1953 - The Things Men Do
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Authors: James Hadley Chase
Table of Contents
The Things Men Do
James Hadley Chase
1953
chapter one
T
he truck's headlights picked her out of the darkness the way a spotlight pinpoints a solo act on the stage.
She stood beside a 1939 Buick Roadmaster that hadn't been washed in months nor polished in years. She had on a grey flannel skirt and a wine-coloured suede jacket that zipped down the front. She raised her hand and waved to me.
I make it a rule while I'm driving not to stop when a girl tries to thumb a ride, but this was different. From the look of it, she was in trouble with her car, and trouble with cars happens to be my business.
I pulled up by her and leaned out of the truck window.
"I'm stuck," she said. "Can you help me?"
The hands of the dashboard clock showed twenty minutes past eleven. I was tired and hungry. I had been wrestling for the past two hours with a car that had broken down a mile or so beyond Northolt airfield, but I opened the truck door and got down on to the road.
"What's the trouble?"
"It's not petrol. The tank's nearly full. The engine just packed up."
I went over to the Buick and lifted the hood. A smell of burning told me all I wanted to know. I paused long enough to throw the beam of my flashlight into the works, then I shut down the hood.
"The ignition's burned out. It'll take a couple of days to fix."
"Oh, hell! Are you sure? You scarcely looked at it."
"I don't have to look at it. Can't you smell it? Besides, I'm in the racket."
She glanced over her shoulder at the truck. In the reflected light from my headlamps she could read the red lettering on the white panel:
HARRY COLLINS, LTD.
Motor Engineers.
14 Eagle Street, W.1.
A couple of years ago I had been proud of that truck.
When I had taken delivery of it I had had a struggle to keep my eyes off it, but the enthusiasm had worn thin. Now, it was my idea of a whited sepulcher.
"Would you believe it?" The girl laughed. "Any other girl would have stopped a masher, but I pick a motor engineer. I've always been lucky."
"You're not all that lucky. There's nothing I can do. I'll take you to the nearest garage if that's any good to you."
"There can't be any garages open at this hour."
"Then I can tow you until we find a place."
"No, thanks. I don't fancy being towed. Anyway, this old ruin isn't mine. I'm going to leave it right here. My friend can send out for it tomorrow."
"Your friend will be tickled pink."
She laughed.
"That's his worry. I want to get home. Will you give me a lift to the West-end?"
"If that's what you want."
She opened the truck door and got in.
I hesitated, looking at the black shape of the Buick.
"I don't like leaving that car without lights. Someone might run into it."
"For goodness' sake! Do you always worry about things like that? It's a wonder you haven't grey hair."
"I'm accident-minded. I wouldn't like to hit it myself."
I went around to the back of the truck, found a red lantern, lit it and hung it on the Buick's off-side rear door handle.
"You won't get that lantern back."
"Then I won't get it back."
I climbed in beside her and started the engine. The light from the dashboard fell on her slim, nylon clad legs. She was showing her knees, and they were pretty knees. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. She was staring ahead, her chin tilted. The light wasn't good enough for me to see much of her. I had only had a glimpse of her when my headlights had picked her out. I had noticed she had dark hair, parted in the middle, and that it fell to her shoulders and curled inwards.
I had a vague impression that she was above the usual standard of prettiness, but I wasn't too sure of that.
"Is this your truck?" She was opening her bag as she spoke. She took out a packet of cigarettes and offered me one.
"Yes, and it's my business too."
She held a match to my cigarette. I wanted to take a look at her in the light of the match flame, but a lorry was coming, and I couldn't take my eyes off the road.
"So that makes you Harry Collins."
"That's right."
"I'm Gloria Selby."
We drove for a couple of hundred yards before she said: "Do you often work as far from your base as this?"
"What makes you think I've been working?"
"You don't seem the kind of man who'd go driving with hands as dirty as yours unless you had been working."
"You're right. One of my few clients broke down and called me out. There was a garage within five minutes of him, but he thinks so much of me, he had to drag me from a hot supper and give me a sixteen mile drive. Nice fella."
"You didn't have to turn out, did you?"
"The way business is now, I had to go all right."
"I thought all garage owners were rolling in money."
"So did I: that's why I went into the racket. I've found out otherwise."
"Isn't there any money in it?"
"Yes, I suppose there is, but I picked the wrong locality."
"I should have thought Oxford Circus was a pretty good district."
"So did I until I settled there. Don't tell me you know where Eagle Street is."
"It's a turning off Oxford Street, near Peter Robinson's."
I looked at her and then back to the dark ribbon of the road that kept coming at me out of the light of my headlamps.
"You're the first person I've ever met who knows where it is. They've made it a one-way street and have smothered it with No Waiting signs. Customers are scared even to stop for petrol. I don't know why I'm telling you this. It can't interest you."
"Did I say I was bored?"
We drove in silence for a minute or so, then she said, "I'll bring my car to you for service. I'll tell my friends about you."
"That's fine. Thanks a lot."
"You don't believe I'll do it, do you?"
"You probably will if you remember. Maybe you don't live anywhere near Eagle Street. By tomorrow you'll have forgotten there's a garage in Eagle Street and you'll continue to go to your local man. People do, you know."
"I live in New Bond Street. That's close enough, isn't it?"
I thought she was pulling my leg.
"What kind of a car do you run?"
"I've got one of the new Jaguars. It's a peach of a car."
I was sure now she was pulling my leg.
"That won't need much servicing."
"Someone's got to keep it clean. Could I garage it at your place? At the moment I keep it in Shepherd Market —much too far from my flat."
"I've got the room, but it wouldn't be a lock-up."
I still thought she was shooting a line.
"I'm pretty late some nights."
"I live over the garage. I'm late myself."
"What would you charge?"
"Thirty bob a week: five bob for washing and polishing."
"But that's what I pay for a lock-up."
I shook my head.
"I bet you don't."
She laughed.
"Well, I'll think about it. Make it a pound and I'm on."
"Thirty bob's cheap, and you know it. Can't do it for less."
"Oh well, I'll think about it."
I was pretty sure I wouldn't hear any more about the Jaguar. I was pretty sure, too, I wouldn't see her again after I had dropped her at Bond Street.
I decided I'd let her know she wasn't getting away with all this grand talk.
"What's the matter with your car that you were using the Buick tonight?"
She leaned forward to drop ash between her feet.
"My friend's sister was catching the night plane to Paris. He had something else to do so he asked me to take her to Northolt. Ever been to Paris?"
"When I was in the Army. I was only there three or four days."
"Like it?"
"Seemed all right. It was expensive then, but I hear it's blue murder now."
"It's like everything else: if you know the ropes you're all right. I know a cheap place to stay at, and I have friends there. I get along all right. It doesn't cost me much."
"Sounds as if you go there a lot"
"About once a month."
"In business?"
"That's right. I design and make lingerie."
That surprised me.
"Is that a good racket to be in?"
"Pretty good. I'm not grumbling. I have some good connections in Paris."
"Coals to Newcastle I should have thought."
"There's a limited market, but I've got what there is."
"You're pretty young to be an owner of a business, aren't you?"
She laughed.
"You're pretty young yourself to be an owner of a business."
"I don't know about that. I'm thirty-two."
"Married?"
"Yes. Are you?"
"Me? What should I want to get married for? I've a career to think of."
I swung the truck into Wood Lane and headed towards Shepherd's Bush.
I began to wonder if she wasn't telling the truth after all.
Maybe she did have a flat in Bond Street, a lingerie business and a Jaguar car. Maybe she did go trips to Paris. I realized with a sudden feeling of irritation that I had been living so long on the border line of bankruptcy that I had ceased to believe there was anyone left who made money.
Where I had gone wrong was to sink all my money into the garage. If I had left myself some working capital I could have pulled myself out of the mess I was now in. I could have bought machine tools, a lathe and stuff like that. There were plenty of contract jobs going if you had the right equipment to handle them. Instead of splashing out all my money on elaborate equipment for car cleaning, pressure greasing and the like, which I used once in a blue moon, I should have kept something in hand in case I hit a dud streak, but at that time I had been so optimistic I didn't believe it possible to hit a dud streak.
This girl, sitting at my side, could afford to go to Paris, run a Jaguar car and own a flat in Bond Street. Three things that were completely beyond my reach, and I resented it. I had studied, worked and trained for my job, and I was getting nothing out of it except a headache of worries. So far as I could see all she had was a natural talent for making pretty things, and she seemed to be sitting on top of the world.
"Is that clock right?" she asked suddenly. "Is it as late as that?"
"It's a little fast. The right time's twenty to twelve."
"Oh well, I don't have to get up early in the morning. I hate getting up in the morning, don't you?"
"Whether I hate it or not, I have to get up." My irritation sounded in my voice. "I open the garage at half-past six. That's about the only time I sell petrol. There are four or five vans near me, and they fill up before starting their rounds. If I don't get up early I'd miss their trade."
"You do sound in a bad way."
"I usually sound off like this when I'm tired, but things are pretty duff."
"Maybe you don't know the ropes."
"What does that mean?"
"I know a fellow who owns a garage. He's making a lot of money."
"I've told you: I picked the wrong locality."
"He buys and sells used cars. There's money in that racket."
"Not now there isn't. Haven't you heard there's a slump on?"
"I don't believe in slumps. A slump is an excuse for lack of enterprise. If you can't make money one way, you can make it another. Ever thought of that?"
I shifted on my seat, suddenly angry. In a moment, she would be telling me how to run my business.
"You look after your lingerie. I'll look after my garage."
She laughed.
"Have it your own way."
I drove down Edgware Road, turned at Marble Arch and increased speed along Oxford Street. Neither of us said anything until I slowed down and pulled up opposite New Bond Street "Here we are."
"I don't know what I should have done without you. Thanks a lot."
"Nothing to it."
I leaned across her and opened the truck door.
She got out and closed the door.
"I'll be around before long."
"14 Eagle Street. It's up on the right-hand side."
"I'll find it. Thanks again. So long, Harry."
"So long." I hesitated, then added, "Gloria."
She crossed the road, heading for New Bond Street I leaned out of the window and watched her go. I still hadn't seen her face properly. I wouldn't know her again if she wasn't wearing that outfit.
As she reached the comer of New Bond Street, she looked back and waved, then she disappeared into the shadows.