James Hadley Chase

150 Pages·2012·1.46 MB·English

1944
James Hadley
Chase
JUST THE WAY IT IS
GAMBLER WITH A GUN
Harry Duke has a reputation. As a gambler. And in
Bentonville, USA, gambling is King. But Duke has another
reputation. He killed a man once. So no-one messes with
Harry Duke.
That is, until someone tries to make it look like Duke slit a
guy's throat one night. It's a neat frame-up. But Duke still
has a few aces in his hand. Aces and a gun ...
Joe pushed her back on the bed. He looked down at her. A
muscle in his cheek began to twitch. "I'll take care of him," he
said, softly. He touched her throat very gently with his fingers. She
flinched, staring up at him.
"Why do you do that ?"
"I was just thinking. So he put a rope around your neck, did
he?"
His small spidery fingers continued to caress her throat. "He
shouldn't have done that."
The look of his eyes chilled her and she pulled herself close to
him, burying her face against the soft leather of his jerkin. Still
smiling, his eyes on the opposite wall, Joe continued to caress her
throat...
"A collector's item."
EASTERN DAILY PRESS
JAMES HADLEY
CHASE
JUST THE WAY IT IS
ONE
Fairview was dying. In the past, it had been a go-ahead, prosperous
little town and its two large factories, specializing in hand-tools, had
been a lucrative source of wealth.
Now, Fairview had had its golden age. Mass production had
seen to that. The little town's methods of production could not
compete with the modern factories that had sprung up overnight in
the neighbouring districts.
Mass production and Bentonville had put paid to Fairview.
Bentonville was a rapidly expanding manufacturing town some
thirty miles away. It was a mushroom town. A town for the younger
generation with brightly painted shops, neat, cheap little
bungalows, swift trolley cars and a young, vigorous beating heart of
commerce.
The youth of Fairview had gone either to Bentonville or
farther north; some even to New York. The more progressive
businesses had transferred to Bentonville as soon as the writing
appeared on the wall. Only the less enterprising smaller shops were
left to carry on as best they could.
Fairview was defeated. You could see it in the shabby houses,
the unkept roads and the quality of goods in the shop windows. You
could see it in the dignified shabbiness of the small colony of retired
business people who had done well in the golden age and were
content to live out their days in this sad, stagnating little town. And
you could see it particularly in the numbers of unemployed who
gathered at street corners, indifferent and apathetic.
But there was still one small spark of life to be found in
Fairview. This was not because of enterprise, but through the
carelessness of Philip Harman, one time Czar of Fairview, who had
long since gone to richer pastures.
Some ten years ago, when Fairview was at the peak of its
prosperity, Harman had founded a newspaper for the town. It was
an eight-page weekly which endeavoured to influence the citizens
of Fairview with Harman's political views, Harman's ethics and
Harman's religious opinions.
It was not until Harman left the town and gave the newspaper
over to Sam Trench, the editor, with orders to keep it going, that
the Clarion became really popular.
Harman, if he remembered the newspaper, would have no
doubt withdrawn his support as the years went on. But he had left a
banker's order for a sum of money to be used each month to
support the Clarion. As he was immensely rich and busy, he forgot
about the banker's order and the Clarion was able to continue its
struggle for existence at his expense.
The offices of the newspaper were as unassuming as the
newspaper itself. There were three rooms and an outer office. The
staff consisted of the editor, Sam Trench; a reporter, Al Barnes;
three somewhat inefficient clerks and Clare Russell.
Clare was the mainspring of the Clarion. The office, the staff
and the copy revolved round her. She was responsible for the small
spark of life that remained in the newspaper.
It was Harman who had invited her to join the staff of the
Clarion. Three years ago, she would have laughed at the idea. But
then, three years ago, she had been the star reporter on the Kansas
City Tribune.
Clare had had a remarkable career. She had begun at
seventeen as a stenographer to the editor of the Kansas City Herald.
She soon discovered a talent for writing, but the editor had other
ideas about women contributing to his paper. That did not deter
Clare. She went over to the Tribune where she edited the woman's
page with considerable success.
8
She was a worker and it was not long before she had
established a reputation for herself. Eventually she became a star
reporter and entered the editorial office.
Her future looked good. She was regarded as a shining
example of what a good reporter should be. Consequently she
undertook more work than she could safely manage. That, scrappy
meals and irregular hours undermined her stamina. She became ill
and for a long time she remained in her little bedroom, an object of
interest only to the old doctor who called twice a week to see her.
When she finally began work again, she found that the driving
spark had gone. She could no longer keep the long hours or work at
the necessary pressure.
The editor sent for her and told her politely that she had
better look for less arduous work. She didn't make a scene. She was
too old a hand in the newspaper world to complain. She had seen
too many other reporters who had burnt themselves out go the
same way. So she packed her bag and shook the dust of Kansas City
off her feet.
Philip Harman met her in Bentonville and persuaded her to
join the staff of his newspaper. He offered her half what she was
getting on the Kansas City Tribune, but that was to be expected. For
one thing she was a failure and another thing the Clarion was
failing.
Clare made up her mind quickly. She began work on the
Clarion the following week. She had been on the newspaper for
some time now and she had the satisfaction of knowing that the
circulation had increased by two thousand copies by her own
efforts, in spite of Harman's gloomy prediction that in two years the
Clarion would be finished.
When the office staff of the Clarion saw Clare for the first
time, they were shaken out of their usual apathy. There were not
many attractive girls in Fairview so Clare came as a pleasant and
intriguing diversion.
9
She was dark, with thick wavy hair and her dark eyes were
alive with nervous energy. Her smartness and self-possession
declared her astonishing efficiency.
The editor, Sam Trench, took to her immediately. Sam Trench
had been in the newspaper game all his life. He knew a good
reporter from a bad one in one swift, searching glance, in the same
way as you could tell a race-horse from a cart-horse.
Trench was a sad and disillusioned old man. When Fairview
had been prosperous he had been proud of his job and proud of the
town. Now, he could see the cracks not only in the structure of the
town but also in the structure of his newspaper.
He hated Bentonville. He hated anything anti-social and
Bentonville with its pool-rooms, its get-rich methods and its little
Czars was slowly crushing Fairview out of existence.
Bentonville had grown up so swiftly and had become so rich
overnight, that is standards suffered accordingly. Trench knew that
its political system was riddled with graft. The police were in the
hands of the politicians and the politicians were in the hands of an
extensive gambling organization.
There existed in Bentonville hundreds of pool-rooms and
gambling houses. Practically every shop had two or three crooked
automatic machines. Even the children of Bentonville gambled.
There was plenty of money in the town and the gambling fever was
fanned by the organization, who made an extremely good thing out
of it.
The actual work of the organization was done by Tod Korris.
He had some twenty men under him, who supervised the automatic
machines, collected protection money from anyone rich enough to
require protection and controlled several of the pool-rooms.
Trench knew, however, that behind Korris was the real
racket-boss. Apart from his name, which was Vardis Spade, no one
knew who he was, where he lived or even what he looked like.
10
Spade kept the police on his payroll and allowed the
politicians to share in his profits. There was no opposition. Sam
Trench did venture once to attack the gambling system in
Bentonville but the whole of that issue of the Clarion was seized
and destroyed by Korris's mob. So he tried no more.
Clare, when she first came to the Clarion, had wanted to write
a series of articles on the men behind the gambling racket, but Sam
was very firm with her.
Korris had been quite plain about the Clarion's position.
"Keep your nose out of Bentonville's affairs," he had said over the
telephone, "and we'll leave you alone. But, write just one line in
your rag that we don't like and you'll have a nice fire on your
hands." He had hung up before Sam could assure him there would
be no trouble.
Bentonville was news. Fairview was not. Both Clare and
Barnes, the other Clarion reporter, would drive over to Bentonville,
poke around and come back with an interesting batch of material.
Sam would read their articles and then throw them into the
trash-basket. "Do you want this building to go up in smoke?" was
his invariable explanation.
But in the end, the staff of the Clarion were to have their
story about the gambling organization and what was more, they
were to play an active part in its final defeat. But the incidents that
led up to this at first gave no hint of the violence and even sudden
death that were to come, before the final curtain was rung down.
If it hadn't been for Lorelli, a waif from the underworld, Harry
Duke would never have bothered to interest himself in the affairs of
Bellman, the night-club owner. If it hadn't been for Harry Duke, no
one would have known that Timson had been murdered. And if it
hadn't been for a chance remark that was overheard, Vardis Spade
might still be operating in a big way today.
The small pieces built into larger pieces and the larger pieces
completed the jig-saw. The extraordinary thing was that although
this gambling organization had been in existence six years, it only
took three days to pull the foundations from under them.
Three days.
This is how the first day began.
12
TWO
On a hot afternoon in June Clare found Barnes and a thin little man,
with hard, shrewd eyes, playing crap in her office.
She had been over to the Municipal Buildings to collect
material on a slum clearance scheme which the Clarion had been
sponsoring.
She found it particularly exasperating that Barnes should have
chosen her office for a crap game.
"I can't have you in here," she said, pulling off her hat and
shaking her hair free, "I've got work to do."
"Why, hello, Angel skin," Barnes said, glancing up as he
reached for the dice. His big, rubbery face split into an uneasy smile.
"I didn't think you were coming back."
She glanced at his companion without interest. "Take your
friend out of here, Al," she said, "and play somewhere else."
"You ain't met Timson, have you?" Barnes said hurriedly.
"Timmy, this is Miss Russell. The Miss Russell. She's a great girl once
you get to know her. I don't know her yet, but I'm getting
acquainted."
Timson looked at Clare admiringly. She didn't like the glassy
expression in his eyes. "Why, I'm pleased to meet you, Miss Russell.
I've read your column and I think it's swell."
Barnes pushed his hat over his nose. "When did you learn to
read, you old horse thief?" he demanded. "Don't you listen to him,
Clare. He's a married man with two children."
"You've got me wrong there," Timson said, trying to be jovial.
13