James Chase: Shock Treatment

The following day I drove down to Los Angeles to select wood for the cabinet I was going to build for Delaney’s super-set. I discussed with the cabinet maker how I wanted the wood cut and he promised to have it ready in an hour.

With an hour to kill, I wandered the streets, shop window gazing. I came upon a jeweller’s shop, and, in the window, I saw a blue and silver powder compact. It attracted my attention because the blue in it exactly matched the colour of Gilda’s eyes.

I went in and bought it.

I told the salesman to put Gilda’s name on the inside lid and he did it while I waited.

When I got back to my cabin, I went to the telephone, picked up the receiver and called Blue Jay cabin.

The sound of her voice as she said “Yes? Hello?” set my heart thumping.

“Will you have dinner with me in Los Angeles tomorrow night?” I said, speaking slowly and distinctly. “I’ll be outside the gate at eleven.”

There was a very slight pause, then she said, “I’m afraid you have the wrong number. No, it’s quite all right. It’s no trouble,” and she hung up.

I guessed Delaney was in the room and was listening to her. I replaced the receiver.

There was nothing more now I could do except wait for tomorrow night.

At a quarter to eleven, wearing my best suit, I drove over to Blue Jay cabin.

At one minute to eleven, she came down the path.

The sight of her sent my blood racing. I stood there, my hands resting on the top of the gate, watching her as she moved towards me with that liquid grace of hers.

When she reached me, she paused and looked at me. I opened the gate and she moved through to my side.

“Hello, Terry,” she said.

That wasn’t quite the greeting I had expected. There was nothing much I could say to that, but I did what I wanted to do: I grabbed at her.

I grabbed nothing. She slid away from me. It was like trying to catch hold of a shadow.

“No, Terry!”

The sharp note in her voice chilled me.

“What do you mean — no?” I said. “I’ve been living for this moment ever since I called you.”

“Yes, and so have I, but I told you: we are not going to make love together again. If you can’t see me without that, then we can’t meet. We can’t be anything to each other except friends.”

“Friends? After what you and I have been together?”

“All right, Terry. I’ll go back. I’m sorry, but that’s the way I feel. I shouldn’t have come down to meet you. If we can’t just be friends, then I can’t see you again.”

I drew in a long, deep breath.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll accept the terms.”

“Is it so hard for you, Terry?”

“Never mind that. You heard what I said: I accept the terms. Let’s go. It’s getting late.”

She walked with me to the truck and got in beside me.

“There’s a restaurant I know,” I said as I started the engine. “It’s out of the way and safe. No one will know us there.”

“Thank you for thinking of that.”

It was an eighty-mile, run down to Los Angeles. It was a good road, but it took the best part of two hours to get there. We didn’t say much to each other during the run. She made the effort at first and prattled about this and that, but it was talk that meant nothing, and she seemed to realize it for she suddenly stopped, and the rest of the run was made in silence.

The Italian restaurant I had chosen was out at Hermosa Beach. The food was supposed to be good.

When we reached the restaurant I steered the truck into the parking lot, and we went together to the terrace overlooking the sea where there were tables with shaded lamps, and soft music that couldn’t offend anyone and waiters in white coats moving about quickly and efficiently as slick as a well-oiled machine.

We had dinner of scampi, escalope alia Bolognese and a bottle of good red wine.

I kept looking at her, hoping to see that thing in her eyes, but it wasn’t there. It was as if the lighted windows of the house that you knew always gave you a welcome were screened suddenly with black blinds.

“I’m loving this, Terry,” she said when they brought the escalopes. “This is the first time I have been taken out for nearly four years.”

“I’m glad I got the idea,” I said. “If you can fix it, maybe we’ll come again.”

Probably she caught the bitter note in my voice. She looked quickly at me.

“Terry... tell me something about yourself. This shop of yours: are you very ambitious about it? Tell me how you feel about it.”

I wasn’t interested, but if she wanted to keep up this grotesque pretense, I had to go along with her.

“Well, if I had some money,” I said, pushing the food around on my plate but not eating it, “I’d buy myself a shop. I know just the place. This running around servicing people’s sets and selling here and there won’t ever get me anywhere. What I need is a shop with a good window where I can display hand-built Hi-Fi sets and sell discs in a good demonstration room. That’s what I want, but getting it is not so easy. I could never dig up enough money.”

“How much would you need?” she asked, looking intently at me.

“That depends. Twenty-five thousand would take care of it. Twice that amount to do something on the grand scale.”

“If he died, Terry, you would have all the capital you need.”

“That’s right,” I said. “You told me that before. If he died...”

I saw her glance furtively at her watch. I beat her to it. “You’ll be wanting to get back. He might be wanting a pill or something.”

“Oh, Terry, please...”

I snapped my fingers at the waiter and got the check.

As we walked back to the truck, she said, “I’ve loved every second of this, Terry.”

“I’m glad.”

I wasn’t going to be such a hypocrite as to say I had loved it too.

I got the truck moving, and we drove out of Los Angeles and hit the mountain road.

We didn’t talk.

When we were within a couple of miles from Blue Jay cabin, I pulled up.

She turned quickly to look at me.

“Why are you stopping?”

“There’s something I want to give you.”

I took the package containing the compact out of my pocket and dropped it into her lap.

“What is it, Terry?”

I turned on the dashboard light.

“Open it and see.”

She slipped off the elastic band, undid the wrapping and opened the box.

The compact looked terrific in its bed of cotton wool: it really looked something.

I heard her draw in her breath sharply.

“You don’t really mean this is for me?”

“Yes. It matches the colour of your eyes.”

“But, Terry... I shouldn’t accept it. You shouldn’t have given it to me.”

“When I saw it I thought it looked made for you.”

She touched the compact, then turned it over in her fingers.

“You are tempting me, Terry, and I can’t resist it.”

“I don’t mean to tempt you,” I said. “There are no strings tied to it. I just wanted you to have it.”

I leaned forward, started the engine and drove fast to Blue Jay cabin.

She sat beside me fingering the compact and silent.

When we reached the gate and I had stopped, she got down from the truck and I joined her.

We stood looking at each other.

“You don’t know how much I’ve enjoyed this, Terry: thank you for being so understanding, and thank you again for this lovely compact. It’s my first present in years. I love it.”

She swayed towards me, her arms sliding around my neck and her mouth found mine.

There wasn’t any satisfaction in it for me. As I held her, I was thinking of the man lying in his bed, probably asleep, not a hundred yards from where we stood, and I knew so long as he was alive, there was only this furtive thing that was happening now between us.