James Chase - The Guilty Are Afraid

“Watch your step,” Candy said. “I’m telling you for my good rather than yours. The Captain gets into a rage easily, and it’s bad for us all when he does.”

He paused outside a door, rapped and waited. A voice as musical as a foghorn bawled, “Wadja want?”

Candy gave me a weak smile and lifted his shoulders. He turned the doorknob, opened the door and walked into a small, drab office full of cigar smoke.

“Lew Brandon, sir.”

A mountain of a man sat behind a battered desk. He was getting on in years, but he was still in hard physical shape, and there wasn’t much fat on him. His thinning grey hair was slicked down in a cow’s lick over his low forehead. His face was massive, leathery and brutal. He rested two enormous hairy hands on his desk and glared at me while Candy closed the door as if it were made of eggshells and moved silently behind me and leaned against the wall.

“Brandon?” Katchen said, reached out and viciously stubbed out his cigar. “Huh: the shamus. Yeah, the shamus.” He rubbed his face while he continued to glare at me. “To think we gotta have beetles like you crawling around our streets.” He leaned forward, screwing up his small eyes. “When are you getting out of town, shamus?”

“I don’t know,” I said mildly. “Within a week I’d say.”

“Would you? And what the hell are you going to do in this town for a week, shamus?”

“See the sights, swim, take a girl out and relax generally.”

He wasn’t expecting this and he hunched his shoulders.

“Yeah? You weren’t planning to stick your snout into this murder case, were you?”

“I’ll watch Lieutenant Rankin’s progress with interest,” I said. “I’m sure he can get along fine without my help.”

Katchen leaned back in his chair, making the back creak.

“That’s pretty white of you, shamus.” He glared at me for maybe twenty seconds, then went on, “I don’t like a beetle around the place. If I catch up with him I put my foot on him.”

“I can imagine that, Captain.”

“Yeah? Don’t kid yourself, shamus, you can pull a fast one on me. You start interfering in this case and you’ll wonder what’s hit you.” He lifted his voice into a bellow and yelled at me: “Understand?”

“Yes, Captain.”

He showed his teeth in a big, sneering grin.

“Not a gutty beetle, are you, shamus? Okay, don’t say you haven’t been warned. Keep your nose clean, keep away from me and you might possibly survive. If you ever come into this office again, you won’t forget the experience. Remember that. You put one foot wrong and you’ll be brought in. We have ways of softening beetles, shamus.” His little eyes glittered. “Okay, now you’ve been told and remember you ain’t going to be told again. One step wrong, and in you come, and, shamus, if you do come in, the boys will certainly give you a work out before they kick you into a cell.” He looked at Candy. “Take this yellow-gutted beetle out of here and lose him,” he snarled. “He makes me sick to my stomach even to look at him.”

Candy pushed himself away from the wall and opened the office door.

Katchen lifted a huge finger and pointed at me.

“Keep your snout out of this case or else . . .”

I took a step to the door, paused and said, “Could I ask a question, Captain?”

He ran the tip of his tongue over his thick, rubbery lips.

“What question?”

“Did Lee Creedy call you up and ask you to talk to me?”

His eyes narrowed and his great hands turned into fists.

“What does that mean?”

“Mr. Creedy hired Sheppey to do a job for him. While doing it Sheppey got killed. Mr. Creedy is anxious to keep that bit of information quiet. He reckons he would be called as a witness and he would have to tell the court just why he hired Sheppey. So he had a little talk to me himself. He produced a thug called Hertz and tried to scare me with him. I was curious to know if Mr. Creedy was losing confidence in his thug and had asked you to strengthen the threat to make sure it would stick.”

I heard Candy draw in a quick breath.

Katchen’s face turned the colour of a damson plum. Very slowly he got to his feet. Standing, he looked larger than life: a kind of Boris Karloff nightmare. He moved away from his desk and advanced slowly towards me.

I waited, not moving, my eyes on his.

“So there is a little life in you, shamus,” he said, and the words seemed to come through clenched teeth. “Well, here’s something to go on with.”

His open hand came up and exploded against the side of my face. I saw it coming and rolled with the slap, taking some of the weight out of it, but it was hard enough to make my head ring and send me staggering.

He waited for me to straighten up, then he thrust his dark, blood-congested face into mine.

“Go on, shamus,” he said in a low, vicious whisper, “hit me!”

I was tempted to hang one on his jaw. Very often a guy of his build can’t take a punch on the jaw, but I knew he wanted me to hit him. I knew if I even threatened to hit him I’d be in a cell in seconds flat with three or four of his biggest men to keep me company. I didn’t move. The side of my face where he had hit me burned hotly.

We stared at each other for a long moment, then he stepped back and yelled at Candy, “Get this punk out of here before I kill him!”

Candy grabbed my arm and swung me out of the room and pulled the door shut. He let go of me and stepped back, his red, weathered face angry and scared.

“I told you, didn’t I, you damned fool?” he said. “Now you’ve really started something. Get the hell out of here!”

I touched my face.

“I’d like to meet that ape up a dark alley. So long, Sergeant. At least I don’t have to work for him.”

I walked down the passage, through the double swing doors and on to the street.

It was nice to see the sun was still shining and the men and women coming back from the beach were still looking like human beings and still acting like them too.

Chapter 4

I

Sam’s Cabin, at the unfashionable end of St. Raphael’s promenade, was a big wooden shack of a place, built out over the sea on steel piers.

There was a parking lot and though it was only five minutes to six o’clock, there were some thirty cars already parked, and not a Cadillac nor a Clipper among them.

The parking attendant was a fat, elderly man, who smiled cheerfully as he told me that the parking was free.

I walked the length of the narrow jetty and into the bar room. The bar ran the width and one side of the room. There was also a snack bar equipped with twelve electric spits, which at this moment were busily roasting twelve fat chickens.

About eight or nine men were propping themselves up against the bar, drinking beer and dipping into the dill pickle bowl.

Beyond open double doors at the far end of the room I could see a railed verandah, shaded from the evening sun by a green awning. There were tables out there, and that’s where the crowd was. As I was hoping to do some serious talking with Fulton, I decided I’d stay inside and away from the crowd. I went over to the doors and looked the crowd over to make sure he hadn’t already arrived, then, not seeing him, I picked a corner table in the bar room by a big open window and sat down.

A waiter came over, wiped the table and nodded at me. I told him to bring me a bottle of Black Label, some ice and two glasses.

A few minutes after six o’clock Tim Fulton came in. He was wearing a pair of baggy grey flannel trousers and an open-neck, blue shirt. He carried his jacket over his shoulder. He looked around, saw me and grinned. Then he came over, his eyes on the bottle of Black Label.

“Hey, there, buster,” he said. “So you’ve got the flag waving already? Couldn’t you wait for me?”