Not My Thing

by James Hadley Chase

Listening and watching Ng, Kling decided this youth had possibilities to be moulded into the slave he needed: to run his apartment, look after the chores and be faithful.

  ‘Okay, kid,’ he said. ‘I’ve a job for you.’ He took out his wallet and produced two one-hundred-dollar bills. He also produced his card. ‘Get cleaned up. Buy yourself new clothes and report to me at this address the day after tomorrow at eleven A.M.’

  It took Kling only a few days to teach Ng exactly what he wanted and expected. Ng was a rapid learner. He seemed born a natural house-boy, unobtrusive, always on call, keeping in the kitchen when Kling was doing business or talking on the telephone. The apartment was kept immaculate. Then Kling had a call to do a hit job in Jamaica. He would be away three weeks. He had no qualms about leaving Ng to look after the apartment. He explained he wouldn’t be back for a while.

  Ng nodded.

  ‘No problem, sir. I will take care of your home.’

  Kling was paying the boy a hundred dollars a week and all found. When Kling departed, Ng went to visit his mother. He told her of his good fortune and gave her a hundred dollars.

  ‘Make yourself indispensable, son,’ she said. ‘Take cookery lessons. I will teach you how to wash and iron.’

  Seeing the wisdom of this, Ng joined a night class for cookery. His mother taught him how to iron Kling’s expensive and fancy shirts. Again he learned quickly. Even with Kling away, Ng never sat in the luxury living-room. He either sat in the kitchen, studying English, or else, in the evenings, watching TV in his bedroom.

  On his return, Kling was surprised and pleased to find a hot dinner of an excellent pot roast waiting for him. He was also pleased that his apartment never looked better.

  ‘Say, kid,’ he exclaimed, ‘you’ve become quite a cook!’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Ng said. ‘I have taken lessons. Please order what you wish to eat tomorrow.’

  Kling grinned.

  ‘I’ll leave it to you, kid, so long as it’s as good as this.’ He took a thick roll of one-hundred-dollar bills from his pocket, peeled off three of them and tossed them onto the table. ‘That’s for the housekeeping. You fix it.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ng said, looking at the tall, lean man with adoring eyes.

  When he had cleared the table and was once more in the kitchen, Kling lit a cigarette and relaxed back in his chair. He had got this little bastard hooked, he thought. Man! Was I smart to have picked on him! He’s just what I’ve always hoped for.

  A couple of weeks later, he was made to realize just how valuable Ng was to him.

  He had gone out with friends for dinner, leaving Ng alone in the apartment, telling Ng he would be back around midnight, and not to wait up for him. That, of course, was unthinkable to Ng. No matter how late Kling was, he always found Ng waiting with coffee ready or an iced drink.

  Around half past eleven, the front door bell rang. Ng opened the door and immediately received a violent shove that sent him reeling back.

  A thickset man, wearing a shabby sports coat and a greasy hat, came swiftly into the apartment, closing the door behind him. He held a .38 automatic in his right hand.

  Recovering his balance, Ng looked at him, his face expressionless.

  ‘Where’s Kling?’ the man rasped.

  ‘He’s out, sir.’

  ‘When’s he back?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  The man surveyed him and grinned evilly.

  ‘So he’s taken to boys now. I’ll wait. Get out of my sight. Just keep out of the way, and you won’t get hurt.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Ng eyed the gun and then regarded the man’s drink flushed face. ‘Before I go, can I give you a drink, sir?’

  The man sat down heavily in one of the lounging-chairs that faced the front door.

  ‘Yeah, pansy boy… Scotch.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Ng went to the liquor-cabinet and made a heavy Scotch and soda and added ice. ‘Is this how you like it, sir?’

  The man took the glass, sipped the drink and nodded.

  ‘Know why I am here, you little cocksucker?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘That bastard Kling killed my brother. So I’ve come here to put four slugs into his stinking belly. Now get the hell out of here!’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Ng bowed and walked silently into the kitchen.

  The thickset man relaxed in the chair and looked around the apartment.

  ‘This motherfucker sure knows how to live,’ he thought. ‘Okay this is the end of his road. As soon as he walks in I’ll give it to him.’ He finished the drink and with a vicious movement, threw the glass across the room to smash against the wall. ‘It’ll be great to see his face when he sees me!’

  He sat there for some twenty minutes, then he heard the soft whine of the rising elevator. He stiffened, leaning forward his gun aimed at the door.

  A key rattled in the lock, and Kling, relaxed after a good dinner, walked in.

  ‘Hold it, creep!’ the man snarled, his gun steady. ‘You killed my brother! Now it’s your turn!’

  Kling was impervious to shock, He moved further into the room and kicked the front door shut with his heel.

  ‘Hello, Lui,’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t get excited.’ He eyed the gun in the man’s hand. ‘This is something we could talk about.’

  Lui knew how dangerous Kling was. He grinned.

  ‘No talking, bastard. Here’s yours, and may you burn in hell.’

  As the gun came up, Kling, knowing he was helpless, braced himself.

  Lui couldn’t resist the temptation to gloat.

  ‘You never gave my brother a chance. He didn’t even know what had hit him. I…’

  Fingers that felt like steel hooks gripped his wrist. He felt an agonizing pain shoot up his arm that made him yell out. The gun dropped from his paralysed fingers. He felt his arm twist. The steel hooks dug into a nerve which sent pain raving through him. There was no resistance in him. He was dimly aware that his arm was breaking and he screamed.

  Kling stood motionless, watching.

  Ng had crept into the room, silent as a shadow and had come up behind Lui.

  Kling made a little grimace as he heard a bone snap. Lui dropped back in the chair, only half conscious, moaning.

  Ng picked up Lui’s gun. He looked at Kling who was staring with amazement, knowing this slight Vietnamese had saved his life.

  ‘May I kill him, sir?’ Ng asked.

  Kling’s eyes widened with surprise.

  ‘Do you want to kill him, kid?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He insulted me.’

  ‘Well, for God’s sake! He’ll have to go so if you want to, go ahead. But wait, kid, not here. We don’t want a mess in our nice apartment, do we?’

  ‘No, sir. I thought the garage.’

  ‘That’s it. Let’s take him down.’

  Lui was dimly aware of being dragged out of the apartment and into the elevator. Every nerve in his body seemed on fire. He kept moaning, now sightless with pain.

  They dragged him into the vast underground garage which housed some three hundred cars.

  ‘This’ll do, kid,’ Kling said, shoving Lui against a parked car.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Kling, still slightly bewildered, asked, ‘You killed anyone before, kid?’

  Ng drew Lui’s gun from his hip pocket.

  ‘Yes, sir. Life in Saigon was hard. To learn to survive, I was forced to take care of myself.’ He stepped up to Lui who was struggling to stand upright.

  Fascinated, Kling watched Ng put the gun barrel close to Lui’s temple and pull the trigger. The bang of the gun echoed around the garage. He watched Lui’s head jerk back and the thickset body fall.

  ‘Nice shooting, kid,’ he said. ‘Give me the gun.’

  Ng handed the gun to Kling who cleaned it with his handkerchief, then, kneeling by the dead body, he put the gun in Lui’s limp hand.

  ‘That’s it, kid. Now let’s go to bed.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Would you lik
e a drink or coffee?’

  Kling burst out laughing.

  ‘Kid! You are really something! You saved my life. That’s something I won’t forget.’

  ‘You saved my life too, sir,’ Ng said quietly. ‘That’s something I’ll never forget.’

  As they rode up in the elevator to the apartment, Kling said, ‘What did you do to him?’

  ‘Oh, that? A body is full of nerves. You must know where to touch them. Pain paralyses.’

  Kling blew out his cheeks.

  ‘So that creep insulted you?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He cast filth on you and on me.’

  Kling scratched the back of his neck.

  ‘So you had to kill him, huh?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The elevator doors opened and they entered the apartment.

  ‘A drink or coffee, sir?’

  ‘No. Go to bed, kid, and thanks.’

  Ng bowed.

  ‘Good-night, sir,’ and he went away.

  Kling walked to the big picture window and stared down at the heavy traffic far below.

  He realized he had not only found a valuable house-boy, but an invaluable partner as cold-blooded and as ruthless as he was himself.

  * * *

  Completely relaxed, Ng Vee lay in his comfortable little bed, staring up at the diffused light on the ceiling from his bedside lamp.

  His mind went back eight years when he had lived in the uncertain jungle days of Saigon.

  He thought of his mother who had sat all day in the broiling sun on the edge of the kerb, surrounded by various tins containing Vietnamese food, a tiny brazier burning to heat the food when asked for.

  Passing peasants, carrying their heavy loads often stopped to eat her food. Often she had as many as ten old, sweaty men squatting in a circle around her. They gave her a few coins in return for a couple of mouthfuls of her food.

  When finally she returned to their one tiny room, she was fortunate if she had earned the equivalent of four US dollars. She always retained the scrapings from her various cans for Ng and herself.

  At that time, Ng was thirteen years of age, working desperately hard at his studies, guided by the US priest. In the evenings, he would run to the small office of Dr Chi Wu, an aging acupuncture specialist who once had had a thriving practice, but now, because of his shaky hands, was losing his patients.

  Chi Wu was eighty-nine years of age: a tiny, wizened man with a long white beard. Ng kept his office and cupboard-like surgery clean.

  Chi Wu was lonely and garrulous, and he liked Ng. He often talked to him about his science and, seeing the boy’s interest, he expanded, showing Ng the various detailed charts of the human body where the veins and the nerve ends were located.

  ‘There is so much unnecessary bloodshed,’ the old man told him. ‘A man desires to kill another. What does he do? He uses a gun or a knife. If he had my knowledge he would only have to squeeze this vein or that vein and the man would be dead. In the same way, if a man deserves to be punished, if someone pressed this hidden nerve end, he would experience enormous pain.’ He kept pointing to the chart as he talked.

  Seeing the polite disbelief on Ng’s face, he went on, ‘Give me your hand.’

  Ng did as he was told.

  ‘Here’s a nerve here,’ Chi Wu said, pointing. ‘Now I will very gently press it… so…’

  Ng felt a sharp tingle of pain shoot up his arm and to his brain, bad enough to make him flinch.

  ‘You see? If I had pressed that nerve end brutally, you would have been in agony.’

  Ng was fascinated, and listened every evening, extracting knowledge from the old doctor until he was well versed in the science of death-dealing and inflicting pain. It was not morbid curiosity. Ng had a pressing problem and, from what the old doctor was teaching him, Ng realized that his problem could be solved.

  For the past three Saturday nights, he found Won Pu, a powerfully built youth, waiting for him as he left the doctor’s office. He told Ng to hand over his earnings. The old doctor paid Ng two dollars a week for keeping his place clean. Knowing that Won Pu was capable of doing him a serious injury, Ng complied and, returning home, had told his mother that his earnings had been stolen. She had looked at him in despair. Without his two dollars, how could she go to market and restock her pathetic restaurant?

  The following Saturday, he found Won Pu, a brutal grin on his face, waiting. With a quick movement, Ng darted away and made for a long, dark alley. With a roar of rage, Won Pu took after him. Knowing he could easily outpace the bully, once Ng was satisfied that he had drawn his enemy into a dark recess, he stopped. Won Pu came up, snarling.

  ‘Give me the money!’ he shouted. ‘I will then push your fornicating face into the back of your fornicating head!’

  In the dim light of the moon, Ng saw the outstretched hand. His fingers closed on the nerve end and Won Pu screamed, going down on his knees. Ng was on him like a tiger cat, his fingers pressing the vital blood vessel. In seconds, Won Pu was dead.

  From then on, Ng had no problems about giving his mother the two dollars he had earned, wondering what she would have said if he had told her how he had rid himself of the thief.

  He kept this precious secret of death-dealing to himself. This was so precious, it was not to be shared with anyone.

  Twice during the next two years, Ng had been forced to resort to murder to protect his mother from two men, lusting after her. It had been very simple. He had followed each man, pounced in a lonely spot and, without trouble, killed them.

  When this thickset man had forced his way into the apartment and had told Ng what he intended to do, Ng knew this man had to be killed. It had been so easy to incapacitate the man, but he understood his master’s reluctance to have the man killed in the apartment.

  Ng always thought of Kling as his ‘master’. There was nothing in the world that he wouldn’t do for him.

  However, he had shot this man because he didn’t want even his master to know of the death-dealing power he had in his fingers.

  Having lived with Kling for many months, Ng had come to realize how his master made his money. The fact that his master was a hired killer didn’t disturb Ng. It was a way of life, he told himself.

  Well, now his master knew that he too was a killer. Who knows? he thought, his master might find him extra useful.

  He turned off the light and went peacefully to sleep.

  * * *

  Two nights later, Kling was drinking a brandy after an excellent meal of steak in a cream and pepper sauce, when the telephone bell rang.

  He reached out a long arm and picked up the receiver.

  ‘Yeah?’ he said.

  ‘Is that you, Ernie?’ A man’s voice.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t some sonofabitch is wearing my shirt.’

  A laugh.

  ‘This is Lucky Lucan.’

  Kling grimaced.

  ‘Oh, yeah? You’re the guy who makes suckers out of old, rich women… right?’

  There was another laugh at the other end of the line: rather a forced laugh.

  ‘Well, each to his trade, Ernie.’

  ‘So what do you want?’

  ‘You still in business?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘What looks like a job has come up, Ernie. It needs looking at in depth. Would you be interested?’

  ‘I’m always interested in making money.’

  ‘What’s your going rate now? It’s got to be a perfect job, Ernie. Absolutely no blow-back.’

  Kling puffed at his cigar. He had little faith in a gigolo like Lucan.

  ‘For that kind of job, three hundred thousand and expenses.’

  ‘Jesus, Ernie! That’s high!’

  ‘Sure, but it’d be a perfect job, and that kind of job needs working on. Take it or leave it, Lucky. I’ve plenty of money, and I don’t need the job. Please yourself.’

  There was a pause, then Lucan said, ‘Okay. I’ll talk around. Would you be prepared to fly down to Paradise
City in a couple of days, and meet me?’

  ‘Paradise City, huh? That’s south of Miami. Sure: all expenses paid, I’ll come.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can fix. If I get the green light, I’ll book you in at the Star Motel where I’m staying. Okay?’

  ‘Sure, but make it for two, Lucky. I have a partner now,’ and as Lucan began to protest, Kling, with a jeering smile, hung up.

  * * *

  Charles Smyth was the Jamisons’ butler and major-domo. He had been with them since they had married.

  Smyth, in his late fifties, was a bean-pole of a man, with balding head, hollow cheeks and a large nose that dominated his features. He adored Shannon and disliked Jamison, who usually ignored him, issuing curt orders from time to time, leaving Shannon and Smyth to run the two homes with the complete efficiency that Jamison expected.

  Every morning at exactly 08.00, Jamison came down for breakfast with Smyth waiting. Jamison’s breakfast consisted always of orange juice, grilled ham, toast, marmalade and coffee.

  ‘Good-morning, sir,’ Smyth said as Jamison came into the breakfast-room. A quick look at the hard face warned him that Jamison was in a bad mood.

  Jamison grunted, sat down and began to look at the financial newspapers that Smyth always placed where Jamison could reach them.

  Smyth served the grilled ham and poured the coffee. He had watched the gradual deterioration of Jamison’s marriage, and it saddened him.

  Shannon had left some minutes ago to attend Mass. When she returned, Smyth would consult her about lunch and dinner. He had heard the previous night Jamison’s barking voice and, a little alarmed, he had left his sitting-room and listened. He had heard Shannon say: If you want a legal separation, tell me, but there can be no divorce. He had hurriedly returned to his room. He believed eavesdropping was an unforgivable sin.

  He understood his master wanted an heir. He further understood his mistress had done everything possible. It was a sad and dreadful problem, and Smyth grieved for both of them.

  ‘Smyth!’ Jamison snapped as he began to cut up the ham. ‘I want a Hertz rental car here at 10.15. Arrange it!’

  Startled, Smyth bowed.

  ‘Certainly, sir. Is there anything else you require?’

  ‘No! Arrange about the car,’ Jamison snapped and went on eating.