FIGURE IT OUT FORYOURSELF
JAMESHADLEYCHASE
COPYRIGHT©
1950
CHAPTER ONE
I
ONE hot June afternoon I was sitting in my office at peace with the world, and conscious that the world was, for a change, at peace with me, when Paula put her dark, lovely head around the door to shatter my pipe-dream.
'You have the Wingrove job to do,' she said.
There are times when I regret having thought up Universal Services. (No matter how tough the job: we'll do it.) As a money-maker it was sound enough, and as somebody else's brainwave it was brilliant, but when I get stuck with something like the Wingrove assignment, then I begin to wonder if I shouldn't have my head examined for putting myself out on such a limb.
The Wingrove assignment was a job I wouldn't have touched with an eighty-foot pole if I had been consulted, but it had sneaked into the office, together with a five-hundred-dollar retainer, when I was in bed with a hangover, and Paula had accepted the money and sent off a receipt.
The daughter of Martin Wingrove, one of Orchid City's most affluent citizens, had reverted to type, and he wanted me to persuade her to return home.
I hadn't much of a proposition to offer her. Wingrove was fat and old and nasty. He kept one of Ralph Bannister's taxi-dancers in a pent-house in Felman Street: a big, brassy blonde whose mode of life would have horrified a monkey. He was grasping, domineering and selfish. His wife had run away with his chauffeur, who was half her age, but hungry for money, and his son was sweating out a drug cure in a private home. Not much of a home background to persuade a girl to return to, but then I hadn't seen her. For all I knew, she was tarred with the same brush. It would be a lot easier for me if she was, and it seemed likely. From Paula's notes on the case, the girl was living with Jeff Barratt, a notoriously vicious playboy who was about as rotten as they come.
I had been offered a free hand. The girl was under age, and Wingrove was within his rights to force her to return home. But Barratt wasn't likely to part with her easily, and she was certain to resist. On the face of it, it looked as if I would be in for quite a time. Obviously, it was a job for the police, but Wingrove had a horror of that kind of publicity. He knew if the police fetched her back, the story would hit the headlines, so he did what so many people have done in the past when they have a particularly dirty job on their hands, he unloaded it on me.
I had been side-stepping the job for the past three days, and had begun to hope that Paula had forgotten about it I should have known better.
'Eh?' I opened one eye and looked at her reproachfully.
'The Wingrove job,' she said firmly, coming into the office.
I sat up.
'How many more times do I have to tell you I don't want that job? Send the money back, and say I'm too busy. '
'You're not suggesting we should refuse five hundred dollars, are you?'
'I don't want the job.'
'What's wrong with it?' she asked patiently. 'It won't take you more than an hour. Why, it would be tempting Providence not to do it.'
'If Providence can be tempted that easy, then I'll tempt it. Now, don't bother me. Get on to Wingrove and tell him we're far too busy to handle the job.'
'I sometimes wonder why we're in business at all,' Paula said acidly. 'I hope you realize there're bills to be paid at the end of the month. I hope you haven't forgotten this desk you insisted on having hasn't yet been paid for.'
I knew she'd go on in this vein all the afternoon if I didn't stop her.
'Well, all right. Send Kerman. Why shouldn't he do a little work for a change? Why should all the dirty jobs have my name on them? You'd think I didn't own this joint the way I'm treated. Give the job to Kerman.'
'He's teaching Miss Ritter to drive.'
'What, again! He's always teaching Miss Ritter to drive! What's the matter with her? No one can take two solid months, six hours a day, to learn to drive a car. There's no one alive who can be that dumb.'
'She thinks Kerman is cute,' Paula said, suppressing a smile. 'I guess it's a matter of taste, but she tells me to sit beside Kerman in a car is an experience all women should have once in a lifetime. I'm not sure if I know what she means. I hope I'm not being unkind, but I think she's neurotic. Anyway, what does it matter? She pays very well.'
'That's all you think about - money! So because Miss Ritter is neurotic and Kerman's cute, I have to do all the dirty work, is that it?'
'You can always engage another assistant,' Paula pointed out,
'Now who's throwing our profits away? Well, all right, but understand from tomorrow Kerman gets down to a job of work. I'll learn Miss Ritter to drive- If she thinks Kerman is an experience, she's in for a surprise.'
'The address is 247 Jefferson Avenue ...' Paula began.
'I know! Don't tell me again. When I die, and you cut me open, you'll find it engraved on my spleen. For the past five days, that's all I've heard.'
