Джеймс Чейз - Goldfish Have No Hiding Place

Looking up and down the street, I saw what he meant and I hesitated. I was wearing a business suit and when I saw the kind of flotsam drifting up and down the street I felt as conspicuous as a bishop in a brothel.

While I had served in the army, I had taken a combat course. Not like Wally Mitford, I kept in shape. I was confident I could take care of myself. It would have been better to have gone home and changed into less conspicuous clothes, but now I was here, I was damned if I was going home, to change and come all the way back.

There was a small neon sign that read:

The second O was missing.

I went down a long steep stairway, and as I descended, the noise of swing and the smell of unwashed bodies increased until I reached a tiny lobby.

A big Negro sat on a stool, staring into space. He showed only the whites of his eyes. A second look told me he was turned on and wouldn’t know if he was on this earth or on the moon.

A red curtain screened the entrance and I lifted it aside and looked in.

The big room was packed with dancing figures and dark enough to make them weaving silhouettes. The noise of the four-piece band exploded against my eardrums. The smell of unwashed feet, dirt and reefers was choking.

To walk into that inferno, dressed as I was, would be to invite suicide. I dropped the curtain, deciding I would go along to Freda Hawes’ pad and wait for her there. As I started up the stairs two youths started down.

I stopped and so did they.

In the dim light, I could see they were around twenty years of age. Their filthy hair reached to their shoulders. Their white, dirty faces were pinched and their little eyes had the glitter of junkies.

‘Look who’s here,’ the taller of the two said. ‘A snout poker. What do we do to snout pokers, Randy?’

‘Stomp him,’ Randy said. He was weaving a little: either drunk or drugged. ‘Let’s get him up on the street, Heinie. Don’t want to wake up old Sam.’

Heinie beckoned to me.

‘Come on, creep, unless you want to be cut.’ A flick knife jumped into his hand.

I started up the stairs and they slowly retreated until they moved out onto the street. I had three more stairs before I joined them in the open. I jumped those stairs, hit Randy a chopping blow on his neck, weaved around Heinie, grabbed his wrist and heaved him judo-style over my back. He crashed down on the sidewalk.

I walked fast around the corner onto East Street, kept moving and told myself I was crazy to have come to this district dressed the way I was. The encounter with these two junkies showed me the red light. I had to get out of here fast. I looked around for a cab, but cabs kept clear of East Street.

Then out of an alley, three long-haired youths who must have been watching my approach, burst out and grabbed me. I was dragged into the alley, off balance and unprepared.

I went limp. My weight took them by surprise and the two holding me collapsed with me onto the evil-smelling concrete. I threw them off, kicked out at the third figure, silhouetted against the open alley, a bottle raised in his hand. I caught him in the crotch and he went over, screeching. One of the others heaved himself on me and we went down with a thud. I chopped the side of his neck hard and he flattened out. The last one lost his guts and ran.

I leaned against the wall, getting my breath back, then I moved onto the street, stepping over the one I had kicked who was screwed up, holding himself and mewing like a cat. I knew I must be in a mess. My sleeve was torn. I could smell the refuse sticking to the back of my jacket.

Keeping in the shadows, I walked down East Street. I remembered Freda Hawes’ number. When I came to her block, I climbed five steps and entered a dimly lit lobby. The mailbox told me she was on the fourth floor. There was no elevator. I climbed, walked down a corridor to a door at the far end. There was a tatty card pinned to the door that read: Miss Freda Hawes. By appointment. Tel. East 44S6.

I thumbed the bell and waited.

Somewhere on the second floor a woman screamed: ‘No! I tell you no! Keep away from me!’ Then silence.

I heard heavy footsteps pound up the stairs, but they stopped on the third floor. Looking over the rail, I saw a thickset man entering one of the apartments.

I thumbed the bell again.

While I waited I took off my jacket and shook off the potato peeling, the dead cabbage leaves and other horrors that had been sticking to me.

It became obvious that Freda Hawes was not at home. This presented a problem. If she was at the Blue Room she could jive until three or four in the morning. I couldn’t stay out in this exposed corridor for some six hours. I would also be risking my neck if I appeared on the street. I had to get to a telephone and get a cab to pick me up. Where was the nearest telephone?

I looked at the door and the card. She had a telephone. Maybe the lock was brittle. I turned the handle and was startled when the door swung open.

I paused. The chilly sensation began to crawl up my spine. Was I going to have a repeat performance? Was I going to find Freda Hawes shot to death?

As I stood there, I heard a soft moaning sound that made the hair on the nape of my neck bristle. Then I heard someone coming up the stairs. Hurriedly, I stepped into the dark room and shut the door.

I smelt fresh cigar smoke.

A neon sign across the way was flashing on and off, spelling out:

Its red light kept lighting up the small room. Across the way was a door that stood ajar.

I heard heavy footfalls pass and go on up the stairs. A trickle of sweat ran down my face. My mouth was dry. My heart was thumping.

The moaning sound came from the inner room.

Bracing myself, I fumbled my way over to the door and peered into the darkness. I could make out the outline of a bed, but nothing else. My hand slid down the wall, found a light switch. I hesitated, then turned the switch up.

The harsh overhead light made me blink.

The scene that came into my view made me catch my breath.

A woman, stark naked, lay on the bed. Her wrists were tied to the bedposts, her ankles too. She had a rag stuffed into her mouth. On her right thigh was a livid round burn: a burn that could have only been made by crushing a burning cigar end into her flesh.

I knew this was Freda Hawes. She was small, beautifully built, around twenty-five. A few years back, she could have been pretty, but now the edges had hardened, the mouth, the eyes showed the steady downward slide.

All this I took in in one brief glance, then I reached her, got the gag out of her mouth and her wrists untied. Then I started to free her ankles.

‘A drink... the kitchen,’ she croaked.

I found a light switch in the living room, found the kitchen, opened the refrigerator. It was stocked with bottles of gin and charge water. I found a dirty glass which I rinsed under the tap, poured a heavyweight slug of gin and a featherweight slug of charge water. I hurried back and seeing how her hands were shaking, I lifted her head and fed her the drink.

She drank greedily, shut her eyes, her fingers gripping my wrist.

‘More!’

‘That’ll hold you,’ I said gently. ‘You...’

‘More! Hear me, you sonofabitch! More!’ There was a yell of despair in her voice so I went back and produced the mixture as before.

When I returned she was sitting up on the side of the bed, the sheet across her lap. She snatched the glass from me, drank, then threw the glass across the room. It shattered against the wall.

‘Cigarette!’

I took out my pack, lit a cigarette and fed it between her trembling lips.

She sat still, her heavy breasts hanging forward, dragging at the cigarette, letting smoke drift down her pinched nostrils. I stood back and watched her.