Hit and Run

I

I CAME out of darkness to feel hot sunshine on my face and a blinding light against my closed eyelids.

There was also a feeling of movement. It took me several seconds to realize I was in a car, being driven somewhere at high speed.

I wanted to groan because the back of my head was expanding and contracting and pain crawled up my neck over the top of my head and into my eyes like a beetle with red-hot feet.

But I didn’t groan. I let myself stay limp and slack and I rolled with the motion of the car until I felt good enough to open my eyes and take a quick look around.

I was on the back seat of my hired Buick. There was a man sitting beside me. I recognized the irongrey suiting of his trouser leg. It was the dark thug: the one who had sapped me.

Sitting in front, driving, was the fair one. He had put on a light grey slouch hat which he wore at a jaunty angle over his nose. Keeping my eyes half closed, I checked out of the window to see where we were.

We were passing through one of the back streets of Palm City: empty as a hole in the wall on this hot Sunday afternoon.

I kept quiet and wondered where we were going. I didn’t have to wonder for long.

The next five minutes saw us leaving Palm City behind us, and we got on to the highway leading to the beach road where I lived. I decided they were going to dump me back in my bungalow.

There was a light travelling rug across my knees to hide my wrists and hands. My wrists were crossed and strapped with what felt like adhesive tape. They were strapped so tightly I could feel tie blood pounding in my veins, and although I very gently tried to ease them a little, they were tight against each other as if screwed down in a vice.

Turn right at the intersection, Lew,’ the dark one said suddenly. ‘His joint is three hundred yards down on the right: a nice lonely spot for a guy to live in: I wouldn’t mind living in it myself.’

Lew, the fair one, laughed without humour.

‘Why not ask him to leave it to you in his will?’ he said. ‘He won’t be needing it now.’

‘Aw, hell! I don’t want it that bad,’ the other said.

The car drove on.

I found myself suddenly short of breath, but I didn’t have the time to wonder what they meant, for the car suddenly slowed down and finally stopped.

‘This is it,’ the dark one said.

‘Okay, let’s get him out,’ Lew said.

I remained limp, my eyes closed, my heart slamming against my ribs.

I felt the dark one leave the car, then I heard the off-side door open. Hands laid hold of me and pulled me out of the car.

As I slid on to the ground, Lew said: ‘You didn’t hit him too hard, did you, Nick? He should have come to the surface by now.’

‘I hit him right,’ Nick, the dark one, said. ‘He’ll snap out of it in a few minutes.’

Between the two of them they half carried me, half dragged me up the path and dumped me on the front step.

‘Got his keys?’ Nick asked.

‘Yeah. This is the one.’

I heard the lock on the front door snap back, then I was dragged across the hall and into my lounge and dumped on the settee.

‘You sure he’s all right?’ Lew asked.

A hand moved on to my neck: expert fingers touched my pulse.

‘He’s fine. He should be up and coming in another five minutes.’

‘He’d better be.’ There was an uneasy note in Lew’s voice. ‘Galgano will be mad if this punk croaks before he can talk to him.’

‘Relax, big head. He’s all right. When I tap ’em, I tap ’em right. In five minutes, he’ll be dancing the can-can.’

I gave a low groan and moved a little.

‘You see? He’s coming out of it already. Gimme the rope.’

I felt a cord tighten around my chest, pinning me to the settee. I opened my eyes as Lew was fastening the cord to the legs of the settee. He stared at me, his face expressionless, then he stepped away.

‘That fixes it,’ he said and leaning over me, he patted my face. ‘Relax, buster. The boss wants to talk to you. He’ll be along in a little while.’

‘Come on,’ Nick said impatiently. ‘Let’s get out of here. Have you forgotten we’ve got to walk?’

Lew cursed.

‘Why couldn’t that punk Claude have sent a car?’

‘You ask him,’ Nick said.

He came over to me and examined the rope across my chest critically, then checked the tapes around my wrists. He grunted, stepped back, and stared at me and a tight, meaningless smile hovered on his thin lips.

‘So long, sucker,’ he said.

They went across the lounge and out into the hall, pulling the lounge door half shut. I heard them open the front door, then close it behind them.

After a second or so a silence settled over the bungalow that made the ticking of the clock on the overmantel sound unnaturally loud.

I exerted a useless effort for a minute or so against the tape around my wrists and found there was no way of breaking free so I lay still, panting a little from my exertions.

It was then that I remembered Lucille who I had left tied on my bed. Maybe she had managed to get free. Maybe she would set me free.

‘Lucille!’ I called. ‘Lucille! Can you hear me?’

I listened, but there was no sound except the ticking of the clock and the gentle flapping of a curtain against a window as the breeze disturbed it.

‘Lucille!’ I raised my voice to a shout. ‘Are you all right?’

Again silence, and I suddenly felt cold sweat on my face. Had something happened to her? Or had she got free and left the bungalow?

‘Lucille!’

Then I did hear something. A soft movement of a door opening: a door somewhere down the passage, possibly my bedroom door.

I lifted my head to listen.

The door squeaked a little and that told me it was my bedroom door. I had been meaning to oil the hinges for weeks and had been too lazy to do it.

‘Is that you, Lucille?’ I said sharply.

I heard someone move out into the passage: a slow, heavy step, and I was suddenly more frightened than I had ever been before in my life.

Lucille couldn’t have moved like that. The slow, stealthy footfalls I was listening to were too heavy for a woman’s. It was a man coming down the passage: a man who had come out of my bedroom where I had left Lucille trussed and helpless on the bed,

‘Who’s that?’ I said, my voice off-key, my heart hammering.

The slow, heavy footsteps came down the passage and stopped outside the lounge door. Then there was silence.

I lay there, listening, sweat on my face, hearing gentle, unhurried breathing from the other side of the door.

‘Come on in, damn you!’ I exclaimed, my nerves crawling. ‘What are you skulking out there for? Come on in and show yourself!’

The door began to open slowly.

The man out there intended to frighten me, and he succeeded.

I was practically ready to hit the ceiling as the door swung fully open.

The man who stood in the doorway was massive and tall. He had on a dark blue sports jacket, grey flannel trousers and reserve calf brown shoes. He stood there, his hands in his pockets, his thumbs outside and pointing at me.

I lay staring at him, scarcely believing my eyes, a sudden chill gripping my heart.

The man in the doorway was Roger Aitken.

II

Heavy footed, slow and deliberate, an expression on his face that really put the fear of God into me, Aitken came in to the room.

I was immediately aware that he didn’t limp and he was walking as he always walked, and yet a few days back he had fallen down the Plaza Grill steps and had broken his leg.

The whole situation took on a nightmare aspect. It was Aitken, and yet it wasn’t Aitken. This tight-set face with glittering eyes made me feel here was another man inside Aitken’s skin: a man I didn’t know and a man who scared me. Then the familiar voice said: ‘I seem to have given you a fright, Scott.’

It was Aitken all right. That voice and that smile could belong to no one else.

‘Yes.’ My voice was husky and unsteady. ‘You certainly did. Your leg seems to have made a pretty good recovery.’

‘There was never anything the matter with it,’ he said and paused near me, looking down at me, his glittering eyes moving over my face. ‘It was something I arranged so you and my wife could get acquainted.’

My mouth was now so dry I couldn’t say anything. I just lay and stared up at him. He looked around, then moved over to a lounging chair and sat down.

‘Quite a nice place you have here, Scott,’ he said. ‘A little lonely but convenient. Do you make a habit of fooling around with other men’s wives?’

‘I didn’t last long and I didn’t touch her,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I could explain better if I had my hands free. There’s a lot to explain.’

I was wondering about Lucille.

Had she managed to get free? Was she still in the bungalow? If she was still tied up on the bed, then Aitken must know it as he had come out of my bedroom.

Aitken took out his gold cigarette case. He lit a cigarette.

‘I think I’ll leave you as you are,’ he said. ‘Anyway, for the time being.’

Then a thought came into my mind: a crazy thought: a thought that made me stiffen and lift my head and stare at him. This was the man Lew had said was coming to talk to me. This man I knew as Roger Aitken was known by Lew and his pal as Art Galgano: a crazy thought, but the facts pointed to it.

‘The nickel’s dropped?’ Aitken said, watching me. ‘Yes, you’re right. I am Galgano.’

I lay there, staring at him, shocked into silence.

He crossed one leg over the other.

‘You don’t imagine I can live in the style in which I live from what I get out of the International, do you, Scott? Three years ago I had a chance of buying the Little Tavern, and I bought it. This is a rich town. It is full of rich degenerates with nothing to do but to chase one another’s wives and drink whisky. I knew it was a crowd that would gamble if given the opportunity. I gave it the opportunity. For three years that wheel at the Little Tavern has been spinning and has been making me a fortune. The law against gambling is strict. A lot of people have tried to run a wheel and they have been shut down. I was more fortunate. This man Harry O’Brien was in charge of the roads leading to the Little Tavern. It was his job to report any suspicious gathering of people who might be gamblers. He was the eyes and ears of the Police Commissioner. I made it worth his while to be deaf and dumb, but I knew sooner or later he would get greedy, and he did. The profits from the wheel, instead of coming to me, began to go to him. He bled me white. As a blackmailer he was in a class of his own. After six or seven months, I found I was making less money than I had made before I bought the Little Tavern. His demands became so pressing, I was forced to use some of the International’s profits to satisfy him. That was a situation that had to stop.’

The clock on the overmantel suddenly began to strike four o’clock. The afternoon’s sun beat against the sun-blinds. The whisper of the sea somehow had a sinister sound.

I lay there, listening, looking at this man who was my boss and who I had thought the tops in the advertising game. He still looked impressive, with his big frame, his well-fitting clothes and his massive, whisky-red face, but he wasn’t impressive to me any more.

He reached out and stubbed out his cigarette, lit another and smiled at me.

‘There is only one way to stop a blackmailer when he is in O’Brien’s class and that’s to kill him.’ The glittering eyes met mine and the thin lips tightened. ‘Murdering a policeman is dangerous, Scott. It is a challenge to the police force and they take extra trouble in tracking down the killer. I laid my plans. As in everything I do, I took the broad view of the situation. If I were to kill a man, I would make a complete job of it, I decided. I badly needed money. I had taken fifteen thousand dollars from the International and I knew I couldn’t hide that up for long. I owed money everywhere. It would take me several weeks to recoup from the wheel once I had got rid of O’Brien, and the chances were that his successor would find out what was going on at the nightclub and I would be closed down. So I had to have money quickly. It was then I thought of you. I had heard you had some money. Everything fell into place once I decided to make use of you, Scott. So I prepared the bait of the New York office and you fell for it.’

I lay listening to his quiet, dangerous voice, and I kept wondering about Lucille. I was scared to ask him if she were still in my bedroom in case she had got free and had left the bungalow before he arrived. There was just a chance that she had got free.

‘In case things went wrong,’ he went on, ‘I took the precaution to provide myself with an alibi. Only Mrs. Hepple and Lucille know I didn’t break my leg. Mrs. Hepple has been with me for years and I can trust her. Lucille…’ He broke off and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Let me tell you about Lucille. She was one of the dancers at the Little Tavern. When I bought the place, I was careful no one at the club except Claude should know who I was. I used to go there as a customer. The girl appealed to me. A mistake, of course. She was pretty and gay and young, but a man soons gets tired of a girl when she has a head as empty as Lucille’s. However, the one thing in her favour is she does what I tell her to do, and so does her oaf of a brother, Ross, who also worked at the Little Tavern when I took it over. I explained to these two what I wanted. I told them if O’Brien continued to blackmail me, the Little Tavern would shut down; Ross would lose his job and Lucille would find herself married to a poor man. It was my suggestion that Lucille should ask you to teach her to drive—a good suggestion, I think.’ Again, the thin lips lifted in a sneering smile. ‘When I was ready, I told her to take you down that beach road. I had arranged to meet O’Brien down there. His monthly pay-off was due. We met down there. While I was talking to him, Ross came up behind him and knocked him senseless. In the meantime you and Lucille were acting out your little drama. I had instructed her exactly how she was to behave. It was essential that you should attempt to seduce her, thus providing you with a guilt complex. It was also essential that she should run away with your car. I know enough about male psychology to be sure you would act the way I wanted you to act, and you did.’ He leaned forward to tap ash off his cigarette. ‘Lucille brought the car to me. The accident wasn’t difficult to stage. I had O’Brien lying in the road. I ran the car over him. Then I drove the car fast and hard into his motorcycle I had placed on its parker in the middle of the road. It was quite a smash. Then I turned the car over to Lucille and Ross and told them to take it to your bungalow.’

‘You made a mistake,’ I said. ‘All killers make mistakes. You ran O’Brien over with the off-side wheel and you hit the motorcycle with the on-side front wing. That told me there was something phoney about the accident. It wouldn’t have been possible to have killed O’Brien accidentally the way you staged it.’

He lifted his eyebrows.

‘It doesn’t matter. You obligingly got rid of the mistake by having the car repaired. That was a smart move of yours, Scott, the way you switched the number plates. But it did give Ross a chance to get a photograph of you and when he showed me the photo I knew then I had you where I wanted you.’ He stretched out his long legs and stared up at the ceiling, ‘It’s a pity you got too smart. It’s a pity too that you ran into that Lane woman. It complicated things for me. I knew I would have to get rid of her sooner or later as I was sure O’Brien had told her he was blackmailing me, and she would probably guess his death hadn’t been an accident. I had my men watching her all the time, and she knew it. She and Nutley were scared. They wanted to get out of town where I couldn’t reach them, but they lacked funds. So when you appeared on the scene, she saw her chance of getting some money to leave town. I was told you were going to her apartment. I arrived a little late, but not late enough to hear she had double-crossed you. I was waiting outside her apartment as she came out and I killed her. I very nearly lost track of Nutley, but fortunately one of my men had been watching him and he reported to me that you and Nutley had got together at the Washington. I went along there and shot him. The night clerk had to go too. He cost me a hundred dollars to go up to Nutley’s room. On my way out, I had to kill him. He would have known me again.’ He rubbed his red, fleshy face and his glittering eyes stared at me.

‘Killing comes easily, Scott, after you have killed your first man, but it also becomes complicated. You kill someone, then you kill someone else to cover up the first killing, and then you have to kill again to cover up the second killing.’

‘I guess you must be out of your mind,’ I said huskily. ‘You can’t hope to get away with this.’

‘Of course I can. At the moment I am lying in bed with a broken leg. It’s a perfect alibi. It will never occur to anyone I have had anything to do with any of this. Besides, I am going to shift the whole thing on to you. I see you have a typewriter over there. I intend to type out the beginning of a confession that will convince the police that you accidentally killed O’Brien, and Ross and Lucille attempted to blackmail you.’ He put his head on one side, smiling. ‘I forgot to tell you that while my men were bringing you here, I took Ross back to his bungalow and shot him through the head with the gun that killed Nutley. I’m making a clean sweep, Scott. I’m tired of Ross and I am very, very tired of Lucille.’ Again he smiled. ‘Getting back to your confession, Scott, they will read that the Lane woman and her agent Nutley also tried to blackmail you and you killed them. You have left enough evidence behind you to convince the police that you did kill them. They will read that you went out to Ross’s bungalow and killed him and then you returned here, enticed Lucille down here and strangled her with one of your neckties.’

I suddenly felt cold and sick.

‘You mean you killed her?’ I said, lifting my head and staring at him.

‘Of course,’ Aitken said. ‘The opportunity was much too good to miss. When I found her on the bed, trussed and helpless, it seemed to me the easiest thing in the world to fasten one of your gaudy neckties around her stupid little throat and get rid of her. It’s a clean sweep, Scott. I have got rid of Ross and her: both nuisances. I have got rid of a blackmailer who was ruining me. Fortunately Hackett came out of the blue with his hundred thousand, so I now don’t need your money. I can start again. Even if I can’t keep the wheel spinning at the Little Tavern, with a hundred thousand and my talents I should be able to make a fresh start.’

‘You won’t get away with it,’ I said, staring at him. ‘Too many people know about it. Claude knows: his two thugs knows…’

The sneering little smile was in evidence again.

‘Claude and his two thugs as you call them are tied in with me. If I go down, so do they, and they know it. Now it only remains for yon to become a victim of your conscience, Scott, and shoot yourself. The police won’t be surprised that life has become intolerable to you after all these murders and you have ended it.’

He took from his pocket a leather glove which he slipped on his right hand, then from his hip pocket he pulled out a .45 Colt.

‘This is Nutley’s gun,’ he went on. ‘It is the gun that killed him and Ross, and now it is going to kill you.’ He got to his feet. ‘In a way, I’m sorry about this, Scott. I shall miss you. You are good at your job, but there is no other way out of this mess. I assure you it won’t hurt. I am told that a shot in the ear kills instantly.’

I was now pretty well ready to hit the ceiling. I was watching him move slowly across the room towards me, the gun hanging by his side when the front-door bell rang.

That was a moment in my life I’ll never forget.

Aitken stiffened and looked towards the door. I saw his thumb push the safety catch on the gun forward.

He stood there like a stone man, listening.

‘They’ll know I’m in here,’ I said hoarsely. ‘The car’s outside.’

He looked at me, his mouth curling into a snarl.

‘Make a sound and you’ll be the first to go,’ he said.

Again the front-door bell rang, persistently and impatiently.

Aitken moved silently to the sitting-room door and cautiously peered into the hall. His back was now turned to me and to the french doors. I saw a shadow appear, and then the big, massive figure of Lieutenant West suddenly moved silently through the french doors and into the room. In his right hand he held a .38 police special.

He didn’t look at me. His eyes were on Aitken’s broad back.

As he lifted his gun, he suddenly barked: ‘Up with them, Aitken, and drop that gun!’

I saw a shudder run through Aitken’s big frame. He spun around, jerking up his gun, his face contorted with rage and fear.

West shot him.

Aitken’s gun boomed, but he was already falling and the slug ploughed a groove in my parquet floor. A red stain appeared between Aitken’s eyes and he pitched forward, coming down with a crash that rocked the ornaments in the room. He jerked a little as he died, but it was purely reflex. The gun slid out his limp fingers, and West moved over heavily and ponderously and picked it up.

There was the sound of running feet and three policemen, guns in hand, crowded in.

‘Okay, okay, okay,’ West said. I’ve fixed him.’

He moved over to me, shoving his gun in his hip pocket and he grinned down at me.

‘I bet you were scared,’ he said.

I stared up at him, and I was still so scared I couldn’t say anything.

As he bent over me and began to unwind the tape around my wrists, Joe Fellowes came in hurriedly. His eyes were bulging and his face was shiny with sweat.

‘Hi, Ches,’ he said as I sat up, trying to rub life into my wrists. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What are you doing here, for the love of Mike?’

‘It was me who called the cops,’ he said, then stopped short as he caught sight of Aitken’s body. His face turned a greenish grey and he stepped hurriedly back. ‘Sweet grief! Is he dead?’

‘Okay, you two,’ West said. ‘You get out of here.’ He tapped me on my shoulder as I got unsteadily to my feet. ‘Go and sit on the porch until I have time to talk to you. You can take it easy. I heard what he said and that puts you in the clear. Go outside and wait for me.’

‘Did he kill her?’ I asked.

‘Yeah,’ West said. ‘He must have been crazy. Is that right, he operates a wheel at the Little Tavern?’

I put my hand to my coat lapel. The camera was still in place. I freed it and dropped it into his hand. ‘There’s a picture of the wheel in there. The Inquirer gave the camera to me.’

‘Looks like I’ve got a busy afternoon ahead of me. Go out on the porch and wait for me,’ and he crossed over to the telephone.

A policeman shoved Joe and me out on to the verandah. We sat down while the policeman leaned against the door post and watched us with bored eyes.

‘I saw those two thugs bring you out of the backway of the club,’ Joe said. ‘I’d followed you, sure you would walk into trouble. I trailed them down here, but they looked too tough for me to tackle on my own so I called the cops.’

‘Thanks, Joe,’ I said and lay back in the basket chair. I felt pretty bad.

Minutes crawled by, then Joe said suddenly: ‘Looks as if we’ll be out of a job.’

‘We may not be. Someone’s got to run the International. This could be our big chance, Joe,’ I said, staring out at the sand and the sea.

‘Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that.’ He moved uneasily. ‘He must have been crazy. I always thought there was something wrong about him.’

‘You heard what he said?’

‘I was right outside the verandah door all the time. I was scared to hell he might see me. If that big dick hadn’t been with me, I don’t know what I should have done.’

‘I felt that way myself,’ I said.

After that we didn’t say anything. We sat there, waiting for maybe an hour, then Lieutenant West came out on to the verandah.

‘They got Claude and your two pals,’ he said, his face split with a wide grin, ‘and they have four wagon-loads of the blue blood of this city all going down to the lock-up. This will certainly make headlines tomorrow.’ He sat down and stared at me. ‘Okay, let’s have it from the beginning. There are some points I didn’t get. Then you’ll have to come down to headquarters and we’ll put it in writing. Go ahead and talk.’

So I went ahead and talked.