James Chase - I Would Rather Stay Poor

Iris drew in a long, shuddering breath.

‘You — you must be mad!’ she gasped.

Calvin laughed.

‘Oh, come, be intelligent. I’m not mad. I’m an opportunist, and this is an opportunity. You are about the only person in this dreary town, apart from the police, who could take the money out safely. On Monday, I’ll fix it for you to go to ’Frisco on bank business. You’ll stay overnight. You will take with you a suitcase and in the suitcase will be the money. You will ask Travers to drive you to Downside Station. He’ll do it. With him as an escort, you’ll have no trouble getting the money out. You will leave the suitcase at the ’Frisco left-luggage office. You will give me the check. When I’m ready, I’ll leave here and collect the money. It’s not a bad idea, is it?’

Iris was so astonished, she forgot her fear.

‘I wouldn’t help you if it’s the last thing I do! You must be mad to suggest such a thing!’

‘My dear girl,’ Calvin said patiently, ‘you’ll do it. You’ll have to do it. Let me explain: the woman everyone thinks was Alice: the one in the car with me was your mother.’

Iris stiffened, staring at him.

‘Is it so hard to believe?’ Calvin asked. ‘Your mother was the one who started all this. It was her idea that she and I should steal the payroll. It happened this way…’

Speaking slowly and deliberately, his eyes never leaving her white, frightened face, Calvin told her the whole story: how it was Kit’s idea that they should steal the payroll and how, together, they had planned to shift the blame onto Alice. ‘Once we had agreed to this idea,’ Calvin went on, ‘We had to decide what to do with Alice. It was Kit’s idea we should murder her. I was against it at first, but she persuaded me… she is very persuasive when she isn’t drunk. So between us, we killed her.’

Iris listened, petrified. At first, as his voice droned on, she refused to believe what he was saying, but as he went on and on, giving details, she suddenly realised that what he was saying was the truth.

‘So you see,’ Calvin concluded, dropping the butt of his cigarette on the floor and putting his foot on it, ‘you’ll have to co-operate. I don’t suppose you’d be happy to be the cause of your mother going to the gas chamber, would you?’

Iris hid her face in her hands. She felt faint. The airlessness of the vault closed in on her. The horror of what she had listened to paralysed her.

‘Your mother is very unreliable,’ Calvin went on. ‘If I had known she was an alcoholic I wouldn’t have listened to her. When she’s drinking heavily, I can’t control her. All she thinks about is getting her hands on the money. It’s driving her crazy knowing it is right here in the vault and she can’t spend it. That’s why I’m asking you to help me. If you don’t take the money out of Pittsville, your mother is likely to do something that’ll land not only me but her in trouble… and I mean trouble.’

‘I won’t listen to any of this!’ Iris said wildly. ‘I don’t believe it! Kit would never do such a thing! Let me out of here!’

She made a sudden dash past him to the vault door. He turned on the deed box and caught her wrist, stopping her. She screamed and struck at him, her fist caught his temple. He grabbed her other wrist and pulled her to him. He was on his feet now, his breathing came through his thick nostrils in short, hard snorts that horrified her. He was grinning at her, his eyes blazing with a crazy fire that turned her cold. She ceased to struggle and stood against him, staring at him. He touched her; his hand moving over her body, making her shudder, then his hand dropped away. There was a long pause, then slowly and reluctantly, he released her and moved away.

‘You’re very attractive,’ he said, ‘but I’d better not… I want your help. You’ve got to help me. If you don’t, your mother will go to the gas chamber. I promise you that.’

Iris backed away.

‘I’ll do nothing for you,’ she said shakily.

‘You will,’ Calvin said. ‘You’ll either do what I say or your mother will die. Of course you will.’

He stepped to the vault door and pulled it open.

‘Go ahead. I’m not stopping you. We’ll talk again over the week-end.’

Iris went up the steps and into the bank. She snatched her coat from the hook and walked unsteadily to the bank door. She unlocked the door and went down the path into the deserted main street.

Very sure of himself, Calvin watched her go.

Travers got back from Downside a little after six o’clock. He found the sheriff still at his desk, pawing through a mass of papers that lay before him.

‘Anything new?’ the sheriff asked, leaning back in his chair and reaching for his pipe.

‘I’ve been checking those Remingtons,’ Travers said and dropped into a chair. ‘Nothing so far. Easton’s gone off on a wild goose chase checking the roadhouses around the district. He seems to think Acres must have taken Alice some place, and a roadhouse seems as good a bet as anything.’

The sheriff chewed his pipe.

‘Suppose they did go to a roadhouse: where does that get us?’

Travers shrugged.

‘He’s clutching at straws. We’ve got to try everything. I guess. I’m pretty certain Acres is still here. I’m pretty certain the money is here too. Sooner or later, he’ll be tempted to make a false move, then we’ll have him. That’s police work.’ He dropped the match into the ash bowl. ‘Iris called you around mid-day,’ the sheriff said. ‘She wanted to know if you’d be free this afternoon.’ He grinned sympathetically. ‘I told her you were trying to earn an honest living.’

‘That’s a fact,’ Travers said, but his mind was immediately alert. He had told Iris they wouldn’t be able to spend the Saturday afternoon together so she couldn’t have telephoned for the reason the sheriff had given. This must mean she had discovered something. She would be home by now. He glanced at the telephone, but decided not to call her with the sheriff listening in. He pushed back his chair. ‘Anything you want me to do?’

‘Why not?’ the sheriff said and waved to the mass of papers on his desk. ‘All this wants going through… reports from the highway patrols.’ He took out his heavy gold watch, ‘I guess I’ll go home. You young fellows can stand the pace better than us old ’uns. If anything turns up, call me. Those pesky thrip are at my roses again.’

When he had gone, Travers reached for the telephone. He called the rooming-house. Miss Pearson came on the line. When Travers asked for Iris, Miss Pearson said she wasn’t in. She was the only one at home.

‘She’ll be back soon,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell her you called.’

Travers thanked her and hung up. He wondered where Iris had got to, then shrugging, he settled down to work. It wasn’t until he turned on the desk light that he realised the time was now half past seven and he had had no word from Iris. He called the rooming-house again. This time it was Kit who answered.

‘Iris has gone to bed,’ she said curtly. ‘She had a headache.’

‘She’s not ill?’ Travers asked sharply.

‘She has a headache,’ Kit said and hung up.

Kit had been to a movie at Downside. During the day, she had been depressed and had a premonition that something bad was going to happen. As soon as she had supervised the lunch for the old couple, she had changed and had driven to Downside where an Alfred Hitchcock film was showing. She felt she had to escape from the house. Although the film was up to Hitchcock’s usual standard, it failed to hold her and she had to force herself to sit in the darkness, knowing that if she returned home, the feeling of depression would be there to haunt her. Finally, when the film finished, she went into the gathering dusk and crossed to a bar near where she had parked her car. She drank two double whiskies. Her tension slightly relieved, she got in the car and drove home.