1958 - Not Safe to be Free

by James Hadley Chase

  He had returned from the Studios late to his luxurious home in Beverley Hills and had settled down to read the script of a film he was planning to produce.

  Harriette sat away from him, silent and brooding. He had spoken to her, but she hadn’t replied, and, mentally shrugging, he put her out of his mind and concentrated on the script.

  He had read for about an hour, then suddenly he had become aware of an extraordinary tension in the room. He had looked across the room to where Harriette had been sitting, but she had left the chair and had moved behind him out of sight. There was a mirror on the wall facing him and he had glanced at it. What he saw reflected there gave him the shock of his life.

  Harriette was creeping up behind him, a carving knife in her hand and an expression on her face that still haunted his dreams. He realized in those brief seconds as he stared at her in the mirror that she was insane and the shock momentarily paralysed him.

  It was only when she was within a few feet of him and had lifted the knife that he threw aside the script and jumped to his feet. She had come at him with the ferocity of a wild cat and he had been appalled by her strength. Before he had managed to get the knife away from her, she had slashed his arm and inflicted a long, deep scratch down the side of his face. She had broken away from him and before he could stop her, she had run out of the house.

  That was the last time he had seen her alive.

  She had taken his car, driven to a hotel in Los Angeles, taken the elevator to the tenth floor, entered an empty bedroom and had thrown herself out of the window.

  Yes, ‘a little queer’ was an understatement and Delaney was irritated that Sophia should revive such a painful memory.

  “Yeah, I guess she was,” he said frowning, “but that doesn’t mean . . .”

  He broke off as he heard the telephone bell ring.

  “That’s my call. Look, honey, forget it. There’s nothing to worry about. Jay’s all right. Damn it! I’ve lived with him for twenty-one years. I know he’s all right.”

  Miss Kobbe put her head around the door.

  “Mr. Brennon on the line, Mr. Delaney.”

  “I’m coming.”

  Delaney patted Sophia’s cheek, then went into the other room, closing the door behind.

  Sophia stared up at the ceiling, frowning.

  She again thought of Jay, picturing him as he had moved towards her, the scarlet cord between his fingers, his eyes hidden behind the dark glasses and she moved uneasily.

  Where was he? What was he doing? Who had been the girl he had brought up to the suite?

  Miss Kobbe looked in.

  “Another martini, Mrs. Delaney?”

  Sophia nodded.

  “Yes, perhaps I will. Has Jay got back yet?”

  “Not yet, Mrs. Delaney.”

  A sudden impulse made Sophia get to her feet and walk into the lounge.

  Delaney was talking on the telephone. His assistant producer, Jack Cooper, sat on the arm of a lounging chair, smoking.

  He smiled at Sophia as she crossed over to Jay’s bedroom door.

  She nodded to him as she turned the handle and entered the room.

  Shutting the door, she leaned against it and looked around. The hotel maid had been in. She had turned down the bed, put Jay’s blue pyjamas on the bed and had half lowered the blinds.

  The smell of perfume was noticeable still in the room.

  A photograph in a silver frame of Harriette, looking very lovely and very innocent, stood on the dressing table. Sophia studied the photograph. She could see how like Harriette Jay was. They had the same mouth and the same facial bone structure and the same beguiling innocence.

  From the photograph she looked at the big cupboard against the wall and noticed the key wasn’t in the lock. She crossed to the cupboard and tried to open it, but found the doors locked.

  Then suddenly, for no reason at all, she felt an urge to get out of the room. The same sharp feeling of fear she had experienced when Jay had moved towards her, the scarlet cord in his hands, took hold of her.

  She stepped away from the cupboard, her heart beating fast. She paused by the door, staring at the cupboard, trying to control this inexplicable feeling of panic. Then she jerked open the door and walked into the lounge.

  She came to an abrupt standstill when she saw that Jay was in the room. He was standing by one of the big windows looking towards her. She could see herself, very tense and still reflected in the dark surfaces of his sunglasses.

  Delaney was saying over the telephone: “Fine Ted, get the contract signed and fast. Get it done tonight. He seemed oblivious of the tight, strained atmosphere.

  Sophia moved quickly to her room. She felt Jay s hidden eyes on her as she pushed open the door. She looked back at him and he smiled at her. It seemed to her it was a sinister, threatening smile and it sent a chill crawling up her spine.

  II

  Jay leaned against the polished bar, a tomato juice in his hand He watched the small group of men standing a few feet from him. There was his father, Harry Stone and Jack Cooper, all in tuxedos. They surrounded Jean Thiry, who was wearing a beach shirt, fawn slacks and sandals. He looked hot and tired and bothered. The gay beach shirt stuck to his back in black patches and his face was shiny with sweat.

  He was saying: “I’m sorry, Mr. Delaney, I don’t know where she’s got to. I’ve hunted everywhere. She left a note saying she was spending the evening in Monte Carlo, but there’s no sign of her there. I’ve only just got back.”

  Jay sipped his tomato juice. He listened and watched with concentrated interest.

  Floyd Delaney snapped his fingers impatiently.

  “Well for heaven’s sake! Don’t you take care of that girl better than that? Okay, if she’s not here, she’s not here.” He turned to Stone. “Handle this, Harry. I want to catch the film.”

  “Yes, Mr. Delaney,” Stone said.

  “I’ll see she’s here for you tomorrow any time, Mr. Delaney,” Thiry said miserably. “It’s just one of those things. Someone must have invited her . . .”

  But Delaney wasn’t listening. He moved away from Thiry and walked over to where Jay was standing.

  “You come along with me,” he said. “I want you to see this movie.”

  Startled, Jay groped for an excuse. He was surprised to see how hostile his father’s eyes were. Had Sophia told him? She had promised not to, but she might have changed her mind.

  Why had she been in his room? That was a question that had puzzled and disquieted him all the evening. He was thankful he had thought to lock the cupboard and take the key away with him.

  “And, look, take those glasses off,” his father went on. “You don’t have to live in them, do you?”

  Jay took the glasses off and tucked them into his top pocket.

  “I’d rather not see the movie, father,” he said. “I’m not dressed. I was thinking of going over to the Eden Roc for a swim.”

  Delaney’s face tightened.

  “I want you to see this movie. I want your opinion. What’s the matter with you? You’ll be coming into the Studio next year. How the hell do you expect to get anywhere if you don’t show some interest in your career?”

  “All right,” Jay said meekly. “If you really want my opinion, of course I’ll see the film. I’ll go up and change.”

  “Yeah, do that.” Delaney’s face relaxed and he grinned, slapping his son on the shoulder. The kid was okay: a little lazy perhaps, but, if you handled him right, he was cooperative. Sophia had said he was odd. That just showed you. Women were always going off at half-cock. Odd? Nonsense!

  “I’ll tell the guy at the door to keep you a seat next to me. Snap it up, boy. It’s due to start in twenty minutes. See you,” and leaving Jay and ignoring Thiry, he walked fast from the bar, waving to right and left to people he knew.

  As soon as his father was out of sight, Jay put on his glasses again. He finished his tomato juice and edged a little closer to where Thiry and Stone were standing. H
e heard Stone say, “You can take it or leave it. She hasn’t any name in the States.”

  Jay was tempted to tell Stone he was wasting his time. He thought of the girl lying in his cupboard and he felt a little trickle of excitement crawl up his spine. He had still six hours before he could attempt to move her. He might just as well sit in the cinema as wander about waiting for the time to pass. Leaving the two men still talking, Jay left the bar, crossed the lobby to the elevator.

  He said casually to the elevator attendant: “What time does the elevator go on automatic?”

  “Three o’clock, sir,” the attendant told him.

  Jay nodded.

  It was as he had thought. He would need the elevator when he moved the girl. The thought that, within six hours, he would have to get her out of the cupboard, across the lounge, across the corridor and into the elevator, made his heartbeat quicken. There was a risk that Sophia or his father would hear him take her across the lounge. There was a risk someone would see him cross the corridor. He was ready to take the risk: it was all part of this intense excitement he had to have.

  He was a little startled to find the door to suite 27 unlocked and he opened it cautiously and looked into the lounge. The lights were on and he heard movements in Sophia’s room. He moved silently to his room, opened the door and stepped into the room, shutting the door before he turned on the light.

  Sophia would be going to the movie. She would be leaving in a minute or so. He took the cupboard key from his pocket, unlocked the door and opened it. The dead girl lay exactly as he had left her. He stared at her for a moment, then he reached down and touched her bare arm. The flesh felt cool and hard and he grimaced. She would be awkward to handle unless by the time he was ready to move her the rigor had passed off. He vaguely remembered reading somewhere that rigor did pass off after some hours, but just how long he couldn’t recall.

  He took his tuxedo from the cupboard and tossed it on the bed, then, unable to wait, impelled by the urgent need to know for certain, he took hold of the dead girl’s arm and experimented in trying to pull her upright.

  He was shocked by her weight and awkwardness. He felt a doubt that perhaps he wouldn’t be able to get her from his room to the elevator. He put his hands under her armpits and, straining, he managed to lift her upright. Then, as he propped her up against the wall of the cupboard, he heard a knock on his door.

  His heart gave a painful little kick, then began to thump so violently he had trouble in breathing. He heard the handle of his bedroom door turning. Letting go of the girl’s body, he slammed the cupboard doors shut as his bedroom door swung open.

  He turned, feeling cold sweat on his face.

  Sophia stood in the doorway. She was wearing a flame-coloured evening dress, cut low and tight in the bodice and flaring out at the skirt. There was a large diamond brooch in her hair and diamonds around her slender throat.

  They stood staring at each other.

  Sophia hadn’t expected to find him in his room. Her uneasiness had increased while she had been dressing and imagining she was alone in the suite, she had decided to take one more look at Jay’s room in the hope of finding something that would either reassure her or confirm her suspicions that something was badly wrong.

  Seeing Jay, motionless, white-faced and so obviously frightened, she knew she had caught him in some guilty act.

  She watched him take hold of himself.

  “Hello,” he said and there was a slight quiver in his voice. “I was just going to change. Father wants me to see the movie tonight.”

  “Does he?”

  There was a pause, then he said: “I’ll have to hurry. You’re going, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I’m going.”

  He moved away from the cupboard and, going over to his chest of drawers, he began to empty his pockets, putting his gold cigarette case, his lighter, handkerchief and money on top of the chest.

  Sophia drew in a long, slow breath.

  “Jay . . . is there something wrong?”

  He stiffened, then slowly turned his head. The dark lenses of his glasses gave him a sinister appearance.

  “Wrong? Why, no. What do you mean?”

  “It’s a feeling I have,” she said, not moving. “This girl . . .”

  “You don’t have to worry about her,” Jay said. “She has gone now.”

  “But is she likely to make trouble?”

  “Why should she?”

  “She might try to blackmail you.”

  Jay smiled: at least his lips curved into a smile but the rest of his face was stiff and tense. “She won’t do that. What makes you think she would do such a thing?”

  “A girl like that . . .”

  The words hung in space. Sophia saw that Jay’s eyes were riveted on the cupboard and she looked too.

  Very slowly, the cupboard doors were opening.

  Sophia suddenly felt very frightened.

  She saw Jay make a movement forward and then stop. His face had gone the colour of tallow.

  The doors of the cupboard swung fully open.

  Lucille Balu’s rigid body swayed uncertainly, then as Sophia’s hands went to her mouth, stifling her scream of horror, the dead girl slid to the floor at Sophia’s feet.

  Chapter Four

  I

  No one, not even her husband, suspected that under the veneer of Sophia’s beauty there was a core of armour-plated hardness forged there by the misery and horrible squalor of her childhood. Very few people knew that Sophia was the product of the slums of Naples. As soon as she had been able to walk, she had roved the Naples waterfront with a band of other filthy, ragged children, preying on tourists, surrounding them, dirty hands outstretched, while chanting the only English word she knew: “Money—money—money.”

  At night she returned to the tiny hovel constructed out of two wooden crates and a strip of corrugated iron that served as her home. She lived there with her father, a short stocky Italian, with the flat black eyes of a gangster, who had never done a day’s work in his life.

  If Sophia failed to bring home less than five hundred lira a day, her father would seize hold of her, raise her ragged dress and savagely flay her naked flesh with his belt. This existence continued until she was thirteen years old. Then one night, on returning home with less than the required five hundred lira, her mind and body cringing at the thought of the thrashing she would receive, she found her father curled up on the bundle of rags that served him for a bed, a dagger buried to the hilt in his heart.

  She stared down at him for a long time, savouring the joy of finding him dead, then moving up to him, she had spat in his dead, snarling face and had left, happy to realize she was on her own, that she had now only herself to think of and the bite of the strap into her flesh was now a thing of the past.

  Even in rags and under a coat of grime, Sophia had been a beautiful child. It was not long before she attracted the attention of a man who called himself Giuseppe Francini, a pimp, who worked the cafes in the festering alleys off the Via Roma. He saw her possibilities, took charge of her, dressed her, found her a reasonably clean room and launched her on the career of a prostitute: all this before she had reached the age of fifteen.

  Realizing the money that could be made from this profession, Sophia had entered into her new career with an enthusiasm that astonished and delighted Francini. He quickly realized that he was wasting her talents by allowing her to work the low class cafes. He arranged with a friend of his to share the expense of sending her to Rome and renting an apartment there for her.

  By the time she reached the age of seventeen, Sophia was a highly successful prostitute. She had shaken off Francini, had taken a luxury apartment in the fashionable quarter of Rome, she was making a substantial income, owned an Alfa—Romeo car and had a wardrobe full of expensive, fashionable clothes that included a mink stole.

  A few months after her seventeenth birthday she met Hamish Wardell, a movie director on vacation from Hollywood. Wardell, impressed
by her beauty and her enthusiastic lovemaking, took her back to Hollywood with him and arranged for her to have a small part in the movie he was making.

  Sophia made an immediate hit in the movie. Her beauty, her strident sex appeal, wiped all the other actresses and actors out of the picture. She made such an impact on the public that she was immediately signed up on a six-figure salary to do three movies and an increase on a further three. From then on, money flowed unceasingly into her various bank accounts, the public’s adoration was hers and the horror of her childhood and the memories of the brutalities of her past clients when she had been walking the streets of Rome became a blurred memory.

  She had met Floyd Delaney when she was twenty-four. He had fallen in love with her and they had married within six months of their first meeting. She was now the wife of one of the richest and most powerful men in Hollywood. She had everything she could wish for. Her position in life was secure and security to Sophia was her most important possession, next to life itself.

  She sat on the settee in the lounge, her knees pressed tightly together, her hands in fists as she stared at Jay who sat opposite her, his face set and pale, a muscle close to his right eye twitching.

  She had no doubt that he had murdered this girl and she realized this mad act had jeopardized her own position. If ever this thing hit the headlines of the world’s newspapers, the security and her position she had suffered so much to gain would go.

  She was now recovering from the shock of seeing the girl’s body falling at her feet. The fibre in her was tough and after the initial shock of horror, she was now able to cope with the situation. Her mind was already searching for a way out. She had no intention of weakly surrendering to the situation, but before she could decide what she could do, she had to know all the facts.

  “She was Lucille Balu?” she asked, staring at Jay.

  “Yes.”

  He too was recovering from the horrible moment when he had seen the doors of the cupboard slowly opening. His mouth was dry as he wondered what Sophia was planning to do. He was surprised that her nerves were obviously stronger than his.