Джеймс Чейз - The Flesh of the Orchid

Linda thought he had gone crazy.

‘What do you mean — be his eyes? He has his own eyes, hasn’t he?’

Max smiled thinly. He crossed over to her, caught a handful of her hair in his fingers, dragged her head back. She made no effort to break his hold, but stared back at him, her eyes dark with terror.

‘And if you try any tricks I’ll fix you,’ he said. ‘I warn once, never twice. If you run away, if you’re unfaithful to him, I’ll find you wherever you are and I’ll burn his name across your face with acid.’ He released her and raising his hand he hit her heavily across her mouth, knocking her flat across the bed. ‘What he can see in a tramp like you I don’t know, but he was always a sucker. Well, he wants you, and he’s going to have you: there’s nothing else left for him.’

As he went to the door Linda sat up, her hand on her lips. He opened the door, went out on to the landing. She heard him call, ‘Frank; she’s waiting for you.’

She remained sitting on the bed, unable to move, staring at the open door, listening to a slow shuffling step on the stairs with growing horror.

Then Frank came in, his sightless eyes hidden behind black-lensed glasses, a stick in his hand guided him to the bed.

He looked sightlessly over the top of Linda’s head. There were pent-up desire, self-pity, urgent animal longing in his fat white face.

‘Hello, Linda,’ he said, his hand groping towards her. ‘I’ve come home.’

The next two weeks were nightmare weeks for Linda. Never, as long as she lived, would she forget them. She had no leisure from Frank’s incessant demands. When he wasn’t making mauling, hateful love to her, he was wanting to be read to, to be taken for rides in the car, to be waited on hand and foot. His blindness soured his already vicious temper and he vented his spleen on her. Now he could no longer see her beauty she quickly lost her influence over him. He refused to let her buy clothes (and in the past Linda never let a day pass without replenishing her already bursting wardrobe). ‘Wear what you’ve got,’ he would snarl. ‘I can’t see you in new things, so what the hell?’ Worse still, he controlled the money now, and became miserly, cutting down expenses, keeping Linda without a nickel.

She was driven to distraction, for she feared to leave him, knowing that Max was capable of carrying out his threat. She had no privacy and could not move a step without hearing the tap of his stick and the plaintive whine of his voice asking where she was.

She longed to see Eddie again, and poured out an account of her sufferings to him in long and hysterical letters.

Eddie was also suffering. He had not realized how crazy he was about Linda until their separation. Now that he dared not go near the villa he became moody, slept badly and thought continually of Linda’s charms. His racket and consequently his income suffered.

One afternoon, some sixteen days after Max’s dramatic appearance in Linda’s bedroom, Eddie was sitting in a drug store idling an hour away before he called on one of his elderly clients when he noticed a girl come in and sit on a stool not far from him.

It was a slack hour of the day, and Eddie and the girl were the only two people in the place. More from habit than interest, Eddie looked the girl over. She was shabbily but neatly dressed. Under a dowdy little hat a mass of raven black hair struggled for freedom. She wore horn spectacles, and in spite of her lack of make-up she was attractive. But Eddie had seen so many beautiful and glamorous women that such a poorly dressed, unsophisticated object was of no interest to him. He observed, however, that in spite of the shabby clothes, the girl had an exceptionally good figure, and her long, slender legs held his attention for a moment before he resumed reading his newspaper.

He heard the girl speaking to the soda-jerker, a little bald-headed guy whose name was Andrews and with whom Eddie was friendly.

‘I’m looking for part-time work,’ the girl said in a quiet, well-modulated voice. ‘You wouldn’t know anyone who wants a companion for the evening or someone to mind the children, would you?’

Andrews, who liked to help people when he could, swabbed down the counter, wrinkled his forehead and considered the question.

‘Can’t say I do,’ lie said at last. ‘Most folks around this little town don’t have children and don’t need companions. It’s a kind of gay little town, if you know what I mean.’

‘I’ve got a job,’ the girl explained as she stirred her coffee, ‘but it doesn’t pay too well and I thought something in the evening might help out.’

‘Yeah, I see how it is,’ Andrews said, scratched his head. ‘Well, I don’t know of anyone, but if I hear of something I’ll pass it on.’

‘Oh, will you?’ the girl said, brightening. ‘I should be very grateful. Mary Prentiss is the name. May I write it down? I live on East Street.’

Andrews found her a pencil and paper.

‘If there’s a blind person who needs a companion,’ the girl went on as she was writing, ‘I have had training with blind people—’

‘Sure, but there ain’t many blind people in Santo Rio. In fact, I don’t know any at all,’ Andrews said. ‘But I’ll keep my eyes open for you.’

Eddie watched her go, tipped his hat over his handsome nose and considered the idea that had suddenly entered his head. With a feeling of growing excitement he decided the idea was inspired.

‘Let’s have that dame’s name and address, Andy,’ he said, sliding off his stool. ‘I know a blind guy who’s aching for a little female society.’

At eleven o’clock the same evening Eddie found Linda waiting for him at the secluded and prearranged rendezvous, a quarter of a mile or so from the villa.

Their first wild, passionate greeting over, Eddie drew her down beside him on the sand and, holding her close, began to talk.

‘Now, listen, honey, we haven’t much time. That dope I sent you won’t keep him quiet for long, but long enough for me to tell you I’ve got an idea.’

‘I’ve been waiting for you to get an idea,’ Linda said, clasping his hands. ‘If I hadn’t been certain you’d have thought of something I think I would have killed myself.’

Eddie made sympathetic noises, although he was as sure as Linda was herself she would not have done anything as drastic as that.

‘We’ve both been through hell,’ he said, ‘but, although this idea isn’t the complete cure, it’ll help. I’ve found a girl who wants a job as a companion. You must persuade Frank that a change now and then will be good for him — a change of company, I mean. Persuade him to hire this girl to come in two or three evenings a week to read to him.’

Linda twisted round, her eyes stormy.

‘Do you call that a good idea?’ she demanded. ‘Where will it get me? Do you think he’ll let me out of his hearing even if he does have a companion?’

Eddie smiled down at her.

‘That’s where you’re kidding yourself, honey,’ he said. ‘You’re forgetting one thing: the guy’s blind. He can’t see how lovely you are, and his interest is going to flag unless you help him to keep the memory green, which, of course, you won’t. Sooner or later he’ll want to hear a new voice, to have someone different around no matter how crazy he is about you at the moment. I’ve talked to this girl. She’s got a good voice, although she’s not much to look at. And, more important still, she has a swell shape. (Not so good as yours, precious, but good enough.) I’ve given her the nudge that she might have to be more than a companion to this guy, but that she’ll be paid well. She didn’t bat an eyelid. I’ll bet you in a while Frank will want to be alone with her. From what you’ve told me about him he won’t be content to sit and listen to a girl reading to him every evening. He’ll want to make a pass at her, and you’ll be in the way. Soon he’ll be suggesting you take a walk, or do a movie or something, and with a lot of persuasion you’ll go.’ He pressed her to him. ‘And you’ll find me waiting right here for you whenever you can get away. Now, don’t interrupt. Let me finish. It’ll take time, but there’s no other way round it. We don’t want this guy Max shoving his oar in. He scares me. I don’t scare easily,’ Eddie added, not wanting her to think he was yellow, ‘but when a guy uses a sticker the way he does, I’m scared and I stay scared. Once we get Frank used to the idea, we can find him any amount of girls to keep him amused. It’ll cost dough, but right now I’m making plenty, and to get you to myself even for a day is worth all the money in the world. In a couple of months, if you play your hand right, don’t let him get near you; snarl and snap at him, he’ll be glad to be rid of you. Then you and me can get out of this burg without Max turning sour. How do you like it?’