James Chase - You've Got It Coming

What are you frightened of, you fool? he asked himself as he glared into the mirror. They won't find her. They can't do anything to you if they don't find her and how can they possibly find her? No one has been out to that place in months. If they had you would have seen their footprints. No one ever goes there!

Then suddenly his legs went weak and he had to sit abruptly on the edge of the bath. There had been someone there . . . someone who had watched them quarrel, who had sneaked out of the wood and killed her and had sneaked back again, covering his prints as he had gone. He had remained in the wood, watching while he had buried Glorie. This killer knew where Glorie was buried. What was there to stop him telephoning the police from a paybooth and telling them he had seen him burying Glorie?

For a long moment Harry sat rigid. He hadn't thought of this before. He remained motionless, listening to the thud of his heartbeats while he tried to think what he had best do. Then he realized there was only one thing he could do. He would have to go out there, dig up Glorie's body and hide it somewhere else.

Then if the killer did phone the police and they went out to check and didn't find her, they would think it was a hoax.

The thought of going out there and handling Glorie's body sent a cold chill through him, but he knew he would have to do it. There was no other way. His future depended on the police not finding her.

He pulled on his clothes. His hands were shaking so badly that he had trouble in doing up his shirt buttons. He would go out there as soon as it was dusk: in another hour. By the time he got there it would be dark. He would have the place to himself. He would put her body in the car and drive along the coast road until he found a safe place to bury her.

He opened the bathroom door and stepped into the bedroom. Then he came to an abrupt stop. His blood seemed to freeze in his veins, his heart stopped, then raced.

Sitting in the armchair facing him, his black dusty hat at the back of his head, a cigarette smouldering between his thick lips, his fat, dirty hands folded on his gross thighs, was Borg.

IV

For the past twenty-four hours, Borg had ceased to exist in Harry's mind. The sight of him sitting in the armchair came like a devastating punch to Harry's solar plexus. He stood rigid, his mouth a little open, his eyes fixed, his heart fluttering.

Borg watched him. It pleased him to see the naked fear on Harry's face.

For several seconds the two men stared at each other, then Harry began to recover from the initial shock. He had no illusions about Borg. This gross brute was as dangerous as a rattlesnake and much more ruthless. He realized his fear and his reaction at the sight of Borg was a complete giveaway. It would be useless to try to bluff, to try to pretend he wasn't Harry Green. Borg must know, even if he hadn't known when he had come into the cabin.

Harry thought of his gun in the glove compartment of the car parked outside and cursed himself for being so careless as to leave the gun out of reach. Not that the gun would help him now.

He was sure Borg could handle a gun far quicker than he could.

“Hello, Green,” Borg said in his hoarse, wheezy voice. “I bet you didn't think you'd see me again, did you? Sit on the bed. You and me've got things to talk about.”

Moving like asick man, Harry crossed to the bed and sat down. He put his hands on his knees while he stared at Borg.

“Did you really kid yourself you'd lost me?” Borg went on, screwing up his eyes as the cigarette smoke drifted before his fat face.

Harry didn't say anything. Even if he had wanted to speak, his mouth was too dry for him to make a sound.

“I've been with you since you took off from Oklahoma City airport,” Borg went on. He crushed out his cigarette on the arm of the chair, burning a hole in the cover. “You've been having fun, haven't you? I like your girlfriend.”

“What do you want?” Harry managed to say.

Borg showed his discoloured teeth in a wolfish smile.

“I've got something to sell you, palsy. Something you want pretty badly.”

Harry stared at him.

“What do you mean?”

“I've got a car wrench with blood and hair on it as well as a nice set of your fingerprints. I thought maybe you'd like to buy it off me.”

Harry had thought he had got beyond shock by now, but this statement brought him upright, sweat running down his face.

So Borg had killed Glorie!

What a fool he had been not to have thought of Borg before!

But why hadn't Borg wiped him out at the same time? He could have shot him as he was burying Glorie. No one would have heard the shot; no one would have known.

“So it was you who killed her,” he said hoarsely.

Borg smiled.

“That's right,” he said. “She had it coming. Only you and me know I killed her. The cops will think you did it if they dig her up. They'll know you did it if I give them the wrench. Want to buy it, palsy?”

Harry's mind was beginning to work again. He must gain time, he told himself. If he could outwit this fat killer in some way . . . it was his only hope of survival.

“Yes,” he said. “I'll buy it.”

“I thought you might,” Borg said, and his thick lips curled into a sneering smile. “It'll cost you fifty thousand bucks, but it's cheap at the price.”

Harry realized then why Borg hadn't wiped him out on the beach. Borg wanted to give Delaney his money back first.

“I haven't got it,” he said. “I’ll pay forty thousand: that's all there's left.”

Borg shook his head.

“Delaney will want every nickel back. If you haven't got it you'll have to get it from your girlfriend. It should be a cinch. She's gone on you, palsy. I've been watching you. Besides, she's floating in dough.”

“She won't give it to me,” Harry said. “I can't ask her for it.”

Borg shrugged.

“Please yourself,” he said. “It's fifty grand or the wrench goes to the cops. I want the dough by tomorrow night.”

Tomorrow night! Harry thought. That would give him twenty-four hours to think of a plan to get out of this jam.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “Then what happens?”

Borg's eyes went sleepy.

“You get the wrench back. That's what happens.”

“How do I know you won't double cross me?” Harry said, watching Borg closely.

Borg smiled.

“You don't. You've got to trust me the way Delaney had to trust you.”

That was another way of saying that when he had got the money, Borg would kill him, Harry thought. Well, maybe two could play that game.

“I don't part with the money until I get the wrench,” he said.

“That's okay—I don't part with the wrench until you hand over the dough—so that makes two of us,” Borg returned. “We'll meet tomorrow night at ten o'clock. You bring the dough and I'll bring the wrench.”

“We meet here?”

Borg shook his head.

“No, we don't meet here. We'll meet on the beach where you planted the girl.” His little pig's eyes searched Harry's white face. “Then if you want to double cross me or I want to double cross you, there'll be no one to see what happens.”

Harry stiffened. Out on that lonely beach, miles from anywhere, he would have only his wits to save him. He was now certain Borg intended to murder him.

“And if I were you,” Borg went on, “I wouldn't try a double cross. Let me show you something, palsy.” He lifted his right hand. “Watch.”

Harry was aware of a movement, but it was too quick to follow.

A .38 automatic appeared in Borg's hand as if he had plucked it out of the air.

“See what I mean?” Borg said and grinned. “I'm full of tricks like that. There've been guys who have thought they would be smart. They got up to all kinds of ideas, but something always went wrong at the last moment. So watch your step, palsy. Don't try to be smart with me.” He slid the gun into its holster and stood up. “Tomorrow night at ten. If you don't show up, I'll send the wrench to the cops. And it's got to be fifty grand or nothing. Get all that?”