Джеймс Чейз - The Flesh of the Orchid

‘I shall be leaving tomorrow,’ Max said as Ismi cleared the supper things. ‘I think I’ll settle in Chicago. There’s a guy there who wants to sell out, and if his price is right I’ll buy. Last time I was there he had a hundred different kinds of birds, and there’s good living accommodation over the shop. You could come out there and run the house if you want to.’

Ismi stacked the plates and dishes on a tray.

‘I wouldn’t like to live in a town again,’ he said, after hesitation. ‘Would it be all right if I stayed here?’

Max yawned, stretched his legs to the log fire.

‘Please yourself,’ he said, thinking maybe it was as well to shake the old man off now. He was getting old: before long he’d be a nuisance.

‘Then I guess I’ll stay here,’ Ismi said, picked up the tray, and as he turned to the door a dog began to howl mournfully somewhere in the garden. The wind was rising and it caught the sound, carried it past the house towards the Bay.

Max glanced over his shoulder towards the door, listened too.

‘What’s he howling about?’ he demanded irritably.

Ismi shook his head, carried the tray into the kitchen. While he washed the dishes he listened to the continual howling. It got on his nerves. He had never heard the dog howl like this before, and after he had put away the dishes he went out into the garden.

The moon floated high above the pine trees, its yellow face partly obscured by light clouds. The wind rustled the shrubs, and the garden was alive with whispered sounds.

Ismi walked down the path to the kennel. At the sound of his approach the dog stopped howling and whined.

‘What is it?’ Ismi asked, bending to look into the dark kennel. He could just make out the dog as it crouched on the floor, and he struck a match. The tiny flame showed him the dog, its hair in ridges all along its back, its eyes blank with fright.

Ismi suddenly felt uneasy and he straightened, looked over his shoulder into the half-darkness. He fancied he saw a movement near the house, and he peered forward as the dog whined again. A mass of black shadows confronted him and he told himself uneasily that he had imagined the movement, but he waited, wondering if he would see it again. After a few minutes he gave up and returned to the house. He was relieved to shut and bolt the door.

Max was still lolling before the fire when the old man came into the living-room. He neither spoke nor looked up. There was a long silence in the room. The only sounds came from the wind as it moaned round the house and the faint whining from the dog. But Ismi sat tense and listened, and after a while he thought he heard soft footsteps overhead. He looked quickly at Max, but he showed no sign of hearing anything, and the old man hesitated to speak.

A board creaked somewhere in the house and this sound was followed by a scraping noise which, if Ismi hadn’t been listening for it, he would not have heard.

He glanced up quickly and met Max’s eyes. He too was listening.

‘Do you hear anything?’ Max asked, straightening in his chair.

‘I thought so,’ Ismi said doubtfully.

Max raised his hand, and the two men listened again.

Seconds ticked by and they heard nothing. The wind had died down, and the silence was so acute that Max could hear the faint wheezing sound of Ismi’s breathing.

He made an impatient movement.

‘What the hell’s the matter with me?’ he muttered angrily, and bent to pick up the poker to stir the fire, but a sign from Ismi stopped him.

Both men heard the faint footfall this time, and with set face Max slipped his hand inside his coat, drew his gun.

‘Stay here,’ he whispered to Ismi, and crept to the door. He moved like a shadow, and before opening the door he snapped off the electric light.

Out in the dark passage he paused to listen. He heard nothing and began to edge up the stairs. He still wasn’t convinced that anyone was in the house, but he wasn’t taking chances. The house was old, and the wind could play tricks; boards that were dry and rotten could creak without being trodden on, but he was going to make sure.

He reached the head of the stairs, paused to listen again, then he turned on the electric light and walked swiftly to his room, threw open the door and went in. The room was empty and nothing seemed disturbed. As he moved to the wardrobe he heard the dog howling again, and he ran to the window. For a moment or so he could see nothing, then the moon breaking through the clouds shed a faint light over the garden. He thought he saw a shadow moving below, and he stared fixedly, but at that moment the clouds drifted once more across the face of the moon.

He turned back to the wardrobe, suddenly frightened, and opened it. One glance was enough. The locker was open and all the money he possessed had gone.

He stood staring at the open locker, paralysed with shock. His breath seemed to roar at the back of his throat and blood rushed to his head, making him feel lightheaded and faint.

He moved forward slowly like an old man, groped inside the locker with fingers that had turned cold. He touched something soft, lifted it, and knew what it was as he carried it to the light. Then with a sudden, croaking cry, like that of a savage animal in pain, he flung the orchid to the floor, ground it under his heel, while he smashed his clenched fists against the sides of his head with uncontrolled fury.

Ismi found him rolling on the floor in a kind of fit, his face scratched and bleeding, white foam at his lips.

The only thing of distinction about Palm Bay Hotel was its enormous neon sign which could be seen from practically any point in Santo Rio. Because of this sign visitors to the town, arriving by night, were constantly mistaking Palm Bay for a luxury, or at least a high-class, hotel.

In daylight this rambling, four-storey brick building looked what it was — third rate, dirty and disreputable; but at night it hid its dinginess behind its brilliant neon sign and caught unwary customers. Of course, the customers didn’t stay for more than a night, but you can run a hotel on one-nighters if you get enough of them and if your charges are exorbitant.

Palm Bay had also a number of permanent residents. They represented the lower strata of Santo Rio’s society, but they did occasionally pay their bills, and with their support, and with the scientific fleecing of the one-nighters, the hotel got along well enough in spite of being in direct competition with some of the most exclusive and luxurious hotels in the country.

When Eddie Regan first came to Santo Rio, like so many of the other visitors, he had been deceived by Palm Bay’s neon sign and had taken a room. He very soon discovered that the hotel was third rate, but being, at that time, a little third rate himself, he stayed on. By the time he had made a success of his racket he had become so used to Palm Bay that he decided to make it his permanent headquarters, and took over one of the few of the hotel’s suites and furnished it on the proceeds of his first attempt at blackmail. The suite was transformed into an oasis of luxury compared with the other bleakly furnished rooms, and Eddie was immediately regarded as the star boarder by the management and was treated accordingly.

This night, half an hour or so after Max had discovered the loss of his savings, Eddie was sitting in the dusty, fusty bar, drinking Scotch and feeling lonely.

Everyone in the hotel knew he had been the direct cause of Frank’s death. They also knew that Frank had been keeping Linda in luxury and that Eddie had been sleeping with her on the sly. There wasn’t much that the staff and residents of Palm Bay didn’t know about one another, and Eddie knew they knew all about him.

They even knew that the police were trying to make up their minds whether or not Eddie had deliberately killed Frank. The D.A. felt that a jury wouldn’t believe that Eddie had managed to arrive in his car at the identical moment when Frank had run blindly into the street; although the D.A. himself was ready to believe anything was possible when dealing with a smart guy like Eddie. The motive was obvious, but the evidence too flimsy.