1952 - The Wary Transgressor

by James Hadley Chase

  "I'm getting it," I said grimly.

  "He likes to get drunk in the evenings," Hennessey went on.

  "Sometimes he gets so plastered he doesn't know where he is. That's when you take over. He expects you to take him home and put him to bed. Be careful how you handle him. He's dynamite when he's drunk. I've seen him break a guy's arm like you break a match because the guy didn't get out of his way quick enough. If he wants to drive the car, say your prayers. He's the craziest driver in the world, and he doesn't give a damn how he gets there so long as he does get there. I'm not saying he isn't good, but when a guy rushes these narrow streets at sixty miles an hour, it gets a little nerve racking for his passenger."

  I glanced at my watch. In two more minutes I was due to report to Major Kay.

  "Thanks," I said, "you've told me all I want to know. Even if half of it is lies, it still sounds horrible. Anyway, I hope you have a good leave. You make it sound as if you deserve it."

  Hennessey closed one eye.

  "It's all fixed. She's dark, eager and wicked. I don't reckon I'm going to see daylight for fifteen splendid days. Just as soon as you pull out of Bologna, I'm on my way over to her."

  I got in the car and drove it round to the front entrance. Then I went inside and reported to Major Kay.

  "Wait by the car, Chisholm," he said, getting to his feet.

  "The General will be out in two minutes."

  I went outside again.

  There were four white-helmeted policemen standing like statues before the front entrance. Hennessey stood by the car door, his chin pointing upwards, his body rigid. I took my place at his side and came to attention.

  We couldn't have waited more than two minutes. Three officers came out: two colonels and Major Kay. They stood to attention near us.

  Then the General came out.

  He was wearing a grey herringbone suit, and he carried a slouch hat in his hand. I expected him to be in uniform, and he surprised me.

  He was of medium height, powerfully built with big, lumpy shoulders. His face was the colour of mahogany, big and fleshy.

  His mouth was a thin line, as straight and as shapeless as the edge of a foot rule. His eyes were deep set and a washed-out blue.

  They were restless eyes, and as cold and as remote as the snows of Everest.

  He came across the sidewalk almost casually, but his eyes missed nothing. They went over me with the intensity of the flame of a blowlamp. Then he looked at the car. He stood looking at it for perhaps two minutes. Then he walked slowly round it, eyeing it from every angle. He came back to the sidewalk, and looked me over again.

  "You Chisholm?"

  His voice was soft and low. You had to listen hard to hear what he said.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Let's look at the engine."

  I opened the hood and stepped back.

  He stared at the engine as if he had never seen the inside of a car before.

  "Is that oil, sergeant?" he asked, pointing to the distributor head.

  I looked.

  I had to look twice before I could make out a fine film of oil.

  "It could be, sir."

  He took out his white handkerchief and wiped the distributor head. He showed me the black smudge on the crisp white linen.

  "Is that oil, sergeant?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Who serviced this car?"

  Hennessey said in a strangled voice, "I did, sir."

  "Oh, yes, Hennessey; you again. I wonder how many more times I have to tell you I don't like oil on my handkerchief." He rolled the handkerchief into a ball and tossed it in the road. "Major Kay!"

  Major Kay stepped forward.

  "Sir!"

  "Fifteen days' kitchen fatigue for this man, and cancel his leave."

  "Yes, sir."

  The General looked at me.

  I had the car door open before he could say anything. He gave me another look, probing and inquisitive. I had beaten him to the punch, and he knew it.

  He climbed into the car and settled himself down.

  I closed the door, slid under the wheel and started the engine.

  The soft voice murmured behind me, "Go ahead."

  I engaged gear and pulled away from the kerb. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the two colonels and Major Kay come to the salute.

  The last thing I saw was Hennessey's white, agonized face.

  I might have been driving an empty car for all the reaction I got from the General during the run from Bologna to Florence.

  But I was aware of his presence all the time. I smelt his burning cigarettes. I heard him clear his throat. I knew when he changed his position. Each little sound he made brought me to the alert, like an outfielder in a ball match when the pitcher commences to wind up.

  I couldn't imagine what state my nerves would be in at the end of fifteen days if I kept on like this.

  We arrived at the Grand Hotel, on the bank of the Arno, exactly at thirteen hundred hours. I was out of the car and had the door open before the car was properly at a standstill.

  He gave me his probing, inquisitive stare as he got out of the car.

  "Leave the luggage to the hotel staff," he said. "Take the car to the garage. We won't need it any more today. I've reserved a room for you. Have your lunch and meet me by the reception desk at fourteen hundred hours."

  "Yes, sir."

  I watched him walk across the broad sidewalk and disappear into the hotel. He held himself upright, but he walked slowly like a man with a secret illness. I remembered Lieutenant Rawlins telling me he was on sick leave, and I wondered what was the matter with him.

  I got the luggage out of the boot and handed it over to the two hotel porters, warning them to handle it carefully.

  Then I drove the car round to the garage. Before I locked it away, I checked it over. It was covered with dust, and there was a lot of ash on the floor in the back.

  He had said he didn't want the car that afternoon, but there was nothing to stop him changing his mind. I decided to spend half my lunchtime cleaning up the mess inside and giving the car a dust over.

  Working at speed, I got the car back into shape again, but it took me closer to forty minutes than half an hour. Sweat was running of me when I finally backed the car into one of the lockup garages.

  I ran round to the hotel entrance, collected the key of my room, took the elevator to the second floor, and walked along the half-mile corridor to my room.

  It was a nice room, overlooking the Arno. As soon as I had dumped my kit, I 'phoned down to the desk and told them to send me up a plate of sausage sandwiches and a half-bottle of vino rosso.

  By the time I had bolted the sandwiches, washed and brushed myself down, it was close on two o'clock.

  I reached the desk at the same time as he did.

  "We'll go into the lounge," he said, "and get our bearings."

  We went into the lounge.

  There were a few staff officers lingering over their coffee and brandy, a handful of dowagers, a number of Italian business men and a couple of lieutenant-generals who stared at me as if they couldn't believe their eyes. A sergeant in the lounge of the Grand Hotel! An unheard of thing! Then they spotted the General, and hurriedly remembered a pressing appointment.

  The General sat down at a table and I stood before him, while the dowagers and the business men gaped at me.

  "Sit down, sergeant," the General said, "and let's get at it."

  I sat on the edge of a chair and waited.

  "We have only four days here," he went on. "I want to see as much as I can. What do you suggest?"

  "The Cathedral, the Baptistery and the Medici Chapels will take care of this afternoon, sir," I said. "Tomorrow there's the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Vecchio, and in the afternoon the Pitti Palace and the Piazzale Michelangelo. The following day, the Santa Croce and Bargello. In the afternoon the San Marco to see the painting of Fra Angelico, and a drive around the town to look at the various palaces. The last d
ay we could go to Fiesole, and look at the surrounding country."

  He nodded his head.

  "That takes care of the culture. How about the nights?"

  "Depends on what you want to do, sir. There's not much night life in Florence except for cafe music, some gambling and the opera. I know a couple of places where they put on a leg show, but they're not much."

  He gave me a long, slow stare.

  "Women?"

  That jarred me a little, but I didn't let him see it.

  "There's only one place that has any class. I haven't been to it, but I've heard it's all right. The rest are the usual cathouses; some of them dangerous."

  "In what way dangerous?"

  "They have a habit of knocking you on the head and lifting your roll, sir."

  He showed his teeth in a mirthless smile.

  "I like tough spots, sergeant. After all that culture, I'll need to relax. We'll take in a couple of these cathouses and see if we can persuade someone to try and knock me on the head."

  "Yes, sir."

  He produced a fat wallet from his inside coat pocket and opened it. It was stuffed with ten-thousand lira notes.

  "This should be an inducement for them to start something, shouldn't it, sergeant?" He waved the wallet at me. "It should make some fingers itch, don't you think?"

  "Yes, sir."

  He nodded, then thumbed of two of the notes and thrust them at me.

  "Go and buy yourself a suit. From now on I don't want you to wear your uniform." He gave me a cold little smile. “We’re on vacation, sergeant. "

  "Yes, sir."

  I took the two notes.

  He glanced at his strap watch.

  "Be back here by fifteen hundred hours, changed and ready to go out."

  "Yes, sir."

  I nearly broke my neck buying that suit, a shirt and tie and getting back to the hotel and changing by three o'clock, but I did it.

  He was waiting for me by the desk.

  He looked me over.

  "What were you before you joined the Army, Chisholm?"

  "An architect, sir."

  He nodded.

  "Don't forget you're a soldier now," he said, his washed-out blue eyes on my face. "An architect is all right in peacetime, but he's not a damn bit of use in a war."

  "No, sir."

  "Get the car. I don't feel like walking."

  I nearly laughed in his face.

  "Yes, sir."

  I went round to the garage and drove the car to the front entrance.

  The General came out and looked at it. He walked slowly around it, eyeing it carefully.

  I was ready at the door when he reached it, and I opened it for him.

  He peered inside, glanced at the ashtrays and then got in.

  As he sank on to the cushions he said, "Thank you for taking care of the car. I'm getting to be a faddy old man, but I like it kept clean."

  I was so surprised I nearly showed it.

  "Yes, sir," I said, and got in under the wheel.

  At that moment I almost liked him.

  We returned to the hotel around half after seven.

  "Leave it there," he said as he got out of the car. "We'll need it tonight."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Meet me at the reception desk at eleven hundred hours."

  He went into the hotel, shuffling through a bunch of picture postcards he had bought of the Cathedral, the Baptistery and the Medici Chapels.

  I emptied the ashtrays, swept out the car and spent ten minutes with a feather duster taking of the dust on the coachwork. Then I went into the hotel. I made certain he wasn't in the lounge before going over to this small American bar. I ordered a double whisky. I needed it.

  All the afternoon the General had sopped up information the way a sponge sops up water.

  We had gone over every inch of the Cathedral, spent twenty minutes before Michelangelo's Pieta while he questioned me about its history. We had stood for a long time before Ghiberti's bronze doors of the Baptistery while he examined each miraculous' panel like a man who is desperate to absorb something of beauty before he loses his sight. We remained in the Medici Chapel long after closing time while the custodian followed us around, hoping we would go, but anxious not to offend the signore who had given him two thousand lire to let him wander undisturbed.

  The General had sat under Michelangelo's masterpiece Night and Day while I had outlined the history of the Medici family, and I could see he was absorbing each word with an interest that was almost fanatical.

  As we came out into the noisy, bustling street, he said, "I enjoyed that, Chisholm. Thank you. If you're as good an architect as you're a guide, you should be quite an architect."

  And that was high praise, coming from him.

  After my drink, I went into the restaurant. I was given a table in a corner away from the brass hats and the profiteers. I worked through one of the best dinners I've ever had.

  I kept an eye out for the General, but he didn't show up. I guessed he was eating in his room.

  After dinner I went up to my own room, washed, shaved and stretched out on my bed to rest until nine o'clock.

  Now I had had the time and the opportunity to observe the General closely, I came to the conclusion that there was something queer about him.

  All the time I was with him I had a feeling of acute tension. I was like a blind man walking on ice, knowing there were thin patches, but unable to see them; knowing too, sooner or later, I was going to fall in.

  It was pretty obvious that he drank too much. He had the washed-out, swimming eyes of a drunk, and when you looked closely at him you could see, under his heavy sun tan, his skin was crisscrossed with tiny purple veins that didn't show at first glance.

  But there was something more to his queerness than drinking.

  His eyes were restless. They flickered around a room, like the darting of a snake's tongue; as if he thought someone was going to gun for him, and he had to be on a constant lookout to duck in time. His eyes weren't scared. He wasn't a frightened man.

  He was a man on the lookout for trouble, not just now and then, but all the time.

  Every so often his face would contract as if he suffered a sudden sharp stabbing pain, and this contraction worried me.

  His hands were as restless as his eyes. He had broad, brown, powerful hands with short, thick fingers, kept immaculately clean with polished nails. They were on the move all the time, either drumming on his knees or moving slowly up and down his coat front or clenching and unclenching.

  He was the most unrestful, unnerving man I had ever met, and I knew instinctively there was a savage and brutal temper just below the surface that he controlled with difficulty.

  I went on brooding about him until a few minutes to nine, then I went downstairs and met him at the reception desk.

  He had changed into a dark blue suit, and the moment I looked at him I knew he had been hitting the bottle.

  His face was flushed; there were beads of sweat on his forehead, and his eyes glittered.

  But he was all right on his feet. When he walked across the lounge, he didn't lurch. But I had an uneasy feeling he was in a mean mood, and I had only to give him an excuse for him to turn on me.

  I opened the car door.

  He got in and sank on to the cushions.

  I waited, holding the door, and looking at him.

  "What are you staring at?" he demanded, glaring at me.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  "Waiting for instructions, sir," I said, stiff as a ramrod and looking over his head.

  He rubbed his hand over his face and stared blankly at me.

  "Hell! I don't know. It's your job." He stopped, shook his head as if trying to clear his brain, went on, "Now, wait a minute. What about this leg place you were talking about? Let's go there; and snap it up."

  "Yes, sir."

  I drove as rapidly as I could along the narrow road that runs by the river bank, turned left at
Via de Tornabuoni, right at Via Porta Rossa, past the Mercato Nuovo, into a side street of the Piazza della Signoria, and pulled up outside a three-storey building. Over the double glass doors was a neon sign that spelt out in red and green letters: Casino.

  I opened the door.

  "This is the place, sir."

  He got out slowly and stood looking at the sign.

  "Doesn't look like much."

  "I don't think it is, sir."

  "Wait for me. I may not be long."

  He pushed open the glass doors, and disappeared down the flight of stairs.

  I got into the car, backed it away from the entrance, and lit a cigarette.

  I waited five hours in that car: the longest five hours I've ever spent.

  Around two o'clock, he came out.

  I drove the car up to him, jumped out and held open the door.

  He got in without a word. His breath stank of spirits, and he fumbled for a long moment before he could find the cushioned seat. Then he dropped back on it so heavily, the springs groaned under the impact.

  "The hotel," he said, and rested his head back and shut his eyes.

  I drove back to the hotel.

  He was asleep when I opened the door. I leaned in and gently shook his arm.

  He came awake so fast, he startled me out of my wits.

  One moment he was lying against the cushions, dead to the world, the next second he was bolt upright, and his left hand had clamped over my wrist in a paralysing grip.

  He twisted my arm savagely, bringing me forward and on to my knees on the floor of the car. His right hand caught me around the throat, and his fingers dug into my flesh like steel hooks.

  I had been in a few rough houses in the Army, and had come up against guys who were stronger and tougher than I, but I always felt, when I mixed it with them, I had a chance of beating them.

  But in that paralysing, murderous grip, I knew I hadn't a chance in the world, and I was scared silly.

  He held me like that for maybe a couple of seconds—it seemed like hours to me—then released me.

  "What the hell are you playing at?" he snarled. "How dare you touch an officer!"

  I straightened up, gasping for breath, and somehow came to attention.

  "I've a mind to break your goddamn neck," he went on. "Lay hands on me again, and I'll have you court-martialed."