James Chase: The Guilty Are Afraid

I gave him a slug big enough to knock over a horse and cart, and he poured it down his throat as if it were water.

“Let’s go,” he said, putting down the glass. He blew out his cheeks and thumped himself on the chest. “The Lieutenant doesn’t like being kept waiting.”

We travelled down in the elevator. As we crossed the lobby I saw the reception clerk was staring at me, bug-eyed. The bellhop was also staring. They probably thought I was under arrest.

A couple of old gentlemen in white flannels and Harvard blazers were sitting in basket chairs by the door. They too stared, and as Candy and I passed, one of them said, “I’ll be damned if that fellow isn’t a policeman.”

We went down the steps where a car waited. Candy got under the wheel and I sat beside him. We drove fast, using the back streets, and avoiding the traffic on the main roads.

“Where was he found?” I asked suddenly.

“At Bay Beach,” Candy told me, his heavy jaw working as he chewed. “There’s a row of cabins there for hire. The attendant found him.”

I put the question that had been bothering me ever since I had been told he was dead.

“Was it a heart attack or something?”

Candy touched his siren button as a Cadillac tried to edge in front of him. The Cadillac swerved and slowed down at the sound of the siren and Candy went past, glaring at the driver.

“He was murdered,” he said.

I sat still, my hands squeezed between my knees, while I absorbed the shock. I hadn’t anything to say after that. I just sat staring ahead and listening to Candy hum under his breath some tuneless song. In under five minutes we reached the beach.

Candy drove fast along a wide road that ran parallel with the sea. Finally, we came to a row of red and white painted beach cabins and a small parking lot.

The cabins were shaded by palm trees, and there were the usual gaudy beach umbrellas. Four police cars were parked on the road. I could see a crowd of about two hundred people, mostly in swimsuits standing near the cabins. I spotted the Buick convertible Jack and I had bought second hand, and for which we were still paying, in the parking lot.

We pushed through the crowd who stared curiously at me. As we neared the cabins, Candy said, “The little fella’s Lieutenant Rankin.”

Rankin saw us and came forward. He was a head shorter than Candy. He wore a lightweight grey suit with a slouch hat placed carefully and at a jaunty angle over his right eye: a man nudging forty-five with a smooth, hard face, ice grey eyes and a small slit that served him for a mouth. His hair, white at the temples, had been recently cut. He was dapper, neat and as hard as forged steel.

“This is Lew Brandon, Lieutenant,” Candy said.

Rankin looked at me. His eyes were as intense as searchlights. He took from his pocket a flimsy slip of paper and thrust it at me.

“Did you send this?” he asked.

I looked at the paper. It was the telegram I had sent Jack telling him when I would be arriving.

“Yes.”

“He was a friend of yours?”

“We were in business together. He was my partner.”

Rankin continued to stare at me. For a long moment he just stared, rubbing his jaw, then he said, “You’d better take a look at him, then we can talk.”

Bracing myself, I followed him across the hot sand and into the cabin.

II

A couple of beefy-looking men were dusting powder on the window ledges for fingerprints. A thin, elderly man sat at a small table, a black bag at his feet, filling out a buff-coloured form.

I scarcely noticed them. My eyes went immediately to where Jack was lying on the floor by a kind of divan bed. He was hunched up, close to the bed, as if he had been trying to get away from someone when he was dying.

Except for a pair of swimming trunks, he was naked. In the hollow of his neck and right shoulder was a blue-red hole. The skin around the hole was badly bruised. There was a scared expression on his suntanned, dead face.

“That him?” Rankin asked quietly, his ice grey eyes watching me.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He looked at the thin man. “Nearly finished Doc?”

“All but. It’s a straightforward job. There’s a professional touch about it. I’d say a rattail icepick. Whoever did it knew where to strike. Got him just by the occipital bulge. Driven in with considerable force. Death would be instantaneous. I’d say he was killed within the hour.”

Rankin grunted.

“You can take him away when you’re ready.” He turned to me. “Let’s get out of here.” He went out into the hot sunshine, blinking a little in the fierce light. He waved to Candy, who came over. “I’m going back to Brandon’s hotel,” he said. “See what you can find here. Doc says it’s an icepick job. Hughson will be down with some more men. Get them looking for the pick. There’s a chance the killer threw it away, but I doubt it.” He looked at his gold strap watch he wore on the inside of his thin wrist. “See you in my office at fourteen-thirty hours.”

He crooked his finger at me, then set off across the sand, walking through the crowd as if it didn’t exist. The crowd gave way hurriedly, staring at me as I followed him. As we passed the parking lot, I said, “The convertible Buick belongs to Sheppey and me, Lieutenant. He had the use of it down here.”

Rankin paused, looked over at the Buick, then waved to one of his men.

“Tell Sergeant Candy the convertible over there is the car Sheppey came in. Get it checked for prints and give it a going over. When you’re through with it have someone take it to the Adelphi Hotel and leave it there.” He looked at me. “Okay?”

“Thanks.”

We went to a police car and got in the back. Rankin said to the driver, “Adelphi Hotel. Take the long way round and drive slow. I’ve got some talking to do.”

The driver touched his cap, engaged gear and moved the car into the traffic.

Rankin settled himself in the corner, took a cigar from his pocket, shook it out of its metal container, pierced it and put it between his small white teeth. He lit it, drew down a lungful of smoke, held it, then let it drift slowly down his pinched nostrils.

“Well, let’s have it,” he said. “Who are you and who is Sheppey and what is all this about? Don’t rush it. Take it slow, but give me the complete picture.”

I lit a cigarette, thought for a moment, then began to talk. I told him Sheppey and I had been running a successful inquiry agency in San Francisco for the past five years.

“I’ve been on a job in New York for three weeks while Sheppey has been looking after the office. While I was in New York I got a wire from him telling me to get to St. Raphael City as fast as I could. He said he had a big job on and there was money in it. I had more or less tied up my job, so I flew to Los Angeles and took the tram here, arriving this morning at eleven-thirty. I went to the hotel, found Sheppey had reserved a room for me and was told he had gone out. I was taking a shower when Sergeant Candy picked me up. That’s all I can tell you.”

“He didn’t say what the job was?” Rankin asked.

I shook my head.

“Jack isn’t much of a letter writer. I guess he decided it would be quicker and easier to tell me than to write.”

Rankin brooded for a moment, then said, “Have you got your licence on you?”

I gave him my billfold. He examined the contents quickly and expertly, then handed it back.

“You’ve no idea who employed him here or what the case was about?” he asked.

“No idea at all.”

He gave me a hard stare.

“You’d tell me if you did? “

“Possibly, but as I don’t know, the point doesn’t arise.”

He scratched the side of his face, screwing up his eyes.