Free 1973 - Have a Change of Scene by James Hadley Chase Page A

looked searchingly at me.
    ‘What do you think of her, Larry?’
    I shrugged.
    ‘Tough.’ I tried to give the impression that as far as I was concerned, Rhea meant nothing to me. ‘I told her you had an accident and I was filling in.’
    She smiled her warm smile.
    ‘She didn’t care, did she?’
    ‘No she didn’t care.’
    ‘You’re still not right, Larry. People do react to kindness.’
    ‘She doesn’t.’
    ‘Yes, that’s right, but a lot of people do, but of course, some don’t. She is a difficult case.’
    ‘You can say that again.’
    A long pause as we looked at each other, then she said, ‘What are you going to do? You won’t stay on here, will you?’
    ‘Tell me something. You’ve been in hospital now for two days. How many visitors have you had, apart from me?’
    It was a rotten thing to ask, but I wanted to know.
    ‘Just you, Larry. No one else,’ and again she smiled.
    ‘So all the old women who pester you for handouts haven’t been to see you?’
    ‘You’re not proving anything, Larry. You don’t understand. They are all very poor, and it is a tradition that when you go to a hospital you bring something. They haven’t anything to bring, so they stay away.’
    I nodded.
    ‘Thanks for explaining it.’
    She asked suddenly, ‘How’s your problem, Larry?’
    ‘Problem?’ For a brief moment I didn’t know what she meant, then I remembered I was supposed to have a problem, that I was grieving over the loss of Judy, that I had been in a car crash, that I couldn’t concentrate on my work and her uncle had advised a change of scene. For the past two days, I hadn’t even thought of this problem.
    ‘I think the problem is lost,’ I said.
    ‘I thought so.’ She regarded me. ‘Then you had better go back. This town isn’t your neck of the woods.’
    I thought of Rhea.
    ‘I’ll stick around a little longer. Anything I can bring you tomorrow?’
    ‘You’re being an angel, Larry. Thank you. I’d love something to read.’
    I bought a copy of Elia Kazan’s The Arrangement , and had it sent to her room. I thought this book was about her weight.
     
     

FOUR
     
    I drove to Jenny’s office, found parking with a tussle, then walked up the six flights of stairs.
    Since I had left Jenny, I had returned to the hotel. I had stayed in my dreary little room for around half an hour, during that time I had thought of Rhea Morgan. I had paced up and down while my mind dwelt erotically on her. I wanted her so badly it was like a raging virus in my blood. The thought of stripping off her clothes and taking her made sweat run down my face, but I reminded myself of what she had said: Man! Don’t you want me! When you have me, it’ll cost you more than a meal.
    But I wasn’t a sucker like Jenny. When I had her, as I was going to have her, it wasn’t going to cost me a dime.
    But first, I had to know a lot more about her. Jenny would have kept her record and I now wanted to read it. It might give me a lever to turn an attempt to bargain into a sale.
    This was my thinking, so I drove to Jenny’s office.
    I paused outside her office door. Through the thin panels I could hear the clack of a typewriter, and this surprised me. I knocked, turned the handle and walked in.
    A thin, elderly woman sat behind the desk. Her face looked as if it had been chopped with a blunt axe out of teak. Squashed in a corner was a teenager doing a peck and hunt routine on the typewriter. They both stared at me as if I had landed from the moon.
    ‘I’m Larry Carr,’ I said and gave Hatchet face my best smile. ‘I’ve been working with Jenny Baxter.’
    She was a professional welfare worker - not like Jenny: no sucker. I could imagine the old women would take one look at her and then scuttle.
    ‘Yes, Mr. Carr?’ She had a voice a cop would envy.
    ‘I thought I’d look in,’ I said, my eyes moving to the filing cabinets that stood behind the teenager who had stopped typing. She was just out of High School, very