1957 - The Guilty Are Afraid

by James Hadley Chase

  Hertz was standing right up at the table looking at me.

  Behind him in a semicircle, blocking the way of escape, were four men, tall, beefy, dark and tough, and the expression in Hertz’s wild little eyes sent a chill crawling up my spine.

  II

  The noise in the big room was suddenly hushed: heads turned, and eyes looked in my direction. I was in a bad position. My chair was only a foot or so from the wall. The table was between me and Hertz, and it wasn’t a big table. Fulton was better placed. He was on my right, with no wall behind him.

  Obviously there was no doubt in the minds of the crowd that there was going to be trouble. Already some of them were heading with restrained panic towards the exit.

  Hertz said in his husky voice, “Remember me? I don’t like peepers, and I don’t like a punk.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a big Negro, wearing a white apron and in shirtsleeves, come fast from behind the bar. He was built on the lines of Joe Louis, and there was a vague, apologetic smile on his big, battered face. He crossed the room, weaved around the four men and arrived at Hertz’s side quicker than I can tell it.

  I caught hold of the edge of the table and braced myself.

  The Negro said pleasantly to Hertz, “Don’t want trouble here, boss. If you and your friends have business to talk over, you talk about it outside.”

  Hertz turned his head to look at the Negro. There were tiny red sparks in his eyes making him look a little insane. I saw his shoulder drop slightly, then his fist flashed up and landed in the Negro’s face. The blow sounded like a thump on a tympani. The Negro went staggering back, then fell on his hands and knees.

  All this happened fast. I put my weight against the table and rammed it hard into Hertz, who was slightly off balance from the punch he had thrown. The edge of the table caught him against his thigh and he reeled backwards, cannoning into two of the men with him.

  I now had a little space in which to move and I jumped to my feet and grabbed hold of my chair. I swung it shoulder high, using it like a scythe, and cleared some more space in which I could manoeuvre.

  Fulton was also on his feet, his chair above his head. He slammed it down on the head of the nearest thug, knocking him to the floor.

  Two bouncers, big men, one of them a Negro, clubs in hand, came rushing through a doorway nearby. The three thugs with Hertz scattered, then converged on the bouncers. That left Fulton and me facing Hertz.

  I smashed my chair down on Hertz’s head and the chairback broke, leaving me with a strip of brittle wood that had the staying power of a toothpick as far as an animal like Hertz was concerned.

  Hertz staggered, then snarling, he came at me, his right hand flashing up. If I had stepped back, he would have caught me, but I jumped forward and planted my fist in the middle of his face. It was a good, jabbing punch and it rocked his head back. I moved away from him and cannoned into one of the bouncers, who slugged me with a backhand blow that sent me staggering into Hertz as he came at me again. I managed to grab his wrist with both hands. I half-turned, got his arm over my shoulder, pulled down and heaved. He went over my head with the speed of a jet-propelled rocket and landed on the floor with a crash that shook the building.

  I spun around, looking for Fulton. He was leaning against the wall, holding a handkerchief to his face, his knees sagging. I went to him, grabbed him by his arm and bawled, “Come on—out!”

  One of Hertz’s thugs reached me. I ducked under the blackjack that swished towards my head, sent my right into his ribs, then knocked his legs from under him. I didn’t wait to see him go down. I grabbed hold of Fulton and dragged him across the room to the door.

  There wasn’t much comfort outside. Facing us was the narrow, long jetty, brilliantly lit, with the sea either side and at the far end, the big car park, also brilliantly lit.

  Fulton was hurt badly and seemed on the point of collapse. Any second now Hertz and his thugs would be out and after us.

  “Beat it,” Fulton gasped. “I can’t go any further. Get away before they catch you.”

  I grabbed his arm, swung it around my shoulder, then half-supporting him, I dragged him in a rushing run down the jetty towards the parking lot.

  The quick patter of feet behind me told me I wasn’t going to get far.

  I let go of Fulton and turned.

  Hertz was coming down the jetty.

  “Run!” I said to Fulton. “I’ll handle this ape.”

  I gave him a quick shove and he went staggering off as Hertz came at me. He moved with the speed and the shuffle of a professional boxer. I backed away fast, circling him so the light from the overhead standard would be in his eyes. I watched his fists. He looked insane with rage.

  That was in my favour. A man in a rage isn’t anything like as dangerous as a man who keeps his head in a fight.

  He came at me like an enraged bull and I slammed my fist into his face, jerking his head back. I swayed away from a right that would have decapitated me had it landed, then thumped my own right into the side of his neck. He caught me with a left, and it felt as if I had been hit with a sledge hammer. I backed away fast as he came in again, jabbed him off, slid away from a crushing punch that started from his ankles, jumped back and took a quick look down the jetty. Fulton had disappeared. I decided it was time I took off. But I shouldn’t have taken my eyes off Hertz. Although he telegraphed his punches, he had the speed of a flyweight. He caught me with a hook to the jaw. I saw it coming just a shade too late, but I had started to roll with the punch and that took a little of the steam out of it.

  It was hard enough to bring me to my knees, but not hard enough to fog my brain. As he rushed, I fell forward and grabbed him around his thick thighs, raised myself and heaved. He went over my head and slid along the planks of the jetty on his face.

  I was up and running before he came to rest. As I bolted into the car park, I heard a voice call, “Hey, Brandon! Right here!”

  I changed my direction as I saw Fulton waving at me from the front seat of my car. I heard Hertz lumbering down the jetty after me. The engine of the car was running and I scrambled in under the steering wheel, slammed in the gear and trod down on the accelerator. Hertz was within twenty yards of the car now, his battered face a snarling mask of fury as the car shot away.

  I went through the parking-lot gates with an inch to spare and stormed out on to the boulevard. Still at high speed, I swung the car into a side turning, drove flat out to the top of the road, stood on the brake pedal and flung the car into another road, then slowed down.

  “Are you badly hurt?” I asked, looking at Fulton.

  “I’ll survive,” he said.

  “Where’s the nearest hospital? I’ll take you.”

  “Third left at the top of this road, then straight on for half a mile.”

  I increased speed. In five minutes I pulled up outside the emergency entrance to the hospital.

  “I can manage now.” He got out of the car. “I was a mug to have opened my big mouth. I should have kept clear of you.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to land you in for that kind of party. You could bring a charge against Hertz. There were plenty of witnesses.”

  “Much good that’d do. It’d never stick, and I’d be in more trouble. I’m packing and getting out of this town. I’ve had about enough of it.”

  He went away, moving unsteadily.

  I watched him disappear through the doorway, then I U-turned and headed back fast to my hotel.

  III

  It wasn’t until I was in the quiet of my bedroom, and after I had bathed my bruises, that I remembered I had missed my dinner, and found I was hungry. I called down for some hot turkey sandwiches on rye bread and a pint of iced beer. While I waited for the sandwiches to be brought up, I stretched out on my bed and considered the activities of the day.

  I knew I was sticking my head into a hornets’ nest, and I wondered how long I would survive if I continued to do so.

  Sooner or later
I would run into Hertz again, and the next time I might not get off with only a bruised neck and a slight swelling under my right eye. I thought of Tim Fulton and grimaced.

  Even if I managed to side step Hertz, there was Katchen. If he got the slightest suspicion I was continuing my inquiries, he would fix me on some charge and have me in. I didn’t kid myself that that would be any kind of picnic. It seemed, if I were going to make any safe progress, I would have to get some sort of protection, but how I was to do it defeated me. Was there anyone in town more powerful than Creedy and who could warn Katchen to lay off? It didn’t seem likely, but if there was, and I could get him on my side, that would be the solution to my problem.

  Leaving that, I considered what I had discovered. I knew now that Creedy had hired Jack. Creedy’s money was behind some of the rackets of the town. He was married, and his wife was playing around with a man called Jacques Thrisby. He also had a daughter, Margot, whom he was fond of and she had an apartment on Franklyn Boulevard. I reached for the telephone book, looked her up and found her apartment was in a block called the Franklyn Arms. As I put the book down, there came a knock on the door and a waiter brought me the sandwiches and the beer. He stared curiously at my swollen eye, but didn’t comment on it, which was as well for him.

  I was in no mood to be sociable with a waiter right at this minute. When he had gone, I got off the bed and, sitting in the lone armchair, I ate the sandwiches and drank the beer.

  Someone had taken Jack’s things out of the room next door and put them in a neat pile in the corner of my room. I was reminded by the sight of them that I had to write to his wife. After I had finished my meal and had lit a cigarette, I took a sheet of the hotel notepaper and wrote to her. It took me until half past ten to complete the letter to my satisfaction. I offered her a reasonable sum as compensation for losing her husband. I purposely made the sum a little low because I knew she would bargain long and bitterly to get more out of me. She had never liked me, and I knew she would never be satisfied no matter what I gave her.

  I stuck the envelope down and left it on the dressing table to post the following morning.

  I then sat down and unlocked Jack’s suitcase. I went through his stuff to make sure there was nothing in the case that might upset his wife when I returned it. It was as well that I did, for I found photographs and letters that proved he had been cheating her for the past year or so. I tore them up and dumped them in the trash basket. I went through the rest of the suitcase and I found, hidden in the lining of the case, a match-folder: one of those things restaurants and night clubs give away as an advertisement. This was something special. It was covered with dark red water-silk and across the outside in gold letters was the legend: The Musketeer Club and a telephone number.

  I turned the folder over between my fingers, remembering that Greaves, the hotel detective, had said that the Musketeer Club was the most exclusive, apart from being the most expensive club in town. How had Jack got hold of the folder? Had he gone to the club? Knowing him, I was sure he wouldn’t go to a de luxe night spot like that unless it was for business reasons. He was far too careful with his money to take any girl to a place that expensive.

  Still holding the folder, I got to my feet, thought for a moment, then, leaving my room, I took the elevator down to the lobby.

  I asked the reception clerk if Greaves was around.

  “He’ll be in his office right now,” the clerk said, staring at my swollen eye. “Downstairs and to the right. Did you have an accident, Mr. Brandon?”

  “This eye? Why, no. I ordered some sandwiches to be sent up and the waiter threw them at me. Think nothing of it. I go for that kind of service.”

  I left him with his mouth hanging open and his second chin quivering and went down the stairs to Greaves’s office.

  It was more of a cupboard than a room. I found him sitting at a small table, laying out a hand of patience. He looked up as I came to rest in the open doorway.

  “Someone take a dislike to your face?” he asked, without much show of interest.

  “Yeah,” I said and, leaning forward, I dropped the match-folder on the table.

  He looked at it, frowned, looked up at me and raised his eyebrows.

  “How come?”

  “I found it in Sheppey’s suitcase.”

  “I’m willing to bet a buck he never went there. He hadn’t the class, the money nor the influence to get past the bouncers.”

  “No chance?”

  “Not a chance in ten million.”

  “Maybe someone took him in. That possible?”

  Greaves nodded.

  “Maybe. A member can take in who he likes, but if the other snobs don’t like who he brings in, he could lose his membership. That’s how it works.”

  “He could have picked it up somewhere.”

  Greaves shrugged.

  “First one I’ve seen. The guys and dolls who go to the Musketeer Club wouldn’t soil their lily white fingers touching a thing like that. They’d be afraid it’d give them a germ. I’d say someone took him in and he brought this away with him to prove he had been there. It’s something to brag about if you’re the bragging kind.”

  “Know where I can get hold of a members’ list?”

  He smiled sourly, got up, edged around his table and went to a cupboard. After rummaging around for a few moments, he offered me a small book, bound in faded red water-silk with the same gold lettering on it as the match-folder.

  “I found it in one of the rooms at the Ritz-Plaza and thought it might come in useful one day. It’s two years out of date.”

  “I’ll let you have it back,” I said, retrieving the match-folder from the table and putting it and the members’ book in my pocket. “Thanks.”

  “Who gave you the shiner?”

  “Nobody you’d want to know,” I said, and went out and up to the lounge. I found an armchair away from the old ladies and gentlemen and read through the names in the book. There were about five hundred names to wade through. Four hundred and ninety-seven of them meant nothing to me: the other three did: Mrs. Bridgette Creedy, Mr. Jacques Thrisby and Miss Margot Creedy.

  I closed the book and slapped it gently against my hand.

  I sat for some minutes thinking. Then out of the blue came an idea. I considered it, decided after a moment or so that it wasn’t perhaps a brilliant idea, but at least it wasn’t a bad one, and I got to my feet.

  I went over to the hall porter and asked him where Franklyn Avenue was.

  He told me to take the second on the right, then the first on the left by the traffic lights.

  I thanked him and went down the steps to where I had left the Buick.

  Chapter 5

  I

  The Franklyn Arms turned out to be one of those snooty, high-toned apartment blocks reserved only for those in the upper social register, and who have more than a six-figure income.

  There were, at a guess, not more than thirty apartments in the block. The building was three stories high, and sat with the dignity of a dowager duchess in an elaborately cultivated acre of land with lawns, a fountain in which stood a reproduction of Donatello’s Boy with a Dolphin, floodlit to underline the architect’s good taste, and set beds with silver centaurea and sky blue petunias.

  I steered the Buick into a vacant space between a Silver Wraith and a Silver Dawn Rolls-Royce, got out and walked past a Continental Bentley, a sixty-two coupe Cadillac, and a Packard Clipper. There was enough money rolled up in all that hardware to keep me happy for ten years.

  I pushed my way through the revolving doors into an oak-panelled lobby decorated with carnations growing in chromium-plated boxes set against the walls, and a small fountain with half a dozen well-fed, contented-looking goldfish swimming in the lighted water.

  Over in the far corner was the reception desk behind which stood a tall blond man in an immaculate tuxedo, who wore a bored, disdainful expression on his handsome, effeminate face.

  I went over to him and g
ave him one of my friendly smiles. This was probably a mistake, for he reared back as if I had hung a decayed fish under his aristocratic nose.

  “Miss Creedy please,” I said.

  He fingered his immaculate tie while his brown eyes travelled over me. He would know to the exact cent what my suit, tie, shirt and hat cost. The valuation didn’t seem to impress him.

  “Is Miss Creedy expecting you?”

  “No. Will you call her and tell her I have just been talking to her father and would now appreciate a word with her. The name is Lew Brandon.”

  He tapped his beautifully manicured fingernails on the top of the polished counter while he thought. From the strained expression in his eyes, I could tell this was a process that would never come naturally to him.

  “Perhaps you had better write first,” he said at length. He lifted his arm and consulted a solid gold Omega. “It is a little late for a call.”

  “Look, buster,” I said, making my voice suddenly tough, “you may be a thing of beauty, but don’t kid yourself you’re a joy forever. Just call Miss Creedy and let her make her own decisions.”

  He stared at me for a brief moment, surprise and alarm in his eyes, then he went into a room behind the counter and shut the door.

  I took a cigarette from my pack and pasted it on my lower lip. I wondered if he were going to call the law. I’d look pretty sick if some ambitious cop rushed me down to headquarters on a charge of annoying the elite of St. Raphael City. But a couple of minutes later, he came out looking as if he had swallowed a bee. He indicated an automatic elevator across the way and said curtly, “Second floor. Apartment seven.” Then, tossing his blond curls, he turned his back on me.

  I found apartment seven after walking down a long oak-panelled corridor. As I paused outside the front door, I could hear a radio playing something from Mozart. I pushed the bell button, and after a moment or so the door was opened by an elderly, pleasant-looking woman in a black silk dress and a frilled white apron.