The Grab: A Classic Crime Novel Read online

  I think my suspicions were aroused from the start, because as they came in, each of them looked round the restaurant and seemed in turn to meet my eyes. After that they went to a table and never once appeared to look in my direction at all. Don’t think it ego, but I felt that to be unnatural, in view of the interest our table was attracting from the surrounding patrons.

  I came back to my own party as waiters tried tact-fully to get the boys into chairs at a table adjoining ours. Plainly the boys were drunk and ripe for mischief, and were already stirring things up for their boss.

  B.G. apparently hadn’t introduced the English piece of frumpery, so I obliged, thinking that it might quiet down the boys and get them in their seats. I said: “This is Lav, boys. If she knew what a Casanova she was sitting next to, she’d get the hell out of this place pretty quick, I can tell you.”

  B.G. looked nastily at me, but at least it got those boys into their chairs at the next table, and that was something. Only, it didn’t stop their voices.

  Marty was especially drunk, and everything he said brought hiccups of delight from Harry Sauer and Tony Geratta. They were almost in the mood to giggle at anything, though. Marty bawled out, in a voice loud enough for half the restaurant to hear: “Li’l B.G.’s found a soul-mate at last.” He looked round at his companions with drunken solemnity, and said: “All these years he’s been saving the Gissenheim torso for the moment when the right li’l woman came along. And now—she’s got it!”

  It made B.G. blush and blink behind his glasses, because Marty was touching him in a tender place. I tell you that B.G. had more complexes and inhibitions and wrong slants on life than any fifteen men I’ve ever met. He didn’t believe in enjoying himself. Leastways, that’s how it looked to us.

  For instance, he used to click his tongue when we talked about the good times we had with the gals we met in these countries to which we travelled. He used to sit apart and look as if he wasn’t listening, but we all knew that his ears were flapping just the same. And one day he had tried to crush us, by telling us what an example he was setting. He was avoiding women, he had told us, because he was saving himself for the moment when the right woman came into his life.

  The boys had never forgotten that statement—and they’d never let B.G. forget it, either. Now Marty began crudely to tell Lavinia what a paragon she had picked up, and didn’t she think she was lucky to have met up with a virgin, so far from home? Yeah, he used that word; and while a woman will take a court action if she isn’t acclaimed virgo intacta, a man hates to carry the label.

  Anyway, he doesn’t like the fact proclaimed in public.

  B.G. looked at me in an agonised manner. He wanted me to do something, but short of going across and knocking their teeth out, I didn’t see what a trouble-buster could do for him. I told him so. He hung onto my words so that he wouldn’t hear the wicked, drawling voice of Dwight Laite, who was saying things now.

  Then Harry Sauer got into trouble. One of the girls came across to their table. You know the kind I mean. All lips and smiles and a waggle of come-hither hips. There are always a few in these joints, especially since tired American businessmen began to pour into the country on construction and other jobs.

  Harry, who’s young and a nice boy, leered up at her and gave her the “Hyar, babe!” She didn’t tell him, but she halted by his side and smiled encouragingly at the Americano. Harry promptly reached out to pull her down on to his knee or do something like he’d seen on the movies.

  That girl didn’t mind. In fact, that’s what that girl wanted, because it was her trade. She had to go through the performance, of course, of struggling a little, but you expect that and everybody knows it doesn’t mean a thing. Harry knew it, and he didn’t let up.

  But someone in the audience did object. Because it was an audience now, because there was quite a lot of noise going on from Harry’s table.

  Most of the patrons were, I suspect, mildly interested by the Americans, because after all there wasn’t much untoward in their behaviour. What I mean is, extrovert Americans behave like that wherever they go—it’s a demonstration of a superiority complex engendered by a pocketful of almighty dollars, and that’s a mighty good sentence by Joe P. Heggy.

  But someone began to shout angrily, and though I didn’t know a word of what was being said, I guessed what the contents of those shouted sentences were. It was an appeal to racial hatred. Yeah, I mean it. It keeps happening, wherever you get the haves consorting with people who haven’t quite as much.

  In a moment that place was in an uproar. Suddenly lots of people decided to become angry with the Americanos who behaved arrogantly in public and offered insults to their womenfolk. The fact that the woman in question was probably Greek or Italian or some other nationality (their kind are rarely Turkish in Turkey) and she wasn’t averse to being ‘insulted’, didn’t register through their temper.

  Human psychology being what it is, all at once it seemed that Achmet’s open-air restaurant became suddenly violently anti-American. Men grew heated as they rose from their tables, and we saw their brown, angry eyes turned towards us. Not to be backward, a few of the ladies threw in a lot of high-pitched screaming.

  A harassed proprietor came running down among the tables with his hands uplifted. He didn’t want to offend his normal patrons, but these visiting Americans brought very good additional business to his restaurant. He wanted his cake and he wanted to eat it.

  I was sitting back in my chair watching proceedings, and I suppose I looked sour and cynical. I’d been through it all before in other parts of the world. But then my eyes went across to where that quartet of big slobs were sitting. For it was from this table the first angry cry had gone up against the American defilers of their womanhood. They’d started this ruckus, and I got the feeling that they had started it deliberately.

  I kept my eyes on them, and they were watching me all the time now—not the other members of my party, I was sure, just...me.

  Then a scuffle started. I suppose it was funny to watch how it began. The girl who had been ‘insulted’ had jumped up in indignation from Harry’s knee and was chattering angrily at her would-be protectors. The heck, she was saying, you keep to your own business and leave me to mine!

  But chivalrous manhood couldn’t be so ungallant. It was suddenly determined to save this girl from the insults of the foreigner. A little fellow who ought to have known better had got himself so excited that suddenly he came jumping forward in a flurry of fists and feet and smacked Harry so hard on the nose that poor Harry went crashing back out of his chair.

  That was the signal for more action. Suddenly a lot of frustrated men thought it a good thing to dissipate some of their frustration in the form of violent energy expended on the damn foreigners. Some of the younger show-offs came forward to acquit themselves before the eyes of their lovelies. The Turkish male is normally rather a jolly, good-humoured man, but he can get dramatic, especially when there is a woman sitting around to applaud his masculine abilities.

  There was a glorious shindig. Marty clouted the angry little man who had bloodied Harry’s face, and then a couple of young Turks grabbed Marty and did a lot of painful things to him. The table went over and Tony Geratta went with it. He stayed where he was on the floor and he was a wise man because he wasn’t in any condition to add to the fighting. Waiters came rushing up behind a shrieking, frantic proprietor, desperately striving to separate the contestants. Marty, Dwight, and Gorby were fighting a battle against an increasing number of irate Turkish patrons. Then Harry staggered back into the fray, and he felt sore and he got wicked with a chair.

  Oh, I forgot, I was in it, too. I just found myself going in on the side of my buddies. It’s a thing you do and you don’t question the rights or wrongs attached to the cause of your friends at such times.

  Someone loomed up and pushed my nose a couple of inches into my skull. I thought there was an idea back of that and I smacked him so hard his nose went right in among his sin
uses, or whatever is back of a Turk’s nose. Then someone jumped me and we went down and started rolling among the legs of the struggling fighters around the overturned tables. It was hot work, and I was sweating and gasping and lashing out furiously.

  Somehow I got away from the couple of Turks who were trying to cave my chest in. I had to use knees and elbows to do it, as I couldn’t have stood much more of that punishment on the ground. So I used them.

  When I got to my feet and looked at the excited faces converging in on us from all directions, I knew I was supporting a lost cause. I suddenly remembered I was a nervous man and decided to beat it. I picked Tony Geratta up and slung him over my shoulder. And then I charged towards the entrance of the nightery. Back of me Marty and the others must have got the same idea. I heard them trying to fight their way out, but they would never have done it if those waiters hadn’t dug in and given them a hand.

  I started to climb the steps, which gave on to the winter quarters of the nightclub. Then I saw B.G. ahead of me. He was sprinting so fast he looked like a greyhound—though a damn fat greyhound at that. Right behind him tagged little Miss Dunkley. I didn’t blame her.

  Neither of them had the material of fighters within them.

  But even at that moment I got a queer idea.

  It looked to me, not that Lavinia was running out on the brawl, but was determinedly chasing after big, fat B.G.

  I didn’t have time to speculate. The uproar behind me was frantic now, and almost every woman in the place was giving way to hysteria, and indignant males were grouped together and shouting after the Americanos who came to upset things. The Americanos were climbing the steps after me, and they looked considerably battered, and their clothes were torn and soiled and hung in disorder about them. And yet they seemed cheerful enough. All except Gorby Tuhlman, who was inclined to stand on his rights.

  “The hell,” he kept saying. “We didn’t start anything. I’m going to see the ambassador about this. The hell, they can’t treat me like that!”

  But they could, and by the look of it they were ready to treat us again. So, ushered out by a circle of waiters, and a manager who was trying to gloss over the incident, we went walking out into the night air.

  But just before we left that restaurant in the garden I looked towards a table where four impassive-faced huskies had been sitting, but their chairs were empty.

  I dumped Tony into the arms of Marty and Dwight. I said: “You got him like that; you get him to bed. I can’t play Nurse Nellie to all the infants around here.”

  So I went out of that nightery ahead of the boys. I saw B.G. trembling out on the sidewalk under the shaded lights that decorated the entrance to Achmet’s. He had been waving for a taxi, and I could see one lurching up in the distance. Little Miss Dunkley was standing near to him, and it seemed to me that B.G. was trying to keep a distance between himself and the frail little woman.

  I went out, the sound of triumphant Turkish manhood still loud in my ears through the swinging door of the nightery. I was looking at little Miss Dunkley. She had changed considerably, and I found myself marvelling at the change right then. If I hadn’t known that she’d only got outside a small glass of wine at the table in Achmet’s, I’d have thought her to be excited by alcohol. She seemed younger. She was not a frail-looking wisp of a woman any longer. Instead, she had rather a kind of reckless air, as if she had burnt her boats and was glad she had done so. The French have a word for her manner and it’s sufficiently English to be understood. The word is—abandon.

  I looked into her bright—astonishingly bright—eyes and her flushed face, and I thought: “There’s still a lot of life in the old girl yet!” Though she didn’t look old—she didn’t even look middle-aged, now. A night out was doing Lavinia a whole lot of good. So I couldn’t understand why B.G. was manoeuvring to keep away from her. He had liked Lavinia in her old-maidishness; why didn’t he appreciate her more now she was coming out of her shell?

  The taxi came screaming to a violent halt. That was accepted taxi practice in Istanbul, but it always scared the life out of me. That gave B.G. a chance to whisper in my ear, because Lavinia just naturally went and stood by the taxi. I turned when he came quickly up to me, and I saw the agitation on his fat face and the trembling of his hands. I said: “What in heck’s name’s bitten you, B.G.?”’

  I heard his whisper, and it was the voice of sheer agony. He said: “Oh, my God. You’ve got to do something, Heggy. Don’t forget, you’re paid to protect me!”

  I just stared at the sap, wondering if he was in his right mind.

  He went on, in those quick jumpy sentences: “Don’t you see, Heggy? It’s—her!” He was polishing his glasses again in agitation. “She’s hot!”

  My eyes swivelled towards that little woman. She was looking at B.G. with a smile on her face, and it reminded me of some smiles I had seen in the past.

  I began to laugh. I said crudely: “What was she doing to you in the taxis before?”

  He seemed to blush. He muttered: “Thar’s it, Heggy. All the time she was trying to hold on to me and get close to me.” His eyes looked agonised again. “You’ve got to keep her from me. I don’t like this, I tell you!”

  Evidently Lavinia wasn’t the right woman for B.G.! Then I heard sounds behind, as if the boys had met up with more trouble in the entrance hall of Achmet’s. I had no sympathy with B.G.’s inhibitions. I saw that Lavinia had ducked inside the taxi, and now I put my hand on B.G.’s fat back and pushed him in after her. I slammed the door on him, and shouted the name of the hotel, and the taxi went jumping away.

  The last thing I saw was B.G.’s fat face looking in terror at me through the taxi window.

  So I went back to tell the boys about it, because it seemed the funniest thing since Bob Hope. They’d rib that poor devil raw during the next six months over this incident, because none of them would understand why a man should want to run away from a perfectly willing female....

  An arm reached out from the decorative bushes that flanked the entrance to Achmet’s. I was looking through the glass doors at Marty and the others, who were having an argument with some tough-looking waiters over the bill, but I just caught a glimpse of that arm reaching towards me.

  I saw it too late. That hand grabbed me by the coat sleeve and I was yanked in among those bushes. Then someone took the Mosque of Omar and smacked me on the head with it, and I was—out!

  CHAPTER SIX

  ALMOST A CORPSE

  I was out, but for only a fraction of time. The Heggy skull has had many things bounced against it, and it has grown somewhat thick and impervious to assault in consequence.

  I think that within a couple of seconds, in fact, I began to recover some of my faculties. I remember, for some curious reason, coming out of my momentary unconsciousness with the thought: “Now, why didn’t I tell the cops about that gal who tried to take me for a sucker in her apartment?” And I remember thinking that it was against the Heggy tradition to get a dame into trouble, even though she had had rather unpleasant plans for J.P.H.

  But thoughts of that moment with the girl vanished swiftly. I found myself being dragged by the arms out from the bushes. I remember that my toes were trailing—I was as far out as that. And I remember deciding to be foxy, to give myself time to get over that crack on the skull. I let my toes drag.

  I hadn’t any doubts as to the identity of my assailants. These weren’t local thugs out to take my pocket book, I knew. If that was all they wanted, they would have grabbed my wad under cover of the shrubbery and beat it. These boys were the flat-faced apes who had started the ruckus in Achmet’s. They had been waiting for me and they wanted me, not my dough.

  I heard grunting sounds as they pulled my big weight along. Then I heard Marty’s voice. And then a crash of glass, and I thought: “The boys have seen me, and they’ve walked through the door because they hadn’t time to open it.”

  So I decided to come out of my ‘coma’ pretty quickly.

 
I lifted my head, and looked into blazing headlights, which were tearing towards us. I jumped onto my feet and wrestled with my captors. I knew what that approaching car meant. I was to be taken for a ride. Once they got me inside, I’d be well and truly a prisoner.

  For it seemed to me that I recognized that big sedan as the kidnap car that had waltzed off with the girl in pyjamas. I wasn’t going in that car. I tore into those apes and I was snarling and saying nasty things, and trying to beat the heads off them. I heard Marty shouting, but they’d got themselves tangled up with Tony Geratta, who was still not able to stand, and couldn’t follow for a few vital seconds.

  They were solid monkeys, and my fists didn’t make much impression on them. They stood around me, snarling back and chopping and battering at me, and I took an awful lot of punishment, and my head wasn’t in a condition to receive it. Then one of the apes slugged me and I just managed to get my shoulder in the way of the blow, so that it only glanced onto my cheekbone, but it sent me staggering out of the fight.

  I went down in a sideways fall, right in front of that kidnap car, and I’ll swear the driver accelerated and tried to run me down. Perhaps that would have been just as convenient to my would-be kidnappers as Joe P. Heggy alive. An accident is sometimes a convenient way of silencing a blabbermouth.

  It never got within a yard of Joe P. Heggy. I’ve dodged too much traffic around Fifth Avenue to be caught by any car driver. I got up onto one hand and took a dive beyond the car, and that gave me a chance to get away from those big, tough apes.

  That glossy, imported sedan screamed to a halt when the driver saw he had missed me, and that put the bulk of the car between me and the apes. So I started to run for it, and I got a lead because the apes had to go round the car, and that was all in my favour.