The Grab: A Classic Crime Novel. Gordon Landsborough

      BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY GORDON LANDSBOROUGH

      Call in the Feds!: A Classic Suspense Novel

      F.B.I. Showdown: A Classic Suspense Novel

      The Grab: A Classic Crime Novel: Heggy Investigates, Book One

      COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      Copyright © 1953 by Gordon Landsborough

      Copyright © 2012 by the Estate of Gordon Landsborough

      Published by Wildside Press LLC

      www.wildsidebooks.com

      CHAPTER ONE

      KIDNAPPED?

      Some sound brought me from that body in the marble palace the Turks call a bathroom. And that was queer, for it wasn’t much of a sound. Just something like a scuffle out in the alleyway alongside my hotel.

      I don’t know what there was about it, but it took me across to the long, high window, and as I went I threw that blunt, lethal instrument under the bed—my bed. I stood at the window and looked out.

      First thing I saw was a cop. He was standing in the shadow cast by a high-riding, silver-bright moon from the gloomy building across this narrow cobbled alley. But I could see him, and I didn’t like him.

      From that angle he looked squat, a round peg of a man with shining boot toes sticking out from under him. His face was blank, a thing of anonymity lost in the darkness under his peaked cap.

      Yet I knew he was looking up at me, attracted by my sudden appearance at the window. It made me shiver, knowing I was being watched by a cop without a face—without a face that I could see, anyway. I’m a sensitive sort of guy, and I like my cops to have features. Then you can spot them in an identification parade, if ever you feel like asking for one.

      Next moment I forgot about that cop. From right below some people spilled onto the alleyway. There were three of them. Two were men; the third—a girl.

      They were big and round, well-fed and heavy-muscled, those men. They were wearing drape suits, American style, but I had a feeling right from the start they could never vote against Eisenhower—or Truman.

      But it was the girl I looked at. Curiously, it’s the girl I always look at. She was in pyjamas, and she was struggling in frantic fear against those apes.

      A big car began to nose into view from a side alley. It was a large American sedan, and it was travelling without any lights.

      The girl saw it and seemed to go crazy. She threw herself around, and I could hear her moaning, and then she got one hand free and tried to claw her way out of the grip of the other rube. But she hadn’t the strength, and that egg seemed to be using his, making his grip hurt.

      She was free for a fraction of a second only. Then the other rube grabbed again, and began to drag her towards the car.

      I saw moonlight on her face right beneath me. She had jet-black hair, which said she wasn’t a stranger to these parts, and her face was a terrified white oval. That light was so good I saw her eyes, and they looked like black pools pinpointed with light—I saw her mouth wide open in a silent scream...yeah, a silent scream.

      That gal was terrified, but for some reason she didn’t dare let out a cry for help. I was to remember that later.

      The buttons had snapped on her thin, silk, pyjama jacket, and I had a momentary glimpse of a flat, white stomach and her breasts above it. Just a glimpse. Enough to encourage at a normal time, but this time was not normal. Not for Joe P. Heggy.

      I went out of that room so fast I don’t remember even opening the door. Maybe I went right through it.

      For when I see a damsel in distress, I get kinda hot and wanting to do things about it.

      You won’t know Joe P. Heggy—me—of course, but let me tell you this. I’m just a corny sentimentalist at heart, for all the jobs I hold down, and the people I run around with. I’m chivalrous—yeah, chivalrous—where the fair sex is concerned. I’d give up my spare seat in my jalopy to any dame, blonde or brunette, any day.

      Where dames are concerned, I’m soft, and that softness sent me leaping down the broad, shallow, marble steps, three flights down into the foyer.

      The elevator? Sure they have an elevator in that hotel, but don’t tell me anyone ever uses the elevator in a Turkish hotel! Not at night, anyway. If it’s not out of order, the old man who alone knows how to operate it won’t be found, so you might as well use the steps every time. As I do.

      There weren’t many people in that palm-decorated foyer, but there was Benny behind the reception desk. Benny never seems to go home. Benny is the most important man in all Turkey, for he can speak American and he’s nearly the only man in Turkish hotel service who can. He’s a young man who lived for many years in America and then came back to Turkey.

      And he’s slime, pure slime. An opportunist, if ever I’ve seen one. And I’ve seen plenty.

      I shouted: “What in hell’s goin’ on in the alley?” and that brought him to his feet, startled, his dark eyes seeming to jump all over his yellow face. He threw down his paper, but didn’t come round the desk. Neither did he say anything. Even then I got the impression that he knew what was happening.

      So I swore at him, because I was worked up, and I got the revolving door spinning and I ran round into the alley.

      It was deserted. There was no one there at all. No cop. No apes with a struggling girl. And no car.

      I stamped back into the foyer. Benny was trying to read. I stood across the desk from him and said: “You can put that down, Benny. You’re not seeing any words on that paper.”

      Benny’s face came out of the sheet, and he was scared.

      Man, how that clerk was scared. But he kept his mouth shut. Benny normally likes to hear the sound of his Brooklyn-acquired accent, but this didn’t seem to be one of the times.

      I yapped: “A couple of apes just dragged a girl out of this hotel in her pyjamas.” Benny said nothing. You’d have thought all the hotel’s female guests left that way. “She got thrown into a car and carried away.”

      And Benny said nothing, but kept looking over my shoulder, and he seemed a bit sick about something.

      But he wasn’t as sick as I was. Look, I’m not kidding, but my stomach was going round and round, remembering that silent struggle in the alley. It looked to have something to do with the police—maybe the political or secret police, if Turkey has such things. I wouldn’t know. I don’t know anything about the set-up in these countries, so far as police systems are concerned.

      But I’m never quite happy in these countries when a cop’s around. I always have a feeling of undemocratic influences—you know what I mean. Maybe I’ve read too many spy-thrillers, and swallowed Hollywood’s idea of what goes in countries outside the Yew Ess of Ay. Maybe.

      But right then all I could see was a helpless girl, dragged into a car and taken off maybe to some secret-police prison somewhere. And I saw a lot of pictures flitting through my mind of what a bunch of flat-faced apes could do to a helpless girl behind walls where her moans wouldn’t be heard.

      Holy jeez, the thoughts I had in my mind were enough to set me jumping quicker than a bug on a hot griddle. I couldn’t stand what I was thinking. I had to be a sap and try and do something about it.

      I shouted: “The hell, I won’t stand for seein’ girls treated thataway in any country. Not without standing on my hindlegs and mouthing a gripe agen it.”

      I let my eyes drop to Benny’s. I reckon I must have looked madder than mad, right then, and he was scared stiff of me.

      He said, quickly: “I got nothing to do with it, brother.” Always brother with Benny. He believed in democracy in some aspects. His quick, big dark eyes fluttered and looked away and then came back and then looked