Authors: James Hadley Chase
Hit and Run (3 page)
I knew it was her, and the sound of her voice made me short of breath. For a moment I couldn't speak, and I sat there motionless, with the receiver against my ear, listening to her gentle breathing.
'Hello? Who is that?' she asked again.
'This is Chester Scott,' managed to get out. 'Can I speak to Mr. Aitken?'
'Mr. Scott?' she said. 'Why, yes, of course. Will you hold on, please? He is expecting you.'
'How is he?' I said because I wanted to go on listening to this soft, exciting voice.
'He's getting along very well.' Was I imagining that her tone lacked enthusiasm? 'The doctor is very pleased with him,' then she pulled the plug out, and after a moment or so, R.A. came on the line.
CHAPTER TWO
I
I got to the Gables just after eight o'clock.
While I drove to the house I wondered if I would see her again. The thought of her gave me a sick, dry feeling in my mouth and made my heart thump hard and unevenly.
When I reached the house I saw someone had turned off the flood-lighting in the garden and the swimming-pool, but the place still looked pretty impressive in the hard, white light of the moon.
I left the car before the front entrance, climbed the steps and rang the bell. After the usual delay, Watkins opened the door.
'Good evening, sir,' he said. 'A fine night.'
'Yes,' I said, and moved past him into the hall. 'How is Mr. Aitken?'
'Fairly well, I would say. Perhaps he is a little nervous tonight. If I may suggest, I wouldn't stay longer than necessary.'
'I'll cut it as short as I can.'
'That would be good of you, sir.'
We rode up in the elevator. The old boy breathed heavily and I could hear the starched front of his shirr creaking every time he dragged down a breath.
Aitken was propped up in bed, a cigar gripped between his teeth. Across his knees lay a couple of financial papers, and a pencil and scratch pad lay by his side. He looked a little flushed, and the light from the bedside lamp showed up the sweat beads on his forehead. His mouth turned down at the corners and his eyes looked heavy. He didn't look as good as he had done the previous night.
'Come in, Scott,' he said, and the growl in his voice warned me he could be irritable.
I came over to the bed and sat down in the easy chair.
'How's the leg?' I asked, not looking at him, but concentrating on opening the brief-case I had brought with me.
'It's all right.' He swept the financial papers off the bed on to the floor. 'Hamilton called me. He said you did a good job at the meeting.'
'I'm glad he thinks so. I didn't handle Templeman too well,' I said. 'He gave me a rough ride.'
Aitken's mouth twisted into a smile.
'You handled him all right. Hamilton told me. The old fool went away with a flea in his ear. Got the minutes?'
I handed them to him.
'While I'm reading them, have a drink, and give me one too.' He waved to where a collection of bottles and glasses stood on a table against the wall. 'Give me a whisky, and I mean, put some whisky in the glass.'
The note in his voice warned me not to argue with him, so I went over to the table and made two drinks. I came back and offered him one of the glasses. He stared at it and his brows came down. He looked a real bad-tempered hellion at that moment.
'I said put some whisky in it! Didn't you hear me?'
I returned to the table and sloshed more whisky into the glass and brought it back to him. He took the glass, stared at it, then drank the lot. For a long moment he held the glass while he stared over the top of my head, then he thrust the glass at me.
'Fix me another and come and sit down.'
I repeated the dose, put the glass on the table at his side and sat down.
We looked at each other, and he suddenly grinned.
'Don't mind me, Scott,' he said. 'When you break a leg you're helpless. There's a plot going on in this house to treat me like a sick man. I've been waiting all day for you to come and give me a drink.'
'I should have thought it was the worst thing you could have had.' I said.
'Think so?' He laughed. 'You leave me to judge that.' He took up the minutes. 'Smoke if you want to.'
I lit a cigarette and drank some of the Scotch. It took him about ten minutes to finish reading the minutes, then he dropped the papers on his knees, reached for his glass and took another drink.
'A pretty good beginning,' he said. 'More than that: I couldn't have handled them better myself. You go on like this, and the New York job is yours.'
This was praise indeed.
'Now let's see how you're going to make use of concessions we've got from them,' he went on. 'Let's have your ideas.'
I had thought he might ask this question, and I had discussed it with the heads of the departments before I had left the office so I was ready for him.
For the next half hour I explained my ideas. He lay still, listening, sipping his whisky, and every now and then nodding his head. I was pretty sure I was saying the right things. When I was through, he said: 'Not bad; not bad at all. Now I'll tell you a better way of handling it.'
It was my turn to listen to him and it was an object lesson. He used all my ideas, but in a slightly different way, and I saw at once where I had gone wrong. My way was just that much more expensive. His way gave us a saving of ten per cent, and made him a better businessman than I was.
By now it was a little after nine o'clock, and I remembered what Watkins had said about cutting the meeting short.
'Okay, sir,' I said and began to put the papers back into my brief-case. 'I'll take care of it. And now if it's all right with you, I'll run along. I have a date at ten.'
He grinned at me.
'You're a liar, Scott. You've been listening to that old fool, Watkins. But that's all right. You get off. Come and see me tomorrow at eight.' He finished his whisky, and as he set his glass down, he asked, 'Have you got a girl, Scott?'
The question startled me. I let some papers slip out of my fingers on to the floor. As I bent to pick them up, I said: 'No one in particular, if that's what you mean.'
'I don't mean that. A man needs a woman every now and then. Don't get yourself involved with them, but make use of them. That's what they are here for.' The cynical note in his voice riled me. 'I don't want you to be working all the time. I want you to get in some relaxation. Maybe you have lived long enough to know a woman can be a very satisfactory form of relaxation, providing you don't let her get her hooks into you. Let her do that, and you're a goner.'
'Yes, sir,' I said and stuffed the papers back into the briefcase. I was surprised. I didn't expect this kind of thing from him, and his cynicism made me angry. 'I'll be along tomorrow at eight.'
He lay back against his pillows, staring at me.
'You'll take the weekend off. I don't want to see you on Friday night. Give me a call on Monday morning. What's today – Tuesday? You make plans for the weekend, Scott. I want you to get some relaxation. Do you play golf?'
I said I played golf.
'Finest game in the world if you don't take it seriously. Golf is like a woman. Take either of them seriously, if either of them get a hook into you, and you're sunk. What do you go around in?'
I said on my best days I shot 72.
He stared at me as if he were seeing me for the first time.
'Why, you're quite a golfer!'
'I should be. I've played since I was five. My old man was wild about golf. He even got my mother to play.'
I started to drift towards the door. 'I'll be in tomorrow night at eight.'
'Do that, Scott.' He was still staring at me, his eyes quizzing. 'And arrange to play golf over the weekend.' His hard mouth twisted, into an ugly little smile. 'Then find yourself a pretty girl for the night: golf and a woman are the two best relaxations in life.'
I was glad to get out of the room. His cynicism left a nasty taste in my mouth, and I was in two minds whether to take the elevator or walk down the stairs. Then the picture she had made, standing before that mirror, came surging into my mind, and I walked away from the elevator to the head of the stairs.
There I paused and looked down on the landing below. It was in darkness, and the pang of disappointment that stabbed me hurt. Then I realized that it was only ten minutes after nine o'clock. It wasn't likely she would be in her bedroom at this hour.
I turned back and took the elevator down to the ground floor.
Watkins was waiting for me in the hall.
'I don't think Mr. Aitken looks so well tonight,' I said as I walked with him to the front door.
'He is a little feverish, sir. I imagine it is to be expected.'
'Yes. I'll be in again tomorrow night.'
'I'm sure Mr. Aitken looks forward to your visits,' he said as he opened the front door.
I said good night to him and stepped out into the hot moonlit night. The big door closed behind me.
I walked slowly down the steps to where I had left the Cadillac. When I reached the bottom step, I turned and looked up at the house. Except for Aitken's room, which showed a light, the rest of the many windows were shiny, black eyes that stared down at me. I wondered where she was. Was she out or was she somewhere at the back of the house?
All day I had been waiting for this chance to see her again. I had to make a considerable effort not to remain there, staring up at the house in the hope a light would come up in one of the windows and I would see her.
For all I knew Mrs. Hepple or even Watkins was watching me from behind the darkness of one of the windows. This was no time to stand staring, so I went over to the car, opened the door, pitched by brief-case on to the back seat and slid under the driving wheel.
She was there, sitting beside me, her hands folded in her lap. Although it was dark in the car, I could just make out the shape of her head which she held a little on one side as she looked at me. I knew it was her. It had to be her. It couldn't have been anyone else or I wouldn't have felt the way I was feeling. My heart wouldn't be pounding like this.
For perhaps five seconds I stared at her, aware of the faint smell of the perfume she was wearing and hearing her quick, gentle breathing, and in those five seconds everything around me went out of focus.
It was a moment in my life I will never forget.
II
'HelIo,' she said. 'Did I startle you? I didn't think you would be out so soon.'
'Well, perhaps you did.' My voice sounded husky. 'I didn't expect ...'
She laughed.
'Is this your car?'
'Yes.'
'It's a lovely car. I'm crazy about cars. When I saw it, I just had to get in. I like it better than Roger's Bentley. I bet it's fast.'
'Yes: it's pretty fast.'
She leaned back against the cushion of the seat and stared up at the roof. The moonlight coming in through the open window lit up her profile. She looked breathtakingly beautiful.
'Roger was telling me about you,' she said. 'He says you're going to be his new partner.'
'It's not absolutely fixed.'
I was sitting bolt upright, my clenched fists resting on my knees, my mind still stupid with the surprise of finding her here, talking to me as if she had known me all her life.
'He told me it was. Will you like living in New York?'
'Very much.'
'I wish I could live there.' She lifted her arms and clasped her hands behind her head. I could see her breasts lift and strain against the thin wool of the sweater she was wearing. 'Palm City is dreadfully dull, don't you think?'
'I suppose it must be for someone your age.'
She turned her head and stared at me.
'You sound as if you're old, but you're not. You're not thirty yet, are you?'
'I'm thirty-one.'
'You must be awfully clever. Roger says you are putting twenty thousand dollars into the business. How did you get all that money when you're only thirty-one?'
'My father left me most of it. The rest I've saved.'
'Do you want to put all that money into Roger's business?'
I was bewildered by her calm, direct questions.
'You sound very interested,' I said.
'I am.' She turned her head and smiled at me. 'I've always been interested in the way men make money. The only certain way a girl can become rich is to get married. Men can go out and make money. I think it's a much more satisfactory way. Of course you were lucky to have a father to leave you something, weren't you?'
'I guess I was.'
She sat up and, reaching out, she rested her hand on the dashboard.
'I love this car. Will you teach me to drive?'
'There's nothing to teach.' My voice was unsteady. 'It's an automatic drive. You press the starter and it drives itself.'
She looked at me.
'Believe it or not, I've never driven a car. Roger won't let me touch any of his, and he has four.'
'Why is that?'
'He's terribly possessive. If I want to go anywhere, I go on a bicycle. It's fantastic, isn't it? His excuse is I can't drive. If I learned, then he would have to lend me a car. Will you teach me?'
I didn't hesitate.
'Why, yes. If that's what you want.'
She clasped her hands around her knees and pulled her knees up to her chin. I could see now she was wearing light-coloured slacks. 'I want that more than anything else in the world. Will you teach me now or have you something else to do?'
'You mean right now?'
'Yes, if you can spare the time.'
'Well, all right. We'd better change places,' and I began to get out of the car, but she put her hand on my coat sleeve, stopping me. The feel of her fingers sent a hot wave of blood crawling up my spine.
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