James Chase - Strictly For Cash

After a while I got around to thinking about what that copper had said. It began to worry me. No other car, no husband, it was a Buick and not a Bentley, and I was driving. What did he mean?

Maybe I had dreamed the copper. Maybe he was part of the mists and the fog and the darkness. He must be unless he was confusing me with someone else.

Then the doctor came around from behind the screen. He grinned cheerfully at me.

“You don’t have to tell me you’re better,” he said. “I can see that for myself.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “How long have I been here?”

He glanced at my papers at the foot of the bed.

“You were admitted at eleven-thirty on the night of September 6th. Today is September 12th. So you’ve been here six days.”

“September?”

“That’s right.”

“You mean July, don’t you? It can’t be September. We hit that car on July 29th: the night I fought the Miami Kid.”

“I don’t know about that. You were admitted on September 6th.”

“That can’t be right. I couldn’t have remained unconscious for more than a month before I was found.”

The doctor smiled.

“Of course you couldn’t. As a matter of fact you were found almost at once. A speed-cop heard the crash, although he didn’t see it happen. He arrived on the scene five minutes after the smash. You were brought here an hour later.”

I licked my lips. My mouth had suddenly gone dry.

“You wouldn’t be fooling about the date, doc?”

He shook his head.

“No. I wouldn’t be fooling about the date.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “Now, you mustn’t worry about this. It’ll work out all right. At the moment you’re showing typical signs of concussion. You’ve had a severe head injury. You’re lucky to be alive. For some time you must expect to be confused. Dates, details of who was in the car and who wasn’t, even your past may not make sense, but they will sort themselves out in a little while. At the moment you are convinced the car crash happened on July 29th. You’ll find it impossible to believe it happened on September 6th, but don’t let that worry you. In a week or so your memory will function normally again. And another thing, don’t let the police rattle you. I’ve explained the position to them, and they understand. They want you to help them if you can, but they know now that if you make mistakes you’re not doing it intentionally. All you have to do is to take it easy and rest all you can. It’s just a matter of time.”

He was a nice guy, and he was doing his best for me, and I was grateful, but that didn’t stop me worrying. I knew I had fought the Kid on July 29th, and the crash had happened on the same night. Nothing he could say would alter that fact.

“I don’t want to argue about it, doc,” I said, “but do me a favour, will you?”

“Certainly. What is it?”

“Della — the girl I was with. She’s here, too, isn’t she? Ask her. She’ll tell you it was July 29th. Ask her husband. He’ll tell you the same thing.”

The cheerful, bedside manner slipped a little.

“Now, here is a case in point,” he said. “This business about a husband. You must expect it, you know. Only she and you were found in the car. There was no husband.”

My heart began to pound.

“Well, all right, there was no husband,” I said, trying to control the shake in my voice. “Then ask her. She’ll tell you. You’re not going to say she wasn’t there, are you? Go and ask her!”

He ran his hand over his sleek, dark hair. The smile had gone for good.

“A couple of days ago you weren’t well enough to be told,” he said gently. “I can tell you now. She broke her back. She was dead when they found you.”

In the afternoon Police Lieutenant Bill Riskin came to see me. If the nurse hadn’t told me he was a police lieutenant I wouldn’t have believed it. He was a little guy, around fifty, with a sad, wrinkled face and bright little eyes that peered at me through a pair of horn spectacles. He carried his hat in his hand, and he walked on tiptoe, and when he spoke, his voice was soft and gentle.

By this time I was as jumpy as a nervous horse. I was ready to go into a flat spin at the drop of a hat. Maybe that’s why they picked Riskin. If they had unleashed that fat sergeant on me again I’d have flipped my lid.

He pulled up a chair beside me and crossed his short legs. I saw he was wearing boots and white socks, and his ankles were as thin as matchsticks.

“Well, boy, how’s the head?” he asked.

I said the head was fine. I was clutching on to the sheet, and sweating, suspicious of him, suspicious of everyone. At the back of my mind I was beginning to wonder if they weren’t going to tell me I was crazy.

“Doc said you were upset,” he went on. “You’ve got nothing to be upset about. You’re not the first fella who had a crack on his head and has got confused. You want to take it easy, and let us boys do the worrying. All we want to do is to get this straightened out. The girl died. If someone hit you, they didn’t stop, and that makes it a hit-and-run job. It’s our business to find the fella and teach him not to do it again. We’ll find him more quickly if you can help us. You want us to find him, don’t you?”

That sounded reasonable enough, but he wasn’t kidding me. I’d seen that guy’s car turn over and smash into a tree before I had blacked out. If they had found me five minutes after the crash, as the doctor had said, they would have found him, too.

I said I wanted them to find him.

Riskin nodded and peered at me.

“Is it right you were hitchhiking?”

“Yeah.”

“And the girl let you drive the car?”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t understand why they were so anxious for me to admit driving the car, unless they wanted to pin Della’s death on me. I began to get the jumps again.

He repeated his question in his mild voice, and even gave me an encouraging smile.

“I was not driving!” I exclaimed, raising my voice. “She was driving. I was sitting at her side, and her husband was sitting at the back! How many more times do I have to tell you guys?”

I expected him to start yelling at me, but he didn’t. He just nodded his head and looked a little sadder.

“I’m sorry, boy. You want to take it easy. You don’t want to get worked up. I guess there’s been a misunderstanding about who was driving.”

“There damn well has!” I said. “That sergeant of yours...”

“Never mind about the sergeant. He’s been taught to bawl people out. It’s the system. I never could cotton on to it myself,” and he grinned at me.

I was still a little suspicious of him, but in spite of that, I was beginning to like him.

“Where did she pick you up, boy?” he went on. “You were walking along some road and she overtook you and you showed her your thumb. Is that what happened?”

“No; you’ve got it all wrong. Look, will you let me tell you what did happen: right from the start?”

“That’s just what I want you to do,” he said, and took out a notebook. “Mind if I make a few notes? I’m not as young as I could be, and my memory ain’t what it was,” and he winked to show me he was kidding.

I gave him the whole works. I told him about Pittsburgh, how I wanted to get into the big money, how I’d hitchhiked to Pelotta, how I had busted MacCready’s jaw and double-crossed Petelli. I went on to tell him how Della had offered to help me, how Pepi and Benno had chased us, and how the other car had crashed into us.

It took time, and I had scarcely a whisper left in me by the time I was through, but I was so glad to get it all off my chest that I didn’t care how I felt.