The last two men I expected to see again on this earth: Pepi and Benno.
VII
I lit a cigarette with an unsteady hand. Where had these two sprung from ? The obvious
explanation was they had teamed up with Ricca. I remembered then that Waller, the Negro,
had said they would keep after me until they had cornered me. I had completely forgotten
them, but apparently they hadn’t forgotten me.
I remained in the car, waiting. After a minute or so they came out of the drug store and
paused on the sidewalk to look to right and left. Then they got into the Cadillac and drove
away.
It seemed I was now up against stiff opposition. I had been ready to tackle Ricca on his
own, but I wasn’t too sure of my chances when it came to a combination of Ricca, Pepi and
Benno. Those two lengthened the odds against me.
But no matter what happened to me, they were not going to get their hooks into that money.
Now they knew I was in town I would be crazy to carry all that money around with me. I had
to find a safe place to stash it.
I drove back to my hotel. The head porter sprang forward to open the car door.
“I’m not getting out,” I said. “Is there a safe deposit around here?”
82
“First on your left, sir,” he told me. “You can’t miss it. The best there is.” He was right
about not missing it. It was about twenty storeys high and occupied half the block. There
were five uniformed guards on the sidewalk, armed to the teeth* and tough enough to scare
any Chi hood out of his skin.
I pulled up and got out of the car.
One of the guards came over. The others watched me.
“I want to leave a suitcase,” I said. “What do I do?”
“You have it with you, sir?”
I unlocked the boot and hauled out the case. He made to take it, but I waved him back.
“I’m not as weak as I look. Just tell me where to go.”
“If you’ll follow me, sir.”
He took me into a vast reception lobby, surrounded by a wall of steel bars as thick as my
wrist. On a low balcony surrounding the lobby, guards patrolled, automatic rifles cradled in
their arms. There’d be no smash-and-grab raid in this place.
He led me to a pale young man who could have been a foreign prince, but obviously
wasn’t, as he stood up and bowed.
“Mr. Evesham will look after you, sir,” the guard said, and went away.
“I want to deposit this suitcase,” I said. “Can you fix it?”
Mr. Evesham, with another bow, said he would be happy to be of service.
“Do you wish to rent one of our strong rooms?”
I said I did.
“Will you come with me?”
We took the elevator to the fifth floor, walked along a corridor to a steel-mesh gate. A
guard opened it and saluted.
“Let me have the key to room 46,” Evesham said. He sounded like a prince when he was
giving orders.
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The guard produced a key, and a door was unlocked and opened. We entered a small room,
steel lined, about the size of a prison cell, and furnished with two easy chairs, a table and a
fitted grey carpet. Facing us was a wall safe, “Good enough to sleep in,” I said.
“Some of our clients like to consult their papers without taking them away,” Evesham
