Джеймс Чейз - So What Happens To Me?

As I sat down, a Jap in white drill materialised from nowhere.

‘What will you drink, Mr. Crane?’ Jackson asked.

‘A coke with bitter.’

That threw him and the Jap. They both stared at me. I had been rehearsing that while in the Bentley.

Mrs. Essex laughed

‘That’s a drink I’ve never heard of.’

‘At this hour of the day it suits me. I get to the hard stuff after sunset.’

There was a pause and the Jap went away.

Jackson moved to his chair, but stopped short as Mrs. Essex flicked her fingers at him.

‘All right, Jackson.’ she said, ‘I’m sure you have lots of work to do.’

‘Yes, Mrs. Essex.’

Without looking at me, he faded swiftly and silently from the scene.

‘I don’t like fat men,’ she said, ‘do you?’

‘He has a lean and hungry look.’ I said. ‘I would rather settle for a fat man than a very lean one.’

She nodded.

‘So you read Shakespeare?’

‘I was on an airfield, ten miles outside Saigon for three years. The guy who had my hut before I arrived and who walked into a face full of shrapnel had Shakespeare’s plays and an album of blue photos. I spent most of my time looking at the photos and reading the plays.’

‘Which did you prefer?’

‘After a while the photos lost their impact, but the old Bard lingered on.’

The Jap came back with a frosted glass of coke and set it on the table beside me as if he was setting down a bomb. He drew back and waited.

‘Is that how you like it?’ she asked.

‘It’s fine.’ I didn’t taste it. ‘It was a gag.’

She flicked her fingers at the Jap who disappeared. This finger flicking act of hers impressed me. I wondered if a time would come when she would flick her fingers at me.

‘A gag?’

‘Just trying to hold my end up,’ I said. ‘I’m not used to this opulent scene... at least it fazed Jackson.’

She stared at me then laughed.

‘I love that. It certainly did.’

I took out my crumbled pack of cigarettes.

‘Could you smoke one of these or are yours gold plated?’

‘I don’t smoke.’ A pause, then she said. ‘I find you refreshing, Mr. Crane.’

I lit a cigarette.

‘I’m glad. While we are paying compliments, may I tell you, to me, you’re the most glamorous woman I’ve ever seen.’

We stared at each other and she lifted an eyebrow.

‘Thank you.’ Another pause. ‘And thank you for finding Borgia. Not one of these stupid people at the airport thought of looking for him. I don’t believe you haven’t ridden a horse. The way you handled Borgia: only a horseman could have done that.’

‘That was another gag.’ I smiled at her. ‘I’m like that. Mrs. Essex... a gag man. Out in Saigon, I spent most of my time on a horse when I wasn’t working on kites.’

‘And, of course, when you weren’t reading Shakespeare or looking at blue photos.’

‘That’s it.’

‘Would you be interested to work for us?’ She shot the question at me the way Ali shoots a jab.

I was expecting it and had my answer ready.

‘Would you qualify the word “us’?’

She frowned.

‘The Essex Enterprises of course!’

‘That would mean working for Mr. Jackson?’ I regarded her, then went on, ‘Just for a moment I thought you were suggesting I should work for you.’

This threw her as I hoped it would. She tried to hold my stare, but her eyes shifted away.

‘I asked Jackson if there was some interesting opening we could offer you.’ She still looked away from me. ‘He seems to think that might be difficult, but then he always makes difficulties.’

‘I can imagine.’ I saw she was back on an even keel again and I smiled at her. ‘I appreciate this very much, Mrs. Essex: especially you asking me here. After all I only found your horse, but if you could find me a job here...’ I let it drift. ‘I would like to talk to Colonel Olson. Frankly, working for Mr. Jackson isn’t my idea of fun and I like fun.’ I got to my feet. ‘Thank you for your hospitality.’ I was now standing over her. ‘Now, if you’ll do your finger flicking act, I’ll disappear as they all disappear.’

She stared up at me and there was that sudden thing in her eyes that all women get when they want a man. I’ve known a lot of women in my life and that look is unmistakable. I could scarcely believe it but it was there and then it went away: like a green traffic light changing to red.

‘Goodbye, Mr. Crane.’

‘So long.’ I paused and looked right into those big violet eyes. ‘I know this doesn’t buy me anything, but I want you to know that, right now, I’m looking at the most beautiful woman in the world.’

I made that my exit line.

There was no sign of Bernie Olson when the Bentley decanted me outside my cabin. I went in, wondering if.there was a note for me but didn’t find one.

The time was after 13.00 and I was now hungry. I rang room service and asked for something to eat.

‘The special is excellent, Mr. Crane: baby lamb with all the trimmings. Should I send that over?’

I said it would do fine and hung up.

During the drive back to the airport I had thought about Mrs. Essex. Could I have been mistaken about that look that had come into her eyes? I don’t think so, but it seemed fantastic that a woman in her position could have got turned on by a guy like me. So okay, accepting that fact she had been turned on it didn’t mean a thing. A woman like that wouldn’t take risks when married to Lane Essex. She could have her private thoughts but putting those thoughts into action was something else beside. All the same, she had me turned on. I would have given a couple of years of my life to spend a night with her: that, I knew would be an experience that I would never forget.

After a while, the meal arrived and I ate it. By this time it was 14.23. While I was lighting a cigarette, the telephone rang.

‘Hi! Jack!’ It was Olson.

‘Hi!’

‘Have you a car?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you think you can find your way to that cafe-bar?’

‘No problem.’

‘Suppose we meet there in half an hour?’

‘Okay.’

He hung up.

Well, I thought as I crushed out my cigarette and got to my feet, I would now know what this was all about. As I left the cabin and got into the Alfa there came a distant bang of blasting. O’Brien was still at it.

It took me twenty minutes to reach the cafe-bar. The white Jag was parked in the shade. I parked the Alfa by it, then walked up the creaking steps to the veranda.

Olson was sitting, nursing a cup of coffee. He waved to me and I joined him.

The girl came out and smiled at me.

‘Coffee.’

‘Well, Jack, seems like you have been having yourself quite a ball,’ Olson said as the girl went away. ‘It also seems that you have forgotten the Army faster than I had imagined.’

The girl came back with the coffee and went away.

‘What does that mean?’

‘You’ve forgotten how to obey orders.’ There was a snap in his voice that annoyed me.

‘You said yourself we’re no longer in the Army. Look, Bernie, I’m not going to make any excuses. You dumped me here on a phoney job. You didn’t take me into your confidence. So I’ve played it the way the cards fell. If you don’t like the way I’ve played it, say so and I’ll get out of here.’

He tried to stare at me, but failed. His eyes shifted. I could see he was sweating.

‘Well, maybe there’s no damage done, but I wanted you to keep out of the spotlight. From what I hear, you’re now in good with Mrs. Essex.’ He stirred his coffee, not looking at me. ‘Maybe that’s a good thing. I hear you were up at the house this morning.’