Too Hot to Hold Read online

  Harper, Nelson and Ferrel occupied the entire sixteenth floor. As Brady got to the elevator, the receptionist gave him a conspiratorial smile and whispered, “A little late, aren’t you, Mr. Brady?”

  Brady returned the smile. “And wet.”

  “And bloody,” the girl added as she surveyed his torn pants leg and barked knuckles.

  “I fell down in front of Grand Central. Then when I couldn’t get a cab, I walked.”

  “You look it,” the girl declared. She pushed an interoffice memo across her desk. “For you. You can guess from whom.”

  Brady looked at the memo. It read: Mr. Brady will report directly to my office.

  Brady felt unimpressed. Instead of reporting directly to Harper’s office, he walked to his desk and put his brief case in the bottom drawer. It seemed a very public place to leave so much money, but for the time being, it was the best he could do. Brady lit his third cigarette of the day and opened the door of Mr. Harper’s private office without knocking,

  “You wanted to see me?”

  “I’d like to,” Harper admitted. “I’d like to, very much. But much closer to nine o’clock. You realize, of course, this is the second day in a week you’ve been late.”

  “Yes, sir,” Brady answered. “I do.”

  “What’s your excuse this time?”

  “The same. My train was late.”

  The senior partner of Harper, Nelson and Ferrel was not impressed. “Very touching, Mr. Brady. Now let me tell you a few things, young man.”

  It was the brief case filled with money in the bottom drawer of his desk that did it. The words came out before he could stop them. “No,” Brady said quietly. “Let me tell you a few things, Mr. Harper. I’ve been with this firm ten years with one brief break for the unpleasantness in Korea. And during those years I’ve only been late four times, two of them this week. Against that I’ve handled every account you’ve ever given me successfully. I’ve made money for the firm, a lot of money. I saved you almost $40,000 in the Velasquez deal alone. But every time some small thing comes up you proceed to eat off my tail. And I’m very tired of being pushed around. So if you’re dissatisfied with me and my work, I think the best thing you can do is discharge me.”

  When Harper found his voice, it was surprisingly small. “No. No. Of course not. I assure you I’m perfectly satisfied with your work, Mr. Brady. Er, that will be all for now.”

  Brady closed the door behind him and swaggered slightly as he walked back to his desk, conscious that the conversation had been overheard and admiring eyes were following his progress.

  One of the men spoke from the corner of his mouth. “Brother, was that telling him. What did May do? Feed you raw meat for breakfast this morning?”

  Brady tried to work on a new French perfume account and was too excited to concentrate. Nothing mattered except the brief case full of money in the bottom drawer of his desk.

  He knew now that he’d meant to keep the money from the start. It was his. He’d found it.

  Brady closed his eyes briefly and saw the rows of tightly stacked sheaves again. He wondered how much they totaled. Not that it mattered greatly. There was enough. There was plenty. And however much there was, it was his.

  THREE

  THE PICTURE WINDOW on the twenty-third floor was huge. Through it one could see most of the Chicago skyline and part of Grant Park and the Outer Drive and beyond the Park and the Drive, the rocky shore line along Lake Michigan.

  The furnishings of the office were in keeping with the chaste dignity of the window. Both the ankle deep, wall to wall carpeting and the heavy draw draperies were in excellent taste. So were the big dull green leather chairs and the massive director’s desk.

  Lew Dix had come a long way, almost to the end of the line. His conservative charcoal gray suit was tailored to his corpulent body almost without a wrinkle. His shirt was crisp, white and expensive. His tie was as conservative as his suit. He liked to think that the gray in his rapidly thinning hair made him look distinguished.

  When it was possible, he preferred not to think of the old days. On occasion, when he did, it seemed incredible he had done some of the things he had, taken the chances he had taken. Fortunately, the old days were gone forever, along with Al Capone and Johnny Torrio and the Ghenna boys together with others, including the seven men lined up against the wall of a near-north-side garage to form a macabre valentine.

  Dix preferred to forget such things. The Chicago Jungle, as such, was no more. A new order had come into being. A super efficient business organization and a specific allotment of territories had long since superseded the chaos. There were no more diamond belt buckles and very few one-way rides. What had to be done was done quietly by experts. Only a few noisy newcomers tried to keep the old traditions alive. There were times when he almost convinced himself that the wild stories he remembered from first hand participation were merely tales the old men had told between sips of grapo and puffs on their twisted black cigars.

  Now it was much better. The money that had once been thrown away on drunken orgies and bullet-proof Cadillacs and hotel suites filled with squealing and willing hustlers now brought substantial dividends when invested in hotels and dry-cleaning plants; in laundries and breweries; in distilleries and wire services and various forms of banking.

  Only one thing hadn’t changed. That was the law of omerta. When the old men from Palermo called you answered. And when you were assigned an assessment you paid.

  “Yes, sir,” Dix said meekly into the phone. “She didn’t show, eh? Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it from this end.” He started to cradle the phone and gripped the receiver even harder in his moist palms as the rapid stream of Sicilian on the other end of the wire asked a question. Dix’s face turned gray as he answered in kind. “No, no, Signore. I swear by all the Saints that I dispatched the money.”

  For some moments after he’d cradled the phone he had to sit very still until he recovered his composure. Then glancing at the onyx clock on his desk he made a calculation. It was thirty-five minutes after four, Chicago time. That made it five thirty-five in New York, the end of the business day. If Linda Lou intended to show, if she intended to deliver the parcel, she should have done so eight hours ago. It seemed incredible that the girl would try to take a powder after all the warnings he’d given her about what would happen to her if she failed him. More likely she’d been hi-jacked. He’d warned her about that, too. No matter how clever a man tried to be, there was always one sonofabitch trying to outsmart him. Who could possibly have guessed that his semi-annual accounting with the elder statesmen of the Mafia was being carried by a nineteen-year-old-girl in the form of a gift package wrapped in silver paper? Not even the Internal Revenue people were that clever.

  He liked Linda Lou. He had big plans for her. It would pain him deeply if something happened to her or if he was forced to cause something to happen.

  Before he acted, he decided to give the girl the benefit of the doubt and pushed the button on his desk. He spoke to his secretary, in a low voice.

  “Will you please ring the St. Walter Hotel in New York, Miss Phillips, and ask if a Miss Linda Lou Larson has checked in?”

  His secretary repeated the requested information. “Immediately, Mr. Dix.”

  Dix released the button. He hoped something had delayed Linda or that she was in her hotel room, afraid to complete the delivery, waiting for him to call. After all, she was just a child and from the deep South. And none too bright to begin with.

  “Don’t open the package,” he’d warned her, “and keep your door locked on the train at all times. It’s none of your business what you’re carrying. But keep in mind at all times that there are a hundred men who would be very happy to kill you for what you’re carrying.”

  That had been to impress her as to the value of the parcel. Now she hadn’t even arrived. After all he’d planned for her. And if everything had worked out as he’d hoped, it could have been a very comfortable arrangement.
There came a time in a man’s life when street cars not only became few and far between, they eventually stopped running.

  The corners of Dix’s fat, wet lips turned down. His voice was still low and melodious, with only a trace of an accent. It matched the furnishings of the office. Only the words were out of place. “The dirty, chiseling little broad.”

  After all, he was Lew Dix. Hundreds of thousands of dollars passed through his hands every day and considerable sums of it stayed. He had a home in Lake Forest. He drove a Continental Mark II. It had been twelve years since he’d even been in a police station. He was a big man in Chicago. He was a big man in the organization. It was perfectly proper for him to diddle anyone he wanted to. But if a two bit blonde with a corn-pone drawl thought she could diddle him, she was betting on the wrong horse.

  He wouldn’t have entrusted the money to her in the first place if the Federal men weren’t watching him so closely. Just let the Internal Revenue boys get a sniff at that package and figure what percentage of his income it represented and after he’d done his time in Atlanta or Leavenworth or Alcatraz, another Federal court would send him over to play dominoes with Luciano.

  Miss Phillips spoke through the annunciator. “I am sorry, Mr. Dix, but I cannot contact your party. The room clerk at the St. Walter Hotel reports that a Miss Linda Lou Larson has a reservation but she hasn’t checked in yet.”

  “Thank you,” Dix said. “Will you kindly ask Mr. Daly and Mr. Morgan to step in?”

  He sat back in his chair feeling old and very tired. He disliked matters like this. They smacked too much of the old days. Still, discipline had to be enforced and not even the most reputable businessman could allow himself to be robbed of more money than ten average men made in a year. It was bad for morale. It gave young punks and twists on their way up the erroneous idea that a man was slipping.

  Besides, there were the old men from Palermo currently residing on Bleecker Street. And when the Mafia said pay, you paid. Or wished you had.

  Dix took a fat cigar from his humidor and eyed the two youths who entered his office with distaste. Even the style in enforcers had changed. There was nothing deadly looking about Daly or Morgan. Their well cut suits were modified Ivy League. They had innocent boyish airs about them. Except for the slight hardness in their eyes and the bulges under their arm pits, they might be college seniors.

  “Yes?” Daly asked.

  Dix lighted his cigar. “It seems Linda Lou didn’t make it.”

  Morgan rolled his pork pie hat in his hands. “Oh?” he asked with interest.

  “So you better go see what detained her. There’s a train at six-forty-five.”

  “If you don’t mind,” Daly said, “we’ll take a plane. It’s faster.” He breathed on his immaculate nails and buffed them on the palm of his hand. “Any instructions?”

  Dix’s righteous indignation showed through his painfully acquired veneer. “Just find that goddamn money and turn it over to you know who. It’s in a silver paper gift wrapped parcel about so long and so wide.”

  “We know,” Morgan said quietly. “We put her on the train. And—Linda…?”

  Dix was silent for a long moment. Not that he’d gotten to first base so far but he was genuinely fond of Linda Lou, as fond as he could be of a broad. He liked her pert young brightness. He liked the way she walked, the way she talked. He liked the way she fended him off, reminding him that he’d employed her to do one certain thing. And that didn’t include the use of her body. Most broads started to peel as soon as they learned he was the Lew Dix. The little girl from the deep South had promised to be a refreshing relief from the frenzied acrobatics of the usual North Clark Street babes and the stolid placidity of the old country wife to whom he’d been married for over thirty years.

  Still, one leak in the dike could be serious. There wasn’t always a good Italiano boy to put his finger in the hole. And by now Linda knew too much.

  “You know what to do.”

  “We dig,” Daly nodded.

  Dix disliked the off-beat generation. Their terms confused him. “You dig what?” he puzzled.

  “We understand,” Daly translated.

  Dix opened the door for them. “Then why the hell didn’t you say so?”

  When they had gone, for some reason he felt cold. He didn’t like either Morgan or Daly but they were good men. They knew what they had to do. They had done it before. And, if it were still possible, they would recover the money.

  He realized his fingers were trembling and returned his cigar to his mouth. He really felt sorry for Linda Lou. Or was he just mourning his youth? She was too young and pretty, she had too much life still unlived to be forced to face Daly and Morgan. Still, she should have delivered the money.

  Depressing the button of the annunciator, he asked Miss Phillips to phone for his car.

  “We’re leaving a little early, aren’t we?” she asked.

  “A little,” Dix admitted.

  As he slipped into his expensive vicuna topcoat he wondered why. He had no special place to go. Most of his old friends were dead, machine gun scars on a cathedral step, closed files in the police hall of records, disintegrating mounds of dirt on lonely country roads. He couldn’t even get drunk. Whiskey upset his stomach.

  Yes. He’d had great plans for Linda Lou, ever since he’d seen her behind the twenty-six game in one of the taverns he owned. She was to have brightened his old age. She could have had anything she wanted. All she would have had to do was point. It was nice to just look at a young girl. It made a man feel warm and capable again.

  He stood a moment looking out the picture window at the deepening dusk. Yes. Linda Lou could have had anything she wanted. Now all she’d have would be Daly and Morgan. Maybe a squib in a New York paper—The body of an unidentified young woman was found early this morning by…

  What difference did it make by whom? Once the bird had flown, who cared about the cage?

  Dix drew the heavy curtains. He would go home, he decided, and ask Maria to make some veal parmagiana. While he ate he would drink sour red wine. Then after supper Maria would cover her head with the black shawl and go to church. And he would ask her to burn a candle. He needn’t tell her who for.

  FOUR

  THE RENTAL CABINS, four in number, were built on a low bluff overlooking a brackish river flowing between silted shallows matted with flowering hyacinth. Closer to the road, hanging over the sagging doorway of an unpainted, cypress-planked building, a weathered sign informed passersby this was DELLA’S PLACE and she had beer and gasoline for sale and cabins and boats for rent.

  At the foot of the low bluff a crude pier extended into the shallow water. The only visible signs of life were the nude girl bathing in the river, a high-wheeling flight of vultures and four long-legged white herons spearing fish near the shore. In a few minutes it would be dark but for now the sun still hung over the halfdead cypress trees.

  Using one of the row boats tied to the pier as a dressing table, Linda Lou soaped her slight body thoroughly, then waded out thigh deep and splashed water on her face and breasts and shoulders.

  This was the hour of the day she liked best. The rented boats were in and the day drunks had gone home to their suppers. Della was taking her nap in preparation for the evening’s business. Linda Lou reveled in her solitude. For this one hour there was no slatternly mother to jaw at her, no beery propositions from men old enough to be her father, no amorous male eyes trying to see through her skirt. With night the parking space in front of DELLA’S PLACE would fill with cars, all of the cars filled with men, all of whom would want three things, beer, whiskey and Della. With dark the juke box would compete with the second-hand television set that Della had bought in Fort Myers. There would be laughing and cursing and fighting. Sometime during the night someone would get cut. Then fat Deputy Sheriff Haffey would drive out from Osceola to make an investigation. But Deputy Haffey was as bad as the rest. Della would get him half drunk and honey and sugar him until the f
at man would get so excited he’d want to go in the back room. And when he and Della came out again, if the hurt man hadn’t been knifed too badly, that would be the end of the matter. It happened every Saturday night.

  Linda Lou lifted her head and watched the flight of the vultures. She wished she had wings. “I’d fly so gawddamn far away from here,” she thought, “it would take five dollars’ postage to send me a penny picture card.”

  Her mind raced on. She could go to Jacksonville or Memphis or maybe even as far as Chicago. Linda Lou stopped pretending. She and Della had had a big scene the night before and Della had slapped her mouth until it bled. “You’re a big girl now,” her mother had told her. “I’ve supported you since you were just a lap baby and it’s only right and fittin’ you give me a hand in the back room. It ain’t that I mind the work. I like it. But it purely pains me to see us missing all the money you could earn. You’re young and you’re pretty and there is plenty of the boys who only pay me two dollars who would give as much as five to go into the back room with you.”

  The thought made Linda Lou sick. She was willing to do all the cooking and the cleaning. She was willing to draw beer and wash dishes. She was willing to net bait and sell it, and gut fish for the successful fishermen. But she couldn’t go into the back room with just any man. She wouldn’t. Someway, somehow, she had to get away from here…

  Linda Lou tried to shut out her mother’s face and failed. Then opening one eye, she realized she was lying on a hospital bed in New York City with a tired intern examining her.

  Seeing she was conscious, the intern asked, “How do you feel, Miss?”

  “All right, I guess,” she told him.

  The nurse assisting the intern covered the lower part of her body with a sheet. “Well?”

  The intern washed his hands in a basin. “Nothing serious, I’d say. Just bruised and shaken up a bit. But I think we’d better hold her for a day or two.”

  The nurse handed him a clean towel. “The officers who brought her in want to know.”