Джеймс Чейз - You’re Lonely When You’re Dead

For a second or so I stood motionless, unable to do anything; fear, panic, cold feet, whatever you like to call it, paralysing me. Fingers dug into my neck, two thumbs sank into my windpipe. It was a savage, murderous grip that cut the air from my lungs and the blood from my head.

I controlled the instinctive urge to grab at my assailant’s wrists. From his grip he had wrists like steel, and I should be wasting precious time trying to break his hold, and I hadn’t a lot of time to waste. Already my head was feeling woozy and my lungs were yelling for air. I reached out and touched his chest gently, measuring the distance, then slammed in a right with everything I had. My fist sank into the arch of his ribs; his breath came out with a gurgling rush. The grip loosened on my throat, but before he could back away I uncorked another right to his body that sent him reeling into the darkness.

I touched the button on my flashlight. The beam hit Betillo as he came in a staggering rush towards me. His broad, flattish face was vicious with pain and animal fury. I ducked under a right swing that would have taken my head off if it had landed, dropped the flashlight and hit him on the side of his neck with a thump that sounded like a meat axe cutting into a side of beef. He lost balance and fell. I didn’t give him a chance to recover, and jumped him, landing with both feet on his chest, driving the wind out of him and crushing him flat. I sprawled on the floor beside him but he was fixed all right. I shoved away from him and got to my feet, snatching up the flashlight to look at him. He lay flat on his back, his body and legs squirming and thrashing as he tried to drag air into his flattened chest.

Leaning over him I grabbed hold of his long, oily hair and slammed his head on the floor. The thump shook the room. His eyes rolled back and he went limp.

The whole affair had taken about a half a minute of anima, furious fighting. Panting, I bent over him, making sure he was out. From the look of him he wouldn’t come round for hours, if he ever came round at all. I pulled open his coat, hoping to find a gun on him, but he wasn’t carrying one. I straightened, picked up my flashlight, wondering why Thayler hadn’t appeared on the scene. We had made enough noise to awaken the dead.

I went to the door, opened it and looked out into darkness. As I stepped into the passage the silence was suddenly broken by the choked bang of a gun. I ducked down, thinking someone was firing at me. Then three more shots went off, crashing through the house, deafening me Whoever it was shooting wasn’t firing at me. There was no gun-flash although the noise sounded close.

I crouched close to the wall, sweating and listening. I heard a door slam. Footsteps ran along a passage upstairs and another door slammed. Then silence.

I wasn’t anxious to go up the stairs. I had no idea what I was going to run into, and without a gun, I felt as defenceless as a snail without its shell. But it did occur to me that someone up there was getting killed, and maybe I should see if I could do anything about it; making a mental note to get my head examined when and if I got out of this jam.

I went up the stairs on hands and knees. Halfway up a cloud of gunsmoke drifted down to meet me. I kept on, making no noise, being as quick as I could without being reckless.

At the head of the stairs I took a chance and turned on my flashlight. I faced a short passage. Near where I crouched a door stood open, and in the light of the flash, gun-smoke drifted lazily into the passage.

No one took a pot shot at me, and I began to hope the guy who had done the shooting had vamoosed. But I still wasn’t taking any chances, and I listened, remaining on hands and knees, and after a moment or so I got used, to the sound of my heartbeats and the blood pounding in my ears and picked up another sound: the sound of breathing coming from the room where the shooting had been. At least I thought it was breathing, although it sounded more like a pair of bellows with a hole in them trying to operate, and then another sound came to me that sent a cold chill up my spine: the steady drip-drip-drip of water or something falling on the floor.

I stood up, braced myself and went to the door. The smell of cordite hit me as I entered the room. The breathing sound I had heard turned to a gasp and a rattle that made my hair stand on end. I flicked on the flashlight. The beam hit a scene I dream “about even now. One quick look brought my hand groping for the light switch; a moment later the room was flooded with harsh, white light.

The room was small, and the bed faced me. On the bed was a man wearing only pyjama trousers. From the waist up he was naked. Two big, 45 slug wounds decorated the middle of his white, hairy chest, and blood ran down his ribs in a shiny, maroon-coloured stream. A third slug had ripped open h’s jugular, and blood spurted from the wound in a terrifying scarlet jet, hitting the near wall and dripping on to the floor.

It took me a second or so to recognize the man on the bed. The blood-smeared, ghastly coloured face looked like something someone had cooked up for a horror show in a wax-work exhibition. But it was Thayler all right It couldn’t be anyone else but Thayler.

There was nothing I could do for him. It was a miracle he was still alive. Even if I could have sealed the artery I couldn’t do anything about the holes in his chest.

He lay very still and stared at me; his slate-grey eyes unafraid; life going out of him, splashing on the wall and dripping on to the floor.

‘Who did it?’ I asked, leaning over the bedrail. ‘Come on, you can still talk. Who did it?’

Even though he was going fast and his lungs were drowning in blood he tried to speak. His mouth moved, his jaw twitched, but that was as far as he got. But he did manage to convey something to me. Slowly, and with an effort that mingled sweat with his blood, he lifted his hand and pointed. I followed the direction of the pointing finger and found myself looking at a cupboard.

‘Something in there?’ I said, stepped round the bed and jerked open the cupboard. There wasn’t much in it: a suit of clothes, a hat and a small suitcase. I looked over my shoulder at him. The grey eyes held mine, willing me to understand what he was trying to say.

‘In the suit?’ I asked, pulling out the suit from the cupboard.

The finger continued to point. I tossed out the hat and the suitcase and looked at him again. Still the finger continued to point at the cupboard which was, as far as I could see, now empty.

‘Hidden in there?’ I asked.

The eyes said yes, the hand dropped. The breathing was very slow and laboured. Red-tinged air-bubbles came through the two holes in his chest.

I turned back to the cupboard, shone the beam of my flash at the flooring and back panel, but could see nothing except dust and bits of fluff.

I took out my knife, opened the heaviest blade and began prising up the floorboards in the cupboard. As I worked I became aware that the laboured, wheezing breathing had stopped. I glanced over my shoulder. The face on the blood-soaked pillow had turned the colour of clay, the lean, heavy jaw sagged. The finger still pointed to the cupboard and the dead, blank eyes looked directly at me.

I levered up one of the floorboards and flashed the torch beam into the cavity. There was nothing bat dirt, a spider or two and the signs that a rat had once lived there. I straightened up, scowled at the cupboard, knowing I should get out, but certain Thayler had meant me to find something in there; something that might be the key to the whole of this mad, murderous business.

There was a cane-bottomed chair close by and I jerked it before the cupboard and stood on it so the upper shelf of the cupboard was level with my face. A panel of wood formed the back of the shelf, and I got my knife-blade under it and began to lever it out. It resisted my efforts, but I kept at it, feeling the blade bend under the leverage, careful not to put too much pressure on it, but making the pressure even and continuous. I had the panel on the move when I heard a faint noise that could have been the scraping of a boot on bare boards. Stepping down from the chair I sneaked to the door and listened. Hearing nothing I snapped off the overhead light, opened the door, and peeled into the dark passage. My heart was banging against my ribs, and I felt it miss a beat when I saw a flash of light on the wall by the foot of the stairs.