James Chase - An Ace up my Sleeve

“How is Ron?”

“He’s okay, ma’am.”

“Have the police released him?”

His eyes shifted to her and then away.

“Yeah.”

“So what is he doing now?”

Watching him, she had a feeling she had dropped salt on a snail. He retreated into a shell. His blank expression, his gum chewing told her it was a shell she wasn’t going to penetrate.

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

“Didn’t you ask him?”

“I didn’t speak to him. I spoke to one of his friends. He just told me Ron was out.”

She shrugged. He didn’t want to confide in her… after all, why should he?

The run through the tunnel took some minutes.

“The road ahead is tricky and dangerous, Larry. I know it well. I will drive,” she said when she saw they were reaching the end of the tunnel.

“Just as you say, ma’am.”

She looked at the gas gauge.

“There’s a service station not far from the end of the tunnel. We’ll change there.”

“Okay, ma’am.”

Ten kilometres beyond the tunnel they came to the service station and Larry stopped the car by the pumps.

He got out and she slid under the driving wheel as the attendant came out of his shelter.

She told him to fill the tank.

Larry came around and got in the passenger’s seat.

“Pay him,” she said. “It’ll be thirty francs.”

“What was that, ma’am?”

At the sound of the startled note in his voice, she looked sharply at him. He immediately shifted his eyes.

“I said… pay him thirty francs!” she snapped.

He shifted uneasily.

“Excuse me, ma’am… I haven’t thirty francs,” he said and she saw his face was now beetroot red.

She lifted her hands, then dropped them on her mink covered lap.

“All right, Larry.” She opened her bag and paid the attendant twenty-seven francs and gave him a franc tip. Then she shifted into gear and drove out on to the broad mountain road. When they were out of sight of the gas station, she drew in against the side of the mountain and stopped the car. She turned off the engine, took out her cigarette case and lit a cigarette.

“I would like to get this straight, Larry,” she said.

He looked furtively at her.

“What was that, ma’am?”

“I want an explanation. I gave you three hundred marks in Bonn. The meal couldn’t have been more than twenty marks so you had a balance of around two hundred and eighty. I then gave you fifteen hundred francs to get clothes. You told me you had something over from that. You also told me twice that you do not accept money. Now you can’t even find thirty francs… did you lose what I gave you?”

He rubbed the side of his jaw as he hesitated, then he nodded.

“Yeah… I guess I did.”

She stared at him.

“But how did you lose all that money, Larry?”

He chewed on his gum and she could see sweat-beads forming on his forehead.

“I guess I just lost it, ma’am.”

“Do you expect me to accept such a stupid answer?” The angry snap in her voice stiffened him. He remained silent, staring through the wind shield at the falling snow.

“It’s a lot of money to lose,” she went on, softening her voice when she saw he wasn’t going to reply. “How did you lose it?”

Still he said nothing. If he were wearing his cap she was sure he would be pulling at the peak.

“Larry! Will you please answer my question! Did some woman get it from you last night?”

He moved uneasily, then he nodded.

“I guess that’s how it happened, ma’am.”

She thought of the previous evening. The terrible letdown when she had been told he had gone out. She felt so frustrated she couldn’t speak for several seconds. Finally she said, her voice unsteady, “You wanted a woman and you went out in the snow to look for one… is that right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She closed her eyes, her hands turning into fists.

There was a long silence, then she said, “Tell me about it.”

Again he shifted uneasily.

“There’s nothing to tell, ma’am… excuse me… I’m sorry.”

“Tell me about it!” Her voice was ugly and harsh.

Startled he looked at her, then away.

“Larry!”

He slumped down in the car seat as if defeated.

“Well, ma’am, if you must know… I went to a cafe. There was this girl on her own. We got talking.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Maybe you can understand. I wanted her. We went to her place. She had a girl friend there.” He stared through the wind shield, frowning. “I guess they took me to the cleaners. When I got back to the hotel I hadn’t five francs left.”

Two girls! Helga drew in a shuddering breath. You stupid, beautifully built fool! You could have had me for nothing and in comfort!

“You seem to have bad luck with your girls, don’t you?” she said and shifted 63

the gear lever into Drive.

“You could say that, ma’am. I guess I’m not so hot with women.”

Looking at him, seeing him slumped in depression, she felt a pang of pity for him.

She drove along the mountain road and began the difficult descent towards Bellonzona.

Herman Rolfe liked to spend a month, during the winter, in Switzerland. The snowcapped mountains and the clean blue sky had a fascination for him. He had bought a four-bedroom villa at Castagnola, overlooking the lake of Lugano, had finished it and made use of it during the month of February.

The villa had been built by a successful movie director some fifteen years ago when land and building were at a reasonable price. The villa was rather special as it hung from the mountain side, was screened by eight foot high walls, had two hectares of land and had an unrivalled view of the lake and the tiny villages around the lake. It had a heated swimming pool, a glassed-in patio, a games and movie room, plus all the luxury gimmicks a movie director at the height of his success could dream up. There was also a garage for four cars with staff quarters over the garage.

Each February, Helga came to Switzerland to get the villa ready for her husband’s reception.

He would eventually arrive with Hinkle who acted as his nurse, his valet and his chef. Hinkle had been in Rolfe’s service for some fifteen years. He looked like a benign English bishop: rotund, bald, with white wisps of hair to soften his florid complexion. He was as smooth as silk in his manner, spoke only when spoken to and was unbelievably efficient in everything he did. Although looking older than his fifty years, he was also athletic and surprisingly strong.

Helga had come to admire him. She quickly realized he tolerated nothing but the best. Anything that was less than best was instantly condemned by him. At first she had been afraid of him. During the first two months of her marriage, she knew he was observing her, judging her and he made her horribly nervous. Then he seemed to accept the fact that she was as efficient in her job as a hostess and as a personal secretary and as a wife as he was in his various jobs. She realized this when flowers began to appear in her bedroom and then other things happened to make her life much easier and she knew this was Hinkle’s way of telling her she was accepted. He still remained aloof, but when their eyes met, his expression was benign.

In three days from now, she thought as she drove towards Lugano, her husband and Hinkle would be arriving at the villa. From Bonn she had already alerted the cleaning agency in Lugano to put the villa in order and to turn on the heating. She always stayed at the Eden hotel in Lugano while this was going on. When the villa was ready, she drove to the tiny airport at Agno to meet her husband’s private plane and then drive him to the villa.

But now she had Larry with her, she didn’t intend to stay at the Eden hotel. The cleaning would be done. The heating would be on. Food was no problem. The deep freeze cabinet was always kept well stocked for an unexpected arrival.