James Chase - Hit and Run

She stared at me, aghast.

‘But if he finds out you are investigating him, he may not like it. He may go to the police…’

‘He won’t. Now will you be a nice girl and get dressed and go home? I have lots of things to do and you’re in the way.’

‘But you’re not really serious? You’ll only antagonize him. He—he may raise the price.’

‘He won’t,’ I said. ‘He’s no fool. He knows thirty thousand is as much as he can hope for. Now will you please go home?’

Slowly and reluctantly she got to her feet.

‘Don’t you think we’d better give him the money, Ches? We—we may go to jail if you try to be clever.’

I smiled at her.

‘Will you relax and leave this to me? We have time and we may be lucky.’

‘I don’t like it,’ she said, staring down at me. ‘I think it would be better to pay him and get rid of him.’

‘Naturally you would think that because it’s not your money. If you’re so anxious for him to be paid why don’t you ask your husband if he will lend you thirty thousand dollars? There’s a slight chance that he might.’

She made an angry movement with her hands, then turned and went quickly out of the room.

I reached for the telephone book, turned the pages until I came to the R’s. I found Oscar Ross had a place called Belle Vue on Beach Boulevard: not perhaps the best district in town, but at least as good as mine.

Out of curiosity, I checked to see if Art Galgano was in the book. I wasn’t disappointed nor surprised

to find he wasn’t.

I put the book down, got to my feet and poured another cup of coffee. My head was beginning to ache again, and I went into the bathroom, found some aspirin and washed down the three tablets with the luke-warm coffee.

I went back to the settee and sat on it while I did a little thinking. After ten minutes or so, Lucille came out of my bed-room. She made an attractive picture in her lemon-yellow slacks and white shirt. In her right hand she carried a white wrap-over handbag.

She stood in the doorway, obviously showing herself off, with the lost-little-girl look on her face that made her look cute enough to eat.

I regarded her and wished she wasn’t Aitken’s wife, that she wasn’t such a barefaced liar and that she wasn’t so completely untrustworthy.

‘Ches,’ she said in her small, little girl’s voice, ‘we really must be sensible about this. I’ve been thinking…’

‘Save your breath,’ I said. ‘I know exactly what you have been thinking. You have decided, for both our sakes, I should hand over every nickel I own, but there is one point you have overlooked. Once you pay blackmail, the blackmailer always comes back for more. Ross will gladly accept the money and perhaps we won’t hear from him for a year or so, then one day when we think all is well, he’ll turn up with a hard-luck story and put on the bite. This is my money, Lucille. I may eventually be forced to part with it, but I’m going to be quite sure there is no other way out of this mess before I do part with it.’

She began to move restlessly around the room.

Finally she paused and said without looking at me: ‘Then perhaps I should tell Roger. I am sure he would pay this man rather than let me go to prison.’

‘We’ve played this scene before and it’s still corny,’ I said, smiling at her. ‘Go home before I get annoyed with you.’

She gripped her handbag until her knuckles turned white and she marched over to me, her eyes stormy.

‘We’ve got to pay this money! If you won’t, then I’ll tell Roger! I mean it!’

‘The last time you acted out this little scene you said finally you didn’t want to tell him and you wouldn’t throw him in my face again. It seems you have a short memory. Well, all right, if you are so anxious to tell him, we’ll both go and tell him, and I’ll make sure he gets the facts right.’

She went white with anger.

‘I hate you!’ she screamed at me and took a swipe at my face with her handbag.

I got my hand up in time and took the blow on my wrist. The contact was so violent that the handbag shot out of her hand, flew across the room, hit the wall and burst open, its contents scattering on the floor.

An object from the bag caught my eyes.

‘Well, what do you know!’ I exclaimed.

She darted across the room and snatched up the object and thrust it inside her shirt, then she backed away, her eyes wide with fear and dismay.

For perhaps a second or so I stood rooted, staring at her, then as she turned and bolted for the door, I shot after her.

I grabbed her as she reached the hall. She broke free, dodged around me and tried to open the front door. I grabbed her arm and swung her around. She closed with me, kicking, punching and trying to bite. She was surprisingly strong, and before I could smother her arms, I had collected three or four punches in the face that hurt and made me pretty mad.

She squealed as I forced her around so her back was to me and I brought her down on her knees.

She squirmed away from me, got to her feet and dived towards the front door. I grabbed her again. Panting, she twisted around and aimed a kick at me, but this time I was ready for her and I got out of the way.

She tried to butt my face with the top of her head, then wrenching one wrist free, she managed to rake her nails down the side of my neck.

This was turning into quite a scrap and I was fast losing my temper.

It was like trying to hold on to a wild cat. Somehow she managed to get her knee up and slam it into my chest, breaking my grip on her wrists. She squirmed away from me, but as she did an object fell to the ground.

I picked it up.

It was a driving permit.

I examined it.

It was made out in her name and dated two years back.

I turned to look at her.

She didn’t move. She crouched there in the corner, her face hidden in her hands.

Then she began to weep.

PUTTING the driving permit in my pocket, I turned my back on the weeping girl and made my way into the bathroom. I ran the water into the toilet basin and bathed the scratches on my neck. They were pretty deep and painful. I stopped the bleeding. Staring at myself in the mirror, I saw it was pretty obvious that I had been in a fight.

I went into my bedroom and changed my pyjamas for an open-neck shirt and slacks, then I went into die lounge and sat down and looked across the sands at the sea and the distant palm trees.

I was thinking and smoking when I heard a movement behind me and I looked around. Lucille stood in the doorway.

We stared at each other.

‘Ches…’ Her voice was a thin quaver. ‘I can explain… really I can…’

‘Well, come on in and explain,’ I said. ‘This should be worth hearing. You’ve proved to me you are a pretty fluent liar, but now this is where you can win an Oscar if you take the trouble.’

She moved towards me and sat down in a chair near mine.

‘Please, Ches… I know how angry you must be, but I haven’t ever lied to you. I really haven’t.’ There was now a saintly expression on her face that made me itch to haul her over my knee and belabour her with the nearest weapon I could lay my hands on. ‘If you had asked me for the permit, I would have given it to you. There was no need for you to have behaved like that.’

‘Look, don’t try me too far.’

She touched her lips with her tongue and the saintly expression gave way to alarmed weariness.

‘I’m sorry, Ches. I didn’t mean to annoy you,’ she said meekly. ‘If you don’t believe me when I say I have never lied to you…’

‘Oh, skip it,’ I said impatiently. ‘Let’s have your explanation. This business about wanting to learn to drive was just a gag?’