James Chase - Well Now, My Pretty…

Mish sat in an easy chair. He began sipping the hot coffee. “I didn’t tell you… Wash got shot… he’s dead.”

Chandler didn’t look around. He hunched his shoulders.

“It looked pretty good the way that bastard rat laid it out for us like a pretty dream. Well, maybe we will still find him,” he said.

“Think so?” Mish lit a cigarette from Chandler’s pack. “I wouldn’t bet on it. He’s a brass boy and cute. I think we have kissed him and the money goodbye.”

Chandler shrugged. He continued to stare out of the window for some minutes, then turning, he abruptly left the room and walked into the kitchen.

Lolita was standing over the fry pan, watching six eggs setting in the pan.

“I’ve been thinking,” Chandler said, coming to stand by her side. “I shouldn’t have brought you into this. If they catch up with us and find you here, you could go away as an accessory.”

“I know I’m stupid,” Lolita said, “but not that stupid. I’ve thought of that. You don’t have to worry about me, Jess. I told you… I’m a little crazy about you. You can’t stay here without me, can you?”

“That’s right.”

She smiled at him.

“Well, then…”

He leaned forward and kissed the side of her neck.

“I’ll make it up to you, baby.”

She began serving up the eggs and the ham.

“I’d better move in, hadn’t I?” she said, handing him the plates. “If anyone came here, you couldn’t go to the door, could you? While you are eating, I’ll drive back to my place and pack a bag. There are a few other things we need. Have you any money?”

He put down the plates, took out the roll of $5 bills and gave her ten of them.

“You’re sticking your neck out, baby,” he said, wondering a little uneasily if he would see her again.

“It’s my neck.” She patted his arm. “I won’t be long,” and moving past him, she went down the passage and out through the front door.

Chandler carried the two plates into the sitting-room. Mish was at the window, watching Lolita as she drove away.

“Come and eat,” Chandler said.

“She leaving?”

“She’s coming back. She’s getting her things… she’s moving in.

“Want to bet on it?” Mish drew up a chair and sat down. “She’s coming back.”

The two men ate hungrily, then Mish said suddenly, “I’m not kidding myself, Jess. We’re not going to get away with this caper.”

Chandler cut into his second egg.

“The odds are long, but we still have a chance.”

“I’m not going back to jail.” Mish dipped a piece of ham into his egg yolk. “I’ve had enough of jail.”

“Don’t worry,” Chandler said. “You won’t go back to jail.

You’ll go to the gas chamber… so will I. This is a murder rap.”

“Yeah… well, they won’t take me alive. I don’t know about you. I’d rather have a quick bullet than weeks in the Death House.”

“Suppose you shut up?” Chandler said. “I want to enjoy this.” Mish suddenly grinned.

“She can cook, can’t she? Think she’s talking to a cop right now?”

Chandler pushed away his empty plate.

“Want some coffee?”

“I never say no to coffee.”

Chandler went into the kitchen. Mish rubbed the back of his neck, reached for the pack of cigarettes, shook a cigarette out and lit it.

He was staring into space, wondering what eventually would become of him, his eyes bleak and lost, when Chandler came back with the coffee.

THE SKY was turning a vivid crimson as the sun sank behind the foothills. Tom Whiteside glanced at his wrist-watch. The time was eighteen minutes after eight.

“We’ll use the dirt road,” he said. “It’ll save ten miles. We should be home in another hour.”

Sheila Whiteside said nothing. She had been sulking now for the past hour, ever since they had had the row about the gold watch she wanted as her first wedding anniversary present. As Whiteside had pointed out, the watch cost $180, and where was he going to find that kind of money?

He glanced at her, then away. He was feeling depressed. What a vacation! he thought. He had had an idea that he was asking for trouble when he had insisted that they should go camping. Camping, for God’s sake! But how else could they have afforded to spend two weeks away from home? They certainly couldn’t have afforded a hotel or even a cheap motel. He had borrowed the camping equipment from a friend for free. It was a pretty good outfit with a fair-sized tent, cooking equipment and sleeping bags. But what a fiasco that had turned out to be! Sheila had stuck her toes in and had refused to cook. This was her vacation, she had declared. If they couldn’t afford a hotel, then he could do the cooking. He could run the camp. She was going to sunbathe and do nothing.

Tom squirmed at the memory of those past two weeks. He hadn’t been able to master the Calor gas cooker. The food was either burnt or undercooked. Sheila had lazed in the sun, wearing the skimpiest bikini, and the constant sight of her near nakedness had tried Tom almost beyond endurance.

He recalled with frustration they hadn’t made love during the whole of those fourteen days. Several times he had made advances during the day, but this was something Sheila just wouldn’t tolerate. Then at night she got into her sleeping bag, and how the hell was a man to go into action when his wife was in a sleeping bag? Yet he had to endure the sight of her going around looking like an erotic dream, deliberately showing herself off, until there were times when he was fit to climb a tree.

How was it possible, he was continually asking himself, that a girl with such a body, with such beauty, could be so utterly frigid? What a trap! To look at her, you would think… as all his friends thought… she was hotter than a redhot stove. She was tall, broad shouldered with large, firm breasts, a narrow waist, solid hips and long, lovely legs. She had natural ash- blonde hair, violet eyes fringed with thick eyelashes, a wide, beautiful mouth, splendid teeth and high cheekbones. There were times, when her eyes were alive and her lips curved into an inviting smile, that she could pass for Marilyn Monroe’s sister.

Since he had been so lucky to have married a girl with her looks and her body and that inviting smile, he naturally expected a sexual appetite to go along with the other assets, but here he had been painfully wrong. The sexual act meant less to Sheila than blowing her beautiful nose in a Kleenex.

As Tom coaxed his 1959 Corvette Sting Ray along the Miami highway, aware that there was no pull in the engine and the compression was getting flabbier with every mile he drove, he thought back to the time — fourteen months ago — when he had first met Sheila.

Tom had reached the age of thirty-two without finding success. He was a commission-only salesman working for General Motors branch in Paradise City. Tall, heavily built, dark, with pleasant, rather ordinary features, he had been struggling ever since he had left school to get into the high-income bracket he was sure his talents deserved. The trouble, of course, he was constantly telling himself and his friends, was that he lacked capital. With capital, a guy with his ideas couldn’t fail to hit the jackpot, but without capital well what, could you do?

But the real trouble with Tom was that he lacked drive. He was a dreamer. He dreamed of riches, but he hadn’t the energy or the ability to make money.

Had it not been for his father, Dr. John Whiteside, now dead, Tom would be out of a job. But some years ago, Dr. Whiteside had saved the life of Claude Locking’s wife. This was something Locking, who was the manager of General Motors, could not forget. Because he was grateful to the memory of Dr. Whiteside, he tolerated his inefficient son.