James Chase - The Guilty Are Afraid

It was hard enough to bring me to my knees, but not hard enough to fog my brain. As he rushed, I fell forward and grabbed him around his thick thighs, raised myself and heaved. He went over my head and slid along the planks of the jetty on his face.

I was up and running before he came to rest. As I bolted into the car park, I heard a voice call, “Hey, Brandon! Right here!”

I changed my direction as I saw Fulton waving at me from the front seat of my car. I heard Hertz lumbering down the jetty after me. The engine of the car was running and I scrambled in under the steering wheel, slammed in the gear and trod down on the accelerator. Hertz was within twenty yards of the car now, his battered face a snarling mask of fury as the car shot away.

I went through the parking-lot gates with an inch to spare and stormed out on to the boulevard. Still at high speed, I swung the car into a side turning, drove flat out to the top of the road, stood on the brake pedal and flung the car into another road, then slowed down.

“Are you badly hurt?” I asked, looking at Fulton.

“I’ll survive,” he said.

“Where’s the nearest hospital? I’ll take you.”

“Third left at the top of this road, then straight on for half a mile.”

I increased speed. In five minutes I pulled up outside the emergency entrance to the hospital.

“I can manage now.” He got out of the car. “I was a mug to have opened my big mouth. I should have kept clear of you.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to land you in for that kind of party. You could bring a charge against Hertz. There were plenty of witnesses.”

“Much good that’d do. It’d never stick, and I’d be in more trouble. I’m packing and getting out of this town. I’ve had about enough of it.”

He went away, moving unsteadily.

I watched him disappear through the doorway, then I U-turned and headed back fast to my hotel.

III

It wasn’t until I was in the quiet of my bedroom, and after I had bathed my bruises, that I remembered I had missed my dinner, and found I was hungry. I called down for some hot turkey sandwiches on rye bread and a pint of iced beer. While I waited for the sandwiches to be brought up, I stretched out on my bed and considered the activities of the day.

I knew I was sticking my head into a hornets’ nest, and I wondered how long I would survive if I continued to do so.

Sooner or later I would run into Hertz again, and the next time I might not get off with only a bruised neck and a slight swelling under my right eye. I thought of Tim Fulton and grimaced.

Even if I managed to side step Hertz, there was Katchen. If he got the slightest suspicion I was continuing my inquiries, he would fix me on some charge and have me in. I didn’t kid myself that that would be any kind of picnic. It seemed, if I were going to make any safe progress, I would have to get some sort of protection, but how I was to do it defeated me. Was there anyone in town more powerful than Creedy and who could warn Katchen to lay off? It didn’t seem likely, but if there was, and I could get him on my side, that would be the solution to my problem.

Leaving that, I considered what I had discovered. I knew now that Creedy had hired Jack. Creedy’s money was behind some of the rackets of the town. He was married, and his wife was playing around with a man called Jacques Thrisby. He also had a daughter, Margot, whom he was fond of and she had an apartment on Franklyn Boulevard. I reached for the telephone book, looked her up and found her apartment was in a block called the Franklyn Arms. As I put the book down, there came a knock on the door and a waiter brought me the sandwiches and the beer. He stared curiously at my swollen eye, but didn’t comment on it, which was as well for him.

I was in no mood to be sociable with a waiter right at this minute. When he had gone, I got off the bed and, sitting in the lone armchair, I ate the sandwiches and drank the beer.

Someone had taken Jack’s things out of the room next door and put them in a neat pile in the corner of my room. I was reminded by the sight of them that I had to write to his wife. After I had finished my meal and had lit a cigarette, I took a sheet of the hotel notepaper and wrote to her. It took me until half past ten to complete the letter to my satisfaction. I offered her a reasonable sum as compensation for losing her husband. I purposely made the sum a little low because I knew she would bargain long and bitterly to get more out of me. She had never liked me, and I knew she would never be satisfied no matter what I gave her.

I stuck the envelope down and left it on the dressing table to post the following morning.

I then sat down and unlocked Jack’s suitcase. I went through his stuff to make sure there was nothing in the case that might upset his wife when I returned it. It was as well that I did, for I found photographs and letters that proved he had been cheating her for the past year or so. I tore them up and dumped them in the trash basket. I went through the rest of the suitcase and I found, hidden in the lining of the case, a match-folder: one of those things restaurants and night clubs give away as an advertisement. This was something special. It was covered with dark red water-silk and across the outside in gold letters was the legend: The Musketeer Club and a telephone number.

I turned the folder over between my fingers, remembering that Greaves, the hotel detective, had said that the Musketeer Club was the most exclusive, apart from being the most expensive club in town. How had Jack got hold of the folder? Had he gone to the club? Knowing him, I was sure he wouldn’t go to a de luxe night spot like that unless it was for business reasons. He was far too careful with his money to take any girl to a place that expensive.

Still holding the folder, I got to my feet, thought for a moment, then, leaving my room, I took the elevator down to the lobby.

I asked the reception clerk if Greaves was around.

“He’ll be in his office right now,” the clerk said, staring at my swollen eye. “Downstairs and to the right. Did you have an accident, Mr. Brandon?”

“This eye? Why, no. I ordered some sandwiches to be sent up and the waiter threw them at me. Think nothing of it. I go for that kind of service.”

I left him with his mouth hanging open and his second chin quivering and went down the stairs to Greaves’s office.

It was more of a cupboard than a room. I found him sitting at a small table, laying out a hand of patience. He looked up as I came to rest in the open doorway.

“Someone take a dislike to your face?” he asked, without much show of interest.

“Yeah,” I said and, leaning forward, I dropped the match-folder on the table.

He looked at it, frowned, looked up at me and raised his eyebrows.

“How come?”

“I found it in Sheppey’s suitcase.”

“I’m willing to bet a buck he never went there. He hadn’t the class, the money nor the influence to get past the bouncers.”

“No chance?”

“Not a chance in ten million.”

“Maybe someone took him in. That possible?”

Greaves nodded.

“Maybe. A member can take in who he likes, but if the other snobs don’t like who he brings in, he could lose his membership. That’s how it works.”

“He could have picked it up somewhere.”

Greaves shrugged.

“First one I’ve seen. The guys and dolls who go to the Musketeer Club wouldn’t soil their lily white fingers touching a thing like that. They’d be afraid it’d give them a germ. I’d say someone took him in and he brought this away with him to prove he had been there. It’s something to brag about if you’re the bragging kind.”

“Know where I can get hold of a members’ list?”