?STRICTLY FOR CASH
JAMES HADLEY CHASE
COPYRIGHT © 1951
James Hadley Chase
Strictly for Cash
PANTHER
GRANDA PUBLISHING
London Toronto Sydney New York
3
PART ONE
DOUBLE-CROSS
I
WE hit Pelotta around nine-thirty at night, after a four-hour run from Kern City.
Packed with stores, souvenir stands, cafes and filling-stations, it was like any of the other
small towns along the Florida coast.
The trucker, whose name was Sam Williams, pointed out the places of interest as we drove
along the main street.
“That’s the Ocean Hotel,” he said, jerking his thumb at a gaudy affair of chromium, neon
lights and bottle-green awnings that stood at the intersection that led across the town and to
the sea. “Petelli owns every brick of it. Come to that, he owns pretty well the whole town. He
owns the stadium too. That’s it up there.”
I peered through the windshield of the truck. Aloof on a hill, overlooking the town, was a
circular concrete building, open to the sky in the centre, and roofed in on the rear stands.
Above the roof were vast batteries of lights strung together on big steel frames, and which
could be focused down on the ring.
“There must be a pile of jack coming out of that joint,” Williams went on. He wiped his
red, fleshy face with the back of his hand and spat out of the window. “Petelli promotes a
fight programme there every Saturday night.”
He swung the truck to the right, away from the bright lights of the main street, and drove
down a narrow road, flanked on either side by wooden buildings. At the far end I could see
the waterfront: the ocean glittered in the moonlight like a sheet of silver paper.
“Tom Roche’s place is on the corner, facing the sea,” Williams said, slowing down. “I’m
behind schedule or I’d come in with you. Tell him I sent you. He’ll fix you a ride to Miami. If
he won’t play, talk to his wife: she’s a good kid.”
He pulled up, the nose of the truck facing the dimly lit waterfront. I opened the cabin door
and slid to the ground.
“Well, thanks for the ride,” I said. “I hope we meet again.”
“I’ll look for you. So long, pal, and good luck.”
4
I stepped back and watched the truck move off along the waterfront, then I turned and
walked over to Roche’s Cafe.
It was a two-storey building made of salvaged lumber and painted white. The double
swing-doors stood open, and music from a juke-box ground out into the night.
I mounted the three wooden steps and paused to look in. There were tables dotted around a
fair-sized room, a counter on which stood three steaming urns, half a dozen wooden stools up
at the counter, and a big electric fan in the ceiling that churned up the hot air.
Two men in singlets and dirty canvas trousers sat at a table by the door. Near the juke-box
to the right of the counter at another table was a big, heavily built man in a white tropical suit
and a yellow and red hand-painted tie. Seated opposite him a short, fat man in a brown suit
