Market Street, following the signs until I came to U.S. 1. The Continental was right behind me, with the Buick bringing up the rear.
Phil was a friendly sort of ape. He praised the car for a while. I guess I didn’t make much attempt at keeping my end of the conversation going, because after a while he said, “You mind if I turn on the radio, mister?”
I allowed as I didn’t mind. Phil punched the studs with massive fingers and the radio came to life. With the unerring instincts of the natural-born cretin, he tuned in an all-night rock-and-roll station on the first try.
The Cadillac had speakers in front and behind the rear seat, and so all the way down to the roadhouse we were entertained by kiddie-crap in hi-fi. Phil sat there ecstatically, humming tunelessly to himself and jigging around in his seat. I was glad he was happy.
I took it slow, watching both sides of the road as we drove south on Route One. After all, I had never so much as laid eyes on the place I was supposedly so familiar with. It wouldn’t look good if I shot past it by accident and wound up in Delaware.
Luck was with me. I spotted a road sign in a bend in the road that said:
ONLY FOUR HUNDRED YARDS TO
THE
CASABLANCA
DINING DRINKING DANCING
I stopped the car. Behind me, the Continental and the Buick pulled up. Litwhiler hopped out of his car and came jogging up to me.
“Why are you stopping here?” he asked me.
I pointed to the sign. “I just wanted to let you guys know we were close.”
“Four hundred yards, huh? Okay. I’ll tell the boys to drive slow and quiet.”
He returned to his car, and I got the Caddy going again. We glided forward at twenty-five miles an hour, and in a couple of minutes the Casablanca came into view. It was a big Colonial-style farmhouse, set back a little bit from the road, with a big parking lot and signs on both sides of the road. I slowed practically to a crawl. The place was completely dark. I was going to have a lot to explain to Litwhiler if it turned out that nobody was there. But I doubted that it would work out that way.
A couple of butterflies started flapping in my stomach as I eased the car into the Casablanca’s parking lot. The wheels crunched on the gravel. There were no other cars in the lot, but that didn’t mean a thing; there seemed to be more parking space in back, and if Klaus was here he probably would have his car back there.
The Continental pulled up alongside me. The Buick likewise. We killed the motors. Everything was very, very quiet.
Rolling down his window, Litwhiler stuck his head out and whispered to me, “Okay, Lowney. You’ve got the key. Let’s all go open the door.”
I nodded. I got out of the car, and Phil did the same. I shut the door carefully. The rest of Litwhiler’s mob now left their cars. Everybody was looking at me, waiting for me to go open the door.
I took the key out of my pocket, hefting it a moment. “Come on,” I whispered. “Follow me.”
Eleven strong, we tiptoed toward the dark, shuttered roadhouse. It was perhaps thirty yards from the parking lot to the front door. Our feet kept crunching on the gravel, no matter how carefully we walked. My throat was dry. This was the moment, I thought, that would tell the tale. Maybe. If Chavez had failed to come across, my whole grand plan would dissolve into soggy anticlimax. And I’d have a rough time with Litwhiler when we smashed into an empty place.
There weren’t any anticlimaxes.
There was a big blazing climax.
When we were still fifteen yards from the door of the house, the upstairs lights suddenly went on. And Klaus’ men began blazing away at us with machine guns.
It was like hitting the beach at Anzio. One moment everything quiet, the next a hell of sizzling fire. I was the only one at all prepared for it. The second the lights went on, I turned and broke for the parking lot and safety.
Behind me, Litwhiler’s men were screaming and dashing for cover. Somebody in the roadhouse saw me and tried to cut me off; a barrage of tommygun slugs stitched a line in the gravel a couple of feet behind me, but I got clear just in time.
Jumping into the Cadillac, I got the engine started and looked out at the scene in front of me. It was pretty frightful. Three of Litwhiler’s men were lying in front of the road-house, just about cut to ribbons by the hail of gunfire. The rest had avoided being hit in the first barrage. Some of them had jumped to the side of the roadhouse; others, like me, were racing back to the parking lot.
But it wasn’t all one-sided. As I turned the motor on, I saw one of Litwhiler’s men fire into an upstairs window, and a Klaus goon came toppling out, tommygun and all, to land on the ground with a meaty thud. And I heard Litwhiler’s booming basso: “Set fire to the place, guys! Burn the bastards out!”
I began to back the Caddie out of the lot. Suddenly one of Litwh
iler’s men popped up in front of me, waving a cannon wildly.
“Hey! The doublecrosser’s trying to get away!” he yelled. A slug whizzed through the windshield, landing harmlessly in the upholstery. One hand on the wheel, I fired with the other. The shot caught the hood in the throat, and he went down fountaining blood.
I didn’t stop to see what happened next. I wheeled the car around and headed north on Route One as fast as I knew how, while the carnage raged merrily behind me. I felt a blissful wave of pure relief. There was one less unknown in the equation. Chavez had come through as expected.
He had agreed to lead Klaus into ambush. But, of course, he was much more interested in disposing of me than of Klaus. So after I had left him, he had probably contacted Klaus and told him about Litwhiler’s ambush scheme. And Klaus had been ready for Litwhiler.
With luck, Litwhiler’s gang and Klaus’ would eliminate each other in the catfight down at the Casablanca. That was fine with me. It costs money to prosecute people, and it costs more money to maintain them in the jug. As a taxpayer myself, I’m always happy to see potential jailbirds save all that expense by eliminating each other beforehand.
And while all the foofaraw went on down at the Casablanca, I’d have a chance to finish off the operation by grabbing old Szekely. It was too bad I hadn’t had some way of warning Elena of what I was up to. But I would have to manage anyway, now.
I kept my eyes peeled for a police call box as I sped through the quiet suburban streets. I found one, finally, and pulled up at the curb.
Opening the box, I waited for some acknowledgment, and then said, “Hello. Listen, there’s a gang battle going on at a roadhouse called the Casablanca, on Route One down near Lansdowne. The Klaus counterfeiting gang is involved, and a rival gang from New York. You can make some very important arrests if you get moving.”
I hung up without waiting for a reply, and got back into the car. Fifteen minutes later, I was in downtown Philadelphia, and then I was heading up into the residential area where Klaus kept the Szekelys cooped up.
It was a little after four in the morning when I reached the house. The street was as asleep as a street can be. There wasn’t a light on anywhere in the block. I left the Caddie parked out in front of the house and walked up to the door.
I rang the bell.
Half a minute passed. Nothing happened.
Then the view-slot in the door opened, and a bloodshot eye peered out at me.
“Yeah?” came the suspicious grunt.
“Open up,” I snapped. “I just came from Klaus. He sent me to tell you guys something.”
A lid descended over the bloodshot eye in a perplexed frown. Evidently the goon decided it was safe to let me in, though, because after another moment I heard the sounds of a chain being lifted and a bolt being drawn back. The door opened.
I was face to face with one of Klaus’ more unsavory goons. I stepped inside and the .38 was in my hand, pressed right up against the goon’s chin, and I said softly, “You just play it cool or I’ll splatter your brains all over the county, bud.”
“Who—what—?”
“Never mind. Where are your buddies?”
“There’s only one. He’s—inside—”
Only he wasn’t. He was standing in the doorway of the living room, looking mystified.
“Hey, Jack, I heard the doorbell ring,” he began. “Hey, who’s—?”
The next second he saw the gun and went for his own. I didn’t let him finish the motion. I fired right past the first goon’s ear, and the other one folded up on the carpet with lead in his belly.
Jack was shivering, now. “Listen, m-mister, I ain’t gonna try anything—”
“That’s smart, Jack. Where’s the old man and his daughter?”
“Upstairs.”
“Thanks,” I said. “And what’s that over there?”
I pointed, and he turned his head to look, and I clipped him across the back of the skull with the butt of my gun. It made a satisfying thunking sound, and he dropped like a bunch of old rags. I fished the gun out of his pocket, removed the cartridges, and left it and him lying on the carpet. He would be out for three or four hours, I figured, and that was more than enough.
His pal was dead. A quick look told me that, and I didn’t waste any time with first aid. I waited a moment or two, just in case Klaus had any more hoods on guard duty, but none appeared. I sprinted upstairs. “Elena?” I yelled.
She didn’t answer. I called out again. “Elena, it’s me, Vic!” She couldn’t possibly have slept through all the ruckus downstairs. I switched on the light in the upstairs hall and pushed open the door of the first room I came to. It was a bedroom—Elena’s bedroom. Only no Elena. A pair of gauzy pajamas and a bathrobe lay on the rumpled bed.
Frowning, I went into the next room and turned on the light.
Old man Szekely was there.
He was sitting up in bed, a short pink-cheeked man with a fringe of white hair around his ears. He was positively shaking with terror, and I realized I was still holding my gun. I holstered it quickly.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m here to free you, not to harm you.”
He shook his head dismally and muttered something in Hungarian. I smiled and shrugged. He continued to mutter.
I signaled to him. “Come on. There isn’t much time. Let’s get out of here.”
I pulled him out of the bed. He stood in the middle of the floor, sleepy, pathetic, a tired old man scared out of his senses. I opened a dresser drawer and threw a shirt and some underwear at him. “Get dressed,” I shouted, pantomiming it roughly. He didn’t budge. He just stood there and trembled.
I couldn’t afford to wait any longer. Hoping he’d have enough sense to get his clothes on himself, I rushed out of the room and downstairs. The plates were in the basement, Elena had said. I had to get them. And I had to get them fast. I had no guarantee that all the rest of Klaus’ manpower had been tied up in the gun battle at the Casablanca.
SIXTEEN
Neither of the hoods had gone anywhere. The dead one was still dead, quietly puddling blood into the carpet. The other one, Jack, was fast asleep. I stepped over him and went into the hallway that led to the kitchen. I found the staircase to the cellar, and went down.
It was dark down there. I struck a match and found the light switch. It wasn’t smart to blunder around in the dark in a possibly booby-trapped basement.
The light went on slowly—fluorescents. I whistled in awe when I could finally see. Down here was Ye Olde Compleat Printshop. There was a goodly sized flatbed press, bales and bales of paper, and, in the back, a desk ringed with an elaborate set of engraving tools. A monstrous steel cabinet with a combination lock no doubt held the finished product.
I didn’t have time to bother opening the cabinet. Instead, I gathered up the plates on the engraver’s desk, the cliche set in the press, and one package of blank paper. That was enough to prove the case against Klaus. The local police would have to take over the job of confiscating the press. Assembling my little bundle, I trotted back upstairs and ran out to the Cad with it. I dropped the stuff on the back seat and returned to the house.
Upstairs, the old engraver was sitting on the edge of his bed staring at the clothes I had thrown him. He was still in his pajamas. He seemed dazed and baffled by it all.
“Dammit, I told you to get dressed!” I said.
He looked up woefully and replied in Hungarian. At least I guess it was Hungarian. But there isn’t a drop of Magyar blood in my veins, nor had Grandma ever told me I’d have any need for knowing Hungarian when I grew up. I couldn’t speak a word of it, not even “What a fine morning this is” or “This is the pen of my aunt.” And Szekely probably knew only a smattering of English, and such smattering as it was had all vanished under the shock of my arrival.
So we had a communication problem.
I tried pantomime again, but he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—get the drift of what I was trying to tell him. After
a few minutes of energetic charades, I decided I’d simply have to dress him myself. It was cold and windy outside, no night for taking a man of sixty outdoors dressed in pajamas. And I couldn’t waste much more time coaxing him to get dressed.
So I dressed him.
There are techniques you learn for making unwilling people hold still, and I used them. Even so, he gave me plenty of trouble. Not that he fought me—he wasn’t a very strong man—but that he didn’t cooperate. Try to get clothes on and off a limp scarecrow some time and you’ll see what I mean. It’s even harder when the scarecrow keeps wriggling and making vague gestures of alarm and despair and fright.
But finally I had him dressed and his feet stuffed into shoes. I bundled him into a heavy coat, hooked my arm through his, and we started downstairs. We were midway down the landing when I heard a car door slam just outside the house.
I took my gun out and pocketed it, keeping my hand in the pocket too. We went on down the stairs. Just as we reached the next-to-last step, the front door of the house opened.
Elena Szekely walked in.
And Ricky Chavez walked in right behind her.
For one, long frozen minute we stared at each other across a gulf of perhaps twenty-five feet. At least, it seemed like a minute. It was probably only five or ten seconds at the most.
Then Chavez went for his gun. I didn’t go for mine. I kept it in my pocket, with my hand on it, but I moved the old man over ever so slightly to make him a shield for the left side of my body.
“Put the gun away, Ricky,” I said.
“You let go of Szekely first.”
“Fat chance, man.” I nodded toward the door. “I’m going to go out of here, and the old man is going with me. And you aren’t going to interfere.”
“Stop him,” Elena said imploringly—and she was talking to Chavez. “Oh, stop him! He is kidnapping my father!”
“I’m rescuing him, Elena,” I said.
She turned blazing eyes on me. “No, you are not! I know the truth about you now! This man has told me! You are not who you said you are. You are completely unscrupulous and you wish to use my father yourself!”