James Chase - The Guilty Are Afraid

The Guilty Are Afraid

James Hadley Chase

1957

Chapter 1

I

The first thing that attracted my attention as I came out of St. Raphael City station was a blonde doll in a bikini swimsuit, a straw hat as big as a cartwheel and doughnut-sized sun goggles. Her skin—and you could see a lot of it—was a golden satin, and she had a shape on her that Mr. Varga himself would have been proud to have designed. She was getting into a hardtop Cadillac, taking her time while the unattached males feasted their eyes on her.

I feasted my eyes too.

She settled herself behind the driving wheel and surveyed her male kingdom with lifted eyebrows. As she drove off she sneered in my direction.

The red cap with my baggage nudged me.

“If that makes your eyes pop, brother,” he said, “you’re in for a rare time when you get to the beach. Do you want a cab?”

“Are there more like her?” I asked, slightly dazed. “If a girl showed that much of herself where I come from, she’d land in jail.”

“The place is lousy with them,” the red cap told me. “This is St. Raphael City. Anything goes here. But don’t kid yourself. The more these chippies show, the less they give away. The only thing that talks with them is money. Do you want a cab?”

I said I wanted a cab, took out my handkerchief and mopped my face.

It was eleven-thirty a.m. and the sun blazed down. People streamed out of the station to waiting cars, cabs and horse-drawn carriages. This was vacation city, and I earnestly hoped Jack had thought to reserve a room for me. A cab drew up and the red cap piled in my baggage I tipped him and he went away.

“The Adelphi Hotel,” I said to the driver, got into the cab and started mopping my face again.

The cab fought its way through the traffic, and after two or three minutes, turned into the main road to the sea: an imposing, broad boulevard with smart-looking shops, palm trees and cops in tropical uniforms. The town had a rich look to it. Big Cadillac and Clipper convertibles lined the street on either side: every one of them the size of a bus.

As we crawled with the traffic, I sat forward, staring out of the window at the women. Most of them were in beachwear: some in lounging pyjamas, some in halters and shorts, some in French swimsuits: the fat ones invariably favoured the shorts. Every now and then I spotted a pippin, but most of them were the middle-aged and the fat.

The driver caught my tense expression in his wing mirror and he leaned out of the cab to spit.

“Looks like the meat market on a Saturday night doesn’t it?” he said.

“I was wondering what it reminded me of,” I said, and sat back. “Quite a little town you have here.”

“Think so? I wouldn’t give you a dime for it. You’ve got to be a millionaire or you might just as well cut your throat as live here. There are more millionaires here to the square mile than any other country in the world did you know that?”

I said I didn’t know and wondered uneasily if I had brought enough money with me. I knew it would be hopeless to try to borrow anything from Jack.

We climbed a hill, going away from the sea, and after a while, we came to a quiet road lined on either side with orange trees. The cab pulled up outside the hotel. I looked at the hotel as I got out of the cab. There was nothing de luxe about it. The kind of hotel I would expect Jack to have chosen: probably the food was good. He had a talent for finding hotels that served good food.

A boy in buttons came out and collected my bags. I gave the driver a dollar and went up the steps into the hotel lounge.

It was fairly large, furnished with basket chairs and a few decaying palms in brass tubs: if it wasn’t gaudy, at least it was clean.

The reception clerk, a balding fatty with a silk cravat to support his second chin, showed me his teeth and offered me a pen.

“You have a reservation, sir?”

“I hope so. The name is Lew Brandon. Did Mr. Sheppey tell you I was coming? “

“Certainly, Mr. Brandon. I’ve put you in the room next to his.” He placed his finger on the bell push and the bellhop materialized. “Take Mr. Brandon to room 245.”

He showed me his teeth again. “Mr. Sheppey is in room 247. I hope you will enjoy your stay with us, Mr. Brandon. Anything we can do . . . any little thing . . .”

“Thanks. Mr. Sheppey in?”

“No. He went out about an hour ago.” He gave me a coy little smile. “With a young lady. I imagine they were going to the beach.”

That didn’t surprise me. Jack was no great worker and women were his weakness.

“When he comes in, tell him I’ve arrived. I’ll be in my room,” I said.

“I’ll do that, Mr. Brandon.”

I and the bellhop and my baggage squashed ourselves into the ancient elevator and were dragged up two floors.

Room 245 was no larger than a large rabbit hutch and as hot as a blast furnace. The bed didn’t look big enough to take a midget at full stretch, the shower leaked and there was no view from the window. I only hoped it would be cheap. It had no other recommendation.

After the boy had gone through the routine of lowering and raising the blind and turning the electric switches on and off and seemingly surprised to find anything worked, I got rid of him.

I called room service and asked for some ice and a bottle of Vat 69 at the double. Then I stripped off my clothes and got under the shower. As long as I remained under the shower I felt fine, but when I returned to the bedroom I broke out into a sweat again.

I gave myself a slug of Scotch, then just as I was about to get under the shower again, someone hammered on my door. I wrapped a towel around my middle, unlocked the door and opened it.

A big man with a red weathered face and freckles across his nose that looked as if it had been stamped on at one time, and who had cop written all over him, rode me back into the room and closed the door.

“Your name Brandon?” he asked in a voice as gritty as gravel.

“That’s right. What do you want?”

He took out his wallet and showed me his buzzer.

“Sergeant Candy, Homicide,” he said. “You know Jack Sheppey?”

I felt a prickle of apprehension crawl up my spine. This wouldn’t be the first time Sheppey had been in trouble with the police. Six months ago he had punched a detective in the eye and had drawn a ten-day stretch. Three months before that he had taken a poke at a patrolman and had been fined twenty-five bucks. Jack was a great cop hater.

“Yes, I know him. Is he in trouble?”

“You could call it that,” Candy said. He produced a pack of chewing gum, tore off the wrapping and fed gum into his face. “Can you identify him?”

That really jarred me.

“He hasn’t met with an accident?”

“He’s dead,” Candy said. “Hustle some clothes on, will you? I’ve a car outside. The Lieutenant wants you down there.”

“Dead?” I stared at the big, red face. “What happened?”

Candy lifted his heavy shoulders.

“The Lieutenant will tell you. Let’s get moving. He hates being kept waiting.”

I put on my shirt and trousers, ran a comb through my hair, slid into my coat and sat on the bed to put on my socks and shoes.

My hands were shaking a little.

Jack and I got along fine together. He had always had a fierce enjoyment of life: living every second of it and getting much more out of it than ever I did. It seemed impossible he was dead.

When I had fixed my shoes, I poured myself another slug of whisky. I felt I needed it.

“Join me?” I said to Candy.

He hesitated, licked his thick lips, fought with his conscience and lost.

“Well, I’m not exactly on duty. . .”