James Chase - Hit and Run

She came out from behind the screen. She now had on a red silk dress that showed off her curves to advantage. She moved unsteadily to the dressing-table to fix her dark hair.

‘I’ve been in this racket for ten years,’ she went on as she ran a comb through her hair. ‘I have a small talent. The words aren’t mine. They were dreamed up by my drunken agent who hangs on to me because he can’t find anyone else to bleed. But the small talent doesn’t bring me in any money worth speaking about. It provides me with a living if you can call it that, and that’s all. So when this redfaced cop started to work on me, I let him, because he had money. For the past ten years I have been in practically every nightclub along this lousy coast, and although I have been propositioned countless times, I have never had an offer of marriage. Then this cop comes on the scene. He is tough and crude and utterly horrible, but at least he wanted to marry me.’ She paused and finished the gin in her glass. ‘He had money. He gave me presents.’ She pulled open a drawer in her dressing-table and fished out a gold powder compact. She held it in her hand so I could see it. It was an expensive, impressive ornament. ‘He gave me this and he didn’t j expect me to throw my clothes off the moment I got it. He gave me a squirrel coat and I still had my clothes on. He said if I would marry him he’d give me a mink coat for a wedding present.’ She paused to pour more gin in her glass. She sipped and grimaced with disgust at its taste. I guessed she wouldn’t be talking like this if she hadn’t been three-quarters tight, but I was listening: listening as hard as I could. ‘He had a bungalow out at Palm Bay. It was nice. There was a terrace overlooking the sea and the rooms were tricky: one of them had a glass floor with lights under it. I would have married that man if he had stayed alive long enough, even though he was so crude he used to come in here with his hat on, put his feet up here on the dressing-table and call me "Baby Doll". But he had to be dumb enough to get killed.’ She finished the gin and put the glass down, shuddering. ‘He had to be dumb enough just when he and Art Galgano…’ She broke off, squinting at me, as if trying to get me in focus. ‘I guess I’m drunk,’ she said. ‘What am I talking like this to you for?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘People talk to get things out of their systems. You’re not boring me. He couldn’t help getting killed. You should feel sorry for him.’

‘Should I?’ She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘You mean I should feel sorry for myself.’ She splashed more gin into her glass. ‘Are you looking for a wife, Mr. Scott?’

‘I can’t say I am.’

‘What are you looking for?’

‘I’d like to find out how O’Brien got himself run over.’

She lifted the glass of gin and sniffed at it.

‘This is filthy stuff. It’s only when I’ve done my act and get the applause I got tonight, that I use it.’ She peered at me. ‘What’s O’Brien to you?’

‘Nothing. I’m just curious to find out how he got run over.’

‘No reason—just curious?’

‘Just curious.’

She studied me.

‘What did you say your name was again?’

‘Scott.’

‘And you want to know how Harry got himself run over?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I could tell you.’ She sipped the gin, then with a movement of disgust, she crossed the room and poured the gin into the small, grimy toilet basin. ‘I could tell you. How much is it worth to you, Mr. Scott?’

I dropped my cigarette into the tobacco tin.

‘You mean how much in money?’

She leaned her solid hips against the toilet basin and smiled at me: it wasn’t a nice smile, and it made her look as hard as if her face had been hacked out of stone.

‘Yes, I mean how much in money. Chester Scott—of course. I know who you are now. You’re the man Oscar is blackmailing.’

‘What makes you think that?’ I asked, keeping my face expressionless.

‘I hear things,’ she said. ‘I don’t approve of blackmail. I need money, Mr. Scott. I can give you information that can take you off Oscar’s hook, but it’ll cost you. I won’t rob you. I’ll put you wise for five hundred. It’s cheap. I know what Oscar’s asking. Five hundred is nothing.’

‘What information?’

‘Have you five hundred dollars, Mr. Scott?’

‘Not on me.’

‘Can you get it tonight?’

‘I might.’ I thought of the eight hundred dollars we kept in the safe at the office. I could borrow that and pay it back when the bank opened on Monday. ‘What makes you imagine the information you have would be worth all that to me?’

‘Give me another cigarette.’

I crossed over to her, gave her a cigarette and lit it. As she dipped the cigarette end into the flame of my lighter, she put her hand on mine. Her flesh felt hot and dry against mine.

I moved away from her, watching her draw in smoke, then let it out slowly down her nostrils.

‘I can get you off Oscar’s hook,’ she said. ‘I know the whole set-up. You can have it for five hundred. I’ve got to get out of this town and I want a get-away stake.’

‘How do you get me off the hook?’ I asked, wondering if she were taking me for a ride.

‘I’ll tell you when you produce the money and not before. When you get bitten by a snake, you use an antidote. I can give you the antidote to Oscar’s bite. If you don’t want to spend five hundred to save thirty thousand, then you’re a fool. Can you give me the money tonight?’

If she really knew how I could fix Oscar, five hundred would be a give-away price.

‘Yes, I can get it.’

‘I’ll be home just after two,’ she said. ‘You’ll find me at apartment 10 Maddox Arms. So you know where it is?’

I said I knew where it was.

‘Bring the money with you, Mr. Scott, and I’ll give you the antidote. Be there sharp at two. I have a train to catch.’ She went over to the door and opened it. ‘I’ve got to sing to those lousy drunks again. See you later.’

I moved past her into the passage, then turned and looked at her. Her face was tense and her eyes were glittering in the hard, ceiling light just above her head. I had an idea she was frightened.

We stared at each other for a long, steady moment, then she gently closed the door in my face.

As I drove out of the parking lot, I noticed a black Clipper edge out of the second row of cars and move after me.

I thought nothing of it at the time even though it kept behind me all the way back to town and only passed me when I pulled up outside my office block, but I was to remember it later.

The time was now a quarter to one. I had a key to the main door, but I knew if I opened the door I’d set the alarm off, so I rang for the janitor, hoping he hadn’t gone to bed.

He came eventually and peered through the plate-glass door at me. Then he turned off the alarm and let me in.

‘I hope I didn’t get you out of bed,’ I said. ‘I forgot some papers I want to work on over Sunday.’

‘That’s okay, Mr. Scott,’ he said cheerfully, ‘I was just about to turn in, but I wasn’t in. Will you be long?’

‘Five minutes,’ I said.

‘Then I’ll wait for you here and shut you out. You certainly work late hours.’

I made a non-committal remark and crossed over to the elevator.

It took me only a few minutes to unlock my office and open the safe. I exchanged an I.O.U. slip for the five hundred dollars I took from the cash box.

During the run down from Mount Cresta I had been doing some thinking. Dolores had said she would give me an antidote to Ross’s bite. That could only mean she was going to give me information that I could threaten him with so he wouldn’t dare use the information he had against me.