Джеймс Чейз - There’s Always A Price Tag

‘Yes, Mrs. Dester.’

‘That’s better.’ She half turned in her seat to look at me. ‘I couldn’t face the Palm Grove tonight,’ she went on. ‘I felt I wanted something with some snap in it. Do you ever feel like that?’

‘Every so often.’

‘I thought we might dance. None of my stuffy men friends would be seen dead at the Foothills Club.’

I didn’t say anything.

We drove for a little while in silence, then she said abruptly, ‘Tell me something about yourself. Why did you take this job? A man like you — surely you could find something better?’

‘Why should I want anything better? You’re the loveliest woman in Hollywood. I’m going dancing. This is a new Cadillac and I’ve just been paid. What more could I want?’

She laughed, reached forward and turned on the radio. She picked up Pee-Wee Hunt doing his stuff in a jam session.

‘What were you before you became my husband’s chauffeur?’ she asked as she adjusted the volume control.

‘It wouldn’t interest you,’ I said, looking straight ahead. ‘Let’s keep this free of personalities, shall we? You want to dance: I want to dance. That’s about it, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she said and turned her head to watch the traffic that was hedging us in on all sides.

She was a good dancer, and to have her in my arms, feeling her breasts against my chest, her hair against my face, her long legs touching mine, gave me a bang I thought I had got beyond feeling.

The restaurant was pretty crowded with bobby-soxers and their kid friends. Most of the boys forgot who they were dancing with when they saw Helen.

We danced maybe for half an hour, then she said it was time for a drink.

‘Are you feeling very rich, Nash, or shall I pay?’ she asked as we moved to the bar.

‘I’m rich enough to buy you a drink. What’ll it be?’

‘A brandy. While you’re ordering it, I’m going to put my face straight.’ She gave me that long, bold stare again. ‘I didn’t think I was going to enjoy this as much as I am.’

‘This is only the beginning of it,’ I said. ‘The night lies ahead of us.’

‘Yes.’ Her fingers tightened on my arm. ‘The night lies ahead of us.’

I watched her walk down the aisle that led to the Ladies’ Rest Room and I felt a little heady.

I had an idea that this was going to be one of those nights when things go right. In the past there have been nights when things didn’t go right. I have second sight about that kind of thing. I know when it isn’t going the way I have planned it to go, and this night, I felt it was going right.

I went over to a table on the terrace where I could see the door of the Ladies’ Room and snapped my fingers at a waiter. I ordered a brandy and a double whisky.

It wasn’t until twenty minutes had crawled by that I began to wonder. Another ten minutes had me on my feet. Surely she couldn’t take half an hour to put her face straight?

I waited another five minutes, then I got hold of a cigarette-girl. I gave her a buck and told her to look in the Ladies’ Rest Room and let me know if a redhead in a white dress was still working on herself.

That took another five minutes.

The cigarette-girl came back and said there was no redhead now. The girl in charge had told her the redhead had gone out the back way the moment she had come into the Rest Room.

That was when the nickel dropped and I saw how I had been taken for a ride.

I was now forty minutes’ hard driving from Dester’s residence, if I had a car, that is, for I was pretty sure she had taken the Cadillac. She had a good start on me, but I wasn’t licked yet.

I ran around to the parking lot.

There was no Cadillac.

But there was a 1945 Buick pulling out from a line of cars. I didn’t hesitate. I ran over to the car, waving my arms.

The driver, a kid in an open-neck, green-and-white check shirt, pulled up and stared at me.

‘Look, this is important,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to get to Hill Crest Avenue fast. I’ll give you five bucks to get me there. How about it?’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I was only going home.’ He reached over and pushed open the off-side door. ‘Get in. For five bucks I’d drive you to Los Angeles and back.’

‘If you can make it in half an hour, I’ll give you ten bucks,’ I said.

He grinned at me. ‘You’ve lost your dough. Hold on to your hat. Here we go!’

Although the Buick was born in 1945, it could move and the kid could drive. He was smart enough to know he couldn’t hope to make the journey in time if he kept to the highway with the evening traffic at its peak. He took to the side roads: working his way down to Hill Crest Avenue by a series of rushes from one back street to another. He didn’t quite manage to get me to the gates of Dester’s house in thirty minutes, but he was only five minutes on the wrong side so I gave him the ten bucks.

I ran up the drive towards the house. As I reached the bend in the drive I saw there was a light on in the garage. I pulled up sharply and stepped behind a tree. From where I was I could see into the garage.

I waited, then I spotted Helen as she came from the back of the garage into the light.

What was she up to? I could see the Rolls and the Buick were in the garage. The Cadillac was parked on the tarmac. She paused by the Buick, her back turned to me. Cautiously I moved forward until I was within fifteen yards of her. Then I saw Dester.

He was lying on the garage floor, face down, and for a long, frightening moment I thought she had been crazy enough to have killed him.

She moved over to him, turned him over on his back, and I saw he was breathing. She took hold of him and hauled him to his feet. She handled him as if he weighed nothing at all. That shook me. I had carried him to his bedroom and I knew what he weighed. She must have been as strong as an ox to have handled him the way she was handling him.

Dester lolled against her. The light fell on his face. His eyes were open and glazed; his jaw sagged.

‘Why can’t you leave me alone?’ he mumbled, trying to push her away. ‘Take your hands off me. I’m going out, and no one’s going to stop me.’

A smile came to Helen’s mouth: an awful little smile that made my flesh creep.

‘Of course, darling,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to stop you. I’m trying to help you.’

She opened the off-side door of the Buick. She wasn’t missing a trick. Why smash up a Rolls when you had something cheaper to use?

This was it.

She intended to drive him down to the gates, put his hands on the steering wheel and launch him on to the avenue. At the end of the avenue, down the steep hill, was the main highway, crammed with fast-moving traffic.

At first glance it looked foolproof. If one of those fast-moving cars on the highway caught the Buick as it came out of the avenue the chances of Dester surviving were slight. Most of the people in Hollywood knew he was an alcoholic. They knew he drove when he was drunk. There was nothing in the setup to make the insurance company suspicious.

Or was there?

I remembered he had gone to San Francisco that morning. Had he fixed something with the insurance company? It flashed into my mind that there were loose ends, and you can’t afford to have a single loose end when dealing with an insurance company.

Suppose he wasn’t killed outright? The Buick was big and solid. It would take a lot of smashing. If he wasn’t dead when the cops reached him, he might talk. If he told them his wife had helped him into the car, and later, they found out — as they were certain to find out — that he was insured for three-quarters of a million dollars, that would be that.

It wouldn’t take the police long to find out Helen and I had been to the Foothills Club. What would they think when they discovered that she and I — her husband’s chauffeur — had been dancing together? That would put me on the spot. The kid would tell them I had been left high and dry without a car and I had been anxious enough to get back to the house to give him ten bucks for the trip. The police would want to know why; they would want to know why Helen had sneaked away. If I didn’t come clean, they might think I was also in the plot. Even if they didn’t grab Helen on an attempted murder rap, even if they didn’t try to tie me into the rap too, the insurance company would be tipped off and she would never dare try again; and if she didn’t try again, I wouldn’t get my share of the money.