James Chase: Fast Buck

Seventeen hours of non-stop driving brought him to the City limits of Essex City. He was driving more slowly now, as he had difficulty in keeping his eyes properly focused.

Heavy rain clouds had brought darkness early. Although it was only just after eight o’clock, Baird had turned on his headlights. The highway seemed to him to be rising and falling in the beams of the headlights, and he had a crazy idea that the road must be floating on a rough sea. Every so often he was startled to find the car was wandering on to the wrong side of the road, and he hurriedly twisted the wheel to bring it straight. He only just averted an accident when a car overtook him and passed him with a furious blast of its horn.

He slowed down almost to a crawl. Sweat ran into his eyes, making them smart, and he was aware now of the smell from his arm, and it frightened him.

He kept going somehow. A few miles farther on, he vaguely remembered he had to turn right into the Paseo. Even at fifteen miles an hour he was having difficulty in keeping the car straight.

Behind him he suddenly heard the sharp note of a police siren. Immediately his confused and tired brain galvanised itself into life. This was the one sound that could jerk him out of his coma back to comparatively rational thinking. He looked quickly into his driving mirror. Behind him, coming up fast, was the large, glaring headlamp of a motor-cycle. A moment later a prowl cop drew level and signalled him to stop.

Baird pulled over to the grass verge. He braked, forgetting to throw out his clutch, and the car engine stalled. The car came to a wobbly stop, its off-side wheels bumping up on to the grass.

The cop pulled up beside him.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ he demanded in a loud, bul ying voice. ‘Been drinking?’

Baird groped down by his side. His fingers closed around the butt of the Colt. He leaned against the car door, peering up at the cop’s red, angry face.

The cop flashed a fight on Baird. He caught his breath sharply.

‘Jeepers! What the hel ’s the matter with you? You ill?’

‘Yeah,’ Baird gasped. ‘But I’l be al right. Just leave me alone, wil you? I’m going to see a friend of mine. She’l take care of me.’

‘You ain’t fit to drive,’ the cop said. ‘What’s happened to you to get into this state?’

‘Infected arm,’ Baird told him. ‘I’l be okay if you’l leave me alone.’

‘You’re not going to drive another yard. Move over. I’m going to take you to hospital,’ the cop said, and pulled open the car door.

Baird, who was leaning against the door, nearly fell into the road, but the cop caught hold of him and lifted him upright. Baird pushed the Colt into the cop’s stomach and pul ed the trigger twice.

The roar of the gun hit Baird like a physical blow. He had to grab hold of the door to save himself from falling out of the car.

The cop reeled back, his hands pressing his belly. He fell slowly on his knees, then straightened out in the road.

In saving himself from falling, Baird dropped the Colt on to the grass verge. He had only a vague idea he had lost something that was important to him, but he couldn’t remember what it was. He managed to slam the door shut, and somehow start the engine going again. With a clash of gears he sent the Packard lurching forward once more.

After he had been driving a few minutes, he completely forgot about the cop. It was as if the accident had never happened, and his fever-ridden mind returned to thinking about Anita.

He was on more familiar ground now. He turned off the Paseo on to Armour Boulevard, through to Broadway, up Summit Street, and across the Essex Avenue Bridge.

He was driving better now, although twice, without knowing it, he ran through a red traffic signal.

The traffic was light at that hour, and no car crossed his path.

He began to slow down as he reached the shabby, darkened street where Anita’s apartment was.

The street was deserted. Only a few lights showed at the upper storey windows. As he pulled up opposite Anita’s apartment house, rain began to fall from the heavy black clouds that had been piling up for the past hour.

He sat for some minutes looking up at the dark building. It was now twenty minutes to nine o’clock.

Anita’s window on the top floor was in darkness. It would be another hour and a half before she came home, he thought. Could he last out that time?

He rested his burning forehead against the car window. If he let go now, he knew he would slip off into a coma from which there would be no awakening. He decided to go up and wait outside her door.

Anything would be better than sitting in the car in which he now seemed to have passed a lifetime.

He opened the car door. When his feet touched the road, he nearly fell, but caught hold of the door in time to steady himself. He had thought he had been pretty bad the first time he had come to this house, but that was nothing to what he was feeling now.

He stood still, gathering his strength. It seemed a long way across the street, and his mind recoiled from the thought of climbing all those stairs, but he was determined now to get to her room: nothing would stop him.

As he was about to close the car door, he saw the Thompson gun on the floor by the driving seat.

He picked it up instinctively and, holding it under his arm, he turned, leaving the car door open, and began a slow, staggering walk across the street.

A car coming around the corner avoided him with a scream of tortured tyres and a blast of the horn.

Baird scarcely noticed it, his eyes were fixed on the front door of the apartment house, and he was oblivious to anything else.

Painfully he dragged himself up the steps. Every muscle in his body seemed to be on fire. He pushed open the door and walked into the dimly lit, airless lobby.

The flight of stairs faced him. He stood looking at them, swaying to and fro, only just keeping his balance. Then he moved forward, and began the nightmare climb that seemed to go on and on: a climb that wracked his body and forced his breath in great labouring gasps through his clenched teeth.

He reached the first floor landing, and stopped, his back against the banisters, sweat streaming down his face. He couldn’t remember how many more stairs he had to climb, and he began to doubt if he could reach the fourth floor. But his will drove him on, and slowly he staggered and lurched down the passage to the next flight of stairs.

He climbed them somehow, pausing on every step before mounting to the next. As he went down the passage to the third flight, a woman opened the door of a room close by and stared at him.

He kept on, not seeing her, and horrified at the sight of the gun and his lurching, staggering gait, she hastily closed the door.

He went up the last flight of stairs on his hands and knees, dragging the gun with him. He lay face down on the landing, drawing in great gasps of breath.

Well, he had done it. An hour’s wait, he thought, and he heard himself groan. He rol ed over on his side and looked at the closed door a few feet from him.

He was going to see her again. She might have changed her mind about him. He wouldn’t let go, now he had got so far. She had saved him before. She might even save him again.

Through his dazed and confused mind a gruesome joke filtered.

He thought, ‘I’l see her again if it kills me.’

Lieutenant Olin was on the telephone when Dallas put his head around the door.

‘I’m busy,’ Olin grunted. ‘Go away and bother someone else.’

Dallas came into the small office, pulled up a chair and sat astride it. In the hard light of the desk lamp he looked tired and edgy. He made a face at Olin, took out a cigarette and pasted it on his lower lip.