1974 - So What Happens to Me Read online

  Table of Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  So What Happens to Me?

  James Hadley Chase

  1974

  ONE

  The sound of the telephone bell brought me awake. I looked at the bedside clock. The time was 09.05. I threw of the sheet and swung my legs to the floor. Through the thin ceiling I could hear my old man answering the telephone. The call had to be for me. He scarcely ever had calls. I struggled into my dressing gown, and by the time I had reached the landing, he was calling for me.

  “Someone wants you Jack.” he said. “Poison . . . Bolson . . . I didn’t get his name.”

  I took the stairs in three jumps, aware my old man was looking sadly at me.

  ‘I’m just off” he said. “I wish you’d get up a little earlier. We could have had breakfast together.”

  “Yeah.”

  I swept into the tiny, drab living room and grabbed up the receiver.

  “This is Jack Crane,” I said as I watched my old man walk down the path to his five-year-old Chevy for another stint at the bank.

  “Hi! Jack!”

  Thirteen months rolled away. I would know that voice anywhere and I stiffened to attention.

  “Colonel Olson!”

  “That’s me. Jack! How are you, you old sonofabitch?”

  “I’m fine. How are you sir?”

  “Cut the ‘sir’ crap. We’re not in the army now thank God! I’ve had one hell of a time locating you.”

  The snap in that voice seemed to me to be missing. Here was the greatest bomber pilot ever with enough decorations to plaster a wall actually telling me he had been trying to locate me! Colonel Bernie Olson! My Vietnam boss! The marvellous guy I had kept in the air come rain, sun and snow while he beat the hell out of the Viets. For three years I had been his chief mechanic before he got a bullet in his groin that fixed him. Our parting was the worst moment in my life. He went home and I was detailed to look after another pilot and what a slob he turned out to be! I had hero worshipped Olson. I had never expected to hear from him again, but here he was, speaking to me after thirteen months.

  “Listen, Jack,” he was saying, “I’m rushed. Have to get off to Paris. How are you fixed? I can steer you to a job, working with me if you’re interested.”

  “I’ll say! Nothing would please me more.”

  “Okay. It’s worth fifteen grand. I’ll send you your air ticket and expenses and we’ll talk about it.” Just why did this great guy sound so flat? I wondered. “I want you down here. I’m calling from Paradise City: it’s around sixty miles from Miami. The job’s a toughie, but you can make it. Anyway, unless you have something else lined up . . . what have you to lose?”

  “Did you say fifteen thousand dollars Colonel?”

  “That’s it, but you’ll earn it.”

  “That’s fine with me.”

  “You’ll be hearing from me. I’ve got to rush. See you Jack,” and the connection was broken.

  Slowly, I replaced the receiver, then stared up at the ceiling, a surge of excitement going through me. I had been discharged from the army now for the past six months. I had come home because there was nowhere else for me to go. I had lived these months in a small time town, spending my army payout on girls, booze and generally fooling around. It hadn’t been a happy time for either myself or for my old man who managed the local bank.

  I had told him I’d find a job sooner or later and not to worry. He wanted to part with his savings to set me up as a garage owner, but that was the last thing I wanted to do. I wasn’t going to be just another small-timer as he was. I wanted Big Time.

  This was a nice little town and the girls were willing. I had had lots of fun as well as boredom and I told myself that when my money began to run out I would look for something but not in this town. Now, out of the blue, came Colonel Bernie Olson, the man I admired the most in the world, offering me a job that I paid of fifteen thousand! Had I really heard right? Fifteen thousand! And in the most opulent city on the Florida coast! I slammed my fist into my hand. I was so excited I wanted to stand on my head!

  So I waited to hear from Olson. I didn’t tell my old man, but he was a wise old guy and he knew something was cooking.

  When he came back from the bank for lunch, he regarded me as he cooked two steaks. My mother had died while I was in Vietnam. I knew better than to interfere with his routine. He liked to buy the food on his way back from the bank and cook it while I stood around.

  “Something good for you Jack?” he asked as he pushed the steaks around in the pan.

  “I don’t know yet. Could be. A friend of mine wants me to go down to Paradise City, Florida about a possible job.”

  “Paradise City?”

  “Yeah. . . near Miami.”

  He served the steaks on plates.

  “That’s a long way from here.”

  “Could be further.”

  We took our plates into the living room and we ate for a while, then he said, “Johnson wants to sell his garage. It could be a great opportunity for you. I would put up the capital.”

  I looked at him: a lonely old man, desperately trying to hold on to me. It would be more than depressing for him to live in this box of a house on his own, but what kind of life would it be for me? He had had his life. I wanted to have mine.

  “It’s an idea, dad.” I didn’t look at him but concentrated on the steak, “but I’ll see what this job is first.”

  He nodded.

  ‘Of course.”

  We left it like that. He went off to the bank for the afternoon stint and I lay on my bed, thinking. Fifteen thousand dollars!

  Maybe it was a toughie, but no job could be too tough that paid that kind of money.

  As I lay there. I thought back on the past. I was now twenty-nine years of age. I was a qualified aero-engineer. There was nothing I didn’t know about the guts of an aircraft. I had had a good paying job with Lockheed until I got drafted into the Army.

  I had spent three years keeping Colonel Olson in the air and now back in this small time town. I knew sooner or later I would have to pick up my career. The trouble with me, I told myself, was that the Army had spoilt me. I was reluctant to begin life again where I had to think for myself and to compete. The Army had suited me fine. The money was good, the girls were willing and I went along with the discipline. But fifteen grand a year sounded like the rise of the curtain to the way I hoped to live.

  A toughie? Well. I told myself as I reached for a cigarette, it would have to be damned tough before I quit on that kind of money.

  Two days dragged by, then I got a bulky envelope from Olson. It arrived as my old man was taking of for the bank. He came up to my room, tapped on the door and came in. I had just come awake and I felt like hell. I had had a really thick night.

  I had taken Suzy Dawson to the Taverna nightclub and we had got stinking drunk. Later we had rolled around on a piece of waste ground until 03.00, then somehow I had got her home and somehow I had got myself home and into bed.

  I blinked at my old man, feeling my head expanding and contracting. I was getting double vision that told me how stinking I had been. He looked very tall, very thin and very tired, but what really killed me was there were two of him.

  “Hi, Dad!” I said and forced myself to sit up.

  “Here’s a letter for you Jack,” he said. “I hope it’s what you want. I have to get off. See you lunchtime.”

  I took the bulky envelope.

  “Thanks. . . have a good morning.” That was the least I c
ould say.

  “The usual.”

  I lay still until I heard the front door close, then I ripped open the envelope. It contained a first class ticket to Paradise City, five hundred dollars in cash and a brief note that ran: I’ll meet your plane Bernie.

  I looked at the money. I checked the air ticket. Fifteen thousand dollars a year’ In spite of my aching head and feeling drained empty, I punched the air and yelled Yippee!

  As I came through the banner that led into the opulent lobby of Paradise City’s airport. I spotted him before he spotted me.

  That tall, lean figure was unmistakable, but there were changes.

  Then he saw me and his lean face lit up with a smile. It wasn’t that wide, friendly grin he kept especially for me out in Vietnam. It was a cynical smile of a man full of disillusions, but anyway a smile.

  “Hi! Jack!”

  We shook hands. His hand was hot and sweaty: so sweaty I surreptitiously wiped my hand on the seat of my pants.

  “Hi! Colonel! It’s been a long time. . .”

  “Sure has.” He regarded me. “Cut out the Colonel, Jack. Call me Bernie. You look fine.”

  “And you too.”

  His grey eyes moved over me.

  “That’s good news. Well, come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  We crossed the crowded lobby into the hot sunshine. As we walked I looked him over. He was wearing a dark blue blouse shirt, white linen slacks and expensive looking sandals. He made my seersucker brown suit and scuffed shoes shabby.

  In the shade stood a white E-type Jag. He slid under the driving wheel and I got in beside him, shoving my bag at the back.

  “Some car.”

  “Yeah. It’s all right.” He shot me a quick look. “It’s not mine. It belongs to the boss.”

  He drove onto the highway. The time was 10.00 and the traffic was light.

  “What have you been doing since you got out?” he asked as he steered the car past a truck loaded with crates of oranges.

  “Nothing. Just getting the feel of being out. I’m shacked up with my old man. I’ve been spending Army money. It’s running low now. You caught me at the right moment. Next week I was going to write to Lockheed to see if they could find a place for me.”

  “You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  “I guess not, but I have to eat.”

  Olson nodded.

  “That’s right . . . don’t we all.”

  “You look as if you eat and then some.”

  “Yeah.”

  He swung the Jag of the highway and onto a dirt road that led down to the sea. A hundred yards or so down the road we came to a wooden built cafe-bar with a veranda that looked out onto the expanse of beach and beyond the sea. He pulled up.

  “We can talk here Jack,” he said and got out.

  I followed him up the creaky steps and onto the veranda.

  The place was empty. We sat down at a table and a girl came out and smiled at us.

  “What’ll you have?” Olson asked.

  “A coke,” I said although I wanted whisky.

  “Two cokes.”

  The girl went away.

  “You quit drinking Jack?” Olson asked. “I remember you were hitting the hard stuff pretty often.”

  “I start after six.”

  “Sound idea. I don’t touch the stuff now.”

  He produced a pack of cigarettes and we lit up. The girl came with the cokes, then went away.

  “I haven’t a lot of time Jack, so let me give you the photo,”

  Olson said. “I have a job for you. . . if you want it.”

  “You said fifteen grand. I’m still getting over the shock.” I grinned at him. “Anyone but you who offered me that kind of money, I would have thought crazy, but coming from you. Colonel, I’m sort of excited.”

  He sipped his coke and stared out across the beach.

  “I’m working for Lane Essex,” he said and paused.

  I stared at him, startled. There could be few people who hadn’t heard of Lane Essex. He was one of those colourful men like Playboy’s Hefner, although a lot richer than Hefner. Essex ran nightclubs, owned hotels in every major city in the world, ran Casinos, built blocks of apartments, owned a couple of oil fields, had a big stake in the Detroit car world and was reputed to be worth two billion dollars.

  “That’s something!” I exclaimed. “Lane Essex! You mean you’re offering me a job to work for him?”

  “That’s the idea Jack, if you want it.”

  “Want it? This is terrific’ Lane Essex!”

  “Sounds fine, doesn’t it? But I told you. . . it’s a toughie. Look, Jack, working for Essex is like getting tangled with a buzz saw.” He stared at me. “I’m thirty-five and I have grey hair. Why? Because I work for Lane Essex.”

  I looked directly at him and I remembered him thirteen months ago. He had aged ten years. That snap in his voice had gone. There was a shifty, worried expression in his eyes. His hands were never still. He fiddled with his glass. He kept flicking at his cigarette. He kept running his fingers through his greying hair. This wasn’t Colonel Bernie Olson I used to know.

  “Is it that tough?”

  “Essex has a saying,” Olson said quietly. “He says nothing in this world is impossible. He called a meeting a couple of months ago and had all his staff gathered together in some goddamn hall. He delivered a pep talk. The theme was that if you wanted to remain with him you had to accept the impossible as possible. He has a staff of over eight hundred men and women: that’s his personal staff: people working in Paradise City: executives, P.R.O’s. lawyers, accountants, right down to people like myself. He told us if we couldn’t accept this requirement that nothing on this earth is impossible, then to see Jackson, his second-in-command, and check out. Not one of the eight hundred dummies, including myself, saw Jackson. So now we’re stuck with this slogan that nothing is impossible.” He flicked away the butt of his cigarette and lit another. “Now I come to you Jack. Essex has ordered a new plane: a four-jet job I’m going to fly. It’s a very special job with accommodation for a big conference, ten sleeping cabins, all the works: bar, restaurant and so on and so on, plus Essex’s suite with a circular bed. This job will be delivered in three months’ time, but Essex’s runway which takes the kite I’m flying now isn’t long enough to take the new kite. I have the job of lengthening the runway. While I’m doing this, I also have to fly him all over the goddamn world. It just can’t be done, but nothing is impossible.” He drank some of his coke.

  “So I thought of you I’m putting the cards face up on the table Jack. I get paid forty-five thousand a year. I want you to take care of the runway and see for certain it is ready within three months from today. We get delivery of the new kite on November 1st and I expect to fly her in. I’m offering you fifteen thousand out of my pay. I tried to talk to Essex, but he wouldn’t play.

  “It’s your job, Olson,” he said. “How you do it doesn’t interest me but do it!” I knew better than to ask him for extra help. He doesn’t go along with that sort of talk. You don’t have to worry about expenses. I’ve got the operation started, but I want you to be there to see it keeps moving.”

  “What’s the additional length of the runway?”

  “A half a mile will do it.”

  “What’s the ground like?”

  “Pretty hellish. There’s a forest, slopes and even rocks.”

  “I’d like to take a look at it.”

  “I expected you to say that”

  We regarded each other. This wasn’t the exciting job I had been hoping for. Some instinct told me that there was something odd about it.

  “At the end of three months, providing I get the runway built, what happens to me?”

  “A good question.” He fiddled with his glass and stared out across the beach. “I’ll have a talking point with Essex. He’ll be pleased. I can talk him into giving you the job as airport supervisor and you’ll earn at least thirty thousand.”

  I
finished my coke while I thought.

  “Suppose Essex isn’t pleased . . . then how do I stand?”

  “You mean if you don’t complete the job in three months?”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  Olson lit another cigarette. I noticed his hands were unsteady.

  “Then I guess you and I are washed up. I told him it could be done. If you don’t fix it, then we both are out.” He dragged smoke into his lungs. “I was lucky to get this job Jack. Top class pilots are a dime a dozen these days. Essex has only to snap his fingers to have a load of them in his lap.”

  “You talked about fifteen thousand a year What it really comes down to is you will pay me $3750 for three months’ work and then it depends on how pleased Essex will be whether I get on the permanent staff—right’?”

  Olson stared at the tip of his cigarette.

  “That’s about it.” He looked at me, then away. “After all Jack, as you have nothing to do right now it isn’t so bad is it?”

  “No, it isn’t bad.”

  We sat in silence for a long moment, then he said. “Let’s go over to the airfield. You take a look and tell me what you think. I have to take him to New York in three hours so I haven’t a lot of time.”

  “I’d like some money paid into my bank before I start work, Bernie,” I said. “I’m short.”

  “No problem, I’ll fix that.” He got to his feet. “Let’s look at it.”

  There’s something wrong about this setup, I told myself as he drove back onto the highway. But what can I lose? $3750 for a three months stint wasn’t bad money. If it didn’t finally jell, I still had Lockheed to fall back on. All the same my mind was uneasy. This man at my side wasn’t the great Colonel Olson I used to know. That man I would have trusted with my last cent. I would have given my life for him, but not this man.

  There was an odd change in him that bothered me. I couldn’t put my finger on what the change was, but I felt wary of him and that’s a bad thing.

  The Lane Essex airport was located about ten miles behind the City. Above the big-wired entrance gates was a sign that read: ESSEX ENTERPRISES.

  The two guards in bottle green uniforms with revolvers on their hips, saluted Olson as he drove in.