An Ace Up My Sleeve by James Hadley Chase Read Free Book Online Page A

without luggage. She was well known there. Then she remembered passing a store on her way to the bank. She made an instant, impulsive decision.
    "Listen, Larry, I don't want to go on. I want to rest. You can't come with me to an hotel, dressed as you are." She opened her bag and took out some Swiss money. "There is a store at the end of the street: turn right as you leave here. I want you to buy yourself a dark suit, a white shirt and black tie. You will also need a lined mackintosh and shoes. You will come to the hotel as my chauffeur. Please take this money and buy these things. Will you also change at the store? Put what you have on in a suitcase." He was staring blankly at her. "But I can't do that, ma'am. It wouldn't be right. I ..."
    "Oh, for God's sake do as I ask!" Her voice had become waspish. "I'm tired! There's the money ... do what I say!"
    Startled by the note in her voice, he picked up the money, pulled at the peak of his cap, then went out. She heard the front door slam.
    She drew in a long breath, then with unsteady hands, she lit a cigarette. She waited, aware of the uncanny silence that hung over the building. She was getting more and more involved, she thought, but this was something that had happened before in a different way. In her present mood, she accepted risks.
    In an hour or so, she thought, she would be at the hotel where the service was perfect. She imagined getting into the bath, resting in the bed and then, drinking her first vodka martini. The hotel would accept Larry as her chauffeur, but she would have to be careful. He would have to eat on his own and this she regretted – how bored she was eating meals alone in luxury restaurants, but she knew the hotel would raise its eyebrows and remember if Mrs. Herman Rolfe took dinner with her chauffeur. But after dinner, when she was in the seclusion of her bedroom, she would telephone to Lam', telling him to come to her. He was almost certain to be a clumsy, selfish lover, but she would control him. Her heart began to hammer as she imagined the moment when he took her roughly in his arms.
    The door opened, startling her and Friedlander came in. He looked around, his cunning little eyes puzzled.
    "Where's Larry?"
    "He'll be back. Have you got it?"
    "Of course." He edged into the room, closing the door. "It's a beautiful job." "Let me see it."
    He hesitated, then coming over to her, he handed her the passport. It looked genuine enough and was just worn enough to be acceptable. The name on the passport was Larry Sinclair. Profession: Student. Larry a student? She shrugged. The word Student meant nothing these days: a smoke screen behind which so many young people hid as the word Model was used as often as a smoke screen for a whore.
    The photograph was poor, but the stamp looked authentic. "Yes ... it is good."
    "It is a work of art," Friedlander said peevishly. "It is worth more than three thousand. Be fair, dear ... give me another five hundred. That's not being unreasonable."
    She opened her bag and without taking the roll of money from the bag, she stripped off three one thousand franc bills and dropped them on to the table. Then she put the passport in her bag and closed it. "If you want more, talk to Larry," she said. He picked up the bills and put them in his pocket.
    "Don't make mistakes, dear ... so easy to make mistakes." He stared at her.
    "Meanness always comes home to roost."
    She eyed him with contempt.
    "Go away! You and your filthy breed bore me!"
    His small eyes turned baleful.
    "Don't say I didn't warn you." He backed to the door. "I'd rather be what I am than what you are/ and he flounced out of the room.
    She sat still, furious, and men after thinking, she suddenly became sick of herself. His parting shot had hurt.
    Twenty minutes later, Larry returned. She heard him tap on the front door and she went to open it. He came in out of the falling snow and into the light of the shabby room. She scarcely recognized him. Cone was the gum