“I’ve remembered I have a buddy here,” he explained. “You cash in my return ticket and keep the change for yourself. You certainly have earned it,” and before the courier could even thank him, Mish had disappeared into the swirling crowd.
Jack Perry came in his own Oldsmobile Cutlass convertible, now a little shabby, but still a nice looking car. He was aware that the finger-print department at Washington had one of his finger-prints; only one, the right forefinger, and this was the only mistake he had ever made during a long life of crime, a secret he kept to himself like a man nursing a cancer. At least, they had no photograph of him so he approached the police check point satisfied that the two bulls checking the cars would have no idea they were about to encounter a professional killer.
For the past twenty-seven years, Perry had earned a living by hiring out his gun. He was an expert shot, utterly amoral, and human life to him meant as little as something he might have stepped in on the sidewalk. But he was a free spender and was always short of money: women played a major role in his life… and when there were women, you spent money.
He was around sixty-two years of age: a short, heavily built man with close-cut, mow-white hair, a round fattish face, wide- spaced eyes under bushy white eyebrows, a thin mouth and a mall hooked nose. He dressed conservatively. Now, he was wearing a slate-grey tropical suit, a blood-red tie and a cream- coloured panama hat. He was always smiling, a grimace more than a smile, and if he had had any friends he would have been nicknamed ‘Smiler’, but he had no friends. He was a solitary, ruthless killer without a soul, and with no feeling for anyone, not even himself.
He drew up behind the car in front of him and waited while the two police officers checked the papers of the passengers. Then, when they waved the car on, Perry let the Cutlass creep up to the waiting men.
He regarded them with his fixed grin.
“Hi, fellas,” he said, waving a fat hand. “Have I done something wrong?”
Patrol Officer Fred O’Toole had been on duty now for the past four hours. He was a big, dark Irishman with alert, bleak eyes. He was sick to death of all the people who had crawled past his check point in their luxury cars with their corny jokes, their servile smiles, their contempt and often their arrogance. They were all heading for a good time: gambling, the best food, the best hotels, the best whores while he stood with burning feet in the hot evening sun waving them through, knowing as soon as they were out of his hearing, they would make some derogatory remark about this goddam Mick sonofabitch.
O’Toole took an immediate dislike to this fat, elderly, grinning man. He had no real reason for this dislike, but the grin, the empty washed-out blue eyes made his hackles rise.
“Got a passport?” he snapped, resting his gloved hand on the car’s window frame and glaring down at Perry.
“What do I want a passport for?” Perry said. “I’ve got a licence… that do?”
O’Toole held out his hand.
Perry gave him the licence that had cost him four hundred dollars: an expensive little item, but worth it. The right forefinger print had been most skilfully altered, and such alterations cost money.
“What’s your business here?”
“Plenty of eating, plenty of gambling and plenty of girls,”
Perry said and laughed. “I’m on vacation, buddy… and boy! am I going to have me a vacation!”
O’Toole continued to glare at him, but he handed back the licence. Jackson, the other patrol officer, looking at the big holdup O’Toole was causing by his questions, said testily, “Aw, for Pete’s sake, Fred, there’s a mile of the bastards still waiting.”
O’Toole stepped back and waved Perry on. Perry’s grin widened, his foot squeezed down on the gas pedal, and the Cutlass gathered speed.
Well, he had made it, he thought, as he snapped on the radio. He had fooled those two jerks and now… Paradise City, here I come!
Washington Smith had to be much more careful how he arrived in the City. Negroes weren’t encouraged anyway even if they were respectable, and Washington Smith was now far from being respectable. He had been out of jail for two weeks. His crime was hitting two police officers who had cornered him and were about to put the boot in. He had been stupid enough to have taken part in a freedom-to-vote march. The march had been ruthlessly broken up, the marchers scattered and because Wash — as his friends called him — was a little guy, two big cops had chased him up a cul-de-sac and had got set to have themselves a ball. But Wash happened to be a welter- weight contender for the Golden Gloves. Instead of meekly accepting the beating, he flattened both officers with two beautiful left hooks to their jaws. Then he had run, but not far. A bullet in his leg brought him down, and a club descending on his head knocked him unconscious. He drew eight months for resisting arrest and he had come out of jail savage and determined that from now on he would be an enemy of the Whites.
When he received the summons to Paradise City, he had hesitated. Could this be a trap? he had asked himself. The message was brief.
It could be a hoax, Wash had thought, but an expensive one. There had been two one-hundred dollar bills inside the envelope.
Besides, he knew Mish Collins whom he had met in jail and whoa a he liked and respected. A very large sum of money! That’s what he needed right now. Without big money, a negro had no life o his own. He decided he had nothing to lose.
He arrived in Paradise City under a load of crates of lettuces on their way to the Paradise-Ritz Hotel. He had lain hidden as the truck had been waved through the police check point, his heart thumping, his nerves crawling.So he, like the other three, beat the police cordon set up to protect the rich of Paradise City.The first move in Serge Maisky’s plan to rob the richest Casino in the world had succeeded.
The Black Crab Restaurant was contained in a three-storey wooden building, built on stilts, thirty yards into the sea and reached by a narrow jetty. It was the meeting place for the sponge divers of the Florida Marine Manufacturing Co., and very few tourists, and certainly none of the residents of Seacombe, ever visited the place. It was notorious for heavy drinking, brawls and excellent sea food.
On the top floor of the building there were three private diningrooms. They were reached by an outside staircase, and people with important matters to discuss could be sure of complete privacy. The negro waiter who officiated on the third floor was a deaf-mute.
In the largest of the private dining-rooms that had a view of the distant lights of Paradise City and the harbour with its anchored yachts, preparations had been completed for a dinner of five covers.
Mish Collins was the first to arrive. Jos, the negro waiter, regarded him, nodded, and then silently handed him a tumbler containing a treble rum, lime and cracked ice.
Perry and Chandler arrived together, and, a minute or so later, Washington Smith slid uneasily into the room.
Mish took over the duties of the host.
“Welcome, fellas,” he said. “Make yourselves at home. The dinge is deaf and dumb. Don’t worry about him.” He beamed at Wash, holding out his hand. “H’yah, bud. Long time no see.”
Wash shook hands, nodding, while Perry eyed him with a quizzing, bleak stare.
Chandler refused the rum and lime, and asked for a whisky and soda. Jos stared blankly at him, then returned to his task of opening oysters that lay in a tub of ice.
“Help yourself,” Mish said. “The stuff’s all there. I told you, didn’t I !… he’s a deaf-mute.”
Still staring at Wash, Perry said, “Who’s he? What’s he doing here?”
“What are we all doing here?” Mish said and laughed. “Sit down, fellas. Let’s get to know each other.” He pointed to Chandler who had made his drink and was now looking out of the window at the view. “He’s Jess.” The thick finger pointed to Washington Smith. “He’s Wash.” He nodded to Perry. “That’s Jack. I guess you all know who I am. Come on, fellas, relax,” and he went over to a chair and sat down.Wash had refused a drink. He stood uneasily by the door. He was always awkward and on the defensive in the company of Whites.
