The Grab: A Classic Crime Novel. Gordon Landsborough

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      There was something moving on the floor, just inside. I reckon it was its mate. It was about four inches long, and brick red, and it ran around in quick frantic circles when I switched the light on. A kind of cockroach, you’d say, only the granddaddy of all cockroaches if it was. Anyway, I don’t know if cockroaches ever go brick red, as these Turkish crawlers do. I jumped on it. That made two bodies to dispose of. And, boy, how my stomach turned as I felt my heel go crashing through that shelly body. That’s the worst of some of these Middle East hotels. You’ve got to share your room with things which shouldn’t be there.

      I scooped up the remains and put them in the marble pan which had been made in Victoria’s time by some firm at Gateshead, England. Then I flushed them away.

      I’d just finished my shower and was climbing into my natty white suiting, when there was a polite tap on the door.

      I went across, fastening my shirt. When I opened the door I saw the corridor was filled with uniforms.

      That’s how it looked to me, anyway. There was a big guy, some sort of officer I guessed, in the Istanbul police. He was built on mighty lines, though young, A really powerful man, smooth-shaven, red-faced, rather good-looking, but tough, boy. Mighty tough.

      Back of him I saw several other cops. Maybe there were only two or three, but right then my mind kind of exaggerated everything. That corridor looked lousy with police.

      I said, firmly: “I don’t want to buy anything,” and tried to shut the door.

      One of the cops had his foot against it, and it didn’t move. So I looked sourly at that big, young officer and said: “I’ve got my passport. It’s in order. The best in the world. American.” I wanted him to know what he was up against if he was looking for trouble...Uncle Sam.

      For I was expecting trouble. I’d got this hunch in my mind that trouble was going to come dropping down on me because I’d seen something I wasn’t supposed to see...and kicked up a fuss about it afterwards. Now it looked as though that hunch was correct. Cops don’t fill a corridor for nothing.

      He gave a little deprecating wave of his gloved hand, and said: “I’m quite sure your passport is in order, Mr. Heggy.” He said it politely, too, and that added to the surprises of the night.

      He spoke with an American accent that was assured and told of residence in the States rather than tuition in our language at the American College along the Bosphorus. Clearly he had received his education in America.

      I looked at him suspiciously, all the same. I just didn’t trust these monkeys at all.

      He went on to say, still so politely: “Your visit to the police station was reported to me. I thought that I would like to speak to you on the subject personally, Mr. Heggy. Please accept my apologies, but your statements, you see, do demand police investigation.”

      I said: “The hell, what is there for you to investigate?” That girl, I was still sure, had been whipped away by Turkish police, and I wasn’t to be kidded by this big, well-spoken, calm-looking young man.

      But he was shaking his head. “Mr. Heggy,” he said, and his voice was very firm, “we can’t allow girls to be abducted forcibly from hotels in this city. You may have imagined what you say you saw—”

      “Brother, I never imagined what I saw,” I rapped with equal firmness.

      “Then you see, Mr. Heggy, we’ve got to enquire into these statements you have made.”

      He was so calm, so polite, but so firm with it. I kept looking at him, trying to read what was behind that big, brown-red healthy face of this young police officer. And my eyes sometimes flickered beyond him, to those monkeys of his in the passage. They were all such big men, filling their uniforms with solid muscle, and I couldn’t help feeling that if it came to a shindig I was going to get the worst of it.

      And Joe P. Heggy just naturally hates to get the worst of any fight.

      The officer said: “Perhaps you would like to discuss this matter further inside your room, Mr. Heggy.” He looked significantly down the corridor, where a few guests, heading for the elevator or stairs, were caught in that irresolute pose of people wanting to do two things at once—and one of them was to gawk at a man in trouble with the police.

      I thought there wasn’t anything else I could do about it. I had a feeling that if I said: “No, to hell with it, you stay out in the corridor,” these monkeys would just force their way into my room.

      I stood by grudgingly, and I felt like giving them Lincoln’s Address at Gettysburg. I was fully determined to kick up the goddamnedest row ever heard in Istanbul if they tried any police tricks on me.

      Brother, I was in for yet another surprise! The police officer stepped into my apartment, and closed the door after him upon his men.

      I said rather suspiciously: “Don’t you want your strong-arm boys in with you?”

      He laughed and took off his gloves. I had a feeling he was laughing at me. He said, tolerantly: “No, Mr. Heggy, I don’t think we need any witnesses to our conversation. This is a friendly call, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, and I’m out to help you.”

      Suspiciously—“Help me? Now why in hell’s name should I need helping?”

      His eyes widened in surprise, and yet I was sure he was mocking me. He said: “But you told them at the station that this girl who was carried away was a friend of yours?”

      I swallowed. That comes of telling lies. One was coming home to me now. I thought George Washington had something, right then, and I made a lot of vows for the future. One of them was to keep my big nose out of other people’s affairs.

      The officer said, patiently: “Now, Mr. Heggy, will you please tell me in your own words exactly what you saw? Please tell me absolutely everything, and don’t omit any detail.”

      I found myself telling him the tale. I started by thinking it was a waste of breath, that this guy must have known the full story better than I, but I ended up feeling entirely different.

      He knew I had changed towards him, because when I had finished, he said, quietly: “This has nothing to do with the police. I think now you are believing me, aren’t you, Mr. Heggy?”

      I was grouchy in my admission of the rightness of his statement. The hell, a man doesn’t like to admit he’s been a bit of a fool. It made me feel like some kid stuffed with fantastic novelettish or filmic notions. But I was convinced, and Joe P. Heggy at times can do the big thing.

      I growled: “Yeah, I’ve got to change my mind, I reckon.” I changed it so much I went over to a sideboard and dug out a bottle of best Scotch. I said: “I’ll make amends with a drop of good liquor.”

      The young police officer laughed. He said: “That’s unnecessary, Mr. Heggy. We’re rather used to other nationals getting curious ideas about our police forces.” He shrugged. “You’ve got to remember, though, that we’re not an advanced country such as your own.”

      He didn’t continue, and maybe he was wise, because there was no sense in taking up time arguing about degrees of democracy—or totalitarianism.

      Instead СКАЧАТЬ