James Chase - No Business Of Mine

NO BUSINESS OF MINE

COPYRIGHT 1947

This book is for, my friend, Philip Lukulay,

who always cheated me in hand-tennis, and I

was always forgiving . . .

I would personally like to thank Mr. Cliff from London

who sent me a copy of this novel and More Deadly

Than The Male.

Thank You very much . . .

NO BUSINESS OF MINE

By

JAMES HADLEY CHASE

ROBERT HALE LIMITED

63 Old Brompton Road London S.W.7

Chapter I

MY name is Steve Harmas and I am a Foreign Correspondent of

the New York Clarion. During the years 1940-45 I lived in the Savoy

Hotel with a number of my colleagues and told the people of America

the story of Britain at war. I gave up the cocktail bar and the comfort

of the Savoy when the Allied Armies invaded Europe. To get me to go

was like peeling a clam off a wall, but my editor kept after me, and

finally I went. He told me the experience would give me character. It

gave me a pain you-know-where, but it didnt give me character.

After the collapse of Germany, I felt I had had enough of war and

hardship, and I changed places with a colleague without him knowing

anything about it, and returned to America and two-pound steaks on

his ticket.

Several months later I was offered an assignment to write a series

of articles on post-war Britain. I didnt particularly want the job: there

was a whisky shortage in England at the time, but there was a girl

named Netta Scott who used to live in London when last I was there,

and I did want to see her again.

I dont want you to get me wrong about Netta Scott. I wasnt in

love with her, but I did feel I owed her a great deal for giving me such

a swell time while I was a stranger in a strange country, and quite

unexpectedly I found myself in the position to do so.

It happened like this: I was reading the sporting sheet on my way

to the office, still in two minds about going to England, when I noticed

that one of the horses running in the afternoons race was named

Netta. The horse was a ten to one outsider, but I had a hunch and

decided to back it. I laid out five hundred dollars, and sat by the radio

with butterflies in my stomach, awaiting the result.

The horse won by a nose, and there and then I decided to split the

five-thousand-dollar winnings with Netta: I caught the first available

plane to England.

I got a big bang out of imagining Nettas reaction when I walked in

on her and planked down before her five hundred crisp, new one

pound notes. She had always liked money, always grumbled about

being hard up, although she would never let me help her once we got

to know each other. It would be a great moment in her life, and it

would square my debt at the same time.

I first met Netta in 1942 at a luxury night club in Mayfairs Bruton

Mews. She worked there as a dance hostess, and dont let anyone kid

you dance hostesses dont work. They develop more muscles than

Strangler Lewis ever had by warding off tired business men who are

not as tired as all that. Her job was to persuade suckers like me to buy

lousy champagne at five pounds a bottle, and to pay her ten shillings

for the privilege of dancing her around a floor the size of a pocket

handkerchief.

The Blue Club, as it was called, was run by a guy named Jack

Bradley. I had seen him once or twice, and I thought then he looked a

doubtful customer. The only girl working in the club who wasnt

scared of him was Netta: but Netta wasnt scared of any man.

The story goes that all the girls had to do a night shift with Bradley

before they could qualify for the job of hostess. They told me that

Netta and Bradley spent the night reading the illustrated papers when

she qualified, but that was only after she had blunted his glands by

wrapping a valuable oil painting around his thick neck. I dont know

whether the yarn was true: Netta wouldnt talk about it, but knowing

her, Id say it was.

Bradley must have made a packet out of the club. It was

patronized almost entirely by American officers and newspaper men

who had money to burn. They burned it all right in the Blue Club. The

band was first class, the girls beautiful and willing, and the food

excellent; but the cost was so high you had to put on an oxygen mask

before you looked at the bill.

Netta was one of twelve girls, and I picked her out the moment I

saw her.

She was a cute trick: a red head with skin like peaches and cream.

Her curves attracted my attention: curves always do. They were a blue

print for original sin. Ive seen some female hairpin bends in my time,

but nothing quite in Nettas class. As my companion, Harry Bix, a hard-

bitten bomber pilot, put it, A mouse fitted with skis would have a

grand run down her, and would I like to be that mouse!

Yes, Netta was a cute trick. She was really lovely in a hard,

sophisticated way. You could tell right off that she knew her way

around, and if you hoped to get places with her it was gloves off and

no holds barred; even at that shed probably lick you.

It took some time before Netta thawed out with me. At first she

considered me just another customer, then she regarded me with

suspicion, thinking I was on the make, but finally she accepted the

idea that I was a lonely guy in a strange city who wanted to make

friends with her.

I used to go to the Blue Club every evening. After a month or so

she wouldnt let me buy champagne, and I knew I was making

progress. One night she suggested we might go together to Kew

Gardens on the following Sunday and see the bluebells. Then I knew

Id got somewhere with her.

It finally worked out that I saw a lot of Netta. Id call for her at her

little flat off the Cromwell Road and drive her to the Blue Club.

Sometimes wed have supper together at the Vanity Fair; sometimes

shed come along to the Savoy and wed dine in the grill-room. She

was a good companion, ready to laugh or talk sense depending on my

mood, and she could drink a lot of liquor without getting tight.

Netta was my safety-valve. She bridged all the dreary boredom

which is inevitable at times when one is not always working to

capacity. She made my stay in London worth remembering. We finally

got around to sleeping together once or twice a month, but as in

everything we did, it was impersonal and didnt mean a great deal to

either of us. Neither she nor I were in love with each other. She never

let our association get personal, although it was intimate enough.

That is she never asked me about my home, whether I was married,

what I intended to do when the war was over; never hinted she would

like to return to the States with me. I did try to find out something

about her background, but she wouldnt talk. Her attitude was that

we were living in the present, any moment a bomb or rocket might

drop on us, and it was up to us to be as happy as we could while the

hour lasted. She lived in a wrapping of cellophane. I could see and

touch her, but I couldnt get at her. Oddly enough this attitude suited

me. I didnt want to know who her father was, whether she had a

husband serving overseas, whether she had any sisters or brothers. All

I wanted was a gay companion: that was what I got.

We kept up this association for two years, then when I received

orders to sail with the invading armies we said good-bye.

We said good-bye as if we would meet again the next evening,