I studied him and decided he was telling the truth. A brutal, ruthless man like Minsky wouldn’t tell a birdbrain like Hank anything.
I was suddenly sick of him, sick of the room, sick of the atmosphere.
‘OK, Bill,’ I said. ‘Unlock him.’
Bill turned off the blowtorch, then removed the handcuffs while I, gun in hand, watched.
Hank sat up, rubbed his wrists and stared up at me.
‘Listen carefully,’ I said, ‘there’s no place now for you in this city. I talked to Hula’s boss. Hula’s feeding the worms. You won’t see him again. You have twelve hours to get out of this city. If I see you again, you will get a bullet in each kneecap and you won’t be able to walk again. Get lost! Understand?’
He continued to stare, shaking his head in bewilderment.
‘I don’t know where to go,’ he muttered. ‘I ain’t got any money.’
‘I won’t tell you twice. If you’re not out of this city in twelve hours, you won’t walk again.’ I turned. ‘Come on, Bill. The sight of this shit sickens me.’
We took the elevator down to the street level and walked out into the humid rain.
Seven
From the outside, the Three Crab Restaurant didn’t look inspiring. It had a tatty, weather-beaten air with its bleached wooden front and its narrow glass door, screened by a red curtain: not an enticement to tourists.
When I pushed open the door, I found myself in a tiny lobby with a Vietnamese acting as a hatcheck girl. She gave me a welcoming smile.
‘You have a reservation, sir?’ she asked.
‘I am expected.’
‘Would you be Mr Wallace?’
‘That’s right.’
She pressed a bell push on the counter.
‘Just one moment sir.’
A short, fat man, wearing a grey alpaca coat, white shirt with a string tie and black trousers, materialised.
‘Mr Wallace?’
‘Correct,’ I said.
‘Miss Sandra Willis is expecting you, Mr Wallace.’ I got a flashing smile, revealing white capped teeth. ‘Please to follow me.’
He opened a door, and the sound of voices, the clatter of dishes, startled me. I followed him into a vast room, crowded with tables and packed with people. Some of the men wore white tuxedos. All the women were dressed to kill. Waiters were moving swiftly and efficiently, changing plates, serving dishes.
‘You have quite a business here,’ I said as he led me by a packed bar and to a flight of stairs.
He turned and gave me his flashing, toothy smile.
‘I don’t complain.’
He led me up the stairs, reached a door, tapped and threw the door open, bowing me in.
‘Mr Wallace, Miss Willis.’
She was sitting at a table, laid for dinner in a small, but well furnished, air conditioned room. She waved to me and motioned me to sit at the table. She was wearing a dark red dress, and her black hair was caught back by a band of pearls. She looked terrific, and caught her sexual vibes as I sat, facing her.
‘Let’s eat, Wally,’ she said. ‘I’m starving.’
‘Two seconds, Miss Willis,’ the man in the alpaca coat said and vanished.
She regarded me.
‘I need to talk to you,’ she said, ‘but first I must eat. I haven’t had a thing since last night. J.W. is very exacting.’
‘J.W.? Walinski?’
‘Who else?’
There was a tap on the door, and a waiter who looked Mexican hurried in. He put a plate of a dozen oysters Rockefeller before Sandra and the same for me. He then poured a chilled white wine and, bowing, he left us.
The oysters were excellent. As I speared my fifth I said, ‘You seem at home here, Sandra.’
‘I come here most nights. When a woman is usually on her own, it is wise to eat privately, and where she is known.’
‘I shouldn’t have thought you were often alone.’
She shrugged.
‘My working hours are impossible. It is only that J.W. decided to go to the casino, I am eating now.’
‘You want to talk to me?’
‘Yes, but not yet.’
By now we had finished the oysters and I heard a bell ring. I guessed she had pressed a hidden bell push on the floor.
Almost immediately, the waiter appeared and cleared the plates, then yet another waiter appeared, pushing a hotplate trolley.
‘You don’t object to seafood?’ she asked me.
‘I don’t object to any food.’
The waiter served from a big dish. He placed before Sandra half a grilled shelled lobster, fried clams and king-sized prawns, stuffed with crab meat. He served rice with a scattering of red peppers over which he poured a thick, creamy sauce tinted pink by lobster coral.
He did the same for me.
‘Some dinner,’ I said.
It wasn’t until we had eaten a second helping that she relaxed, leaning back in her chair and regarding me.
‘Coffee,’ she told the waiter as he cleared the dishes. ‘A cigarette, please, Dirk.’
I gave her a cigarette from my pack, lit hers and mine.
‘That’s a lot better,’ she said, and smiled at me. ‘Now we can talk.’
The waiter returned with a pot of coffee, poured, then went away.
I waited, looking at her. She was too good to be true, I told myself. She had everything most women would envy and a saint would be unable to resist, but her glittering green eyes, as hard as emeralds, warned me this woman was very dangerous.
‘So what do we talk about?’ I asked, sipping my coffee.
‘You are the first man I have met in this God-forsaken city who has guts. I need a man with guts.’
‘What makes you think I have guts?’
‘A man who can bomb a stinking hole like the Black Cassette and scare an ape like Smedley so he quits the city has guts.’
‘How do you know he’s quit the city?’
‘Half an hour ago, he telephoned. He wanted to talk to J.W. I recognised his voice so I told him J.W. was tied up and what did he want? He said you had tortured him into telling you that Angela Thorsen had hired him to do the acid job, and he had to quit. Could J.W. give him money?’ She paused, then went on, ‘I told him to go to hell, and hung up. I got one of the boys to check. Smedley has gone, heading for Miami.’
I sat waiting, knowing there was a lot more to come.
‘I haven’t told J.W. what Smedley told me about Angela Thorsen,’ she went on. ‘She is valuable to him. If he knew she was behind the acid job, he would be sure you were going to fix her. You wouldn’t last ten minutes.’
‘All the same, I am fixing her,’ I said.
‘To understand this scene, Dirk,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘I am going to wise you up.’
‘Why?’
‘I told you: I need a man of guts. Now I have found you, I don’t want you blown away in your hunt for revenge. You can’t buck the organisation. Now, listen! J.W. is the top shot in Florida. His job is to collect money for the organisation. Florida is a gold mine. Anyone with money has a secret, and there are thousands of them who pay blackmail. The big stores, the casino, the top hotels pay protection money. J.W. lives at the Spanish Bay Hotel for nothing. The hotel doesn’t want staff trouble. J.W. has only to raise a finger and the staff will walk out. The monthly take is big: around a million and a half. J.W. is responsible for keeping to this figure or increasing it. This makes him vulnerable. The organisation would replace him if he began to slip. This is I the reason why he is anxious to have no trouble in this city. He gets ten thousand from the Thorsen girl. If you start trouble for her, J.W. will be ten thousand short. I know the organisation is getting dissatisfied with his work. They want a bigger increase. He is living on a tightrope. Let me tell you, Dirk, the only reason he hasn’t had you blown away is that you are too well known here, and are friends with the cops. He doesn’t want any publicity. You with me?’