Fast Buck (28 page)

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Eve,’ Gil is said, with an uneasy laugh, ‘You don’t mean it. As soon as I get home you’l cal me up as you always do. Let’s get down to earth. This is a chance of a lifetime for both of us.’

‘Wil you please go?’

There was something in her voice that made him realise suddenly that she meant what she said. He experienced a sick, empty feeling of rage.

‘Now, look here, Eve,’ he said, his voice sharpening, ‘this has gone far enough! You can’t do this to me! You’ve just got to do what I tel you. I won’t get the job if you don’t. It is because the Rajah wants you, he’s giving me the job. Don’t you understand? I don’t mind tel ing you he was livid with me because I let Baird trick me. He wouldn’t believe it wasn’t my fault. If I hadn’t thought of you, he was going to prosecute me. I’ve signed one or two of his blasted cheques, and he’s found out. He could send me to jail, Eve! Don’t you understand? It was only because I promised you’d be nice to him, he’s withdrawn the charges. You’ve got to…’

‘Get out!’ Eve said, turning. ‘I never want to see you again!’

‘Oh, no!’ Gil is said, his face flushing, ‘you’re not going to talk to me like this. I’l go when I damn well want to. You’re going to listen to me or you’l be sorry!’

‘If you don’t get out I’l cal the janitor and have you thrown out!’

‘You won’t!’ Gil is snarled, turning from red to white. ‘What you want is a damn good hiding! You’ll get it too if you don’t do what I tel you. I’m not going to lose a perfectly good job because you’re suddenly squeamish about the colour of a man’s skin. That cat won’t jump.’

‘There’s a name they call men like you,’ Eve said quietly, ‘and it isn’t a pret y one.’ She walked over to the telephone. ‘Are you going?’

‘No, I’m not!’ Gil is said, and started around the table towards her. ‘I’ve warned you. Put that phone down or you’l be sorry.’

Eve hurriedly began to dial the janitor’s number. Gil is reached her and wrenched the phone out of her hand. She gave him a violent and heavy slap across his face.

Not knowing quite what he was doing, but too viciously furious to think or care, Gillis snatched up the whisky bottle and smashed it down on top of her head.

II

Baird sat at the wheel of the Packard, driving with one hand. His left arm hung uselessly at his side. It was swollen now to twice its normal size, and the forearm was black and green.

Sweat ran off him as if he had had a sponge of water squeezed over him. His body shook with extreme rigor, and every muscle ached. He drove the car automatically along the broad highway. Only his will-power kept him upright at the wheel.

At that hour – it was three o’clock in the morning – there was no traffic on the road, and he could keep the car moving without having to slow down or manipulate the gears.

He had long lost all sense of time. He knew he was dangerously ill. He knew, too, his arm was so badly infected that he would probably lose it. He had decided to die rather than stop and seek help.

Somehow he had managed to carry Hater from the police launch to where he and Rico had hidden the car. He had dumped Hater on the floor of the car, behind the driving seat, and had covered him with a blanket. Then he had changed his wet camouflage suit, taking a change of dry clothes from the suitcase.

He now wore his jacket slung cape-wise over his shoulders, as he had found it impossible to get his coat sleeve over his swollen arm.

He had set out for the long drive to the shooting-lodge. It was during the drive the fever that had taken hold of him became worse. He felt hot and cold in turns, and he began to shiver violently. When it came to the time to turn off the highway to the back roads that would take him to the shooting-lodge, his mind couldn’t cope with the change of direction. The broad highway out of Louisiana seemed now so uncomplicated and easy to drive on that he gave up the idea of going to the shooting-lodge.

It suddenly occurred to him that he was dying, and he was seized by an obsession to see Anita Jackson before he died. The attraction he had felt for the girl now dominated his mind, and it was this obsession to see her again that gave him the strength to stay at the wheel.

Hour after hour passed. He stopped only for gas, pulling up at isolated service stations, and getting away again as soon as the tank was filled, without leaving the car.

He was beyond noticing the curious looks the service station attendants gave him. Those who were able to get a good look at him were startled by his ravaged face and sickened by the putrefying stench that came from his arm. They stared after the car, wondering if they should report what they had seen to the police, but finally deciding it wasn’t their business.

Baird had forgotten Hater. His mind was confused by his raging fever, and he couldn’t remember what he was doing on this broad highway, or even how he had injured his arm. Anita’s face floated before his eyes as he drove and sustained him, giving him the will to keep the car moving.

Seventeen hours of non-stop driving brought him to the City limits of Essex City. He was driving more slowly now, as he had difficulty in keeping his eyes properly focused.

Heavy rain clouds had brought darkness early. Although it was only just after eight o’clock, Baird had turned on his headlights. The highway seemed to him to be rising and falling in the beams of the headlights, and he had a crazy idea that the road must be floating on a rough sea. Every so often he was startled to find the car was wandering on to the wrong side of the road, and he hurriedly twisted the wheel to bring it straight. He only just averted an accident when a car overtook him and passed him with a furious blast of its horn.

He slowed down almost to a crawl. Sweat ran into his eyes, making them smart, and he was aware now of the smell from his arm, and it frightened him.

He kept going somehow. A few miles farther on, he vaguely remembered he had to turn right into the Paseo. Even at fifteen miles an hour he was having difficulty in keeping the car straight.

Behind him he suddenly heard the sharp note of a police siren. Immediately his confused and tired brain galvanised itself into life. This was the one sound that could jerk him out of his coma back to comparatively rational thinking. He looked quickly into his driving mirror. Behind him, coming up fast, was the large, glaring headlamp of a motor-cycle. A moment later a prowl cop drew level and signalled him to stop.

Baird pulled over to the grass verge. He braked, forgetting to throw out his clutch, and the car engine stalled. The car came to a wobbly stop, its off-side wheels bumping up on to the grass.

The cop pulled up beside him.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ he demanded in a loud, bul ying voice. ‘Been drinking?’

Baird groped down by his side. His fingers closed around the butt of the Colt. He leaned against the car door, peering up at the cop’s red, angry face.

The cop flashed a fight on Baird. He caught his breath sharply.

‘Jeepers! What the hel ’s the mat er with you? You ill?’

‘Yeah,’ Baird gasped. ‘But I’l be al right. Just leave me alone, wil you? I’m going to see a friend of mine. She’l take care of me.’

‘You ain’t fit to drive,’ the cop said. ‘What’s happened to you to get into this state?’

‘Infected arm,’ Baird told him. ‘I’l be okay if you’l leave me alone.’

‘You’re not going to drive another yard. Move over. I’m going to take you to hospital,’ the cop said, and pulled open the car door.

Baird, who was leaning against the door, nearly fell into the road, but the cop caught hold of him and lifted him upright. Baird pushed the Colt into the cop’s stomach and pul ed the trigger twice.

The roar of the gun hit Baird like a physical blow. He had to grab hold of the door to save himself from falling out of the car.

The cop reeled back, his hands pressing his belly. He fell slowly on his knees, then straightened out in the road.

In saving himself from falling, Baird dropped the Colt on to the grass verge. He had only a vague idea he had lost something that was important to him, but he couldn’t remember what it was. He managed to slam the door shut, and somehow start the engine going again. With a clash of gears he sent the Packard lurching forward once more.

After he had been driving a few minutes, he completely forgot about the cop. It was as if the accident had never happened, and his fever-ridden mind returned to thinking about Anita.

He was on more familiar ground now. He turned off the Paseo on to Armour Boulevard, through to Broadway, up Summit Street, and across the Essex Avenue Bridge.

He was driving better now, although twice, without knowing it, he ran through a red traffic signal.

The traffic was light at that hour, and no car crossed his path.

He began to slow down as he reached the shabby, darkened street where Anita’s apartment was.

The street was deserted. Only a few lights showed at the upper storey windows. As he pulled up opposite Anita’s apartment house, rain began to fall from the heavy black clouds that had been piling up for the past hour.

He sat for some minutes looking up at the dark building. It was now twenty minutes to nine o’clock.

Anita’s window on the top floor was in darkness. It would be another hour and a half before she came home, he thought. Could he last out that time?

He rested his burning forehead against the car window. If he let go now, he knew he would slip off into a coma from which there would be no awakening. He decided to go up and wait outside her door.

Anything would be better than sitting in the car in which he now seemed to have passed a lifetime.

He opened the car door. When his feet touched the road, he nearly fell, but caught hold of the door in time to steady himself. He had thought he had been pretty bad the first time he had come to this house, but that was nothing to what he was feeling now.

He stood still, gathering his strength. It seemed a long way across the street, and his mind recoiled from the thought of climbing all those stairs, but he was determined now to get to her room: nothing would stop him.

As he was about to close the car door, he saw the Thompson gun on the floor by the driving seat.

He picked it up instinctively and, holding it under his arm, he turned, leaving the car door open, and began a slow, staggering walk across the street.

A car coming around the corner avoided him with a scream of tortured tyres and a blast of the horn.

Baird scarcely noticed it, his eyes were fixed on the front door of the apartment house, and he was oblivious to anything else.

Painfully he dragged himself up the steps. Every muscle in his body seemed to be on fire. He pushed open the door and walked into the dimly lit, airless lobby.

The flight of stairs faced him. He stood looking at them, swaying to and fro, only just keeping his balance. Then he moved forward, and began the nightmare climb that seemed to go on and on: a climb that wracked his body and forced his breath in great labouring gasps through his clenched teeth.

He reached the first floor landing, and stopped, his back against the banisters, sweat streaming down his face. He couldn’t remember how many more stairs he had to climb, and he began to doubt if he could reach the fourth floor. But his will drove him on, and slowly he staggered and lurched down the passage to the next flight of stairs.

He climbed them somehow, pausing on every step before mounting to the next. As he went down the passage to the third flight, a woman opened the door of a room close by and stared at him.

He kept on, not seeing her, and horrified at the sight of the gun and his lurching, staggering gait, she hastily closed the door.

He went up the last flight of stairs on his hands and knees, dragging the gun with him. He lay face down on the landing, drawing in great gasps of breath.

Well, he had done it. An hour’s wait, he thought, and he heard himself groan. He rol ed over on his side and looked at the closed door a few feet from him.

He was going to see her again. She might have changed her mind about him. He wouldn’t let go, now he had got so far. She had saved him before. She might even save him again.

Through his dazed and confused mind a gruesome joke filtered.

He thought, ‘I’l see her again if it kills me.’

III

Lieutenant Olin was on the telephone when Dallas put his head around the door.

‘I’m busy,’ Olin grunted. ‘Go away and bother someone else.’

Dallas came into the small office, pulled up a chair and sat astride it. In the hard light of the desk lamp he looked tired and edgy. He made a face at Olin, took out a cigarette and pasted it on his lower lip.

Olin said into the phone, ‘Okay, check it for finger-prints and call me back.’ He hung up, pushed back 103

James Hadley Chase. The Fast Buck. 1952

his chair and scowled at Dallas. ‘What do you want? I’m busy.’

‘I heard you the first time,’ Dal as said. ‘Found Hater yet?’

‘I’m not even looking for him,’ Olin returned. ‘What makes you think he’s where I could find him?’

‘It’s my bet Baird engineered his escape.’

‘Baird?’ Olin reached for a cigar, bit off the end and spat into his trash basket. ‘Are you making guesses or do you know something?’

‘I know something,’ Dal as returned, paused to light his cigaret e, then went on, ‘Kile hired Baird to get Hater out of jail. Hater was to tell Kile where he had cached the stuff. The idea was put to Kile by a guy named Adam Gillis, Eve Gillis’s brother. He and Kile were going to hand the stuff over to the Rajah of Chittabad in return for a half million in cash.’

‘How long have you known this?’ Olin said, his eyes suddenly hard.

‘Purvis had an idea this was the set-up for weeks, but he hadn’t any proof. As soon as I got proof, he told me to come down here and give you the dope.’

‘You mean you can prove it was Baird who got Hater out?’

‘Yeah. Gillis has just been booked for attempted murder. He’l talk.’

Olin put down his unlighted cigar.

‘What’s this? How do you know Gil is has been booked? Who’s running this goddamn police force?’

‘Take it easy, George,’ Dal as said soothingly. ‘I was on the spot when Gillis went for his sister. I guess if I hadn’t broken in, he’d have kil ed her. As it is she’s got a fractured skul , and may lose an eye.