James Chase - Safer Dead

No one was paying me the slightest attention.

I edged to the opening of the corridor, then walked, not too quickly and as nonchalantly as I could, towards the oak paneled door. I turned the door handle and pushed gently. The door swung inwards as silently as a leaf settling on the ground.

I looked into a big, luxuriously furnished room: a man’s room; a man with plenty of money to spend on his comforts, and who hadn’t missed a trick in satisfying those comforts. I didn’t let my eyes roam around the room longer than a split second.

The man and woman struggling silently by the fireplace caught and held my attention.

The woman was Cornelia Van Blake. The man was tall and thin and handsome, with an eyebrow moustache and the beautiful tan of a sun lizard.

He had hold of Cornelia, the way Rudolph Valentino used to get hold of his women in the silent movie days. He held her two wrists in one hand, his right arm was around her waist, and he was bending her back while he tried to clamp his mouth down on hers.

She was struggling to break free, and she must have been stronger than she looked for I could see he was having his work cut out to hold her.

When a man forces his attention on any woman it has always seemed to me that he is presenting himself as a target for violence.

I don’t often use violence as I’m too lazy to make the effort, but during the war, when I was unfortunate to get drafted into the Marines, I was the undisputed lightweight champion of my battalion, only because I found it less exhausting than getting on the wrong side of my battalion commander who was a boxing fanatic.

Without considering the consequences, I took two quick steps into the room.

The tall man let go of Cornelia and faced me, his eyes glittering with fury. To ease his embarrassment, I hung a right hook on the side of his jaw. It was a nice punch, and the results on him were devastating.

He shot backwards, thudded against his desk, swept some costly gewgaws to the floor and slid down on top of them.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t appear sooner,’ I said to Cornelia who was adjusting the top of her topless dress that had slipped a few inches during the infighting.

She didn’t even thank me.

I’ve seen angry women in my time, but never one as angry as she was at this moment. She was as white as a fresh fall of snow and her eyes blazed like red hot embers as they say in Victorian novels.

She looked at me as if I were transparent, then looked at the tall man who was still lying on his back, although he was shaking his head and trying to get life back once more into focus, then she went out of the room, and as she passed me I felt scorched by the white-hot blast of her rage.

I sought relaxation by dipping into the gold cigarette box on the desk. I took a cigarette and lit it. One drag sent a tremor up to my memory. Egyptian Abdulla. I looked at the cigarette to make sure, then I looked at the tall man who was by now dragging himself to his feet. I remembered Bernie’s description of the mysterious Henry Rutland: over six foot, lean, suntanned, eyebrow moustache and a gold link bracelet on one wrist and a gold strap watch on the other.

This guy had a gold bracelet on his left wrist and a gold strap watch on his right. Even without the gold ornaments, the description fitted him like a glove.

But this seemed scarcely the time to step up, shake him by the hand and say, ‘Henry Rutland I presume.’

This seemed to me to be the time to ease myself out of the room, turn my discovery over in my mind at leisure and decide how best to make use of it.

As Royce staggered to his feet, clutching on to the desk for support, I took two steps towards the door, then paused.

The door had opened silently. Standing in the doorway, his swarthy, cruel face hard and set was Juan. In his right hand he held a .38 automatic and it was pointing at me.

II

For a long moment we stared at each other, then he stepped into the room and closed the door, setting his back against it. Royce sat down behind his desk. His fingers touched the side of his jaw. His eyes brooded death.

‘Find out who he is,’ he said.

Juan held out his left hand.

‘Wallet,’ he said, ‘and snap it up.’

I took out my wallet and handed it to him. He found he couldn’t examine it and keep me covered by the gun, so he lowered the gun which was a foolish move. He also took his eyes off me. He was either full of confidence or a bonehead. I didn’t pause to inquire. I hung a right hook on his jaw. I don’t think I’ve ever hit a guy as hard as I hit Juan. The jar that ran up my arm as my fist connected pained me a lot more than it pained him. He went out like a light and I just managed to grab the gun before he hit the carpet.

I turned the gun on the tall man and smiled at him.

‘We seem to be having an exciting evening, don’t we?’ I said.

He looked at me, his face tight with rage.

‘Get out of here!’ he snarled.

‘I’m on my way. I’ll leave the gun with the guy at the gate. I’ll feel safer with it until I get clear of this joint,’ I said, scooped up my wallet and backed to the door.

He sat motionless, his hands on the desk, his face pale under the suntan. What with one thing and the other, he couldn’t have had much of an evening.

I opened the door, edged into the corridor and walked quickly to the lobby.

Suzy was waiting for me.

‘Where have you been for goodness sake?’ she said impatiently. ‘I was about to go home without you.’

‘That’s just what you are going to do,’ I said. ‘I haven’t time to explain why. Get one of the flunkeys to grab a taxi for you. I’m not even waiting for my hat.’

I stepped past her and went to the entrance and down the steps, leaving her gaping after me, too surprised even to speak.

‘Your car, sir?’ the doorman asked sharply.

‘It’s okay. I’ll collect it myself,’ I said, shoved past him and ran down the avenue to where I could see a row of cars.

I didn’t know how long it would take Mr. Royce to come into action, but the quicker I was past the guards at the gate, the safer it would be for me. I located the Buick, gave the attendant a buck and got in. As I drove fast down the drive I took the gun from my pocket and tossed it through the open window into a clump of laurels. I was remembering what Creed had said about being caught with a gun on me without a gun permit. It was a sound move for as my headlights picked out the main gates I saw they were shut.

The two guards, plus a tall, beefy looking man in a slouch hat, stood silent and still, waiting for me to arrive. I slowed down, honked on my horn in the hope they would open the gates, but they didn’t. The headlights of the car lit up the man in the slouch hat. He had cop written all over him. His red, coarse face was a mass of brutality. If you took a lump of brick-red clay, squashed it into the vague shape of a face, stuck a lump on it for a nose, carved a slit in it for a mouth and stuck two match heads in it for eyes you would have a fair portrait of this guy.

An inch or so over six foot, there was a massive power about him in the way he stood, his hands in his trench coat pockets, his great legs apart, his head a little on one side.

I wondered if this was Sergeant Carl Lassiter, who, according to ex-Captain Bradley, was the toughest cop on the Tampa City police force. If he wasn’t, then I didn’t want to meet Lassiter.

This guy was tough enough.

I pulled up.

The two guards moved forward, their hands resting on the butts of their guns. They came each side of the car and opened the doors simultaneously.

‘Keep your hands on the wheel!’ the guard nearest me rapped out.

‘What’s the idea?’ I said, not moving so much as an eyelash.