James Chase: You Never Know With Women

“Dominic!” Gorman shouted and brought his great fist crashing down on the table.

The gun barrel dropped and Parker blinked at me as if he couldn’t understand what had happened. His vacant, bewildered look sent a chill up my spine. This guy was slaphappy. I’d seen that dazed, vacant expression duplicated on a row of faces in the psychopathic ward in the county jail. You couldn’t mistake it once you’d seen it: the face of a paranoiac killer.

“Don’t get excited, Dominic,” Gorman said in his thin, scratchy voice. He hadn’t turned a hair, and I began to understand why he kept telling Parker to take it easy. It was his way of controlling him when he was getting out of hand.

Parker got slowly to his feet, stared at the gun as if he couldn’t understand what it was doing in his hand and walked quietly out of the room.

I took out my handkerchief and touched my forehead with it. I was sweating: not much, but I was sweating.

“You want to watch that guy,” I said evenly. “One of these days they’ll take him away, strapped to a stretcher.”

“You have only yourself to blame, Mr. Jackson,” Gorman said, his eyes cold. “He’s all right if you handle him right. You happen to be the quarrelsome type. Have some more coffee?”

I grinned. “I’m going to have a drink. He was going to shoot. Don’t kid me. You want to take that gun away from him before there’s an accident.”

Gorman watched me pour the drink. There was an empty expression on his fat face.

“You mustn’t take him too seriously, Mr. Jackson. He’s become attached to Miss Rux. I shouldn’t mention her again in your conversation.”

“That guy? And what does she think of him?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with you.”

I took a drink and came back to the table.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said.

At nine o’clock Parker brought the car around to the front door. He was distant and calm and seemed to have got over his little spell.

Gorman came down the steps to see us off.

“Good luck, Mr. Jackson. Parker will give you last-minute instructions. I’ll have your money for you when you return.”

I was looking up at the dark windows hoping to see her and I didn’t pay much attention to what he was saying. She wasn’t there.

“We should be back in a couple of hours,” Parker said to Gorman. I could tell his nerves were jangling by the shake in his voice. “If we’re not, you know what to do.”

“You’ll be back,” Gorman returned. His nerves were in better shape. “Mr. Jackson won’t make a mistake.”

I hoped I wouldn’t. As we drove away into the darkness, I leaned out of the window and looked back at the house. I still couldn’t see her.

WE SAT IN THE CAR close to the twelve-foot wall that skirted the back of Brett’s house. It was cold and quiet up there on the mountain, and dark. We couldn’t see the wall or the car or each other. It was as if we were suspended in black space.

“All right,” Parker said softly. “You know what to do. Take your time. Give me a whistle when you’re coming back. I’ll flash a light so you’ll find the rope again.”

I breathed gently into the darkness. Even now I hadn’t decided what to do. I didn’t want to go in there. I knew once I was over the wall, I would have put myself out on a limb, and if I slipped up, the least I could hope for was a stretch in jail. Redfern would fall over himself to put me away. He was only waiting for me to step out of line.

Parker turned on the shaded dashboard lamp. I could see his hands and the shadowy outline of his head and shoulders.

“Here’s the combination of the safe,” he said. “It’s easy to remember. I’ve put it on a card. One full turn to the right, half a turn back, another full turn to the right, and a half turn to the right again. Stop between each turn to give the tumblers a chance to drop into place. Don’t rush it. The only way to open the safe is to wait between each turn.”

He gave me the card.

“How about my dough?” I asked.

“That’s all you think about,” he said with a snarl in his voice. He was wrong there, but it wasn’t the time or the place to tell him about Veda Rux. “Here, take it, and keep your mind on what you’re to do.”

He handed over two one-hundred-dollar bills. I folded them small and put them in my cigarette case. I should have clipped him on the jaw then, shoved him out of the car and driven away, but I wanted to see Veda again. I could still feel her mouth against mine.

“When you’ve opened the safe, you’ll find the compact on the second shelf. You can’t miss it. It’s a small gold case, about half an inch thick. You know the kind—hundreds of women have them. Put the dagger in its place.”

“It would have saved a lot of trouble if that babe had slept with a chain on her ankle,” I said. “You might pass the idea on.”

He opened the car door and slid out into the darkness. I followed. Out in the open I could just make out the top of the wall. We stood listening for a moment or so. There wasn’t a sound. I wondered if the dog was loose on the grounds—just thinking about that dog gave me the shakes.

“Ready?” Parker said impatiently. “We want to get this over before the moon is up.”

“Yeah,” I said and swung the leaded cane. I wished now I carried a gun.

He uncoiled the length of rope, and I took the hook in my hand. At the third throw the hook caught on the wire and held.

“Well, so long,” I said. “Keep your ears open. I may be coming out a damn sight faster than I go in.”

“Don’t make any mistakes, Jackson,” he said. I couldn’t see his face but by the way his voice sounded he was talking through locked teeth. “You won’t get any more money out of us if you don’t bring out that compact.”

“As if I didn’t know,” I said and took hold of the rope. “Got the dagger?”

“I’ll hand it up to you. Be careful with it. Don’t knock it against anything. There mustn’t be a mark on it.”

I climbed up the rope until I reached the wire. My feet gripped one of the knots in the rope and I went to work on the wire with the cutters. The wire was strung tight and I had to watch out it didn’t snap back and slash me. I got it cut after a while.

“Okay,” I said into the darkness and drew myself up until I was sitting astride the wall. I looked toward the house, but it was like looking into a pit a mile deep.

“Here’s the case,” Parker whispered. “Handle it carefully.”

I leaned down, fumbled about until my fingers closed around it.

“I have it,” I said and took it from him. While I was shoving it into my coat pocket, I went on. “It’s as black as a hat down there. It’ll take me some time to locate the way in.”

“No, it won’t,” Parker said impatiently. “There’s a path a few yards from the wall. It’ll take you to the back door. Keep to your right. You can’t go wrong.”

“You’ve really made a study of this thing, haven’t you?” I said, pulling up the rope, and sliding down the other side of the wall into the garden.

I stood in the darkness, my hand against the wall, my feet on the grass verge, and listened. All I could hear was my own breathing and the thump of my heart against my ribs. I had left it late to make up my mind what I was going to do. I had to make a decision now. I could either stay right where I was for a while and then climb back over the wall and tell Parker I couldn’t open the safe or it was too well guarded or something, or I could go ahead and do the job and take a chance of running into the dog and the guards.

Once I had the compact, and if the guards caught me, nothing could save me from Redfern. But I was curious. I was sure the whole setup was phoney. A guy as smart as Gorman wouldn’t be gambling away fifteen hundred bucks to help a woman out of a mess. He wasn’t the type. The compact or whatever it was he wanted out of Brett’s safe was worth a pile of jack. There could be no other explanation. If it was worth money to him, it might be worth money to me. I was sick of San Luis Beach, sick of being pushed around, sick of having no money. If I used my head I might make a killing with this job. I might collect enough dough to take it easy for years. It was worth the gamble. I decided to go ahead.