James Chase - The Guilty Are Afraid

The room was big and done over in grey and eggshell blue. All the desk fitments were of polished steel. Three big filing cabinets, also of steel, stood along the wall. Near where Cordez was sitting was a big safe.

I kept just out of the stream of light that came through the open window, bending forward so I could peer into the room. Cordez worked quickly. His gold pencil travelled up the rows of figures, casting them with the practised ease of an accountant.

I remained watching him for perhaps ten minutes, and then, just when I was beginning to think I was wasting my time, I heard a knock on the door.

Cordez looked up, called, “Come in,” and then went back to his casting again.

The door opened, and a fat, white-faced man in a well-fitting tuxedo entered. He had a red carnation in his buttonhole and diamonds glittered at his shirt cuffs. He closed the door as if it were made of something very brittle and stood still, waiting, his eyes on Cordez.

When Cordez had finished casting a column, he noted down the total, then looked up.

His expression was coldly hostile.

“Now look, Donaghue,” he said, “if you haven’t any money, get out. I’ve had about all I’m going to take from you.”

The man fingered his perfectly set tie. Sullen hatred showed in his eyes.

“I’ve got the money,” he said, “and don’t give me any of your damned impertinence.” He hauled out a roll of bills from his hip pocket and threw them on the desk. “Here’s a thousand. I’ll have two this time.”

Cordez picked up the roll, straightened it and counted the bills. Then he opened a drawer in his desk and dropped the roll into it. He got to his feet and walked over to the safe. Standing squarely in front of it so his body hid the combination from Donaghue and myself, he twirled the dial and pulled the door open. He reached inside, took something out, closed the safe door and came back to the desk.

He flicked two match-folders across the glass top of the desk so they came to rest before Donaghue.

Donaghue snatched them up, opened them and examined them carefully, then slid them into his vest pocket. He went out without a word, and Cordez returned to his desk. He sat for a long moment staring at the opposite wall, then he picked up his gold pencil and began casting again.

I remained where I was, watching.

During the period of forty minutes, two other people came in: a fat, elderly woman and a young fellow who looked as if he were still at college. They each parted with five hundred dollars for a match-folder. Each time Cordez treated them as if he were doing them a favour. By now it was ten minutes to ten, and I remembered my appointment with Margot Creedy.

I leaned forward and looked down. Ten feet below and to my left I could see a balcony to one of the hotel bedrooms. No lights showed from the window. I decided that would be my safest and easiest way out.

Crouching, I slid past Cordez’s window and arrived immediately above the balcony. Then I sat on the ledge, turned, caught hold of the coping, let myself hang, then dropped.

The french doors were easy enough to force, and a few minutes later I was in the bedroom. I groped my way to the door, opened it and looked cautiously out into a wide, deserted corridor.

Then I set off down the corridor in search of the elevator.

It was as easy as that.

Chapter 9

I

At five minutes after ten o’clock, I saw Margot Creedy come through the hotel’s revolving doors and pause under the brightly lit canopy.

She was wearing an emerald green dress made of sequins, with a plunging neckline, that fitted her like a second skin. Around her throat was a string of big, fat emeralds.

She glittered as she stood there, and she was pretty breathtaking. I was acutely aware of the Buick’s shabbiness as I edged it up to the hotel entrance. I pulled up, slid across the bench seat and got out.

“Hello there,” I said. “I want to be personal and tell you you look wonderful. That’s just for the record. My real opinion is a little too intimate for expression.”

She gave me her small smile. Her eyes were very alive and sparkling.

“I put this on specially for you,” she said. “I’m glad you like it.”

“That’s an understatement: it’s a dazzler. Have you your car here?”

“No. I’ll show you the bungalow, and then perhaps you wouldn’t mind driving me back?”

“Of course I’ll drive you back.”

I held the door open and she got in. I had a brief glimpse of her slender ankles as I shut the door. I went around the car, got in and drove down the drive.

“You turn right and go to the far end of the promenade,” she told me. There were a lot of cars idling along the promenade. It wasn’t possible to do more than twenty miles an hour and then only in short bursts.

The moon was up, the night was warm and the sea and the palms made a nice setting. I was in no hurry.

“From what I hear this Musketeer Club is quite a place,” I said. “Do you go there often?”

“It’s the only place you can go to that isn’t crammed with tourists. Yes, I go there quite a lot. Daddy owns half of it, so I don’t have to pay the bills. I wouldn’t go there so much if I did.”

“All you’d have to do is to hock one of those emeralds and you could move in there for good.”

She laughed.

“It so happens they don’t belong to me. Daddy allows me to wear them, but they are his. When I want a change, I take them back and he lends me something else. I don’t own anything. Even this dress I really can’t claim as mine.”

“There’s the bungalow you have on lease,” I said, looking at her out of the corners of my eyes.

“It’s not my lease. Daddy bought it.”

“He’ll love his new tenant. I think maybe I’d better skip this idea and not move in.”

“He won’t know. He still thinks I use it.”

“It would come as a surprise if he drops in for a cup of tea, wouldn’t it?”

“He never drops in for anything.”

“Well, if you’re sure about that. So you’re the genuine poor little rich girl?”

She lifted her lovely shoulders.

“Daddy likes to control everything. I never have any money. I have to send him the bills and he settles them.”

“No one ever settles my bills.”

“But no one tells you you shouldn’t have bought this or that, and you can do without these or those, do they?”

“You know if you go on like this, I’ll begin to feel sorry for you, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

She laughed again.

“I don’t see why not. I like sympathy. No one ever gives me any.”

“You listen carefully: the drip, drip, drip you hear is my heart bleeding for you,” I said.

We were reaching the quieter part of the promenade now and I was able to increase speed. I shifted into top and moved up to forty miles an hour.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” she said. “Sometimes I’m quite desperate for money.”

“So am I. Now look, you don’t ever have to be desperate for money: not a girl like you. You could make a small fortune as a model. Ever thought of that?”

“Daddy wouldn’t allow me to do it. He is very careful about the dignity of his name. No one would employ me if he told them not to.”

“You’re just stalling. You don’t have to live here. New York would love you.”

“Do you think it would? Turn left here, down that road.”

The headlights picked out a rough, sandy road that seemed to be running right into the sea. I swung the car off the broad promenade and reduced speed. We went down the sandy road into darkness. The headlights cut a white path ahead of us.

“I was just talking: it’s easy to talk,” I said. “You can’t lead other people’s lives. You’ve managed so far. You’ll go on managing.”