James Chase - Shock Treatment

If she had struck me in the face I couldn’t have been more taken aback. I felt my heart turn over and my stomach muscles cramp up.

“I didn’t know he had insured the set,” I said and my voice sounded far away.

“After you delivered the set,” Gilda said, “a young man called on us. I think he said his name was Lawson. He saw the set and persuaded Jack to insure it.”

I remembered then that Delaney’s name had been on the list I had lent Lawson.

“But that was only for the set. Your husband wasn’t insured against an accident, was he?”

“Yes, apparently. That’s what Mr Macklin tells me. He says the owner of the set is covered against an accident.”

I felt suddenly as cold as ice.

“For five thousand dollars?”

“Yes.”

My whole world began to crumble. Fear took hold of me in a grip that paralysed.

This would mean an investigation. I knew enough about insurance companies to be sure they wouldn’t accept Delaney’s death the way Jefferson and Doc Mallard had accepted it. They wouldn’t part with a dime let alone five thousand dollars without making absolutely sure they had to pay out.

My plan and my life could now be in jeopardy because of this unexpected policy.

“There could be an investigation, Gilda,” I said. “Is it worth bothering about? Perhaps it would be better not to put in the claim.”

She looked sharply at me.

“But it’s five thousand dollars! There are bills due for three thousand. Of course I must claim.”

“These insurance detectives probe pretty deep,” I said, trying not to let her see how scared I was. “They might easily find out about you and me, Gilda.”

“How can they? All they will want is the record of the inquest and the death certificate. That’s what Mr Macklin says. They can’t avoid paying up.”

“Don’t be too sure about that. I’ve heard what some of these insurance companies are like. They’ll use any excuse not to pay out. They might even try to prove he did commit suicide. They wouldn’t have to pay out then. All they would need is one good reason to show he had killed himself, and they couldn’t have a better one if they found out he had no money and you and I were lovers and you were leaving him.”

“You’re exaggerating!”

“I’m not!” I couldn’t keep my voice down. “If they get the slightest suspicion that you and I had been lovers, they’d tear into us like a pack of wolves! Make no mistake about that! I’m not saying they’d get away with it, but they could force you to fight the claim in court. They’d stick some smart attorney onto you who’d worm the whole story out of you, and they’d get me in court too. We’d be smeared across the front page of every newspaper in the district, and we’d be cooked!”

She was looking at me now as if she thought I was crazy.

“You’re frightening me. What is it? Do you know more about this thing than you’ve told me?”

“Of course not. I’m just warning you what could happen. Can’t we stop this claim?”

“I can ask Mr Macklin. I think it’s already gone through. He said he would deal with it as soon as he got back to his office. Do you want me to telephone him?”

I hesitated. If Macklin had lodged the claim it would be fatal to attempt to cancel it. It would bring the spotlight of suspicion right on us.

“No,” I said. “Let it go. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Perhaps as you say, they won’t make trouble.”

“Are you sure you have told me everything you know about Jack’s death?” she asked. “You’re worrying me. You make me feel somehow guilty.”

“To the people living around here, you and I are guilty,” I said, not looking at her. “We’re guilty of loving each other. Now look, Gilda, I must keep away from you until this claim is settled. There can be no question of us meeting in Los Angeles now. Do you understand? The chances are once the claim is lodged their detectives will watch you. If they see us together, they could easily jump to conclusions.”

“But, darling, I really don’t understand this,” Gilda said, a note of impatience in her voice. “What have we got to be afraid of?”

“I’m trying to save you getting your name in the papers. This insurance company could use our love for each other to contest the claim.”

She spread her hands helplessly.

“Well, all right. I can’t believe it, but if you feel that way, there’s nothing I can do about it. You don’t want to come near me until after the claim is settled, is that it?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, Gilda, but it is important.” I got to my feet. “You may not think so now, but if these people find out about us, you’ll realize fast enough I’ve been talking sense.” I moved away from her. “I’d better collect the set and get away from here. Someone might come and find us here together.”

“Mr Macklin said the set was to be left until the insurance people had examined it.”

That gave me another bad jolt.

“Yes — I was forgetting. Well, all right. Now, look, Gilda, as soon as you have found a hotel in Los Angeles, write to me. I don’t trust the girl on the switchboard. She’s always listening in. I’ll keep in touch with you by letter, but we must keep clear of each other.”

“All right, Terry.”

I said good-bye to her. I was so scared I forgot to kiss her.

Nothing happened for four days.

The days weren’t so bad because I was busy, but the nights were really something.

On the fifth morning I got a letter from Gilda.

She was now in Los Angeles, she wrote, staying in a rooming house, and she was looking for a job without success so far. She said the insurance company was in contact with Macklin and they were sending out a representative to look at the set. The representative would arrive on Saturday morning — that was tomorrow — and would I be at Blue Jay cabin at eleven o’clock to show him the set? She said she had left the key of the cabin under the mat.

I was at Blue Jay cabin the following morning at eleven sharp.

A couple of minutes later, I heard a car coming, and I went out onto the verandah. My heart was thumping uneasily, the back of my mouth was dry and I had a cold empty sensation in my stomach.

A sleek Packard convertible drifted up the drive and came to rest by my truck.

At the wheel was a broad-shouldered, dark man around thirty-two or three with a deeply tanned, ugly but humorous face. He got out of the car as if the effect was too much for him. He sauntered up the verandah steps.

“Are you Mr Regan?”

“Yes.”

He held out his hand.

“Glad to know you, Mr Regan. I’m Steve Harmas of the National Fidelity. You know about this business? Mrs Delaney’s attorney said you would show me the set that caused the accident.”

Well, at least he was calling it an accident.

I led him into the lounge.

“That’s it,” I said, nodding to where the set stood.

He glanced at the set indifferently, then sat down, waving me to a chair.

“This claim has caused a lot of writhing in our snake-pit,” he said. “There’s an uproar going on that you could hear from here if you listened that carefully.”

I said, “Why? What’s the uproar about?”

“Our claims department is run by a guy named Maddox,” Harmas said. “He has a hornet in his chapeau. Whenever a claim comes in, he examines it the way you would examine an egg that has been laid a couple of years ago. He doesn’t even wait to break the shell to be convinced it’s bad. Every claim we get is treated the same way. During the year, we have something like twenty to thirty thousand claims. Two per cent, probably less, are wrong ‘uns, and Maddox has found them to be wrong long before any of our super dicks have had a chance to investigate. He works by instinct, and up to now he’s been right every time.” He looked sleepily at me and grinned. “Come the day when he’s wrong! Boy! Won’t I cram it down his throat!”