James Chase: Shock Treatment

She was a little above medium height with a golden tan complexion that comes from hours out in the sun. Her hair was the colour of polished bronze and reached to her shoulders. Her eyes were big and as blue as forget-me-nots, and there was that look in them that a man, who is anything of a man, must react to, the way a fighting bull reacts when the matador flicks his cape in the moment of incitement.

She was wearing a red cowboy shirt and a pair of blue jeans, and what that combination did to show off her shape was something to see.

Delaney glanced around and stared at her, then he said in a flat, indifferent tone, “This is my wife.” He made it sound as if she was of no consequence. Looking at her, he went on, “This is Mr Regan. He’s the TV and radio man around here. He’s trying to sell me a TV set.”

“Isn’t that just what you want?” she said. She had one of those low, husky voices that went with her shape and the look in her eyes.

“It could be.” He stubbed out his cigar, then looked over at me. “Suppose I don’t care for this set you propose to build? What happens then?”

“If you don’t care for it, Mr Delaney,” I said, having to make an effort to keep my mind on business, aware of this woman as I had never been aware of any other woman before, “then I guess I’ll find someone else who’ll buy it, but I think you will care for it.”

The woman said, “You could get a lot of fun out of a TV set. You should have it.”

She nodded to me, her forget-me-not blue eyes moving over me inquisitively, then with a faint smile that meant nothing, she passed me and went down the steps, along the path and out of sight as she rounded the corner of the cabin.

I watched her until I lost sight of her. If you had been able to see the way she walked, the smooth roll of her hips, the power that was in her body, her upright carriage, you would have felt the same way as I felt, and I mean just exactly that. Right at that moment, watching her as she moved down the steps, and along the concrete path, I wanted her more than I had ever wanted any other woman before.

Delaney said, “Well, okay, Regan, make the set. If I like it, I’ll buy it.”

I dragged my attention back to business.

Not a very satisfactory way of doing business, I thought; this guy sitting in his wheel chair could be a bluffer and a phoney. I could use up quite a bit of my savings building him a super set and he could slide out of buying it by saying he didn’t like it. But I wasn’t going to argue with him. I wanted to see her again, and this was the way I could see her again.

“Well, okay,” I said, “I’ll build it. It’ll take a couple of weeks. In the meantime you would probably like to have this set to carry on with.”

“Yes, leave it here,” he said. “I’ll pay you rent for it.”

“You don’t have to do that. I’ll be happy to leave it on loan. You’ll need a permanent aerial. I’ll be out tomorrow to fix it for you. Will that be all right?”

“Sure,” he said. “Come out tomorrow. I’m always around.”

I left him sitting on the verandah, staring at the lighted screen of the TV set. As I drove down the tarmac I kept my eyes open for her, but she didn’t show.

I had her on my mind all the way back to the cabin. She was still in my mind when I went to bed that night, and she was with me when I got up and began to put my breakfast together.

I went out to Blue Jay cabin the following afternoon. I made it the afternoon because I thought there might be a chance she would be out shopping in the morning and I didn’t intend to miss seeing her.

Delaney was sitting on the verandah with the TV set on. He was watching a gangster film and he scarcely bothered to look up as I got off the truck.

I collected the aerial I had brought with me, a roll of flex and my tool kit, and I walked up the steps.

“Go on in,” he said, waving to the lounge. “You’ll find the servant or my wife somewhere.”

The way he said it the servant and his wife were of a kind, and that riled me.

I went into the big living-room that was as luxurious and as expensive as only a millionaire could make it.

I set down the stuff I had brought with me and, seeing no one, I crossed to the double doors, opened them and looked out onto a patio with a miniature fountain in the centre full of gold fish exercising themselves in the sun.

I walked through a doorway on the far side of the patio and into a big hall from which several doors led.

One of the doors stood open and I heard Gilda Delaney humming softly to herself.

“Mrs Delaney,” I said, slightly raising my voice.

She came to the door. She was even better than the image I had been keeping of her in my mind during the past thirty-six hours. No memory could recapture the look she had, nor the sensual quality of her body, nor the way her bronze hair glinted in the sunlight coming through the big open window.

She had on a cream silk shirt and a pleated sky-blue skirt. The sight of her set my heart thumping.

“Hello, Mr Regan,” she said, and she smiled.

“Your husband told me to come on in,” I said, and my voice sounded husky. “I want to fix the aerial. Is there a way up to the roof?”

“There’s an attic and a skylight. You will want the steps. They are in the storeroom: that door there’; and she pointed.

“Thanks,” I said and paused, then went on, “Looks like the set is a success.”

She nodded, and I was aware her eyes were going over me, thoughtfully, probingly, as if she were asking herself what kind of man I was.

“It is. He put it on at nine this morning, and it has been on ever since.”

“For someone tied to a chair the way he is,” I said, “there’s nothing like a TV set.”

“Of course.” A faintly bored expression appeared in her forget-me-not blue eyes. “Well, I mustn’t hold you up.”

It was a little nudging hint that I had work to do and she didn’t want to stand gossiping all the afternoon.

“I’ll get on. That door there?”

“Yes.”

“And the attic?”

“Over there. There’s a trap up to it.”

“Well, thanks, Mrs Delaney.”

I got the steps from the storeroom, stood them under the trap, climbed the steps and pushed the trap open.

The attic roof was just high enough for me to stand up in, and the skylight gave me easy access to the roof. I opened the skylight and then descended to the ground floor.

I went back into the lounge, collected my kit and the aerial and started back along the passage. As I passed her door, she appeared in the doorway.

There was an expression in her eyes that stopped me as if I had walked into a brick wall.

“Do you want any help?” she asked.

“Thanks, but I don’t want to bother you.”

“I have nothing to do if I can be of help.”

We looked at each other.

“Well, I’d be glad then. I don’t like taking my tool kit out on a roof. If you could hand me up what I want, it would be a real help.”

“That sounds easy enough.”

She moved with that liquid grace that had held my attention before. She paused by the steps.

“Do you think you can get up there?” I said, nodding to the open trap.

“I think so if you will hold the steps steady.”

I set down the aerial and joined her. She was wearing a perfume that I didn’t know: heady stuff that went with her character and personality. Standing this close to her really got me going.

I put my hand on the steps.

“They’re safe enough,” I said.

She started up them. Half way up, she paused and looked down at me. Her long, slim legs were on the level with my eyes.

“I should be wearing jeans for this kind of work,” she said, and smiled.