James Chase - Strictly For Cash

Then I was outside, with the hot afternoon sun on my face and nine hours of hell in front of me. I had a frantic urge to run and keep running until I’d put miles between me and that cabin where she was keeping watch over his dead body, but I knew I wasn’t going to run away because she had me in a trap from which, as far as I could see, there was no way out.

The bar-room with its sun awnings and lavish fitments, its mahogany, horseshoe-shaped bar, and its pink-tinted mirrors-was empty when I walked stiff-legged across its expanse of parquet flooring. The square-shaped clock above the rows of bottles told me it was twenty-five minutes past three: not the hour to start drinking, but that wasn’t going to stop me. If I didn’t get a drink inside me quick I’d flip my lid.

The barman appeared from behind a jazz-patterned curtain and looked at me with polite enquiry. He was a tall, thin bird with a high, bald dome, shaggy eyebrows and a long, beaky nose. His white coat was as clean as soap and water could make it, and as stiff with starch as a bishop watching a muscle dance.

“Yes, Mr. Ricca?”

I wasn’t expecting to be recognized, and I flinched.

“Scotch,” I said. My voice sounded like a gramophone record with a crack in it. “Set up the bottle.”

“Yes, Mr. Ricca.”

He reached up to a shelf and took down a bottle still wrapped in tissue paper. His long, bony fingers ripped off the paper, and he put the bottle in front of me.

“Four Roses, sir,” he said, “or would you prefer Lord Calvert?”

I picked up the bottle and poured myself a slug. My hand was shaking and I slopped the stuff on the polished counter. I felt him watching me.

“Get the hell out of here,” I said.

“Yes, Mr. Ricca.”

He went away behind the jazz-patterned curtain.

I knew I shouldn’t have snarled at him, but I wanted that drink so badly I couldn’t control myself, and I knew I couldn’t have carried the glass to my mouth with him there to watch the unsteady journey.

And it was unsteady. I slopped most of it, but I got the rest down. I poured myself another slug. I hoisted that one without spilling a drop, and the tight horror that was coiled up inside me began to loosen up.

I lit a cigarette, and dragged down smoke, staring at the face of the clock just above my head. Eight and a half hours! What in hell was I going to do with myself all that time?

I poured another slug. The back of my throat was burning, but I didn’t care. It had to be Scotch or I’d dive off the deep end. I kept thinking of the black Buick out there below the terrace, and how easy it would be to get in it and get out of here. In that car I’d be miles away with an eight-hour start.

I drank the Scotch and dragged down more smoke. I was feeling steadier now; not so scared. My nerves weren’t jumping; maybe fluttering, but not jumping anymore, and the Scotch was hot, comforting and good. I reached for the bottle again when from behind the curtain a telephone bell began to ring. The shrill sound made me jump, and I nearly knocked the bottle on to the floor.

I heard the barman say, “He’s not in the bar, miss. No, I haven’t seen him since lunch-time. He looked in around one o’clock, but I haven’t seen him since.”

I stubbed out my cigarette. The muscles in my face had stiffened until they hurt.

“Yeah, if I see him,” the barman went on, “I’ll tell him.”

He hung up.

They were looking for Reisner already! I had to do something. She had said my job was to keep them away from the cabin. If they began looking for him...

“Hey! You!”

The barman pushed aside the curtain and came out. His eyes went to the bottle. I could see him counting the number of slugs I had had.

“Yes, Mr. Ricca?”

“Who was that on the phone?”

“Miss Doering, Mr. Reisner’s secretary. She has an urgent call for him. Would you know where he is, sir?”

I knew where he was all right. Just to hear his name brought up a picture of him, lying on his back, his face smashed in and his right eye cut in half.

I wanted to pour another slug, but I was scared he’d see my hand shaking. Without looking at him I said as casually as I could, “He’s with Mrs. Wertham, but they’re busy. They’re more than busy, they’re not to be disturbed.”

I felt, rather than saw, him stiffen. He had got beyond the bees and flowers stuff. He knew what I meant.

“Better tell Miss Doering,” I went on. “Nothing is as important as what they are doing right now.”

“Yes, Mr. Ricca.”

The shocked, cold tone in his voice told me I’d driven it a shade too far into the ground. He went back behind the curtain.

I nearly knocked the bottle over again in my haste to fill my glass.

I heard him say, “Mr. Ricca is in the bar. He says Mr. Reisner is with Mrs. Wertham, and they are not to be disturbed. That’s right. It doesn’t matter how important it is.”

I wiped the sweat off my face and hands with my handkerchief. Well, I’d played it: a little rough, perhaps, but I’d played it.

The Scotch was hitting me now. I felt a little drunk. Regretfully I put the cork back in the bottle. I couldn’t risk getting plastered. She had said I was to go out and show myself. That’s what I had to do.

I walked out of the bar and on to the terrace. It was hot out there. Below stood the Buick. All I had to do... I dragged my eyes away from it and walked along the terrace, down the steps, not thinking where I was going, but aware of the need to get away from the car and the temptation to bolt.

A sudden noise brought me to a standstill: a deep-chested, guttural sound that seemed to shake the ground, and which ended in a coughing grunt.

For a moment that sound had me going, then I realized it was the roar of a lion. I was heading towards the zoo, and that transfixed me. The vision of throwing Reisner’s dead body into the pit floated into my mind, and I felt my knees give under me.

I looked back over my shoulder. The Buick still stood there in the sunshine. What was I waiting for? I had to get out of here. I had seven hours and fifty minutes start. In that car I could be four hundred miles away before they even began to look for me.

All right, I was plastered, and I was scared. The roar of the lion, reminding me what I had to do at midnight, stampeded me. I turned and walked to the car, got in, trod on the starter and slipped the gear stick into second. I took a quick look over my shoulder. No one shouted at me. No one tried to stop me. The car moved away smoothly, gathering speed as I changed in top. I drove along the wide carriageway, thinking in another minute or so I’d be out on the highway where I could tread on the gas and go.

Ahead of me I could see the massive gates. They were closed, and the two uniformed guards were standing in front of them, their hands on their hips. I touched the horn button, slowed down, waiting for them to open up, but they didn’t. They just stood, watching me, their faces expressionless under the hard peaks of their black caps.

I pulled up.

“What do you expect me to do — drive through those goddamn things?”

I didn’t recognize my voice. It sounded as harsh as a file on rusty iron.

One of the guards sauntered up to me: a tough-looking bird with close-set eyes and a nose that spread over his face, as if someone had given him the heel some time in his life.

“Sorry, Mr. Ricca,” he said. “But I gotta message for you.”

I looked at him, my hands gripping the steering-wheel until the muscles in my arms ached.

“What is it?”

“Mrs. Wertham said if you come this way we were to turn you back. She and Mr. Reisner want to see you.”

I knew I could take him. He was leaning forward, wide open for a hook to the jaw. My eyes shifted to his companion. He was standing away to my left, his hand on the butt of a gun he carried in a holster at his hip. He looked ready to go into action.