James Chase: You Have Yourself a Deal

“Okay, carry on, soldier,” and Smernoff began to walk, heavy-footed, erect and very much the Colonel down the corridor. Then he stopped short, turned and cursed.

“You... soldier!”

Jackson stiffened to attention.

“Sir!”

“Go down to my Jeep. I have left my goddam briefcase!”

Automatically, Jackson turned and started for the elevator, then stopped.

“Excuse me, sir. I am on guard.” The agony in his voice nearly made Smernoff laugh.

“You’re relieved! I’m here, aren’t I? Get my briefcase!”

“Yes, sir.”

Jackson pressed the call button and when the elevator doors swished open, he entered the cage and descended to the lobby.

Parked in the drive, was a military Jeep. Jackson ran over to it. Two Pfcs were standing, talking together. They turned as Jackson came up.

“The Colonel’s briefcase,” Jackson snapped.

“Oh, yeah,” one of the soldiers said. Then things happened so fast Jackson later had only a vague idea just what did happen. The nearest soldier hit him on the side of his jaw, his fist incased in a brass knuckle-duster. His companion snatched the automatic rifle out of Jackson’s hand as he fell. The other soldier dragged the unconscious man into the Jeep, handed his companion a bulky briefcase, threw a tarpaulin over Jackson and drove rapidly away.

Kordak, the remaining soldier, ran back to the hospital. At the entrance, he slowed, nodded to the reception clerk who stared with boredom at him, then entered the elevator and was whisked to the fourth floor.

Smernoff was pacing up and down.

“Well?”

Kordak, a slim, dark, weasel-faced man who had worked with Smernoff for some time, nodded and grinned.

“No trouble at all.”

He gave Smernoff the briefcase, then shouldering the automatic rifle, he began to patrol the corridor.

Smernoff went into a nearby lavatory. He took from the briefcase a doctor’s white coat which he put on over his uniform. He hid his peaked cap in a laundry basket. Then he took from the briefcase a stethoscope which he hung around his neck and a small flat box which contained a hypodermic and a phial of colourless fluid. His movements were swift, and in a few seconds the American Colonel had changed into a businesslike looking Ward Doctor.

He walked out into the corridor.

Kordak was coming towards him.

“Get a wheel stretcher!” Smernoff snapped. “There must be one on this landing,” and he walked quickly down the corridor until he came to a door numbered 140.

He opened the door and walked into a dimly lit room where a woman lay in a hospital bed. Her honey-coloured hair made a frame to her white, beautiful face. Large dark-blue eyes looked sleepily at him as he came up to the bed.

“Good evening,” Smernoff said. “It is only your injection. You must get plenty of sleep.”

The woman said nothing. Her eyes watched Smernoff’s swift expert movements. He had practised again and again with the hypodermic and he handled it with confidence.

As he took her cool wrist between his hot, sweating fingers, the woman shivered.

“It is all right,” he said soothingly and stabbed the needle into the suntanned flesh.

Like a black fly, Jo-Jo gripped the drainpipe between his knees and inched himself upwards. His claw — like, dirty fingers reached for the ledge above him, gripped and he pulled himself up, shifting his weight from his right foot to his left knee, gripping the pipe higher up and then pulling himself onto the ledge. He paused to take breath. He had now reached the third floor. Below, he could just make out Sadu walking uneasily up and down by his car. He pressed himself against the rain-soaked wall. Immediately below him, a black and white Citroen ambulance had swung into the drive and pulled up. A giant of a man with silver-coloured hair and wearing a white overall slid out of the driving seat.

Jo-Jo wasn’t interested. He looked up at the next ledge ten feet above his head. Then he began to climb again. He had one bad moment. The pipe was wet and slippery. His fingers and knees gripping the pipe suddenly failed to hold his weight. For a brief, heart-stopping moment, he hovered between life and death. He slid three feet and his body swayed outwards, then he recovered his balance and grinned viciously. Jo-Jo wasn’t intimidated by death. That was a hazard he was ready to accept in return for money.

Far below, Sadu watched his progress, saw him nearly fell and drew in a quick hissing breath. He watched the dark figure hoist itself to the fourth floor ledge, pause and then start for the fifth floor.

Rain fell on Sadu’s heated face. He was aware of the thumping of his heart. Another group of nurses, busily chattering and laughing, came out of the hospital gates and moved past him. Sadu, afraid of being noticed, got back into his car and lit a cigarette with a shaking hand. He was glad to have an excuse not to watch Jo-Jo’s climb as Jo-Jo began to edge along the ledge, peering into the lighted windows while he searched for Erica Olsen.

Jo-Jo wasn’t to know that the nurse he had murdered had lied to him and there were no women patients on the fifth floor and no room numbered 112.

He was still creeping along the ledge, cursing to himself when a sleek, black Mercedes pulled up by the hospital’s entrance.

Girland got out and slammed the door shut. Out of the corner of his eye he saw in the shadows a waiting Citroen ambulance. It meant nothing to him. Hospitals and ambulances went together.

He ran up the steps and entered the lobby.

“Monsieur?” the reception clerk asked, regarding Girland unfavourably. Visitors at this hour were never welcomed.

“Dr. Forrester, please,” Girland said briskly.

“Dr. Forrester is not here. He’s gone home.”

“I’ve come to take my wife home,” Girland said. “Room 140. You know about her?”

The reception clerk, a balding little man with liver smudges under his eyes, brightened slightly. Who in the hospital hadn’t heard about the woman with the tattoo marks?

“The woman who has lost her memory?”

“That’s right,” Girland said. “Let’s have some action. I’m taking her home. Who is in charge of her case?”

The clerk opened a file index, regarded it, then said, “I have a note here... are you Monsieur Girland?”

“That’s correct.”

“Oh, y e s... Nurse Roche.” He picked up a telephone receiver and spoke into it. “She’ll be right down.”

Girland resisted the temptation to light a cigarette. He was suddenly aware that he was hungry. All this had been pretty rushed. After leaving Dorey, he had gone to the car pool and listened to the instructions about the car’s various gadgets, then had driven to his apartment and collected his shaving kit and a few other things he thought he would need, then had driven to the hospital. There had been no time for a meal. Now he was faced with a 900-kilometre drive with a woman who had lost her memory and could be tricky. It was going to be quite a night, he thought, shaking his head.

A young nurse came from the elevator. She was under twenty years of age. Her bright little face and her pert eyes interested Girland.

“You have come for your wife, Mr. Girland?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Dr. Forrester said you were coming. Have you a car?”

“Yes. How is she? Fit to travel?”

“Oh, yes. Dr. Forrester is quite satisfied. Yes, she will be fit to travel.”

“Okay, then let’s go.”

As they walked together to the elevator the nurse whose name was Ginny Roche, said, “We are all terribly curious, Mr. Girland. Was it your idea that your wife should be tattooed?”

Girland regarded her, his face serious.

“Oh, no. It’s an old family custom. You should see her mother.”