James Chase - The Guilty Are Afraid

“Take him away and dump him,” Cordez said. “Make sure he doesn’t come back.”

He turned and walked away. It was then that I saw he was wearing very high-heeled shoes: just another phony who wanted to look better than he was.

Neither Hertz nor the two thugs moved until Cordez had gone through the doorway at the back of the bar. Gomez and Bennauer had already faded out of sight.

Hertz held out his hand for my gun and the thug who was holding it gave it to him. I watched Hertz slide the gun through his fingers until he was holding it by the barrel. All the time he stared at me, a meaningless smile on his moronic, battered face.

I had shaken off the effects of his punch by now. The movement he was making to hold the gun by its barrel told me I was in for a pistol whipping. He was aiming to club me with the gun. An expert pistol-whipper knows how to handle the gun. He hits you in every spot except a vital one. You’re out of action for months by the time he has finished with you. The gun, used by a vicious thug like Hertz, can do a lot of damage, but it needn’t be lethal.

I had served five years as a special investigator to the D.A.’s office in San Francisco. If you think there is any tougher place than San Francisco’s dock-land, tell me and I’ll keep clear of it. For five years I had rubbed shoulders with thugs like Hertz. So long as he didn’t get behind me, I wasn’t all that scared of him.

But I let him think I was.

As he swung the gun in his hand, I squirmed away, horror on my face.

“Let me out of here,” I whined. “I won’t make any trouble. Just let me out of here.”

Hertz’s grin widened.

“You’re going, pally,” he said in his soft, moronic voice. “And you’re going my way.”

He gave me time to squirm further from him. He even gave me time to get to my feet. Then he came dancing in, his ruined face alight with fiendish happiness as he swung the butt of the gun towards my head.

I timed it right. Just when he should have connected I shifted. The gun-butt flashed past me, his arm thumped on my shoulder and that brought him close to me. I grabbed hold of his coat lapels, bent my knees, leaned against him and heaved. He sailed over my head with the grace of an acrobat, arrived on his mouth and his nose on the glass floor with a crash that rocked the bottles on the shelves behind the bar, and slid along the floor to land with his head squarely connecting with the bar counter.

I went for one of the thugs the way a fighting bull goes for a matador. He swerved aside, his eyes bulging. But I wasn’t after him. That was just a feint. I was after his pal. He was standing close by, and he was totally unprepared. My fist caught him on the side of his jaw: a beautiful punch with all my weight behind it, and it lifted him off his feet and sent him sliding along the glass floor to take a toss that ended up with his head hammering against the wall. The contact between his head and the wall made such a mellow, lovely sound, I knew he would be out of action for some time.

That left the other thug.

He came at me like an enraged elephant. It was good to see the startled fear in his face. I slid under his right lead and thumped him in his ribs, sending him backwards. Then I dived for his ankles, grabbed them and jerked him upwards. The bang his skull made on the floor made even me wince. He gave one spasmodic heave of his body and then stiffened out cold.

I paused and looked over at Hertz. He was still counting stars, huddled up against the bar counter. I went over to him, took my gun out of his limp grasp, shoved it into my holster, than taking him by his ears, I lifted his head and connected it with the floor. He flopped around for a brief second like a landed trout, then went limp.

I stepped back and surveyed the wreckage. All this had taken about eighty seconds, no more; and I felt quite pleased with myself. I hadn’t had a rough house like this for four or five years. At least it showed me that I hadn’t lost my grip.

I now had two alternatives: I could either get out fast or I could remain on the premises, out of sight, in the hope of picking up some worthwhile information. Up to this moment I hadn’t found anything worth the risk of getting my neck broken. I decided, as I might never again get the chance of crashing this club, I had better stick around.

But where to hide?

I ran across the glass floor out on to the terrace. I could see a row of lighted windows to my right. Unless my geography had gone awry, these would be the windows of the club’s offices. I saw there was a wide ledge running below the windows. I looked up. The roof sloped gently away into the darkness. I could just make out a small flat roof at the top. It seemed to me if I could get up there, I would be out of trouble for a while, and when the club got busy, I had a chance of exploring without attracting attention.

I heard one of the thugs groan softly, and I knew I hadn’t much time. I stepped up on to the balustrade of the terrace, reached up for the narrow coping running along the edge of the roof, got a grip, then pulled myself upwards.

I have a pretty good head for heights, but while I was dangling in mid-air, I did think of the long, long drop far below.

I got my leg up on the roof, heaved upwards and slid my body on to it. For a long moment I remained there, clutching on to the tiles and wondering if I made one more move if I’d start a slide I wouldn’t be able to stop.

I made the move, got up on hands and knees, and then, very cautiously, I stood up. My crepe-sole shoes afforded a good grip. Bending low, I walked up the tiles to the flat roof and sat down.

There was no skylight. If anyone came after me, he would have to come the way I had, and with a gun in my hand, that made my position for the time being impregnable. I had a magnificent view over the whole of St. Raphael City and I sat admiring it.

Around eight o’clock I heard the club suddenly come to life. Far below big Cadillacs, Packards and Rolls-Royces pulled up outside the hotel entrance. A very slick dance band started up: lights came on on the terrace. I judged it safe to light a cigarette. I decided to wait an hour and then see what I could see.

By nine o’clock the rush was on. Above the precision slickness of the band, I could hear a great buzz of voices and laughter. Now was the time and I stood up.

Going down the sloping roof was a lot more dangerous than going up: one slip and I would shoot over the edge and down on the sidewalk some three hundred feet below.

I moved an inch at a time, squatting on my haunches, digging my heels into the tiles and checking myself with my hands. I reached the edge, got a grip on the coping, got my legs over the edge, twisted off and swung into space.

Away to my right I could see the brilliantly lit terrace with its tables, its elegantly dressed men and women and the regiment of waiters milling around them. I was just in the shadows, and unless anyone came right to the end of the terrace, I couldn’t be seen.

My feet touched the wide ledge that ran below the windows of the offices. I let myself drop: a dangerous move, and as I landed I nearly lost my balance and toppled backwards. But by dropping my head forward I just managed to correct my balance, then I hooked my fingers into the coping and held on while I got my breath back.

The rest was pretty plain sailing. All I had to do was to walk along the ledge and look in the windows as I passed. The first two rooms I came to were empty. They were furnished as offices with desks, typewriters and filing cabinets: everything on the de luxe scale. The third window was much larger. I paused beside it and looked in.

Cordez sat in a high-backed chair before a big glass-topped desk. He was smoking a brown cigarette in a long holder and was checking figures in a ledger.