Джеймс Чейз - So What Happens To Me?

The sound of the telephone bell brought me awake. I looked at the bedside clock. The time was 09.05. I threw of the sheet and swung my legs to the floor. Through the thin ceiling I could hear my old man answering the telephone. The call had to be for me. He scarcely ever had calls. I struggled into my dressing gown, and by the time I had reached the landing, he was calling for me.

‘Someone wants you Jack.’ he said. ‘Poison... Bolson... I didn’t get his name.’

I took the stairs in three jumps, aware my old man was looking sadly at me.

‘I’m just off,’ he said. ‘I wish you’d get up a little earlier. We could have had breakfast together.’

‘Yeah.’

I swept into the tiny, drab living room and grabbed up the receiver.

‘This is Jack Crane,’ I said as I watched my old man walk down the path to his five-year-old Chevy for another stint at the bank.

‘Hi! Jack!’

Thirteen months rolled away. I would know that voice anywhere and I stiffened to attention.

‘Colonel Olson!’

‘That’s me. Jack! How are you, you old sonofabitch?’

‘I’m fine. How are you sir?’

‘Cut the “sir” crap. We’re not in the army now thank God! I’ve had one hell of a time locating you.’

The snap in that voice seemed to me to be missing. Here was the greatest bomber pilot ever with enough decorations to plaster a wall actually telling me he had been trying to locate me! Colonel Bernie Olson! My Vietnam boss! The marvellous guy I had kept in the air come rain, sun and snow while he beat the hell out of the Viets. For three years I had been his chief mechanic before he got a bullet in his groin that fixed him. Our parting was the worst moment in my life. He went home and I was detailed to look after another pilot and what a slob he turned out to be! I had hero worshipped Olson. I had never expected to hear from him again, but here he was, speaking to me after thirteen months.

‘Listen, Jack,’ he was saying, ‘I’m rushed. Have to get off to Paris. How are you fixed? I can steer you to a job, working with me if you’re interested.’

‘I’ll say! Nothing would please me more.’

‘Okay. It’s worth fifteen grand. I’ll send you your air ticket and expenses and we’ll talk about it.’ Just why did this great guy sound so flat? I wondered. ‘I want you down here. I’m calling from Paradise City: it’s around sixty miles from Miami. The job’s a toughie, but you can make it. Anyway, unless you have something else lined up... what have you to lose?’

‘Did you say fifteen thousand dollars Colonel?’

‘That’s it, but you’ll earn it.’

‘That’s fine with me.’

‘You’ll be hearing from me. I’ve got to rush. See you Jack,’ and the connection was broken.

Slowly, I replaced the receiver, then stared up at the ceiling, a surge of excitement going through me. I had been discharged from the army now for the past six months. I had come home because there was nowhere else for me to go. I had lived these months in a small time town, spending my army payout on girls, booze and generally fooling around. It hadn’t been a happy time for either myself or for my old man who managed the local bank. I had told him I’d find a job sooner or later and not to worry. He wanted to part with his savings to set me up as a garage owner, but that was the last thing I wanted to do. I wasn’t going to be just another small-timer as he was. I wanted Big Time.

This was a nice little town and the girls were willing. I had had lots of fun as well as boredom and I told myself that when my money began to run out I would look for something but not in this town. Now, out of the blue, came Colonel Bernie Olson, the man I admired the most in the world, offering me a job that I paid of fifteen thousand! Had I really heard right? Fifteen thousand! And in the most opulent city on the Florida coast! I slammed my fist into my hand. I was so excited I wanted to stand on my head!

So I waited to hear from Olson. I didn’t tell my old man, but he was a wise old guy and he knew something was cooking. When he came back from the bank for lunch, he regarded me as he cooked two steaks. My mother had died while I was in Vietnam. I knew better than to interfere with his routine. He liked to buy the food on his way back from the bank and cook it while I stood around.

‘Something good for you Jack?’ he asked as he pushed the steaks around in the pan.

‘I don’t know yet. Could be. A friend of mine wants me to go down to Paradise City, Florida about a possible job.’

‘Paradise City?’

‘Yeah... near Miami.’

He served the steaks on plates.

‘That’s a long way from here.’

‘Could be further.’

We took our plates into the living room and we ate for a while, then he said, ‘Johnson wants to sell his garage. It could be a great opportunity for you. I would put up the capital.’

I looked at him: a lonely old man, desperately trying to hold on to me. It would be more than depressing for him to live in this box of a house on his own, but what kind of life would it be for me? He had had his life. I wanted to have mine.

‘It’s an idea, dad.’ I didn’t look at him but concentrated on the steak, ‘but I’ll see what this job is first.’

He nodded.

‘Of course.’

We left it like that. He went off to the bank for the afternoon stint and I lay on my bed, thinking. Fifteen thousand dollars! Maybe it was a tough, but no job could be too tough that paid that kind of money.

As I lay there. I thought back on the past. I was now twenty-nine years of age. I was a qualified aero-engineer. There was nothing I didn’t know about the guts of an aircraft. I had had a good paying job with Lockheed until I got drafted into the Army. I had spent three years keeping Colonel Olson in the air and now back in this small time town. I knew sooner or later I would have to pick up my career. The trouble with me, I told myself, was that the Army had spoilt me. I was reluctant to begin life again where I had to think for myself and to compete. The Army had suited me fine. The money was good, the girls were willing and I went along with the discipline. But fifteen grand a year sounded like the rise of the curtain to the way I hoped to live. A toughie? Well. I told myself as I reached for a cigarette, it would have to be damned tough before I quit on that kind of money.

Two days dragged by, then I got a bulky envelope from Olson. It arrived as my old man was taking of for the bank. He came up to my room, tapped on the door and came in. I had just come awake and I felt like hell. I had had a really thick night. I had taken Suzy Dawson to the Taverna nightclub and we had got stinking drunk. Later we had rolled around on a piece of waste ground until 03.00, then somehow I had got her home and somehow I had got myself home and into bed.

I blinked at my old man, feeling my head expanding and contracting. I was getting double vision that told me how stinking I had been. He looked very tall, very thin and very tired, but what really killed me was there were two of him.

‘Hi, Dad!’ I said and forced myself to sit up.

‘Here’s a letter for you Jack,’ he said. ‘I hope it’s what you want. I have to get off. See you lunchtime.’

I took the bulky envelope.

‘Thanks... have a good morning.’ That was the least I could say.

‘The usual.’

I lay still until I heard the front door close, then I ripped open the envelope. It contained a first class ticket to Paradise City, five hundred dollars in cash and a brief note that ran:

I’ll meet your plane. Bernie.

I looked at the money. I checked the air ticket. Fifteen thousand dollars a year! In spite of my aching head and feeling drained empty, I punched the air and yelled Yippee!