Cash My Chips, Croupier Page 3

  The woman said no more.

  She dutifully climbed out of the bed and began dressing. Twenty minutes later they were in the lounge, there was a smell of coffee, and Bandelli had a cigar blueing up the warm atmosphere of the expensive Mayfair flat that he boasted was burglar-proof.

  There was a ring at the door.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ he called. ‘You stay with the cona.’

  He left the lounge, crossed the small hall, and slipped the electric switch that controlled the door lock. He opened the door, and began, ‘All right, Superintendent, you don’t have to — ’

  Then he began paying attention to the man who stood on the edge of the strip carpet outside.

  It wasn’t Superintendent Frank Drury, he saw. It was a character he had no desire to see, then or any other time. A character the mere look of whom gave him a pain both where he bent his neck to look upwards and where he sat down.

  ‘What the hell do you want?’ he shouted.

  ‘To tell you something,’ said Micky Perran, keeping his face empty of anything that might add to the words.

  ‘Get lost.’

  Bandelli started to close the door.

  ‘About Cuzak’s murder, Bandelli.’

  The door stopped moving, then started to open again.

  ‘You trying to do me a favour, Perran?’ Bandelli asked distrustfully.

  ‘The only favour I would willingly do you, Bandelli,’ said Micky Perran, ‘is to stuff you in the same coffin with Toni Cuzak. The death twins. That would really please me.’

  Bandelli scowled, but had to admit it sounded genuine and was what he would expect. But he didn’t like the choice of words in view of that crack he had made in bed about making love to death. He was congenitally unable to grow goose bumps, but he could shiver inside without anyone noticing except himself.

  He shivered internally now and he was very conscious of it and felt angry because he had to blame this ex-crime reporter he was responsible for having got flung off the Daily Banner. He had told himself Micky Perran was a burned-out squib.

  ‘Drury’s on his way,’ he said.

  ‘That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘I don’t get it, Perran.’

  ‘I’ll tell you inside.’

  Bandelli stood back, and his visitor crowded past him, walking across the small hall into the lounge, and when he heard the front door latch click he bunched himself, and as Bandelli came into the lounge after him he whirled, caught Bandelli’s right arm, and swung the surprised man over in a broken somersault that could have smashed Bandelli’s collar-bone had he fallen awkwardly.

  Bandelli thumped heavily into the thick-piled carpet as he landed, and Micky Perran, very prepared to get some of his pentup spleen working for him, was about to reach for the neck of the swarthy man who was sitting in a floppy position shaking his head to clear it when an arm slipped under Perran’s, smooth slim fingers snaked up and past his ear and cupped on the nape of his neck, and then pain burned across the entire top half of his body as he went backwards and seemed to be flying until his heels slammed against the floor.

  He tried to roll around, and he might have made it had he not been dealing with someone who knew as many tricks as himself plus a few not included in his repertoire. For a slippered foot came down against his neck, and all the heat he had experienced only moments before now flowed into his head, which felt as though it would burst.

  He heard someone screaming.

  Or, rather, it sounded like a scream with that foot pressing close to his ears. When the pressure eased he found he was gasping. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bandelli standing in front of him with a foot raised to kick him in the head. He flinched, ready to take the blow and prayed silently that it missed his eye and didn’t spill his teeth over the carpet.

  The kick didn’t reach him.

  The girl who had handled him as though he had been a tottering infant hooked one of her slim calves under Bandelli’s raised foot, pushed up and outward as she bent her back, and Bandelli joined Perran on the carpet. They sprawled, faces inches away from each other, as she said, ‘You want this Superintendent Drury to walk in on you two having a fight?’

  Both sobered fast, and Perran found the words he had brought all the way from Damsel Street.

  ‘Where is she, Bandelli?’

  Bandelli scowled.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Sandra.’

  ‘Hell, make sense. Sandra who?’

  ‘The Sandra Toni Cuzak was going to shoot when I stopped him.’

  Bandelli climbed to his feet, scowling, and straightening his clothes. He looked at the girl questioningly.

  ‘You know the women we employ. This Sandra he’s talking about, who is she?’

  Micky Perran was also on his feet by this time. He felt as though he had been trying to fly without wings and had come to a calculated landing. He eyed this bedroom Amazon of Bandelli’s with rising interest, and when the widening smile on her face told him his own facial expression was giving away his unchivalrous thoughts he felt the heat climb up from his soggy collar.

  She remained looking at him as she replied to Bandelli.

  ‘Must be Sandra Beltby. Runs a wheel in the Red Ace. Toni wanted her given the job. He made a fuss about it. Don’t you remember?’

  Bandelli spread his hands and let them fall to his sides, slapping like wet fins against his thighs.

  ‘Hell, I can’t remember the name and face of every dame we got working for us. That was Toni’s job.’ He spun towards Perran, suddenly light on his feet as though remembering a half-forgotten dancing technique. ‘So Toni’s dead. You killed him, Perran?’

  ‘Try not to talk like a moron,’ Micky said insultingly, and grinned as Bandelli balled his fists and dragged another scowl over his dark-skinned face, like a mask.

  ‘Mind the lip,’ Bandelli warned. ‘So you didn’t kill him. Someone did it. Who?’

  ‘The character who pushed a slim blade into his left ear. Yes,’ Micky went on as Bandelli’s scowling mask slipped to reveal both shock and surprise, ‘a nice little Mafia poke in the head which remains permanent. Not much fuss, not much blood, not much of anything except death. You a Mafioso, Bandelli? I bet Drury will ask.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I told him it was a Mafia touch. Of course, someone could have been playing tricks, like someone who wasn’t a Mafioso could be pretending. That leaves you with some explaining to do.’

  Bandelli stood rigid, regarding the man who had just spoken with dark shining eyes that seemed to be trying to probe past the mere surface meaning of Micky Perran’s words.

  He said slowly, his heavy accent thick in his mouth like syrup, ‘You think I wanted Toni dead? You think I was out of my mind?’

  ‘You were out of it when you put the skids under me, Bandelli. I want to be around when you pay for that slip. Now I’m clearing out.’

  Micky started for the door. He didn’t reach it before the front door bell rang stridently. It was the girl who caught his arm. ‘This way,’ she said, ‘and don’t make a sound.’

  She hustled him across the floor to a door that gave on to a small inner hall. There she paused to fling at Bandelli, ‘Well, don’t keep them waiting, Mario.’

  Bandelli turned to obey, like a man conditioned to receive orders. Micky, watching over the woman’s shoulder, was surprised at this kind of control she exerted over the other. The next minute she had caught his arm and pushed him into a darkened room.

  ‘Don’t do more than breathe,’ she said, and closed the door.

  He remained in the darkness, just inside the closed door, listening for sounds. He heard another door close and that was all. He did not hear any voices. As the room he was in had no opaque blur that was a window he knew that the curtains were drawn. He pushed out a hand to turn down the light switch at the side of the door.

  Instead of closing on the switch his fingers covered another hand. One that had slim tapering fingers to his touch and very smooth s
kin. He imagined he could smell perfume but couldn’t be sure. Slowly he started his fingers travelling to the woman’s wrist then along a naked arm to an uncovered shoulder. There his hand hesitated.

  Only for a moment while he controlled his breathing. A very wild thought had started a fire in his brain.

  His hand travelled downwards, the finger-tips caressing in the lightness of their touch on the velvet texture of the bare flesh under them, until they touched a nipple, around which they folded with equal gentleness before pressing.

  The woman gasped, and then he caught her in his arms. As her arm fell from being extended to the light switch he reached back and depressed the square plastic button.

  Light glowed warmly at the ends of wall brackets.

  The woman he held in his arms was naked. Behind and beyond her was the open door of a wall cupboard hung with clothes. In front of it was the pile of clothing she had left when undressing. He held her at arm’s length and received another shock.

  ‘Good grief,’ he said in a fierce whisper. ‘You!’

  She said nothing, looking at him with her dark eyes, appraising him, or perhaps the changed situation in which she found herself.

  ‘Do you always get yourself into impossible situations?’ he asked, unaware that his tone was sullen with a resentment he did not understand.

  ‘Why did Cathy push you into this room and tell you to be quiet?’ she countered.

  He felt irritated by her easy acceptance of the sheer incongruity of the position in which he found himself.

  ‘I could ask how the hell you came to be here,’ he snapped. ‘When I chased after you into the Red Ace you’d vanished. You came here,’ he said accusingly.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

  It wasn’t spoken defensively, and it could have been for that negative reason that his irritation merged into a more irksome sense of frustration. The last thing he wanted was to be confronted by an argumentative woman. Even if she was naked.

  ‘Well, of course, if you’re another of Bandelli’s bloody harem, Sandra — ’

  She stopped him there with a swift smack across his mouth that really buttoned it up.

  ‘Hell, I only said if,’ he complained, wondering whether he would be justified in grabbing her and giving her rump the same treatment.

  ‘Put it down as payment for what you were thinking, Micky Perran.’

  That really jolted him.

  ‘You know me.’

  ‘I know of you,’ she corrected. ‘Now stand back and let me get changed. I was in the middle of changing when the door opened. I didn’t have time to get in the cupboard. If Cathy had put on the lights there would have been a real surprise all round.’

  By this time she was garbed in bra and briefs and sorting through a rack of two-piece suits and dresses. She chose a dark blue two-piece which fitted her like a charm and suited her colouring.

  ‘What would you have done?’ Micky asked.

  She paused in buttoning up the jacket to look at him in frank surprise.

  ‘Why, I’d have dropped the baby in your lap, Micky. Then it would have been up to you.’

  He tried to grin back at her, but knew it was a miserable effort.

  ‘That particular baby hasn’t been conceived yet, girlie,’ he told her.

  She smiled at him, much too sweetly, as though she knew so much more than he did she could afford to pity him. Well, maybe she was right.

  He said testily, ‘All right, just what would you have done?’

  ‘I’d have wrapped my arms around you and said, ‘Oh, you’ve arrived at last, Micky darling. What took you so long?’ Try thinking how you would have explained that to Cathy. When that one isn’t a bedroom poodle she’s a mastiff bitch with blood in her eye. She can use every portion of her anatomy very offensively.’

  Micky thought of how she had put Bandelli on the floor with him, and how Bandelli, away from his bedroom, had obeyed her as though under some curious control she exerted.

  ‘Well?’ she asked, straightening her stockings to her liking before pushing her toes into some blue suède pumps that made her lovely calves look edible.

  ‘Don’t press your luck,’ Micky said. ‘I’m just as glad the lights didn’t go on at that moment. But I’m very puzzled.’

  ‘I bet you are.’ She sounded amused.

  ‘The police are here.’

  That shook her. He felt illogically elated at sight of her jerking erect with a blaze of panic in her fine eyes. At least, he chose to think it was panic. When he thought about it he couldn’t be sure. She might have been just plain angry, and her anger was certainly directed at him.

  ‘You brought them?’

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ he grunted. ‘I’m in enough bother for knocking Cuzak down to stop him putting a bullet in you.’

  She stooped, gathered up her discarded clothing, and tossed it in the back of the wardrobe, then closed the door.

  ‘You mean the cops are here because you knocked Toni down?’

  She was the one who was puzzled this time.

  ‘Cuzak’s dead. Someone put a slim knife through his ear and on into his brain.’

  ‘Not you,’ she said flatly, as though she couldn’t entertain the suggestion.

  ‘Not me,’ he said just as flatly, holding her questioning gaze. ‘Someone. Between the time I saw a police car turn into Damsel Street and bolted into the club, where I couldn’t find you, and the time that squad car reached halfway down the street. You know, that was a pretty swift piece of opportunism on someone’s part. This someone also ran into the club. Naturally, the police think the whole business smells.’

  ‘And you?’ she asked.

  ‘Me? I want to know why Cuzak was so damned keen to stop you phoning from that outside call box. I want to know who you phoned — ’

  ‘I didn’t get through. You stopped me. Remember?’

  ‘I remember stopping you, but I am not convinced the call wasn’t made. You had the phone to your ear, and you could have finished dialling.’

  ‘I still didn’t complete the call.’

  Micky Perran looked at her as she turned away to cross to a dressing table mirror and stared at herself in the glass, pushing her hair this way and that.

  ‘I thought you had dialled 999 at first,’ he said.

  She looked back at him in the mirror, her back turned towards him. She had picked up a handbag and was doing things with quick motions to her face.

  ‘Why should I fetch the police?’

  ‘It could have been an ambulance was wanted.’

  ‘I could have done that inside, couldn’t I?’

  ‘All right,’ he said patiently. ‘Why did you have to go outside?’

  ‘Surely that’s simple. To avoid Toni Cuzak.’

  She had finished with her lipstick and was holding it away from her, still staring at him in the mirror, as though waiting for the question that really mattered.

  He said, ‘Why should you want to avoid him?’

  She turned around and let her gaze cover the room with its twin beds, its deep-pile carpet, soft lights, touches of glass and plastic and polished highly grained wood that made it look cosy and inviting of both intimacies and slumber.

  ‘That’s tied up with why I’m here, changing into a dress no one will know I’m wearing — except you.’ She eyed him speculatively. ‘So you’d better come along with me, Micky, and no fuss.’

  He wasn’t sure, despite something that rang warningly in her voice, that she was serious.

  ‘How can we walk out with Superintendent Drury in the lounge? You think he wouldn’t be curious?’

  ‘Very. But we won’t disturb him, Micky. We’ll go out the way I came in, and please — no arguments.’

  She took a short snub-nosed gun from her bag and wiggled it at him.

  He sighed. ‘Everybody’s suddenly armed.’

  ‘I bet you handed over Toni’s gun like a nice little boy, so don’t talk cute. Come.’

  The snub-nosed gun
jerked towards the window, and it was now steady in the hand holding it.

  He didn’t argue because he had two good reasons for going with her. First, he didn’t feel keen on letting Drury know he had arrived before the Yard man. Second, he wanted to know where she would take him.

  When he drew back the curtains she doused the lights, leaving him silhouetted and vulnerable against the window’s paleness. He opened it, stepped on to the metal fire escape and started down to the mews behind the flats. She followed after closing the window. She led the way from the mews down a narrow passage, across a street, turned left, and led him into a small square with grass surrounded by plane trees and cars parked by the central kerb.

  She unlocked the door of a red mini and told him to get into the passenger’s seat. Not until she was in the driving seat did she drop the snub-nosed gun in her handbag, which she squeezed between herself and the door. She started the engine.

  Before engaging the gears she leaned close to him and her lips brushed his ear as she said, ‘You know, Micky, you’re something new in my life. I felt your fingers going up my arm and coming down to my breast, and they didn’t quiver. No surprise, no grabbing out of turn, just doing what you wanted them to do, even when they captured my nipple. I liked that. Would you like having a woman like me and be rich at the same time, Micky?’

  How the hell he sat there without conceding a quiver he never knew, but he understood it was some kind of grotesque test she had dreamed up in her weird mind.

  ‘Is it possible?’ he asked. ‘I like possible things. They are easier to come by.’

  She laughed softly, amused. ‘As possible as getting to enjoy the taste of forbidden fruit,’ she said, and bit his ear with her sharp little teeth.

  He seized on the clue words.

  ‘Forbidden fruit?’

  ‘Look.’

  She reached out a hand and turned on the interior light. Her head was turned and she was looking at the back seat. Micky followed her gaze, and saw the soft black leather bag Cuzak had carried between the pick-up car and the Red Ace.

  The bag was zippered and locked.

  And it bulged.

  He was still staring over his shoulder when the interior light went out and she meshed the gears and slid away from the kerb.