James Chase: You Must Be Kidding

He pushed open the door and moved into the big room. Karen had put on a wrap. She spun around as he came in. Seeing his deathly pallor, her eyes widened in alarm.

‘What’s happened?’ The snap of her voice helped to bring him to his scattered senses.

‘There’s a girl out there... dead! Some maniac has murdered her!’ He dropped into a lounging chair. ‘She’s ripped! It’s terrible!’

She stood over him.

‘What the hell are you saying?’

‘Can’t you hear me?’ he shouted. ‘There’s a girl, murdered and ripped! We must call the police!’

Looking at his sweat covered face, his pallor and his shaking hands, Karen went to the cocktail cabinet and poured a huge Scotch. She thrust the glass at him. He drank greedily, shuddered and let the glass drop on the carpet. The jolt of the raw spirit stiffened him.

‘Pull yourself together!’ Karen snapped. ‘So there’s a dead girl! It’s nothing to do with you, and it’s nothing to do with me! Who the hell cares? Get off to your wife!’

‘I can’t reach my car!’ Ken said. ‘I couldn’t go past that awful thing!’

‘You can go by the beach. It takes a little longer.’ She went to her closet. Throwing off her wrap, she put on a swimsuit. ‘I’ll take you.’

Ken looked at his watch. The time now was 20.45.

‘It’s too late! I can’t get to Fort Lauderdale...’

‘Get hold of yourself! Call your wife. Tell her you have had a breakdown. Then go home!’ She snatched up the glass on the floor and poured another shot of Scotch. ‘Come on! Come on!’

He drank, then fortified, he took the telephone she thrust at him. For a moment he hesitated, then he dialled his brother-in-law’s number. He leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes. There was a pause, then a booming voice said, ‘Hi, there!’

‘Jack... this is Ken.’

‘Hi, fella!’ Jack sounded drunk. ‘We’re waiting for you. What’s holding you?’

‘Look, Jack, I’ve got a goddamn breakdown. I’m in a garage and the guy’s working on it now.’

‘Hey! What’s wrong?’

‘God knows! The engine just died on me. I’m sorry, Jack.’

‘You can’t do this to me, Ken! This is our anniversary! The big deal, Ken!’ A pause, then he went on, ‘If everyone wasn’t so stinking drunk, I’d get someone to collect you. Where are you?’

‘On the highway. Look, Jack, as soon as it’s fixed, I’ll be with you. Maybe it won’t take long. Explain to Betty.’

‘Sure... sure. They’re starting the fireworks. Come as soon as you can,’ and his brother-in-law hung up.

Ken replaced the receiver and stared up at Karen.

‘That body...’ He shuddered. ‘We must call the police!’

‘Ken! Use your head!’ Karen exclaimed. ‘The police? They would want to know what you were doing here when you should have been at your party. Do you imagine anyone would believe you came out here to fix shelves? Do you realize what my goddamn father would do if he found out you and I had spent time in this cabin? He’s dumb enough to think I’m still a virgin, but he’s not that dumb to know once he knew we were together here, that we haven’t been screwing! You would lose your job and I would lose this cabin! No police! Now, come on, let’s go!’

The Scotch Ken had drunk was now hitting him. She was right, he told himself. No police! As she had said, this ghastly murder was nothing to do with either of them. Some other person would find the body. He realized that if Sternwood found out he had committed adultery with Karen, he would not only give him the gate; but he would be vindictive enough to get him black listed. He would never be able to get another job in insurance. Then there was Betty! God! What a mess he had got himself into!

‘Come on!’ Karen said impatiently.

He followed her out into the humid heat of the night. Half walking, half running, she led him down to the beach, then skirting the thicket — Ken couldn’t bring himself to look at it, knowing the gruesome body lay there — she led him onto the beach. Then, once past the thicket, she moved inland. Turning a bend around a clump of scrub bushes, they suddenly came upon a man, walking fast towards them. The bright moonlight revealed him as tall, thin, bearded, wearing only a pair of tattered jeans, a duffle bag slung over his shoulder. His shoulder length hair and his vast beard only showed eyes and a long, thin nose.

The man stopped.

‘Hi, there!’ he said.

Ken had an uneasy feeling the man was staring at them.

‘Hi!’ Karen said, smiling.

Ken felt cold sweat break out over his body, but he forced a smile.

‘Looking for Paddler’s Creek,’ the man said. Ken guessed he was around twenty years of age.

‘Straight ahead,’ Karen said. ‘About half a mile,’ and stepping around him, followed by Ken, she walked on.

‘He’ll know us again,’ Ken said huskily.

‘That fink? He wouldn’t know himself in a mirror,’ Karen said contemptuously.

Ken looked back. The bearded man was standing, looking after them. He raised his hand, then turning, headed towards the hippy colony.

‘Keep on,’ Karen said stopping. ‘Just around those trees is your car.’ She moved up to him and her arms went around his neck. ‘It was good, huh?’

The feel of her hot arms made Ken flinch.

‘It must never happen again,’ he said and moved away from her.

She laughed.

‘They all say that. The reservoir fills up.’ Her fingers caressed his cheek, then turning, she ran across the sand towards the sea.

At 20.30 quiet reigned in the Detectives’ room at Paradise City police headquarters.

Detective 3rd Grade Max Jacoby was mouthing silently such phrases as: Se voudrais un kilo de lait. Mais, moti petit, le lait ne se vend pas au poids: ca se mesure.

Any hunkhead would know that, Jacoby thought, but desperately anxious to speak French, he mouthed the sentences from his Assimil French Without Toil. Jacoby’s burning ambition was to take a vacation in Paris, and chat up the girls.

At his desk, across the big room, Detective 1st Grade Tom Lepski was wrestling with a crossword puzzle.

Lepski, thin, tall, had been recently promoted. He was very alive to the fact that he was on his way up. His secret ambition was to become eventually Chief of Police.

The telephone bell rang on his desk. Scowling, Lepski snatched up the receiver.

‘Detective Lepski!’ he barked in his cop voice.

‘You don’t have to shout, Lepski,’ his wife said.

‘Oh, you. Why honey, this is an unexpected pleasure,’ Lepski said, softening his voice.

‘Where are my car keys?’

Lepski sighed and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. He loved his pretty, bossy wife, but there were times when he wished she didn’t nag him so much.

‘Car keys?’ he said blankly. ‘I’m not with you, honey.’

‘You have taken my car keys! I have a date with Muriel and the keys aren’t here!’

Lepski sat up straight. This was fighting talk.

‘Why the hell should I take your car keys?’ he demanded.

‘There is no need to swear at me! My car keys are not where I keep them. You have taken them!’

Lepski began to drum with his fingers on his desk.

‘I’ve never seen your goddam car keys!’

‘You should be ashamed of yourself, Lepski! Such language. My car keys are missing! You must have taken them!’

Lepski made a noise like a car backfiring.

‘And don’t make a noise like that to me!’ Carroll snapped.

Lepski sucked in a long breath.

‘Sorry,’ he said between his teeth. ‘I don’t know a god... I don’t know a thing about your car keys. Have you looked?’

‘Have I looked?’ Carroll’s voice went up a notch.