The Grab: A Classic Crime Novel Page 12

  She said: “I’ve only you to turn to now, Joe. I can’t go to the police like other people.” She looked up at me, and her big, brown eyes were pathetic. “You won’t let me down, will you?”

  I told her I wouldn’t let her down. I told her at length, and in detail, and the way I spoke brought the blush to her cheeks, and though her eyes dropped I knew she was pleased.

  We were halfway across to Istanbul when I saw that form again. This time I knew I wasn’t mistaken, but I didn’t attempt to go forward and speak with the man. Instead I averted my head and got down in my deep chair alongside the girl so that I wouldn’t be recognized. I wanted as much pleasure as I could from Marie’s company, and that didn’t require any third party.

  When we were leaving the ship amid the noise and bustle of the Istanbul docks, I went forward and touched that man upon his shoulder. I did it gently, from behind, and I thought he was going to collapse. His head came round and there was almost an expression of terror in his face.

  We looked into a big, fat, moon face with eight-sided business-tycoon’s glasses.

  It was B.G.

  And it was pathetic, his relief when he saw us. He said: “My God, I thought it was someone else.” And then he became aggrieved. “Why did you have to do that, scaring a fellow’s pants off?”

  We went across to a taxi together. I grinned, said: “You’re not on the run from little Lav, are you?”

  He hung his head and mumbled something. It was something about always wanting to see Büyükada, but he didn’t fool me. I knew then that B.G. had taken a boat to those distant islands in order to escape any further pursuit from little Miss Dunkley.

  I kidded him a bit. I said: “The heck, B.G., you didn’t need to hide out during the daytime. She’s safe enough in sunshine.” I shoved my face closer to his and said, grimly: “Brother, it’s after dark when it hits those dames. You wanna keep out of her way tonight!”

  He was wanting to get into the taxi with Marie and myself, but I put my hand on his chest and held him off. I didn’t see why the boss should travel in the same car as his employee. I’m no snob, but I don’t always go for the company of bosses.

  I said: “Not on your life, brother. You pay your own fare.” And then I gave him a few orders. “Listen, B.G., I want you to do something for me. I’m going out with Marie Konti to the construction site. In about three hours’ time, but not before, I want you to get that information to Benny at the desk.”

  B.G.’s fat face looked helplessly at me. He yammered;

  “How shall I do that? What’s it for, anyway?”

  I soothed him. I said: “Look, all you need do is use his desk phone and put a call through to someone. Pretend you’re telling them where to find me—say, ‘I know he went out to the construction site a while back. Sure, he had that dame with him. I reckon he’s planning to stay out there the night with her.’ Make out you’re good and mad with me for playing around when I should be working, and don’t let on you know there’s anything deep afoot.”

  B.G. blinked through his glasses at me. “That bit about being good and mad with you for playing around will be easy,” he said, and it made me grin to hear the viciousness in his voice. He certainly would put that bit over well. Then he went on anxiously: “But what trouble is afoot?”

  He was so dumb he hadn’t seen anything of what had happened to Marie Konti in the past few hours. I didn’t explain. I patted him on the fat shoulder, took all his spare cash off him, and left him to find his own taxi.

  We went out to the site just as dusk was falling—that quick dusk which comes when you’re near the tropics.

  Enormous lights now bathed that construction site, where the equipment was herded together for the night.

  This night it wouldn’t be in action, but the moment the repairs had been completed, it would mean a twenty-four-hour working day in order to catch up on time lost. I got the taxi-driver to wait and, tucking Marie’s arm under mine, I walked her to the mobile workshop, where men were working hard. I knew they were working hard because of the hammering and the bad language, which always follows when men are going at full strength.

  Gorby saw me coming and started to be sarcastic about people who ducked out when there was work to be done. Then he saw who was hanging onto my arm, and he checked some of the rough words, which might have come from the Tuhlman lips.

  I said: “There’s not many people working around tonight, Gorby.”

  Gorby growled: “There’s not much work anyone can do until those spare are flown in.” He looked at his strap-watch on his oil-stained wrist, and said: “I’m going any time now. We’ve done all we can. So far as I’m concerned, this place closes down in a few minutes, until tomorrow.”

  He looked at me, his eyes grim in that sour puss of his, and he said: “You take over then, Mr. Trouble-Buster.”

  I nodded. I knew I was on duty from now on, and I liked it that way.

  He messed around for a while and then got a paraffin rag and cleaned himself down. The other men were doing the same, and beginning to drift out to where the transports waited to take them back to Istanbul.

  Then Gorby said, abruptly: “The men are saying that there’ll be trouble again. Maybe not tonight, but certainly again. They’ll have another try to sabotage the equipment, and if you let them, by glory, I’ll tear you apart with a mechanical grabber.”

  I just said: “I’ll be around when any trouble starts.”

  Gorby went at that and the others followed. I knew they were talking among themselves, and I knew what they’d be saying. The Trouble-Buster had brought a dame out with him to keep him company during the long, dark hours of vigil.

  Their eyes said: “Nice work, Joe!” But with it all was that sarcasm which implied: “How d’you get these jobs, Heggy?”

  I guessed that most of them would have swapped jobs with me as they saw us standing there together in the lighted doorway of the mobile workshop. Marie Konti looked her best anytime, and those lights were as kind and revealing as morning sunshine.

  Gorby got into the truck and then shouted: “You won’t want the lights on all night, will you?”

  I called back: “No, but keep the generator running. Maybe there’ll be need for those lights at a minute’s notice.”

  So Gorby stuck his head out and shouted something, and one of the Turkish night-guards who had been so ineffective the previous night went over to the throbbing generator to throw a switch and put us all in darkness. He didn’t do it immediately but stood there, watching, until the big transport lurched and ground away across the uneven terrain.

  Then he turned to look across at me, waiting to see what I wanted. I wasn’t going to move until those lights were out. So I shouted: “Douse ’em!”

  He threw the switch and immediately there was a profound darkness. The moment that darkness was upon us I grabbed Marie round her slim, warm waist and trundled her off round the back of the mobile workshop. I’d got it all figured out. Behind us was the giant grab, the only equipment, according to Gorby, which hadn’t been damaged. I walked with my hand outstretched, until I ran against the big caterpillar tread.

  Then I fumbled around until I came up behind and found the steep steel ladder which led up to the cabin where the operator sat high above his work. I looked round into the intense darkness then, but the other guards had all been clustered together around the generator, and I didn’t think anyone could see where I proposed to hide bonny Marie Konti,

  I whispered: “You’ve got to do some climbing, baby.” And I put her hand on the step rung.

  She was game for anything, and at once began to ascend the steel ladder. I came up right behind, so that in fact I was almost on a level with her all the way up. I didn’t want to risk a sudden attack of nerves, because we were going quite a height, and if she had fallen she would have done herself a lot of harm.

  We came out on the tiny platform at the head of the steps and I held onto her like grim death in case she took a fatal step off th
at square-yard of steel plating.

  I had the keys, and I soon found the one for the grab, and inserted it in the lock after much fumbling and got the door open. We went inside. I closed the door on us and felt safe then. Now she couldn’t take a tumble and break her neck. I got into the padded seat alongside the huge levers that operated the crane. It was a nice comfortable seat, designed to keep a man happy during long hours perched high above the earth while that great grab dived and bit up tons of earth and carried it round and discharged it elsewhere. There was only one place Marie could sit, now that I was in the operator’s seat.

  That was on my lap.

  In that darkness I reached out and my hands fell on her soft, warm young body, and I pulled her gently onto my knee. She didn’t object. So we sat there for a long time, and when I kissed her she didn’t object. Rather she became...impulsive. She was warm-blooded, and gave back all that she received.

  She whispered: “I like you, Joe. You make me feel so—safe.”

  I didn’t tell Marie how she made me feel. Instead I showed her.

  That wasn’t on the schedule, incidentally. I’d intended to park her there, lock her in, and then go off on the next part of the plan. But don’t tell me any man of my age could pass up a chance like that. That wouldn’t have been human, and Joe P. Heggy is always human.

  But there came a time when I had to say to her: “The clock’s going round, Marie. I’m expecting friends of yours shortly, and I’ve got to get ready to receive them.” She clung to me in the darkness, terrified, but I reassured her. “Who would think of looking up here for you, sweetheart? You’re all right. Just curl up in this chair and go to sleep, and leave Uncle Joe to fix this party so that you’ll never have any trouble again.”

  I kissed her—kissed her a couple of times more because there wasn’t anything nicer I could think of right then—and then I locked her in and went carefully down that ladder. I walked across and found the night-watchmen, and they had already got themselves comfortably down for a night’s sleep. It’s what you expect of watchmen anywhere in the world. I didn’t say anything, because they weren’t any part of my plans, anyway.

  Then I started the long walk across to the track where the taxi waited for me with sidelights glowing. I got into the taxi and we drove away and went through the town and down to the bridge and across into the low quarter again. Then I told that taxi driver to get two or three more taxis and wait for me, because I was going to need them.

  I went down an alley that was familiar to me, and then I found that broken wall, which gave down onto the wharf of that chemical factory. It wasn’t pleasant, because so early there was little moon, and the way was uneven and not too familiar to me. I’d just started to go under the wharf, when I froze rigid. There had been a movement along the alley behind me.

  When I stopped, that movement stopped, too.

  I waited a long time, but whoever was back there didn’t show, so I took a risk and began to follow that almost unseen path along the broken back wall, which supported the wharf overhead. It was a place full of shadows, with the only light reflecting from the waters fifty yards away at the end of the wharf. I didn’t like those shadows, because I could think of enormous brutes of men standing there and waiting to get me as I passed. Normally I’m a giant among men, but I knew now I was in a foreign country, and these local inhabitants could make me look as weak as a child. I was among specialists in strength.

  Not on yow life I was!

  When I found my way to that rocky little room with its sacking cover I saw the remains of a dull glowing fire there, and no one else. The boys were out again.

  That did it! I’d wanted to get those boys and be away with them within minutes. But now they were essential to my plans, and I had to wait for their return. I only hoped to God they wouldn’t be long!

  I kicked up the fire, more to give light than because any warmth was needed that night.

  And then I looked up to where that sacking curtain hung, and I saw that it was pulling gently apart.

  Someone was on the other side and was taking a peek at me.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  NYLONS!

  It’s the Heggy way to go bald-headed. I didn’t give a damn if I was up against men of formidable strength; all I knew was that attack was probably no worse than waiting to be attacked.

  I lunged forward, snarling nasty words, partly to keep my spirit up and partly to intimidate. My hands grabbed through that crack in the curtain and fell upon a body.

  And I knew as soon as my fingers dug in that I’d been mistaken.

  This was no man, spying on me.

  I pulled, and a woman came through the curtain.

  She was that young woman, the smaller of the two, who had brought my clothes back that morning. I released her, and she rubbed herself where my fingers had perhaps hurt a little.

  I said: “Sorry, sweetheart. But I didn’t know I had a lady calling on me.”

  She got over her scare quickly, and then she smiled at me. It was a smile that she wouldn’t have given me if there had been another Turk there, especially another Turkish female. Because the Turks don’t like their womenfolk smiling kindly at foreigners.

  She stood there, a sturdy figure in her simple cotton garment, her mighty legs—because like her menfolk she was of massive, muscular build—her feet bare, as were her arms up to the elbows. Her big brown happy face looked at me and I knew what it felt like to be Errol Flynn in the presence of a bobbysoxer. I was as big as all that and as attractive to this Turkish maiden.

  She started to move towards me, and I got scary. I thought: “My God, if the men come back and find me with one of their gals they’ll think the worst!” For certain then they’d do things to me that I wouldn’t like, and they’d affect my night’s plans.

  The girl, though, was eager and persistent, and she got me up against the back wall where I couldn’t retreat. And there was something irresistible seeming to drive her now, to pursue me. I thought it was me, and then suddenly she spoke a word of an international language and I knew I was mistaken.

  Her smile widened, and I saw big, very nice white teeth flash as she said: “Nylons?”

  It was the same old story! Go where you like in the world and everywhere you get the same question put to you if you’re American—“Nylons?” I looked at this girl, and I thought: “You’ve probably never had a pair of stockings in your life, except the hideous cotton ones the Turkish women wear in winter.”

  And then I thought: “Sister, I’m going to fill your arms right full of nylons. I’m going to make one dame happy!”

  Because I remembered I had never paid her for the laundry work she and her friend had done. I nodded, and said: “Baby, you’ll get your nylons.”

  Those big, brown peasant eyes looked incredulous. She had to make sure. She hitched up that thin cotton frock and showed a massive thigh—mighty, but not without its attractions because she was young and full of vigour. And so was Joe P. Heggy.

  She pantomimed, watching me anxiously and drawing her hand gently along her leg until she came to a level where you might expect stockings to end, then again she said: “Nylons?”

  I was suddenly filled with recklessness. At times Joseph gets to showing off, and this time was one when Joe P. H. could act the big guy and it would not set him back much. At a dollar a time, stockings didn’t rate high in the Heggy vocabulary; anyway, it would go on to the expenses sheet.

  I waved grandly. “Yeah, nylons.” I held up two fingers and said: “One pair.” I don’t know whether she got it, whether she understood those fingers to represent one pair of stockings or two pairs, but it didn’t matter a damn. Then I flicked up two more fingers and drawled: “Two pairs for you, honey!”

  Her eyes went wider. Her mouth opened and I heard the incredulous gasp of delight as my words registered in her nylon-starved brain. She was still standing there with her dress lifted right up, showing her strong young limbs, but she didn’t know it in her delight. And
she was straightening and that lifted the dress all the higher and in a minute I was going to know if my guess had been good, that she didn’t run to duds underneath her dress.

  I flicked up three fingers on each hand and chanted: “Three pairs!” And my eyes were widening, watching more and more of those brown young legs. She gasped louder.

  I was making a fool of myself, and didn’t know it. I flicked up the other fingers. “Five pairs!” I crowed. “Honey, I’ll be down with them tomorrow—if I live!”

  It was too much for her, the thought of such joys becoming her own. She made crooning noises of ecstasy and padded forward a couple of steps on her bare feet. Then she dropped her dress and held out her arms to me, and her eyes were shining. She was looking at Joe P. Heggy through a nylon veil right then, and Joe P. Heggy looked the kind of guy she’d dreamed of.

  I looked at that curtain, showing in the red firelight, and I found myself licking my lips. She was lusty, a wench worth a moment...but I didn’t dare. Any moment Primitive Man might return.

  I went back, away from the glowing fire, and I tried to explain things to her, but we didn’t speak the same language. She’d probably never met a man who wanted to say no before in her life.

  Come to think of it, I’d known only one. B.G. But he was no man. He was the boss.

  She didn’t know what she was doing, but she did it mighty slickly. She got me in a corner, and then I had to stop going away from her. Her eyes were shining, and she kept crooning: “Nylons! Nylons!”

  She caught my hand and pressed it against her lips and forehead, and then she was struggling to get at me—well, that’s how it seemed to me. Trying to grab both of my hands and kiss them, and then trying to throw her arms round me and hug me in her ecstasy. And jabbering away all the time, in a flood of language that didn’t mean anything to me except l’amour.

  And me with my eyes on that damned sacking curtain, and scared yellow it was going to part and a trog shove his ugly mug in.