1976 - Do Me a Favour Drop Dead

by James Hadley Chase

  ‘We’re on our own.’

  ‘Let’s stop.’

  I swung the car to the grass verge and cut the motor.

  ‘I’m in trouble, Keith. They are going to take my driving licence away . . . the creeps can’t do anything else.’ He rubbed his hand over his sweating face. ‘At least, I hit that bastard. He had it coming. The joke is they’re scared to do anything about that.’ He closed his eyes and nodded off. I sat behind the driving wheel and watched him. After a few minutes he yawned, stretched and then looked at me.

  ‘Until that old bitch dies,’ he said, ‘and she’s taking a hell of a time doing it, I’ve got to earn a living. If I can’t drive, I’m in trouble.’ He leaned back, puffed out his cheeks and then went on, ‘It’s time Beth - that’s my wife - did something for me.’ He turned his head and squinted at me. ‘Will you teach her to drive?’

  This was just too easy.

  ‘That’s my job, Frank . . . teaching people to drive.’

  He dropped a sweaty hand on my wrist.

  ‘That’s right. So . . . you teach her to drive, so she can get me to the station.’ He wiped his face with his handkerchief, then said, ‘Excuse me,’ and opening the car door, he lurched out and vomited on the grass verge. I watched him. To me he represented a million dollars. Why should I care if he behaved worse than an animal?

  After a while, he staggered back into the car, wiping his mouth on his coat sleeve.

  ‘I guess I had one drink too many.’ He sank back in the seat, then he patted my arm. ‘When I get that money, I’m going to be the big shot around here and I’ll remember my friends.’ He blew out his cheeks, then went on, ‘Let’s get home.’

  I drove up the dirt road and parked outside the front entrance of the house. He heaved himself out of the car and stood swaying, while he looked at me through the open window.

  ‘I’m still a bit drunk, Keith, but tomorrow I’ll call you.’ He waved. ‘Thanks, pal.’

  I watched him stagger up the steps to the house, lurch against the front door, then pushing it open, walk in. The front door slammed behind him.

  I looked up. A curtain covering a second-storey window moved. She was up there, watching . . . the mysterious Mrs. Marshall.

  When I got back to Mrs. Hansen’s house, I found Olson, Pinner and Tom Mason on the patio.

  Mrs. Hansen came out of the living room as I started up the stairs.

  ‘Oh, Mr. Devery, do come and have a drink. My brother. . .’

  I guessed they were burning to know what had happened between Marshall and myself so I joined them on the patio.

  I picked up the hostile, suspicious atmosphere as Pinner shoved a chair towards me with his foot. I could understand their attitude. They were thinking: here’s a complete stranger who walks into our town and suddenly becomes the favourite of the coming millionaire.

  ‘Seems Frank has taken a liking to you,’ Pinner said.

  I accepted the whisky and soda Olson offered me.

  ‘Drunks are like that,’ I said. ‘He tells me he is losing his licence and he can’t afford a chauffeur. He wants me to teach his wife to drive.’

  There was a long pause while the three men absorbed this, then I saw their faces brighten. Maybe this guy, they were probably thinking, wasn’t sucking up to the man who they hoped was going to put Wicksteed on the tourist map.

  Pinner stroked his moustache.

  ‘Are you going to help out, Keith?’

  ‘That’s my job.’

  A long pause, then he said, ‘He didn’t by chance mention anything about our planning scheme?’

  ‘Not a thing.’

  The three looked at each other, then Mason said, ‘He seemed a little hostile when he left with you.’

  ‘He was drunk,’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’ Olson nodded. ‘He didn’t mean what he said.’

  Who was kidding who? I thought and finished my drink. I saw no point in sitting around with these three, mulling over Marshall’s future. Getting to my feet, I said I wanted to catch the ball game on TV and would they excuse me?

  We shook hands all round and I left them.

  Up in my room, I heard them talking. The low rumble of their voices didn’t worry me.

  Tomorrow I would finally meet Mrs. Beth Marshall.

  Beth!

  I liked the name.

  As she put the breakfast tray on the table, Mrs. Hansen said, ‘I brought up the paper. I thought you would like to see it.’

  I thanked her and had to restrain myself from grabbing it until she had left the room.

  The Wicksteed Herald had done a fine snow job on Marshall.

  The report written by the Editor himself, began by giving Marshall a big build up. Quote: Mr. Marshall is one of our most liked citizens who has always had the interests of Wicksteed close to his heart. Then, after more blah: it is common knowledge that Mr. Marshall has been for some time under considerable strain due to his aunt’s distressing illness. His aunt, Mrs. Howard T. Fremlin, has been and will always be our most important citizen. Mr. Marshall frankly admitted that after visiting her at our fine hospital, he was so upset, he took a drink. We think it is unfortunate that Deputy Sheriff Ross (a new recruit to our town) felt it necessary to arrest Mr. Marshall when he was about to drive home. Mr. Marshall mistook Deputy Sheriff Ross’s intentions and pushed him so Deputy Sheriff Ross fell against Mr. Marshall’s car and slightly injured his mouth. After consulting with his attorney. Mr. Yule Olson, Mr. Marshall agreed that it was only fair that he should lose his driving licence for a few months. Smiling, Mr. Marshall told our reporter: ‘It’s tough, but there are so many kids around here who drink-drive, I want to set them an example.’

  To me, this was the most vomit making reportage I had ever read. I tossed the paper aside and wondered how Deputy Sheriff Ross was reacting.

  I had just finished my breakfast when Mrs. Hansen came tapping on my door.

  ‘A telephone call for you, Mr. Devery. It’s Mr. Marshall.’

  I could tell by the way her eyes were popping how excited she was. I went down the stairs and took the call.

  ‘Is that you, Keith?’ Marshall’s booming voice came over the line.

  ‘How are you Frank?’

  ‘I could be worse. Listen, I’ve talked to Beth and she’s willing to learn to drive. Is that okay with you?’

  ‘It’s my job, Frank.’

  ‘Yeah.’ A pause, then he went on, ‘Could you come up to the house? She doesn’t want to go down to the town. Could you do that?’

  To meet Mrs. Beth Marshall, I would have done a moon shot.

  ‘No problem, Frank.’

  ‘Well, thanks. Right now I’ve a taxi waiting to take me to the station. Would eleven o’clock be okay?’

  ‘Why, sure.’

  ‘Get her driving fast, Keith. This taxi business is costing me money.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  A long pause, then he asked, ‘Did you see the paper this morning?’

  ‘I saw it.’

  ‘Nice job, huh? Elliot - he’s the Editor - would kiss my prat if I told him to.’ He gave a great bellow of laughter. I got the impression that he was a little drunk. ‘Then you come here at eleven . . . right?’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  He hung up and I hung up. Then seeing Mrs. Hansen hovering in the living room, all ears, I told her I was going to Marshall’s home to teach Mrs. Marshall to drive.

  ‘That should be very interesting, Mr. Devery,’ she said, her mouth prim. ‘You will be the first of us to meet Mrs. Marshall.’

  ‘I’ll tell you how I find her,’ I said. ‘I’m sure everyone will be interested.’

  Returning to my room, I put on swim trunks, took a towel and was starting down the stairs when the telephone bell rang.

  Mrs. Hansen called to me as I reached the front door.

  ‘Mr. Pinner is asking for you, Mr. Devery.’

  It seemed I was becoming an important citizen in this one horse town.
/>   ‘Have you any news from Marshall?’ Pinner asked as I picked up the telephone receiver.

  I told him Marshall had asked me to give his wife driving lessons.

  He grunted, then said, ‘No one in town has met Mrs. Marshall. We’ll be interested to hear what you think of her.’ A long pause while I imagined he was stroking his moustache. ‘You remember what I said about her being as important to this town as Frank?’

  As if I could have forgotten! I said I remembered.

  ‘Yeah. When will these driving lessons be finished?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. It depends how she makes out.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Another pause and probably more moustache stroking. ‘Well, suppose we get together at Joe’s bar at six tonight, huh? I expect Tom will join us and maybe Yule if he can spare the time. Suppose I buy you a drink, Keith?’ and he laughed.

  ‘That’s fine with me, Mr. Pinner.’

  ‘Hey! Cut that mister stuff. I’m Joe to my friends.’

  ‘Why, thanks, Joe, I appreciate that.’ Knowing he couldn’t see me, I grinned. ‘I’ll see you at six.’

  ‘That’s it. We’ll be interested to hear what you think of Mrs. Marshall.’ His laugh, as sincere as a politician’s promise, boomed in my ear. ‘And Keith, you could probe - you know what I mean? It would be constructive from our point of view to find out what she thought of our town and if . . .’ He stopped short. It probably occurred to him he was shooting his mouth off too much. ‘Well, you know, Keith . . . we regard you as one of our friends.’

  ‘Thanks, Joe. I know what you mean.’

  ‘Fine.’ If he could have reached down the line and slapped me on the back, he would have done it.

  He wasn’t fooling me, but I was pretty sure I was fooling him.

  The clock on the dashboard of my car registered exactly 11.00 as I pulled up outside Frank Marshall’s big, lonely house.

  I had had a swim. I was wearing a blue sports shirt and white slacks and although looking my best, I wasn’t feeling my best.

  This meeting with the mysterious Mrs. Marshall somehow bothered me. I had a thumping pulse I hadn’t before experienced.

  Remaining in the car, I looked at the front door, expecting it to open, but it didn’t. I waited for some moments, then was forced to the conclusion that Mrs. Beth Marshall wasn’t peeping through a curtain. So I got out of the car. Leaving the driving door hanging open, I walked up the steps and thumbed the bell.

  Somewhere inside the house, I heard the bell ring. I waited, sweating in the heat, then just as I was about to ring again, the door swung open.

  While driving up from Wicksteed, I had tried to imagine what Mrs. Marshall would look like. Hopefully, my first thought was she could be a second Liz Taylor, but I put that image out of my mind, telling myself it would be my bad luck for her to be dumpy, deadly dull and possibly kittenish. After milling over that image, I found it so depressing, I rejected it At best, I hoped she would be young, pretty and perceptible to male charm: my charm in particular.

  The woman who stood in the doorway gave me a jolt of surprise. Around thirty-three, she was almost as tall as myself and she was thin: too thin for my liking. I prefer women with bumps and curves. Her features were good: a long, thin nose, a big mouth and a well sculptured jaw line. Her eyes gave her unusual face its life: black glittering eyes, steady and coldly impersonal. This wasn’t a woman with whom you took liberties: strictly no fanny patting.

  She was wearing a shapeless dark blue dress that she must have run up herself. I was sure no dress shop would have owned to it. Her black, silky hair, parted in the middle, fell to her shoulders.

  During my short stay in Wicksteed, I had had the opportunity to survey some of the female scene. Comparing what I had seen, Mrs. Beth Marshall was a lioness among the roebucks.

  ‘You will be Mr. Devery and you have come to teach me to drive,’ she said in a quiet, deepish voice.

  That took care of the introductions.

  ‘Yes, Mrs. Marshall,’ I said.

  Her black eyes flickered over me, then she walked down the steps and as she passed me, I got a smell of her: a very faint, sexy body smell that was so faint I could have imagined it, but I knew I hadn’t.

  I remained on the top step and watched her because I wanted to see her walk. The dress, of course, did nothing for her, but it couldn’t hide her elegant legs and the hint of an exciting body that moved with confident arrogance. Mrs. Beth Marshall, I decided, would be a hell of a woman when stripped off.

  As I started after her, she was already in the driving seat so I went around, opened the off-side door and slid in beside her.

  She was looking at the controls.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ she said curtly. She turned the ignition key and pressed down on the gas pedal. The motor fired. Before I could stop her, she had shifted into drive and the car surged forward. I managed to yank on the handbrake before we hit a tree.

  ‘I should have gone into reverse,’ she said as if to herself. ‘I’ll try again.’

  I reached over her, my arm brushing against a small breast. I turned off the motor and removed the ignition key.

  ‘I’m hired to teach you to drive, Mrs. Marshall,’ I said, turning to look at her. ‘I’m not here to watch you make dangerous experiments.’

  ‘Dangerous experiments?’ She continued to examine the controls. ‘Any idiot can drive . . . look at the idiots who are driving.’

  ‘And you are no idiot,’ I said.

  She turned her head slowly and her black, glittering eyes surveyed me. A spooky feeling, like a cold dead finger crept up my spine as we looked at each other.

  Leaning forward, she took the ignition key from me.

  ‘I haven’t driven for over a year,’ she said. ‘Do me a favour, will you, please? Fold your teaching tent, and let me do my thing.’

  What kind of language is that? I asked myself, but that cold, dead finger still moved up my spine. The car was insured and I could jump out if it came to a crunch and she seemed very sure of herself so I said, ‘Okay. We can always die together.’

  This was a joke that wasn’t appreciated. She gave me a cold, hostile stare, then started the motor, shifted into reverse, backed out onto the dirt road without knocking down the gatepost, braked, shifted into drive and away we went: a shade too fast for safety, but not so fast as to make my hair ends rise.

  At the end of the dirt road that led directly to the highway, she stopped the car and sat staring through the windshield while her long, slim fingers played a muted tune on the steering wheel.

  I waited.

  Finally, she said in that deep, sexy voice, ‘I’m not driving into Wicksteed so all those jerks can stare. I haven’t been to Frisco in years. That’s where we’ll go.’

  ‘Look, Mrs. Marshall,’ I said, knowing I was wasting my breath.’ I think you should have a little more practice . . .’

  She could have been deaf. She shifted into drive and we were out on to the highway.

  At this hour the traffic was as congested as a kicked over ant hill. I sat still, sweating, as she moved the car into the fast lane.

  Then, just keeping within the legal speed limit, she held her own with the outgoing cowboys.

  I said nothing. She said nothing. From time to time, I looked at her. There was a faint, amused smile hovering around her mouth. Although I expected at any moment to shut my eyes, shove my foot through the floorboards, perhaps even scream, I didn’t.

  Approaching the outskirts of Frisco, she moved into the slow lane and leaving the highway, she filtered expertly to a secondary road.

  I came to the conclusion that there was nothing I could teach her about handling a car. If her driving had ever been rusty, the rust had now gone.

  She seemed to know where she was going which was more than I did. After a ten-minute drive, she slowed and pulled into a parking lot of a restaurant-cum-motel. She drove into a vacant parking bay and stopped, then she turned and regarded me.

  ‘Af
ter that experience, Mr. Devery, you could use a drink.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘The first half hour was scarey, but after that, I enjoyed it. All the same I could use a hamburger or something. Could you?’

  She nodded. We got out of the car and walked over to the restaurant. As we approached the swing door, she said, ‘I used to work here,’ then leading the way, she walked into the big, airy restaurant, across to the bar where a short fat man, wearing a chef’s hat, was making sandwiches. When he saw her, he stiffened, dropped his knife and his eyes popped wide open.

  ‘For God’s sake! Beth!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘It’s been quite a time, Mario,’ she said, her voice impersonal. ‘We were passing. This is Mr. Devery. He is teaching me to drive.’

  The fat man’s eyes swivelled to me and he offered his hand. I shook hands with him.

  ‘Teaching her to drive?’ he said blankly.

  ‘She doesn’t need much teaching,’ I said.

  He burst into an uneasy laugh.

  ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘We’re pressed for time, Mario. What’s the special for today?’ There was a cutting edge to her voice that wiped the smile off Mario’s fat face.

  ‘Tenderloin and it’s good.’ His voice had become servile.

  She looked at me.

  ‘Okay?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Then let’s have that, Mario.’

  ‘Sure. Pronto. Beers?’

  Again she looked at me.

  ‘Fine.’

  She nodded to him, then walked across to a table away from the bar and sat down. I took the seat opposite her and looked around. It was early, but there were some twenty people already eating. None of them paid us any attention.

  ‘Well, Mr. Devery, do you think I can drive?’ she asked.

  ‘Have you a driving licence?’

  ‘I have it.’

  ‘Then you don’t need lessons from me. You can drive your husband to the station tomorrow.’

  She opened her handbag and took out a pack of cigarettes.

  She shook out a cigarette, lit it and blew smoke towards me.

  ‘And suppose I don’t want to drive him to the station, Mr. Devery?’

  Again the spooky cold dead finger.