What's Better Than Money

by James Hadley Chase

  I was pretty sure once Willy had heard her, he would give her a job. Maybe I could get him to pay her seventy-five a week. That would be seven and a half dollars extra in my pocket. I was also pretty sure that after she had been singing at Willy’s joint for a couple of weeks, people would begin to talk about her, then I could ease her into one of the plush niteries where the pay-off would mean something.

  I got quite worked up about this idea. I began to imagine myself as a big-shot agent with a swank office, and in time, interviewing and fixing up the big stars.

  I went straight back to my rooming-house. Now was the time to tell Rima I was going to be her agent.

  I wouldn’t introduce her to Willy until I had her under contract. I wasn’t going to be mug enough to introduce her to Willy, and then for some other guy to grab her.

  I went up the three flights of stairs two at a time and walked into her room Carrie, the maid of all work, was stripping the bed. There was no sign of Rima.

  Carrie stared at me. She was a big, fat woman who had a drunken, out-of-work husband.

  She and I got along fine together. When she did my room, we talked over our troubles. She had many more than I, but she always managed to keep cheerful and she was always urging me to throw up the life I was living and go home.

  ‘Where’s Miss Marshall?’ I said, pausing in the doorway.

  ‘She checked out half an hour ago.’

  ‘Checked out? You mean she’s left?’

  ‘Why, yes. She’s gone.’

  I felt horribly deflated.

  ‘Didn’t she leave a message for me? Didn’t she say where she was going?’

  ‘No, and she didn’t leave anything for you.’

  ‘Did she pay for her room, Carrie?’

  Carrie grinned, showing her big yellow teeth. The idea of anyone walking out of Mrs. Millard’s establishment without paying amused her.

  ‘She paid.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Two bucks.’

  I drew in a long, slow breath. It looked as if I had been taken for a ride for half a dollar. She must have had money all the time. The starvation story had been an act and I had fallen for it.

  I went over to my door, took out the key, put it in the lock and tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t turn. I tried the handle and the door swung open. It wasn’t locked. I remembered locking it before I left to see Willy, and now it was unlocked.

  I had a sudden feeling of uneasiness as I went to my dressing-table drawer. That was unlocked too, and the thirty dollars that had to last me for a week had vanished.

  I had been taken for a ride all right.

  II

  I had a pretty thin week. Rusty staked me to a couple of meals a day, but he wouldn’t finance my cigarettes. Mrs. Millard let the rent ride after I had promised to pay extra the following week. I got through the next seven days somehow, and I thought a lot about Rima. I told myself if ever I ran into her, I’d give her something to remember me by. I was disappointed that I wasn’t going to break into the agency racket. But after a couple of weeks, I forgot about her, and my routine, non-productive life went on as before.

  Then one day, a month after she had walked out on me, taking my money, Rusty asked me if I would go into Hollywood and collect a neon sign he had ordered. He said I could borrow his car and he’d give me a couple of bucks for my trouble.

  I hadn’t anything better to do so I went. I collected the sign which I put in the back of the battered Oldsmobile. Then I took a drive around the film studios for something better to do.

  I saw Rima outside the entrance to the Paramount Studios, arguing with the guard. I recognised her silver head as soon as I saw it.

  She was wearing black skin tight jeans, a red shirt and red ballet type slippers. She looked uncared for and grubby.

  I slid the car into a vacant place between a Buick and a Cadillac and walked over to her.

  As I approached her, the guard went into his office and slammed the door. Rima turned and started towards me, without noticing me.

  She only became aware of me when she was within three or four feet of me. She came to an abrupt stop and stared at me. Recognition jumped into her eyes and a hot flush rose to her face.

  She looked furtively to right and left, but there was nowhere for her to run to, so she decided to brazen it out.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

  ‘Hello.’

  I moved slightly forward so I was within grabbing distance of her if she tried to make a bolt for it.

  ‘You owe me thirty dollars,’ I said and smiled at her.

  ‘What’s that supposed to be — a joke?’ Her cobalt blue eyes looked everywhere but at me. ‘Thirty dollars for what?’

  ‘The thirty dollars you stole from me,’ I said. ‘Come on, baby, let’s have it or you and I will go to the Station house and let them sort it out.’

  ‘I didn’t steal anything from you. I owe you half a dollar: no more.’

  My hand closed around her thin arm.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘Don’t make a scene. I’m a lot stronger than you. You’re coming to the Station House and we’ll get them to say who is lying and who isn’t.’

  She made a feeble effort to break loose, but my fingers biting into her arm must have told her she didn’t stand a chance for with a sudden shrug of her shoulders, she walked with me to the Oldsmobile. I pushed her in and got in beside her.

  As I started the engine, she said, a sudden note of interest in her voice, ‘Is this yours?’

  ‘No, baby, I’ve borrowed it. I’m still broke, and I’m still going to get my money out of you. How have you been getting on since the last time we met?’

  She wrinkled her nose, slumping down in her seat.

  ‘Not so good. I’m flat broke.’

  ‘Well, a little stretch in jail will help out. At least, they feed you for free in jail.’

  ‘You wouldn’t send me to jail.’

  ‘That’s right, I wouldn’t providing you give me back my thirty dollars.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She turned, arching her chest at me and putting her hand on my arm. ‘I just had to have the money. I’ll pay it back. I swear I will.’

  ‘Don’t swear about it. Just give it to me.’

  ‘I haven’t got it now. I’ve spent it.’

  ‘Give me your purse.’

  Her hand closed over the shabby little handbag.

  ‘No!’

  I swung the car to the kerb and pulled up.

  ‘You heard what I said! Give me your purse or I’ll run you to the nearest Station House.’

  She glared at me, her cobalt blue eyes glittering.

  ‘Leave me alone! I haven’t any money! I’ve spent it all.’

  ‘Look baby, I’m not interested. Give me your purse or you’ll talk to the cops!’

  ‘You’ll be sorry,’ she said. ‘I mean that. I don’t forget easily.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn how fast you forget,’ I said. ‘Give me your purse!’

  She dropped her shabby handbag into my lap.

  I opened it. There were five dollars and eight cents in it, a pack of cigarettes, a room key and a soiled handkerchief.

  I took the money, put it in my pocket and then shutting the bag, I tossed it back to her.

  As she clutched it, she said softly, ‘That’s something I’ll never forget.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘It’ll teach you not to steal from me in the future. Where are you living?’

  Her face a hard mask, her tone sullen, she told me: a rooming-house not far from where we were.

  ‘That’s where we are going.’

  Following her sullen directions, I drove to the rooming house that was a shade dirtier and a shade more dilapidated than the one I lived in, and we got out of the car.

  ‘You are coming to live with me, baby,’ I told her. ‘You’re going to earn some money singing, and you’re going to pay me back what you stole from me. From now on I’m
going to be your agent, and you’re paying me ten per cent of whatever you make. We’re going to get it down in writing, but first, you’re going to pack and get out of this joint.’

  ‘I’ll never make any money out of singing.’

  ‘You leave me to worry about that,’ I said. ‘You’re going to do what I tell you or you’ll go to jail.

  Please yourself what you do, only hurry up and make up your mind.’

  ‘Why don’t you leave me alone? I tell you I won’t earn anything by singing.’

  ‘Are you coming with me or are you going to jail?’

  She stared at me for a long moment. The smouldering look of hate in her eyes didn’t bother me. I had her where I wanted her and she could hate me as much as she liked. She was going to pay me back my money.

  Shrugging, she said, ‘All right, I’ll come with you.’

  It didn’t take her long to pack. I had to part with four of her dollars to take care of the room, then I drove her back to my rooming-house.

  The room she had had was still empty so she moved back in. While she was unpacking, I wrote out an agreement, full of legal phrases that didn’t mean a thing but looked impressive and made me her agent on a ten per cent basis.

  I took it into her room.

  ‘Sign here,’ I said, pointing to the dotted line.

  ‘I’m not signing anything,’ she said sullenly.

  ‘Sign this or we’ll take a walk to the Station House.’

  Again that look of smouldering hate came into her eyes, but she signed.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, putting the paper in my pocket, ‘tonight we’re going to the Blue Rose and you’re going to sing. You’re going to sing as you’ve never sung before, and you’ll get an engagement worth seventy five bucks a week. I take ten per cent of that and the thirty bucks you owe me. From now on, baby, you’re working first for me, then for yourself.’

  ‘I’m not going to earn anything: you wait and see.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ I stared at her. ‘With that voice you could make a fortune.’

  She lit a cigarette and drew smoke down into her lungs. She suddenly seemed listless and she slumped in the chair as if her backbone had melted.

  ‘Okay. Anything you say.’

  ‘What are you going to wear?’

  Making an obvious effort, she got up and opened the wardrobe. She had only one dress and that wasn’t much, but I knew the Blue Rose didn’t go in for bright lights, and I thought the dress would get by in a pinch. It would have to.

  ‘Couldn’t I have something to eat?’ she asked, flopping on the chair again. ‘I haven’t eaten all day.’

  ‘That’s all you think about — eating. You’ll eat after you’ve got the job and not before. What did you do with all that money you stole from me?’

  ‘I lived on it.’ Her face was sullen again. ‘How else do you imagine I’ve lived this past month?’

  ‘Don’t you ever work?’

  ‘When I can.’

  I asked her what I had been wondering about ever since I first met her.

  ‘How did you get hooked up with that junky, Wilbur?’

  ‘He had money. He wasn’t stingy like you.’

  I sat on the bed.

  ‘Where did he get it from?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask him. There was a time when he ran a Packard. If he hadn’t had trouble with the cops we’d be still riding in it.’

  ‘When he ran into trouble, you walked out on him?’

  She put her hand inside her shirt and adjusted her bra strap.

  ‘Why not? The cops were after him. It was nothing to do with me so I skipped.’

  ‘That was in New York?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did you get the fare down here?’

  Her eyes shifted.

  ‘I had some money. What’s it to you?’

  ‘I bet you helped yourself to his money as you helped yourself to mine.’

  ‘Anything you say,’ she said indifferently. ‘Think what you like.’

  ‘What are you going to sing tonight? You’d better start with Body and Soul. What do you know for an encore?’

  ‘What makes you think there will be an encore?’ she said, her expression sullen again.

  I controlled the urge to slap her.

  ‘We’ll keep to the old ones. Do you know Can’t Help Loving That Man?’

  ‘Yes.’

  That was the one. With that loud, silver tone she would really knock them with that.

  ‘Fine.’ I looked at my watch. It was getting on for quarter past seven. ‘I’ll be right back. You get changed. See you in about an hour.’

  I went over to the door and took the key.

  ‘Just so you don’t get ideas of running away, baby, I’m going to lock you in.’

  ‘I won’t run away.’

  ‘I’ll take care you don’t.’

  Going out, I shut the door and locked it.

  I delivered the neon sign to Rusty and told him I wouldn’t be in that evening.

  He stared at me and began scratching his head in an embarrassed way.

  ‘Look, Jeff, it’s time we had a little talk. Your piano playing isn’t appreciated here. I can’t go on paying you thirty bucks a week. Look, be sensible and go home. The life you’re leading here is no good to you. Anyway, I can’t keep you on. I’m getting a juke box. This is your last week.’

  I grinned at him.

  ‘Okay, Rusty. I know you mean well, but I’m not going home. The next time you see me I’ll be riding in a Cadillac.’

  I wasn’t worried about losing the thirty bucks a week. I was certain Rima would be in the money in a few weeks. With that voice she couldn’t miss. I was sure of it.

  I called up Willy Floyd and told him I was bringing Rima for him to hear around half past nine.

  He said all right, but he didn’t sound enthusiastic. Then I went back to the rooming-house, unlocked Rima’s door, and looked in.

  She was lying on the bed, asleep.

  There was plenty of time so I let her sleep and going into my room, I shaved and put on a clean shirt.

  I took my tuxedo from the closet and spent a little time sponging and pressing it. It was on its last legs, but it would have to do until I got enough money to buy another.

  At a quarter to nine I went into her room and woke her up.

  ‘Okay, champ,’ I said. ‘Get moving. You have half an hour.’

  She seemed pretty listless, and I could see it was an effort for her to drag herself off the bed.

  Maybe she really was hungry, I thought. I couldn’t expect her to give a performance if she was as bad as she looked.

  ‘I’ll send Carrie out for a sandwich,’ I said. ‘It’ll be up here by the time you’re dressed.’

  ‘Anything you say.’

  Her indifference began to worry me. I left her as she began to strip off her jeans. I went down to where Carrie was airing herself on the doorstep.

  I asked her to get me a chicken sandwich.

  She came back with it in a paper bag about ten minutes later and I took it into Rima’s room.

  Rima had got her dress on and was sitting staring at herself in the fly blown mirror. I dropped the bag into her lap, but she brushed it off, grimacing.

  ‘I don’t want it.’

  ‘For the love of Mike…!’

  I caught hold of her arms and hauled her to her feet and gave her a hard little shake.

  ‘Snap out of it, will you! You’re going to sing tonight! This is your big chance! Come on! Eat this goddam sandwich. You’re always moaning about your hunger! Well, go ahead and eat it!’

  She picked up the bag, took out the sandwich and began to nibble at it. When she got to the chicken she hurriedly put the sandwich down.

  ‘If I eat any more, I’ll throw up.’

  I ate the sandwich myself.

  ‘You make me tired,’ I said with my mouth full. ‘There are times when I wish I’d never met you.

 
; Well, come on! Let’s go. I told Willy we would be there at half past nine.’

  Still eating, I stepped back and looked at her. She looked like a fragile ghost as white as old ivory with dark smudges under her eyes, but in spite of that, she did manage to look interesting and sexy.

  We went down the stairs and out onto the street.

  It was a hot night, but as she brushed against me, walking down the street, I could feel she was trembling.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ I demanded. ‘Are you cold? What is it?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  She suddenly sneezed violently.

  ‘Cut that out, will you?’ I yelled at hex. ‘You’ve got to sing tonight!’

  ‘Anything you say.’

  I was getting fed up with her, but I kept thinking of that voice. If she began to sneeze all over Willy Floyd, she would make one hell of a hit with him.

  We got on a street car and rode down to 10th Street. The car was full and she was pressed up hard against me. Every now and then I felt her thin body quiver into a shaking fit. She began to worry me.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked her. ‘You’ll be able to sing, won’t you?’

  ‘I’m all right. Leave me alone!’

  The Blue Rose was crammed with the usual hard-bitten bunch of near-successful, near-honest business men, the near-beautiful floosies, the bit players from the Studios and a sprinkling of gangsters out for an evening’s relaxation.

  The band was playing a slick line of hot swing. Waiters were chasing and sweating, and the atmosphere was thick enough to lean on.

  I shoved Rima ahead of me until we reached Willy’s office. I knocked, opened the door and moved her inside.

  Willy was cleaning his nails, his feet on his desk. He looked up and scowled at us.

  ‘Hi, Willy,’ I said. ‘Here we are. Meet Rima Marshall.’

  Willy stared at her and nodded. His small eyes went over her and he grimaced.

  ‘When do we go on?’ I asked.

  He shrugged.

  ‘I don’t care. Now, if you like.’ He lowered his feet to the floor. ‘Are you sure she’s good? She doesn’t look all that hot to me.’

  With an unexpected flash of spirit, Rima said, ‘I didn’t ask to come here…’

  ‘Pipe down,’ I said. ‘I’m handling this.’ To Willy, I said, ‘Just wait. For that crack, she’s going to cost you a hundred.’