Джеймс Чейз - Have a Change of Scene

‘I’m Larry Carr,’ I said. ‘A welfare worker.’

We regarded each other and I began to hate him as he gave a sneering little chortle.

‘The things that go with you,’ he said to Rhea. ‘Maggots out of cheese... now a welfare worker!’

‘Oh, shut up!’ she snapped. ‘He’s a do-gooder. Any food in this stinking place?’

I looked from one to the other. They were right out of my world. My mind flashed back to Paradise City with its fat, rich old women and their dogs, Sydney, buzzing and fluttering, the clean, sexy looking kids in their way-out gear, and yet this sordid scene had a fascination for me.

‘How about having a wash?’ I said. ‘I’ll buy you both a meal.’

The man shoved Rhea aside and moved up to me.

‘You think I need a wash?’

Then I really hated him.

‘Sure you certainly do... you stink.’

Watching, Rhea laughed and moved between us.

‘He’s my thing, Fel. Leave him alone.’

Over her shoulder, the man glared at me, his green eyes glittering. I waited for his first move. I felt the urge to hit him. He might have seen this in my expression for he turned and walked across the shabby, dirty room, pushed open a door and disappeared.

‘Some homecoming,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to buy you a meal?’

She studied me. Her emerald-green eyes were jeering.

‘Man! Don’t you want it!’ she said. ‘When you have me, it’ll cost you more than a meal.’

This was a challenge and a promise and I grinned at her.

‘I’m at the Bendix Hotel... anytime,’ I said and walked out of the bungalow and to my car.

Sooner or later, I told myself, we would come together: it would be an experience worth waiting for.

I drove back to Luceville, had lunch at Luigi’s, then bought a bunch of grapes and went to the hospital.

Jenny was looking brighter. She smiled eagerly as I sat on the hard backed chair by her bedside.

‘How did it go?’ she asked, after thanking me for the grapes.

I gave her an edited version of my meeting with Rhea Morgan. I said I had met her, and driven her to her home and had left her there. I said her brother seemed tricky and hadn’t welcomed me.

But Jenny wasn’t that easy to fool. She looked searchingly at me.

‘What do you think of her, Larry?’

I shrugged.

‘Tough.’ I tried to give the impression that as far as I was concerned, Rhea meant nothing to me. ‘I told her you had an accident and I was filling in.’

She smiled her warm smile.

‘She didn’t care, did she?’

‘No... she didn’t care.’

‘You’re still not right, Larry. People do react to kindness.’

‘She doesn’t.’

‘Yes, that’s right, but a lot of people do, but of course, some don’t. She is a difficult case.’

‘You can say that again.’

A long pause as we looked at each other, then she said, ‘What are you going to do? You won’t stay on here, will you?’

‘Tell me something. You’ve been in hospital now for two days. How many visitors have you had, apart from me?’

It was a rotten thing to ask, but I wanted to know.

‘Just you, Larry. No one else,’ and again she smiled.

‘So all the old women who pester you for handouts haven’t been to see you?’

‘You’re not proving anything, Larry. You don’t understand. They are all very poor, and it is a tradition that when you go to a hospital you bring something. They haven’t anything to bring, so they stay away.’

I nodded.

‘Thanks for explaining it.’

She asked suddenly, ‘How’s your problem, Larry?’

‘Problem?’ For a brief moment I didn’t know what she meant, then I remembered I was supposed to have a problem, that I was grieving over the loss of Judy, that I had been in a car crash, that I couldn’t concentrate on my work and her uncle had advised a change of scene. For the past two days, I hadn’t even thought of this problem.

‘I think the problem is lost,’ I said.

‘I thought so.’ She regarded me. ‘Then you had better go back. This town isn’t your neck of the woods.’

I thought of Rhea.

‘I’ll stick around a little longer. Anything I can bring you tomorrow?’

‘You’re being an angel, Larry. Thank you. I’d love something to read.’

I bought a copy of Elia Kazan’s The Arrangement , and had it sent to her room. I thought this book was about her weight.

I drove to Jenny’s office, found parking with a tussle, then walked up the six flights of stairs.

Since I had left Jenny, I had returned to the hotel. I had stayed in my dreary little room for around half an hour, during that time I had thought of Rhea Morgan. I had paced up and down while my mind dwelt erotically on her. I wanted her so badly it was like a raging virus in my blood. The thought of stripping off her clothes and taking her made sweat run down my face, but I reminded myself of what she had said: Man! Don’t you want me! When you have me, it’ll cost you more than a meal.

But I wasn’t a sucker like Jenny. When I had her, as I was going to have her, it wasn’t going to cost me a dime.

But first, I had to know a lot more about her. Jenny would have kept her record and I now wanted to read it. It might give me a lever to turn an attempt to bargain into a sale.

This was my thinking, so I drove to Jenny’s office.

I paused outside her office door. Through the thin panels I could hear the clack of a typewriter, and this surprised me. I knocked, turned the handle and walked in.

A thin, elderly woman sat behind the desk. Her face looked as if it had been chopped with a blunt axe out of teak. Squashed in a corner was a teenager doing a peck and hunt routine on the typewriter. They both stared at me as if I had landed from the moon.

‘I’m Larry Carr,’ I said and gave Hatchet face my best smile. ‘I’ve been working with Jenny Baxter.’

She was a professional welfare worker — not like Jenny: no sucker. I could imagine the old women would take one look at her and then scuttle.

‘Yes, Mr. Carr?’ She had a voice a cop would envy.

‘I thought I’d look in,’ I said, my eyes moving to the filing cabinets that stood behind the teenager who had stopped typing. She was just out of High School, very earnest, completely sexless and a drag. Somewhere in those cabinets, I thought I would find Rhea’s background. ‘If I can be of help,’ let it hang.

‘Help?’ Hatchet face stiffened. ‘Are you qualified, Mr. Carr?’

‘No, but I’ve.’ I stopped. I was wasting my breath. I was sure she knew about me.

‘Thank you, Mr. Carr.’ She stared me over. ‘We can manage very well.’

‘I just thought I’d look in.’ I backed towards the door. ‘I’m at the Bendix Hotel. If you want help, just call me.’

‘We won’t trouble you, Mr. Carr.’ Then with a sour grimace, she added, ‘Miss Baxter was always calling on amateurs. That’s not my method.’

‘That I can imagine,’ I said and stepped into the passage and closed the door.

I would have liked to have done it legally, but if the old cow was this way, then I would have to do it illegally. I still had the key Jenny had given me to the office.

So I walked down the six flights of stairs and out on to the cement-dusty street. The time was 17.00 and I walked to a bar opposite and sat in a corner where I could survey the entrance to the office block. I ordered beer, lit a cigarette and waited.

Time moved on. People came and went. A barfly tried to get talking with me, but I brushed him off. After a second beer, taken slowly, I saw Hatchetface and the teenager emerge and walk together down the street. Hatchetface held the teenager’s arm in a possessive grip as if she expected some man would leap out and rape the girl.