James Chase - Safer Dead

The house was big and white with a green roof, green sun shutters and a magnificent terrace, equipped with sun blinds that stretched either side of a flight of stone steps that led down to the carriageway.

Apart from the gardeners, there was no sign of life, no one taking a constitutional on the terrace or even looking out of the windows.

To me it looked a lonely house; a house I shouldn’t care to live in on my own.

I got off the car roof, put on my shoes and climbed into the driving seat. I wasn’t ready to call on Mrs. Van Blake just yet so I drove back to the hotel for lunch.

Before going into the restaurant I called up Captain Bradley and asked him if I could see him that evening.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ve been wondering how you’ve been getting on. Don’t leave your car outside, will you?’

I said I’d take care of that, and I’d be around after nine o’clock.

After lunch I went up to my room to write a report for Bernie.

As soon as I opened the bedroom door I knew someone had been in there while I had been out.

I shut the door and looked around.

My suitcase that I had left on the luggage stand was now on the floor. My overcoat that I had left in the cupboard was tossed on my bed.

I went over to the bureau, pulled open a drawer. Some big hand had stirred up my shirts and socks and hadn’t bothered to put them back as he had found them. Other drawers also showed signs of a quick frisk. Whoever it was who had been poking around didn’t care if I knew it or not.

I guessed my visitor was Lassiter, but I had to be sure. I crossed the room to the telephone and asked the reception desk to send the house dick up.

He came after a short delay: a fat, stolid man with a hangover moustache and cold, fishy eyes. I had a five-dollar bill on the table where he could see it, and he saw it before he even saw me.

‘The cops been here?’ I asked and moved the bill a couple of inches towards him.

I could see he had been told not to talk, but the bill proved too much for him. After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded.

‘Sergeant Lassiter?’ I asked.

Again he nodded.

I handed him the bill.

‘Sorry to have brought you up.’

He slid the bill into his hip pocket, nodded again and drifted out of the room: the strong, silent, corruptible type. Well, Lassiter hadn’t discovered anything that would tell him why I was here. I had no notes on the Benson case with me. I had put nothing down on paper. He must be still wondering what, if anything, I was up to.

I sat down, took a pack of notepaper from the desk and wrote Bernie a long letter, bringing him up-to-date on the case so far. The effort nearly killed me, but it had to be done. It took time, and it was around six o’clock before I had finished. I went downstairs and walked to the corner of the street to post the letter. I wasn’t taking any chances on the hotel mail box. On my way back across the lounge I spotted a thickset man in a basket chair, reading a newspaper. He had cop written all over him.

As I passed the house dick, who was decorating the reception desk, looked at the thickset man and then at me, then he closed one eyelid slowly. He raised two thick fingers to scratch his neck and looked at me again, slightly nodding his head towards the street.

That told me there was another of them outside. The five bucks was earning its living. For a man who could tell a story without words, this house dick was in a class of his own.

I returned his wink and took the elevator up to my room. I put a phone call through to Suzy. There was a very faint click on the line just before Suzy’s receiver was lifted. That told me that someone was listening in on my line. Suzy’s maid said Suzy was out, and she wouldn’t be back until late. I thanked her and hung up.

I wondered how long the line had been tapped, and tried to remember if I had heard the click when I had called Captain Bradley. I didn’t think I had, but I couldn’t be sure. Maybe Lassiter had only just got around to tapping my line; I hoped so. I didn’t want him to know I was calling on Bradley this night. With two trained cops waiting for me downstairs, my trip to Bradley’s house wasn’t going to be easy. I decided to make a start now to be sure I had plenty of time in which to lose them before I reached Lincoln Drive.

I had a shower and changed. My strap watch told me it was ten minutes past seven as I let myself out of my room and walked to the elevator.

I gave up my room key to the desk clerk.

‘Will you be in for dinner, sir?’ he asked as he took the key.

‘No, I’ll eat out,’ I said, loud enough for the thickset man to hear. He still sat in the basket chair near the revolving doors. I crossed the lobby, pushed my way through the doors and paused at the top of the steps. I looked at the crowded promenade, but I couldn’t spot the other dick.

‘Cab, sir?’ the doorman asked.

I shook my head and strolled down the steps and along the promenade. I walked for some minutes, then turned off into the town. I went into a bar and ordered a highball.

The bar was nearly empty. The barman looked intelligent so I leaned forward and said to him in an undertone, ‘My wife’s having me tailed. Any way out the back way, pal?’ and I showed him a dollar bill.

He grinned cheerfully.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Go through that door. It’ll take you to the back entrance on Dorset road.’

The buck and I parted company. I was throwing Fayette’s money away like a drunken sailor.

‘Thanks,’ I said, finished the highball at a swallow, then walked quickly across the bar, opened the door he had indicated and stepped into a passage. On the right was a big cupboard. Ahead of me was a door. I opened the cupboard. It contained brooms and mops, but there was room enough for me, and I stepped inside, closed the door and waited.

I didn’t have to wait more than a few seconds. I heard the door leading from the bar jerked open and heavy feet pound down the passage. I opened the cupboard door a crack and peered through.

The thickset cop, his face red and his eyes gleaming, was opening the street door. He stepped outside, looked up and down, then started off to the right.

I leaned against the wall of the cupboard and waited. I was in no hurry. There was the second cop to think of. He might be covering the bar. I waited twenty long, weary minutes, before I opened the cupboard door and peered out. Hearing nothing, I tiptoed over to the street door and eased it open.

Right opposite me was a cab. The driver was lighting a cigarette before moving off. I jumped across the sidewalk, jerked open the cab door and got in.

‘Take me to the station,’ I said, ‘and snap it up.’

He drove me to the railroad station that was on the far side of the town: Captain Bradley’s side. When I saw the station ahead of me, I told him to stop and I paid him off. I looked at my watch. I still had an hour before I could call on Bradley. A movie theatre nearby offered the solution. I went in and sat in the back row and watched Jane Russell display her curves for the next three quarters of an hour.

When I came out, it was dark. As far as I could remember Lincoln Avenue was only a five minute walk from the station. I started off keeping my eyes open. Fifty yards from the movie house I spotted a patrolman, and I ducked into a tobacconist store to let him pass. I bought a pack of Camels, took my time getting out a cigarette and lighting it, then I went out on to the street again.

A four minute quick walk brought me to the corner of Lincoln Avenue. I paused and examined the long road before starting down. It was as deserted and as silent as a graveyard at midnight.

CHAPTER TEN

I

I’ve got Lassiter’s boys on my tail,’ I said as soon as I had sat down in one of Bradley’s worn armchairs, ‘but I shook them off before coming here.’