James Chase - Hit and Run

I moved away from the wall and taking out my handkerchief I wiped my sweating face. Then I crossed the room and snapped off the radio. The sudden silence in the room was almost as violent as had been the strident jazz.

I was moving towards the door when I heard Dolores, out-side in the passage, suddenly scream out: ‘No! Keep away from me! No… don’t…’

I stood there, my heart beginning to thump. The note in her voice was loaded with terrified panic.

Then she gave a piercing scream that went into me like a knife-thrust. The sound was followed by a scuffling noise and then the sound of a heavy fall.

She screamed again: a scream I still hear from time to time in a nightmare.

Then there was silence.

I stood there, tense, my heart hammering, listening.

I heard the grille of the elevator slam shut and then the creaking noise of its cable told me the elevator was descending.

After a long, tense minute the creaking stopped, and then faintly, three floors below, I heard the grille slam back.

Somewhere on the street a car started up and drove away fast. I still stood there, feeling sweat on my face, listening to the silence that now cloaked the whole of the apartment block, then faintly, I heard a horrible gasping sigh that came from the other side of the door: a sound that turned my blood cold.

As I stood there, staring at the locked door, the telephone bell started into life. Its sudden violent ringing made me start convulsively.

I looked quickly across the room to where the telephone stood on the desk, then, while the bell continued to ring, I tried the handle of the door, but the door was firmly locked on the outside.

It was a solid door, I couldn’t hope to batter it down without making a lot of noise, and besides, it would take some time.

I ran over to the window, pulled aside the curtain and looked down at the street, three storeys below. There was no way out that way.

I went into the bedroom and looked out of the bedroom window: still no way out.

I came out of the bedroom and back into the living-room. The strident sound of the telephone bell, ringing continuously, jarred on my nerves.

Across the room was another door. I opened it and glanced into a kitchen-bathroom. The window, high up, was too small for anything larger than a cat to pass through.

The persistent ringing of the telephone was now more than I could stand, and I went back into the sitting-room and removed the receiver laying it gently on the desk.

As I turned back to the kitchen, I heard a man’s voice come faintly out of the receiver.

‘Dolly! Is that you, Dolly? This is Ed. The goddamn train is leaving in five minutes…’

I ran back into the kitchen and opened a cupboard, hunting for a tool strong enough to break open the door, but I couldn’t find one.

I went back to the locked door. Bending, I peered into the keyhole. The key was still in the lock. I could still hear the faint voice, like a ghost voice, coming from the receiver.

I looked around the room. There was a newspaper on one of the chairs, and I tore off a sheet and slid the sheet under the door. There was a fair-sized gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.

I ran back into the kitchen, my heart thumping with panic and started a frantic search through the drawers in a cabinet. In the fourth drawer I was lucky enough to find a pair of thin pliers. I snatched them up and returned to the living-room. With a little manipulation I managed to force the key out of the lock and I heard it drop on to the sheet of newspaper.

Very gently I began to pull the sheet back under the door and with it the key.

I snatched it up.

As I did so, I heard the telephone click and then the dialling tone start up. I went over to the desk and replaced the receiver, then returned to the door, thrust the key into the lock with a shaking hand and opened the door.

I stepped out into the dimly lit passage.

Dolores was lying face down by the elevator, her grey travelling coat rucked up: her long slim legs sprawled grotesquely in death.

No one could lie like that unless they were dead, and I turned cold at the sight of her.

For a full half-minute I stood in the doorway, looking at her, j then I reached into the sitting-room, turned off the light and closed the door.

Moving slowly, hearing my breath rasping in my throat, I went down the passage to where she lay.

I reached her and bent over her. Her face was turned away from me, but I could see now there was blood in her hair.

Although I knew she must be dead, I had to make sure.

I took hold of her shoulder and pulled her over on to her back.

Someone had hit her a crushing blow on her right temple, smashing her skull. It had been a terrible blow and must have killed her instantly. I shut my eyes while I struggled with my nausea. It took me several seconds to fight off the cold, horrible feeling of sickness and before I could nerve myself to look at her again.

I reached in her coat pocket, but of course the five hundred dollars had gone: gone too was her suitcase.

I straightened. Taking out my handkerchief I wiped my face and wrists, then I moved away from her, thinking, in a grip of panic, that if anyone found me here, they would jump to the conclusion that I had killed her.

With one thought to get out of the building, and get as far away as I could before she was found, I started down the stairs.

I was half-way down the second flight of stairs when I suddenly saw a girl turn the bend in the stairs and come up towards me.

For a split second I stopped, my mind screaming to me to turn around and bolt up the stairs, but somehow I managed to keep control of myself and I went on down.

The stairs were badly lit, but I could see enough of the girl to know her again, and I guess that would go for her too if she ever saw me again.

She was young and blonde with a tired, pale, uninteresting face and heavy smudges under her eyes. Under the black coat that hung open she wore a flowery evening dress you can see in any cheap dress shop on Arcade Street, and there was a limp, red carnation in her hair.

She looked at me as she passed, her eyes indifferent, and she went on up the stairs.

I kept on down.

If she went up to the third floor she would walk right on to Dolores’s body, I thought, and her screams would bring the police before I could get out of the district.

When I reached the turn in the stairs, I started down the rest of the flight at a run.

I reached the hall and crossed to the front door, then I paused to listen.

I heard a door slam somewhere upstairs, but there were no screams. Her apartment must have been on the second floor, I told myself, and I cautiously opened the front door and looked up and down the long, deserted street.

Then, shutting the front door behind me, I walked quickly down the steps and to where I had left the Buick some fifty yards farther down the street.

I got in and fumbled for the ignition key. I felt pretty bad. The shock of finding Dolores now hit me, and for several seconds I had to sit still, my eyes closed, while I fought against the sickness that nearly swamped me.

Then I heard a car coming down the street. The sound pulled me together, and feverishly, I got out the ignition key and sank it into the wheel-lock.

As I started the Buick engine, a taxi passed me, swerved to the kerb and pulled up outside the

Maddox Arms. A man got out, carrying a suitcase. He paid the driver, then ran up the steps and entered the lobby.

I hesitated, watching the taxi drive away.

Was this man Ed who had spoken on the telephone?

I pulled away from the kerb and drove fast down the road, but at the first turning, I braked and swung the car into the side street where there were a number of cars already parked. If this man was Ed, I would be a fool not to get a look at him, I told myself.