Джеймс Чейз - There’s Always A Price Tag

‘Tell that to the marines,’ she said, and moving past me, she went up the stairs.

I walked into the garden to cool off. I had no wrong feelings about Marian. Okay, the kid interested me. I liked to watch her. She was young and graceful and quick and pretty. I liked to talk to her too. She had more in her head than any other girl I had ever met. There hadn’t been much to do in the house that morning and we had had time to talk. The kid just interested me. Helen’s rotten insinuation made me feel sick.

The next day, some of the newspapers carried stories about Dester, hinting that he was moving into television. One columnist, who had obviously been talking to Hammerstock, said Dester would soon be among the highest-paid producers in television. And that was just the story I wanted to see printed.

I was so elated I took the paper over to the house with the intention of showing it to Helen, but she was in her bath so I wandered down the long passage into the kitchen where Marian was sitting on a stool at the kitchen table, cleaning the silver.

She looked cute in a blue-and-white overall, and she glanced up as I came in and gave me a smile.

I’ve had a lot of experience with women, and that smile made my heart skip a beat. It wasn’t a come-on smile: nothing like that, but there was a hint of shyness in it I hadn’t seen before that told me I interested her as much as she interested me, and to my surprise I got a bang out of it.

‘Hello there,’ I said, sitting on the edge of the table. ‘Let me give you a hand. I’m good at silver.’

She passed me the polishing cloth. I talked of this and that for twenty minutes or so while we polished the silver, then I got around to the new movie that was showing that night at the Casino theatre.

‘I wouldn’t mind seeing it,’ I said. ‘I go for Bogart. How about you coming with me?’

She looked up, her eyes eager. ‘I’d love to, but perhaps Mrs. Dester can’t spare me.’

‘Oh, sure. You don’t have to work twenty-four hours a day. That’ll be okay. I’ll tell her. I’ll meet you at the gate at seven. Okay?’

‘Thanks. I’d love to. I think Bogart’s keen myself. If you’re sure.’

I found myself staring beyond her at the deep-freeze cabinet that stood against the wall. It gave me a sudden sick feeling as I visualized how Dester had looked the last time I had lifted the lid. I looked at the neat stack of bottles on the top of the cabinet, then I dragged my eyes away.

But there was something wrong. I couldn’t make up my mind what it was, but there was something.

Then suddenly it jelled. I knew what was wrong! It hit me with the force of a sledge hammer.

The motor of the cabinet was no longer running!

‘Is there anything the matter?’

Marian’s voice came to me from out of a long, dark tunnel. Somehow I dragged my eyes from the deep-freeze cabinet and looked at her.

‘What did you say?’ I asked stupidly.

She pushed back the stool and stood up. Her face was startled; fear was rising in her eyes. ‘What is it?’

I got hold of myself. I was in such a panic I could have thrown up.

‘What’s the matter, Mr. Nash? Aren’t you well?’

I grinned at her. My mouth felt frozen.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I feel pretty bad. Something maybe that’s disagreed with me. Don’t look so scared. I’ll be all right.’

She came quickly to me and put a cool hand on my forehead. I suddenly wanted to let her hold me, shut me out of the nightmare of Dester, the deep-freeze and what I had got myself into.

‘You’d better lie down.’

I made a bigger effort, pulled away from her and patted her shoulder.

‘I’m all right. Will you go into the lounge and get me a big whisky? I’ll be fine after a drink.’

She went quickly out of the kitchen and I heard her running down the passage towards the lounge. Slowly, I went over to the freezer. The switch that controlled the motor was fixed to the wall just by the cabinet. Someone had turned it off. Gently, with a shaking hand, I turned the switch down and heard the motor rumble into life. How long had it been off? What effect had it had on Dester? The temperature in the freezer was such that if the motor failed or was turned off, there would be no change in the contents of the freezer for at least four hours. Had it been off longer than that? Had this mysterious turn-off ruined my plan?

I turned off the switch and was moving away from the cabinet when Marian returned, a glass of neat whisky in her hand. I took it from her and tipped the contents down my throat. Then I set down the glass and smiled at her.

‘I’m okay now. I’m sorry if I scared you. I must have eaten something.’ I let it hang in the air.

‘Are you sure you are all right?’

She stood close to me, looking up at me, her Wedgwood-blue eyes anxious. I think that was the moment when I fell in love with her, although it had been coming on now for the past hours. But I think this was the moment when I became aware of it. I didn’t want to grab her: not that kind of love. I wanted her to put her arms around me and make me feel cared for and safe.

‘I’m fine now,’ I said, moving away from her because I didn’t trust myself that close to her. It was an experience I had never known before — to back away from a girl, and it shook me. ‘I don’t know what got hold of me.’ I looked across at the deep-freeze cabinet again. ‘Sounds as if the motor’s off.’

‘Shouldn’t it be? I turned it off.’

I passed my tongue over my dry lips.

‘When did you do that?’

‘Oh, about twenty minutes ago. Mrs. Dester said it was empty. It seemed odd to me to leave the motor running. I’m like that, I hate waste.’ She smiled. ‘So I turned it off.’

I crossed the room and flicked down the switch.

‘Maybe you’ve never seen the inside of one of these things,’ I said. ‘After they’ve been in use some time they get a heavy coating of frost. If you turn off the motor, the frost thaws and the cabinet gets a lining of water. That’s not good for it. So we keep the motor running because we never know when we’re going to put something in the freezer.’

My voice sounded strange to my ears, but the story seemed to go down all right.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I won’t touch it again.’

‘No harm done. The frost stays as it is for four hours or so after the motor’s turned off.’ I started for the door. ‘Well, I’ve got to be moving along. I’ll see you tonight. You won’t forget?’

She said she wouldn’t forget.

It took me most of the day to get over the shock, but I got over it, and I didn’t tell Helen.

We went to the movie that night. We went dancing on Wednesday night. On Thursday night I arranged to take her to the Foothills Club.

While all the evening activity between Marian and me was going on, Helen and I were working on the plan during the day. She would give Marian some task to keep her busy, and then slip across to the garage apartment and we’d get down to the details of the plan. There was a lot to work out: we had to have our stories pat. I found she was every bit as good at inventing as I was.

On this Thursday evening, she had been with me since three o’clock. We had nearly got the background of the plan worked out. It was now getting on for twenty minutes to seven, and I had promised to meet Marian at the gates at seven. Helen showed no signs of going and I was getting restless.

‘Well, okay, we needn’t drive it into the ground,’ I said. ‘We’ve got nearly everything lined up and we’ve still got until Sunday. I’m going to change now. I’m going out.’

She sat in a lounging chair, watching me, a jeering expression in her eyes.