1976 - Do Me a Favour Drop Dead

by James Hadley Chase

  Beth wasn’t in the kitchen. I guessed she was somewhere in the big garden. I walked along the passage and into the living room. . .

  Marshall had found another bottle of whisky. He was sitting at the oval table by the window, papers spread before him and as I walked in, he poured a big shot of Scotch into a glass.

  ‘Sit down, Keith.’ He waved to a chair by the table. ‘You know a million dollars sounds fine, but when you get all these goddamn taxes, a million shrinks.’

  ‘That’s a fact, Frank.’ I sat down, ‘But it is still money. You should have at least six hundred thousand to call your own by the time the tax boys have taken you to the cleaners. If you invest a sum like that, you get income and capital appreciation.’

  ‘I don’t need to be told.’ He sat back and stared glassily at me. ‘I’m on to a real hot tip: Charrington steel. The stock now stands at $15. I know Pittsburgh steel are taking Charrington over. Some six years ago, they tried, but came up against a S.E.C. rap, but I’ve got inside information that this time the merger is going through. Charrington steel shares will treble overnight.’

  I stared at him. . .

  It had been Charrington steel that had landed me in jail.

  During the time I had spent in a cell I had often thought about that set-up and I realized that some of the members of the board had spread the news of the merger so cleverly, so expertly that suckers, like me, had been caught. Now, it seemed, they were at it again. They had let six years slide by: now according to this fat drunk, they were at it again: beating the drum, whispering about a merger, forcing up the stock price.

  ‘Now, wait a minute, Frank,’ I said. ‘I know all about Charrington steel: that’s one company you don’t invest in. They’re crooked. That merger will never jell.’

  He squinted at me.

  ‘I know what I’m talking about. I’ve had a straight tip. What do you know about it?’

  ‘Six years ago, they tried to merge with Pittsburgh. They spread the tale and the punters moved in. S.E.C. killed it and thousands of punters lost their money and I was one of them. Anyone crazy enough to speculate in that stock will get caught . . . no fooling, Frank.’

  ‘Is that right? Well, I know better.’ He finished his drink. ‘I know all about the suckers who were caught, but this time it is for real. I’m buying five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of stock as soon as I get probate. This is an inside tip. Jack Sonsan, the Vice President of the company, is an old buddy of mine. I got the tip straight from him and he wouldn’t twist me!’

  I knew all about Jack Sonsan. Barton Sharman regarded him as one of the great con men of the century.

  ‘Look, Frank,’ I said urgently. ‘I know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘Go help Beth in the garden,’ Marshall snapped, a sudden mean expression in his eyes. ‘Don’t sit around here. I’ve work to do.’

  That was telling me I was, after all, the hired help and he didn’t want any advice from me.

  ‘Anything you say, Frank.’ I got up as he poured another drink, ‘But you’re going to lose your money.’

  ‘That’s what you say.’ He pointed a finger at me. ‘Listen, son, I know more about money than you’ll ever learn. When I want advice from you, I’ll shout for it . . .’

  The thought of him sinking five hundred thousand dollars into this mythical merger turned me sick. He had said the million would shrink after taxes had been paid. If he put five hundred thousand into Charrington steel he would be worth practically nothing.

  ‘Frank, I . . .’

  ‘Run along, son, I’m busy.’ He reached for a document. As I moved to the door, he went on, ‘You’re okay with me, Keith. That car’s a beaut. You make yourself useful around the house and look after the car. I’ll look after the money.’

  ‘Just as you say, Frank.’

  He leaned back, his face flushed, the mean expression still in his eyes.

  ‘Suppose we cut out the Frank thing, huh?’ He reached for his glass and took a long drink. ‘Suppose we say Mr. Marshall, huh? No unfriendly feelings . . . just status symbol, huh?’

  ‘Why sure, Mr. Marshall.’

  We looked at each other.

  He laughed: an uneasy, embarrassed laugh.

  ‘Go along with me, son. I’m feeling like a millionaire.’

  You fat, drunken sonofabitch, I thought, I’ll go along with you only because I want to screw your wife.

  ‘Sure, Mr. Marshall.’

  He nodded, then began to read the document.

  I left him and walked out into the garden.

  It was a big garden with shrubs, trees, flower beds and some of it jungle. Eventually, I found Beth picking raspberries at the far end of the garden. I came upon her as she was dropping fruit into a white bowl.

  ‘I was told to come out here and help you in the garden . . .son,’ I said, pausing at her side.

  She looked sharply at me.

  ‘Has he got to calling you that?’

  ‘That’s it and I’m to call him Mr. Marshall because he is now a millionaire and I’m the hired help. Status symbol, he calls it.’

  She continued to pick raspberries. I sat on my heels, feeling the sun on my back and watched her.

  ‘Beth . . . he has a wildcat scheme. He is going to put his money into a share investment that will lose him the bulk of the money.’

  She paused, her fingers red with the juice of the overripe fruit, and she looked searchingly at me.

  ‘Although he is a drunk, Keith, he is smart. I’ve told you that already.’

  ‘Maybe, but he is sold on an investment in steel that can only bring disaster. He is going to buy shares as soon as he gets credit. . . at the end of next week.’

  She continued to stare at me.

  ‘He’s smart,’ she repeated.

  ‘But I know this will be a disaster! I was once caught in the same trap! It looks fine, but it just won’t and can’t jell. He’s going to lose every cent of the money that’s coming to him . . .and you’ll lose it too.’

  She began picking raspberries again. I watched her. Her face was as animated as a death mask.

  After some minutes, I said, ‘Are you concentrating, Beth?’

  ‘Yes.’ She turned to face me, holding the bowl of fruit against her tiny breasts. ‘You are really sure what he is planning will go wrong?’

  ‘I am certain.’

  ‘And you can’t persuade him to change his mind?’

  ‘Not a chance.’

  She nodded, then began to pick more fruit. Again I watched her for some minutes, then I said, ‘What’s going on in your mind, Beth?’

  Without looking at me and continuing to pick the fruit, she said, ‘I was thinking it is a pity he isn’t dead.’

  That cold dead finger ran up my spine. Here it is, I thought, and this time from her.

  Do me a favour . . . drop dead.

  Now she was saying it.

  When he was dead, she would get his money and I would get her, but time was running out. When he got the money, he would lose it in this wildcat investment.

  ‘There will be no money, Beth, unless he drops dead.’

  Her face wooden, she began on the second row of raspberry canes.

  ‘Beth!’

  ‘Not now . . . tonight.’

  We looked at each other. Her black eyes were remote.

  ‘Okay. Will you come to me?’

  She nodded.

  I stood up and walked through the garden and back to the house. Through the open window his voice came clearly. He was talking on the telephone.

  ‘ . . . check the deeds,’ he was saying. ‘I can buy in a couple of weeks. I have this big stock deal cooking. Yeah . . . you get your end straightened out. I’ll be ready in around fifteen days.’

  I don’t think you will, Mr. Marshall, I thought as I moved quietly up the stairs. In fifteen days, you should be in a coffin.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon, lying on the bed, my mind busy.

  Even Marshall�
�s heavy rumbling voice as he talked continuously on the telephone didn’t distract my thinking.

  As I smoked cigarette after cigarette, I told myself this was my second chance to move into the big money. My first chance had flopped and I had landed in jail, but this time it would be different. Instead of gambling with another man’s money, I was now prepared to take a life. I had no compunction about getting rid of this fat drunken slob, yakking on the telephone downstairs. Already an idea how I could get rid of him in safety was beginning to jell. It would have to look like an accident, and then I would get Beth as well as the money.

  The more I considered the idea the more I liked it, and finally, I convinced myself it was easy and safe and now convinced, my next move was to convince Beth. From what she had said: I was thinking it’s a pity he doesn’t die, I didn’t think she would need much convincing.

  The clock downstairs was chiming seven as I got off the bed.

  I went along to the bathroom, had a shave and then regarded myself in the mirror over the toilet basin. I looked as I always looked, but I knew behind the face looking back at me, I had become something I had never thought I was going to become: a killer.

  I smelt frying onions. I went down the stairs and into the kitchen. She was standing over the stove, steaks on the grill, onions spluttering in the frying pan.

  ‘Smells good,’ I said, pausing in the doorway.

  She nodded, her expression dead pan. I saw there were only two steaks under the grill.

  Lowering my voice, I asked, ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In there . . . dead to the world.’

  ‘Should I get him to bed?’

  ‘Leave him where he is . . . later, perhaps.’ She turned the steaks.

  Leaving her, I walked quietly into the living room. He was sitting at the table, papers strewn before him, his open eyes fixed and sightless, his breathing heavy and slow.

  ‘Mr. Marshall?’

  I went close and touched him. There was no reaction. I passed my hand before his open eyes: no blink: dead to the world was right. The bottle of Scotch, now empty, stood on the table.

  Standing behind him, in case he suddenly came to the surface, I looked over his shoulder at the papers before him. There was a property deed: a house called ‘Whiteoaks’ in Carmel, along with a lot of scribbling, figures and names that meant nothing to me.

  She came quietly into the room.

  ‘Let’s eat,’ she said.

  I again touched him and again got no response, so I joined her in the kitchen. We sat, facing each other.

  ‘We should get a doctor to look at him, Beth,’ I said as I began to cut into the steak. ‘It could be important.’

  She stared at me, then nodded.

  ‘Let’s give him half an hour, then if he hasn’t come out of it, I’ll call Dr. Saunders.’

  ‘Your local man? How bright is he?’

  ‘He’s been around for forty years: strictly a horse and buggy doctor.’

  We looked at each other and this time, I nodded. We finished the steaks and then ate raspberries and cream. We had coffee.

  Neither of us had anything to say. My mind was busy and I could see by that remote look in her black eyes, her mind was busy too. We enjoyed the meal as we listened to his heavy breathing coming from the living room. I hoped the breathing might suddenly stop. I was sure she hoped the same, but we didn’t trade confidences.

  The meal over, I returned to the living room and this time I took hold of his shoulder and shook him. He fell forward and I only caught him in time to prevent him sliding out of his chair on to the floor.

  Beth had come to the door and was watching.

  ‘Call the quack,’ I said.

  She went out into the hall and I heard her dialling on the extension.

  I got hold of Marshall and heaved him over my shoulder. He groaned, tried to come alive, then began to snore. Somehow, my heart thumping, I carried his bulk up the stairs and slung him on his bed. I loosened his collar, stripped off his jacket and took off his shoes.

  She appeared in the doorway.

  ‘He’s on his way.’

  We stood over the fat body, listening to the stentorian breathing. We looked at each other. It would be so easy to shift the pillow and smother him, but that wouldn’t be safe. I tossed a blanket over him and we went downstairs.

  ‘He’ll survive,’ I said as I moved into the living room. ‘Drunks are hard to kill.’

  I looked sharply at her, but her expression was again dead. Fifteen minutes later while I was prowling around the living room and Beth was clearing up in the kitchen, Dr. Saunders arrived in a 1965 Ford: a tall, stork-like man with a bushy white moustache, wearing a battered panama hat and a crumpled grey suit.

  I kept out of the way.

  I heard Beth and him talking in the bedroom: just a murmur of voices, then after a while, they came down the stairs while I stayed out of sight in the kitchen. I heard his car start up and drive away.

  ‘He said there was nothing the matter with him that can’t be cured by a good sleep,’ she said as I came out of the kitchen.

  ‘That’s what we want to hear,’ I said. ‘So fine . . . let him sleep it off.’

  It was dark by now, but the air was still and hot. There was a big moon that lit up the garden. I took her arm and we went out into the garden and walked away from the house. Screened by rose bushes and flowering shrubs, we sat on the hot, dry grass, shoulder to shoulder, facing away from the house.

  If I was going to do this thing, I had to be sure of her and sure of the money.

  ‘If something happened to him, Beth,’ I began, ‘would you want to marry me?’

  That was giving it to her straight.

  ‘Why talk about it?’ she said. ‘Drunks last forever.’

  ‘So let’s suppose he doesn’t. Would you want to marry me?’

  She nodded, then said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you want to stay on here . . . live like a loner, do nothing but keep the house clean and work in the garden?’

  ‘What else would you suggest I do?’

  ‘With his money, Beth, I could become a big shot. I could treble the money in a year or so. We could have a big house, staff, mix with important people. You would have a completely new kind of life. Would you want that?’

  ‘Perhaps . . . I would have to think about it. Yes . . . I’m getting bored with this place. With you to help me . . . yes.’

  That was one hurdle jumped.

  ‘Are you sure, Beth?’

  She dropped her hand on mine.

  ‘Can one ever be sure? But why talk about it?’

  ‘In another two weeks he’ll have invested in those steel shares and bang goes all the money. You said it was a pity he doesn’t die. You said that, didn’t you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you mean it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you still mean it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, he could die.’

  ‘But, how?’

  ‘You know what this means, Beth?’

  She leaned back on her elbows and stared up at the moon.

  ‘I’m asking you, Keith . . . how?’

  ‘Never mind right now about how. I want you to tell me that you realize what we are going to do.’ I paused, then said slowly and distinctly, ‘We are going to murder him.’

  That was as straight as I could give it to her. Now, it was up to her.

  ‘But how?’ she repeated.

  ‘This doesn’t scare you, Beth? That you and I will murder him?’

  ‘Must you keep harping on that word?’ There was an edge to her voice.

  ‘I want you to realize what you and I are walking into. The pay-off is around six hundred thousand dollars, and you get me and I get you and we will share his money, but it will be murder.’

  She dropped flat on her back and put her hands over her eyes against the white light of the moon.


  ‘Beth?’

  ‘If we have to kill him, then we’ll kill him.’

  I looked at her. Her hands covered her face. I reached out and pulled her hands away. In the light of the moon, her face looked as if it were carved out of marble.

  ‘That’s what we are going to do,’ I said.

  She pulled free and again shielded her face with her hands.

  ‘How will you do it, Keith?’ Her voice was so low I scarcely could hear her.

  ‘You too,’ I said. ‘I can’t swing this on my own. Both of us, Beth. It’ll be easy and safe so long as you accept the fact that we are going to murder him . . . do you?’

  She moved her long legs in the grass.

  ‘Yes.’

  I drew in a long, deep breath.

  ‘Okay. I want to see his will.’

  ‘You can see it. I know where he keeps it.’

  ‘I want you and I want his money, Beth. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you want me, Beth?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Have you seen his new car?’

  She removed her hands and looked at me, surprised.

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’ll take a look at it. It’s a beaut and it is going to kill him.’

  In the moonlight, side by side, we walked towards the garage.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I was in the kitchen, watching Beth frying eggs and bacon when we heard his heavy footfalls as he came down the stairs.

  We looked at each other, then I moved quickly into the living room as he opened the door and came in.

  There was a surly expression on his fat face and his eyes were bloodshot, but considering the state he had been in the previous night, he didn’t look all that bad.

  ‘Hi, Mr. Marshall,’ I said, keeping my voice low. I guessed he would have a hell of a hangover.

  He grunted, then moved into the kitchen.

  ‘Just coffee,’ he said.

  Then he returned to the living room.

  ‘I’ve got a date in Frisco. I want to catch the early train.’

  That left less than forty minutes to get to the station: so goodbye breakfast.

  Beth heard and turned off the stove. The eggs and bacon I had been looking forward to came to a spluttering halt.

  She served coffee. Scowling, Marshall stood with his back to the room and stared out of the window while he sipped the coffee.