1973 - Have a Change of Scene

by James Hadley Chase

  I watched her walk over to the ruined armchair and sink into it. Her dress rode up to her thighs and as she crossed her legs I caught a glimpse of blue panties.

  ‘I thought the idea was you were going to wait until I came to you.’ She reached for a pack of cigarettes lying on the table.

  ‘How much?’ I said hoarsely. ‘Don’t light that! How much and let’s get on with it!’

  She struck a match and lit the cigarette and she smiled jeeringly.

  ‘Man! How you want it,’ she said.

  With a shaking hand I took two one-hundred dollar bills from my hip pocket and tossed them into her lap.

  ‘Let’s get on with it!’

  She picked up the bills and regarded them, her face expressionless, then she looked up at me. I was hoping to see a flash of greed, even pleasure, but this cold mask of a face chilled me.

  ‘What’s this supposed to be for? Two hundred bucks? You want your head examined.’

  That was the most truthful thing I was ever to hear from her, but I didn’t give a damn. I wanted her with an urgency that was close to madness and I was going to have her.

  I pulled out the remaining three one-hundred dollar bills and threw them at her. Although I lusted for her, I have never hated anyone as I now hated her.

  ‘That’s more than you’re worth, but take it!’ I said violently. ‘Now, let’s get on with it!’

  Slowly and deliberately she folded the five bills neatly and put them on the table. She leaned back in the chair, letting smoke drift down her thin nostrils while she regarded me.

  ‘There was a time when I got laid for a dollar,’ she said. ‘There was a time when I got laid for twenty dollars. There was even a time when I got laid for a hundred dollars. When you spend years in a cell, you have time to think. I know what men want. I know what you want and I know I have it and I want money: not a hundred dollars nor five hundred dollars nor five thousand dollars: I want real money! There are old, fat, stupid creeps in this country worth millions. I think in millions. I’m going to find one of these old, fat stupid creeps and I’m going to sell him my body for real money. It’ll take time, but I’ll get him.’ She flicked a contemptuous finger at the money on the table. ‘Take it away, Cheapie. My legs stay crossed until I find a creep with the money I want.’

  I stood there, staring at her.

  ‘Can’t you use five hundred dollars?’

  ‘Not your five hundred dollars.’

  I wanted her so badly I lost what was left of my pride.

  ‘Why not? Five hundred dollars for half an hour. Come on take the money and let’s get on with it.’

  ‘You heard what I said, Mr. Larry Diamonds Carr.’

  I stiffened and stared at her.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I know who you are. Fel found out. He got your car number and checked Paradise City. You’re a well-known character, aren’t you, Mr. Larry Diamonds Carr?’

  A red light lit up through my madness, warning me to get away from this woman and stay away, but I was too far gone, and after a moment the red light faded to nothing.

  ‘What does it matter who I am?’ I said. ‘I’m like any other man! Take the money and strip off!’

  ‘If you don’t take it, baby, I will,’ Fel said from behind me.

  I whirled around to find him leaning up against the door frame, watching me, an evil little grin lighting up his face.

  The sight of him brought alive a flicker of that insane rage I had experienced before, and he saw it in my eyes.

  ‘Take it easy, buster,’ he said. ‘I’m on your side. This bitch is only playing hard to get. You want me to fix her for you?’

  Rhea got swiftly to her feet and snatched up the money from the table which she crumpled in her fist.

  ‘You come near me, you creep,’ she snarled at her brother, ‘and I’ll hook your goddam eyes out!’

  He laughed.

  ‘And she would too,’ he said to me. ‘Suppose we all cool off and chat it up? We’ve been talking about you. We could do a trade. How about swopping some of those diamonds you deal in for some pussy?’

  I stared at her.

  ‘How about it, buster?’ he went on. ‘She’ll play. It was her idea when I told her who you were. You won’t get it without diamonds. Let’s chat it up.’

  ‘Give me back my money,’ I said to her.

  She smiled jeeringly as she shook her head.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind. I can use five hundred bucks even if it’s yours. And don’t try to get it from me. Fel and me can take care of you. Think over what Fel’s said. If you want it bad enough, diamonds will buy it. Not one diamond, but a lot of diamonds. Think about it. Now get out!’

  I looked at Fel and saw he was holding a short iron bar in his hand.

  ‘Don’t try it, buster,’ he said. ‘You’ll only get a cracked nut. I wasn’t ready for you the first time, but I am now. Think about it. Now, scram!’

  He edged back to give me room to pass him.

  I hated him.

  I hated her too, but my blood still lusted for her.

  I went out into the hot smog, across the rough grass and debris and returned to the Buick.

  * * *

  I don’t remember driving back to the hotel. I became aware that I was lying on the bed with the mid— morning haze lighting up the cement dust on the window facing me.

  A black depression filled my mind. Even Rhea had called me Cheapie! God! How I hated her! I felt a sudden urge to kill myself. I lay on the bed, asking myself: Why not? Suddenly this seemed to me to be the solution. Why go on? Why let this woman torment me any longer?

  But how do I kill myself? I wondered.

  A razor? I used an electric shaver.

  Aspirins? I had only six left.

  Jump out of the window?

  I could kill someone in the crowded street.

  I looked feverishly around the room. There was nothing that would support my weight on which to hang myself.

  The car?

  Yes! I’d take the car and at high-speed crash it into a tree. Yes! I would do that!

  I struggled off the bed, fumbling in my pockets for the car keys. I couldn’t find them. Where had I put them? I looked wildly around the room and saw them lying on the dusty chest-of-drawers. As I moved towards them, the telephone bell rang.

  For a long moment I hesitated, then I snatched up the receiver.

  ‘Larry my dear boy!’

  My black cloud of depression and madness lifted at the sound of Sydney Fremlin’s voice. I found I was shaking and sweating. I dropped on to the bed.

  ‘Hi, Sydney.’ My voice was a croak.

  ‘Larry, you must come back!’ I could tell by his voice that he was in the middle of a major crisis. The pitch of his voice told me he was like a bee captured in a bottle and buzzing like crazy.

  ‘What is it?’ I said, wiping the sweat off my face with the back of my hand.

  ‘Larry, precious, I simply can’t talk over an open line! Some dreadful person may be listening in! You just have to come back! Mrs. P. wants to sell you-know-what! I can’t possibly handle this - only clever you can do it! You do know what I’m trying to say, don’t you, Larry? This is absolutely, terribly top secret! Do tell me you understand?’

  Mrs. P.

  I drew in a long slow breath as my mind went back five years when I had brought off my biggest diamond sale for Luce & Fremlin. Mrs. Henry Jason Plessington, the wife of one of the richest estate men in Florida - and they don’t come richer - had wanted a diamond necklace. She had been a client of Luce & Fremlin for years. Until I had arrived as their diamond expert, Sydney had sold her this and that, but nothing really big. But when I arrived on the scene, had met her, had learned how rich her husband was, I saw the possibility of unloading something really big on her. Sydney fluttered and buzzed, saying I was far too ambitious when I explained the idea I had, but I turned on the charm and talked to this middle-aged woman, stressing that nothing but the bes
t was for her. She reacted to this sales talk like a plant reacts to a dose of fertiliser. Having got her so far, I talked to her about diamonds. I said it was my ambition to create a diamond necklace that would be the end of all diamond necklaces. I explained how I would search for matching stones. It would give me pleasure to know that the end product would be hers.

  She lapped this up the way a cat laps cream.

  ‘But how do I know I will like it?’ she asked. ‘Your taste might not be my taste.’

  I had expected her to say just this, and I was ready for the answer. I said, apart from showing her a design on paper, I would get a Chinese diamond cutter I knew in Hong Kong to make a mock-up of the necklace in glass. She could then judge for herself. The cost of the mock-up would be around $5,000.

  Naturally, if she decided to have the mock-up turned into the real thing the $5,000 would come off the bill.

  She had said for me to go ahead.

  I got Sydney to design the necklace on paper. He had a flair for this kind of thing, and he produced a real beauty.

  ‘But, Larry, in diamonds this will cost the earth!’ he exclaimed as we studied his design. ‘She’ll never stand for it! It’ll cost a million!’

  ‘It’ll cost more than that,’ I said, ‘but leave it to me. I’ll talk her into talking her husband into it. He’s stinking rich.’

  Mrs. P. approved the design which was a step forward. I was hoping she would tell me to go ahead and make the necklace in diamonds, but she had still to work on her husband and she liked the idea of seeing the design in glass.

  It took two months for my man in Hong Kong to produce the glass necklace and what a job he made of it! Only a top expert would know these stones weren’t diamonds. It was so good I had an uneasy feeling that Mrs. P. might settle for the mock-up and swank to her friends that it was the real thing.

  I went to Plessington’s enormous villa, overlooking the sea, with a Rolls Corniche and a Bentley T standing on the tarmac, I laid the glass necklace on a pad of black velvet and watched her face. She went practically into a swoon. Then I draped the necklace around her fat neck and led her to a full-length mirror.

  Then I turned on the sales talk.

  ‘These, of course, as you can see, Mrs. Plessington,’ I said, ‘are made of glass. Also as you can see there is no life in them (which wasn’t true), but I want you to imagine each one of these glass beads as living fire - the fire of diamonds.’

  She stood there, entranced, looking at herself: a stout, middle-aged woman with a flabby bosom, her neck beginning to wrinkle.

  ‘Even Elizabeth Taylor would want a necklace like this is going to be.’

  Then I unclasped the necklace before she got the wrong idea and settled for glass rather than diamonds.

  ‘But what is it going to cost?’

  This, of course, was the sixty-four-thousand dollar question. I explained that to create a necklace like this with diamonds, I would have to search the world for matching stones. Having found them, they would have to be cut by experts, then they would have to be set in platinum which would also have to be done by experts. All this would cost money. I lifted my hands and gave her my charming smile. I knew, as she knew, it wouldn’t be her money that would pay for this necklace. She would have to put the bite on her husband. I pointed out that diamonds lived for ever. They never lost their value. Her husband’s money would be invested safely. I let her absorb all this, then told her, making my voice completely casual, that the necklace would cost in the region of one million and a half dollars.

  She didn’t even flinch. Why should she? It would be her husband who would do the flinching. She sat there, a fat heap in a Normal Hartnell creation, a faraway look in her eyes. I could imagine she was thinking how her friends would envy her, what a status symbol this necklace would be and even, perhaps, Liz Taylor, would envy her.

  So eventually, Mrs. P got her diamond necklace, the biggest sale Luce & Fremlin had ever made and due to me. The final cost of the necklace was one million eight hundred thousand dollars.

  Mrs. P. and the necklace got a big press coverage. There were photographs of her in the papers wearing the necklace with her husband hovering in the background, looking as if he had bitten into a quince. She showed off the necklace at the Casino, the opera, the Country Club and had a ball. Then a month later one of her closest friends who owned a diamond necklace that I wouldn’t have offered to any of my clients, got knocked over the head and the necklace snatched. The woman never recovered from the attack and had to be taken care of by a nurse.

  This attack scared the pants off Mrs. P. who only then realised that her one million, eight-hundred thousand dollar string of diamonds could be a source of lethal danger. She promptly put the necklace in a safe deposit box at her bank and refused to wear it.

  All this took place five years ago, and now, according to Sydney, she wanted to sell the necklace.

  I knew, as Sydney knew, that during the past three years, Mrs. P. had become a compulsive gambler.

  Every night she was to be found at the Casino, plunging. Her husband let her gamble because, apart from selling large slices of Florida and putting up skyscrapers wherever there was a space for them, he was a ram. While his wife was spending most of the night gambling he was in the hay with any girl who caught his eye. But Plessington looked after his money, and every so often he would check up on his wife’s gambling debts and crack down on her. Mrs. P. never won. Knowing this background, it wasn’t hard to see that she must now be up to her eyes in secret debt and had decided to sell the necklace before her husband found out what she owed.

  ‘Larry?’ Sydney’s voice crackled over the line. ‘Are you listening?’

  I didn’t give a damn about Mrs. P., the necklace nor come to that, Sydney. Rhea was still burning a hole in my mind.

  ‘I’m listening,’ I said.

  ‘For pity’s sake, concentrate, Larry,’ Sydney said urgently. ‘Please for my sake! You must come back! I can’t imagine what you are doing in that dreadful town! Do say you will come back and help me!’

  Again the nudge of destiny. A few minutes ago I was thinking of suicide. If Sydney had wanted me to do anything else except try to resell the Plessington necklace I would have hung up on him. But this necklace, up to now, had been my greatest achievement. I had gained my reputation as one of the top diamond men by creating it.

  My depression suddenly went away. My mind worked swiftly. Maybe another change of scene would get Rhea out of my blood, but I wanted a back door through which to escape if the need arose.

  ‘I’m still not right, Sydney,’ I said. ‘I get headaches and concentration isn’t easy. If I come back and sell you-know-what, will you give me more time off if I need it?’

  ‘Of course, dear boy! I’ll do more than that. I’ll give you one percent on the take and you can have six months off if you want it. I can’t be fairer than that, can I?’

  ‘What does she want for it?’

  He buzzed like a bee trapped in a bottle again before saying, ‘I haven’t discussed it with her. She’s panting for money. I said I would consult you and you would talk to her.’

  Again I hesitated, thinking of Rhea, then I made up my mind.

  ‘All right. I’ll leave right away. I should be with you the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t come by car. Come by air taxi. I’ll pick up the tab,’ Sydney said. ‘You don’t know what a relief this is to me! Let’s have a quiet dinner together. We’ll meet around nine o’clock at La Palma, what do you say?’

  La Palma was one of the most expensive and exclusive restaurants in Paradise City. Sydney was certainly anxious to please.

  ‘It’s a date,’ I said and hung up.

  During the two-hour flight back to Paradise City, while I was sitting in the little cabin, a thought like a black snake wriggling into a room slid into my mind.

  There are old, fat, stupid creeps in this country worth millions.

  Rhea had said that.

  Why
should I wait to become old, fat and stupid?

  Why shouldn’t I become suddenly immensely rich?

  I thought of Mrs. P.’s necklace. One million eight hundred thousand dollars! In my position as a top diamond man, knowing the big diamond dealers throughout the world, I was sure I would have no trouble in selling the stones, always providing I was careful. These dealers would jump at anything I had to offer.

  I had often sold diamonds to them for Sydney, who always wanted to be paid in cash. The dealers never questioned this, as when Sydney bought from them he also paid cash, and - what was important - they accepted my receipt.

  By breaking up the necklace, selling the stones to various dealers would present no problem. In my position at Luce & Fremlin I would have no need to worry, as Sydney no longer kept contact with these dealers. He left them to me to handle. They would pay me cash, thinking the money was going to Sydney and I would put the money in a Swiss bank. Disposing of the necklace was the least of my headaches, but stealing it so that no one suspected me was something else.

  This seemed to me to be a challenge. Maybe I was useless as a hold-up man and gutless when it came to stealing a car, but this operation of stealing the necklace, although a problem, was, at least, in my neck of the woods.

  I spent the next hour as the little plane droned on to Paradise City thinking of ways and means.

  * * *

  I found Sydney sitting in a discreet alcove, toying with a double martini. The maître d’ of La Palma restaurant conducted me to him as if I were a member of a Royal family.

  As usual, the restaurant was crowded and I had to pause at several tables where my clients greeted me and asked after my health, but finally I reached the alcove and Sydney gripped my hand.

  ‘Larry, dear boy, you just don’t know how I appreciate this!’ he gushed and there were tears in his eyes. ‘You don’t look well , you look peaky. How are you? Was the flight a strain? I hate myself for bringing you back here, but you do understand, don’t you?’