James Chase: Lay Her Among the Lilies

It was one of those hot, breathless July mornings, nice if you’re in a swim-suit on the beach with your favourite blonde, but hard to take if you’re shut up in an office as I was.

The sound of the mid-morning traffic on Orchid Boulevard, the drone of aircraft circling the beach and the background murmur of the surf drifted in through the open windows. The air-conditioning plant, hidden somewhere in the bowels of Orchid Buildings, coped efficiently with the rising temperature. Sunshine, hot and golden, made patterns on the office rug Paula had bought to impress the customers, and which always seemed to me too expensive to walk on.

I sat behind the flat-topped desk on which I had scattered a few old letters to convince Paula if she should come in suddenly that I was working. A highball, strong enough to crack concrete, hid behind a couple of impressive-looking law books, and clinked ice at me whenever I reached for it.

It was now just over three and a half years since I founded Universal Services: an organization which undertook any job from exercising a pet poodle to stamping on a blackmailer feeding on a client’s bankroll. It was essentially a millionaire’s service, as our rates came high, but then, in Orchid City, millionaires were almost as numerous as grains of sand on a beach. During those three and a half years we had fun and games, made a little money and had a variety of jobs: even murder we had taken in our stride.

For the past few days business had been as quiet as a spinster eating a bun in a lecture-hall. The routine stuff was coming in all right, but Paula Bensinger took care of that. It was only when something out-of-the-way reared its head that I and my leg-man, Jack Kerman, went to work. And nothing out-of-the-way had reared its head, so we were just sitting around waiting and punching holes in a bottle of Scotch and making out to Paula we were busy.

Sprawled out in the armchair reserved for clients, Jack Kerman, long, lean and dapper, with a broad streak of white in his thick black hair and a Clark Gable moustache, rubbed the frosted glass of his highball against his forehead and relaxed. Immaculate in an olive-green tropical suit and a yellow and red striped tie, his narrow feet gaudy in white buckskin shoes with dark green explosions, he looked every inch a fugitive from the pages of Esquire.

Out of a long, brooding silence, he said: “What a dish! Take her arms off and she’d have knocked Venus for a loop.” He shifted into a more comfortable position and sighed. “I wish someone had taken her arms off. Boy! Was she strong! And I was sucker enough to think she was a pushover.”

“Don’t tell me,” I pleaded, reaching for my highball. “That opening has a familiar ring. The last thing I want to hear on a morning like this is an extract from your love-life. I’d rather read Krafft-Ebing.”

“That old goat won’t get you anywhere,” Kerman said scornfully. “He wrote all the nifty bits in Latin.”

“And you’d be surprised at the number of guys who learned Latin just to find out what he said. That’s what I call killing two birds with one stone.”

“That brings us right back to my blonde,” Kerman said, stretching out his long legs. “I ran into her last night in Barney’s drug store…”

“I’m not interested in blondes,” I said firmly. “Instead of sitting around here talking about women, you should be out trying to hustle up new business. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I pay you for.”

Kerman considered this, a surprised expression on his face.

“Do you want any new business?” he asked eventually. “I thought the idea was to let Paula do all the work, and we live on her.”

“That’s the general set-up, but once in a while it mightn’t be a bad idea for you to do something to earn your keep.”

Kerman looked relieved.

“Yeah; once in a while. For a moment I thought you meant now.” He sipped his highball and closed his eyes. “Now this blonde I keep trying to tell you about. She’s a cute trick if ever there was one. When I tried to date her up she said she didn’t run after men. Know what I said?”

“What did you say?” I asked, because he would have told me anyway, and if I didn’t listen to his lies, who was going to listen to mine?

Kerman chortled.

“Lady,’ I said, “maybe you don’t run after men, but a mousetrap doesn’t have to run after mice, either.’ Smart, huh? Well, it killed her. You needn’t look so damned sour. Maybe you have heard it before, but she hadn’t, and it knocked her dead.”

Then before I could hide the highball the door jerked open and Paula swept in.

Paula was a tall, dark lovely, with cool, steady brown eyes and a figure full of ideas my ideas, not hers. She was quick on the uptake, ruthlessly efficient and a tireless worker. It had been she who had encouraged me to start Universal Services, and had lent the money to tide me over for the first six months. It was entirely due to her ability to cope with the administrative side of the business that Universal Services was an established success. If I were the brains of the set-up, you could call her the backbone. Without her the organization would have folded in a week.

“Haven’t you anything better to do than sit around and drink?” she demanded, planting herself before the desk, and looking at me accusingly.

“What is there better to do?” Kerman asked, mildly interested.

She gave him a withering stare and turned her bright brown eyes on me again.

“As a matter of fact, Jack and I were just going out to beat up some new business,” I said, hastily pushing back my chair. “Come on, Jack. Let’s go and see what we can find.”

“And where are you going to look—Finnegan’s bar?” Paula asked scornfully.

“That’s a bright idea, sourpuss,” Kerman said. “Maybe Finnegan will have something for us.”

“Before you go you might like to look at this,” Paula said, and flourished a long envelope at me. “The janitor brought it up just now. He found it in one of the pockets of that old trenchcoat you so generously gave him.”

“He did?” I said, taking the envelope. “That’s odd. I haven’t worn that trenchcoat for more than a year.”

“The cancellation stamp bears you out,” Paula said with ominous calm. “The letter was posted fourteen months ago. I suppose you couldn’t have put it in your pocket and forgotten all about it? You wouldn’t do a thing like that, would you?”

The envelope was addressed to me in a neat, feminine handwriting, and unopened.

“I can’t remember ever seeing it before,” I said.

“Considering you don’t appear to remember anything unless I remind you, that comes as no surprise,” Paula said tartly.

“One of these days, my little harpie,” Kerman remarked gently, “someone is going to haul off and take at slap at your bustle.”

“That won’t stop her,” I said, ripping open the envelope. “I’ve tried. It only makes her worse.” I dipped in a finger and thumb and hoisted out a sheet of note-paper and five onehundred-dollar bills.

“Suffering Pete!” Kerman exclaimed, starting to his feet. “Did you give that to the janitor?”

“Now don’t you start,” I said, and read the letter.

Crestways,

Foothill Boulevard,

Orchid City.

May 15th, 1948.

Will you please make it convenient to see me at the above address at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon? I am anxious to obtain evidence against someone who is blackmailing my sister. I understand you undertake such work. Please treat this letter as confidential and urgent. I enclose five hundred dollars as a retainer.