James Hadley Chase - More Deadly Than the Male
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- Year:2000
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More Deadly Than the Male: summary, description and annotation
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George Fraser is a lonely man, and a bored man. But he has exciting dreams. In his dreams, he lives in a thrilling world of gangsters, guns, fast cars and beautiful women. And of course, in his dreams, he is the toughest gangster of them all. George Fraser prefers his dream world to his real, ordinary life so he begins to boast about it, pretending that he is, in fact, a hardened and ruthless gangster. But George Fraser boasts to the wrong people and suddenly his dream world becomes all too real.
James Hadley Chase: author's other books
Who wrote More Deadly Than the Male? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
James Hadley Chase
James Hadley Chase
James Hadley Chase
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James Hadley Chase
James Hadley Chase
George Fraser
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Patricia Garfield
George Anastasia
Whitney Johnson
George MacDonald Fraser
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George MacDonald Fraser
George MacDonald Fraser
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HOUSE OF STRATUS
They were all there Capone, Dillinger, Nelson, Karpis andCharlie Lucky. The table at which they sat was littered with pokerchips, playing cards, whisky bottles and glasses. A green shadedlamp hung low over the table; its harsh light fell on their faces, whilethe rest of the room remained dark and shadowy.
Several men, almost invisible in the gloom and haze o f tobaccosmoke, lounged behind the group at the table. They were small men,with eyes like wet stones, swarthy complexions and granite faces.
The group at the table and the men in the shadows suddenlystiffened when George Fraser walked into the room. He stood a fewfeet from the table, his hands in his coat pockets, his jaw thrustforward and his eyes threatening and cold.
No one spoke; no one moved.
''If any of you guys wants to start something," George Frasersaid, after along pause, "I'll take care of his widow."
Very slowly, very cautiously, Capone laid his cards down on thetable. "Hello, George," he said in a husky whisper.
George Fraser eyed him coldly. There were few men who wouldhave had the nerve to walk alone into that back room and face fiveof the biggest and most dangerous bosses in the booze racket, butGeorge Fraser was without nerves.
"It's time we had a little talk," he said, biting off each word."You guys have been running this show too long. You're throughthe lot of you. From now on, I'm taking over this territory, and I'mrunning it my way."
There followed another long pause, then Dillinger, his eyesglowing and his face white with rage, snarled, "Who said?"
George Fraser smiled. "I said," he returned, in his clipped, coldvoice.
Dillinger made a growling noise deep in his throat and his handflashed to his hip pocket.
Capone, sitting next to him, grabbed frantically at his wrist. Hisfat face was blue-white with fear. "Do you want to commit suicide?"he yelled. "You don't stand a chance with Fraser!"
Dillinger, swearing under his breath, tried to break Capone'sgrip, and the table rocked as the two men wrestled. A bottle ofwhisky toppled and smashed to pieces on the floor.
"Let him alone, Al," George Fraser called. "If he wants to play itthat way, you'd better give him some air."
Capone shot a terrified look at George Fraser. The pale, set faceand the eyes that were now like chips o f ice completely unnervedhim. He nearly fell over himself to get away from Dillinger.
"Look out!" he cried. "He's going to shoot!"
The other three at the table kicked their chairs away andjumped clear, while some of the men who had been standing in theshadows threw themselves on the floor.
Dillinger, alone at the table, sat motionless, glaring at GeorgeFraser.
"Okay, Johnny," George Fraser said mockingly, "go for yourgun. What are you waiting for?"
Dillinger rose slowly to his feet. He swept his chair out of theway and crouched.
"Bet you a hundred bucks I can put five slugs in your pumperbefore your rod shows," George Fraser said, letting his hands hangloosely at his sides.
Dillinger cursed him, and then his arm moved with the speed ofa striking snake. A heavy, snub-nosed automatic jumped as if bymagic into George Fraser's hand. The room rocked with the sound ofgunfire.
Dillinger, his eyes wide and sightless, crashed to the floor androlled over on his back.
"Take a look at him, Charlie," George Fraser said, his eyes onthe group of men huddled against the wall.
Charlie Lucky, after a moment's hesitation, reached forward,pulled Dillinger's coat back and ripped open his shirt.
"Five slugs, "he said, his voice cracking; "all in the same spot."
"Good morning, Mr George," Ella said, putting a cup of watery tea on the bamboo table by the bed. "Did I wake you?"
"Hmm?" George Fraser asked. He looked up with blank astonishment at Ella in her frowsy blue uniform and her ridiculous cap perched on the top of her mouse-coloured hair. "Good Lord! You gave me quite a turn. I didn't hear you come in. I must've been dozing..."
"It's ever such a lovely morning," Ella went on, crossing the drab little room, and pulling up the blind. "The sun's shining and there ain't a cloud in the sky."
George Fraser closed his eyes against the bright sunlight that streamed through the grimy window pane. The image he had been creating of himself as "Machine-gun Fraser", millionaire gangster, still gripped his imagination, and Ella's unexpected intrusion fuddled him.
"Shall I tidy up a hit?" Ella asked, her plain, shiny little face resigned as she surveyed the disordered room. "Coo, Mr George! Your socks are in the coal-scuttle."
George Fraser sighed. It was no good. He would have to leave the back room, the smell of cordite, the terrified faces of Capone, Nelson, Karpis and Charlie Lucky until later. He could always pick up his fantasy when Ella had gone.
"Oh, all right," he said, pushing the blankets from his shoulders and sitting up. "Only don't make too much noise. I've got a bit of a head this morning."
Ella looked at him hopefully. "Did you have any adventures last night?" she asked as she busied herself about the room.
George resisted the temptation to give her a fictitious account of his evening He did not feel quite up to it this morning, and after the story he had told her the day before, which had been his best effort to date, he did not think it wise to risk an anticlimax.
"I can't tell you yet," he said. "A little later perhaps; but it's too secret right now."
Ella's face fell. She was thin, sharp-featured, wistful a typical product of the East End slums. For three years she had been the general help at this boarding-house Off the Edgware Road. Most mornings, providing he hadn't a hangover, George would keep her entranced with lurid tales of G-men, gangsters and their molls. He assured her that, when he lived in the States, he had known them all. At one time he had worked with Frank Kelly, the hank robber; at another time he had been the bodyguard of Toni Scarletti, the booze racketeer. His name was known and feared by all the big shots of the underworld, and he had experienced enough adventures to fill a dozen books.
These stories which George recounted so glibly were the figments of his extraordinary imagination. He had never been to America, let alone seen a gangster; but, being an avid reader of the lurid American pulp magazines, and having seen every gangster film ever made, he had acquired a remarkable knowledge of American crime. The gunmen as depicted by such magazines as Front-PageDetective and True Confessions completely obsessed him.
Like so many other men and women who live in a secret world of their own, George suffered from an acute inferiority complex. He had always lacked confidence in himself, and believed that whatever he planned to do was hound to end in failure.
This inferiority complex was the direct result of the treatment he had received in his early childhood from his parents. His birth had been an "accident", and his parents, music-hall artists by profession, had no place for a child in their rather selfish, extremely mobile lives. They regarded him as a calamity, and had made no attempt to conceal the fact from him. He was always the last to be considered, his babyhood was loveless, and at the earliest possible moment he was handed over to an elderly couple who had reluctantly taken on the role of foster parents in return for the much-needed addition to their meagre income. They were too old to be bothered with a small child, and it was not long before George realized that they considered him to be an unnecessary burden to them.
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