James Chase - Hit and Run

‘Very much.’

‘I wish I could live there.’ She lifted her arms and clasped her hands behind her head. I could see her breasts lift and strain against the thin wool of the sweater she was wearing. ‘Palm City is dreadfully dull, don’t you think?’

‘I suppose it must be for someone your age.’

She turned her head and stared at me.

‘You sound as if you’re old, but you’re not. You’re not thirty yet, are you?’

‘I’m thirty-one.’

‘You must be awfully clever. Roger says you are putting twenty thousand dollars into the business. How did you get all that money when you’re only thirty-one?’

‘My father left me most of it. The rest I’ve saved.’

‘Do you want to put all that money into Roger’s business?’

I was bewildered by her calm, direct questions.

‘You sound very interested,’ I said.

‘I am.’ She turned her head and smiled at me. ‘I’ve always been interested in the way men make money. The only certain way a girl can become rich is to get married. Men can go out and make money. I think it’s a much more satisfactory way. Of course you were lucky to have a father to leave you something, weren’t you?’

‘I guess I was.’

She sat up and, reaching out, she rested her hand on the dashboard.

‘I love this car. Will you teach me to drive?’

‘There’s nothing to teach.’ My voice was unsteady. ‘It’s an automatic drive. You press the starter and it drives itself.’

She looked at me.

‘Believe it or not, I’ve never driven a car. Roger won’t let me touch any of his, and he has four.’

‘Why is that?’

‘He’s terribly possessive. If I want to go anywhere, I go on a bicycle. It’s fantastic, isn’t it? His excuse is I can’t drive. If I learned, then he would have to lend me a car. Will you teach me?’

I didn’t hesitate.

‘Why, yes. If that’s what you want.’

She clasped her hands around her knees and pulled her knees up to her chin. I could see now she was wearing light-coloured slacks. ‘I want that more than anything else in the world. Will you teach me now or have you something else to do?’

‘You mean right now?’

‘Yes, if you can spare the time.’

‘Well, all right. We’d better change places,’ and I began to get out of the car, but she put her hand on my coat sleeve, stopping me. The feel of her fingers sent a hot wave of blood crawling up my spine.

‘Not here. They’ll see us and they’ll tell Roger. Let’s go somewhere where no one can see us.’

‘They? Who do you mean?’

‘Mrs. Hepple and Watkins. Have you met Mrs. Hepple?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t like her. She’s sneaky. Don’t you think she’s sneaky?’

‘I wouldn’t know. I just saw her last night. I haven’t spoken to her.’

‘She doesn’t approve of me. She likes to get me into trouble. Roger listens to her.’

I suddenly saw the danger of this.

‘If Mr. Aitken doesn’t want you to learn to drive…’

She put her hand on my arm, and that stopped me short.

‘Don’t tell me you’re another one of them who is afraid of him. If you are, I’ll find someone else to teach me to drive.’

‘It’s not that I’m afraid of him, but I can’t very well do something that is against his wishes.’

She put her head a little on one side and looked searchingly at me.

‘Don’t my wishes mean anything, then?’

We looked at each other, then I turned on the ignition.

‘If you want to learn how to drive, I’ll teach you,’ I said, my heart slamming against my ribs.

I moved the gear lever to ‘drive’ and trod down on the gas pedal. The car went down the long driveway like a bullet out of a gun. At the gates, I stood on the brake pedal and, when the tyres bit, I swung the car on to the main highway and again gave it the gun.

For about five minutes I drove fast with the speedometer needle flickering around the nineties, then I slowed and turned off on to a secondary road and pulled up.

‘My!’ she exclaimed, and she sounded a little breathless. ‘You can drive! I’ve never been driven as fast as that before.’

I got out and walked around the car.

‘Move over,’ I said, opening the off-side door. ‘You can’t drive where you’re sitting.’

She slid across the bench seat and I got in and sat in her place. I could feel the slight warmth of her body still on the seat and that made the blood quicken in my veins.

‘Look, it’s simple. Here’s the gear lever. All you have to do is shift it down a notch, like this, then

you press down on the pedal by your right foot. When you want to stop, you take your foot off that pedal and put it on the big one here on your left. That’s the brake. Got it?’

‘Why, it’s easy,’ she said, and in one movement she flicked down the gear lever and trod down hard on the gas.

The car took off like a crazy thing. She had absolutely no idea how to steer a car. I doubt if she looked where she was going.

For two or three seconds I was so startled I couldn’t do anything. In those seconds we shot off the road, mounted the grass verge, skated along it with the off-side wheels skidding, and then we slammed back on to the road again. As we tore towards a hedge on the other side of the road I grabbed the wheel and got the car straight.

‘Take your foot off the gas!’ I yelled at her and I managed to kick her shoe off the pedal. Still holding the wheel, I stamped down on the brake and brought the car to a violent stop.

Those had been hectic seconds. In another moment we could have been wrecked.

I turned off the ignition and turned to look at her.

The moonlight was coming through the open car window and I could see her clearly. She was completely unruffled and she was smiling. She looked so lovely she took my breath away.

‘It’s got power,’ she said. ‘I was a little heavy-footed, wasn’t I? I shouldn’t have pressed down so hard. Let’s try again.’

‘Now, wait a minute,’ I said. ‘That’s a terrific way to attempt suicide. You don’t stamp down…’

‘I know,’ she said impatiently. ‘You don’t have to tell me. I pressed down much too hard. Let’s try again.’

‘Will you watch the road when the car is moving? The idea is to keep straight.’

She looked quickly at me and laughed.

‘I was taken by surprise,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think it had so much power.’

‘That makes two of us,’ I said and turned on the ignition. ‘Take it dead easy: gently with the gas.’

‘Yes, I know.’

She moved the gear lever into position and we took off around twenty miles an hour. Again she showed she hadn’t an idea how to steer a car. We bounced up on the grass verge and then back on to the road, only this time we were going at a reasonable speed and I could control the car. I kept my hand on the steering wheel and, for fifty yards, we kept a straight course.

‘I don’t see how I can possibly learn if you do everything,’ she said and pushed my hand away.

We promptly darted towards the hedge. I got my foot on the brake pedal and stopped the car just in time.

‘You don’t seem to have the knack of this,’ I said. ‘Did Mr. Aitken ever try to teach you to drive?’

‘Roger?’ She laughed. ‘Oh, no, he wouldn’t have the patience.’

‘You’re trying to drive too fast and you’re not watching the road. Let’s start again, and let’s go a lot more slowly.’

This time she succeeded in driving a hundred yards at fifteen miles an hour, dead in the centre of the road.

‘That’s the idea,’ I said. ‘That’s fine. Keep going like that and you’ll get the feel of the thing.’

Then I saw, coming towards us, the headlights of a fast-moving car.