‘Non-member,’ the dark one said in a soft drawl.
The fat man who I guessed would be Jack Claude shifted his ice-grey eyes on me again.
‘Sorry about this, friend,’ he said in a deceptively mild voice, ‘but you can imagine we don’t welcome gate-crashers. Could I have your name?’
‘I’m Chester Scott,’ I said. ‘What’s all the excitement about? Phil Welliver brought me up here. He’s a friend of mine.’
Claude didn’t seem particularly impressed.
‘Where do you live, Mr. Scott?’ he asked.
I told him.
He reached forward, picked up the telephone book that was lying on his desk and checked my address.
‘Mr. Welliver should know by now he can’t bring friends up here without my say-so and unless his friends pay the subscription fee.’
I began to get less flustered.
‘I didn’t know that,’ I said. ‘Welliver didn’t mention a fee. I’m willing to pay it. How much?’
‘Twenty-five bucks,’ Claude said. His eyes shifted away from me to the dark one who still remained at my side.
‘Do we know anything about Mr. Scott?’
‘He was in last night,’ the dark one said. ‘He went back-stage and talked to Miss Lane.’
I began to sweat again.
A remote look came into Claude’s eyes. He shifted in his chair, then, as polite as a dentist asking me to open wide, he said: ‘You know Miss Lane, Mr. Scott?’
‘No. I heard her sing,’ I said. ‘I thought she was pretty good. I asked her to have a drink with me.’
‘And did she?’
‘No.’
‘But you talked to her in her dressing-room?’
‘Yes: we talked. Why all these questions?’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘This and that,’ I said. ‘What makes it your business?’
Claude looked at the dark one.
‘Anything else?’
‘Not that I know of.’
There was a pause, then Claude said: ‘Sorry to be bothering you, Mr. Scott. That’ll be twenty-five bucks.’
I took out my wallet, found two tens and a five and laid them on the desk.
He wrote a receipt and handed it to me.
‘We have to be careful, Mr. Scott,’ he said. ‘I don’t have to tell you that. I hope we see you here often.’
‘You probably will,’ I said, not believing it had smoothed out this easy.
The dark one and the fair one had moved away from me. Their faces were now bored and disinterested.
I put the receipt in my wallet and my wallet in my pocket.
‘Well, thanks,’ I said and began to back away.
Then I heard the door open behind me and I looked around.
Oscar Ross came in.
He had on his barman’s coat and he carried a tray on which stood a bottle of Scotch, a glass and a container of ice.
He didn’t see me until he was half-way into the room, and then he didn’t recognize me until he had put the tray down on Claude’s desk. Then he stared at me as if he wasn’t sure if he could believe his eyes.
I started across the room to the door, trying not to run, but covering the ground to the exit at a pretty fast clip.
Ross stood rooted, staring at me.
I turned the door handle, but the door was locked.
The fair one moved towards me to unlock the door when Ross said in a strangled voice: ‘Hey! Don’t let him out of here!’
The fair one paused.
The key was in the lock. I turned it and as I was opening the door, the fair one moved like a swift shadow and his foot jammed against the door.
‘What’s he doing in here?’ Ross demanded.
The fair one, obviously puzzled, looked over at Claude for guidance.
I set myself and slammed a right at his jaw. My knuckles connected and I felt a jar run up my arm. He went over backwards and his head crashed against tie wall.
I turned the key and opened the door.
‘Hold it!’
This was from the dark one.
I looked quickly at him. He had a .38 automatic in his right fist and it was pointing at me.
I decided recklessly that it was more than he dared do to let off the gun in the confined spaces of the club and ignoring his threat, I jerked open the door.
Ross came at me fast. His hands were seeking me, his eyes were vicious and alarmed.
I got into the corridor as he arrived to close with me. His right fist sailed towards my face as I spun around to grapple with him. I got my face out of the way just in time and I planted my fist in his mouth. He reeled backwards and I turned and hared down the passage to the door into the roulette room.
Something that felt like a tank thudded into the back of my knees and brought me to the floor. I twisted over as the dark one slammed a punch at my jaw. I managed to get my head moving, but the punch connected, just a shade too high up to cause much damage, but hard enough to make me grunt.
I kicked the dark one away and got unsteadily to my feet as Ross came charging out of the room and towards me.
If there was one thing I wanted more than another, it was to get one more bang at him. I slipped the punch he tossed at me, moved in close and hooked him with a right-hand punch that had all my weight and most of my strength behind it.
But that was as far as I got.
I had a vague idea that the dark one had picked himself off the floor and was moving towards me with the speed and the grace of a ballet dancer.
He came at me too fast for me to do anything about it I started to turn so I could face him, but I was much, much too late.
I heard the swish of a descending cosh and I tried to get my head out of the way. As the softly lit passage exploded before my eyes, I knew I had shifted that second too late. After all he was a professional. When he sapped you, you stayed sapped.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I
I CAME out of darkness to feel hot sunshine on my face and a blinding light against my closed eyelids.
There was also a feeling of movement. It took me several seconds to realize I was in a car, being driven somewhere at high speed.
I wanted to groan because the back of my head was expanding and contracting and pain crawled up my neck over the top of my head and into my eyes like a beetle with red-hot feet.
But I didn’t groan. I let myself stay limp and slack and I rolled with the motion of the car until I felt good enough to open my eyes and take a quick look around.
I was on the back seat of my hired Buick. There was a man sitting beside me. I recognized the irongrey suiting of his trouser leg. It was the dark thug: the one who had sapped me.
Sitting in front, driving, was the fair one. He had put on a light grey slouch hat which he wore at a jaunty angle over his nose. Keeping my eyes half closed, I checked out of the window to see where we were.
We were passing through one of the back streets of Palm City: empty as a hole in the wall on this hot Sunday afternoon.
I kept quiet and wondered where we were going. I didn’t have to wonder for long.
The next five minutes saw us leaving Palm City behind us, and we got on to the highway leading to the beach road where I lived. I decided they were going to dump me back in my bungalow.
There was a light travelling rug across my knees to hide my wrists and hands. My wrists were crossed and strapped with what felt like adhesive tape. They were strapped so tightly I could feel tie blood pounding in my veins, and although I very gently tried to ease them a little, they were tight against each other as if screwed down in a vice.
Turn right at the intersection, Lew,’ the dark one said suddenly. ‘His joint is three hundred yards down on the right: a nice lonely spot for a guy to live in: I wouldn’t mind living in it myself.’