James Chase - Hit and Run

She turned her head slowly and looked at me. Our eyes met.

‘I seem to have made a complete mess of this,’ she said. ‘Thanks to you, I could have ducked out, but leaving that: swim-suit puts me back into the picture again, doesn’t it?’

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ I said, speaking slowly and carefully. ‘It depends who took it. A sneak thief might have broken in in the hope of finding something valuable. There was nothing else in the car except the swim-suit. He might have taken that in the hope of raising a few dimes on it.’

She shook her head.

‘I don’t think so. You see, the suit had my name on it.’

I looked at her, my heart suddenly beginning to thump.

‘Nearly everyone in this city knows how rich Roger is,’ she went on.

I felt my hands turn damp. I had really believed that a sneak thief had broken into the garage, but this matter-of-fact utterance of hers lit up a ltd light in my mind.

‘After all;’ she went on, not looking at me, and speaking very quietly, ‘why should a sneak thief take a swim-suit? Who would want it? I think we are going to be blackmailed, Ches.’

‘You’re jumping to conclusions…’

She made an impatient little movement with her hands.

‘That remains to be seen.’ She turned her head slowly and looked directly at me. ‘Would you pay blackmail, Ches?’

‘That gets you nowhere,’ I said trying to match her quiet tone, but aware that my voice was harsh. ‘Once you start to pay I blackmail, you have a monkey on your back.’

‘I just wanted to know.’ She stared down at her hands, turned them and looked at her blood-red finger nails. ‘I think I must talk to Roger.’

‘He can’t do anything,’ I said sharply.

She continued to study her hands.

‘You don’t know him as well as I do. He is very particular about his position and what people think of him. If I told him exactly what had happened and that you were willing to take all the blame, then I think he would pay blackmail.’

I sat staring at her in frozen silence.

‘He has a lot of money,’ she went on after an interminable pause. ‘He can drive a very hard bargain. I don’t think it would cost him much. I think he would pay.’

‘But he would divorce you,’ I said.

‘I’d rather be divorced than go to prison.’

I took out my pack of Camels, lit one and noted my hand was steadier than I expected it to be.

‘But we don’t know yet that we are going to be blackmailed.’

She lifted her hair off her shoulders in a nervous gesture I had come to recognize.

‘You think this man took my swim-suit as a souvenir?’ she asked with exaggerated politeness.

‘You don’t have to be sarcastic about it,’ I said. ‘I’m trying to be helpful.’

‘At least you might be realistic.’

‘At the moment there is no question of blackmail,’ I said, my voice sounding unnaturally loud. ‘I said I would keep you out of this, and I mean it.’

She regarded me, her eyes thoughtful.

‘Does that mean you will pay this man to keep quiet?’

‘What man?’

‘The man who took my swim-suit.’

‘But he is only a figment of your imagination,’ I said. ‘We don’t even know he exists.’

‘Do you think my swim-suit disappeared of its own accord?’

‘I think it’s possible you left it on the beach.’

‘I did not!’ Her eyes flashed as she shouted the words at me. ‘I left it in the car, and someone has taken it!’

‘All right, there is no need to get worked up about it. It could have been a sneak thief.’

She stared fixedly at me.

‘Ches, will you swear you didn’t take it?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! Don’t start that again!’

‘Will you swear you didn’t take it?’

‘Of course I didn’t take it!’

I met her searching eyes angrily.

She let her hand fall back against the back of the chair and she shut her eyes.

‘I thought it was you who called me on the telephone morning,’ she said. ‘I thought you were trying to frighten me. It sounded like your voice.’

I stiffened.

‘What do you mean? Who telephoned you?’

‘This morning, around nine o’clock, the telephone rang. I answered it. A man asked if it was Mrs. Lucille Aitken speaking. I had an idea it was you. I said it was. Then he said, "I hope you enjoyed your swim last night," and then he hung up.’

I stubbed out my cigarette, feeling suddenly cold.

‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

‘I thought it was you. That’s why I was so anxious to go with you to get my swim-suit.’

‘It wasn’t me.’

She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling.

‘That’s why I say I think we’re going to be blackmailed.’

‘But there was no one on the beach. We couldn’t have been seen,’ I said.

‘Whoever it was knew I had been in for a swim.’

‘And you think this man is the one who has taken the swim-suit?’

‘Yes.’

I got slowly to my feet and walked over to the liquor cabinet.

‘Will you have a drink?’

‘Well, all right.’

‘Whisky or gin?’

‘Oh, whisky.’

I poured two stiff drinks into glasses and dropped in ice cubes. As I picked them up to carry them across the room the telephone bell started to ring.

I felt my muscles stiffen. Slowly I put the glasses down.

Lucille was upright in her chair, her hands on her knees, her knuckles white.

We stared at each other as the bell created a strident clamour in the silent room.

‘Aren’t you going to answer it?’ she said, her voice a husky whisper.

I moved slowly across the room and took up the receiver.

‘Hello?’ I said and my voice didn’t sound like my own.

‘Is that Mr. Chester Scott?’

A man’s voice. I had the impression the tone was frivolous. It was like listening to a man who has a secret joke he is reluctant to share with anyone.

‘Yes. Who is it?’

‘You should have made love to her, Mr. Scott. You should never have let her run away. After all, that is what women are given to us for.’

The words were spoken slowly and distinctly. There was no possibility of mistaking them.

‘What do you mean?’ I said, feeling cold sweat on my face. ‘Who is that?’

The steady humming sound in my ear told me I was talking over a dead line.

THE sound the telephone receiver made as I dropped it back on to its cradle was like a minor explosion in the tight silence of the room.

I turned slowly and looked at Lucille.

She was sitting upright, tense and frightened, her hands gripping her knees.

‘Who was it?’ she asked breathlessly.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, moving back to my chair. I sat down. ‘But I can make a guess, I think it was the same man who telephoned you this morning.’

I told her exactly what the man had said.

She hid her face in her hands.

I was feeling pretty bad myself. This had been a shock, and stared out of the window, trying to control my shaking hands.

She said: ‘Oh, Ches! What are we going to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘This is a complication.’

‘You see, I was right. He is going to blackmail us.’

‘He said nothing about blackmail and until he does there’s point in assuming he’s going to blackmail us.’

‘Of course he is going to blackmail us! He has the swim-suit, he knows you and I were on the beach together, he knows it was my fault the policeman was killed! Of course he is going blackmail us!’

‘Now wait a moment. We don’t know he has the swim-suit and we don’t know he knows you killed O’Brien. All we doknow for certain is that he saw us on the beach.’