James Chase - This Way for a Shroud

Buster, determined to make conversation, began to talk about the prowess of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and kept up an enthusiastic harangue until they reached the garage where a small, battered sports car with two seats in front and a tiny bucket seat at the back stood waiting.

“There’s not much room,” Buster said, “but it goes all right. Bunty, you get in the back seat. Burt, you sit beside me and Frankie will sit on top of you. That okay?”

“Unless Burt thinks I’ll squash him,” Frances said, laughing.

Pete avoided her eyes.

“No, it’s all right,” he said, and climbed into the front seat.

Frances lowered herself on to his lap and put her arm round his shoulders. The feel of her soft young body and the smell of her faint perfume made his blood quicken. He sat motionless, his arm slackly round her, bemused. This was something that had never happened to him before; something that had happened only in his dreams.

Buster cranked the engine which started with a roar. Having made sure Bunty was settled in the back, he drove away from the garage and sent the car roaring towards the sea.

The noise of the engine prevented any conversation, and Pete was glad of the opportunity to savour this extraordinary experience of having a girl so close to him.

As the little car banged and bumped along at forty-five miles an hour, Frances had to cling to him and he to her to prevent her being thrown out. She was laughing, and once she screamed to Buster to drive more slowly, but he didn’t appear to hear her.

Pete suddenly realized that the odd feeling he was experiencing was the nearest to excited happiness he had ever known, and he found himself smiling at Frances as she clung to him, and he felt a tingle run up his spine as she laughed back at him.

The car’s off-wheel suddenly hit a pot-hole and jolted them violently together. Frances’s skirts shot up to show the tops of her stockings and the smooth white flesh of her thighs. Pete hurriedly pulled down her skirt to save her from untwining her arms from around his neck.

“Oh, thank you,” she gasped, her mouth close to his ear. This is really awful. We must stop him.”

But Buster had already slowed down and was grinning at Pete and winking.

“I knew that would happen sooner or later,” he bawled. It never fails to work. I always provide a free show for my male friends.”

“Buster! You behave yourself or we’ll go home!” Bunty screamed at him.

Frances removed one arm from around Pete’s neck and anchored her skirts.

Long before they caught a glimpse of the sea, they heard the stupendous sound from the amusement park together with the shouting, screaming and laughing of the people like themselves who were stealing a day on the beach.

“I never know where all the people come from,” Frances cried above the noise of the car engine. “It doesn’t matter when you come here, it’s always crowded.”

Pete was about to say something when he happened to glance in the little circular mirror on the off-wing of the car. In its reflection he saw the battered outlines of the Packard and caught a glimpse of Moe’s sandy-coloured hair as he sat at the driving-wheel.

Pete felt himself turn hot, then cold. He realized, with a feeling of bewilderment mixed with fear, that for the past ten minutes he had completely forgotten Moe and had forgotten the orders Seigel had given him.

Buster drove into a packed parking lot, edged in between two cars and cut the engine. Cars were arriving at the rate of ten a minute, and as the four walked from the car towards the beach, they were immediately hemmed in by the noisy, jostling, perspiring crowd.

Frances held on to Pete’s arm. He moved forward a step ahead of her, his shoulder turned slightly sideways to form a buffer against the swirling tide of people coming towards him. Buster led the way, cutting a path with his big shoulders for Bunty who walked immediately behind him, hanging on to his shirt tail.

They crawled past the low wooden buildings that housed fortune tellers, photographers with their comic animals and still more comic backgrounds, the freak shows and the hamburger stalls, being jostled, coming to a standstill, then moving on again.

From time to time Pete looked over his shoulder, but he couldn’t see any sign of Moe, and he hoped feverishly that they had lost him in this crowd.

Finally they reached the rails at the outer edge of the sea front. Not far away was the snake-like structure of a roller coaster whose cars roared and clattered up and down the steep inclines, carrying a screaming, shouting cargo of people, determined to enjoy themselves and determined to scream or shout louder than his or her neighbour.

Outlined against the sky was the colossal Giant Wheel that slowly revolved, carrying little cars slowly up into the heavens; cars that spun and swayed ominously on what appeared to be thread-like anchors.

The four of them faced the beach, looking along the three-mile strip of sand at the seething mass of humanity that lay on the sand, played ball, deck tennis, leap-frog or rushed madly into the oncoming breakers and filled the air with noise.

“Phew! Half the town seems to be here,” Buster said, surveying the scene with his wide, india-rubber grin. “Let’s get at it. We’ll have a swim first, then something to eat, then we’ll go to the amusement park. How about it?”

“Did you bring a swim-suit?",Frances asked, turning to Pete.

He shook his head.

“I’m afraid I don’t swim.”

He saw Bunty pull a little face and lift her shoulders in a why-on-earth-didyou-come-then? gesture, and he felt the blood rise to his face, and that angered him, for he knew when he flushed the naevus on his skin turned livid and made him look repulsive. He saw Bunty turn away so she need not look at him. But Frances was looking at him with no change of expression in her eyes.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said quickly. We’ll sit on the beach and watch the others swim. I don’t feel like swimming myself.”

“No! Please; I want you to swim,” he said, trying to control his embarrassment.

“Burt will guard our clothes,” Buster said. “We shan’t be long. Come on, girls, let’s get to it.”

They began to make their way cautiously through the sprawling crowd, until they finally came upon a small clearing in the sand and hurriedly staked out their claim.

Buster was wearing a pair of swimming-trunks under his clothes, and he was quickly stripped off. Pete eyed his muscles and his tanned body enviously.

Both the girls took off their shoes and stockings and slid out of their dresses. They both wore one-piece suits under their dresses, and Pete felt a little pang run through him when he looked at Frances. She had on an oyster-coloured swim-suit that moulded itself to her body. He thought she had the most beautiful figure he had ever seen.

As she adjusted her bathing cap, she went over to him.

“You’re sure you don’t mind being left? I’d just as soon stay.”

“No, it’s all right. I’ll wait for you.”

“Oh, come on, Frankie!” Bunty cried impatiently, and catching hold of Buster’s hand she ran with him down to the breakers and plunged in.

Frances smiled at Pete. It was unbelievable, he thought, a lump coming into his throat, that a girl as lovely as she was could look at him and smile at him like this: just as if he were an ordinary human being like Buster.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, and went after the other two.

Pete sat with his fingers laced around his knees, his shoulders hunched, and watched her long, slim legs, her straight boyish back as she ran with that slightly awkward movement most young girls have when they run.

He watched her plunge into the water and swim with powerful strokes after the other two.