Джеймс Чейз - The Flesh of the Orchid

She looked at Carol with bright, mad little eyes.

Excitement hung over Point Breese like a fine layer of dust. The Sullivans sensed it as they drove down the main street. It was not that there was anything to see. Point Breese was hidden under a blanket of darkness, and except for the saloon bars and the all-night café and the drug store, no lights showed. But the excitement was there: you could feel it seeping out of the dark houses; hanging in the cool night an.

The Sullivans wondered about it, but they didn’t say anything to each other: not quite sure that they weren’t imagining things.

They were very tired after the drive from the old plantation house. They had had no sleep worth speaking about for twenty-four hours, and although they didn’t need much sleep, they were now ready for a rest.

Frank, who was driving the Buick, swung the car off the main street, round to the jail and the hotel. He slowed to a crawl when he saw the little group of men standing outside the jail.

Max’s hand automatically went to his shoulder holster and his eyes grew watchful, but the men just glanced their way, tinned their heads again to stare up at the jail.

‘What’s up?’ Frank asked out of the corner of his mouth.

‘Nothing we should worry about,’ Max returned. ‘There must be a garage round the back. Get the car out of sight.’

They found the hotel garage, left the car and retraced their steps to the front entrance. They kept in the shadows, but the group of men were too intent watching the jail to notice them.

The clerk behind the reception desk was a pale little man with a moustache like a soot-mark on his upper hp. He gave Max a pen and pushed the register towards him.

‘A double room,’ he asked, ‘or two singles?’

‘Double,’ Max said, signed the book.

Frank took the pen, read the fictitious name Max had scrawled in the register, copied it.

‘Send up coffee and hot rolls at half past eight tomorrow morning,’ Max said, ‘and the newspapers.’

The clerk made a note on a sheet of paper, touched a bell.

The bell-hop was a scraggy man with bags under his eyes. The pill-box hat he wore made him look as if he was going to a fancy dress party. He took the Sullivans’ pig-skin bag, led the way to a small, hand-propelled elevator.

As they were being drawn creakily upwards, a muffled hammering sound jarred the silence of the hotel.

‘Fixing the scaffold,’ the bell-hop said, and his fishy eyes sparkled with sudden excitement.

‘What scaffold?’ Frank asked, although he knew.

‘For the hanging,’ the bell-hop returned, brought the elevator to rest, pushing back the grill. ‘Ain’t you heard?’

The Sullivans looked at him watchfully, moved out of the elevator into the corridor.

A girl in a silk wrap and sky-blue pyjamas, carrying a sponge bag and towel, passed them. In her lips, painted into a savage cupid bow, dangled a cigarette. She looked at the Sullivans and her eyes smiled.

Frank didn’t even notice her.

‘What hanging?’ he asked the bell-hop.

‘Where’s our room?’ Max broke in. ‘Come on, show us the room.’

The bell-hop led them down the corridor, unlocked a door, pushed it open, turned on the lights. It was the usual sort of room you’d expect a hotel like this to offer you. It had been furnished for economy rather than for comfort: not the kind of room you’d wish to stay in for long.

‘What hanging?’ Frank repeated, closing the door.

The bell-hop rubbed his hands on the back of his trousers. He looked like a man with good news.

‘The Waltonville murderer,’ he said. ‘Ain’t you read about him? He killed three dames all in the same evening and then gave himself up. I guess he won’t kill any more dames after nine o’clock tomorrow.’

‘Get out,’ Max said without looking at him.

The bell-hop stared.

‘I was only telling you, mister—’ he began.

‘Get out!’ Max said softly.

The bell-hop went quickly to the door, hesitated, looking back at the Sullivans. They stared at him, still, intent, watchful. There was something about them that scared him. It was like losing your way in the dark and finding yourself suddenly in a cemetery.

When he had gone, Max picked up the bag and tossed it on to the bed.

Frank still stood motionless in the middle of the room. The muffled hammering held his attention.

‘I wonder what it feels like to be hanged,’ he said suddenly.

‘I haven’t thought about it,’ Max said, and for an imperceptible moment he paused in his unpacking.

‘To be locked in, to hear that hammering, knowing it was for you; to hear them come down the passage for you, and you not able to do anything about it,’ Frank went on in a low voice. ‘Like a beast in a cage.’

Max said nothing. He began to undress.

‘It could happen to us, Max,’ Frank said, and little beads of moisture showed on his white, fattish face.

‘Get into bed,’ Max said.

They didn’t speak until they were in bed and Max had turned off the light, then Max said out of the darkness: ‘I wonder where we can find Magarth. It shouldn’t be difficult. The thing that will be difficult is to find out where he’s hidden Larson, and if Larson has talked.’

Frank said nothing: he was still listening to the muffled hammering.

‘How long do you reckon they’ll keep up that noise?’ he asked.

Max, who missed nothing, detected the slightest quaver m Frank’s voice.

‘Until they’ve fixed it good,’ he said. ‘Go to sleep.’

But Frank didn’t. He lay listening to the hammering and it got on his nerves. Max’s light, even breathing also got on his nerves. To think a guy could sleep with that going on, Frank thought angrily. He was angry because his nerve wasn’t as good as Max’s, and because he was frightened.

After a while the hammering stopped, but still Frank didn’t sleep. Later, a sudden loud crash made him start up, and he snapped on the light.

‘What’s that?’ he demanded, his nerves crawling on the surface of his skin.

Max moved out of sleep into wakefulness as easily and as quickly as the turning on of an electric lamp.

‘They’re testing the trap,’ he said calmly.

‘Yes,’ Frank said, ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ and he put out the light.

Now neither of the Sullivans slept. Frank was thinking about the condemned man, and his mind slipped back into the past; the faces of the men and women he had helped to murder floated out of the darkness; surrounded him, pressed in on him.

Max didn’t sleep because he was thinking about Frank. For some time now he had been watching Frank. Although Frank had shown no outward sign, Max suspected that he was losing his nerve. He wondered how long it would be before Frank would be of no further use to him. The thought disturbed him, for he had known Frank a long time. They had developed their knife-throwing act together when they had been at school.

But later they both slept, and woke at eight-thirty the following morning when the hotel maid brought them coffee and rolls. She also brought in with her the atmosphere of suppressed excitement. It was more electric now than the previous night, but it didn’t affect Max. He sat up in bed, poured the coffee, passed a cup to Frank, who put it on the table at his side.

‘They’ll be coming for him in a few minutes,’ Frank said, betraying that he was still thinking of the execution.

‘The rolls aren’t hot enough,’ Max grumbled, got out of bed and went into the bathroom.

He had just finished shaving when the trap was sprung. The crash left him unmoved. He continued to clean his razor, his white, cold face expressionless. A moment after the trap was sprung a vast sigh came up from the street in through the open bathroom window, and he looked out and saw the huge crowd standing before the jail.