James Chase - Hit and Run

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Couldn’t you have used the spare bed or had you designs on me?’

She flushed scarlet.

‘I’m sorry. I waited and waited, but you didn’t come.’ Her voice was breathless. ‘I got so tired I lay on your bed and I must have fallen asleep.’

‘Then in your sleep you threw your clothes all over the room and managed to get under the covers,’ I said, smiling at her. ‘Well, I hope you slept as well as I did. I got in a little late and thought it would be uncharitable to wake you. Was there any particular reason why you are here or did you decide a change of beds would break up the monotony of your life at the Gables?’

She stared blankly at me.

‘You said you had found a solution. You didn’t say what it was. I wanted to know. I came down here and waited for you in the hope you would come back.’

‘I see, and how did you get in here?’

Her eyes shifted away from me.

‘I –I found a window open.’

‘That was careless of me.’ I ran my fingers through my hair and winced as I touched the lump at the back of my head. ‘Look, I’m not feeling quite myself this morning. Would you be a nice girl and get on your bicycle and go away? I want a little peace and quiet around here this morning.’

‘Ches, please…’ She began to beat her clenched fists together, a sign I had come to recognize as evidence she was agitated. ‘I must talk to you. This man who phoned… he’s been to see me. He intends to blackmail us.’

‘Yes, I know about him. Well, all right, then we’ll have a, talk, but not before I have had some

coffee. Will you oblige me by going into the bathroom and making yourself look glamorous? Right now you look as if you’ve been sleeping in a hedge. I’ll get the coffee, then we can have a conference.’

Leaving her staring after me, I went into the kitchen and put on the kettle. I heard her go into the bathroom and, after a moment or so, I heard the shower going.

By the time I had the coffee, orange juice and toast on the table, she had come out of the bathroom. There was a fresh glow to her skin now and her hair looked silky and neat. She had rolled up the sleeves of my dressing-gown, and with that extraordinary knack most women have, she somehow had made herself look lovely and desirable even when wearing a man’s dressing-gown that was several sizes too large for her.

‘Sit down and drink your coffee,’ I said. ‘Don’t let’s talk yet. There’s plenty of time.’

‘But, Ches…’

‘I said we wouldn’t talk yet. I want a little peace while I drink my coffee. Just relax, will you, and try to keep quiet?’

She sat down opposite me, her face suddenly sulky, and poured the coffee.

I savoured the situation. If I had no troubles, if Aitken dropped dead and if she were to marry me, this could be the set-up for the next twenty years or more: she sitting opposite me, looking lovely and a little sulky every morning while we drank coffee. I found the picture a lot less exciting than I had, imagined it would be.

We finished our coffee in silence. From time to time we looked at each other across the table. It was a pretty odd breakfast, but I was determined not to listen to her troubles before the first cigarette of the morning.

When we had finished the coffee, I pushed a box of cigarettes towards her, got up, walked over to the settee and lay down on it I lit a cigarette and stared up at the ceiling. I now felt more or less ready to cope with whatever she had to tell me.

‘Okay,’ I said, not looking at her. ‘Let’s have it. You’re now being blackmailed—is that it?’

She sat rigid, her clenched fists on the table, her eyes wide open.

‘Yes. He came yesterday evening. I was swimming. He suddenly appeared as I was getting out of the bath.’

I let smoke drift out of my open mouth.

‘If you were wearing the bikini I saw you in, I’m surprised he had the heart to blackmail you.’ I lifted my head to look at her. ‘How did you like him? He struck me as the type most girls would rave about.’

‘I thought he was hateful,’ she said in a cold, flat voice.

‘Really? Perhaps that was because he wanted money from you. I’m sure if he asked you to go out to dinner with him, you would have found him enchanting.’

‘Ches! Will you please stop talking like this! He is demanding thirty thousand dollars! He said you and I could find that amount!’

‘I know. He seems to have a certain child-like faith in our ability to raise such a sum. He has put the same proposition to me. He has given me until the end of the week to find the money. Do you think you could find thirty thousand dollars?’

‘Of course not!’

I reached out and tapped ash off my cigarette.

‘How much can you find—’

‘I don’t know. I have a diamond ring. It’s the only thing I really own. Roger gave it to me before we were married. It must be worth something.’ She began to twist a ring on the third finger of her right hand. ‘I don’t know how much. Perhaps you could sell it for me.’

I stretched out my hand.

‘Let’s have a look at it.’

She stared at me as if she couldn’t believe she had heard aright, then she pulled the ring off her finger, got up and came over to me. She handed the ring to me.

I took it, looking up at her.

‘Sit down here,’ I said, patting the settee.

She sat down, folding her hands in her lap. Her expression was puzzled and worried.

I examined the ring.

It wasn’t bad, but there was nothing about it that would excite any jeweller to fall over himself to buy it.

‘I’d say you might hock it for five hundred,’ I said, ‘providing you told the guy your mother was starving, and you were dying of consumption, and if, of course, he believed you.’ I dropped the ring into her lap. ‘Well, we’re making progress. We now have only to find twenty-nine thousand and five hundred dollars.’

‘Ches! Why are you talking like this to me?’ she demanded angrily. ‘What have I done? I warned you we would be blackmailed and you didn’t believe me and now you turn against me. It’s not my fault.’

‘I’ve had a very trying night,’ I said patiently. ‘Your problems, Lucille, don’t interest me immediately. I have other things to think about.’

‘But they are your problems as well!’ she flared. ‘How are we going to raise the money?’

‘That, as Hamlet once said, is the question. Have you any suggestions to make?’

‘Well, you—you can find most of it, can’t you? You told me you had twenty thousand dollars.’

I looked at her.

She was sitting forward, her eyes frightened and anxious, and she looked very young and lovely.

‘I have to give that to your husband. He might be annoyed if I gave it to Oscar instead.’

‘Ches! You’re not taking this seriously! What is the matter with you? This man says he will tell Roger we were making love on the beach together and he will tell the police I killed the policeman! He says he has a photograph of you changing the number plates of your car!’ She began to beat her fist on my knee. ‘You’re in tins as much as I am! What are we going to do?’

I pushed her hand away.

‘We’re not going to let this situation stampede us,’ I said. That’s the first thing. The second thing is we’re not going to pay Mr. Oscar Ross, and the third thing is you’re going to get dressed and go home before someone comes here and finds us together in an obviously compromising situation.’

She became rigid, her clenched fists between her knees.

‘You’re not going to pay him?’ she said, her eyes growing round. ‘But you must! He’ll go to the police! He’ll tell Roger… you must pay him!’

‘There’s no must about it. We have until the end of the week: that’s six days. I’ll be surprised if I don’t find something in that time about Ross that will discourage him from pressing his claim. A man like him must have a past. He’s anxious to leave town. I’m going to dig into his past, and I’m going to find out why he wants to leave town. I may turn up something. I’m certainly not going to pay him a dime until I’m convinced I must pay him and I’m far from convinced at this moment.’