Read Thieves Fall Out for Free Online

wheels, my boy. Remember one thing, though: Keep looking over your shoulder. There may be trouble. Handle a gun?”
    “Pretty well.”
    “Said will probably give you one. Be careful about using it.”
    “Just what sort of business are you in, Mr. Hastings?”
    The Englishman chuckled. “You might say I’m an export-import man.” And that was all the information Pete could get out of him.
    As they left the dining room, Hastings took out his wallet and counted out, very slowly, a hundred pounds, which he gave to Pete, along with an envelope. “The envelope contains Egyptian currency, expense money as per agreed.”
    “Thanks,” said Pete, pocketing the money casually.
    Hastings said with his cold but genial smile, “We trust you, my boy. Absolute confidence you’ll come through.”
    Pete said he was very touched.
    “Drop by for dinner tonight,” said Hastings, just before he got into the waiting car out front. “Hélène would like to see you, I’m sure, and I’ll have your reservation for you. Train leaves at ten-thirty. Come about eight.”
    “Yes, sir.” A thought occurred to Pete. “You don’t happen to know a pianist, do you, name of Le Mouche? Works at a bar.”
    The look Hastings gave him was as bland and empty as ice. “Friend of yours?”
    “No. I think I ran into him my first night here, when I was drinking. Thought he might be connected with some traveler’s checks I lost that night at his bar.”
    “Better take it easy. You can get stuck in a place like that.”
    “Stuck?”
    “With a knife. See you later.” And Hastings was driven away.
    * * *
    At five o’clock, wearing new clothes, Pete arrived at Le Couteau Rouge. The fact that Hastings had warned him, in so many words, not to go there was all he needed to spur him on. Besides, he was curious to know more about the piano player.
    The bartender greeted him pleasantly. “Everything O.K.?”
    Pete said everything was O.K. and ordered beer, Munich beer.
    The bar was beginning to fill up. Sailors from various foreign navies crowded about the bar. Tough-looking French girls, usually in pairs, sat at the small marble-topped tables that edged the walls, eying the men shrewdly. Small dapper Frenchmen and burly Arab types wearing European clothes seemed to make up the regular clientele. They sat at tables close to the bar, talking to each other, their hands moving excitedly, their eyes turned occasionally on the newcomers at the bar, sizing them up in much the same way the women did. How much money’s he got? How drunk is he? Pete looked about sharply when he took his place at the bar to see if there was anyone he recognized or anyone who seemed to recognize him. Except for curious calculating stares, he aroused no particular interest.
    The back of the bar was like a dim cavern with more tables, on each of which stood a bottle containing a stump of candle, unlit. They weren’t wasteful in this dive, he thought, his eyes straining through the gloom to see what was at the far end. He finally made out, at the very back of the room, a double door to the left of which was an upright piano. More tables, also empty, filled the space from the piano to the bar where he stood. It was obviously too early for those tables to fill up.
    Someone pulled at his coat sleeve. He turned and saw the blonde with the delicate mustache. “Oh, hello,” he said, making room for her at the bar. “Want a drink?”
    “Pernod,” she said with a bright smile that revealed dark irregular teeth; she was not his idea of a good time. “You have a good day today?”
    He wondered if these people had a sixth sense about money. They seemed to know if you had it or if you’d lost it or if you were going to get it. Love of money was the one thing they all had in common. It was both business and religion to those who lived below the city’s surface.
    “A real good day.”
    “I am glad for you,” she said, drinking her Pernod daintily, not letting the fine hairs on her upper