The Second Fletcher Flora Mystery MEGAPACK™: 2 °Classic Mystery & Crime Stories!

Copyright info

“Hell Has No Fury” was originally published in Dime Detective Magazine, April 1953.

“The Closing Trap” was originally published in Detective Story Magazine, May 1953.

“Hell for Hannah” was originally published in Dime Detective Magazine, August 1953.

“The Collector Comes After Payday” was originally published in Manhunt, August 1953.

“Fair Game” was originally published in Manhunt, September 1953.

“May I Come In?” was originally published in Manhunt, January 1955.

“Kill Me Tomorrow” was originally published in Manhunt, December 1955.

“Trespasser” was originally published in Manhunt, September 1957.

“Most Agreeably Poisoned” was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, October 1957. Copyright © 1957, 1985 by Fletcher Flora.

“Sounds and Smells” was originally published in Ed McBain’s Mystery Book #3 1961.

“A Cool Swim on a Hot Day” was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November 1961. Copyright © 1961, 1989 by Fletcher Flora.

“IQ — 184” was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, September 1962. Copyright © 1962, 1970 by Fletcher Flora.

“Settlement Out of Court” was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July 1963.

“For Money Received” was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, October 1964. Copyright © 1964 by Fletcher Flora.

“The Capsule” was originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, December 1964. Copyright © 1964 by Fletcher Flora.

“The Tool” was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, December 1964. Copyright © 1964 by Fletcher Flora.

“One Enchanted Evening” was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, June 1965. Copyright © 1965 by Fletcher Flora.

“Something Very Special” was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, September 1965. Copyright © 1965 by Fletcher Flora.

“A Lesson in Reciprocity” was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, August 1966. Copyright © 1966 by Fletcher Flora.

“The Average Murderer” was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, August 1967. Copyright © 1967 by Fletcher Flora.

Hell Has No Fury

Originally published in Dime Detective Magazine, April 1953.

Chapter One

Hal Decker sat on the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. The bed was really just a shelf, hinged to the stone wall. High above it, sunlight lanced through a narrow opening and fell across the floor in four parallel segments, divided by the shadows of bars.

When the heavy grill clanged shut behind me, Hal lifted his head from his hands, his dull eyes mirroring for a moment a trace of a smile that had the nervous character and brevity of a tic.

“Sol,” he said. “Solomon Burr. Sorry to have to get you into this mess, boy.”

I sat down on the bed beside him. It was no kind of bed to induce sleep in a guy who probably wasn’t sleeping well at best.

“Sorry, hell,” I said. “In my office, a client’s a client, and it’s a long way between.”

The tic-smile flickered again. “Hard times? In that case, how are you going to like working for free?”

I shrugged. “It’s practice, anyhow.”

“Sure. Thanks, Sol. Funny, isn’t it. How things turn out, I mean. Few years ago, we were cracking law books and drinking short beers together — just friends. Now everything’s changed. Now we’re lawyer and client, all mixed up in a big, beautiful murder case.”

“We’re still friends, Hal. You know that.”

“Yeah, I guess I counted on your feeling that way, Sol. Not that you can do much. A guy charged with murder has to have a lawyer, that’s all. It’s strictly a dry run.”

“You haven’t been convicted yet.”

His laugh was short and ugly. “No, not yet. But I’ve been framed for a conviction, and it’ll come in time. I’ve been framed by an expert, Sol. All that’s left to do is to hang me on the wall.”

I found a pack of cigarettes and shook one out for him. “Maybe you’d better brief me,” I said.

He drew smoke deeply into his lungs, letting it ride out on a long, quivering sigh. The smoke rose heavily in the still air, drifting and thinning in the shaft of sunlight.

“Funny,” he said again. “Funny how the little things never have any significance, until you’re about to lose them — like a cigarette.” He pulled himself up short, repeating his humorless laugh. “This case won’t do you any good, Sol. This one you’ve already lost.”

“That’s what you said before. Just for exercise, suppose you let me go through the motions of being a lawyer, anyhow.”

He stood up, moving into the slanting projection of the sun and lifting his head to look up along its angle to the distant patch of sky beyond. I was sorry to see him like that, looking up through bars into the rationed light of day. We’d been good cronies once, we’d had good times over those beers. Even now, we hadn’t seen much of each other since, memories of the past stirred and came alive again.

Hal was primarily muscular; he’d never really had the cut of a lawyer. After we’d gotten out of law school, while I was hanging out a shingle, he’d gone into enforcement. The metropolitan police department was crying for law students at the time; the idea being that the best way to eliminate inefficiency and corruption was to get top grade personnel. It was one of those movements that the old timers get prodded into now and then by a temporarily-aroused public.

After a while, when the public goes back to business as usual, the reform dies quietly, ignored by the veterans in office. The lure was last promotion in a field that has an appeal for a certain type. Hal was the type, and he’d gone in. But he hadn’t stayed long. In one way or another, he fouled up and he’d landed outside fast, education and efficiency be damned.

Maybe, now, he read my thoughts. Moving out of the sunlight, and returning to the shadows, he said, “You ever hear why I was bounced off the force?”

“No.”

“I thought not. It was hushed up at the time, but it makes a good story. Career of an educated copper — Dick Tracy with a degree.” His voice sank to a low level of bitterness. “One night we were cruising out East Market, Old Finnegan and I. We were working double-harness. He was breaking me in, getting me started on that nice career everyone was talking about. We got a call to stop at a place over on Forest, a few blocks away. Seems a gang of kids were raising hell in an apartment over there. Well, they were raising hell, all right.

“We walked right into the middle of a flowering tea party — reefer smoke as thick as fog. One of the young guys cut up rough, and I had to put him to sleep. When we booked them, it turned out that this kid was the mayor’s nephew, the nephew of handsome Danny Devore himself. That’s it — story of a career boy — the end.”

“You sure that’s all? I hear you made a threat. To be precise, I hear you promised to kill Danny and eat him for breakfast.”

His shoulders sagged, and his head fell a little forward. He pressed the heel of his right hand against his forehead. “I got a little drunk. A guy says crazy things when he’s drunk.”

I sat watching him, thinking of the mayor he had threatened to kill. A threat to kill doesn’t usually mean much before the fact. After the fact, it takes on significance. And this was after the fact, because the mayor was dead. Charming Danny Devore, the bachelor, glamour boy, the smooth idol of metropolitan politics. Hard as it was to realize, he was dead from the slugs of a .38.

“How about the gun?” I said. “Your gun was found in the study by the body, and it had your prints on it.”

“Does a man commit murder and leave the gun behind?”

“Who knows? Murderers do idiotic things sometimes. Besides, one question doesn’t answer another. How did the gun get there?”

“I’ve already said — I’ve said a thousand times — it was stolen from my room. It had to be, I hadn’t even looked at it for weeks.”

“You never even missed it?”

“No.”

“Okay, let it go. How about the witness? This guy Richert happened to be passing Danny’s place about the time of the murder. He saw you come out the front door and go down the drive. To make it practically perfect, he just happens to be one of the district attorney’s special investigators.

Hal shook his head, and began to pound his clenched fist into his palm. His voice, paced to the pounding said, “He didn’t see me, Sol. He couldn’t have seen me, because I wasn’t there.”

“You think he’s lying?”

“Not necessarily. Look. He saw this guy from a distance, and in bad light. Maybe he really thinks it was me, but you know how those things are. If there’s other evidence, like the gun, it’s easy to go along with it. It would be easy for Richert to convince himself that I was the guy.”

“True enough. Now, tell me where you were that night, if you weren’t out there shooting Danny Devore.”

His clenched fist relaxed, the fingers falling open. “I was with a girl,” he said.

“At the time of the murder?”

“I was with her all night.”

“Then why the hell haven’t you said so? What’s this girl’s name?”

He shook his head, tiredly. “I can’t tell you, Sol.”

“Why the hell not? Listen, you’re on a short road to the hot seat, and you haven’t got time for chivalry.”

He just shook his head again, turned away from me and looked blankly into a corner of the cell.

“You got an idea of protecting her honor? You actually got a corny idea like that? Listen to me, Hal. So you were with the gal. Who cares? These days they’re doing it in headlines all over the world. You get everything but photographs.”

He laughed his short, ugly laugh. “You’re not thinking well for a lawyer. Like I said, I’m in a frame. It was built by an expert. I’m in it because someone wants me in it, and he wants me to stay there. What do you think would happen if he learned there was a witness who could get me out?”

“She’d get protection,” I said.

“Protection? From that outfit out there?”

“You’re making it tough for me, Hal.”

He lifted his shoulders, still staring at the corner. “I’m sorry, Sol. I told you right at the start that it’s a dry run.”

I went over to the grill and rattled the bars. Behind me, Hal continued to look into the corner. Maybe, in his mind, it was a symbol of the tight one he was in. “Thanks for coming, anyhow, Sol.”

“Save it,” I said. “And don’t go contacting any other lawyer. It’s the first real case I’ve had in a century, and I’m damned if I’ll be cut out.”

I went down the long hall and out into the free air. For a minute I stood on the curb, breathing deeply. Then I crawled into my car and drove back to my office.

The office was in a building where the rents were possible for a youngish lawyer with the soft dew of college hardly dry behind his ears. It was on the second floor. If you wanted to get up there, you walked because there was no elevator. Down the hall, you found a door with a pane of frosted glass. And on the glass, in imitation gold leaf, you read the words: Solomon Burr, Attorney-at-Law.

If you pushed the door open and walked in, you were met by the rapid-fire clatter of a second-hand typewriter bouncing under the agile digits of a gal who was by no means second-hand. Her name was Kitty Troop, and she was my secretary. She presented, among other things, the impression of bustling activity under the pressure of many cases pending in court. This was a ruse. Actually, she saw your shadow on the glass and had her novel dog-eared in the likely event that you were a false alarm. Being a clever gal, she kept a clean sheet in the machine at all times, ready for the act at the first sign of any stray character who might turn into a client. If you looked over her shoulder, you saw that she was typing: The sly, quick fox jumped over the lazy, brown dog.

But you didn’t look over her shoulder.

You were busy looking at other things. She showed you first some nice teeth in a smile between the merest hints of dimples. Then she stood up, and you saw a figure that made you forget all your troubles. When you got your breath back and asked if Mr. Burr was in, she replied in a voice that was as soft as a fog that Mr. Burr just happened to be free at the moment and would give you a few minutes. Then she walked over to Mr. Burr’s private door, giving you a reverse view from seams to ash-blond bun. By that time, you didn’t give a damn if Mr. Burr was the lousiest shyster in town, with the highest fees on record. You were ready to give him your case, just so you could come back for the scenery.

If Kitty was on her toes, she knocked on the door and counted slowly to five. Then, when she opened the door, you saw an alert, clean-cut guy busy as hell with a lot of legal papers and stuff. If she forgot and opened the door without knocking, chances are you got a brace of elevated shoes and a pretty good view of a fairly standard profile. It was profile because this guy was watching the spider who lived in a web up by the ceiling. The spider’s name was Oliver Wendell Holmes. The guy’s name was Solomon Burr.

This was all on a slow day, which most of them were. As yet, no one had mistaken me for a revised edition of Clarence Darrow. Though there were those exceptional months, I found myself unable to meet with any consistency the world’s constant demand for cash. Catch me toward the first, and I could be had for the rent. How Kitty paid her rent, I don’t know, since she was paid herself only now and then.

Today, when I walked in with the stale air of the municipal dungeons still in my nostrils, the small reception office was crowded. That is, there was one other person besides Kitty in it. A girl. She sat on the edge of a chair so straight and stiff that she managed to give the impression of being coiled like a spring. Dark red hair between a tiny hat and a face that retained its prettiness under strain; dark green suit, attractively filled.

“This is Miss Wanda Henderson,” Kitty said. “She wants to see you.”

“How do you do, Miss Henderson,” I said. “Come right in.”

I pushed open the door to my inner sanctum, and she did a tricky job of uncoiling while rising on the perpendicular, preceded me into the office, and sat down on the edge of my fancy chair for clients with a rigidly balanced bending. She sat with knees and ankles clapped tightly together, hands clutching a green leather purse in her lap. She seemed afraid to relax for an instant. Wanda Henderson was no scarecrow, far from it. As I said, not even the distortions of strain destroyed the basic lines of her face, not even the deep shadow of fear in her eyes.

I offered her a cigarette, thinking it might loosen her up a little. After a slight hesitation, she accepted it and a light gratefully.

“Apparently Hal’s never mentioned me,” she said.

I’d guessed her identity, of course, from the moment I’d walked in.

“Until this afternoon,” I said, “I hadn’t seen Hal for a long time. He probably has a lot of friends I’ve never heard of.”

She leaned forward stiffly, clutching the edge of the desk. “You’ve seen him?”

“I just came from the municipal prison.”

“How is he?”

I shrugged and lit a cigarette of my own, taking my time, answering her through smoke. “Licked,” I said. “Ready to quit. I’m supposed to be his lawyer, but it’s just for looks.”

“He didn’t mention me at all?”

“Not by name. He said he spent the night of the murder with a girl. That you?”

Delicate color flushed her cheeks. “Yes.”

“It’s an air-tight alibi, honey. You could save his hide with a dozen words in the right place.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here.”

“This isn’t the right place. If you speak up, Hal won’t even need a lawyer. All you have to do is see the district attorney.”

“I’ve seen him.”

In his corner, Oliver Wendell Holmes, with no problems, slumbered quietly in his web. The office seemed filled, of a sudden, with a poised and breathless menace.

“Yes? What did he tell you?”

“He told me it was a nice try and that he admired me for the attempt, but said he had a witness of his own who contradicted my testimony. His witness was one of his own investigators. He told me to go home and forget it, otherwise I’d find myself involved in a perjury charge.”

Her voice had sunk to a whisper of bitterness. I got up and moved over to a window that looked down into the narrow chasm of a dreary alley.

After a while, I turned back into the room. She still sat on the edge of her chair, the ineffectual cigarette burning forgotten between her fingers. A thin line of smoke ascended past her face. Her eyes met mine, fear swimming darkly.

I said quietly, “You know anyone out of town? Anyone you could visit for a while?”

“No.”

“That’s too bad. You ought to take a nice trip. You ought to take a quick trip to a far place. You got a job?”

“Yes.”

“Get sick. Give me time to figure something out. In the meantime, go home and lock your door. For your sake and Hal’s, take care of yourself.”

She jerked erect. “I’ll be all right. Will you call me when you need me?”

“I’ll call you. Leave your address with my secretary.”

She went to the door and stood there with one hand on the knob. “Why?” she asked. “He’s just one of the little guys. He isn’t big enough to rate a top bracket frame.”

I was suddenly wishing I had never known Hal Decker and that this girl was a thousand miles away. I wasn’t proud of the feeling, and I said softly, “There’s nothing personal about it. Any guy would have done. It’s just that someone needs a patsy... it’s just that Hal pointed at himself with his big mouth... it’s just that he made himself logical.”

She continued to stand there for a few seconds, her eyes fixed in a blind stare of intense absorption. And then, saying nothing, she went out.

I leaned back to study the wall beside the door. Outside in the reception office, the voices of Kitty and Wanda Henderson were engaged in a brief exchange. Then the hall door opened, closed, and silence descended.

Suddenly, beyond my door, Kitty’s typewriter began a furious clattering. Shadow on the glass, I thought. The clattering ended abruptly, and Kitty’s voice rose brightly. Almost immediately, my door swung open, and my reflexes had me reaching for a stack of paper, while I thought unkindly of Kitty’s negligence in forgetting to cue me in. But I didn’t complete the action. I knew, somehow, that the two guys who entered would not be susceptible to the routine.

One of them leaned against the door. The other moved in on my desk, with a cordial smile on his face. He even removed his hat, placing it carefully on a corner of the desk. His hair was light brown and clipped close to a skull. He was tall, topping-six feet, with heavyweight shoulders that moved in easy co-ordination with his legs. A pretty nice-looking guy, really, except that his light tan eyes were cold and shining with conditioned wariness. There was about him the delicate and indefinable scent of violence and death.

“You Solomon Burr?” he asked, pleasantly.

“Yes,” I said. “Have a chair.”

The cordial smile spread a trifle. He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and removed a thick, green packet. He fanned the edge of it with a thumbnail and laid it on the desk among the legal papers.

“No, thanks. We won’t stay. The girl who was just here — Wanda Henderson — this will pay you to forget her.”

It was a lot of money, a hell of a lot of money for a lawyer with a relatively new shingle. I looked at the packet, and my palms were itching.

“Go to hell,” I said.

The guy with tan eyes kept smiling. He picked up the money and returned it to his pocket. Leaning across the desk, as if he were going to argue the point, he slashed the horny edge of his hand across my month. My chair teetered, crashing over backward, not so much from the blow as from my effort to get away from it. The guy came around the desk and kicked me. I tried to move away, but all my muscles were drawn in a kind of excruciating contraction. I felt myself hoisted, jammed against the desk. Stony knuckles raked my face and the pleasant voice, spaced precisely between blows, reached me faintly on a rising wave of thunderous nausea.

“You could have made a nice bundle, just for turning down a job. Now you’ll turn it down without the bundle, just because I ask it. You hear me, counselor? You hear me real plain?”

I heard him, but I didn’t answer. I slipped away under cover of night and descended in soft and sweeping gyrations a thousand sickening miles to the blessed sanctuary of the floor.

Chapter Two

More Women in the Act

My head was lying on something delightfully soft. Far off above me, a voice said, “Damn it, you’re getting me all bloody.”

Opening my eyes, I saw through a swimming pink mist the shimmering, elusive face of Kitty Troop.

“Pardon me,” I said, shutting my eyes again.

The effort detonated a bomb inside my skull.

“Shut up,” Kitty said. “If you’ve got to bleed, bleed quietly.”

When I’d accumulated enough strength to lift my lids once more, the pink mist had thinned a little, and Kitty’s face was closer and clearer.

“You’ve been crying,” I said.

She sniffed. “Like hell I have. You think I’d waste any tears on a guy three months delinquent on my salary? What the hell you trying to do, sonny, make like Perry Mason?”

“Perry Mason never gets beat up,” I said. “Perry Mason is a hero. Has anyone ever told you that you’ve got nice legs?”

“You’d be surprised,” she said. “Anyhow, you ought to use a more direct approach. Between you and me, lover, this is a damned devious technique. Now get up. The fun’s over.”

I tried a grin and suffered for it. “You’re profane, honey. You’re a very profane dame.”

“To hell with you,” she said.

Slipping an arm across my shoulders, she made enough clearance to draw her leg out from under. Then, very gently, while bells rang and sirens whined in a vivid shower of colored sparks and streamers, she deposited me into a chair.

She went away, and I let my eyes close. Pretty soon, she returned, and I let them stay closed. She swabbed the cut on my cheek bone with liquid fire.

“Ouch,” I said.

“Merthiolate,” she said.

“Take it easy, honey.”

“It ought to have a stitch.”

“Nothing doing.”

“Okay. I’ll pull it together with tape. That way, it’ll leave a cute little scar. Make you look experienced.”

She did things with gauze and tape, and after a while, I began to feel much better, the fire diminishing in my face. With the tips of my fingers, I explored tenderly a swelling along the line of my jaw, the bloat of my lips. Kitty held a small mirror in front of me, and I was surprised to see that the reflected face wasn’t nearly so misshapen to the sight as it was to the touch. It had its purple patches and its distortions, to be sure, but the damage was minor to a face like mine.

“Nothing much I can do for the lips,” Kitty said.

“You might try kissing them.”

“No, thanks.”

“All right. I wouldn’t let you kiss me, anyhow, because you’re vulgar. You’d have to wash your mouth out with soap and water first, By the way, where’d you get all the first aid stuff?”

“I keep it in the drawer with my novel. I’ve been holding it for the day you get tired of watching your lousy spider and start looking around for more basic entertainment.”

“I’m not the rough type, honey.”

She gave me another grin, a little firmer around the edges this time, and perched on a corner of the desk. The nylon, even with runners, was very alluring.

“I was keeping it for you, lover, not me. Any guy who can’t handle a couple of gorillas wouldn’t get far with Kitty.”

I eased my head back wearily against the chair, and her hand came out suddenly, her fingers trailing lightly down my bruised cheek.

“It isn’t funny, Sol.”

“No,” I said, “it really isn’t.”

“What’s it all mean? Why do you rate a treatment by professional gorillas?”

I sat there with my head back, looking up at the ceiling. It was still the same old ceiling. Kitty sat on my desk, and she was still lovely, desirable, and unpaid. Everything was the same and in order. Yet nothing was the same, and nothing was in order.

“It means, honey,” I said quietly, “that a very deadly character wants Hal Decker to burn for a murder he didn’t commit. It means that anyone who gets in the way will get to be considered strictly expendable.”

“Who is he, Sol?”

“That’s something I’ve been thinking about real hard, and I keep getting an answer that scares the hell out of me. On the evidence, it’s really a pretty simple problem. Wanda Henderson is Hal Decker’s only alibi. Hal hasn’t told anyone about her, because he’s afraid of what might happen to her. On her own, Wanda went to Austin Stark, the district attorney, and told him Hal had spent the night of Danny Devore’s murder with her.

“What did Stark do? He laughed politely and sent her home under threat of a perjury rap. But Wanda didn’t go home. She came here instead, because Hal had mentioned to her that I’m a lawyer and that we used to be pretty good friends. She leaves here, and five minutes later a trio of gorillas make an appearance. One of them tries to buy me off the case. When I won’t buy, he gives me a sample of available consequences. Here’s the point, honey. How do they know Wanda Henderson is an alibi for Hal Decker? What’s the only way they could know?”

Kitty was perfectly still, her eyes shining. After a while, she said, “The district attorney, Sol? Don’t be silly.”

“It figures.”

“The way you look at it, it figures. Look at it another way, it doesn’t figure at all. In the first place, Stark isn’t part of the old crowd at City Hall. Danny Devore’s crowd, that is. He’s a crusader, a clean-up guy. As a matter of fact, Danny was one of his principal targets. He’s the white knight of the righteous.”

“He wouldn’t be the first saint with a brass halo. Maybe he feels appointed, and anointed. Maybe he looks upon the death of Danny Devore as a kind of holy assassination. I sort of see it that way myself.”

“What about the frame of Hal Decker? Is that holy, too?”

“It could be. A holy sacrifice on the altar of pure politics. Saving the great man for the great work.”

“You’re making him a maniac, Sol. You don’t believe it, yourself.”

“You’re right as usual. I don’t really believe it. I was just talking.”

She scooted over on the desk and put her feet in my lap. “Look, Sol. You sure you aren’t off on the wrong scent? Austin Stark is an ambitious guy. He’s got a long way to go in politics. His first step up was going to be on the dead carcass of Danny Devore. Dead politically, I mean. Danny’s death was the worst thing that could have happened to him. Because of the old martyr angle, Danny’s gang is playing it for all it’s worth. Already people are forgetting what a louse Danny was beginning to look, and one of his boys is sitting in Danny’s chair. He’ll be there a long time now. Danny’s murder has set Stark’s career back five years. Can’t you see that?”

“Sure. I can see it, all right. I can also see Stark’s connection with the gorillas. I can see that he has made a blunt effort to intimidate Hal Decker’s only witness. I can see that his own key witness is one of his own key men. I can see it all, and I can smell it. It stinks!”

I sat up in my chair, removing her feet from my lap, and putting my hands flat on the desk. Slowly, with labor and sweat, I pushed myself erect and stood quietly, leaning on the desk, until the room quit revolving and everything settled in its place. Kitty put an arm around me, contributing to my equilibrium, and that part was fun.

“Go get the city directory, honey,” I said. “Look up the address of Wash Richert.”

“Stark’s witness?”

“He’s the guy.”

“You going to see him?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Why?”

“When something smells, you sniff around.”

Her arm dropped away from me, and she went out into the reception office. While she was gone, I tried on my hat for size. Except for a tender spot above one ear, my skull seemed to have escaped abuse. I took a turn around the room, checking my motor reactions and finding them adequate. Kitty came back and stood watching my test run with critical eyes.

“It’s nine twelve South Twentieth,” she said. “You want me to go along to put you together again, just in case?”

I walked past her. “Don’t be facetious, honey. Remember, I’m your boss.”

She snorted. “A hell of a boss, you are. Working the help without pay... brawling in your office... getting involved with politicians. How the hell can you ever expect to amount to a damn?”

I ignored her, opening the outer door, and putting one foot into the hall.

She said, “Sol.”

I paused and looked back over a shoulder, my eyebrows making interrogation points.

“Be careful, Sol.”

I went on out and down the single flight to the street. I leaned against a lamp post. As I stood there, the yellow light came on above me, casting my abbreviated shadow to the pavement at my feet. Getting into my car, I drove away.

Out on South Twentieth, I found nine twelve to be a three-story brick walkup, with a narrow front and a high stoop. I went up the steps and into a short hall with a weak bulb burning at the ceiling under a dirty globe. Along the wall on my right, as I entered, were six mail boxes. Examining the names on the boxes, I discovered that Wash Richert lived on the third floor. Cursing my luck and my condition, I made the long climb up the worn, dark flights.

Outside Richert’s door, I knocked and waited, hearing within the sound of approaching footsteps. A woman, I thought, and when the door opened, it was. For a woman, she was tall, almost as tall as I, dressed in a navy blue sheer that gave her arms and shoulders, where there was nothing, under a soft, smoky look. Her platinum hair was phony, but the dye job and the style were good enough to make the phoniness unimportant. Her eyes were warm and her mouth was soft, almost pouting in repose, but you got a quick impression that the eyes could freeze fast, the lips thin and harden.

“I’m looking for Wash Richert,” I said.

Her voice had a minor nasality, whining slightly in her nostrils. “He isn’t here.”

“You know where he is?”

“No.”

“You know when he’ll be back?”

“No. Probably not for a long time.”

“You his wife?”

“I could be. What is this, mister? What you after?”

“Just conversation. May I come in?”

She looked at me with her platinum top cocked a little to one side, her eyes speculative. She seemed to be trying to make something interesting out of me, something that would do to pass the time.

“Why not?”

Following me into the room, she wondered if I’d like a drink to match one she’d been drinking when I knocked, and since I needed it, I said I would. She went off into a small kitchen to mix it, and I dropped my hat onto a chair and listened to the pleasant sounds of glass and ice. Pretty soon she came back and handed me a glass that was dark enough to look promising. Her own, I noted, was just as dark.

“Must be lonely without your husband,” I said.

She looked at me over the rim of her glass with an expression in her warm eyes that left everything open. “You’re only lonely if you let yourself be,” she said.

I swallowed a piece of my drink, and it was as strong as it looked. The warmth from the pit of my stomach was potent, prompt, and welcome.

“Where’d you say Wash went?”

“I didn’t. I said I didn’t know.”

“I guess you did, at that. I’m the forgetful type.”

“I’m not. If you’d tell me your name, I’d remember that.”

I had another drink and inspected the lowered cubes. “It’s Burr.” That didn’t seem to register, so I added, “I’m a lawyer.” She was still waiting, so I finished, “Hal Decker’s lawyer.”

When she lowered her glass, I saw that I’d been right in my analysis of her eyes and mouth. They could change very fast. The former were now cold, and the latter was a thin line.

“You can finish your drink before you go,” she said.

I laughed. “It just goes to show you. A girl ought to insist on a proper introduction.”

“No wonder you’re all beat to hell. You’re a very snotty guy. Maybe you’d better go before you finish your drink.”

I walked over to a table and deposited the glass, wishing I’d emptied it before she pinned me down.

“I just want to talk with you,” I said.

“Don’t waste your breath.”

“A guy’s life may depend on it.”

“I’m all broken up.”

I retrieved my hat and moved to the door. “I thought you would be. Thanks a lot, baby.”

I went down and crawled into my car and sat there wondering what Perry Mason would do. After a while, I thought to hell with Perry Mason and drove a couple of miles downtown to an apartment house that had more floors than Richert’s and an elevator to get you up and down. At a desk in the lobby, I asked a young clerk if he would please call Mr. Austin Stark and state that Mr. Solomon Burr humbly requested five minutes worth of precious, unofficial time. I expected a bounce and was surprised when I didn’t get it. The clerk pulled a plug and told me I could go right up.

On the tenth floor, a blond oak door was opened by Austin Stark himself, and I walked into an apartment that indicated a source of income considerably bigger than a district attorney’s salary. Not that I suspected anything illegal, for Stark was an honest man in matters concerning the root of evil. He was also a ruthless man. The ruthlessness was apparent in the gray eyes, the strong, sharp jaw and the cruel, pale lips. A man of concentrated purpose and driving ambition... a man who, in the final judgment, could do no wrong... a man whose final judgment would always be his own... above all, a dangerous man.

In the rich living room, we measured each other. His shallow eyes took in my marred face without a flicker of discernible reaction. He didn’t ask me to sit down. He didn’t offer me a drink. He just stood and waited.

“I’m representing Hal Decker in the Devore murder case,” I said.

He nodded shortly. “I’m aware of that.”

“You’re also aware that I have a witness who will swear that Decker spent the entire night of Devore’s murder with her.”

“True. She told me the story. She’s lying, of course.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Because, as you know, I have a completely reliable witness who saw Decker leave Devore’s house.”

“Yes. Wash Richert. One of your investigators.”

He could have drawn an inference, but he chose not to. He merely waited for me to continue.

“I’ve been out to Richert’s apartment. His wife told me he isn’t home. She said he probably won’t be back for a long time.”

His face was bland. “So?”

“So I thought you might tell me where he is.”

“Why should I know where he is?”

“He’s your witness. I assume you have him under wraps.”

“You’re wrong. I don’t have Richert under raps.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“No.”

He was lying coldly and methodically, perfectly certain that any lie he might tell was justified.

“When he reports in, will you let me talk with him?” I said.

“No. Why should I let you influence my witness?”

“I don’t want to influence him. I just want to talk with him.”

“It’s unthinkable.”

I turned and started for the door. “Okay. Thanks very much.”

I had taken three steps, maybe, when the door opened and a woman stepped in. She stopped abruptly, staring at me, color seeping to the surface of her cheeks, her lips falling slightly apart. She was wearing a long, white gown that seemed to be made of multiple layers of diaphanous material. Her hair was black, loose on her shoulders, gleaming with highlights. Her eyes were blanked out by dark glasses. Under the rim of one lens, I could see the outer edge of an ugly, yellow bruise, and I thought, Why, this doll has a plain, old-fashioned shiner.

She said, “I’m sorry, Austin. I didn’t know you were engaged.”

His voice behind me was measured icily. “It’s all right, my dear. We’ve just finished. My wife Alma — Mr. Solomon Burr.”

“How do you do,” I said.

She nodded and stepped aside, and I went on into the hall and let myself out.

In my car, I sat for a while and tried to think, but it seemed that my brain wouldn’t consider anything but dames — three of them. The only one I really wanted to think about was Kitty Troop; but the other three — black, red, and platinum — kept barging in to spoil the fun.

Finally, I gave it up and decided to go home, because I was very tired. I had done everything I could possibly do tonight.

Even Perry Mason couldn’t have done more...

Chapter Three

Homicide Chimes In

When I hit the office next morning, after seven hours in the sack, Kitty was sitting behind her desk with her knees crossed. Her chair was pushed back far enough to give anyone at the side an unobstructed view of her long legs.

The show was good, but the audience was composed of exactly one short, fat guy with popped eyes and a sour, twisted mouth. His fat was saggy, lapping over his collar and belt, and he looked as if he might reach five-six in his socks. Leaning against the jamb of my private door, hands thrust into the pockets of his pants, he divided his attention about equally between the scuffed toe of a shoe and Kitty. As far as I could see, he showed about as much enthusiasm for one view as the other. His popped eyes, the color of skimmed milk, took no notice of me.

“You’re wasting it,” I said pleasantly.

Kitty sighed philosophically. “You never can tell about these reserved guys, they’re deep. Sometimes they crack all of a sudden. This one’s Wiley Shivers. Detective Lieutenant Wiley Shivers, to you. He represents homicide.”

“Smart,” Wiley Shivers said. “You’re a smart pair.”

“We’re really not so bad,” I said. “It’s just that we’re leery of visitors. We’ve had bad luck with some recently.”

His eyes dropped again to the toe of his shoe.

“Joker,” he said. “Some people always reaching for a fast line. You got no call to be funny, counselor. Maybe you better start worrying a little. Maybe you got some more bad luck coming up.”

Already I was sick of him. “Is that a guess or a threat?”

He straightened, rocking forward from the jamb to an unsupported perpendicular. I noticed that his feet were very small, almost like a child’s, so that the balance of his excessive weight always seemed a little precarious.

“Neither. Call it a prediction based on evidence. I’ll come in and talk with you about it.” He rolled his milky eyes at Kitty. “See that no one disturbs us, sister.”

Kitty cackled and put her legs away under the desk. “That’s a very rough assignment,” she said.

I went into my office and sat down in my chair, and Shivers came after me and sat down in the chair that Wanda Henderson had sat in yesterday.

“I hear you were out on South Twentieth last night,” he said.

“That’s right. I went out to see Wash Richert. You’ve probably heard that, too.”

“I hear a lot of things. You see him?”

“No. I saw his wife.”

“Yeah? Platinum dame with round heels?”

“I can vouch for the platinum, not the heels. Maybe you’re better acquainted with her than I am.”

“There you go again. You got a smart mouth, counselor. She tell you where Wash was?”

“No. She gave me a drink and threw me out. She didn’t even give me time to finish the drink.”

“Tough. All your luck seems to be bad. Why’d she do it? Throw you out, I mean.”

“She didn’t like my name. She didn’t like my job. She thought I was nosey.”

“Probably she thought right.”

“You’re not a nice guy, Lieutenant.”

His pale, milky eyes were unaffected. “I’m not paid to be nice. I’m paid to be a cop.”

“Are they incompatible?”

“Usually they are. You telling me you never saw Wash at all last night?”

“That’s right. I saw his wife. Then I went to see Austin Stark. After that, I went home.”

“Well, someone saw him. I thought maybe it was you.”

I looked at his nasty, fat face across the desk, and the pressure was back in my chest.

“Why not come to the point, Lieutenant?”

“Sure. He’s dead — Richert is. Someone smoked him in a room over on the east side. Crummy dump where he’d holed in.”

I stared at him, and my mind was as numb as a blank can be. After a while I said, “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Murder never does. Not in the end.”

“Who would want him dead?”

“Hal Decker would.”

I laughed caustically. “Use your head, Lieutenant. Decker’s an ordinary guy, a little guy. He doesn’t have hired hoods to bump off an unfriendly witness for him.”

“He’s got you.”

“I’m a lawyer, not a torpedo.”

“He’s got the dame — the one who took a story to the D.A. — the Henderson dame.”

“So you’ve heard about her.”

“Like I said, I hear a lot of things.”

I massaged my forehead trying to muscle my thoughts into some kind of pattern, but it wasn’t any good. They kept right on milling around in confusion.

“Look,” I said. “I don’t expect you to believe it, but I’ve never been close to Richert. Not even within shooting distance. And I’d stake my life that Wanda Henderson hasn’t, either. There’s no reason to think she’d have been able to locate him. Damn it, there’s just no one loose who wanted him dead, no one who gave a damn about his testimony against Decker.”

Shivers’ lips, twisted with sour sarcasm. “Maybe you think the D.A. bumped his own witness. Maybe that makes sense to you.”

“No. That makes no sense, either. Not a damned thing about this makes sense.”

Surging up onto his little feet, he said, “One thing makes sense, counselor. Whoever killed Richert, it’s my job to find him. That makes all the sense I got any use for. You think I’m an unpleasant guy, and probably I am, but you haven’t seen anything yet. Believe me, you haven’t begun to see how unpleasant I can be.” He turned and went over to the door, and turned back again. “Be seeing you, counselor,” he said.

He went out across the reception office, and I heard his thin, dry voice directed at Kitty from the vicinity of the hall door, “It’s not that you aren’t good looking, sister. It’s just that I’m too old.”

Kitty came in and sat down on my desk. “You hear what he said? I thought it was very considerate of him. Restored my confidence.”

“Well,” I said bitterly, “he didn’t say anything to restore my confidence.”

She put fingers under my chin and tipped my face up. “I know. Just when you’re beginning to look human, too. You look much better without the fat lips, Sol.”

Her voice was light, but her eyes were clouded. I got the idea that she might be concerned.

“You been listening at the door again?” I said.

“Of course. Naturally.” Her eyes were lifted to the window behind me. “We’ve been loafing too hard, Sol. We ought to go somewhere on a vacation.”

“Together, honey? That’s a very interesting idea that I may remind you of later.” I stood up and moved around the desk. “Right now I’ve got a date with another gal. You have Wanda Henderson’s address?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I’m going out there.”

“Look, hero, a lawyer’s supposed to see his clients in his office. He doesn’t run around knocking on doors like a census-taker. Damn it, do you have to go looking for trouble?”

“I’m not looking for trouble, honey. I’m looking for a way out of it. In case you haven’t noticed, trouble’s all around me. I’m buried in it, right up to my neck.”

She slipped off the desk. “Sure you’re in trouble. You know why? Because the area’s swarming with dames. Scratch a dame, you always uncover trouble. I knew you were out of your depth, Sonny, the minute that redhead showed up here yesterday. Then, as if a redhead wasn’t enough, you had to go get involved with a platinum blond, with round heels, no less. This case starts out as a nice, simple frame for murder, and all of a sudden it develops female trouble.”

I grinned. “You haven’t credited all the cast. There’s a black-headed doll, too. Her name’s Alma Stark.”

“The great man’s wife? How does she figure?”

“I don’t know how she figures, but she’s got a black eye. A dame with a black eye must have been into something.”

Kitty eased up close and tapped me on the chest with a red nail. “For your information you still haven’t got the cast complete. There’s still another female on the stage. She’s beautiful, intelligent, and loaded with charm. Besides, you owe her three months’ salary, and she doesn’t want you dead until it’s paid. Take care, lover.”

That put us on an upbeat, and it seemed like a good place to leave us for the time being, so I got the address and went downstairs to my car. After cutting across town for about twenty minutes, I came to the address Kitty had given me. This was another walkup, but Wanda Henderson lived on the second floor instead of the third, and I was feeling better than I had felt yesterday, what with the rapid healing of my bruises and the growing affection for Kitty Troop. Even with Wiley Shivers in the background, any mental state was reasonably bright as I knocked on Wanda’s door.

The door was a little off the latch and I and swung inward away from my knuckles. Through the crack between door and jamb, I could see a kind of dull, red stain on the worn carpet of the room. Having been made susceptible to suggestion by recent experience, I thought at first that it was blood, but then I saw that it wasn’t blood at all. It was hair.

I pushed the door open farther and stood there looking at Wanda Henderson, and I could see that she would be cold to the touch. Her arms were spread, the fingers clawed. Her red hair splashed around her head, and there were bruises on her throat. She’d been killed by hands — direct, primitive, the most brutal of all forms. At least it was a change from shooting.

I pulled the door shut very quietly, I turned, and went back downstairs to the car and drove away.

It wasn’t that I didn’t even consider calling the police. I did. It was my first thought. My second thought, however, was of Wiley Shivers, and I felt that anyone, even in case of murder, was justified in not calling the police if calling them meant facing Shivers the second time in one day.

Now the whole affair was a monstrous bit of nonsense verse. Nothing whatever made any sense at all, and I was groping blindly in a maniac world that was filled with wandering women and a fine, indiscriminate slaughter of witnesses. Why? Why the impartial elimination of the key witness on both sides? The only guy who’d figured in the business all the way was Austin Stark. All the way to the murder of Wash Richert, that is. But how could you figure Stark in the elimination of his own man? Of course, he probably had Richert’s signed statement, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the same as a live guy in court putting the clincher on a frame.

Several blocks from the walkup, I stopped at a corner drug store and went inside to the phone. I dropped a dime and dialed.

“Hello, Kitty. Anyone there?”

“No. Your date over already?”

“It never even got started. Wanda had another date, in Samara.”

“What the hell you talking about, lover?”

“You don’t get it? A novel reader like you? Never mind, though. It means she’s dead.”

The wire sang between us, and after a while, she said quietly, “One of the others called in, right after you left — the platinum one.”

“Richert’s wife? What does she want?”

“She wants to talk with you. She sounded scared. She sounded scared to death. Which reminds me that I’m scared to death myself. I’ll bring all the petty cash and meet you at the bus station. We can’t afford a train.”

“Some other time, hussy. What about the platinum? She coming to the office?”

“No. She’s waiting in a little bar called The Peanut. They serve them in bowls with beer. It’s on Fifteenth, just off Wamego Street.”

“I know the place. See you later.”

“I wonder,” she said sadly, and hung up.

On Fifteenth, just off Wamego, The Peanut was a dismal, little bar which, like all bars in the morning, somehow gave the impression of having a hangover. In the shadowy interior, behind the peanut bowls, a bartender looked at me as if he wished he didn’t have to. Opposite the bar lining the wall, there was a string of booths, each with its own peanut bowl, and private remote-control box for the juke box in the rear. In the last booth, where the shadows were deepest, I caught a glimmer of platinum, the white movement of a lifted hand.

I told the bartender to bring me a shot of rye and went back to the booth and sat down. While I was waiting for the rye, I saw that Kitty had been right. Mrs. Richert was scared to death. Her face was drawn, no more than a shade darker than her hair, and her eyes were still and wary. She held a glass in her fingers, twisting it slowly, with odd little jerks.

“You wanted to talk with Wash,” she said. “It’ll never happen now.”

“I know. A cop named Wiley Shivers came to see me this morning.”

“Yeah.” Her eyes stared into her slowly rotating glass. “Nasty little toad. I wasn’t thinking straight, or I wouldn’t have put him on you. You got an idea Wash didn’t really see Hal Decker leaving Danny Devore’s place the night of Danny’s murder?”

“Yes. Hal spent that night with his girl. She was willing to swear to it. You get the tense? Was, I said. That was yesterday. Today she’s dead. Murdered. I just left her on the floor of her apartment.”

Fear moved like a shadow across her face. “The devil,” she said softly. “The merciless, arrogant devil.”

“Stark?”

The flesh quivered on her bones, and I could see her fingers tighten convulsively on the glass. “So you’ve figured it out. He killed Danny Devore, and I guess he killed Hal Decker’s girl. For that, I don’t give a damn. But he killed Wash, too, and Wash was mine. I’ve played him for a sucker whenever the notion struck; but he was mine, and I never wanted him dead. And I want the guy who killed him.”

“And if Hal Decker, an innocent guy, goes clear in the process, that’s purely coincidental, I suppose.”

Her eyes flicked up and down, and the hardness was in there with the fear. “That’s right. Wash and I had this fixed up for a big bundle, but now hope for the bundle’s dead with Wash, and all I want is to get even. I want the guy who killed Wash. Anything that comes with it is frosting on the cake, as far as I’m concerned.”

I looked at her with the first, faint light of dawn breaking inside my skull. “A bundle? So Wash was more than a phony witness. He was also a blackmailer. That explains a lot. I saw Stark in all this from the beginning, but I couldn’t see why he’d bump his own witness. And there’s still something I can’t see. I can’t see why Stark killed Devore. I know he was after Danny’s public hide, but murder’s something else. It’s too fantastic for belief.”

Her lips curled. “Politics,” she said, and the word as she said it was incredibly profane. “There was a better reason than politics for Danny’s murder. It’s really sort of funny, the way it happened. Listen. Wash was Stark’s investigator, and Wash was a handy sort of guy. He had a way with gadgets. Things like tape recorders, for in stance. Stark wanted something on Devore that he could use, something concrete. Devore used to make a lot of his crooked deals in his study at home, and Stark figured that if he could set up a hidden mike in the study with a recorder hidden outside, sooner or later he’d get something hot.

“He put Wash on the job, and Wash set the thing up. How he did it doesn’t matter now. Just take it from me, Wash was a pretty clever guy. He took three spools of tape on three consecutive nights and turned them over to Stark. What Stark didn’t know was that Wash played it all back before he turned it over. He not only played it all back, he made copies. Some of it was pretty good. Enough to nail Devore down. But Stark was greedy. He wanted more, and he got more.”

She stopped talking and began to laugh. It was deep, soundless laughter that shook her body like a violent spasm. After a minute, she broke it off with a shrill gasp and said hoarsely, “He got something real hot. He got something so hot it blistered the tape and shriveled his own lousy soul. He got Mrs. Austin Stark and handsome Danny Devore in a scene that was strictly unofficial. I guess it was the one thing the arrogant devil never dreamed of.

She began to laugh again, and inside my skull the dawn broke like thunder. The irony of it all was enough to make anyone hysterical. I reached across the table in the booth. I put my thumb on one side of her face and my four lingers on the other. Then I make like a pair of pincers, cutting off her laughter and forcing it back into her throat.

“I get it,” I said. “That was something a guy like Stark couldn’t take. He went blind. He killed Danny Devore, not for any political reason, but for the old three-cornered reason that’s always been valid.”

“That’s it.” She lifted her glass suddenly, draining away the last of its amber contents. “He told Wash to knock off the recordings. But he didn’t know that Wash had copies. He didn’t realize that Wash knew about Mrs. Stark and Danny Devore. Most of all, he didn’t realize that Wash was spinning another spool the night of the murder. He found it out about an hour later. He found it out when Wash showed up at his place all ready to do business.”

“What about Hal Decker’s gun?”

“Devore wasn’t killed with Decker’s gun. That was fixed later. Wash remembered Decker’s threats. He knew Decker could be made to look like a logical suspect. Wash swiped the gun the same night and planted it by Devore’s body. He agreed to swear he’d seen Decker leave the scene of the murder. Wash didn’t mind helping with the alibi.

“The way he looked at it, the alibi was a kind of insurance on the tape. Stark had to be free in order to pay. He was a guy going up, and he could pay and keep paying.” Her fingers tightened around the glass until I thought it would crack. “There was something else he could do too,” she said softly. “He could kill. Wash should’ve remembered that.”

The front door swung open, and a girl came into the bar. She was, as she would have been the first to tell you, intelligent, beautiful and loaded with charm. Her eyes drifting over me casually; she sat down in a booth up the line and ordered a beer.

“Has Stark got the tape?” I asked.

The platinum head nodded. “Not the two big ones — not the love scene, not the murder.”

“Where are they?”

Her eyes sharpened, calculating possibilities of salvage, and I laughed. “No dice, sister. I couldn’t rake up more than a fin. It’ll have to be for the satisfaction you get out of it.”

She shrugged and dug into her purse. On the table between us, she laid a key. The key had the number six hundred and eight stamped on it.

“Public locker,” she said. “Union Station. The player is there, too.”

I covered the key with a hand, and it was just in time. The bar door swung open again, and three guys came in. Two of them I remembered. They came straight back to our booth.

The guy who’d worked me over said pleasantly, “We thought she’d contact you. She told you where the tape is?”

“Tape?”

The guy’s laugh wasn’t quite as pleasant as his voice. “I’ll play along for a minute, counselor. Recordings, I mean.”

The key was red hot in the palm of my hand, under my thumb. “I don’t know anything about any recordings. Recordings of what?”

He drew his shoulders forward, his eyes impersonal. “Who knows? Who cares? We’re supposed to get the tape and deliver it, that’s all. You willing to talk now?”

I looked blank and stayed quiet. After a minute he reached down, and helped me out of the booth. One of the other two did the same for Richert’s widow.

We all went out together. On the way, I brushed the table of the booth in which Kitty was drinking her beer with a display of serenity that was, under the circumstances, somewhat annoying. My right hand, hanging at my side, extended just below the top of the table. I let the key slip down my palm into my fingers, and flipped it off toward Kitty’s lap.

Kitty lifted her beer and drank. She looked as if she were enjoying it...

Chapter Four

Fitting the Puzzle Together

We went up from a narrow alley on rickety stairs into a large room that looked like it used to be a place to lay a bet. There was a flat top desk, with an undisturbed coating of dust. On the wall behind the desk, was an old slate blackboard with some faint chalk marks still on it.

The young gorilla who looked like a rah-rah boy pushed his hat onto the back of his head and said politely, “Ladies first.”

The bigger of the other two grinned and smashed the platinum blond across the mouth with the back of his hand. The blow cracked like a rifle shot, and she cringed away with a squeal and a whimper, pressing one hand to her injured mouth.

“Where’s the tape?” Tan Eyes said. Before she could answer, the big guy backhanded her again, and a wet sob gurgled in her throat. Her eyes flared with hate and fear, and all the other hellish emotions that a woman like her can feel for a guy who belts her in the face.

“Where’s the tape?” Tan Eyes said.

The big guy drew his arm up and back again, so that his chin was fitted into the interior angle of his elbow, but before he could slash it out and down, I said, “It’s in a locker at Union Station.”

Tan Eyes turned to me, smiling. “A gentleman. A real, damned gentleman. Can’t stand to see a dame knocked around. I thought you’d be soft.”

The big guy came over to me and grabbed me by the lapels with his left hand. He brought the heel of his right hand down in a short chopping motion on my bandage.

I could fed the cut pull apart, and blood welled out from under the bandage and ran down my face.

“That’s for not saying it sooner,” he said.

Tan Eyes held out a hand, palm up.

“You got a key?”

“No.”

The big guy hit me across the eyes with the edge of his hand, it was like getting hit with a tomahawk.

“Where’s the key?” Tan Eyes said.

I was blind. I had lost my vision in an intense flare of brilliant light that died instantly to total darkness. Now the darkness was diluted slowly by a gray infiltration, and objects and faces reappeared with a strange effect of coming down a line of perspective from a great distance. The big executioner had his chopper drawn back for a repeat, and Tan Eyes had his extended, as before, with the palm up.

I guess I could have taken more, if I’d had to. But I was glad I didn’t have to. Kitty had the key. She’d had at least twenty minutes to function, and Kitty was a smart gal. By this time, she was certainly in possession of the tape and the player.

“I dropped it in the coin slot in the juke box control,” I said.

The tan eyes faded to a cold and wary yellow. The lips below them barely moved.

“Don’t play fancy, counselor. If you say it, it better be true.”

“It’s true,” I said, and when the big one moved in for another cut, I added quickly, “The number’s six hundred and eight.”

Tan Eyes swung an arm out gently against the other’s chest. “To hell with the key,” he said. “A public locker’s no problem.”

The third guy had been standing against the door watching, just as he’d done in my office. It could be that he just went along for kicks, or that he was the coach. The guy who really called the plays and did the thinking when thinking was needed. He was the one who did it now, at any rate, even though it came a little late.

“The tape’s not in the locker,” he said.

Tan Eyes turned slowly. “No? You thinking of a better place?”

Number three, the Thinker, moved lazily against the door, lifting his shoulders slightly. “The tape’s not in the locker,” he said. “The key’s not in the slot. The dame’s got it.”

“Dame? This one?”

“No. The blond. The one drinking beer. I just remembered where I’ve seen her before. It’s been bothering me.”

The tan eyes were very still, fading again, masking the activity of the brain behind. “The secretary, his secretary!”

The Thinker’s lips curled. He nodded agreement. “Sure. I’m betting he passed the key off when he brushed the booth. One will get you ten if the tape’s not in his office right now, or on the way there.”

The executioner moved in again. His lips were twisted back off his teeth, and his hand was raised to chop. At the door, the Thinker straightened and said, “Later. We owe him something, but save it for later. Right now we’ve got no time.” He gave the disappointed executioner a placating smile, as one might smile at an unhappy child, promising future pleasure. “You stay here with the dame. She might get lonesome if we left her by herself.”

Tan Eves took my arm like an old friend, and we went out of the room together and down the rickety stairs to the alley. The Thinker followed along. In the alley we all got into the Caddy that had brought us from The Peanut; Tan Eyes behind the wheel, the Thinker and I in the rear seat.

“You boys do all of Stark’s strong-arm work?” I asked.

The Thinker smiled lazily and said, “Button up, counselor.”

The big Caddy rolled along with a pedigreed purr, taking its time and minding the traffic signals. No one seemed to be in a hurry, which was agreeable to me, and it was probably another twenty minutes before we crawled out onto the sidewalk in front of my shingle. Going up the stairs, like meat in a sandwich between my brace of escorts, I prayed silently that Kitty had been sensible enough to take the tape someplace else. But Kitty, while clever, was given to being sensible only rarely, and this, apparently, wasn’t a rare occasion. She was sitting behind her desk, showing her teeth in a receptive smile.

“Hi, guys,” she said.

The Thinker closed the door and leaned against it, as was his habit. Tan Eyes walked over to the desk and took Kitty’s chin between thumb and fingers, tipping her head back. He let his eyes wander over her face and on down the arched stem of her neck. The eyes, she reported later, were tender.

“You’re a sweet doll,” he said. “You’re a luscious hunk of stuff. Wouldn’t it be a shame if I had to mess you up? Wouldn’t it be a crying shame?”

She kept on smiling as well as she could with the pressure on her face. Her voice was thin and strained from the tension in her throat.

“Anything you want to do, you better do quick,” she said. “My friend, Wiley Shivers of homicide, may be slow with a dame, but he can still fire his cannon allegro fortissimo. In your language, that means fast and loud as hell.”

He was like a guy in slow motion. His hand floated away from, her face, and he turned by degrees from the hips, his arm bent at the elbow and suspended outward at his side. He looked like a kid’s dream of a gunslinger. Only the gun wasn’t on his hip, it was under his arm. The suspended arm flashed up and inward as Wiley Shivers opened my private door. But Wiley’s gun was handier. It was already pointed accurately in the right direction.

Tan Eyes sat down very quietly on the floor and folded over like a supplicant. Against the hall door, the Thinker was immobile, spread on the wood in a kind of mock and frozen crucifixion. Wiley Shivers, that remarkable, fat, little guy, looked down at his victim, who was obviously dead, and his expression was precisely the same as when he’d looked at his scuffed shoe, or at the visible charms of Kitty.

“A good gunsel,” he said, after a while. “A dead one.”

Kitty came out from under her desk, and looked at me across the top. Her voice took off like a wild knuckle ball. “You’re bleeding again. Why the hell don’t you learn to protect yourself?”

I didn’t answer. I watched Wiley Shivers walk over slowly to the body of the rah-rah gorilla and nudge it with a toe. The folded body, in delicate balance, stirred and slipped over, straightening on the floor. The face under the light brown crew-cut had acquired a new softness of line. It looked rather sophomoric. Shivers’ sour gaze lifted, roamed around the wall, and down across the Thinker against the door. It came to rest on me.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Sorry? For what? This guy?”

“No. For what I thought about you. I thought you were a crook. I thought you were hand-picked by Austin Stark to pin a rap on me.”

“I don’t give a damn what you thought.”

“Thanks, anyhow.”

His mouth twisted. His eyes looked like a couple of smeary marbles. When I was a kid, we used to call them snotties.

“That’s the trouble with you smart guys,” he said. “You think in generalities. We got crooks at headquarters, so you jump to the opinion that everyone’s a crook at headquarters. See what I mean? Under all the smartness, no brains at all. I’ll tell you something to remember, counselor. Wherever you go, you’ll always find a few honest guys.”

He moved over to the door and casually flipped an automatic from under the arm of the Thinker. Without turning, he said, “I’ll take this punk in. You two stay here and sit on those tapes. I’ll send back for them. And don’t worry about the cops I send, they’ll be honest. When I send them, they’re always honest. Wagon’ll be here for the guy on the floor.”

He was moving again, when I thought of the platinum blond. “They’re holding Richert’s widow,” I said. “I just happened to remember. The Thinker there can tell you where.”

Looking back for a second over his shoulder, he struck an attitude of ludicrous, flabby coyness. He was the only guy I’ve ever known you could love and hate at once.

“Much obliged. That’s real thoughtful of you. She’ll probably be very glad you just happened to remember. Incidentally, Stark’s in custody by now. I sent a couple men after him just as soon as I’d heard the tape. We’ll be springing Decker to make room for him.” His lips moved again into that sour twist that seemed to signify hatred, for all the world and everything in it. “See you around, counselor.”

He went on out with the Thinker, and I said, “Not if I can help it. Never again.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Kitty picked her way around the body in front of her desk. “Wiley isn’t a bad guy. I knew right away he was honest. That’s why I called him to meet me here.”

“Yes? What made you so sure he was honest?”

She grinned. “That remark he made. About being too old for me. No one but an honest man could have said that! Let’s go in your office and play the tape with Mrs. Stark and Danny Devore on it. I’ve already listened to part of it. He’s quite the romantic type. You can learn a lot from Danny, even though he’s dead.”

The Closing Trap

Originally published in Detective Story Magazine, May 1953.

Chapter 1

It was quiet in the big room. The full wall of windows at the west end caught the pale, slanting light of the sun in descent, and the light splashed in across deep carpeting and rich furniture to give the ivory painted concert grand at the east end a delicate old-world coloring. Behind the grand, Terence Pope fingered from memory a few old tunes, looking into the warm wash of light and feeling within himself a kind of frail peace that took its substance from the hour and, like the hour, wouldn’t last.

He didn’t see the girl called Liza Gray who stood in the arched entrance to the room looking at him, but he was thinking about her. And when she crossed the room silently and leaned against the piano, it seemed like something that ought to happen about that time and was no surprise whatever.

“Hello, Terry. I didn’t know you could play.”

He looked up at her with a smile restricted to careful friendliness, and he broke out of the tune he was playing into the soft ascension of a scale. The light gathered in her pale gold hair, dispersing along the clean lines of her face and throat, and in his heart the transient peace succumbed to pain that was almost adolescent in its intensity. Underlying the change, adult and reasoned, was the grim foreknowledge of everything coming to a bad end.

“I can pick out a tune, baby, if you call that playing.”

“You’re a strange guy. Full of little things no one would suspect.”

“We’re all like that. Full of surprises, I mean. If you keep looking long enough, you begin to find them.”

“Me, too?”

He laughed softly, his fingers searching adroitly for the beginning of another tune. “You, baby? You’ve got more surprises than Pandora’s box.”

“That was the box with all the world’s troubles in it, wasn’t it?”

“That’s the one.”

“You think I’m full of trouble, Terry?”

“For me, you are. For me, you’re trouble in spades. That ought to be obvious. Because you’re a lovely, lovely hunk of stuff, and you’re Guy Sebastian’s. Guy doesn’t like the hired help feeling possessive about his property.”

“You afraid of Guy?”

He laughed again, shortly. “I’m supposed to say no? I’m supposed to push out my chest like a Rover Boy? You know the right answer. Hell, yes, I’m afraid of Guy! I’m afraid of him the same way you’re afraid of him. The same way any little guy is afraid of any big guy with money and power and the ruthlessness to throw them around.”

She slipped around the curve of the grand piano and sat on the bench beside him. “Little guys grow.”

His fingers moved out of one tune, into another. “There’s something else, baby. There’s the fact that Guy’s been a pretty good friend.”

“Don’t be a fool, Terry. Guy doesn’t have friends. Like you said, he has property. I don’t get it, Terry. A bright guy like you, with a big chunk of education. What are you doing here?”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m Guy Sebastian’s secretary.”

“Don’t play, coy with me.” Her mouth sagged at the corners, losing for a moment its beautiful lines. “You’re no more a secretary than I am. You’re a deluxe errand boy. Pleasant presence and fancy talk. We’re both the same. Figure a name for me, and we’ll share it.”

His fingers went on with the thin, tinsel tune. Hadn’t the knowledge been a sickness in his soul for the eight long months past? He shrugged. “Regrets, Liza?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it depends on you. You haven’t answered my question.”

“Why I’m here? I could ask the same of you.”

“If you did, I’d tell you.”

“I’m a lazy guy with no special ambition and no incentive to make big stuff of his little talents... And, well — all tyrants have guys like me around, Liza. Hitler had one to play the piano and tell jokes...”

“As simple as that?”

“That’s right. And now it’s your turn.”

“It’s a matter of values, I guess,” she said slowly. “It’s a matter of overestimating the things you’re born without. Things like mink and money and all this. You want them, you go after them. You work the only way you can — by investing natural assets. For a long time after you get them, you think they’re good enough. But then something comes along to let you know they’re not. Something, or someone. Can you play My Desire, Terry?”

His brain said no, but his fingers wouldn’t listen. They ran a scale and worked back down into the tune.

“It’s for you and me, that tune. You know it’s for you and me,” she said softly. He let the tune die, and turned on the bench to face her. Her pale blond hair fell forward from a low side part, to cast her face in shadow.

He saw again the perfect structure of bone beneath perfect skin, and he told himself again, for the thousandth time, not to be a fool.

“Don’t say it, baby. Even to say it means the end of luck.”

“Maybe not. Maybe we could get Guy to see it our way.”

“He’d crucify us and you know it. He’d nail us on the wall and celebrate with a wake.”

“You’ve got to believe in luck...”

“We’d never get away with it. Never in the world,” he said.

“We could talk to Guy together...”

He took her by the shoulders and pushed her roughly away. Getting up from the bench, he moved around the piano and stood with his back to her.

After a while, he turned and went back to her and found that she was standing waiting quietly.

He said harshly, “Forget it, Liza.”

She moved against him.

“Tell me how, Terry. Tell me how to forget.”

He couldn’t, because he didn’t know, and suddenly his right hand moved up into her hair against the back of her skull, mashing her mouth upon his with hungry brutality.

She whispered, “Terry, Terry...”

He tore her mouth away, pressing her head forward and down against his shoulder.

“So you don’t forget, baby. So you just remember how it might have been if things were different.”

Her head turned, her lips moving against his neck. “You always call me baby. Call me darling, Terry. Just once, call me darling.”

His voice was distorted with harshness, wrenched from his throat in the anger that comes with frustration. “Darling’s a word. It’s as cheap as ten thousand others. Darling Liza. Darling, darling, darling. Is that enough to pay you for the way we’ll die if Guy Sebastian gets any idea of this?”

She slipped away from him.

“You make him sound pretty grim, Terry. Guy. I mean.”

He laughed again without humor and took shoulders in his two hands.

“You trying to kid yourself, baby? If you are, you’d better quit. Guy Sebastian’s strictly a no-limit operator. How do you think he got all this fancy stuff you and I have been living with? Why do you think things happen when he says a word? Because he plays a horse now and then? Because he puts something on the books when the odds are right? You know better than that. These things are just to pass the time.

“He knows a lot of people in a lot of places. It might surprise you, the places those people are. It might surprise you even more to know where the big profits come from. You and I, we’re nothing. If we don’t watch out, we’ll be two stiffs in an alley, and no questions asked.”

“What does that make us, Terry?” she asked. “If Guy’s a louse, what does that make us? Funny that I never wondered before.”

“It makes us two parasites on a louse,” he said quietly, releasing her shoulders. “It’s getting late. Pretty soon this place will be swarming with people looking for drinks. You’d better get yourself sharp. Guy likes you to be a credit to him, you know.”

“I know.” She went back to the piano and picked up the purse she’d deposited when she came in. “When are you going to be on the level with me? When are you going to tell me why you’re really here?” The sudden desire to tell her the truth was an almost irresistible temptation. And he wanted to tell her to start running. But he only said, “I told you. I’m an educated flunkey. Self-made big shots always like to have one around. It keeps their egos fat.” Signifying defeat by the slight sag of her mouth, she rounded the piano and went out a door beyond it into the hall.

He stood without moving, hearing the receding tap of her high heels on asphalt tile, and when the sound was gone, he went down to the west windows and stood looking out across a wide terrace to the ragged skyline.

He was still there five minutes later when one of Guy Sebastian’s stony-faced servants materialized soundlessly at his elbow. Without moving, Terry angled a look over the corner of his shoulder into eyes as flat and depthless as metal disks.

“The boss wants you. In his office.”

“Okay.” Terry returned his gaze to the skyline, now darkening and grim.

The stony-faced servant said, “Now.”

Terry shrugged and went down the long room. In the hall, he took the stairs that ascended in a broad sweep to the second floor. Continuing on the level, he knocked on a door at the rear of the hall and the voice of Guy Sebastian invited him to come in. It was a peculiar voice, distorted and coarse and strangely modulated, as if its softness was intended to minimize its ugliness.

Terry responded to the invitation.

The man who stood in the center of the room to receive him was no more than average height, but he managed to give the impression of added inches. He was dressed in a conservative gray suit that was tailored to fit his body, not to disguise it. His hair was faded brown, wiry in texture, cropped close to a round skull. The face was aggressive, thrusting itself boldly in the lines of nose and jaw.

The distorted voice said, “Hello, Terry. Find a chair.”

Terry sank into foam rubber and waited. Sebastian, balanced catlike on the balls of feet slightly spread, lifted in a slight gesture the glass he held.

“Drink, boy?”

“No, thanks. I’ll have too many before the night’s over.”

“Sure. You’re smart not to let them get ahead of you.” Sebastian turned and crossed to an immense bleached oak desk. Leaning against it, tilting his glass against his mouth, he looked at Terry over an arc of rim. The eyes were casual. “How long have you been around, Terry?”

“In the organization, eight months,” he said. “Here in your apartment, about six.”

“Not mine. Ours. I told you when I moved you in that you were to use it like it was your own. You remember that?”

“Sure, Guy, I remember it. You know I appreciate it.”

The thin shadow of a smile flickered beneath the bold nose. “You know why I had you move in? Because I liked you. You’re a smooth, easy-to-like guy. It gives me kicks to have you around. I’ve got big plans for you a little later. In the meantime, though, maybe you misunderstood me a little. Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. I meant just the use of the apartment. I didn’t mean everything in it. You straight now, boy?”

He was straight, all right. He was straight enough to understand that he and Liza had been spotted in the clinch.

He closed his eyes and said, “She’s a beautiful gal, Guy. Beautiful enough to entitle anybody to one mistake.”

He sat there with his eyes closed, wondering if it had been the right response. And after a while he heard a soft sigh from Guy Sebastian, and he knew that it had been right.

“I’ve been a good friend, haven’t I, Terry? It’d be a shame to change it. Like you say, one mistake. Just one.”

Terry opened his eyes. He was amazed to learn that a man could, without physical exertion, become completely exhausted in a couple of minutes.

Chapter 2

A few days later, Terry was thinking over all this in a bar around the corner from a burlesque theater. On the wall behind him were dozens of slick stills: the cuties who took it off for a living. Someone crawled onto the stool on his right and said, “Mine’s better, Terry. My chassis, I mean.”

He set his glass down carefully on the bar. “I’ll bet it is,” he said. “What I’ve seen of it, I admire. I admire it very much. But I like it living, not dead. Incidentally, I like my own, such as it is, the same way. Now go away, please, Liza.”

“That isn’t a very nice welcome.”

“Look, baby, I’ve told you. I’ve spelled it out so a kid could get it. Listen carefully, and I’ll try again. After our little interlude the other day, Guy Sebastian had me in for a drink and a lesson in manners.”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

“Oh, sure. Famous last words. For your information, there isn’t a hell of a lot that Guy Sebastian doesn’t know. About the things that concern him personally, there isn’t anything at all be doesn’t know. Besides, what about me? What about the things I’d know? I don’t usually object to sharing what I have, but some things I like to keep private. I’m greedy that way.”

“You’re a proud guy, Terry. Me, I’ve got no pride left. I want you any way I can get you. Even on shares.”

His voice was defensively harsh. “Look. I’m just a so-so guy. Not even so-so, really. A parasite on a louse, I think we decided. I don’t rate a grand passion. On me, it looks funny. Now be a good girl and peddle your fleshpots to the guy who buys the mink.”

“I’d give it all back, Terry. He can have it all back and welcome — the mink, the diamonds, all the fancy junk together. I’m leveling, Terry. For maybe the first time in my life, I’m honest-to-God leveling. I followed you here to this dump just to tell you. Just to try to get you to see it. We could run, dear, if we had to. It’s a great big wide world, and Guy Sebastian can’t be everywhere in it.”

“Anywhere he’s not, he can damn soon get.” He turned away from her, looking into his empty glass through the drying traces of stale scum. Then he spun back to face her. “I’ve tried to be nice about it. I’ve tried to be a little gentleman. Now let’s get straight for good. You’ve got plenty of attractive stuff to offer. Ordinarily the possibilities for fun would be overwhelming. Ordinarily, I’d be eager to play. But not the way things are now.”

She slipped off the stool and stood silently beside him. He returned his eyes to the glass and waited for her to leave. After a long time, he felt her hand on his arm. Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

“You mean it? You really mean it?”

“I mean it. If you want, you can make me sweat for it. If you want, you can foul me up with Guy. If it comes to liquidation, there’s not much question about whether it’d be you or me.”

She backed off a couple of steps. “You believe I’d do it. Frame you with Guy just to salve the wounds you’ve made in my precious pride? I told you I didn’t have any pride left. And anyway, I’d never do you any harm if I could help it. I’d never do it, Terry.”

Then she turned and went out, and he pushed the empty glass across the bar and said. “Draw another.”

The bartender filled his glass and raked off suds with the back of a knife. He slid the glass down the wet surface deftly.

A thin man in a loose cord suit had claimed the stool on Terry’s left. He was wearing a soiled panama hat that looked too big for his head, and the skin of his face had the same loose look as his suit. The skin was tinged with yellow, almost jaundiced in appearance. The man ordered a beer and waited until the bartender had moved out of hearing range.

“Who’s the dame?” he said.

“Her name’s Liza Gray. Guy Sebastian’s fiancée.”

“How come she was here?”

“Followed me, I guess.”

The man said, “Oh?” He swallowed beer and waited.

Terry shrugged angrily. “I guess you listened in. You heard what she said.”

“I heard, all right. You think she’s straight?”

“Maybe.”

“She suspect anything?”

“I don’t think so. At any rate, nothing like the truth.”

“You think she could have been set onto you by Sebastian?”

“No.”

“We’ve been building this up for a long time, Terry. Too long to have it wrecked by a dame.”

“I know how long it’s been. No one knows better.”

“Sure. You’ve done a neat job. You any farther along with Sebastian? Any indication of letting you inside?”

“No. I’m strictly for kicks. I run errands and stuff. Most of all I jazz up the great ego. I pick up information, however.”

“I know, I know. It’s been tough. Now it’ll be tougher. We’ll have to do it the hard way. Before the night’s over, if things go right, you ought to be out of it. Anything changed?”

“No. The plane will land at Municipal Terminal at midnight. The courier’s on it. I know the guy by sight. As I told you, he’s medium height, getting bald, and has a thin black mustache and a slight limp in his left leg.”

“It still checks. Ever since you put us onto the guy, we’ve had him under observation. We could’ve grabbed him then, of course. If we had, we’d have small fry. We’d have a lousy courier in the can, with his lips buttoned and the big shot gone free. Guy Sebastian’s the boy we want. We want him real bad.”

The thin man in the panama waved the bartender over and passed his glass. When it was full again, he sat hunched over the bar, talking into the beer.

“Here’s the routine. This courier has the junk in a brown traveling bag. According to you, he’ll get a locker at the terminal and deposit the bag. That’s as far as he goes with it, because it’s Guy Sebastian’s method not to have anyone go too far in the process. He passes the locker key to someone else, and this guy gets the bag and moves it along. Only this time he won’t. Because he’ll never get the key. We’ll grab the courier and the bag. From there on, it’s your show. It’s up to you to take the bag into Guy Sebastian’s apartment. Take it right in the front entrance, so the men we’ll have stationed there can spot you and follow you up. They’ll finish the job. Which means the finish of Mr. Sebastian.”

“A frame,” Terry said. “A beautiful frame.”

“So it’s a frame. Guy Sebastian’s made a fortune peddling dope without ever touching a grain. He directs operations, and he reaps the fat profit, but he never touches the stuff. He’s too smart for that. He keeps himself clear all the way. If we plant it on him, it’s nothing more than he’s got coming.”

“I wasn’t questioning the justice. I was just admiring the beauty.”

The contact looked down through suds into his amber beer, and his lips curved in a soft smile.

“Oh, it’s beautiful, all right. We’ve been yearning for Guy Sebastian for a long time. He’s a sleek, arrogant wholesaler of every kind of vice. Now, thanks to you, we’ll get him.”

He finished his beer fast, and slipped off the stool. A step away, he turned.

“Don’t louse it up, Terry. Not for any woman... not for anything on earth.”

He went away without waiting for reassurance. Terry listened to his light, fast footsteps until they were gone, and then he spun his glass down the bar. The bartender rinsed it, filled it, and sent it back.

And at precisely that moment the stools on both sides of Terry were suddenly occupied.

A voice said, “You’re a naughty boy. Terence!”

The words were facetious, and the tone was facetious, but somehow the net effect was not facetious at all. The net effect was a kind of deadly and irrational levity. Turning. Terry looked at the face behind the words. Round as a dime, the color of olive oil. Full lips so red they looked rouged, not quite meeting over prominent teeth. Large, liquid, swimming eyes.

It was a face Terry had seen in and out of Sebastian’s place. There was a name that went with it. Sulla, it was. There was also an odor. A heavy and nauseous sweetness, like death three days old.

In Terry’s heart there was an icy, pervading fear. He felt spiritually naked and more than a little stupid... Eight months of servile degradation in the house of a louse, and nothing to show for it, in the end, but the final degradation of an ugly death... In the end, they’d trailed him to his last contact as easily as trailing a kid from a jam pot... By the exercise of tremendous effort, he managed to keep his voice casual, just a little bored.

“You think so? Just for having a couple beers with all these strippers?”

Sulla laid a soft hand on his arm. The hand was perfectly smooth, except for a tuft of long black hairs about an inch above the base of the little finger. The fingers dug gently into the muscle of Terry’s arm.

“It’s not the strippers. It’s not the beer. And it’s too late to play it innocent, Terence. You been the fair-haired boy. You been the baby brother who got all the breaks without working for them. You should’ve taken care of yourself.”

His first reaction was one of vast relief.

He’d been tailed, all right, but not because he was suspected of high treason. It was because of Liza. Because the great Guy Sebastian had an average, gray little soul like any average citizen — and was simply jealous.

Terry wanted to laugh.

The desire ended abruptly with his consciousness of hard steel digging into his ribs. Even with a layer of cloth over it, the steel was recognizable as the snout of a gun. He remembered with sudden renewal of the cold wash of fear that treason and philandering would come, in this case, to the same end. Either would come, in some quiet place, to the same ugly death. And worst of all, maybe, Terence Pope would not be at the Municipal Terminal at midnight, where he was supposed to be.

Out of the near past, repeating themselves in his mind, were words he remembered vividly: “I’d never do you any harm if I could help it. I’d never do it, Terry.” And, in another voice: “Don’t louse it up, Terry. Not for any woman.”

Bright red lips curled back off white, protuberant teeth.

“Let’s go, Terence. Just nice and quiet, like a good boy.”

Chapter 3

He lay on a hard bed in the bedroom of a two-room apartment in an old brick house on the lower south side of town. It had been light in the room when he came, but now it had been dark for a long time. There was no exit from the room, other than the one out through the living room, unless he wanted to jump three stories into a brick-paved court. There was a small bathroom off the bedroom, but there was no exit from the bathroom, either.

Through the partially open door to the living room, weak yellow light sliced a wedge from the darkness. Out in the living room, tilted against the wall by the hall door, the liquid-eyed man with bright red lips whose name was Sulla sat in a straight chair and cleaned his nails with a shiv. A gun lay handy in his lap. His nails didn’t really need cleaning, but apparently he liked the nice, cold feel of the shiv in his hands.

Terry couldn’t actually see Sulla from the bed, but he knew he was doing these things because he had been doing them steadily for hours. He didn’t seem to tire from his position on the hard, straight chair. No doubt his fat hips and buttocks were adequate cushioning, making him impervious to discomfort in the area.

After a while, Terry got up from the bed and swept an arm in circles above his head in the darkness until his hand contacted a hanging string. He pulled the string, and a 60-watt bulb came to feeble life near the ceiling. Moving to the open door, he looked across the living room to the tilted Sulla. Red lips parted wetly over gleaming teeth. The shiv held still, arrested in its useless work.

“It’s eleven o’clock,” Terry said. “This going to be a formal execution, maybe? Death at dawn and all that stuff?”

Sulla shook with silent laughter, his belly bouncing above the handy gun.

“Nothing so nice, Terence, boy. You don’t rate any ceremony. Like I said, the boss is busy, and he wants to see you before you go. I think maybe he wants to see that you don’t go too fast. I think maybe he wants to see that you stay around awhile to enjoy things.”

Terry turned back out of the doorway and crossed the bedroom to the bath. Above the lavatory, a bulb was screwed into a tarnished brass socket projecting from the wall. He pulled the short chain hanging from the socket, heard the crackle of a faulty connection, saw a brief flurry of sparks preceding the diffusion of light. Looking at the reflection of his face for a moment in the mirror, he wondered what was in it to make a gal like Liza go off the deep end. He tried immediately to close his mind to the thought, because the thought of Liza was now an added burden of pain for which he had no heart.

Turning, he stood leaning against the lavatory and looking at the old-fashioned water heater at the foot of the bathtub. He let his eyes drift up and along a string clothesline that someone had stretched back and forth between the walls above the tub. After a minute, he knelt beside the heater and turned the tap on the gas ring, which emitted a soft hissing and an acrid odor.

He closed the tap and went back into the bedroom. Stripping the bed of a dirty sheet, he carried the sheet into the bathroom and began tearing it into strips. Some of the strips he stuffed into the cracks around the frame of the small window above the tub.

Removing the string, he tied one end to the end of the chain hanging from the old socket above the lavatory. And then he turned on the gas full force under the heater and went out, quickly threading the string through the keyhole of the door and closing the door behind him. The remainder of the strips he stuffed in the crack around the door.

Sitting on the bed, he waited fifteen minutes, checking the time by the watch on his wrist. When the time had passed, he was beginning to smell, in spite of the stuffing, the faint odor of gas. Getting up, he took the mattress from the bed and dropped it against the living room wall. He returned, taking the loose end of the string, and went over to the wall. He lay down between the wall and the mattress, then, saying something like a prayer, he pulled the string.

There was a great, cushioned puff, as if the air itself had flown apart into its elements, and the bathroom door was suddenly hanging by one hinge. The concussion rolled against Terry like a hard wave, plastering him to the wall, and he fought to gather and retain his senses in a siege of silence which seemed, after the explosion, vast and eternal. Actually, it lasted a few seconds only, and then the flabby but feline Sulla was coming through the door in a crouch, gun ready.

Pushing out from the wall, using the hard edge of his hand like a hatchet, Terry hacked down viciously into the fatty base of Sulla’s neck. The gun clattered to the floor, and the fat hood sagged to his knees. Crowding the advantage, Terry got a handful of oily hair and jerked back until the round, olive face was parallel to the ceiling at the end of spinal tension.

Then, using the heel of his hand, he smashed down and skullward upon Sulla’s nose. He felt the bones splinter, forced back and upward toward the brain, and he let Sulla twist slowly off his knees and flop. If the hood was not dead, death would be soon, and Terry, without checking, retrieved the gun from the floor and went out.

Below, on a dark, narrow street illuminated inadequately in spots by old lamps, he turned toward the heart of the city and began to walk. Time seemed to move faster, flowing past him with a rush, so after a few minutes he began to trot to keep up. Ten minutes later, on a broader, brighter thoroughfare, he found a cruising cab and crawled in. It was then twenty minutes to twelve.

“Municipal Air Terminal,” he said. “You win a bonus if we’re there by midnight.”

By flouting a couple of red lights, the cabbie won the bonus. Terry made it a fin, and when he went through the wide glass doors of the main terminal entrance into the high, light waiting room, it was just thirty seconds before the hour. An amplified voice was announcing the arrival of the flight that carried the courier. Passengers would enter through gate six, the voice said.

Terry found the gate and saw, beyond it, leaning indolently against the wall, the thin man in the loose cord suit. His eyes moved over Terry indifferently. Lazily, he shook a cigarette from a pack and struck fire from a gopher.

Turning away, Terry moved to a magazine stand and bought a newspaper. He stood leaning against the counter with the paper unfolded before him. Now and then he looked up at the thin, indolent figure beyond the gate.

Passengers were emerging from the gate. A fat woman wearing silver fox, walking stiffly. A long-legged looker with red hair, eyes lighting like lamps as a young guy broke forward to meet her. A heavy man with jowls looking important in imported tweeds. And then the one. A man of medium height, carrying a brown cowhide bag. He had a thin black mustache, and he walked with a slight limp in his left leg. He turned right toward a wall of public lockers. Behind him, the thin man in cords dropped his cigarette on the floor and moved in lazy pursuit. Another man, nondescript, separated from the group outside the gate and moved in time with the thin man, parallel and a little to the rear.

The man with the limp stopped in front of the lockers, setting the cowhide bag on the floor at his feet and digging into a pocket for a coin. Behind him, the thin man and the nondescript man moved in, converging. From his place at the magazine stand, Terry could see the three of them standing suddenly immobile, frozen in a strange and lifeless tableau.

Folding his newspaper, he laid it on the counter and walked swiftly toward them. As he moved, the thin man stooped and picked up the cowhide bag. Passing them, without slowing or speaking, Terry took the bag from the thin man’s hand and went on out a side entrance into a drive that served the parking lot.

A black Oldsmobile was purring at the exit. A man was sitting under the wheel of the Olds. When Terry came out, the man opened the door, stepped out into the drive, and Terry moved into his place, depositing the bag on the seat beside him.

“Luck, Terry,” the man said, and Terry lifted a hand from the wheel in brief acknowledgment, setting the automatic transmission in action with the pressure of his foot on the accelerator.

And now the hard part was supposed to be over. Supposedly all that remained was for the fair-haired boy in the house of Sebastian to carry a cowhide bag full of heroin into a place where he was welcome. The trouble was, the boy’s hair was no longer fair. Terence Pope was no longer welcome in the home of his benefactor...

Behind the wheel, driving steadily within the established speed limits, Terry laughed softly and without humor. For a moment he wondered what had happened to Liza, but it was a thought he didn’t want to face, and he put it away.

In front of the stone, steel and glass brick stack that housed Sebastian’s apartment, he got out, carrying the bag, and went through the entrance quickly into the lush lobby. Sitting on their necks in club chairs, blending with the background, two well-dressed men followed him with their eyes to the bank of elevators. No particular interest was apparent in their attitudes.

The elevator boy, resplendent in scarlet cloth and gold braid, said, “Good evening, Mr. Pope,” and Terry moved to the back of the elevator. He stood with his shoulders touching the steel back of the box, breathing deeply and regularly, fighting for control of his pulse. In his temples, there was a sharp, rhythmic hammering.

On Sebastian’s floor, he went down to the door that opened into the hall of the huge apartment and set the bag on the floor at his feet. For a minute, he stood there listening to the soft whine of the elevator descending in its shaft, and then he took Sulla’s gun from the inside pocket of his coat. Holding the gun in position for a quick chop, he put a thumb on the button beside the door and leaned his weight against it.

When the stony-faced servant opened the door, Terry shifted sideways as Sulla’s gun chopped down. The snout of the gun struck the servant a blow on the forehead, and he spun away, folding up quietly on the asphalt tile. Stooping, Terry picked up the bag and moved past him down the hall to the door of Sebastian’s office.

Standing, listening, he heard beyond the door the hoarse distortion of Sebastian’s voice, and after a while a husky response that was Liza’s. Without waiting longer, he pushed the door open in front of him and stepped into the room, the gun in one hand, the bag hanging from the other.

Across the room, standing behind his big desk, Sebastian turned his head to face him, the bold face beneath the cropped hair settling suddenly into lines of deadly stillness.

To his left and slightly beyond him, standing with one hand resting on the top of a liquor cabinet, Liza Gray sucked breath with a sharp, aspirate whistle. The flesh under one of her eyes had gone black, shading on the cheekbone to dark yellow. Her lips were swollen, and the left line of her jaw was also swollen, showing bruises.

At least, though, she’d been saved for possible repentance and future use.

Sebastian’s voice was soft, reflective. “Well, well. If it isn’t Terry. I wasn’t expecting you, boy. I’ll have to talk to someone about it.”

Terry laughed brutally, amazed at the swift violence of his response to the marks on Liza’s face.

“If you mean Sulla, it won’t do any good. Sulla’s dead. You’re dead, too, in a way, Sebastian. As a big shot, you’re a dead duck.” He swung the bag underhand, sending it in a high arc to land on the surface of the big desk. “This is your property, I think. A guy brought it in tonight from the South.”

Sebastian’s eyes widened, then narrowed. His strong, closed face suddenly cracked open in a wash of stark fear. Then, just as suddenly, the face closed again upon a look of relief, and at that moment Terry heard the flat voice behind him.

“Don’t move, sonny. Don’t move at all. And just let the gun drop.”

Cursing himself for not taking the time to check the results of a glancing blow, Terry let his fingers relax, felt the comforting touch of the gun slip down and away from them.

Over his shoulder, he saw the blood-smeared stone that was a servant’s face. Almost at the same time, catching the motion in the corner of his eye, he saw Liza reach for the neck of a bottle on the liquor cabinet. Following through, she burned it across the room in a sidearm delivery that really wasn’t half bad for a dame.

Terry dropped, and above him there was a blast of powder, and his head was wet with a bourbon shower. From the floor, he drove up and over the desk at Sebastian, leaving the hood-servant to bourbon and Liza and luck. And in his attack was all the leashed hate that was the product of eight servile months. Under his flailing fists, Sebastian’s face crumpled and altered in a red, wet sheen.

Turning from his completed job, he saw that Liza was in control. Sulla’s gun was in her hand, and the servant was quiet against the wall.

The man was clutching a hand from which blood welled brightly.

Across the space between them, which was really the space between the bad beginning long ago and the good beginning which might now be, Terry said softly, “Liza, baby!”

Her eyes closed on tears, and she said, “Terry, Terry...”

Outside the room, the hall door banged open, and feet pounded down the asphalt tile.

Hell for Hannah

Originally published in Dime Detective Magazine, August 1953.

Hannah and Ivan were dancing. The music was soft and sultry, the stuff of muted strings, and they moved to its Latin rhythms in a floating intimacy. Her head was back, her eyes were closed, and her lips stirred in a whisper of ecstasy. They were a beautiful pair.

When the music slopped, they returned to their table, and I got up and went over. I bowed to Ivan very politely and said, “May I have the next dance with my wife?” And he stood and returned the bow, also very politely, and said, “But of course, señor.” Then he turned and made another bow to Hannah, and she stood up with us, her face white and her eyes dark with sorrow. The sorrow was there because she didn’t like hurting her husband, but it would have been better for me if she had. It would have been better if she’d sneered nastily and spit in my eye.

The music started again, and she came into my arms, but not very far in. I tried my best, and I think she did, too, but it still wasn’t any good. It was like dancing with a wooden doll.

“I’m sorry, Carey,” she said.

I said, “Don’t be sorry. Be gay.”

“Please don’t be bitter. Don’t hate Ivan and me.”

“Who hates anyone? I love you, honey. I love Ivan, too. He’s a big, beautiful, Mexican god.”

“I tried to lick it, Carey. You know I tried. Remember how I asked you to take me away, back when it first started and there was still time? But you wouldn’t do it because you said there was no use running and you’d have to meet the competition where you found it.”

“Sure, I remember. Big, proud me.”

“I wanted our marriage to last. I wanted it to be forever.”

“Marriage!” I said brightly. A technicality, honey.”

Oh, yes, only a technicality. When the big passion comes, even though it’s late, all the intimate years and all the bright plans are reduced in an instant to the status of a dreary and bothersome technicality. Marriage, then, is a scrap of paper, the somewhat incredible ghost of a relationship that once existed.

We’d been on a kind of second honeymoon... Mexican honeymoon. It was something I’d promised her for a long time. After the novel’s published, I’d said. And now the novel was out, and quite a few people thought it was worth buying, and we had been on the second honeymoon. Everything had been wonderful and terribly intense, and then, all of a sudden, everything had been Ivan. The honeymoon was finished, I was finished, and there was no one but Ivan left in the world for Hannah. For me, there wasn’t even a world left. There was only sun and sand and a clutter of senseless stars.

I looked down at her now, and there was a kind of puzzled, rousing-from-a-dream look in her eyes, and I thought for a moment that the past was alive again and she was coming back my way. Then it was gone, and she was gone, and it was time to give up.

“I’ll go away tomorrow, Carey. Ivan and I. It’ll be easier then. You can forget all about me.”

“Sure,” I said, and it was like being knifed, hearing the way she said it. “Forgetting is an easy thing. Nothing to it. All these little synaptic connections and stuff that go to make up learning and remembering come equipped with little spigots. You want to quit thinking or remembering something, you just turn the right one off.”

“You’ll forget, after a while. I’ll get a divorce down here. Mexican divorces are quick. Maybe we’ll stay down, Ivan and I. Maybe we’ll go to Mexico City.”

The music picked that moment to stop, and we stood stiffly in the middle of the floor. I didn’t even have an excuse to keep my arm around her now.

“That’ll be nice and romantic,” I said. “I hope you’ll both be very happy. Which I don’t, of course. Really, I hope you’re very miserable and cry in your pillow every night remembering good old Carey.”

She looked up at me with fog in her eyes, and I knew I might as well have left the words unsaid. They never reached her.

“Tomorrow, Carey. We’ll leave in the morning. It was cruel of us to stay on so long. We’d have left sooner, but Ivan couldn’t leave. Some unfinished business, he said. Someone he must clear up something with. After tonight, it will be all right to go.”

“I’ve seen his unfinished business,” I said. “She’s got black hair and a body, and she deserves finishing. Maybe the two of us can get together. We could weep in each other’s gin.”

Then there was nothing else to say, so I took her back to the table. Ivan stood up and bowed to me and I bowed back at him, and we were so polite and civilized about it all that I felt like vomiting. I said goodbye. Hannah didn’t say anything because there was suddenly a catch in her throat, and Ivan looked sad in a way that made it plain he hated what he was doing to me.

I turned and walked back to my own table, feeling like the last act of Othello. There at the table was the black hair and body, with quite a bit of the body showing. The name, I’d heard, was Eva Trent.

“Mind if I join the discard?” she asked.

“Not at all. You may join me in a drink, too.”

“Thanks. Make it big and make it strong.”

I ordered two double shots. You can make them bigger than that, but you can’t make them stronger. Anyhow, I wasn’t ordering for the road. I intended to keep right on going for quite a while, and if she wanted to go along for the ride, she was welcome. I watched her down half the double and gave her extra points.

She was a lovely gal. Ordinarily, any guy in his right mind would have quit looking when he got to her, and it was a lousy piece of luck that she had to run up against Hannah. Just as lousy as it was for me that Ivan had to come along. She looked across the floor with eyes that were hooded and brooding, and she seemed to be in tune with my cerebral vibrations.

“We did each other a dirty trick, darling,” she said.

I shrugged and worked on my double. “An eye for an eye.”

“She’s something. It must jar a guy, losing that much prime stuff.”

“It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. That’s someone’s poetry.”

“Tennyson... and it’s a damned lie.”

“Isn’t it! You’re one who should know, sweetheart. That big hunk of male Latin. Ivan, yet. I wonder how the hell a Mexican ever came up with a name like that.”

“He’s only half Mexican. His mother was a White Russian. Once upon a time there were White Russians all over the place.”

“I had a feeling right along that the Commies were to blame.”

She emptied her glass and lifted one corner of her mouth in a sour grin. “Don’t work so hard at it, darling. Your heart’s showing.”

“The show goes on. Would you like to hear me sing something from Pagliacci?”

“Stop it!”

It was about time, so I did.

A waiter brought us two more doubles. She drank some of hers, leaving her mouth wet. There was a candle burning in a little glass chimney on the table, and the light flickered on her face, making her lips shine. They were full and soft and darkly sullen, dropping at the corners.”

“He’s a louse,” she said. “He’s a beautiful, greedy louse, and he isn’t even worth killing, but I want him back. I want him on any terms.”

“Big love and little pride.”

“To hell with pride. I want Ivan.”

“It seems to be a phobia with women... you and Hannah among others. The names are legion, no doubt.”

“I’m just a girlfriend. Hannah’s a wife... yours, in case you’ve forgotten. If you have, you might start remembering.”

“I just got through explaining to myself that marriage is just a technicality in these matters. A body is not a wife. At the moment, it’s all quite clear, and I’ll thank you not to confuse me.”

“If you want to lie down, little man, it’s your business.” She finished her second double and stood up. Her eyes were smoky with contempt, and the contempt was for me, the little man lying down. She moved away through candlelight and shadow, the body that deserved better than a jilting in a white gown that hung on for dear life. I thought to myself that competition was hot as hell when something like that finished second.

After a while I moved in to the bar to get closer to the bottle. I had two more quick ones, and they helped a little, but not much, so I had a third one. Next to the dull pain, the feeling of degradation was worst. Losing a wife in public is worse than a public flogging. A guy who loses his wife is a comic sort of character.

Why had I hung on? Why had I stayed around after Hannah moved out of our rooms, and was obviously Ivan’s future and my past? To show my independence, I told myself. To make it plain that Carey MacCauley was not a guy to run from a nasty situation. I lied to myself fluently, but I was never a guy who could distort the truth with much success, and I didn’t even believe me when I was drunk. I stayed because there was always a chance that Hannah would come back. I stayed for salvage.

The third drink at the bar made progress. I began to feel a little numb, and my mind developed a warm and comfortable furriness. It was like having my thought processes bundled up in a raccoon coat. I ordered number four and began to nurse it. That’s the trick. You reach a certain point in solution, then you start nursing. You nurse the alcohol just right, it keeps you preserved without getting you pickled. You can go on and on for hours and hours in a delightful fog.

The minute hand went around the face of the clock behind the bar several times. Time passed... a lot of time. At some point between earlier and later, a brown and white blur appeared at my shoulder. I saw it in the glass. The brown was face and the white was mess jacket. There was a soft, semi-tropical voice.

“It is requested, señor, that you come at once to room six-sixteen.”

I asked, politely, why the hell I should come to room six-sixteen. The white blur shifted. The brown blur bent a little closer.

“It is urgent, señor. Most urgent.”

I replied that I could think of nothing more urgent than what I was doing, which was to stay drunk.

The soft voice purred, “It concerns, I believe, the beautiful Señora MacCauley.”

Hannah? Hannah in distress? I fell off my stool and mounted my white charger. The damned beast was obstreperous, refusing to gallop in a straight line, and the trail we left across the lobby looked something like a graphic representation of the spelling scores in third grade. We made the elevator bank, however, and a small brown monkey in a bright red uniform grinned evilly and took us up to six.

The hall up there was dimly lighted. For a guy in my condition, it should have been equipped with fog lights. The numbers on the doors retreated into shadows, refusing to be recognized. I used the Braille system, working along the hall, and finally I came to it. Sweeping curve down and sharp curve up and over... straight line... repeat the first movement... six-sixteen. I knocked, and a voice that was not Hannah’s told me to come in.

The room was small. The man sitting in a chair facing me was also small. Short, that is, but plump. He had straw colored hair that stood erect at the crown of his head. His face was round, and his cheeks jiggled when he talked. There was a brown Mexican cigarette in his mouth that leaked smoke. He squinted at me through the smoke, and his lips moved in something that might have been a smile. Add up the parts, and he sounds like nothing. But, even drunk, I was conscious of the parts. Some guys, for some reason, just register.

“Good evening, Mr. MacCauley. Or morning, I should say. My name’s Smith. Perhaps you’d better sit down before you fall down.”

His voice sounded as if he’d make a good first tenor in close harmony, and I’d have bet a bottle of tequila that his name wasn’t Smith. I spread my feet and kept standing.

“Where’s Hannah?” I said.

A fat little chuckle crawled up out of his fat little belly. “Mrs. MacCauley? Asleep, I presume. At least, our friend Ivan left her at the door of her room an hour or so ago.”

“Ivan is not our friend. Maybe yours, but not mine. He’s my arch foe whom I have treated, nevertheless, like a gentleman.”

. “So I’ve noticed. Well, he’s no friend of mine, either, when you come right down to it. And I doubt very much, if I were in your shoes, if I’d treat him like a gentleman. At any rate, if I were you, I’d see my wife and tell her earnestly that she had better, for the good of her soul as well as her pretty skin, rid herself of Señor Ivan in a hurry.”

“No good, Mr. Smith. My wife’s in love. Unfortunately, not with me. Have you ever tried to tell a woman that the man she loves is a louse?”

“I see your point. Women are headstrong in such matters. Nevertheless, the situation is desperate. I suggest you use the opposite approach. See Ivan, I mean. He might be more amenable to reason.”

“You think so? I doubt it. At any rate, why should I see him? Are you trying to imply that Ivan is a sort of Latin Bluebeard? As far as I can tell, he seems to be a healthy and handsome Mexican cad.”

“Ivan is deceptive that way.”

“What way?”

“I don’t propose to go into details. I have no interest in this business other than a natural desire to save a very lovely woman from making a grave mistake. I repeat my suggestion that you see Ivan.”

“For what purpose? To ask him if he will, pretty please, not swipe my wife? No, thanks?”

“There are other methods.”

“Beat him up? Knock his teeth out? Hannah would just gather up the scraps and tie a ribbon around them.”

“You are being facetious, Mr. MacCauley. I assure you it’s not a matter for levity.”

“You’re telling me? Who’s losing his wife around here, anyhow?”

“Quite so. My apologies, Mr. MacCauley. A threat, I think, is the proper method. Nothing crude, of course. A very gentle kind of threat. Are you in condition to remember simple instruction?”

“I’m in excellent condition, thanks. I can remember the first canto of Paradise Lost”

“Very well. Go to Ivan’s room. It’s on this floor, around the corner, and the number is six-o-eight. Say to him: Señor, you are on the border of disaster. Emphasize the word border. It has special significance for him. Have you got that?”

“I’ve got it for what it’s worth.”

“It may be worth more than you think. It may, indeed, save your wife.”

That struck the note for departure, so I departed. Outside in the hall, leaning against the wall, I tried to make sense out of it. It seemed, at best, a bit queer. And, incidentally, somewhat humiliating. A plump, little stranger who called himself Smith trying to save Carey MacCauley’s wife from a fate worse than death. Why? The question wandered around, crying plaintively, in the fog inside my skull.

Border? Let’s see, where was I? Mexico, as I recalled. North of Mexico is the United States of America. There’s a border between them... mostly a river designed for wading. Things get run across borders sometimes: Narcotics... aliens...

There was within me a guy who can be called Schizo Number One. His immediate reaction was to render a loud and raucous raspberry. But there was also another guy who can be called Schizo Number Two. He was a guy who always wanted to climb on a white horse. When he was drunk, he was a very dominating personality. Almost before I knew it, he had me galloping around the corner to six-o-eight.

The door was open, which was another queer bird in a nest of them; not far open... just cracked a little. Inside, it was pitch black. It was also silent.

I’m not one, ordinarily, to walk uninvited into another person’s hotel room at night. Now, however, double shots and odd events had made me a new man. Pushing the door inward, I crossed the threshold. The feeble light of the hall showed me nothing but a small area of carpet. The room retained its impenetrable blackness and silence... and its heat, a close, cloying stuffiness left over from the day. The heat and the extraordinary darkness obviously existed for the same reason. The large glass doors across the room, attributes of all outside rooms in this hotel, were still closed and draped against a midday heat that had long ceased to exist. They had never been opened to the air and celestial flickerings of the Mexican night.

There is a convenient orthodoxy about hotel rooms. Fumbling in the accepted area for a light switch, I found it. Might as well make it good, I thought. If I was going to practice intimidation by some esoteric mumbo-jumbo about borders, I might as well make it effective by appearing in the night like a descendent of Dracula... sudden attack... confusion and terror, the old element of surprise.

But Ivan wasn’t surprised. He displayed total indifference. If I had been the original Dracula, he would still have been indifferent. The dead just don’t give a damn.

He lay on his face on the floor. His arms were flung wide, fingers clawing at the rug. Even in that sprawled position, he looked impeccable. His white dinner jacket fitted beautifully to his broad shoulders, almost as beautifully as the blade of the knife that had killed him was fitted between his ribs. The knife had a pretty little bone handle, the color of ivory. Around the handle, like a red pupil in the great white iris of the jacket, there was a wet stain. It was an eye, and it was looking at me. The stale, hot air of the room pressed in upon me like a fetid cloud, and everything went round and round.

With sickness churning my insides, I lurched across the room beyond the body and fumbled for the opening in the drapes. The tall glass doors swung open to the night, and I stood there in the opening to the small balcony outside, my back against the jamb, and gulped greedily of the cool air blowing in from the high region of bright stars. I noticed that there was also a moon, so big and near and fantastically bright that it was most certainly a phony trumped up for the deception of romantic tourists. Then I slipped gently down against the jamb to a sitting position and forgot all about lost loves... and death... and stars... and moons... and all odd things whatever.

A long time later, I opened my eyes to the vision of a face the color of an olive just beginning to ripen. The face had large, liquid eyes filled with regret. They were nice eyes and appeared friendly, but I wasn’t in the mood for them. Avoiding their swimming inspection, I saw that the stars were still in the sky where I had left them, but some clever devil had moved the phony moon up the arc in imitation of a real one. For the tourists, Mexicans will do anything.

My head rang like a gong with rhythmic regularity. For a minute, I couldn’t understand the reason for it, and then I realized that the olive complexioned guy with liquid eyes was slapping hell out of me methodically.

“Cut it out,” I said.

He was all apologies. “My most abject regrets, señor, but it is essential that you rouse yourself immediately.”

Remembering, I roused. Twisting from my sitting position, I looked back into the room. Just inside the hall door Eva Trent, my companion in discard, stood wrapped in an ice blue robe. Farther in was Hannah. She was still wearing the gown she had worn in the lounge downstairs. He face seemed all eyes. They were wide and dry and hot, and they looked at me with an expression that was neither hate nor grief, but a kind of dumb incapacity for any emotion at all.

The apologetic slapper said, “I am Ramon Tellez of the police, señor. I implore you to rise.”

With an effort, I rose, closing my eyes on a tilting sky and a shower of spilled stars.

“Quite a gathering,” I said, opening my eyes again.

Tellez looked as if he were tempted to resume his slapping. “One must not be hysterical,” he said. “My associates will be here shortly to perform the necessary duties in this room. As for us, I think it would be beneficial to utilize another place for our business. Señorita Trent has graciously offered the use of her room, which is near. If you will please precede me.”

Ivan wasn’t going, and Hannah stood very still, as if she hadn’t heard, caught fast in her emotional paralysis. By the hall door, Eva Trent stirred, light shifting fluidly on the ice blue robe. Her voice achieved by softness an accentuation of bitter venom.

“You’ve had a busy night, haven’t you, little man? Get tired of lying down? Pretty soon you can lie down forever. After the cops get through with you. What is it down here, hanging or firing squad?”

Hannah jerked around. “No,” she said.

Tellez repeated quickly, “If you will please precede me.”

Eva Trent turned and went through the door into the hall. Hannah followed. There was a somnambulistic quality in the way she walked. Her eyes still had that wide, hot look of blindness, and her movements seemed directed by some kind of extra-sensory perception.

In the hall, two Mexican cops stood at tropical semi-attention. One of them was big, almost a giant, with a dark, pocked face. The other was short and slender, girlish-looking beside his overgrown companion. The slender one, apparently in response to a signal from Tellez, fell in behind the group and followed along. In Eva Trent’s room, he took a notebook and mechanical pencil from his pocket, and looked efficient. Probably a college boy on his way up.

Tellez cleared his throat musically and permitted his big, liquid eyes to encounter mine. They looked sad enough to break your heart.

“Now, señor, it is necessary that you talk. Circumstances, you will admit, do not appear favorable for you. Reflect, if you please. Señora MacCauley, with whom you have become estranged over the handsome. Ivan, rouses in the night, for reasons which she declines to divulge, and makes her way to Ivan’s room. The door is open. Very strange. She looks into the room and beholds Ivan on the floor, as we all have seen him. Beyond Ivan, slumped in the open doorway to the terrace, she sees her husband... you, señor. You are sitting there — how shall I say, Señor?”

“You can say drunk. Passed out.”

He smiled gratefully and bobbed his head. “Thank you, señor. Passed out. Señora MacCauley, a lady with a sense of duty, contacts the hotel authorities, who in turn contact the police. So, señor, I arrive. While I speak with Señora MacCauley, Señorita Trent arrives. She arrives, as she confesses with charming frankness, to make a last effort to regain the affection of that Ivan. A most popular fellow, Ivan.”

He paused, wagging his head from side to side in admiration and staring at me with swimming regret and sadness.

“And now, señor, since you are almost certainly guilty of murder, it is time for you to try to convince me otherwise.”

I tried until it hurt, but all the time I had a feeling that I wasn’t doing much good. My head swelled and contracted like a frog’s throat, and my tongue was as thick as a catcher’s mitt. Everything was distorted inside my skull and came out worse. Tellez listened in silence, his placid, olive face assuming an intensifying expression of pain, as if it grieved him sorely to see such a fine, young Americano come to such an evil and floundering end.

“This man you mention... this Señor Smith... although your story sounds incredible, it will do much to give it another face if he corroborates it.” He turned to the slender Mexican with the notebook. “Manuel, you will go at once to room six-sixteen and request Señor Smith’s presence here.”

Manuel went, and we waited. Tellez hummed softly a gay, incongruous air of fiesta. Hannah stood very still by the door. Once her eyes met mine, and the blindness was gone for a second, and there was for that second an expression I had once known well and hadn’t thought to see again. It looked like love.

Eva Trent sat on the arm of a chair. She leaned back in a posture that should have been relaxed, one arm flung out along the top of the back, but the effect was not one of relaxation at all. There was about her an atmosphere of passionate tenseness, and I remembered that she had loved Ivan beyond pride, and that Ivan was dead. She had wanted him back, she said, on any terms, and now there were no terms left by which she or anyone else could ever have him.

My head expanded and shrank again and again, and Manuel appeared quietly in the room.

“Pardon, señor,” he said. “There is no response.

Tellez faced him, tapping his white teeth with a polished fingernail.

“The number was six-sixteen?”

“Most certainly!”

“You made the big effort?”

“Enough to wake the dead!”

“Not Señor Ivan, I hope.” Tellez chuckled at his little joke. Then, as if conceding and regretting its poor taste, bit the chuckle off with a snap of the white teeth. “Go at once to the desk and consult the register.”

But by then I knew. I knew even before Manuel returned that Señor Smith was not on the register. Señor Smith had ceased to exist. It was apparent from his attitude as he listened to Manuel’s report that Tellez was convinced that Señor Smith had never existed at all.

“You are sure?” he asked. “He is not registered?”

Manuel shrugged. “The clerk was positive. No one is registered for room six-sixteen. It is empty.”

Tellez turned on me like a sleek cat, purring. “Ah,” he said.

I put the heel of a hand against my forehead and pressed hard, but the throbbing kept right on. My brain still refused to cooperate. I thought of the man I had taken for a waiter at the bar downstairs, the one who had requested most urgently that I come to room six-sixteen. But I didn’t even bother to mention him, because I knew that there would be no such waiter. Only one person would remember my ascent to six, the elevator operator. He would remember, and he would tell, and it would place me very patly at the right place at the right time.

“It happened like I told you,” I said. “I can’t prove it, but that’s the way it happened.”

Tellez looked pained at my foolish tenacity. He lifted his plump arms with a sigh. “Señor, there is much to be said for confession. It cleanses the soul, it predisposes the authorities to leniency.”

“To hell with the authorities,” I said.

His eyes rolled up whitely. After all, what could one do but one’s best? One could do nothing more, obviously, except consign the Americano to the inevitable consequences of his own idiocy.

“Very well, señor. It becomes necessary for me to tell you that you are not to leave the hotel. It is possible, after reflection, that you will arrive at a more sensible attitude.”

On the arm of her chair, Eva Trent moved. Her body came up slowly from its half-reclining position, her dark eyes feverish, bright spots the size of silver dollars burning on the high bones of her cheeks. The feverish eyes were on me, but her voice, an incredulous whisper, was directed to Tellez. “You’re letting him go?”

“No, señorita. I am letting him retire to his room.”

“He’s guilty. He’s guilty as hell.”

“Very possible, señorita. Even very likely. But the case lacks completion. There are the loose ends to gather. In the meantime, he is secure. Believe me, the police of my country are not the children playing a man’s game. It is better that you leave these things in my hands.”

A deep breath fluttered her lips. The whisper came straight my way now, skipping Tellez. “You killed Ivan, and you’ll die for it. Tonight you stood in that hot room and stabbed him from behind because you’re a lousy little man who can’t even hang on to a wife, and if it’s the last thing I do on earth, I’ll see you as dead as he is.”

I looked at her for a moment, feeling sick, and it seemed impossible that anyone could feel like that about a harmless sort of guy who had done nothing worse than write a best-seller.

“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks very much.”

Then, not looking at anyone, I turned and went out and back to my own room. I walked over to the glass doors which were open onto the balcony, and I stood there for a long time, maybe half an hour, feeling the cool air on my face and looking at the improbable stars. They were so close that it seemed I could reach up and rake them down with my fingers. I thought that it would be a satisfactory conclusion to everything if I could reach beyond them to the black velvet sky and pull the whole works down upon a world that had gone both barren and mad. I didn’t even hear Hannah come into the room behind me. I didn’t know she was there until she spoke.

“Carey,” she said.

I turned. Her eyes were no longer blind. They were filled now with a kind of general sorrow for the things that happened and the people they happened to. People like her and me and maybe Ivan.

“Did you kill him, Carey?”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t kill him.”

It must have been the answer she expected, for she accepted it.

“I came to ask you that question, and one other. This is the other one: Do you believe something that seemed bigger than the world, bigger than you or anything that ever happened to you before, could end utterly and finally without warning or reason? No, don’t answer. I only want to tell you that it can. Tonight, when Ivan took me to my room, I thought I would love him forever, and there was no question in my mind, but then, all at once I didn’t love him at all. I stood there on my balcony, and I only knew that I was terribly lonely and needed someone very much, and it was you I needed. It was like waking suddenly from an impossible dream. I kept thinking about things that happened to us, little things and big things, and I knew that I would have to have you back or die. That’s the reason I went to Ivan’s room, to tell him this.”

So the world wasn’t ending, and I wasn’t dying. In that instant, with everything coming alive inside me with the wonderful organic pain of birth, I knew who had killed Ivan. The realization was almost parenthetical, a sudden aside of small recollection tucked into the principal clause of Hannah’s homecoming. I went over to her and put my arms around her, and it was as if she’d never been away.

“Ivan?” I asked. “Who the hell is Ivan?”

It was fine then, there in the room with the cool air coming through the open doors from the Mexican night, and after a while she went to sleep. I waited a little, and then I went out and back up to Eva Trent’s room. I knocked and kept knocking until she opened the door, still in the ice blue robe, and stood looking out at me. I heard her breath catch sharply in her throat.

“You’re good,” I said. “You ought to be on the stage. All that love... all that hate. But now I know you killed Ivan yourself. I know because I remember what you said, and I’d have caught it at the time if I hadn’t been stupid with alcohol. In that hot room, you said, and it wasn’t hot. It wasn’t hot because I opened the windows and let the night air in. But it was hot earlier, when I found him dead. And even earlier than that, when you killed him. Have you decided as yet whether it’s hanging or shooting?”

Then, without sound, the plump little man named Smith was behind her with a gun in his hand.

“Come in, Mr. MacCauley,” he said.

There was no sensible alternative, so I went.

“So that’s how you vanished so easily,” I said. “A simple matter of moving from one room to another.”

He chuckled pleasantly. “These things can always be arranged, just as Ivan’s death was arranged... just as yours will be.” His eyes flicked over to Eva Trent. “I hardly know why I bother, really. Such a stupid mistake, my dear. I’ll have to think of an appropriate penalty.”

I shifted weight, and the gun jerked significantly in his hand.

“You mentioned the border,” I said. “That much, I think, was real. You ought to know, because you direct the operations that run across it, whatever they are. It must be quite an organization, and Ivan wanted out. The poor guy was really gone on Hannah, and he wanted out. So you put him out, very permanently. With me around, a guy discarded, a perfect patsy, the setup was perfect. Just get me in the right area at the right time, and the whole thing took care of itself. With Eva’s help, of course.”

He shrugged. “It’s dangerous to have apostates in an organization like mine. The risk is too great. Ivan understood that. He has only himself to blame.”

It was late. For me, almost too late. Even as he spoke, my muscles were drawing tight, and I drove toward him, clutching for the wrist above the gun. He skipped back and tripped. The blast of the gun was hot on my neck as I fell sprawling. Rolling over, I looked across into the mouth of the gun barrel, and it looked as big as a manhole, and I thought that it was rotten luck to die with Hannah just back. Then there was another blast, but it seemed to come from behind me, from the vicinity of the door. The plump little man who called himself Smith, kneeling on one knee, coughed softly and folded over, settling himself on the floor as if he were trying to find a comfortable position.

From the door, the sonorous voice of Ramon Tellez, Mexican cop, had a tone of gentle reproof. “You should have consulted the authorities, señor. As I said, the police of my country are not children. Did you think we would leave you unobserved?”

After that, there was little or nothing I could do, and pretty soon Tellez shook my hand and said everything would of a certainty be alright, and I went back to my room... mine and Hannah’s. She was still asleep, with her hair spread on the pillow, and there was a warm and aching happiness inside my ribs as I stood for a while looking out at the paling stars.

It’s time to head north, I thought. It’s time to go home.

The Collector Comes After Payday

Originally published in Manhunt, August 1953.

Chapter 1

Frankie looked through a lot of bars before he found the old man. He was sitting in a booth in a joint on lower Market Street with a dame Frankie didn’t know. They were both sitting on the same side of the booth, and Frankie could see that they were plastered together like a couple of strips of Scotch tape.

“Come on home, Pop,” Frankie said. “You come on home.”

The woman looked up at him, and her lips twisted in a scarlet sneer. The scarlet was smeared on the lips, as if she’d been doing a lot of kissing, and the lips had a kind of bruised and swollen look, as if the kisses had been pretty enthusiastic.

“Go to hell away, sonny,” she said.

She lifted her martini glass by its thin stem and tilted it against her mouth. Frankie reached across the booth in front of the old man and slapped the glass out of her hand. It shivered with a thin, musical sound against the wall, and gin and vermouth splashed down her low-cut dress. The olive bounced on the table and rolled off.

The woman raised up as far as she could in the cramped booth, her eyes hot and smoky with gin and rage.

“You little punk,” she said softly.

Frankie grabbed her by a wrist and twisted the skin around on the bone.

“Leave Pop alone,” he said. “You quit acting like a tramp and leave him alone.”

Then the old man hacked down on Frankie’s arm with the horny edge of his hand. It was like getting hit with a dull hatchet. Frankie’s fingers went numb, dropping away from the woman’s wrist, and he swung sideways with his left hand at the old man’s face. The old man caught the fist in a big palm and gave Frankie a hard shove backward.

“Blow, sonny,” he said.

For a guy not young at all, he was plenty tough. His eyes were like two yellow agates, and his mouth was a thin, cruel trap under a bold nose. From the way his body behaved, it was obvious that he still had good muscular coordination. He was poised, balanced like a trained fighter.

Frankie saw everything in a kind of pink, billowing mist. He moved back up to the booth with his fists clenched, and in spite of everything he could do, tears of fury and frustration spilled out of his eyes and streaked his cheeks.

“You get the hell out of this,” he said. “You ought to be ashamed, drinking and playing around this way.”

The old man slipped out of the booth, quick as a snake, and chopped Frankie in the mouth with a short right that traveled straight as a piston. Frankie hit the floor and rolled over, spitting a tooth and blood. He was crazy. Getting up, he staggered back at the old man, cursing and sobbing and swinging like a girl. This time the old man set him up with a left jab and threw a bomb. Frankie went over backward like a post, his head smacking with a wet, rotten sound.

No one bothered about him. Except to laugh, that is. Lying there on the floor, he could hear the laughter rise and diminish and rise again. It was the final and utter degradation of a guy who’d never had much dignity to start with. Rolling over and struggling up to his hands and knees, he was violently sick, his stomach contracting and expanding in harsh spasms. After a long time, he got the rest of the way to his feet in slow, agonizing stages. His chin and shirt front were foul with blood and spittle.

In the booth, ignoring him, the old man and the woman were in a hot clinch, their mouths adhering in mutual suction. Turning away, Frankie went out. The floor kept tilting up under his feet and then dropping suddenly away. All around him, he could hear the ribald laughter.

Chapter 2

It was six blocks to the place where he’d parked his old Plymouth. He walked slowly along the littered, narrow street, hugging the dark buildings, the night air a knife in his lungs. Now and then he stopped to lean against solid brick until the erratic pavement leveled off and held still. Once, at the mouth of an alley, he was sick again, bringing up a thin, bitter fluid into his mouth.

It took him almost an hour to get back to the shabby walkup apartment that was the best a guy with no luck could manage. In the bathroom he splashed cold water on his face, gasping with pain. The smoky mirror above the lavatory distorted his face, exaggerating the ugliness of smashed, swollen lips drawn back from bloody gums. He patted his face dry with a towel and poured himself a double shot in the living room. He tossed the whisky far back into his mouth beyond his raw lips, gagging and choking from the sudden fiery wash in his throat.

Dropping into a chair, he began to think. Not with any conscious direction. His mind functioned, with everything coming now to a bad end, in a kind of numb and lucid detachment. Suddenly he was strangely indifferent. Nothing had happened, after all, that couldn’t have been anticipated by a guy with no luck whatever.

It was funny the way he was no longer very concerned about anything. Sitting there in the drab living room, in the dull immunity to shame that comes from the ultimate humiliation, he found his mind working itself back at random to the early days at home with the old man. Back to the days when his mother, a beaten nonentity, had been alive. Not a lovable character, the old man. Not easy on wife or kid. A harsh meter of stern discipline for all delinquencies but his own. A master of the deferred-payment technique. In the old days, when Frankie was a kid at home, wrongdoing had never been met with swift and unconsidered punishment that would have been as quickly forgotten. The old man had remarked and remembered. Later, often after Frankie had completely forgotten the adolescent evil he’d committed, there was sure to be something that he wanted very much to do. Then the old man would look at him with skimmed-milk eyes and say, “No. Have you forgotten the offense for which you haven’t paid? For that, you cannot do this thing.”

Wait till it really hurts. That had been the old man’s way.

Remembering, Frankie laughed softly, air hissing with no inflection of humor through the hole where his lost tooth had been. No luck. Never any luck. He’d even been a loser in drawing an old man — a bastard with a memory like an elephant and a perverted set of values.

The laughter hurt Frankie’s mangled lips, and he cut it off, sitting slumped in the chair with his eyes in a dead focus on the floor. It was really very strange the way he felt. Not tired. Not sleepy. Not much of anything. Just sort of released and out of it, like a religious queer staring at his belly button.

He was still sitting there at three o’clock in the morning when the old man came in. He was sloppy drunk, and the lines of his face had blurred, letting his features run together in a kind of soft smear. His eyes were rheumy infections in the smear, and his mouth still wore enough of the cheap lipstick to give him the appearance of wearing a grotesque clown’s mask. He stood, swaying, almost helpless, with his legs spread wide and his hands on his hips in a posture of defiance, and Frankie looked back at him from his chair. It made him sick to see the old man so ugly, satiety in his flaccid face and the nauseous perfume of juniper berries like a fog around him.

The old man spit and laughed hoarsely. The saliva landed on the toe of Frankie’s shoe, a milky blob. Without moving, Frankie watched the old man weave into the bedroom with erratic manipulation of legs and hips.

Frankie kept on sitting in the chair for perhaps five minutes longer, then he sighed and got up and walked into the bedroom after the old man. The old man was standing in the middle of the room in his underwear. His legs were corded with swollen blue veins that bulged the fish-belly skin. On the right thigh there was an angry red spot that would probably blacken. When he saw Frankie watching him, his rheumy eyes went hot with scorn.

“My son,” he said. “My precious son, Frankie.”

Frankie didn’t answer. As he moved toward the old man slowly, smiling faintly, the pain of the smile on his mangled lips was a pale reflection of the dull pain in his heart. He had almost closed the distance between them before the old man’s gin-soaked brain understood that Frankie was going to kill him. And he was too drunk now to defend himself, even against Frankie. The scorn faded from his eyes, and terror flooded in, cold and incredulous.

“No, Frankie,” he whispered. “For God’s sake, no.” Frankie still didn’t say anything, and the old man tried to back away, but by that time it was too late, and Frankie’s thumbs were buried in his throat. His tongue came out, his legs beat in a hellish threshing, and his fists battered wildly at Frankie’s face. But it did no good, for Frankie was feeling very strong. He was feeling stronger than he had ever felt in his life before. And good, too. A powerful, surging sense of well-being. A wild, singing exhilaration that increased in ratio to the pressure of his grip.

Chapter 3

The old man had been dead for minutes when Frankie finally let him go. He slipped down to the floor in a limp huddle of old flesh and fabric, and Frankie stood looking down at him, the narcotic-like pleasure draining out of him and leaving him again with that odd, incongruous feeling of detachment.

He realized, of course, that the end was his as much as the old man’s. It was the end for both of them. Recalling the .38 revolver on a shelf in the closet, he considered for a moment the idea of suicide, but not very seriously. Not that he was repelled by the thought of death. It was just that he didn’t quite have the guts.

He supposed that he should call the police, and he went so far as to turn away toward the living room and the telephone. Then he stopped, struck by an idea that captured his fancy. He saw himself walking into the precinct station with the old man’s body in his arms. He heard himself saying quietly, “This is my father. I’ve just killed him.” Drab little Frankie, no-luck Frankie, having in the end his moment of dramatic ascendancy. It was a prospect that fed an old and functional hunger of his soul, and he turned back, looking at the body on the floor. Smiling dreamily with his thick lips, he felt within himself a rebirth of that singing exhilaration.

At the last moment he found in himself a sick horror that made it impossible for him to bear excessive contact with the dead flesh, so he dressed the body, struggling with uncooperative arms and legs. After that it was so easy. It was so crazy easy. If he’d given a damn, if he’d really been trying to get away with it, he could never have pulled it off in a million years.

With the old man dead in his arms, he walked out of the apartment and down the stairs and across the walk to the Plymouth at the curb. He opened the front door and put him in the seat and closed the door again. Then, standing there beside the car, he looked around and saw that there was no one in sight. So far as he knew, not a soul had seen him.

It was then that the enormity of the thing struck him, and he began to laugh softly, hysteria threading the laughter. No-luck Frankie doing a thing like that. No-luck Frankie himself just walking out of an apartment house with a corpse in his arms and not a damned soul the wiser. You couldn’t get life any crazier than that. He kept on laughing, clutching the handle of the car door with one hand, his body shaking and his lips cracking open again to let a thin red line trace its way down his chin.

After a while he choked off the laughter on a series of throaty little gasps that tore painfully at his throat. Lighting a cigarette, he went around the car and got in beside the old man on the driver’s side.

He drove at a moderate rate of speed, savoring morbidly the approach to his big scene. Now, in the process of execution, the drama of it gained even more in its appeal to him. It gave him a kind of satisfaction he had never known.

He was driving east on Mason Street. The side streets on the south descended to their intersections by steep grades. Possessing the right-of-way, he crossed the intersections without looking, absorbed in his thoughts. For that reason he neither saw nor heard the transport van until it was too late. At the last instant he heard the shrill screaming of rubber on concrete and looked up and right to see the tremendous steel monster roaring down upon him.

His own scream cut across the complaint of giant tires, and he hurled himself away reflexively, striking the door with a shoulder and clawing at the handle. The door burst open at the precise instant of impact, and he was catapulted through the air like a flapping doll. Striking the pavement, he rolled over and over, protecting his head with his arms instinctively. The overwhelming crash of the Plymouth crumpling under the van was modified in his ears by the fading of consciousness.

On his back, he lay quietly and was aware of smaller sounds — distant screams, pounding feet, horrified voices, and after a bit, the faraway whine of sirens growing steadily nearer and louder.

Someone knelt beside him, felt his pulse, said in manifest incredulity, “This guy’s hardly scratched. It’s a goddamned miracle.”

A voice, more distant, rising on the threat of hysteria, “Christ! This one’s hamburger. Nothing but hamburger.”

And he continued to lie there in the screaming night with the laughter coming back and the wild wonder growing. What was it? What in God’s name was it? A guy who’d started and ended with a sour bastard of an old man and never any luck between. A guy who’d had it all, and most of it bad. A guy like that getting, all of a sudden, two fantastic breaks you wouldn’t have believed could happen. Walking out of a house with a body in his arms, scot-free and away. Surviving with no more than a few bruises a smashup that should have smeared him for keeps. Maybe it was because he’d quit caring. Maybe the tide turns when you no longer give a damn.

Then, in a sudden comprehensive flash, the full significance of the situation struck him. Hamburger, someone had said. Nothing but hamburger. Thanks to the cockeyed collaboration of the gods and a truck driver, he had disposed of the old man in a manner above suspicion. He lay on the pavement with the wonder of it still growing and growing, and his insides shook with delirious internal laughter.

Chapter 4

In time he rode a litter to an ambulance, and the ambulance to a hospital. He slept like a child in antiseptic cleanliness between cool sheets, and in the morning he had pictures taken of his head. Twenty-four hours later he was told that there was no concussion, and released. With the most sympathetic cooperation of officials, he collected the old man at the morgue and transferred him to a crematory.

When he left the crematory, he took the old man with him in an um. In the apartment he set the urn on a table in the living room and stood looking at it. He had developed for the old man, since the smash-up, a feeling of warm affection. In his heart there was no hard feeling, no lingering animosity. He found his parent in his present state, a handful of ashes, considerably more lovable than he had ever found him before. Besides, he had brought Frankie luck. In the end, in shame and violence and blood, he had brought him the luck he had never had.

Putting the old man away on a shelf in the closet, Frankie checked his finances and found that he could assemble forty dollars. He fingered the green stuff and considered possibilities. Eagerness to ride his luck had assumed the force of compulsion. In the saddle, he left the apartment and went over to Nick Loemke’s bar on Market Street.

He found Nick in a lull, polishing glass behind the mahogany. Nick examined him sleepily and made a swipe at the bar with his towel.

“What’s on your mind, Frankie?”

“Double shot of rye,” Frankie said.

His lips and gums were still a little raw, so he took it easy with the rye, tossing it in short swallows on the back of his tongue.

“Where’s Joe Tonty anchored this week?” he asked.

“What the hell do you care, Frankie? You can’t afford to operate in that class.”

“You never know. You never know until you try.”

Frankie finished his rye and spun the glass off his fingertips across the bar. It hit the trough on the inside edge and hopped up into the air. Nick had to grab it in a hurry to keep it from going off onto the floor. He glared at Frankie and doused the glass in the antiseptic solution under the bar.

“What the hell’s the matter with you, Frankie? You lost your marbles?”

“Okay, okay,” Frankie said. “I ask for information and you give me lip. You going to tell me where Tonty’s anchored, or aren’t you?”

Nick shrugged. “All right, sucker. It’s your lettuce. Over on Third Street. Upstairs over the old Bonfile garage.”

Frankie dropped a skin on the bar and went out. Between Third and Fourth, he navigated a narrow, cluttered alley to the rear of the Bonfile garage and climbed a flight of iron, exterior stairs to a plank door that was locked. He pounded on the door with the meaty heel of his fist and got the response of a crack with an eye and a voice behind it.

The voice said, “Hello, Frankie. What the hell you doing here?”

“This where Tonty’s anchored?”

“That’s right.”

“Then what the hell you think I’m doing here? You want me to spell it out for you?”

The crack widened to reveal a flat face split in a grin between thick ears. “My, my. Were riding high tonight, ain’t we?”

“You want my money or not?”

The crack spread still wider, and the grinning gorilla shuffled back out of it. “Sure, Frankie, sure. Every little bit helps.”

Frankie went in past the gorilla and down the long cement-floored room to the craps table. It was still early, and the big stuff wasn’t moving yet. Just right for forty bucks. Or thirty-nine, deducting a double shot.

Frankie got his belly against the edge of the table and laid a fast side bet that the point would come.

It came.

He laid three more in a hurry, betting the accumulation and mixing them pro and con without thinking much about it.

The points came or not, just as Frankie bet them.

When the dice came around to him, he was fat, and he laid the bundle. He tossed a seven, made his point twice, and tossed another seven, letting the bundle grow. Then, playing a hunch without benefit of thought, he drew most of the bundle off the table.

He crapped out and passed the dice.

Across the table, Joe Tonty’s face was a slab of gray rock.

His eyes flicked over Frankie, and his shoulders twitched in a shrug.

“Your luck’s running, Frankie. You better ride it.”

“Sure,” Frankie said. “I’ll ride.”

It kept running for two hours, and Frankie rode it all the way. When he finally had a sudden flat feeling, a kind of interior collapse, he pulled out. Not that he felt his luck had quit running for keeps. Just resting. Just taking a breather. He descended the iron steps into the alley and crossed over to Market for a nightcap at Nick’s. A little later, in the living room of the apartment, he counted eight grand. It was hard to believe, little Frankie with eight big grand all at once and all his own. Not even any withholding tax.

He was shaken again by the silent delirium that was becoming an integral element of his chronic mood, and he went over to the closet and opened the door, looking up at the old man in his urn.

“Thanks, Pop,” he said. “Thanks.”

Chapter 5

He slept soundly and got up about noon. After a hearty lunch he went out to the track with the eight grand in his pocket. He was in time for the second race, and he checked the entries. But he didn’t feel anything, so he let it go.

Checking the entries in the third, he still didn’t get any nudge. Something seemed to be getting in the way, coming between him and his luck. Maybe, he realized suddenly, it was the warm pressure of a long flank against his.

He turned, looking into brown eyes that were as warm as the touch of flank. Under the eyes there was a flash of white in a margin of red, and above them, a heavy sheen of pale yellow with streaks of off-white running through it. At first Frankie thought she’d just been sloppy with a dye job, but then he saw that the two-toned effect was natural.

“Crowded, isn’t it?” she said.

Frankie grinned. “I like crowds.”

He was trying to think of what the hair reminded him of when he got the nudge. His eyes popped down to the program in his hands and back up to the dame. Inside, he’d gone breathless and tense, the way a guy does when he’s on the verge of something big.

“What’s your name, baby?”

The red-and-white smile flashed again. “Call me Taffy. Because of my hair, you see.”

He saw, all right. He saw a hell of a lot more than she thought he did. He saw number four in the third, and the name was Taffy Candy. One would bring ten if Taffy won, and even Frankie, who was no mental giant, could add another cipher to eight thousand and read the result.

Don’t give yourself time to think, that was the trick. If you start thinking, you start figuring odds and consequences, and you’re a dead duck. He stood up and slapped the program against his leg.

“Hold a spot for me, baby. If I’m on the beam, it’ll be a big day for you and me and a horse.”

He hit the window just before closing time and laid the eight grand on Taffy’s nose. At the rail of the track, he watched the horses run, and he wasn’t surprised, not even excited, when Taffy came in by the nose that had his eight grand on it. It was astonishing how quickly he was becoming accustomed to good fortune. He was already anticipating the breaks as if he’d had them forever. As if they were a natural right.

Like that girl in the stands, for instance. The girl who called herself Taffy. Standing there by the rail, he thought with glandular stirrings of the warm pressure of flank, the strangely alluring two-toned pastel hair, the brown eyes and scarlet smile. A few days ago, he wouldn’t have given himself a chance with a dame like that. He’d have taken it out in thinking. But now it was different. Luck and a few grand made a hell of a difference. The difference between thinking and acting.

With eight times ten in his pocket, he went back to the stands. Climbing up to her level with his eyes full of nylon, he grinned and said, “We all came in, baby, you and me and the horse. Let’s move out of here.”

She strained a mocking look through incredible lashes. “I’ve already got a date, honey. I’m supposed to meet a guy here.”

“To hell with him.”

Her eyebrows arched their plucked backs, and a practiced tease showed through the lashes. “What makes you think I’d just walk off with you, mister?”

Frankie dug into his pocket for enough green to make an impression. The bills were crisp. They made small ticking sounds when he flipped them with a thumbnail.

“This, maybe,” he said.

She eyed the persuasion and stood up. “That’s good thinking, honey,” she said.

Chapter 6

A long time and a lot of places later, Frankie awoke to the gray light that filtered into his shabby apartment. It was depressing, he thought, to awaken in a dump like this. It was something that had to be changed.

“Look, baby,” he said. “Today we shop for another place. A big place uptown. Carpets up to your knees, foam-rubber stuff, the works. How about it, baby?”

Beside him, Taffy pressed closer, her lips moving against his naked shoulder with a sleepy animal purr of contentment.

So that day they rented the uptown place, and moved in, and a couple of months later Frankie bought the Circle Club.

The club was a nice little spot tucked into a so-so block just outside the perimeter of the big-time glitter area. It was a good location for a brisk trade with the right guy handling it. The current owner was being pressed for the payment of debts by parties who didn’t like waiting, and Frankie bought him out for a song.

It was a swell break. Just one more in a long line. Frankie shot a wad on fancy trimmings, and booked a combination that could really jump. With the combo there was a sleek canary who had something for the eyes as well as the ears.

The food and the liquor were fair, which is all anyone expects in a night spot, and up to the time of Linda Lee, business was good.

After Linda Lee, business was more than good. It was booming. The word always goes out on a gal like Linda. The guys come in with their dames, and after they’ve had the quota of looking that the tariff buys, they go someplace and turn off the lights and pretend that the dames are Linda.

Linda Lee wasn’t her real name, of course, but it suited her looks and her business. Ostensibly the business was dancing. Actually it was taking off her clothes. In Linda’s case that was sufficient. As for the looks, they were Linda’s, and they were something. Dusky skin and eyes on the slant. Black hair with blue highlights, soft and shining, brushing her shoulders and slashing across her forehead in bangs above perfect unplucked brows. A lithe, vibrant body with an up-swept effect that a guy couldn’t believe from seeing and so had to keep coming back for another look to convince himself.

She sent Frankie. At first, the day she came into his office at the Circle Club looking for a job, he didn’t see anything but a looker in a town that was littered with them. That was when she still had her clothes on.

He rocked back in his swivel and stared across his desk at her through the thin, lifting smoke from his cigarette.

“You a dancer, you say?”

“Yes.”

“A good one?”

“Not very.”

That surprised Frankie. He took his cigarette out of his mouth and let his eyes make a brief tour of her points of interest.

“No? What else you got that a guy would pay to see?”

She showed him what she had. Frankie sat there watching her emerge slowly from her clothes, and the small office got steadily smaller, so hot that it was almost suffocating. Frankie’s knitted tie was hemp instead of silk, and the knot was a hangman’s knot, cutting deeply into his throat until he was breathing in labored gasps. The palms of his hands dripped salty water. His whole body was wet with sweat.

When he was able to speak, he said, “Who the hell’s going to care about the dancing? Can you start tonight?”

She could and did. And so did Frankie. For a guy with a temperature as high as his, he played it pretty cool. He kept the pressure on her, all right, but he didn’t force it. Not that he was too good for it. It just wasn’t practical. The threat of being fired doesn’t mean much to a gal with a dozen other places to go. By the time Frankie was desperate enough for threats, he was having to raise her pay every second week to hang on to her.

She liked him, though. He knew damned well she liked him. He could tell by the way the heat came up in her slanted eyes when she looked at him. He could tell by the way her hands sometimes reached out for him, touching him lightly, straying with brief abandon. But she was like mercury. He couldn’t hold her when he reached back.

Chapter 7

The night he decided to try mink, he came into the club late, just as Linda was moving onto the small circular floor in a blue spot. He stood for a minute against the wall, holding the long cardboard box under his arm, watching the emerging dusky body, his pulse matching the tropical tempo of drums in the darkness. Before the act was over, he moved on around the edge of the floor and back to the door of Linda’s room.

Inside, he lay the box on the dressing table and sat down. Waiting, he could hear faintly the crescendo of drums and muted brass that indicated Linda’s exit. The sound of her footsteps in the hall was lost in the surge of applause that continued long after she had left the floor.

She closed the door behind her and stood leaning against it, head back and eyes shining, her breasts rising and falling in deep, rhythmic breathing. Light and shadow stressed the convexities and hollows of her body.

“Hello, Frankie,” she said. “Nice surprise.”

He stood up, pulses hammering. “Nicer than you think, baby. I’ve brought you something.”

She saw the box behind him on the dressing table and moved toward it, flat muscles rippling with silken smoothness beneath dusky skin. Her exclamation was like a delighted child’s.

“Tell me what it is.”

“Open it, baby.”

Her fingers worked deftly at the knot of the cord, lifted the top of the box away. Without speaking, she shook out the luxurious fur coat, slipped into it, and hugged it around her body. She stood entranced, her back to Frankie, looking at her reflection in the dim depths of the mirror.

Closing in behind her, he took her shoulders in his hands. Capturing the hands in hers, she pulled them around her body and under the coat. Her head fell back onto his shoulder. Her breath sighed through parted lips. He could feel in his hands the vibrations of her shivering flesh.

She said sleepily, “You’re a sweet guy, Frankie. A lucky guy, too. You’re going places. Too bad I can’t go along.”

“Why not, baby? Why not go along?”

Her head rolled on his shoulder, her lips burning his neck. “Look, Frankie. When I go for a ride, I go first-class. No cheap tourist accommodations for Linda.”

“I don’t get you, baby. You call mink cheap?”

“It’s not the mink. It’s being second. It’s the idea of taking what’s left over.”

“You mean Taffy?”

She closed her eyes and said nothing, and Frankie laughed softly. “Taffy’s expendable, baby. Strictly expendable.”

“Just like that? Maybe she won’t let go.”

“How the hell can she help it?”

“She’s legal. That always helps’.”

“Married? You think Taffy and I are married?” He laughed again, his shoulders shaking with it. “Taffy and I are temporary, baby. I never figured it any other way. Nothing on paper. All off the record. We last just as long as I want us to.”

She twisted against him, her arms coming up around his neck. Her breath was in his mouth.

“How long, Frankie? How long do you want?”

His hand moved down the soft curve of her spine, drawing her in. He said hoarsely, “As far as Taffy’s concerned, I quit wanting when I saw you. Tonight I’ll make it official.”

She put her mouth over his, and he felt the hot, flicking of her tongue. Then she pushed away violently, staggering back against the dressing table. The mink hung open from her shoulders.

“Afterward, Frankie,” she whispered. “Afterward.”

He stood there blind, everything dissolved in shimmering waves of heat. At last, sight returning, he laughed shakily and moved to the door. Hand on the knob, he looked back at her.

“Like you say, baby — afterward.”

Chapter 8

He went out into the hall and through the rear door into the alley. There was a small area back there in which he kept his convertible Caddy tucked away. Long, sleek, ice-blue and glittering chrome. A long way from the old Plymouth.

Behind the wheel, sending the big machine singing through the streets, he felt the tremendous uplift that comes to a man who approaches a crisis with assurance of triumph. His emotional drive was in harmony with the leashed power of the Caddy’s throbbing engine. Wearing his new personality, he could hardly remember the old Frankie. It was impossible to believe that he had once, not long ago, been driven by shame to a longing for death. Life was good. All it required was luck and guts. With luck and guts, a guy could do anything. A guy could live forever.

At the uptown apartment house, he ascended in the swift, whispering elevator and let himself into his living room with the key he carried. The living room itself was dark, but light sliced into the darkness from the partially open door of the bedroom. Silently he crossed the carpet that wasn’t actually quite up to his knees and pushed the bedroom door all the way open.

Taffy was reading in bed. Her sheer nylon gown kept nothing hidden, but what showed was nothing Frankie hadn’t seen before, and he was tired of it. He stood for a moment looking at her, wondering what would be the best way to do it. The direct way, he decided. The tough way. Get it over with, and to hell with it.

From the bed, Taffy said, “Hi, honey. You’re early tonight.”

Without answering, Frankie walked over to the closet and slammed back one of the sliding panels. He dragged a cowhide overnight bag off a shelf and carried it to the bed. Snapping the locks, he spread the bag open.

Taffy sat up straighter against her silk pillows, two small spots of color burning suddenly over her cheekbones. “What’s up, Frankie? You going someplace?”

He went to a chest of drawers, returned with pajamas and a clean shirt. “That ought to be obvious. As a matter of fact, I’m going to a hotel.”

“Why, Frankie? What’s the idea?”

He looked down at her, feeling the strong emotional drive. “The idea is that we’re through, baby. Finished. I’m moving out.”

Her breath whistled in a sharp, sucking inhalation, and she swung out of bed in a fragile nylon mist. Her hands clutched at him.

“No, Frankie! Not like this. Not after all the luck I’ve brought you.”

He laughed brutally, remembering the old man. “It wasn’t you who brought me luck, baby. It was someone else. That’s something you’ll never know anything about.”

He turned, heading for the chest again, and she grabbed his arm, jerking. He spun with the force of the jerk, smashing his backhand across her mouth. She staggered off until the underside of her knees caught on the bed and held her steady. A bright drop of blood formed on her lower lip and dropped onto her chin. A whimper of pain crawled out of her throat.

“Why, Frankie? Just tell me why.”

He shrugged. “A guy grows. A guy goes on to something better. That’s just the way it is, baby.”

“It’s more than that. It’s a lot bigger than that. You think I’ve been two-timing you, Frankie?”

He repeated his brutal laugh. “Two-timing me? I’ll tell you something, baby. I wouldn’t give a damn if you were sleeping with every punk in town. That’s how much I care.” He paused, savoring sadism, finding it pleasant. “You want it straight, baby? It’s just that I’m sick of you. I’m sick to my guts with the sight of you. That clear enough?”

She came back to him, slowly, lifting her arms like a supplicant. He waited until she was close enough, then he hit her across the mouth again. Turning his back, he returned to the chest and got the rest of the articles he needed. Just a few things. Enough for the night and tomorrow. In the morning he’d send someone around to clean things out.

At the bed he tossed the stuff into the overnight bag and snapped it shut.

Over his shoulder he said, “The rent’s paid to the end of the month. After that you better look for another place to live.”

She didn’t respond, and remembering his toothbrush, he went into the bathroom for it. When he came out she was standing there with a .38 in her hand. It was the same .38 he’d once considered killing himself with. That had been the old Frankie, of course.

Not the new Frankie. Death was no consideration in the life of the new Frankie.

“You rotten son of a bitch,” she said.

He laughed aloud and started for her, and he just couldn’t believe it when the slug slammed into his shoulder.

He looked down in amazement at the place where the crimson began to seep, and his incredulous eyes raised just in time to receive the second slug squarely between them.

And like the night the old man died, it was funny. In the last split second of sight, it wasn’t Taffy standing there with the gun at all. It was the old man again.

The old man with a memory like an elephant.

The old man who always waited until it really hurt.

Fair Game

Originally published in Manhunt, September 1953.

There were lots of advantages to being the mayor’s personal chauffeur and bodyguard. Ray Butler thought. For instance, besides earning you a small percentage in this and that, it gave you many excuses to see the mayor’s wife.

A maid told him that she was on the terrace, and he found her there in a sunsuit that almost wasn’t. She was stretched out on a chaise longue behind a pair of dark glasses. His eyes flicked over golden legs and torso broken briefly by scraps of thin fabric. The muscular action incidental to his smile didn’t disturb his face much. It was smooth and hard and brown, like the polished hull of an acorn. There was only a swift flash of white in a margin of red, a deepening toward black of eyes that were normally a shade darker than the face. A hard and handsome boy, Ray Butler. A lot of women carried him around in their heads a long time before they finally lost him in the confusion of things that come and go.

For the maid’s benefit, he said, “Good morning, Mrs. Cannon. I understand you have an errand for me.”

“Good morning, Ray.”

She swung her long, sleek legs off the lounge and stood up, stretching lazily in the sunlight. Her full, firm breasts were thrust up by a deep breath against the frail restraint of her halter. “It’s hot out here. Perhaps we’d better go inside.”

She shrugged into a thigh-length jacket that increased, by paradoxical design, both the coverage of her body and the impression of its nakedness, and he followed her through glass doors into a room that was cool and shadowed. She turned, then, and surged back against him with a little sound that was almost like a whimper, her face lifted and her eyes suddenly glazed.

“Ray,” she said. “Ray...”

The palms of his hands were damp with sweat that had nothing to do with the temperature, and he dried them in her honey-colored hair, dragging her head back savagely and talking into her throat.

“It’s been a thousand years, baby. A thousand long years!”

“I know, Ray, I know.”

Their bodies strained for maximum contact, groping hungrily with countless tiny receptors, and after a long time she relaxed with a sigh, hanging limply in his arms. Her voice was a spent whisper.

“How long, Ray, how long?”

“As long as it takes, baby. Until I say when.”

“Say it now. Say it right now.”

He laughed softly. “You didn’t read your fables when you were a kid. Don’t you remember the one about the goose that laid the golden eggs? The moral is, you don’t kill it. Not literally, not figuratively. Dixie Cannon, mayor of this town and your husband, is the goose, baby.”

“Listen to me, Ray. Over half of everything he owns is in my name. It has to be that way, for the looks of it. It’s mine legally. We don’t need Dixie. We don’t need him at all.”

He laughed again, and there was a sudden tension in the sound. “That’s not the point. It’s not just the lettuce. Think, baby, think. Dixie grabbed me off the force for his personal bodyguard. I’m the strong-arm guy. I do the dirty work. In the last couple years I’ve made more enemies than any one guy ought to have, and every one of them would love to see me dead. Who keeps me alive? I’ll tell you, baby. Dixie Cannon. Fat little Dixie Cannon. God knows how he ever got the power he’s got, and God knows how he keeps it, but he did and he does. He’s all that stands between me and something I don’t like to think about. Just one little man between Ray Butler and the full treatment. Just one fat little man who looks like Santa Claus with a shave.”

He stopped, tucking her fair head under his chin, his hands moving along the sidelines of her torso, and after a while he added dreamily, “But I’m growing. Slowly, I’m growing. I’ll let you know when I’m ready, and when that time comes, there’ll be no question and no more waiting. We’ll take care of Dixie Cannon, and we’ll take care of anyone else who thinks he wants a piece of Ray Butler.”

She lifted her face again to his pleasure, her bright hair hanging, and again there was the molten merging of their bodies. After a long time, she shuddered and twisted from his arms.

“Okay, Ray. Maybe we ought to have a drink to the time.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Sorry, baby, but I just stopped off on my way to somewhere else. I’m on a job for Dixie.”

“Where?”

“Out to Club 44–40. The Schultz twins’ place. Dixie’s moving in.”

“Be careful, Ray. I’d die if anything happened to you.”

He lifted a hand with thumb and index finger tip to tip in the okay sign. “Don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen to Ray Butler, baby. Nothing but good luck. The kind that was meant for the two of us.”

He went out into the hall past the maid, who was dusting, and outside to Dixie Cannon’s blue Caddy in the drive. Thirty minutes later he was at Club 44–40.

It was a sweet joint. Even on a day as hot as this, it had a cool, secluded look. Remote from the blistering concrete highway at the end of a white gravel drive, it sprawled with an effect of leisure beneath the drooping pale green branches of weeping willows.

Ray parked the Caddy in shade and went up to heavy double doors. They were unlocked, and he pushed his way inside, standing for a moment in the soft air-conditioned shadows of the lobby to tune his senses to the reduced momentum and volume of the club’s interior stirrings. Looking straight ahead through the small lobby, he could see a litter of chairs and tables, a dance area that was hardly more than a nominal concession to active patrons. Swinging his gaze clockwise through an arch, he picked up in dark glass a reverse view of a section of the bar. The angle showed him the back of a bald head that was not visible directly, and he went over to the arch and through.

The bartender watched his approach from under heavy lids. He stifled a yawn with a clean bar rag and shot a glance upward at the lighted dial of a clock.

“We’re not open yet. Mac. Come back in a couple hours.”

Ray covered red leather with the seat of his cords and leaned forward on his elbows.

“It’s nice in here. Nice and cool and quiet. I’ll have a Collins, I think. While I’m drinking it, you can tell the twins I’m here. Tell them it’s Ray Butler with a word from Dixie Cannon.”

Heavy lids flicked up reflexively and then dropped over a glitter of pupils. The bar rag made a swift swipe at mahogany that didn’t need it.

“Maybe. And maybe you’re Joe Blow with a bag full of brushes. You got identification?”

Ray laughed. “You’re hurting my feelings,” he said. “A guy gets to thinking he’s known around, and then some joker wants credentials. You’d better fix the Collins and see the twins.”

The bartender vacillated a moment longer between the unknown reaction of the twins and the nearer threat of a still, brown face. Then he reached for the gin. He mixed the Collins and left the bar through a door at the rear. Ray watched him go and began the pleasant work of uncovering the maraschino cherry that lay on the bottom of his glass. Spinning on the stool, he saw beside the door through which the bartender had gone a garish monster of a juke box, with bubbles rising endlessly in colored tubes. He went back, carrying the Collins, and deposited a nickel. A female voice with a cultivated sob lamented. It struck Ray as rather amusing. A fine laugh, really. He leaned against the box and heard the platter through, working at the Collins as he listened. The Collins was just finished and the platter back in the stack when the bartender returned. He jerked a thumb at the door.

“You can go on back. It’s the door at the far end of the game room.”

Ray nodded and set the empty glass on top of the juke box. He went through the door into the game room, and the reason for the nominal concession of space up front was immediately apparent. Most of it was utilized here, in the main business of the club. A nice layout. Better than that, it was a beautiful layout. Facilities for the works — roulette, dice, blackjack, everything for the luxury separation center. Expensive stuff. A lot of lettuce had gone into it.

At the indicated door, Ray knocked and waited for an invitation. Getting it promptly in a guttural voice, he stepped into deep pile and surveyed three faces. In point of differences, there might have been one face less. That is two of them were identical. They were heavy, swollen, with flesh like dough with too much yeast in it that encroached on eyes and gave to mouths a tucked, parsimonious quality. The brothers Schultz, Jake and Theo, who had, with characteristic economy, split an egg between them. They owned the place.

The third face was a study in contrast. Though its structure was almost exactly opposite that of the twins’, it achieved an equal ugliness. Long, gaunt and yellow, with a sour, twisted mouth. Sheriff Caleb Kirk. Prince Caleb, they called him. A county power. He’d bought, in his day, enough votes to elect a president.

Ray leaned against the door, palming the knob behind him, and smiled lazily. “Well, well. The sheriff himself. Glad to see you, Kirk. Finding you here will save me a trip to the county seat. It’s too damn hot for driving today.”

Kirk’s lips twisted. His eyes were flat and lusterless. “Detective Ray Butler. Personal bodyguard to the mayor. To Dixie Cannon himself. Word’s around that you’re a comer, Ray. Cops don’t usually work up so fast.”

Half of the twins, Jake or Theo at even money and take your pick, wiped an oily face with a wad of damp cloth and blew out a wet breath. He lowered his bulk into a chair behind a desk, tugging at the tie that tortured his bulging neck. “It’s too damned early. Too early for this heat.”

“You never know when the heat’ll come on.” Ray divided a pleasant look between the Schultz brothers, his brown face perfectly smooth and non-committal. “No heat in here, though. No reason at all for you boys to be sweating. The conditioning system must have set you back something. You’ve got a nice place.”

The other half of the twins lumbered to a liquor cabinet with a gelatin-like quivering of fat hips. “You like a drink, maybe, Ray boy? Real good stuff?”

“No, thanks. I had a Collins in the bar.”

“This is good. Old stuff. Stuff like this you don’t get at the bar.”

“The Collins was good enough.”

Caleb Kirk’s long, bony body jerked violently, as if the stringy muscles had contracted in a sudden seizure. “To hell with this folderol. You didn’t come here on any goddamned social call, Butler. What you got on your mind?”

Ray released the knob behind him and took a couple of steps into the room. His eyes drifted casually over the sheriffs sour, yellow face. “Like I told the boy up front, I’ve brought word from Dixie Cannon. It’s business for the twins. You their agent, sheriff?”

“Maybe.”

“Okay. Dixie said to remind you there was an election some time back. You remember?”

“Sure. Dixie got elected, like always. So?”

“It’s not his own election Dixie’s thinking about. It’s the vote out here in the county. In case you’ve forgotten that part of it, this area voted for annexation. It’s inside the city limits now.” Ray pivoted in a quarter turn to include the twins impartially in a deliberate inspection. “Dixie’s a patient man, boys, but now he’s getting a little annoyed. He waited for you to contact him, and you didn’t do it. That wasn’t polite. Not polite at all.”

Kirk’s voice intruded, rasping, grating on the nerves like sand underfoot. “What the hell you getting at, Butler? Cut the fancy talk and lay it on the line.”

Ray didn’t even bother to look at him. He lifted his eyes above the heads of the sweating twins and let them wander lazily along the line of junction where wall met ceiling. His voice descended to a deadly softness.

“Sure, sheriff. I’ll lay it on the line. The line’s the one where the city ends and the county begins. And you’re on the other side. Out in the county. Prince Caleb of the brush. Like I mentioned, this is a nice place. A place like this must separate the suckers from plenty. Just like you’re separating the twins from plenty. You’ve been collecting ice for years, and up to now it was all right, because you had jurisdiction. Now the line’s changed, and it’s different. You’ve got no more jurisdiction. Dixie Cannon’s got it.”

Kirk moved in on the flank. Ray could feel the heat of his breath on his neck. The sour odor of it offended his nostrils.

“To hell with the line. To hell with Dixie Cannon. You tell the fat little bastard that Prince Caleb Kirk isn’t moving out for any lousy city politico. Not any whatever.”

Ray moved swiftly and smoothly, like a machine, driving his bent arm back like a piston. The elbow buried itself in the soft area above the diaphragm where Kirk’s ribs converged. Spinning with the motion, Ray chopped into the base of Kirk’s neck with the hard edge of his right hand. That made everything easy. Catching the sagging body, he lifted the sheriff’s yellow face up into a savage, cadenced chopping that produced, in seconds, a red pulp. The job done methodically, he let the body collapse and turned to the twins.

“Dixie Cannon’s a big man,” he said. “It’s not right for a bush-league bastard to talk about Dixie like that. If I overlooked it, after a while no one would have any respect for Dixie at all. You boys ready to listen?”

The brothers Schultz were motionless mountains of frozen meat. After a few seconds, the one behind the desk lifted his hands and spread them carefully on the desk’s surface. His head jerked.

“You’re talking, boy. We’re listening.”

“Good. I told Dixie you’d be reasonable. You can always depend on the Schultz boys to play it cool, I told him. It’s as simple as this: Dixie wants the ice. If you don’t like that arrangement, he’s ready to buy you out. Thirty grand, he said to tell you.”

“Thirty grand!” The Schultz in the chair heaved upward to his feet, his voice skidding up the register ahead of him to a shrill squeal. He stood for a minute bent forward, his fat belly overlapping the oak, and then he sank slowly into the chair again. His lips twitched in a sickly smile. “You’re joking, boy. Young guys like you always got to have their joke. We got eighty grand invested in the joint, me and Jake. It’s worth a hundred.”

Ray shook his head sadly. “Dixie said thirty. He said if you didn’t like thirty, he’d settle for ice.”

“What’s Dixie’s idea of ice?”

“It’s simple. A kid could figure it. There’s you two and Dixie. It comes out a third each way, however you slice it.”

“An even split? You’re killing me, boy. You’re killing me dead with your corny jokes.”

Ray shrugged. “There are worse ways to die.” He turned, moved to the door, turned again. “Dixie doesn’t want to crowd you any, but he thinks you owe him an answer. He’s been waiting ever since election, and he thinks twelve hours more ought to be plenty.”

His eyes deserted the twins, wandered over to Prince Caleb Kirk. The lank sheriff had dragged himself into a chair, and he sat slumped there with his long legs sprawled and his body canting over the arm.

He’d wiped some of the blood off his face with his handkerchief, and held the bloody cloth wadded in his hand. His eyes were as yellow as his jaundiced hide, filled with the pus of a malignant hatred. His smashed lips writhed wolfishly off stained teeth.

“You’re riding high, sonny. You’re riding high enough to get hurt if you fall. I’ll tell you something. You better take real good care of that body you’re hired to guard. If anything happened to it, you might lose altitude awful fast.”

Ray studied him briefly and then went out through the game room and the bar to the Caddy under the willows. Wheeling around in the parking area, he followed the drive back to the white welt of concrete. Slipping into the tide of traffic, he drifted with it into the heart of the city. Outside City Hall, he tucked the Caddy into Dixie Cannon’s reserved spot and went up a wide sweep of stairs into the main floor hall, where he caught a fast elevator at the bank. Upstairs, he got out and exercised his privilege by turning the knob of Dixie Cannon’s private door.

Dixie was pink and white and plump. He had pale, silky hair brushed smoothly over a round skull, and he looked like a happy child. He possessed the natural, amoral cruelty of a child, too. The voters loved him and crammed the ballot boxes to prove it. With plenty of indications to the contrary, they just couldn’t believe that Dixie would ever do anything really wrong.

He smiled a welcome at Ray across the polished expanse of the huge desk that made him look like a small boy playing executive.

“You see the twins. Ray?”

“I saw them. I gave them the deadline. They’re squealing like stuck pigs, but they’ll come around. I saw Prince Caleb Kirk, too. He was at the club.”

“So?”

Ray lilted his shoulders and let them fall. “He’s got a nasty tongue. I had to work on him a little.”

“Yes? Well, watch yourself, boy. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating the devil. He’s mean as a rattlesnake.”

Ray repeated his shrug. “A guy beats his gums, you take action. It’s bad for discipline to let a guy get away with loud-talking you.”

Dixie dry-washed his plump hands, his soft mouth pursing with gentle approval. “Sure. Ray. You look after Dixie like an angel.” He stood up and patted his neat little pot with satisfaction. “Well, it’s been a nice, profitable day. I think I’ll knock off.”

“Shall I drive you home?”

“Never mind, boy. I’ll make it all right. You go buy yourself a couple beers or something.”

Ray made it another Collins and took his time with it. In the afternoon he sat in a small-stakes poker game in the back room of a friendly cigar store and rode a moderate run of luck to a small profit. Later, as lights came up in the end of the long evening, he sat in his room in the Commerce Hotel with rye and water in his hand and a dark restlessness in his brain. He thought of a golden body reclining in sunlight, and closing his eyes, he developed the thought behind his lids in vivid imagery. Myra. Myra Cannon. He pronounced the magic syllables aloud, but softly, and when the telephone rang shrilly at his elbow at that moment, he had a sudden intense conviction that she was, through some kind of supersensory awareness between them, responding to the name.

The voice was a woman’s, but not Myra’s.

“Mr. Butler?”

“Yes.”

“This is the Cannon maid. Mr. Cannon would like you to come out.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes. A car will be sent for you.”

“All right. I’ll be waiting.”

He hung up and stood tor a minute beside the phone, wondering what urgent deal Dixie Cannon now had cooking. While he waited for transportation, he mixed another rye and water, sipping it slowly until he finally heard knuckles on his door. The guy in the hall had a bullish, blocky body and an undersized head. The left corner of his mouth was lifted in a perpetual leer by a puckered scar that ran across his cheek at a tangent. Ray had seen him around. He was called Rhino.

On the way downstairs, Ray said, “What’s the pitch?”

He didn’t expect a solid answer, and he didn’t get it. Rhino lifted thick shoulders. “Business. That’s all I know. Just business.”

They left it that way, driving in silence to Dixie Cannon’s suburban stone stack and walking in silence up from the drive into the front hall, Rhino keeping pace a step left and to the rear. The maid was waiting in the hall, and guided them to the door of the room off the terrace in which Ray and Myra had been that morning. Rhino followed Ray into the room, obviously on orders, and so did the maid. That was queer, a little too queer, and it was then, for the first time, that Ray had a feeling of something wrong.

Dixie was standing in the middle of the room with a glass in his hand. He was wearing a spotless white dinner jacket, and his benign face had a scrubbed, rosy look. His small mouth curled affectionately.

“Hello. Ray. You’re a good boy to come so soon.”

Behind him, sitting in a chair with motionless rigidity that was the antithesis of her usual seductive grace, was Myra. Her face was stiff, drained of blood, and her eyes in the startling pallor were like burned-out cinders, her mouth like a crimson wound.

The wrong feeling intensified. Twisting at the hips, Ray could see Rhino by the door at his rear. He stood there indolently, shoulders braced against the wall, his right hand resting in the pocket of his coat.

The maid had advanced on Ray’s other side. Her stance, for a woman, was oddly erect, almost military, and it prompted in him a strange kind of disgust. It seemed, for some reason, a physical perversion.

“I always come soon,” he said carefully.

Dixie lifted his glass and sipped, looking at Ray over the rim. “Thanks. But I had better explain why I called you out tonight. Also why I’ve invited Rhino and Mitzie to attend this little conference. I’ve made use of them, you see and I believe in permitting the people I’ve used in an affair to see its finish. And then, too, it is good for personnel to be made aware of certain consequences.” He smiled gently. “You know what I am, Ray? I’m a foolish, fat little man with a beautiful wife, and that’s the trouble. Perhaps there is nothing quite so unfortunate as a man like me with a wife like Myra. Because he has no confidence, you see. He has no faith. It corrupts his personality. It makes him suspicious, and it degrades him. If he were like you, it would be different. If he were a tall and handsome guy, he wouldn’t be forced to measures a man should scorn.”

It was all clear then, of course.

Even before Dixie walked to a table and flipped a switch. Even before the sultry, vibrant voice whispered his damnation through the room: Ray, Ray...

Dixie flipped the switch again, cutting off Ray’s line, and he was suddenly a sick old man. The smooth skin seemed to darken and wither on his bones. “The machine was in a cabinet in the hall,” he said. “This was only one of the rooms it could have picked up. Mitzie’s very clever about operating it. For a dame, Mitzie’s clever about a lot of things.”

He lifted his glass and drained it greedily. “What would you do, Ray, if you were Dixie Cannon? What would you do to the guy who made your wife? As you said in the office today, it’s a matter of discipline. Some things you can’t let pass.”

It seemed to Ray at that moment, in retrospect, that the whole day had been pointed toward this bad end and he wondered dully how he had been so blind as to miss the signs of destiny — his own words to Myra about needing Dixie’s protection, the malignant threat of Prince Caleb Kirk, all the dark signs pointing. He tried to speak, but he found that he couldn’t. Bones and muscles functioned, permitting his mouth to open, but no sound would come from his throat.

“At first I thought I’d ruin your handsome face.” Dixie said. “I thought I’d let Rhino cut it up for me. But then l remembered something you said to Myra. Something on the tape there. ‘Who keeps me alive?’ you said. So now I’ve decided it will be best it we simply part company. From this moment, we are at liberty from each other. I will take steps to make it known that you are no longer my man and therefore no longer my concern. For example. I’ve already notified the men I’m presently dealing with — the Schultz twins. Prince Caleb Kirk. They were quite interested.”

Then there was an unexpected sharp sound of splintering glass and blood dripped brightly from Dixie’s soft fingers. His voice rose to a shrill, womanlike scream.

“Get out, you double-dealing son of a bitch! Get the hell out before I have Rhino cut you to shreds!”

Ray turned away with a bleak sense of loneliness that was more terrible than fear. For a moment his eyes sought the face of Myra, but there was nothing in it now but defeat and the shadow of terror, so he gave up and went past Rhino into the hall and out of the house. All the way hanging in disembodied suspension before him there was a second face. It was long and yellow, with a sour mouth, and hate-filled eyes, the symbol of his enemies.

Fair game. Open season on Ray Butler. He felt a frantic, irrational compulsion to start running, but all growth and structure on the surface of the earth around him seemed, of a sudden, to disintegrate and disappear leaving no place, no place at all, for a man to hide.

May I Come In?

Originally published in Manhunt, January 1955.

I saw Marilla today, and it all came back with the sight of him, all the details I’ve tried to remember and couldn’t — all the little, important details that meant so much, all about the night and what happened in the night and all things before and afterward...

The night was hot and humid.

I lay in my room on a sheet sodden with the seepage from my pores, and suspended above me in the dark like a design in ectoplasm was the face of the man named Marilla, and the hate within me stirred and flowed and seeped with the sweat from my pores, and the color of my hate was yellow.

I got off the bed and walked on bare feet across, the warm floor to the window, but there was no air moving at the window or outside the window, and the adherent heat had saturated my flesh and soaked through my eyes into the cavity of my skull to lie like a thick, smothering fog over the contours of my brain. I could hear, across the narrow interval that separated houses, the whirr of blades beating the air, and because my eyes were like cat’s eyes, I could see behind the blades into the black, gasping room, and it was the bedroom of Mrs. Willkins, and she was lying nude on her bed under the contrived breeze, and her body was gross and ugly with flesh loose on its bones, and I hated her, just as I hated the ectoplasmic face of the man named Marilla, with all the force of my yellow hate.

Turning away from the window, I found in the darkness a pint of gin on a chest and poured two fingers into a tumbler. I sat on the edge of the bed and drank the gin and then lay down again, and the face of Marilla was still suspended above me, and in a moment the face of Freda was there too, and I began to think deliberately about Marilla and Freda, and the reason I hated Marilla.

I stood with Freda in front of the shining glass window, and she pointed out the coat to me on the arrogant blonde dummy. I could see Freda’s reflected face in the glass from my angle of vision, and her lips were slightly open in excitement and desire, and I felt happy and a little sad at the same time to see her that way because it wasn’t, after all, much of a coat, not mink or ermine or any kind of fur at all, but just a plain cloth coat that was a kind of pink color and looked like it would be as soft as down to the touch.

“It’s beautiful,” Freda said. “It’s, oh so beautiful,” and I said, “You like it? You like to have it?” and she said, “Oh, yes,” in a kind of expiring, incredulous whisper that was like the expression of a child who just can’t believe the wonderful thing that’s about to happen.

We went into the store and up to the floor where the coats were sold, and Freda tried on the coat, turning around and around in front of the mirror and stroking the cloth as if it were a kitten and making a soft little purring sound as if she were the kitten she was stroking. I teased her a little, saying that, well, it was rather expensive and would raise hell with the budget, but I knew all the time that I was going to buy it for her, because she wanted it so much and because it made her look even more beautiful than before, and after a while I went up to the credit department and made arrangements for monthly payments, because I didn’t have the price. When I came back down, she was still standing in front of the mirror in the coat, and I said, “You going to wear it,” and she said, “Oh, yes, I’m going to wear it and sleep in it and never take it off,” and I kept remembering afterward that it wasn’t after all, so much of a coat, not fur or anything, but just pink cloth.

We went down in the elevator, and she clung to my arm and kissed me over and over with her eyes, and I thought it was the best buy I’d ever made and cheap at the price, even if I had had to arrange monthly payments. We went out onto the street through the revolving door, walking close together in the same section of the door because Freda wouldn’t let loose of my arm, and the street was bright and soft and cool with the cool, bright softness of April, and it was just the kind of day and street for a new pink coat. We walked down the street toward the drug store on the corner, and I was thinking that I’d take Freda into the store for some of the peppermint ice cream with chunks of stick peppermint in it that she liked so much, and it occurred to me that the ice cream was just about the color of the pink coat, and then there were a couple of explosions inside the drug store, and after a second or two a woman began to scream in a high, ragged voice that went on and on, and the door of the store flew open, and a man ran out with a gun in his hand, and the man was Marilla, the man they were later to call a psychopathic killer.

He ran toward us along the sidewalk waving the gun, and he ran with a queer, lurching gait, as if he were crippled, or one leg were shorter than the other, and as he ran he made a sound that was something like a whimper and something like a cry. Between us and him was a kid carrying a shoe shine box, and the kid stopped and stood stiffly with the box hanging at his side, and then the gun in Marilla’s hand began to explode again, and the kid set the box down on the sidewalk and fell over sideways across it. I stood looking at the kid, and I realized suddenly that Freda had let go of my arm, and I turned to see if she was still there, but she wasn’t, and I couldn’t see her anywhere. Marilla ran past me, and I could see directly into his big eyes that were like black puddles of liquid terror, and he pointed the gun at my face and pulled the trigger, and I could hear the dull click of the hammer on a dead shell. I could have tackled him and brought him down, but I didn’t, because just then I saw that Freda was lying on the sidewalk like the kid up ahead, but in a different position, on her back with the new coat spread open around her like something that had been put there in advance for her to lie on. I knelt down beside her on the sidewalk and lifted her head and began to say her name, and at first I thought she’d fainted, but then I saw the small black hole that was about three inches in a straight line below the hollow of her throat, and I knew that she was dead.

They caught Marilla in a blind alley. He was sitting in a corner with his knees drawn up and his head resting on his knees, and he was whimpering and crying, and his voice would rise now and then to a thin scream of terror, and the men who found him first almost beat him to death before the police came and took him away. Right after that, the next day or so, they began to say he was crazy, that he was just a crazy kid only twenty years old, and the psychiatrists had big words for the kind of craziness it was supposed to be, but I knew that nothing they could say would do him any good at all, because he had killed a man and a woman in the drug store and the shoe shine kid on the street, and above all he had killed Freda in her new pink coat.

They asked him why he had killed all those people, and they didn’t even make any distinction between Freda and the others, and he said he hadn’t hated any of them or anything like that, hadn’t even wanted to kill them at all but had killed them anyhow because he’d been told time and again to do it and finally had to do as he was told. They asked him who had told him to kill the people, just any people, and he said it was a thin little man with a pointed nose and a pointed chin who wore yellow pointed shoes. The man had appeared in all sorts of odd places and told him to go out and kill some people.

It was part of the big lie of course, that ridiculous part about the man coming and telling him to kill some people, it was part of the plan to keep him from paying for killing Freda, and anyone could see right through it, it was so transparent. You can buy some psychiatrist to verify something like that any time you’ve got the price, and I knew they’d hang him in spite of what any psychiatrist said, because God wanted him to hang just as much as I did, God and I hated him equally for what he’d done to Freda right when she was so happy.

I waited for them to try him, and finally they did, and I went and sat in the court room every day to watch him and to feel the yellow hate like pus inside me. He sat at the long table with the lawyers who defended him, and he always sat with his head bowed and his hands folded on top of the table in a posture of prayer, but once in a while he would look up briefly into the crowd, and the light of terror and inner cowering were there in his great liquid eyes, and I felt a fierce exaltation that he was suffering, and that the suffering he now felt was only the beginning of the suffering he would feel before he was through. He looked very small in the chair by the big table, hardly larger than a child, with narrow shoulders slumped forward and a slender neck supporting a head that was too big for his body, and the head looking even bigger than it really was because of the thick black shining curls that covered it. I kept watching him sit there like he was praying, and I kept thinking that he could pray all he wanted to, but God wouldn’t hear him, and that he could plead and lie and try all the tricks he could think of, but no one would believe him or pity him or do anything to help him, no one at all.

They put him on the stand at last to tell about the man who had come to tell him to kill, and he described the man again, just as he had to the psychiatrists, his pointed nose and pointed chin and yellow pointed shoes, and he spoke in a very soft voice that could barely be heard but contained all the time, somehow, the threat of rising abruptly to a shrill scream. It was all put on, part of the plan, but he was very clever, a great actor, and he told how the man had appeared the first time while he was standing on a bridge looking down at the water, and had sat down beside him another time in a movie theater, and had met him another time while he was walking along a path in the town park, and had then begun coming to his room late at night to knock softly on the door. No one was supposed to believe that the little man had actually come to him in those ways, or in any way at all, but everyone was supposed to believe that it had happened in his mind, that the little man was an hallucination of insanity, but I knew it hadn’t happened that way either, that the man hadn’t even appeared in Marilla’s mind, and that it was all a story made up to get him out of it. I knew they’d hang him, and I tried to feel within myself the way he’d feel while he was waiting, and walking out to the scaffold, and standing there in the last instant with the black hood over his head and the rope around his neck.

But in the end they didn’t hang him at all.

They let him out of it.

They said he wasn’t guilty because he wasn’t in his right mind and wasn’t responsible for his acts, and they sent him off somewhere to a place with cool white rooms and a cool green lawn and doctors to look after him and nurses to wait on him.

I thought a lot about the twelve people on the jury who let him out of it, and I began to hate them the same as Marilla, and I wished they were all dead, dead as Freda, but the more I thought about them the more they seemed like all other people, and after a long time I realized it was because they really were like all other people on earth. Freda was dead, and no one cared, all the people on earth had said it was all right because of a ridiculous story about a little man with a pointed nose and a pointed chin and yellow pointed shoes who had told a man named Marilla to kill her. Always I saw the face of Marilla and the face of Freda, and they seemed to get mixed up with other faces that I’d never seen before, and I wondered if I was insane myself, but I wasn’t, of course, any more than Marilla was.

And now I lay in my room in the hot and humid night, and across the interval between houses, behind the futile beating of blades, Mrs. Willkins’ gross body stirred in her black and gasping room.

And there was something else. Something new.

A man was walking the dark and airless streets of town beneath layers of lifeless leaves.

He walked with mincing steps, and he was far away in the beginning, when I first saw him, and I lay on my bed in my room and followed his progress with cat’s eyes through light and shadow across the pattern of the town. At times he was swallowed completely by darkness, and then no eyes could see him but mine, but the people who stirred in wakefulness in the houses he passed could hear the echo of his mincing steps, and he moved with surety of purpose and a pace that never varied through the silent, dappled streets until he came at last to the corner above my house and down the street to the house itself. Without moving from my bed, I could see him standing on the sidewalk below with his face lifted into the milky light of the moon, and then he came up across the porch into the house and up the stairs into the hall and stood outside my door.

I waited in the hot stillness, and after a while he knocked softly, and I got up in the dark, and my hand, swinging out, struck the tumbler on the table by the bed and knocked it to the floor with a sound of brittle thunder that rocked the room. I waited until the reverberations had diminished and died and the soft knock was repeated, and then I crossed to the door and opened it.

The warm fog inside my skull pressed closely on my brain, and though my head didn’t ache exactly, it felt very light and queer. The man in the hall looked at me and bowed in a peculiar, old-fashioned way from the waist and smiled politely.

“Excuse me for disturbing you at this hour,” he said, “but I must talk with you about a number of people. About Mrs. Willkins first of all, I think. May I come in?”

He was a little man with a long pointed nose and a pointed chin. He wore yellow pointed shoes.

I saw Marilla from, my window. He was walking in the yard below with the same man in white who comes now and then to my room, and he sat for a while on a bench under a tree, and I could see him quite clearly. The queer thing is, there was no hate, no longer any hate, and I’m thinking that perhaps I will be allowed to walk in the yard soon, and that Marilla and l may meet and sit together under the tree and talk about these things that happened. It will be pleasant to talk with someone who knows and understands...

Kill Me Tomorrow

Originally published in Manhunt, December 1955.

Chapter 1

Peter Roche first saw her the afternoon of the day before Christmas. When he got home, she was sitting in front of the fire in the library with Scotch in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She drew on the cigarette, drank from the glass, and exhaled a thin blue cloud of smoke. He learned that it was a characteristic trick of hers, that sequence — drag, drink, blow. She nodded a headful of mahogany curls and looked at him with eyes that seemed black in the room but turned out later in the light to match almost perfectly the color of her hair.

“You must be Peter,” she said.

Her voice was throaty, as warm and mellow as the Scotch that lubricated it, as soft and lazy as the blue smoke it rode on.

He gave her a twisted grin and said, “Why must I be Peter? Why can’t I be Paul?”

She shook her head, the mahogany curls dancing and shimmering. Firelight and shadows flickered across her face.

“I know you’re Peter because your father told me all about you. ‘Only son,’ he said. ‘Slim and handsome and clever as the devil and no damn good,’ he said. You’re twenty-eight. You flunked out of medical school four years ago, and you haven’t done anything constructive since. Last year it cost five grand to buy you out of an affair with a predatory blonde. To coin an expression, you’re a cad, sir. I think I’m going to like you very much.”

“Do you? That’s nice. I’m a guy who likes being liked by beautiful women. I also like to know their names. You see, the possibility of being sued or blackmailed by a woman whose name I don’t know is rather embarrassing. It’s a weakness in my social adjustment.”

She went through the smoke and Scotch sequence, her moist lips curling in a sly kind of smile. Beyond the drifting veil of smoke, her dark eyes glittered with malicious humor.

“My name is Harriet, and I’m usually called Etta, but you may call me Mother.”

He stood watching her, giving his adrenals time to slow down and resume normal production. She lay back in the rich brocade embrace of the big fireside chair with all the audacious presumption of a cowbird in the nest of a warbler. Although she didn’t move, she somehow gave the impression of stretching, of luxuriating sensuously in the flexing of flat muscles. A sheath of black wool was tailored to the contours of her body. His eyes descended nylon to wriggling toes. Her discarded shoes, a pair of thin soles with essential straps and incredible spikes, were half buried in shaggy white pile.

“I’m an extremely regressed adult,” he said. “I need a lot of mothering.”

“Maybe we can make a game of it.”

“Good. It ought to be more fun than canasta.”

She laughed. It was a soft and gauzy scrap of sound that seemed to ascend and fade and thin to nothing. It was as if she had blown out more smoke through the vapors of Scotch.

“I’m beginning to think I may get my kicks out of having a son. Such a convenient method, too. Ready made and ready for love. I’m really quite relieved. I though you might hate me.”

“So I might. I’ll let you know the exact state of my feelings when I learn what this is all about. Are you trying to tell me that you and Senator Big are married?”

“Senator Big? Is that what you call him? It has a disrespectful sound. Perhaps you’re not such an affectionate son, after all.”

“Affectionate with the Senator? You’d just as well try being affectionate with a party caucus.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t found him so unresponsive. Generally tender, I’d say, with brief interims of passion. Just enough to make things interesting.”

“With you, I admit, it would be easier. The Senator always had a fine eye.”

“Thank you.”

“Where is he now, by the way?”

“Upstairs lying down.”

He started where he’d stopped on his other tour of inspection, with her wriggling roes, and reversed his way back up nylon and black wool to her mahogany eyes. They were still glittering with malice, but he had a feeling that the malice was not integral, was only assumed as a temporary attitude until his own was determined.

“So you really are married,” he said softly. “You really hooked the old boy.”

“That’s a rather crude way to put it, but essentially correct.”

“Pardon my crudity. You married him, of course, because you love him as a noble servant of the people. All you want is to share the life of a great man.”

She laughed again, and this time it was a freer and fuller laugh, filled with the solid stuff of genuine amusement. “Well, let’s not go to the other extreme. After all, he’s only a State senator, not national, and I understand he’s served certain vested interests a hell of a lot better than he has the people. I’d say my position is somewhere around the middle.”

“What’s in the middle? The neat little fortune the Senator’s acquired quite incidentally from his long years of service?”

She lifted her glass and looked into it. “Do you find that thought disturbing? Well, no wonder. It must be quite a shock to find yourself no longer sole heir. My glass seems to be empty. Would you mind filling it? Scotch and soda.”

“Certainly, Mother. Ice?”

“No ice. Just a dash of soda.”

He walked over and got her glass and carried it to a portable bar that had been wheeled in. He made hers heavy and one straight for himself and carried them back to her. She reached up and took the one that was hers, and her fingers in the small action trailed lightly across the back of his hand. They were long and slender, and their touch suggested exceptional talents.

“I’m curious,” he said.

She looked up at him at a sharp angle through thick lashes. “About what?”

“You and the Senator. How you managed it.”

“It was voluntary on his part, I assure you. As a matter of fact, he was quite urgent about it. It’s true that he placed himself in a vulnerable position, but I was not compelled to take advantage of it.”

“Maybe that’s lucky for you. Others have tried from an advantage and failed. When he bought off my blonde last year, he showed remarkable skill in the details of the transaction. He knocked her down from ten grand to five and boxed her in so she can’t ever come back for more. Experience, I suspect.”

“Poor girl. Obviously out of her class.” She smiled lazily and tilted Scotch and soda through the smile. “Do you have a cigarette?”

He gave her one and lit it and watched her swallow smoke. She sat there wriggling her toes and alternating Scotch and smoke, and he used the time to empty his own glass. When it was empty, he carried it back to the bar.

“If you’ll excuse me now,” he said. “I think I’ll go upstairs.”

Depositing her glass and crushing her cigarette in a tray, she stood on stocking feet and reached slowly for the ceiling, stretching with a supple twisting of her body.

“Of course. But you haven’t kissed me. Isn’t it proper for a son to kiss his mother? I know so little about such things. I’m afraid you’ll just have to take the initiative until I learn.”

Now there was something in her eyes besides the glitter of malice, a smoky haze that looked as if it might have risen behind them from her cigarette. Her smile was still lazy, but also provocative, and he went over and covered it. At first her lips were very still, yielding to pressure, and then they opened and responded with a soft expulsion of smoked Scotch and a queer little moan, and before it was finished it was such a motherly kiss as even Freud had never dreamed of. After a minute, she broke away and walked across the room to windows covered by heavy green drapes. She parted the drapes with one hand and stood looking out through the cold glass into the sudden winter’s dusk, and he stood and watched her against the glass, and as he watched, a light came on beyond the lawn, and between the light and the glass the snow slanted down in large, wet flakes.

Turning, he walked to the door.

“Peter,” she said.

He stopped and looked back over his shoulder, and she had turned away from the windows, letting the drapes fall together across the glass behind her to shut out the night and the falling snow. Her lips were parted in a little smile that possessed a quality of deadliness, and her eyes were shining.

“About my position in the middle,” she said. “I wouldn’t worry about it, if I were you. I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out.”

Chapter 2

The sun was white and hot, just past the zenith. The trees on the lawn stood still in the breathless day. From his room in the east wing of the house, Peter could look down upon the stone terrace that covered part of the ground area between the east wing and the west. From its high place in the sky, the sun shot a sharp angle between the wings. White light rebounded from the colored, glittering flags. Down there on a bright red chaise longue on wheels, Etta lay stretched on her stomach with her head cradled on her arms. She was wearing a pair of white twill shorts that looked from a distance like a small part of Etta that hadn’t been previously exposed to the sun. Her body above and below the brief break was the color of cocoa. On a round wrought-iron table beside the lounge was a tall glass. The glass had parallel red, blue, and yellow stripes painted around its circumference from top to bottom. It was empty.

Carrying a tennis racket, Peter went downstairs. He stopped inside long enough to mix Tom Collinses in glasses to match the one on the table on the terrace and then went out onto the terrace with the racket under his arm and a glass in each hand. Etta didn’t look up. Her body was covered with a thin film of clear oil. The oil gave her skin a soft, shiny look like satin. He set the lull glasses on the table beside the empty, and Etta raised her head slowly and looked at him over a shoulder. Her eyes had a glazed, unfocused look, as if she had wakened from some very deep sleep.

“Hello, darling,” she said.

“I brought you a cold drink. Tom Collins.”

“Thanks. You’re a very thoughtful son.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Is this the boy who called me Mother? What’s the matter, Peter? Feeling sensitive?”

Sitting beside her on the edge of the lounge, he leaned down and touched her lightly with his lips just below the short hair on her neck. A tiny shiver moved through her skin peripherally from the point of contact, and she rolled over and swung her legs off the opposite side.

“I think you’d better hand me my Collins, darling.”

He handed it to her, and she took a swallow and looked at him across the red interval with a little smile twisting her lips.

“Playing tennis?”

“If you’ll play with me.”

“In this heat?”

“You play better when it’s hot.”

“All right. I’ll get my shoes and racket.”

She went inside, carrying her drink. He waited on the lounge and sipped his own. The sunlight bounced and hung shimmering above the flags, and he could feel the heat through the soles of his shoes. He drained his glass, letting the last fragment of ice slip down into his mouth. It melted immediately on his tongue. Time was white and hot and utterly silent, and it did not move. In eternal, unmoving Time only the things moved that were not eternal — the earth and the sun and Etta on the terrace behind him.

“Are there balls at the court?” she said.

“Yes. I left some there yesterday.”

“Okay. I’ll bet you ten on a set.”

“You’re on.”

They went down across the back lawn to the court and began volleying for service, and she won after a couple of minutes, and he knew he was in for a time because her service was very good. She reached high for the ball, rising on her toes and arching back for power, and her racket came up and over in a strong, clean sweep that met the ball at just the right instant of its descent to send it like a bullet over the net at a shallow angle that was mean. The ball skittered off the packed clay with practically no bounce. In all the games they played, he never broke her service.

It was so hot. Sweat kept running down into his eyes to impair his vision, and between the sweat and ascending heat waves, the proximate earth was a blurred distortion. Across the net, Etta’s cocoa body moved and altered and took a thousand shimmering shapes. He could see, even at a distance through the bright haze, how perspiration quickly dampened and darkened her white shorts where they stretched tight over her hips. It was hot as hell, and hell was too hot for tennis. They traded games on services to deuce and then decided to call it quits.

Beside the court was a shed in which were kept a roller and a marker and odds and ends of equipment. They went over and dropped onto the grass in the parallelogram of shade that the shed cast, and Etta lay back with her arms folded up under her head.

“A man could die in heat like this,” he said.

“Die?” Her voice had a soft, crooning quality. “Not you, Peter. Not you and not me. Not for a long, long time. Not until we’ve done all the things I want us to do.”

He looked down at her, and her eyes were wide open and staring up into the sky with shining intensity, as if, by sheer mental effort, she were projecting herself into the hard, blue brilliance. A trickle of perspiration moved slowly downward from the hollow of her throat. He leaned over her, blocking her vision of the sky, and the strangely provocative scent of oil and sweat came up from her into his nostrils.

“I’ve been wondering about something,” she said.

“About what?”

“I’ve been wondering how many men have died because they carried too much insurance.”

“You’d better quit wondering. Lots of women had wished they had — after it was too late. It’s usually pretty obvious, you know. They hardly ever get away with it.”

“I know. So I’ve been wondering about something else, too. I’ve been wondering how many men have died because their wives carried too much insurance.”

“Is that supposed to make sense?”

“It could. Would you like to hear how? It’s just a hypothetical case, of course. A kind of game.”

“I like games.”

“Well, suppose, for instance, that I had a policy for fifty thousand, double indemnity. Suppose I were to die in an automobile accident. The Senator’s the beneficiary, so he gets paid off. One hundred grand.”

“Very sacrificial of you. Rather wasted, though, I’d say. The Senator doesn’t really need it.”

“Wrong, Peter. He needs it, all right. His affairs aren’t in as good shape as you think they are. That’s why the policy is essential. For you, Peter. Because I’d be dead, naturally, and you’d be sole heir again.”

“Just wait for the old man to die?”

“That might be a long time. By that time, he might have spent the hundred grand or found another heir. On the other hand, a man loses a beautiful young wife that way, it might crack him up. He might commit suicide.”

“And I’d be sole heir. I’d be something else, too. I’d be a natural for the rap. Remember what I said about wives hardly ever getting away with it? That goes for sons, too.”

“You have no imagination, darling. You’re a charmer, and I love you, but you have absolutely no imagination. When the Senator died, you’d be somewhere else, of course. Somewhere with people. There’s nothing like an alibi to keep you clear.”

“Sure. I can see that. So I do it by sticking pins in his image. I do it by black magic.”

“Wrong. You do nothing at all. You know, there’s a certain advantage to being dead, Peter. No one suspects you of anything but being dead.”

Her eyes were slightly averted, staring past him into the brilliant sky. They were lash-shadowed and sleepy and filled with the soft stuff of dreams.

“That’s quite a hypothetical case,” he said. “You must have spent a lot of time on it.”

She smiled faintly at the sky. “I like to dream. It amuses me.”

“Has it amused you to locate a body to leave for yours when you die in this accident?”

“That should be no problem. In the right kind of accident, almost any body would do. I’d only need a dentist.”

“A dentist?”

“Yes. Because of teeth, you see. That’s the way they identify bodies that can’t be recognized.”

“He’d have to be an accessory. How do you go about picking up a dentist to act as accessory to murder? Just canvass the prospects? Insert an ad in the help-wanted column, maybe?”

“He’d have to be picked carefully. It would take time, because he’d have to be developed. Persuaded.”

“I can imagine the persuasion, and I don’t like it.”

“Don’t be childish, darling.”

“What about afterward? Just send him about his business? Just say thanks and good-by?”

“Something like that. With reasonable compensation for his services, of course. An accessory to murder doesn’t make trouble, darling. He can’t afford to.”

He leaned back and stared off down the slope of earth beyond the tennis court to where it dropped away above the river. The drop was almost perpendicular, and the river was hidden at the foot of the bluff, but he could see on the other side the wide fields of the bottoms stretching eastward to a chain of low hills. The fields and the foliage on the hills looked parched and faded in the hot, white light.

He was thinking of the suburban road that ran in front of the house. He was remembering that the road and the bluff converged downstream. The road came downgrade to the bluff and turned sharply to parallel it for a short distance. An inadequate rail fence had been erected along the bluff, but a car coming down the grade and failing to make the sharp turn would surely crash right through.

It was a good place for a bad accident, he thought.

Chapter 3

The street door of the bar closed behind him with a whisper. He stood in beige pile, his pupils adjusting to shadows, and listened to the sounds of brittle glass in contact, the rise and fall of small talk over cocktails, a subdued blue voice against a background of strings. Then he saw Etta looking at him from a booth across the room. She lifted her glass by its slender stem in a brief salute, and he went over and sat down in the booth across from her.

“You’re late, darling,” she said.

“Sorry. I’ve been having my teeth cleaned.”

She had lifted her glass to drink again, but the action was suspended suddenly with the edge of crystal just touching her lips. Her breath stirred slightly the gin and vermouth, and her eyes, wide and still and black in the contrived dusk, stared at him across the golden surface. After a moment, with an odd little sigh, she tipped the glass and set it down again.

“Poor dear. It’s always such an ordeal going to the dentist. You’d better have a drink at once.”

“I could use one, all right.”

He signaled a waiter and asked for bourbon and water. When it arrived, he drank half of it quickly and sat looking down into the remainder, turning the glass with fingertips around suspended cubes.

“I’ve been looking for a good dentist myself,” she said. “Would you recommend yours?”

“I think he’d do. I’m very particular about dentists, and I had this one investigated thoroughly.”

“What’s his name?”

“Foresman. Norton Foresman. He’s in the Clinical Center Building.”

“Perhaps I should arrange an appointment with him.”

“It might be a good idea. I’m sure he’d appreciate it. He needs the money.”

“Yes? I thought dentists were generally prosperous.”

“Oh, his income’s good enough, but his expenditures are out of proportion. Unfortunately, he has expensive tastes.”

“Such as?”

“Such as women and horses and the Riverview Casino.”

“Has he been losing?”

“He and the horses. The women and the casino are way ahead. You know Jeb Shannon? He owns Riverview, and he’s holding a bundle of Foresman’s paper. About eight grand’s worth. I’ve dropped some to Shannon myself, and I know how he operates. He’s a tough guy with connections, and he doesn’t like to wait too long. With Foresman, it’s getting to be almost too long.”

“I see. It means the doctor would probably be susceptible.” She drained her glass and sat smiling quietly at the exposed olive. “What does he look like, Peter? Tell me some more about Dr. Norton Foresman.”

“He’s tall. About two inches taller than me. He’s vain and arrogant, and I have a feeling that he could be dangerous. Ladies’ man, as I said. Wavy blond hair and rather florid complexion. He has good shoulders, and he carries himself as if he might have done some amateur boxing, but he’d run to fat if he ever let himself go. Handsome, if you like the type. Too handsome, maybe. Maybe handsome enough to make persuasion fun.”

Moving her smile from the olive to him, she reached past her glass and his and touched his hand with long fingers, and under the table below the intimacy of fingers, he was aware of the simultaneous intimacy of knees. He felt again, as he had felt a thousand times, the dark hunger for her that was often fed but never satisfied, and he knew, as he had known from the first, that there was nothing at all that she wouldn’t do for whatever she wanted, but he knew also that he would never care so long as one of the things she wanted was Peter Roche.

“Don’t worry, Peter,” she said. “Don’t worry for a minute. Persuasion may be fun for Dr. Foresman, but not for me, because the only fun for me is you, and anyhow it can’t be helped. Tell me, darling, how much do you think he’d charge to look at my molars?”

“Offhand,” he said, “I’d guess about ten thousand dollars.”

Chapter 4

Same bar, same booth, but the year in a quarter turn had changed its season. The sun had lost is warmth and was a pale wash in the street outside, cut by a chill wind.

Peter sat over a bourbon and watched the door. A bright scrap of paper danced across the concrete walk and was trapped for an instant against glass.

A man opened the door and went out.

Another man opened the door and came in.

A man and a woman came in together.

The woman was dressed in a navy blue suit and wore a silver fox around her shoulders. She had short mahogany hair under a chip of a blue hat with a tiny red feather on it, and she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and very shortly she would order a very dry martini. The man was tall and blond in expensive tweed, and there was arrogance in the carriage of his head and elastic in his walk. He looked like he would order Scotch.

He did. Peter could see it all from his position. He gave the martini and the Scotch time to diminish by half, and then he went over to the table where the man and the beautiful woman sat.

“Hello, Etta,” he said.

She looked up and smiled and said, “Oh, hello, Peter,” and Dr. Norton Foresman stood up politely and permitted his face to express a nominal amount of interest when Etta introduced them.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “The stepson.”

Peter nodded. “It’s very funny, isn’t it? My being Etta’s stepson, I mean. People always get a laugh out of it.”

“I’d say that it’s more fortunate than funny. For you, that is. Will you sit down and have a drink with us?”

Peter smiled and thought, If you only knew how fortunate it is for me you Goddamn molar mechanic. If you only knew!

He said, “No, thanks. I just had one. See you at home, Etta.”

He went out into the sun that had no warmth and turned down the street two blocks to the slot where he’d left his car. Behind the wheel, he lit a cigarette and looked at his watch. Five-thirty, she’d said. It was five now. He finished the cigarette and lit another from the butt and was acutely conscious of the drag of time.

The wind was stronger in the street. Pedestrians leaned into it, or scurried before it, and made what breaks they could of one another.

Autumn, he thought. Another little tag of time. The tags change, but time stays fixed forever. In the meanwhile, you sit in the static forever and suck cigarettes. In the meanwhile, you sit over endless bourbons and wonder endlessly how persuasion is going, and what forms persuasion takes, and you curse with stale impotence the louse that persuasion profits.

At five-twenty-five he started the car and swung out into traffic. Driving slowly, killing five minutes, making three right turns that brought him back to the street above the bar, he saw then with the inevitable visceral disturbance that she was already waiting for him at the curb, her skirt whipped by the wind around her long legs. He stopped in the traffic lane in defiance of angry horns while she came off the curb and got in beside him. Sliding over against him, she let her head fall back against the upholstery and laughed softly.

“Darling,” she said, “what a relief! You’ve no idea what a bore our dentist is.”

“You didn’t look so bored to me.”

She rolled her head and looked up at his face. “Darling, are you going to be difficult again?”

“I’m sick of Dr. Norton Foresman, that’s all.”

“So am I. Believe me, I was never so sick of anyone in my life before. It’s only because he’s essential. You know that. We’ve got to have him.”

“It’s taking a long time. I never thought it would take so long.”

“We have to be sure. It would be fatal to make a mistake.”

“How much longer?”

“Not long. Not much longer now.”

“Sure. Not much longer. Well, I don’t mind waiting. It’ll be easy. I’ll just drink bourbon and think about the pair of you.”

“You said you wouldn’t brood, darling. You promised you wouldn’t talk about it.”

“Tell me the truth, Etta. Aren’t you rather enjoying yourself?”

“Stop it, Peter.”

“A big, handsome guy like him ought to be very amusing.”

“Damn it, Peter, cut it out! You go on brooding like this, you’ll end up wrecking everything. You’re going pretty sour, you know. Next thing, you’ll be getting violent.”

“Pardon me for going sour. I know it’s unreasonable of me.”

“All right, Peter, all right. Just quit thinking about it. Just think about how it will be when it’s all over. Think about you and me and all the places we’ll go and all the things we’ll do and all the time we’ll have to spend together.”

“And all the money.”

“Yes. And all the money. It wouldn’t be fun without money, Peter. Not for me and not for you. We don’t have to kid ourselves about that.”

His right hand dropped from the wheel to her knee, and he felt her instant response, heard the soft whisper of breath sucked suddenly into her throat. It was always like that. It never failed. His ability to make her respond at once and with intensity was the last remnant of whatever dominance he may once have felt. It sustained him in his sour waiting, in the concession that no man can make and not be sick.

Passing into the suburban area of the city, they began the gradual ascent to the bluff above the river. Crossing the crest of the rise, they dropped down the brief descent to the lip of the bluff and the frail fence along it. The good place for an accident.

Abruptly, he stopped the car beside the fence and looked out and down to the shrunken gray stream in the valley, lean from the long dry months.

“I think I’ll get away for a while,” he said.

Her eyes were briefly startled. “Away? Where?”

“Up to the lodge, I think. Maybe I’ll do some hunting.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“Until you’re ready. Until Dr. Norton Foresman has been persuaded.”

“I see.” She picked a cigarette from her purse and lit it with the dash lighter. The smoke piled up on the windshield and spread out in a small, billowing cloud. “I think that might be a good idea. You’re in a dangerous mood, darling. You need to get some of the tension out of you.”

“When you want me, write General Delivery at King’s Center. It’s a little junction development about six miles from the lodge. I’ll drive down every day or so to check.” Twisting suddenly in the seat, he seized her by the hair and jerked her head back. “Say it won’t be long, Etta. Say it again.”

She reacted to his violence with a pleasure that was almost masochistic.

Her mouth shaped against his the pattern of her assurance.

“Soon, darling. Just as soon as I can.”

Chapter 5

The lodge was a rustic, single-story structure of unpeeled logs. It was built into the side of a hill and had acquired with time an appearance of being almost part of the hill. Below the lodge, in the hollow at the foot of the hill, was a clear stream, spring-fed, in which game fish could be taken in season. The surrounding hills were the remnants of an ancient orogeny, their thin top-soil broken by countless outcroppings of rock and nourishing a sparse growth of brush and scrub timber. In the hills were quail and plenty of small game.

Peter hunted sometimes during the day, tramping the hills with a 12-gauge shotgun, and there was something in the country that renewed assurance, an atmosphere of incredible age that reduced passion and violence and all human aberrations whatever to the status of petty absurdity. But the nights were bad. The nights were times of distorted imagery, and he brooded with a growing hatred over the morbid details of Dr. Norton Foresman’s planned corruption.

Every second afternoon he drove down to King’s Center and inquired for mail in the tiny post office. There was no letter the first week, nor the second, but the fourth day of the third week the letter was there. With the current phase of the waiting finished, all the malignancy seemed to drain from him like a poisonous fluid released by incision, leaving him strangely quiet, almost apathetic, and he drove all the way back to the lodge with the letter unopened in his pocket.

He read it in the living room of the lodge in front of the natural stone fireplace:

Darling,

Persuasion complete. Now I must die as quickly as possible. Do you remember the highway restaurant at the junction of 14 and 56 near the Kaw City? Meet me there at nine o’clock the morning of the 15th. I’ll go there from here on the bus. You can drive me on into the city.

It was unsigned. He dropped the envelope and the single sheet of crisp paper on the fire and watched them burn. Her written words were as real as her voice, as if she had whispered them with her lips brushing his ear, and now his brief apathy was gone as quickly as it had come. He felt, sitting there while the papers curled in ash, the first faint lift of excitement, the rhythmic acceleration of his pulse.

The fifteenth. What was today? His stay at the lodge had stretched interminably in a kind of deadly hiatus, and he had to return to the day of his arrival and repeat in his mind the succession of subsequent days to the present in order to locate himself in time. It was the fourteenth, he discovered. Tomorrow was the day.

He packed his few things, killed a bottle he’d been working on, and went to bed. He slept poorly, disturbed by random imagery, and awoke early. It was exactly seven o’clock when he steered his car off the narrow hill road onto Highway 56.

An hour and a half later he pulled into the wide gravel parking area in front of the junction restaurant. The building was long and low, covered with red shingles, sitting diagonally in its location to face the right angle formed by the meeting of highways. One wing was obviously a dance hall. The Venetian blinds at the windows of this wing were closed, and it had the drab, depleted look that seems to come by day to all places that live by night. The central part of the building and the other wing were the restaurant and the kitchen. In the corner of the window beside the entrance was a large sign with crude black letters that said: Open.

He got out of the car and went inside and climbed onto a stool at a long counter. Behind the counter, a waitress in a starched white uniform filled a thick tumbler with water and set it in front of him. She had hair the color of rust and as dry as hay. The flesh below her eyes was dark and sagging, and her face must have been put on in the dark. She stared wearily over his head, waiting for him to speak.

“Just coffee,” he said.

She filled a cup from a glass pot and set it on the counter, slopping a little of the black brew over into the saucer. Beside it, she put a miniature milk bottle filled with cream. He pushed the cream aside and lifted the cup, twisting on the stool in order to look out through the plate glass window to the gravel parking area in front.

“What time’s the next bus to Kaw City due?” he said.

“Eight-fifty-five. Five minutes now.”

He looked at his watch and verified it. “Thanks,” he said.

He lit a cigarette and sat alternating swallows of black coffee with inhalations of smoke, and suddenly he remembered that this was Etta’s habit, and he wondered with a trace of bitterness that was far too weak to signify incipient rebellion if his unconscious adoption of it was a measure of his seduction. He had just finished the cigarette and the coffee when the bus pulled up beyond the window and stopped with a series of pneumatic gasps.

At first he thought she hadn’t come. The single passenger to alight, a woman, stood for a moment beside the bus and then picked up a cheap yellow suitcase and crossed to the entrance of the restaurant and inside. Her short hair was the color of platinum, in startling contrast with her dark eyes. Her vivid scarlet mouth was like a soft, wet wound. She was wearing a cheap fur coat that hung open from the shoulders to expose a green knit dress that clung to her body as if it were charged with static electricity. She walked with a practiced swaying of hips on spike-heeled green sandals fastened to her ankles by narrow straps. She was crude and vulgar and beautiful. The impression she made was like a physical impact. With dye and paint and the emphasis of natural assets, she frankly elicited a primitive reaction.

Standing by Peter’s stool in a cloud of heavy scent, she said, “That your car outside, Mister?”

“That’s right.”

“Going to Kaw City?”

“Yes.”

“How about giving a girl a lift?”

“What was the matter with the bus?”

She shrugged. “So times are tough. So my ticket ran out. You want a character reference for a lousy lift?” Her voice was coarse, a voice he had never heard before, a product of gin and a million cigarettes. He laughed and dropped a dime on the counter and stood up.

“When I give a girl a lift, I prefer her not to have any character. You ready to go, or do you want coffee?”

“I’m ready.”

They went outside to the car, and he wheeled it onto the highway and across the junction. She laughed softly, stretching her body in the seat beside him, and he thought he could hear in the laughter a kind of restrained exultation, and it occurred to him suddenly that she was feeling an intense sense of release, of freedom, as if her changed appearance were not so much disguise as the abandonment of one, the assumption at last of the overt expression of herself.

“My God,” she said, “I feel awful. How do you like me, Peter?”

“Just asking?”

She laughed again and pressed against him. “Was it bad, darling? The waiting? Was it very bad?”

“It was bad.”

“It won’t go on forever. Remember that.”

“This time will be longer.”

“It can’t be helped. This is the way it has to be done. You know it is.”

“I know. Is our dentist definitely in?”

“He’s in. For ten grand plus.”

“What does the plus mean?”

“He thinks it means me. I’m supposed to contact him after you’ve been disposed of.”

“What happens when you don’t?”

“Nothing happens. He’ll be an accessory to murder, and there won’t be any thing at all that he can do about it.”

“I almost wish he’d try. This is the first time I’ve ever felt like killing someone just for fun.”

“Don’t think crazy, Peter. He’s an arrogant fool. We’ll use him and drop him off with his stinking ten grand and that’s all of it.”

“When do you want to die?”

“The sooner the better. Tomorrow night, if possible.”

“What if they don’t go to Foresman about the teeth?”

“They will. He’s my dentist, and the teeth will be all they’ll have to identify me with. That’s your job, Peter. You’ve got to be sure there’s nothing else left.”

“I’ll make sure.”

“Who will you use?”

He shrugged. “Who knows: Someone.”

Someone. Nobody. An indefinite pronoun waking at this moment, perhaps, in some drab room to the gray light of another drab day, remembering with sickness or indifference, but certainly not pleasure, the traffic of the spent night. He wondered for the first time who she was and where she had come from and whether, in the end, she would mind so much dying for a reason she would never know. Dying violently, a small and essential technicality, because she happened to be available and had a set of teeth.

Then he was struck by a wild thought. What if she had plates? What if they were to find in the charred wreckage of the car at the foot of the bluff beside the river a set of dentures? It would be a wonderful example of the biter bit, the kind of ending you found in the little one page stories. The thought adhered to his mind, swelling with enormous significance and grim comedy, and he began to laugh softly on the verge of hysteria, his body shaking with the effort to contain the laughter.

Etta drew away and looked at him sharply. “What’s the matter, Peter?”

“Nothing. I just thought of something.”

“Of what?”

“I was wondering what would happen if she had false teeth.”

“For God’s sake, Peter, cut it out! You’re not breaking up on me are you?”

“I thought it was very funny.”

“I don’t like it when you think and talk crazy.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“All right. Just take it easy. And you’d better let up on the bourbon, too. You’ll never make it through this in a fog.”

“Don’t worry about it, I said. I’ll be all right.”

“Sure, darling. You’ll be all right. You’ll be fine.”

She relaxed against him again, and he drove on into the city in silence. The highway fed them through suburban and urban residential districts into the congestion of the downtown area, and at last she said. “Let me off at the bus station. Peter.”

“Where are you going from there?”

“I don’t know. I’ll find a room.”

“How shall I contact you?”

“I’ll rent a box at the post office. I’ll let you know the number as soon as I get it. I’ll tell you what name to use, too.” Reaching into her purse, she handed him a piece of cardboard stamped with black and red numbers. “Here’s the claim check for my Olds. It’s parked in the garage across from the Envoy Hotel. You can pick it up there when you’re ready. The Senator’s at the Capitol and will be there for at least another week. I left home yesterday and told the servants I’d probably be returning tomorrow night. Do it then if you can. They’ll think it happened when I was coming back.”

“All right.”

He pulled into the unloading zone in front of the bus station, and she got out quickly and removed her suitcase from the rear. Leaning through the open window, she said, “You take it from here, darling. You know what to do so do it well, and do it fast. Later, when you think it’s right for the finish, send me the word and I’ll come back.”

“I’ll let you know.”

He leaned toward her across the seat, and their lips met in brief, hot adherence, and then she turned and walked swiftly away, her hips swaying in the exaggerated rhythm of her new character, the cheap yellow case swinging at her side. He watched her until she turned the corner and disappeared.

Chapter 6

It was a mean and narrow street on the lower side of the city where the earth declined from its suburban heights to the level of the river. The black water lapped in the night at its low embankment. Along the street at wide intervals, street lamps cast light like yellow grease in stagnate puddles on old brick, exposing here and there the ugly debris of the life that passed and shed its odds and ends in passing — paper and cans, the shards of broken bottles.

At the curb near the corner, Peter parked Etta’s Olds, a gleaming incongruity of bright chrome and enamel. Walking down the sidewalk along the faces of crumbling buildings to a dim and solitary rectangle of weak light in the mass of surrounding darkness, he turned and stepped up into a short hall. From beyond a closed door at the end of the hall came the pulsing, wanton rhythms that marijuana makes. On a straight chair beside the door, tilted back against the wall with heels hooked over the chair rungs, was a fat man with bleary, colorless eyes and a slack mouth half open in an expression of witless decadence. The bleary eyes moved over Peter indifferently as he went past and through the door.

The torrid music was like a blast of hot wind. Smoke drifted horizontally in wavering strata. The small dance area was congested with writhing anatomy. At tables and in booths, inhibitions had largely ceased to function. Peter found an empty stool at the bar and crawled on. No one paid any attention to him, and he sat waiting, watching in the mirror behind the bar the action on the dance floor. After a while, as he had anticipated, there was a voice at his shoulder.

“Drinking alone, honey?”

He shifted his eyes in the mirror to the reflection of a thin and gutted face that achieved by device and the kindness of shadows a suggestion of the prettiness it had once had. The skin was dry and sallow, sunken between sharp bones. It was, he thought, a face that might have been ravished and dehydrated by a high fever.

“I’m not drinking at all,” he said. “How do you get service?”

“You have to know the technique. Shall I try?”

“Why not?”

The technique was simple. She turned and gestured, and a squat bartender came down on the other side of the bar. His round, oily face was bland. His tiny, pinched mouth, tucked under a swollen nose, twitched back over shrunken gums. Peter specified bourbon and water, and the woman said, assuming his acceptance of the weary routine, that she’d have hers in ginger ale. When the drinks were in their hands, she said, “There’s a booth empty,” and he said, “That’s convenient,” and they went over and sat down on the same side of the table.

She sipped her pale, professional drink. “My name’s Roxy,” she said.

“It’s a nice name. Mine’s Peter.” A waiter materialized periodically with full glasses. Peter drank what he had to and spilled what he could. Roxy, pressing against him, played her weary part with automatic fidelity. The whole place was hot and panting, and after so much time and bad whisky, there was a churning rebellion in his stomach, a growing turbulent sickness.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said suddenly.

“Why?”

“It’s too crowded.”

“Don’t let it bother you. No one pays any attention.”

“It’s my Puritan background, baby. I like privacy, and I’m willing to pay for it.”

She arched her thin eyebrows and formed a red circle with her lips. “I work here. You know that. I’m not supposed to run out with the customers.”

“Who’d notice?”

She hesitated for a moment, then said, “All right. You go out alone. I’ll meet you at the alley entrance in a few minutes.”

He got out of the booth and went out through the hall past the fat man in the chair to the street. The air was astringent in his throat and lungs. His head cleared a little, and the revolution in his stomach subsided to a turgid unrest. Walking swiftly, he went down to the corner and back on the side street to the alley entrance. Three or four steps down the alley, he stopped and stood quietly, pressed against the damp brick of an old building.

Down the alley, a door opened and closed, projecting and extinguishing a weak swath of light. For a second, his ears caught faintly a wave of crazy reefer rhythms. High heels rapped briskly on brick, coming abreast, and pushing away from the wall, he hooked an arm. She spun around with a startled curse, the curse cutting off abruptly when she recognized him.

“You scared hell out of me, honey,” she said.

“Sorry. The car’s right down the street.”

They went down to the Olds and got in. Lowering the window beside her, she sat strangely upright in the seat, lifting her face with a kind of pathetic greediness into the rush of cold air, and as he drove, he thought he could see from the corners of his eyes a faint flush of color in her sallow cheeks. The Olds moved cautiously through narrow streets of predominate darkness, emerging finally into a brighter section where incandescents and neons repelled the shadows, passing after a short while into the avenues and broad boulevards tilted upward toward the high ground above the river.

On the suburban road at the crest of the rise, where the earth descended again to the lip of the bluff, he stopped the Olds. Twin shafts from the headlights sliced down through the darkness past the rail fence into emptiness. Then he leaned forward and extinguished the lights suddenly, and in the instant after extinction, before his eyes could adjust, the night was complete and impenetrable, a soft and tangible pressure that filled him with a momentary terror, as if it were he who was about to die.

She twisted toward him on the seat. “Why are we stopping here? I’m getting cold.”

There was no fear in her voice, no rising awareness of danger, but only a slight nasality, the hint of a petulant whine.

“Have you ever been up here before?” he said.

“No. I don’t think so.”

“I thought maybe you’d like the view. Look behind you.”

She twisted away in the opposite direction, looking back through the rear window. Behind and below them, the lights of the city were spread in wide display. She sat that way a long time, twisted in the seat to look back at the lights, and then she said, “It’s pretty. It’s been a long time since anyone bothered to show me anything pretty.”

“I thought you might like it,” he said.

And then, because it had to be then, because he could never bring himself to the point again, he reached out and took her by the throat from behind. She tried to twist around to face him, clawing at his hands and threshing her legs in a desperate diffusion of energy, but she was not strong, even in a struggle for life, and it was only a little while until she was dead.

Afterward, he proceeded quickly, according to plan. He removed a can of gasoline from the rear and soaked the interior of the car. He started the engine and pressed the accelerator down, wedging it with a piece of wood. With the high singing of many horses in his ears, he pulled the body over under the wheel, switched on the headlights, and dropped a lighted match on the upholstery. Finally, he pulled the automatic transmission lever into drive position and simultaneously released the hand brake, and the big car leaped away, careening. He stood and watched it crash through the fence at the edge of the bluff and catapult blazing into space. After a moment that seemed forever, he heard from below the crashing of steel and a detonation that was like a giant expulsion of air.

Slipping off the side of the road, he ran. Carrying the empty gasoline can, he ran at a tangent and downward through the dark toward the street below where his own car waited.

Chapter 7

The colored flags of the terrace were littered with dead leaves that had blown in on the wind. A pile of them had gathered in a corner against the adjacent walls of the house. There was no wrought-iron table there now, no gaily striped glass. The chaise longue was gone, and Etta was gone, because Etta was dead and buried in Kaw City, and there were more things gone and going than it paid to think about.

Someone knocked softly, and Peter turned away from the window and went over and opened the door. A man stood in the hall with his hat in his hands. He was short and fat, his belly lapping the waist band of his trousers. He had a round face splattered with freckles and a tiny, sucked-in mouth that looked like a deep dent in a batch of bread dough. He turned his hat around and around by the brim in stubby fingers. His name was Smalley, and he was a detective.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Roche,” he said. “May I see you for a minute?”

“Certainly.” Peter stepped back into the room. “Come in.”

Smalley came into the room and stood waiting, turning and turning his hat, while Peter closed the door and came back past him.

“Won’t you sit down?” Peter said.

Smalley shook his head. “Thanks. I’ll only be a minute.” He looked past Peter and out the window to the opposite wing of the house. His eyes were small and pale, red-rimmed and watery, and every once in a while he knuckled them as if they pained him. “I’ve been talking with your father,” he said.

“Has he finally accepted the fact that it was really Etta?”

“I think so.” Smalley knuckled his eyes, and let them drop to the floor. “I think I convinced him,” he said.

“You’re certain, then?”

“Yes. No possibility of a mistake now. The identification is complete.”

“How’s that?”

“We had her dentist check the teeth. Dr. Norton Foresman. You know him?”

Peter was aware suddenly that he’d drawn his breath and held it. He released it slowly on a long, fading whisper, and the room blurred and faded and slowly returned in a diminishing spiral of dizziness. “Yes,” he said. “I know him. Professionally, that is. I’ve been to him myself once or twice.”

“I see. Well, as I said, he made the identification positive. The insurance will be paid promptly now. I’ve just told your father, the senator, as much.”

“Then there’s no hope at all? That it might not have been Etta?”

“None whatever. I’m sorry.”

“Well, it’s not too great a shock to me. I’ve felt from the beginning that it couldn’t have been anyone else. I’m afraid the old man was holding out pretty grimly, though. How did he take it?”

Smalley turned and turned his hat and scuffed a toe against the rug. “That’s really what I stopped to speak to you about. On the surface, he took it calmly enough. And that’s the trouble. He took it too calmly. Not a normal kind of control, if you know what I mean. He’s withdrawn, drifting out of contact, and that’s a danger sign.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t like to mention this, to frighten you needlessly, perhaps, but I think under the circumstances that I’d better. I’ve seen this sort of thing before, Mr. Roche. I’ve watched it happen.” Smalley lifted his eyes to the light. Behind a thin film, they had a bright, blind look. “I’m thinking of suicide, Mr. Roche.”

“Suicide!”

“Yes. I know it must seem incredible to you. It always does, and maybe in this case it really is, but if you’re wise you’ll watch him for a while. Just keep him under observation.”

“I think you must be mistaken. The old man never struck me as the type who would go off the deep end. Not even over something like this.”

“There’s a breaking point, Mr. Roche. A time when a man feels he’s simply had enough. It comes to all of us, and most of us get past it all right, but a few of us don’t. Well, it’s your affair, of course. I just thought I’d mention it for what it’s worth.”

“I know you mean well. Thanks very much. Will you have a drink before you go?”

“No, thanks.” Smalley put his hat on his head, took it off again, blinked into the light, and turned back to the door. He looked over his shoulder and nodded several times and let himself out into the hall.

Peter stood quietly in the room and listened to an exultant, interior singing of joy and triumph.

How cooperative of the old man, he thought.

How very cooperative of him to make his death and the means of his death predictable.

And time, at last, moved swiftly.

The time was now.

Chapter 8

He waited for her to come. He sat alone in the library where he had first met her, and it seemed a long time ago. For a moment he could see her in the chair by the fire, a soft and sinuous cat with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, smiling at him lazily through a transparent veil of smoke. The vision was so vivid that he had the feeling that it would survive all tests, that if he arose and approached her she would set the glass aside and lift her arms to accept whatever he had to give. He took a swallow of his own drink and looked away toward the draped windows, but she had moved from the chair in the instant of his shifted view and was there ahead of it, poised and provocative against dark green.

Behind him in the hall, rasping across his raw nerves, the front door bell rang. He was on his feet at once, as if he had been propelled physically by the sound, his pulses pounding in his temples. Carefully and slowly, exercising deliberate control he lifted his glass and drained it. Then he set the glass on a table by the bottle that had supplied it and walked with measured, unhurried steps into the hall and down to the door. His sensation was one of gaseous lightness, as if he were moving under a soft, external force that was in no way his own toward an end that was inevitable, and the door floated open in his hand without weight or resistance.

She stood in the spill of light in a posture of breathless waiting that seemed cataleptic in its strange rigidity, and the intensity of her excitement was something tangible that reached him and touched him and stirred within him an identical emotion. For a long moment they stared at each other across the narrow space that was all that was presently left of the separation, and then her breasts rose and descended, and he could hear the extended whisper of her breath.

“I got your message,” she said softly.

“I see. Come in.”

She came swiftly into the hall and turned as he closed the door.

“Is it all right?”

“Yes.”

“The servants?”

“Gone for the night. I saw to that.”

“Where’s the old man?”

“Upstairs in his room. In bed. Your death knocked him out, darling. I didn’t really anticipate his taking it quite so hard. Even the detective on the case noticed it. And was disturbed by it. He warned me to be on the watch for suicide.”

“That’s good. That’s very good.”

“I know. That’s why I sent you word to come. Right now everything’s favorable. It’s the psychological time. If we do it now, we’ve got everyone thinking the way we want them to think. You’ll just have to make it look like suicide, that’s all. You’ll have to be sure.”

“I’ll be sure, darling. I’ll be very sure.”

Then, as if they had been pressing all this time against invisible barriers that collapsed suddenly, they moved together and locked with an almost brutal impact of bodies, and it was a long time before she let her head fall back away from him, her bright dyed hair hanging.

She said dreamily, “And now it’s almost over, darling. After so long.”

“Almost. The big risk, one more time of waiting, and then nothing left.”

“No, darling. You and me left. You and me and what all the money will buy. How am I for a dead woman?”

“As good as you ever were alive. Lucky for us, since you have to stay dead. Have you seen anyone you know?”

“No. No one.”

“How did you come?”

“By bus. I took a taxi from the depot to an address about a mile away. I walked from there.”

“No one saw you approach the house?”

“No one at all. I’m sure of that.”

“All right.” He stepped back, her hands trailing off his shoulders and down his arms to hang quietly at her sides. “I’d better go now. I’m meeting a party at a club in half an hour. That’s my alibi in case I need one. I don’t think I will. You’d better allow me at least an hour.”

“Yes, darling. I’ll wait.”

“I’ve arranged everything so you won’t be disturbed. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“I won’t worry.”

He turned and walked to a hall closet, from which he took hat and coat. He put them on and returned most of the distance to Etta, stopping a couple of feet away, the interval that would widen into the final separation that must still be endured.

“Good-by, darling. Last good-by.”

“Yes. The very last.”

He wanted to touch her, to feel again the assurance he gained from the touch of her flesh, but he didn’t. Turning away, he opened the door and paused, looking back for an instant before shutting himself out. She returned his look with dreamy eyes. On her bright lips was the small smile of a child who anticipates a pleasure assured and at hand.

Chapter 9

It was strange, very strange, and he couldn’t understand it. It was all done, all over, the risks taken and survived, and now the tensions should have been relaxed, a sense of triumph and power dominant in his mood. But it wasn’t that way at all. He was depressed, afflicted with a deep anxiety that was much like fear.

In his room in the empty house, the night held back by stone and wood and glass, he turned in his mind to the beginning, which was Etta, and worked back in detail through the events that followed, and he could see again, for the thousandth time, that nothing had gone wrong, that everything had worked almost miraculously to plan, and that it was now, in the time of triumph, wholly irrational to submit to despondency.

Even the last most precarious detail of all had gone with incredible ease, the intended interpretation accepted without a shadow of suspicion that could be detected. He could see again the commonplace figure of the detective named Smalley, could hear as if they were actually repeated at the moment of his recollection the detective’s exact words and the monotonous inflections, or lack of them, with which they were spoken.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Roche. You’ll recall that I suggested this possibility.”

“Yes. I’m afraid I discounted the possibility too much. I never really felt that the old man would do it. I suppose there’s no chance of its having been anything else?”

“What else could it be?”

“I see what you mean. The only alternative is even more shocking. Even more incredible.”

“Well, I don’t think we need to concern ourselves with alternatives. It was suicide, all right. Open and shut, as I see it. The position of the wound, the presence of the gun, the motivation — all these make a convincing case.”

“All right. I guess I must simply accept it. Thank you for your consideration.”

“Not at all, Mr. Roche. I only wish I could have convinced you in time that this might happen.”

That easy. That fantastically simple. All things in order and moving smoothly toward the projected end — the funeral, the payment of the insurance, the business of the will. And now Etta. Due and past due, Etta and the far places.

In the hall, the upstairs extension began to ring, and he listened to it without moving, wondering if he should let it ring or go out to answer it, and when it continued to ring imperiously in long bursts, he submitted and went out into the hall.

“Peter Roche speaking,” he said, and a masculine voice responded that he didn’t immediately recognize.

“Good-evening, Mr. Roche. Dr. Norton Foresman here.”

He waited, aware that his breath was caught painfully in his suddenly constricted throat, but after a while he spoke quite calmly, somewhat surprised that he could manage it.

“Yes?”

“I dislike bringing this to your attention,” Dr. Foresman said, “but I’m quite sure you’ll understand. It’s your dental bill, Mr. Roche. For professional services. It’s now delinquent, and I’m afraid I must insist upon immediate payment.”

“You mean Etta’s bill? The one she made before her accident?”

“Yes. Surely you’ll want to assume her obligations.”

“Certainly. Legitimate ones. That particular bill, however, has been paid in full.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Roche. Far from it. A small initial payment was made. No more.”

“Ten thousand dollars, I believe.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s a small payment?”

“Under the circumstances, yes. For the type and quality of the work, I mean. A very small payment, I should say.”

His voice was bland, a smooth, smooth voice, and Peter wondered if this was the sound of destruction, a sound as soft and smooth as a dentist’s dun, and he felt the return in force of the cold hatred that had begun and grown with persuasion, and he was all at once no longer depressed, no longer anxious on the dark edge of terror, and he felt, instead, nothing but the cold, complete hatred and a kind of excitement that was collateral to the realization that twice was not enough and that there would have to be, after all, one more a third time.

“What’s the balance of the bill?” he said quietly.

Foresman’s voice took on a tone of expansion, of subtle patronage. “You understand, of course, that we dentists are rather like doctors in that we try to keep our fees flexible. In this way, they can be made commensurate with the patient’s ability to pay. I hear that you have come into quite a considerable amount recently, Mr. Roche. The balance of the bill is fifty thousand dollars.”

“Don’t you think that’s rather exorbitant?”

“Not at all. In the beginning, you’ll recall, the actual fee was reduced in consideration of a bonus of sorts. It is now apparent even to an optimist like me, Mr. Roche, that the bonus will never be paid. In lieu of the bonus, the fee itself has been raised.”

“I see. I think we’d better meet to discuss this.”

“I thought you might want to do that, and I’m perfectly agreeable.”

“When?”

“No time like the present. I think we should get this settled as quickly as possible.”

“Where?”

“My apartment should be a congenial place. I’m calling from there now. It’s in the Bellmar Arms on Northeast Boulevard. The corner of 76th. The apartment is first floor rear on the left as you enter. Just walk straight down the hall from the entrance. I’ll have a cocktail waiting for you.” His voice was friendly.

“Thanks very much.”

Cradling the phone, he went back into his room. He looked at his watch and saw that it was close to nine o’clock. Moving with certainty under the impulsion of the cold hatred and intense excitement that left him strangely assured and decisive, he put on coat and hat and removed a .38 calibre revolver from the top drawer of a chest. With the .38 a kind of definitive weight in his pocket, as if it were the final answer to everything, he went downstairs and outside to the garage. Driving with a light foot on the accelerator, he followed the bluff road to the corner where Etta had died, not long ago, by proxy, and turned up the short grade to the crest and down toward town.

On the lower level of the town, he hit Northeast Boulevard at 52nd and turned right toward higher numbers. At 76th, he passed in front of the Bellmar Arms and made a left turn, parking at the curb in comparative darkness near the alley. Getting out, he walked back along the side of the building and around to the front entrance. Through the glass of the doors, he could see the first floor hall running from front to rear directly ahead of him. He went inside and up three shallow steps and down the hall to the last door on the left. He rang a buzzer, and the door opened, and Dr. Foresman was very polite and gracious with a smile on his face.

“You’re very prompt, Mr. Roche. Won’t you come in, please?”

Peter went past him into the room and turned. Dr. Foresman followed and stopped, his deteriorated athlete’s body poised with a kind of vestigial grace, the ceiling light glittering on the hard waves of his hair. He gestured toward a table on which sat a cocktail shaker and glasses.

“I promised you a drink. Martinis. May I pour you one?”

“No, thanks. I’m only staying a minute.”

“Oh? In that case, I assume you want to get right down to the matter of the fee.”

“The blackmail, you mean.”

Dr. Foresman smiled and shook his head. “Not at all. You will agree, I’m sure, that I was led to anticipate a bonus. I won’t say that I was actually double-crossed, but at least I was permitted to believe something that was never really intended. However, I’m prepared to be agreeable and accept the additional fifty thousand instead. You, of all people, will surely not consider that amount excessive for such a bonus.”

“How much will the next fee amount to? And the next, and the next?”

“No. I thought you might be afraid of something like that. This closes our association. I give you my word.”

“What makes you think you can get away with this? You’re in this yourself, you know. Suppose I simply refuse to pay.”

“That would be unfortunate. It’s true that I’m involved, but not so deeply as you, I think you’ll admit. I’ve thought it through very carefully, and I’m sure I could manage to escape any very serious consequences for my part in this business. At any rate, Mr. Roche, don’t make the mistake of thinking I won’t go through with this. To put it rather crudely, you’ll pay or else.”

The fury and the hate were very exhilarating. Actually, Peter felt better than he’d felt for many long months. There was in him a kind of perverted happiness that was wholly unreasonable. He took the .38 from his pocket and pointed it at Foresman.

“Oh, I’ll pay,” he said. “I’ll pay in full.”

He shot him twice in the chest and watched the succession of fear and shock in the dentist’s face, watched with pleasure the collapse and terminal twitching of the big body that would go no further to fat. Then, swiftly, before blood could stain the carpet, he heaved the body into his arms and carried it the length of the living room and into a bedroom and across the bedroom to a window overlooking the alley. Depositing the body on the floor with its back against the wall in a sitting position, he raised the window and unfastened the screen and saw that there was a narrow strip of grass between the building and the alley. Some low-growing foundation shrubs had been planted close to the building. Pushing the body through the window, he lowered it to the ground behind the shrubs. Then he refastened the screen and closed the window and went back through the bedroom and living room into the hall and outside. He saw no one. So far as he knew, no one had seen him. Or heard him. He had gambled on sound-proofing and apparently won.

On the side street, he turned his car into the alley and stopped behind the Bellmar. Still moving swiftly and with the blind assurance that precluded in his mind the possibility of detection, he dragged Foresman’s body from behind the shrubbery and onto the rear floor of the car. Behind the wheel, he drove on down the alley, emerging on the side street at the far end and turning back onto Northeast Boulevard.

Behind the lodge, he stopped beside a weathered plank shed and went inside. Fumbling in almost total darkness, he found a spade and a pick-ax and carried them out to the car. He leaned the tools against the car and turned his attention to the rear seat. Under persuasion, the beginning of the last that he would be subjected to, Dr. Norton Foresman slipped out.

The body was cumbersome and elusive, a monstrous burden that bore down upon him with terrible weight and threatened with every step to slip from his shoulder. Climbing the slope against which the lodge was built was grueling labor, but after that, beyond the crest, it was easier going, downgrade a short distance into a dry gulch. In the gulch he dropped the body with a dull, sodden thud and stood for a minute with his chest heaving, gulping the cold night air. Then he returned to the car for the tools.

Chapter 10

He went into the lounge of the hotel that had been designated and looked around for an empty booth or table, but there wasn’t any, so he sat instead at the bar on a stool with a vacancy on the left. He could see the entrance from the lobby reflected in the bar mirror, and after about ten minutes spent with a bourbon and water he could see Etta in the entrance. The vacancy still existed on the left, and she came across and filled it.

“Darling,” she said, “I thought it would take forever.”

“There was a lot to do. Assets to liquidate, debts to pay. The old man had a lot of debts. I didn’t dream he owed so much.”

“I told you that. Remember? I said we’d need the insurance.”

“Well, we’ve got it. A hundred grand.”

“I considered getting in touch with you, but I didn’t think it would be wise.”

“It’s just as well you didn’t.”

“Will they ever find him?”

“I don’t think so. I’m sure of it.”

“You did it well, darling. I’m proud of you.”

He drained his glass and waited again for the bartender’s bit. Then he said, “Well, it’s over now. All over and done.”

“The bad part. The good part just beginning. Are you free to go away?”

“Yes. Everything’s been taken care of.”

“Good. I’ll take a plane south tomorrow. You follow in a couple of weeks. You know where to meet me.”

“I know.”

Then he lifted his fresh drink and looked up into the reflected, red-rimmed eyes of the fat little man named Smalley.

“Good-afternoon, Mr. Roche,” Smalley said. “I don’t believe I’ve met your stepmother.”

Peter looked at Etta and felt for a second a thrill that could not be sustained and died almost instantly. She was sitting very upright on the stool with her chin lifted and her cheeks burning with color. Her eyes, focused unwaveringly on Smalley’s reflection, were shining with a bright, hot light. Unable to bear the sight of her terrible excitement, he turned his own eyes down to the untasted drink before him and said dully, “So you’ve known all along.”

Smalley looked startled and shook his head. “On the contrary. I haven’t been very smart in this business, Mr. Roche. I didn’t suspect a thing until after Dr. Foresman disappeared.” He sighed and drew the fingers of one hand across his eyes. “It’s no credit to me that I know anything now. It was really Dr. Foresman himself who put me straight. You see, we went through his office files when he disappeared, and we found a certain dental chart there. A kind of map of a person’s teeth, you know. It was clearly labeled as being Mrs. Roche’s, and it was not identical with that of the woman who died in the accident at all. Not even similar. That tore it, of course, and a child could have reconstructed what had actually happened. That was lucky, I guess, because otherwise I’d probably never have been able to do it. Naturally, we kept quiet until you got around to leading us to your collaborator. Which you have. And now if you could see your way clear to leading us to Dr. Foresman’s body, it would wrap things up nicely, and we’d appreciate it greatly.”

Again Peter looked at Etta, and she hadn’t moved, and he realized with a kind of incredulous, weary wonder that she was already thinking beyond the moment of ruin and planning the moves and countermoves of the final deadly game still to be played with the gathering forces of retribution, and his submission was completed by the evidence of her strength.

“He’s buried in the hills,” Peter said dully. “I’ll take you there.”

Trespasser

Originally published in Manhunt, September 1957.

She was beautiful in black. Even climbing the hotel stairs, flight after long flight upward, she moved with ease and ineffable grace. Anyone seeing her might have wondered, however, why she bothered to climb the stairs at all. Why she did not, that is, take the elevator. But no one saw her. She was very careful that no one did.

On the floor to which she was climbing, which happened to be the twelfth, she walked with assurance to the numbered door which was her objective. She knocked without hesitation, and the door was opened after only the slightest delay. The man who opened it was neither particularly young nor particularly old, having reached that interim span of years which has, in certain instances, a charm superior to its past or future. He smiled graciously and bowed slightly, bending ever so briefly from the hips. He was extremely handsome, she noted at once, his black hair and thin black mustache neatly trimmed and meticulously groomed, his white teeth flashing in his face. Together, she and he, they made a striking pair.

“Mr. Agnew?” she said.

“You’re an hour early, Mrs. Fenimore,” he said, nodding. “But it’s unimportant. Won’t you come in, please?”

“Thank you.”

She walked past him through a short hall into the sitting room of a small suite, simply and expensively furnished. She could look at an angle through an open door into a corner of the bedroom, and she thought that the rental on the suite, though not exorbitant, was certainly substantial.

“You’re living quite comfortably,” she said. “I understood from our conversation over the telephone that you were desperately in need of funds. Practically destitute.”

She turned to face him as she spoke with a dry inflection of irony, remarking with a faint feeling of admiration, which did not show or significantly modify her predisposition toward him, that he was not in the least disconcerted. He smiled again, ruefully, rather like a philosophical delinquent caught out of hand in mischief.

“I’m anticipating an improvement in my financial condition. A quite considerable sum of cash, to be exact.”

“Really? Isn’t it rather risky to obligate yourself on the strength of a possibility?”

“I’d say that this is somewhat more than a possibility. Probability, I’d say. The truth is, I consider it a certainty. I’m so confident that I’ve even obligated myself for a bottle of very fine brandy. May I offer you some?”

“No, thanks. I’m not particularly fond of brandy.”

“Too bad. A cocktail, then?”

“A cocktail would be pleasant. A martini if you have it.”

“Of course. I hardly ever drink martinis myself, but I’m aware of your partiality to them. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Fenimore, I know quite a great deal about you in general. But we’ll get to that in good time. Won’t you sit down while I mix the drinks?”

“Thank you.”

She sat down on the edge of a deep chair upholstered with some heavy fabric treated to afford additional resistance to stains and burns. Holding her knees primly together, her body erect, she laid her purse on the knees and folded her hands on the purse. Watching him measure ingredients into a shaker, she was poised and perfectly still. The rise and fall of her breasts was barely discernible in the quiet cadence of her breathing. When he brought her martini to her, she took it and nodded her thanks and wet her lips in it and waited. Crossing to a chair opposite hers, with perhaps five feet of gray carpet between, he sat down facing her and crossed his legs and seemed for a moment considering what he should say. Lifting his fragile glass, containing one of the martinis he hardly ever drank, he performed what might have been a subtle salute to her beauty, or possibly to the perfect poise that disturbed him more than he liked to admit or intended to show.

“You are much lovelier than I expected,” he said. “Frankly, I’m reluctant to waste our time with the dull conditions of a business arrangement.”

“Do you concede, then, that it’s a waste of time?”

“Not at all. I didn’t mean it that way.”

“We’ll see. Suppose you state the conditions.”

“They’ve already been stated. I did that over the phone. We have met, I think, to consummate them.”

“Nevertheless, you had better repeat them. I want to be certain where I stand.”

“Certainly. Happy to oblige, of course. You are to hand me fifty thousand dollars with which to pay for my fine brandy that you are not fond of. In return for this reasonable sum, I guarantee my silence regarding a period of your life with which we are both familiar.”

“Are we?”

“I assure you that I know very nearly as much about this regrettable time as you do yourself.”

“I’m not convinced.”

“Surely you don’t want me to give you an account in detail. I’m quite sincere in saying that I’d rather not subject you to the embarrassment.”

“Never mind that. I’ll try to bear it.”

Looking at her across the five feet of space, lifting his glass to his lips again, he was once more aware of genuine admiration for her poise. Also for her beauty. He wished for a second that he could have approached her from a different position, with a different intention. He wished it, for the second, in spite of the fifty thousand dollars and all the brandy it would buy. For another second, following the first, he was uncomfortably incredulous that this sleek woman had actually committed the extraordinary follies, and worse, far worse, that constituted the substance of the savory little case history he had begun by chance and completed by design. Both seconds passed, however, and the wish and the doubt with the seconds.

“Whatever you say,” he said. “For your sake, I’ll restrict myself to essentials. Just enough to convince you once again that I’m not running a bluff.”

“Thank you so much. I’m grateful for your consideration.”

“Sarcasm? You seemed disturbed enough on the telephone, Mrs. Fenimore — so much so that I took none of the usual secondary precautions — no messages left in case of my death, you see. Well, no matter. To get on with our business, you were born in this city thirty years ago.”

“Please. Twenty-eight.”

“Very well. I allow you the two years. What’s more important, you had the good luck to be born the only daughter of Reuben Webster, which made you heir to several million of dollars.”

“That’s public knowledge. If you know anything significant, you had better get to it.”

“Sorry. I promised to restrict myself to essentials, I know, but you must admit that the millions are essential. If it weren’t for them, I’d scarcely have gone to so much time and effort to develop my proposition. All right, then. You were the only daughter of Reuben Webster, and at the age of twenty by my account, eighteen by yours, you disappeared. Not many people knew that. Very few. It was feared at first that you had been abducted, but of course you hadn’t. You had merely run away. You wrote your father once from St. Louis to assure him you were all right. You wrote him once more, quite a while later, from Los Angeles. That was all. If you will pardon me for saying it, I have learned that you had, as a girl, what is commonly known as a queer streak. A proclivity, let’s say, for the unconventional. The sensational. Even, unfortunately, the illegal. The thing that saved you, so far as your father was concerned, was that he had the same proclivity. Therefore, he was inclined to forgive you. He wanted you to come home, but he did not insist, and when he died four years ago, he left you his fortune without any strings, just as if you had been a good, obedient girl instead of what you were.”

“You’re being quite a bore. I haven’t yet heard a word that is worth the smallest fraction of fifty thousand dollars.”

“You want me to go on? I’d much prefer not having to become any more personal than I’ve already been compelled to be.”

“And I’d much prefer not having to hand you fifty thousand dollars.”

“I see your point.” He distorted his lips to show that the taste of what he was going to say was already sour in his mouth. “Well, your father devised an explanation for your absence. He said you were in Switzerland, I believe, but that’s irrelevant to the matter in hand. You were actually, of course, elsewhere. Los Angeles and points south, to be precise. Much of the time in Mexico City. I suppose, actually, that it would take a corps of psychiatrists to explain this period in your life. Let’s just say that you were living with your queer streak. Satisfying a rather perverted need for questionable thrills. Many things were involved. Narcotics for a while. A number of men, naturally. You were known to everyone as Maria Melendez. Your appearance and a fluency in Spanish made it quite easy for you to pass as a cultured Mexican woman. Have I said enough?”

“Not quite.”

“You’re very hard to convince, Mrs. Fenimore. I admire your spirit, and I truly regret the necessity for taking my present position in this.”

“It’s possible that you’ll regret it even more before you’re finished. I understand, however, that one must pay his brandy bill. Go on, please.”

“One more point should be sufficient. Among the men Maria Melendez knew was one named Brannigan. He had a private lodge in the mountains. He died there one night. Shot to death. There was some evidence of a woman’s having been there at the time. The police worked on that angle but never came up with anything conclusive. I knew Brannigan. Many people even thought we were friends, but that was something of an exaggeration. Believe me, I did not grieve for him then, and I don’t regret his death now. Vengeance, I mean, is no consideration. Anyhow, I had access to certain information that the police did not have, and I know that there was, in fact, a woman at the lodge, and I know who she was. Her name was Maria Melendez.”

“Can you prove this?”

“I’m sure I can. However, I’m equally sure that I’ll not be called upon to do so. Maria Melendez is dead. Mrs. Fenimore, I think, does not want her resurrected.”

“True. Maria Melendez is dead. Without benefit of psychiatry. Did you ever see her? Do you know what she looked like?”

His brows arched in the faintest expression of surprise. “Allowing for the possibility of a little dye and certain tricks of dress and makeup, I rather fancy that she looked like you, Mrs. Fenimore. However, I never saw her, actually.”

“You don’t, then, actually know what she looks like now.”

“Oh, yes. Certainly. Would you like me to describe her? It will be a pleasure after the regrettable things I’ve been forced to say about her.” His eyes made a leisurely inventory of the woman opposite him. “She is quite tall and slender. Beautiful body. Incredibly lovely face. Very dark brown hair which she wisely pulls back simply into a bun. Impeccable taste in clothes. Truly a ravishing woman.”

“How charming of you to say so.”

“I prefer being charming when I’m allowed. It makes one’s relationships so much more amicable. Are you prepared to deal with me now?”

“Yes,” she said, “I’m prepared to deal with you.”

And then a small series of events happened in very rapid sequence. The brittle crystal in her hand dropped softly to the carpet. The remains of the martini it contained ran out into the pile of the gray carpet, making a dark stain. In the hand that held the glass, a stubby blue automatic appeared in an instant, apparently taken from the purse on the prim knees. In accomplishing this, Mrs. Fenimore hardly seemed to move. She still sat poised, in an instant resumption of stillness, on the edge of her chair.

In the eyes of the man who called himself Agnew was a flickering of fear that was barely discernible before it was gone. He leaned forward slightly toward the automatic, apparently trying to convince himself that such a vulgar element had actually been introduced.

“I do hope you don’t intend anything indiscreet,” he said. “I’d never rest easily, I assure you, if I were, as a victim, even incidentally responsible for the execution of a beautiful woman.”

She smiled, nodding her head in a slight gesture of acceptance without disturbing the stillness of the rest of her body.

“It’s the worst kind of mistake to compliment the wrong woman.”

“I accept your judgment, but I don’t see how it pertains.”

“It’s simple. I mean that I’m not Mrs. Fenimore. My name is Ellen Melton. I’m Mrs. Fenimore’s secretary.”

“I see.” He leaned back and made a tent of his fingers, looking at her over the tips. “A prerogative of the rich. She sent you to handle the matter for her. I apologize for my mistake.”

“It’s not the only one you’ve made. Nor the worst.”

“Is that so? I’m becoming deeply ashamed of myself. Tell me the worst at once.”

“Gladly. Your worst mistake is trespassing.”

“Perhaps I’m dull. Again I don’t understand.”

“Let me clarify it. I’ve known Mrs. Fenimore for quite a long time. In fact, I knew Maria Melendez. I know about her all the facts that you know, and many others besides. I was on the west coast with her. When she returned here after the death of her father, I couldn’t bear to be separated from her. Especially after I’d discovered who she really was. She told no one she was coming here, of course, and none of us had known her true identity. By methods that were no doubt similar to yours, I traced her. She had assumed, naturally, a way of life that could not possibly afford to recognize the old way. Besides, she had married and wished to remain married. She was living quietly, as she now does, avoiding publicity and never permitting her picture to appear in print. Wisely, when I arrived, she accepted me. I have a position that requires of me precisely nothing. I am paid a salary that is twenty times the normal salary of a secretary. I live exceedingly well and have many pleasures. All this in spite of the fact that Mrs. Fenimore would like to see me dead.”

“Now I understand clearly.” His lips formed what was very close to a sneer, a common expression he would ordinarily have scorned. “You are yourself a blackmailer. An unpleasant word, I know, but surely one that you and I can use between us.”

“Use whatever words you like. I have no fear of words. I’m determined, however, that my position shall not be jeopardized. Mrs. Fenimore is practical. She accepts our relationship as being the most tolerable and least dangerous one possible, especially since I have intelligence enough to be conservative in my requests. But I remember her as Maria Melendez. Maria Melendez was a dangerous woman, and she is not dead, after all, as we previously said. She is still alive, still dangerous. Alive and dangerous in Mrs. Fenimore, who can be forced only so far. She accepts me, but she would not accept you. Not both of us. There is no accommodation for another blackmailer, and you can see, of course, that your position makes mine extremely vulnerable. Whatever action she took against you, I would surely be included and destroyed incidentally. I’m trying to tell you, Mr. Agnew, that you are about to spoil a good thing. You are, in brief, a trespasser.”

“I can see that you have some justice to your claim. I admit it.” The suggestion of a sneer was gone from his lips now, and he watched her intently. “Tell me, Miss Melton. Since Mrs. Fenimore did not send you here, how did you learn of our appointment?”

“Perhaps you’ll remember that I answered the telephone when you called. I listened on an extension while she talked with you.”

“Well, really! Eavesdropping? That’s a crudity I’d not have believed of you.”

“My life is precarious, and my position is delicate. I resort to all sorts of crudities to preserve both. I’ve already left a note for my employer, telling her that the appointment has been cancelled.”

“Quite right, too. We can’t permit the niceties to interfere with self-preservation, can we? That, in a way, is my argument now. However, I concede your prior claim. I’ll withdraw my own.”

But he was lying, of course, as she knew perfectly well, and when he lifted his glass as if to pledge his word, she shot him three times with the small blue automatic. The explosions made very little noise, and so did he. He gasped and coughed and sighed and lay back in his chair as if he were suddenly very tired. Rising, she put the automatic in her purse, retrieved the martini glass from the floor, walked into the bathroom. She washed the glass in the lavatory, wiping it dry on a hand towel and carrying it in the towel back into the living room. She replaced it on the table from which Agnew had taken it, returned the towel to the bathroom, and then, without looking at the body in the chair, she went out of the room into the hall and back to the lobby by way of the stairs.

But she did not leave the hotel at once. Crossing the lobby, she entered a cocktail lounge and sat at a tiny round table and ordered a martini, which she drank slowly. Drinking, she thought of Mrs. Fenimore, quietly cultivating her own special terror. She decided that she would have just one more martini before she left.

Most Agreeably Poisoned

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, October 1957.

“Darling,” Sherry said, “I’m so glad you’re behaving like a civilized being.”

“Oh, I’m a great believer in civilized beings,” I said. “In my opinion, they are essential to civilization.”

“Nevertheless,” she said, “it is absolutely exceptional of you to suggest that the three of us get together and talk things out quietly and courteously. Not,” she added, “that it will change anything in the end.”

“What do you mean, not that it will change anything?”

“I mean that I am quite determined to leave you, of course. Surely you understand that.”

“I understand that it’s your intention, but I am hoping to change your mind.”

“Well, it’s only fair to give you a chance, which I am willing to do, but I assure you that it’s impossible. I am in love with Dennis and am going to marry him and that’s all there is to it. I’m truly sorry, darling, but it’s necessary to my happiness.”

“This means, I take it, that you are consequently no longer in love with me. Is that true?”

“Not at all. Please don’t be absurd. I love you very much, as you very well know, but in a less exciting way I am madly and deliriously and irresistibly in love with Dennis.”

“Once you were madly and deliriously and irresistibly in love with me. At least you said you were.”

“So I was, but now the way I am in love with you is unfortunately changed. It’s sad, isn’t it, the way things change?”

I looked at her with a great aching in my heart, for however sadly and unfortunately her way of loving me had changed, my way of loving her had not changed at all. So bright and fair and incredibly lovely, I also saw that she was wearing a soft white gown that achieved a perfect balance of exposure and suggestion.

“Will you have a martini?” I said.

“When Dennis gets here, we will have one together. It will make everyone feel relaxed and comfortable, don’t you think? Martinis are quite good for that.”

“I thought we might just have one beforehand. We can have another later, of course.”

“Well, I’m not averse to that, but there’s the doorbell now, if I’m not mistaken, and it’s surely Dennis.”

She was right about its being the doorbell. She was almost certainly right, too, about its being Dennis. I was compelled to accept this reluctantly.

“You had better let him in,” I said.

She went out into the hall and opened the front door, and it was Dennis outside. He came into the hall, and Sherry put her arms around his neck and kissed him. It was nothing new for her to kiss various men, but this kiss was different and plainly special. It was ardent, to say the least, and it lasted for quite a long time. From my position in the living room, I could see it clearly, but I quit looking at it before it was finished, and started mixing martinis, and I was still mixing the martinis when Sherry and Dennis came in.

“Well, you two,” Sherry said, “here we are.”

“That’s true,” I said. “We’re here, all right.”

“This is Dennis, Sherm,” Sherry said. “Dennis, this is Sherm.”

“Glad to meet you, Sherm,” Dennis said.

He was not as tall as I, nor quite so heavy, but I had to admit that he looked like he was probably in better condition. He had short blond hair and a face like the guy who plays juvenile leads until he’s thirty, and he apparently felt that he was playing the lead in this particular turkey. Which he was, even though I didn’t like to admit it. I put down the shaker of martinis and shook his hand.

“His name is actually Sherman,” Sherry said, “but I call him Sherm.”

“Sometimes we got real intimate,” I said.

“This is exceedingly decent of you, Sherm,” Dennis said.

“Civilized,” I said. “I’m being civilized, which makes everything much more comfortable for everyone. Will you have a martini?”

“Thanks. I don’t mind if I do.”

I poured the martinis, and they sat on the sofa and held hands. When I served the martinis, he took his in his left hand, and she took hers in her right hand, and this made it possible for her left hand and his right hand to go on holding each other. As for me, I was in a position to hold my martini in either hand or both, as the notion struck me.

“I suppose,” I said, “that we might as well get it over with.”

“Sorry, Sherm,” Dennis said, “but I suppose we had.” He looked at me with a man-to-man expression.

“Well,” I said, “as I understand it, you want something of mine, and I naturally want to keep what I have, and this poses a problem.”

“Problem?” he said. “I don’t see that there’s any particular problem.”

“Neither do I,” Sherry said. “No problem at all. You and I will simply get divorced, Sherm, and you and I will simply get married, Dennis, and that’s all there is to it.”

“As I see it,” Dennis said, “that’s all.”

“As I see it,” I said, “not quite. I’m willing to be civilized and congenial, which is one thing, but I’m not willing to surrender supinely, which is another. I must insist on a fair chance in this affair, but at the same time I want to be agreeable, which is evident, and so I have thought of a way in which everything can be settled amicably. Would you like to hear it?”

“I don’t think so,” Dennis said. “I don’t think I care to hear it at all.”

“Oh, let’s hear it, Dennis,” Sherry said. “It can’t do any harm to hear it.”

“All right,” Dennis said. “I suppose it’s only fair.”

“Good,” I said. “You two just continue to sit here and hold hands for a minute, and I’ll be right back.” Crossing the room to a liquor cabinet, I got three small bottles filled with red port and returned. I lined the bottles up on the coffee table in front of the sofa.

“Whatever are they?” Sherry said.

“Little bottles of port wine,” I said. “I prepared them myself earlier today.”

“It seems perfectly ridiculous to me. Whatever for?”

“Well, they are part of my plan to settle our problem amicably. One of these bottles is slightly different from the other two, you see. Two of them are filled with plain port, as I said, but the other one contains also enough poison to curl your toes in a minute. It’s my plan that one of us shall drink the poisoned port and curl his toes and cease forthwith to be a problem to the other two.”

“Sherm,” Sherry said, “you’ve always had a perverted sense of humor, and it’s obviously time you were told about it.”

“It’s a reasonable chance for everyone to get everything or nothing,” I said. “It’s civilized, that’s what it is. Besides being civilized, it’s sophisticated. It’s quite appropriate and acceptable for three civilized sophisticates like us.”

“Now that you’ve explained it,” Sherry said, “I believe you’re right. It’s certainly about as civilized, and sophisticated as it could possibly be.”

For the first time since sitting down, she disengaged her held hand and put her chin in it. Before putting her chin in the hand, she put her elbow on her knee. She sat staring at the little bottles of port, plainly intrigued by the prospect of two amicable men risking having their toes curled on the alternate chance of possessing her if the port didn’t happen to be spiked.

“Look here,” Dennis said. “There are three bottles there. Do you seriously expect Sherry to participate in this fantastic business?”

“It’s necessary,” I said, “in order to give all alternatives a chance. If I get the poisoned port, you get Sherry. If you get the poisoned port, I get Sherry. If she gets the poisoned port, neither of us gets her. This thing must be done properly and thoroughly, if at all, and I’m sure Sherry will agree.”

“I do agree,” Sherry said. “It’s only fair that I participate.”

“I absolutely forbid it,” Dennis said.

“Don’t be presumptuous, darling,” Sherry said. “You are hardly in a position to forbid anything.”

“You’ll have to concede that, Dennis,” I said. “None of us is presently qualified to dictate to either of the others. The most you can do is to decline to participate yourself.”

Sherry turned her head and looked at Dennis with wide eyes. It was apparent that such a reluctance on the part of Dennis had not seriously occurred to her before.

“Yes, Dennis,” she said, “if you don’t feel like taking a simple chance for my sake, you are certainly under no compulsion.”

“It’s not merely the chance,” Dennis said. “Think of the complications. Suppose we all take a bottle and gulp it down. One of us gets the poison and dies. You can surely see that the other two would be all mucked up with the police over it.”

“That’s true,” I said. “I’ve anticipated that, and have thought of a way to avoid it. We do not drink the port here. Each of us takes a bottle when we separate. Each drinks the port when he is alone, and the two survivors meet tomorrow afternoon at, say, three o’clock in the cocktail lounge of the Cafe Picardy. This, to my way of thinking, besides solving the problem of the police, introduces an appealing element of romance, to say nothing of suspense. Who will be the two? Who will meet at the Picardy tomorrow?”

Dennis looked at me bitterly. “I hope to hell it isn’t you and I,” he said bitterly.

“Does that mean you agree to do it?”

“I suppose so. I can see that Sherry is all for it.”

“I am,” Sherry said. “I surely am. Sherm, this last part is absolute genius. Although I was inclined at one time to exaggerate your virtues, I see now that in certain respects I didn’t give you the credit you deserved. In this matter, I can think of only one thing you neglected to do which is rather disappointing.”

“Yes? What’s that?”

“You should have used sherry instead of port.”

“Oh. Sherry for Sherry. I did miss a nice touch there, didn’t I? I’m afraid, however, that it’s too late now to change.”

“Yes. Disappointing as it is, we’ll have to go along with port.”

“Wait a minute,” Dennis said. “Do you know which bottle has the poison?”

“No,” I said. “The bottles are identical, and I messed them around with my eyes closed. At any rate, you and Sherry may choose the bottles you want, and I’ll take the one that’s left. Is that acceptable?”

“It’s perfectly acceptable,” Sherry said, “and I don’t think it was quite nice of you, Dennis, to imply that Sherm might cheat in an affair of honor of this sort. I suggest now that we all have another martini and be compatible.”

We had the martinis compatibly, and afterward I went downtown to a hotel and took a room. In the room, after putting on a pair of pajamas I was willing to be caught dead in, I drank the port and lay down on the bed.

I was sitting at the bar drinking an ambrosia highball when Sherry came in. It was not the cocktail lounge of the Cafe Picardy by any means, but it was a pleasant place, and there was a talented and pretty girl who sat on a little dais and played pretty tunes on a concert harp. Sherry was certainly astonished to see me, and apparently uncertain whether to be happy or otherwise. Anyhow, she sat on a stool beside me.

“What on earth are you doing here?” she said.

“Hello, Sherry,” I said. “It’s odd that you should use that expression.”

“What expression?”

“On earth.”

“Oh.” She stared at me and frowned and tapped on the bar rapidly with the nail of the index finger of her right hand, which was a sign that she was angry. “Well, never mind being evasive with me, for I understand everything clearly now. Sherm, you so and so, you put poison in two of those little bottles, and then you contrived somehow to have them chosen by you and me, and it was nothing but a damn dirty trick to get me permanently away from Dennis. There is simply no limit to your duplicity.”

“You do me an injustice to accuse me of playing a dirty trick like that,” I said. “It’s true that things were not quite as I said, but I certainly didn’t discriminate against anyone. We all had exactly the same chance.”

“Explain yourself, if you don’t mind.”

“The truth is, I put poison in all three of the bottles.”

“In that case, where’s Dennis?”

“Yes, indeed,” I said. “Where is he?”

“I haven’t seen him around anywhere.”

“Neither have I. Nor will we. Not for a long time.”

“You mean he reneged? That after agreeing to participate, he didn’t drink his port at all?”

“That’s it.”

She kept on staring at me, but her index finger kept tapping slower and slower until it shortly stopped altogether, and I thought I could see in her eyes certain signs that we might be entering a heavenly era of madness, delirium, and irresistibility.

“Well,” she said, “I can see that I called the wrong man an old so and so.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “Would you care for an ambrosia highball?”

“I think I would,” she said. “I need it.”

Sounds and Smells

Originally published in Ed McBain’s Mystery Book #3 1961.

When Rector Goodhue got home that evening a few minutes after five o’clock, Charlie Treadwell was sitting on the front-porch steps of the house next door. It was all right for Charlie to be sitting there, for it was his house, but what impressed Rector was Charlie’s air of abstraction. He was sitting on the top step, hunched over his knees, and when Rector spoke and waved in a neighborly way, he didn’t respond by either voice or gesture. Rector went on into his house and back to the kitchen, where Gladys, his wife, was spooning strawberries over shortcake.

“What’s the matter with old Charlie Treadwell?” he said.

“Is something the matter with him?” Gladys said.

“Well, he’s sitting over there on his front steps, and he acts as if he were in a trance or something. He didn’t even answer when I spoke to him.”

“Maybe he’s had another fight with Fanny.”

“That Fanny’s a real witch. The truth is, she’s more than old Charlie can manage.”

“Oh, nuts. All he needs to manage her is a little more backbone. What he had better do about Fanny, if you want my opinion, is make her quit wearing those short shorts and tight dresses that ride up when she sits down. She’s far too sexy for her own good.”

“It’s true that men are always running after her. It makes old Charlie frantic.”

“It’s not men running after Fanny that makes Charlie frantic. It’s Fanny running after men.”

In Rector’s opinion it was really six of one and half a dozen of the other, but he did not wish to debate the issue, especially with Gladys, and so he said he guessed he’d go out and mow the back yard before supper, and Gladys said supper would be at six, which meant six thirty. Rector went into the bedroom and changed into the old clothes he wore working in the yard, and then he went out and started the power mower and mowed the grass neatly, and he was just finished with the back yard when Gladys came to the door and said supper was ready. They ate in the kitchen, baked ham and potato salad with the strawberry shortcake for dessert, and Gladys said over coffee that Sinatra was at the Paramount.

“To hell with Sinatra,” Rector said.

“What’s wrong with Sinatra?” Gladys said.

“For one thing, he’s getting bald.”

“So are you, in case you didn’t know it.”

“Just a little on top where it doesn’t show much. That Sinatra has to wear a toupee.”

“How the hell do you know?”

“It’s common knowledge.”

“I don’t care if he wears a toupee and a full plate besides. He makes me break out with prickly heat, and he’s playing at the Paramount, and I want to go see him.”

“Be my guest.”

“You mean you’ll actually go with me?”

“I mean I’ll pay your way and give you enough extra for a sack of popcorn.”

“Thanks. And what do you plan to do while I’m gone, or is it a secret?”

“Not at all. I’m going to mow the front yard, and afterward I’ll have a couple cans of cold beer and maybe watch television or just sit on the front steps and watch lightning bugs.”

“God, you’re exciting! Being married to you is just one long exciting experience! Don’t you ever worry about me running around alone at night?”

“Why don’t you take Fanny along? If she and old Charlie are sore at each other, it might relieve things to get them apart for a while.”

“Going with Fanny is better than going alone, I suppose. You run over while I’m dressing and ask her if she wants to go.”

“I’ve got to get on that yard,” Rector said.

“That’s after you do the dishes.”

She got up and went off in one direction to the bedroom, and Rector got up and went off in another direction to the back door and then around the house and across to the Treadwells. Charlie was still sitting hunched over his knees in a trance on the top step, and he didn’t pay any attention when Rector approached and stopped a few feet away, and Rector thought for a few seconds that he wasn’t even going to pay any attention after he, Rector, had spoken and stood waiting for an answer. Then Charlie twitched suddenly and looked around at Rector slowly, his eyes coming back from a long way off and adjusting with apparent difficulty to a short focus.

“Oh, hello, Rector,” be said. “I didn’t hear you come up.”

“What’s the matter with you, Charlie?” Rector said. “You feeling sick or something?”

“No. I’m all right. I’m just sitting here listening to sounds and smelling smells.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Is there something I can do for you, Rector?”

“I came over to see if Fanny would like to go see Sinatra at the Paramount with Gladys.”

“Fanny’s gone.”

“Oh? You expect her back soon?”

“She won’t be back at all.”

“Oh, come off, Charlie. Don’t talk nonsense.”

“It’s true. Fanny’s gone for good.”

Well, anyhow, it was pretty apparent now why old Charlie was out in left field. He and Fanny had had another fight, probably over Fanny’s liberality relative to other men, and Fanny had left Charlie as a result, but in Rector’s opinion it was probably only temporary. Hell, Gladys had left Rector at least half a dozen times, and it had always turned out to be temporary. It was foolish for a fellow to become excessively disturbed by such events. It was rather embarrassing to Rector, though, standing there with nothing sensible to say to Charlie, and he decided that the best procedure would be to say nothing at all, sensible or otherwise, except whatever was necessary in making his departure.

“Well,” he said, “I’ll go back and tell Gladys that she’ll have to go see Sinatra alone.”

He went back to his house and into the bedroom, where Gladys was giving her hair a few strokes with a brush after having pulled her dress over her head.

“Now I know what’s eating old Charlie,” he said.

“What’s eating him?” Gladys said.

“He had a fight with Fanny, and Fanny’s left him.”

“What did they fight about?”

“Charlie didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”

“She’ll be back. Just wait and see.”

“That’s what I think myself, but I doubt if she’ll be back in time to go to the movies with you, and so you’d better go on by yourself.”

“I’m going,” she said. “See that you do the dishes.”

She went out and drove away in the car, and Rector did the dishes in the kitchen, leaving them to dry in a rack by the sink. By that time, he only had about half an hour of daylight left, and he’d have to get on that front yard right away, he thought, if he wanted to get it done. He pushed the mower from the back yard to the front and began mowing, and all the time he was doing it, walking up and down the yard from street to house behind the mower, he kept thinking about what Charlie had said about listening to sounds and smelling smells. It was a curious thing for a fellow to say, let alone to do, but Charlie was a curious fellow, when you came to consider him, and he was somewhat inclined toward doing and saying things that might seem curious to other people. As a matter of fact, however, there actually were a hell of a lot of sounds to listen to that a fellow didn’t ordinarily hear, and a lot of smells that he didn’t ordinarily smell. At the moment, Rector couldn’t hear anything but the roar of the little engine on the mower, or smell anything but the exhaust of the same, but he remembered having had, sometimes in the past, such aural and nasal awareness. But not, he realized with a mild sensation of diminishment, since he was a boy.

Darkness gathered thickly at the close of the long dusk, and Rector, having finished the front yard, pushed the mower around to the garage and went on into the kitchen and plugged a can of cold beer. Carrying the can, he went out through the house the front way and sat down on the front steps and drank the beer slowly and watched lightning bugs. He wondered if Charlie was still on the front steps next door, listening and smelling, and after a while he walked out a few steps into the yard and peered over that way through the darkness, and Charlie was.

“Hey, Charlie,” Rector called.

No answer. No shifting of the shadow on the Treadwell steps.

“Hey, there, Charlie,” Rector called again.

This time, after a moment, the shadow shifted.

“Is that you, Rector?” Charlie said.

“Yes, it is,” Rector said. “You like to have a cold beer?”

“No, thanks,” Charlie said.

Rector felt sorry for old Charlie. It was easy enough to feel sad and lonely in a summer dusk with no good reason whatever, and it would surely be easier and worse if you’d had your wife go off and leave you besides. Especially a dish like Fanny, who wouldn’t be easy to replace, especially by a nondescript little guy like Charlie. So feeling sorry for Charlie and carrying what was left of his beer in the can, Rector walked across and sat down on the Treadwell steps to be neighborly.

“You hearing and smelling a lot of different things, Charlie?” Rector asked.

“Quite a few,” Charlie said, “but not as many as I used to smell and hear when I was a kid.”

“It’s a fact that you lose the knack,” Rector said. “Since talking to you earlier, I’ve been smelling and listening myself, but I’m not so good it any more, either.”

They were silent for a few minutes, during which time Rector drank the last of his beer and set the empty can beside his feet.

“What got you to smelling and listening all of a sudden?” he said.

“Well,” Charlie said, “Fanny and I had this fight over someone, and I killed her, and afterward I got to thinking about all the smells and sounds I used to know and hadn’t really known for a long time since, and I thought I’d just sit out here and try to know them again while there was still a little time left.”

“What did you say about Fanny?”

“I said we had this fight, and I killed her. I lost my head and began choking her and didn’t quit soon enough. I didn’t really intend to kill her, but I did, and she’s dead.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Where is she now?”

“She’s up there in our bedroom where we had the fight”

“Well. Well, God Almighty.”

It occurred to Rector later that this was a rather remarkably casual exchange over a serious matter, but Charlie was so calm and sensible, and so palpably telling the simple truth, that it did not seem remarkable at all at the time.

“What are you going to do, Charlie?” Rector said.

“After a while, when I’ve finished listening and smelling, I’m going inside and shoot myself.”

“You think, when it comes to it, you’ll have the nerve?”

“Oh, yes. I’ll have the nerve, all right. It won’t take much with things as they are.”

Rector sighed and stood up, remembering to retrieve the empty beer can.

“Well,” he said, “you can probably do a better job of listening and smelling if you’re alone, and so I’ll go on back home.”

“You won’t call the police or anything, will you, Rector?”

“I couldn’t get around to calling them before morning at the earliest,” Rector said.

He went back across the yards to his own house. He didn’t feel like sitting on the steps any longer, what with old Charlie sitting there listening and smelling so close at hand, and so he went inside to the bedroom and undressed and lay down on the bed in his shorts. He was pretty sweaty from the mowing, and he badly needed a shower, but he simply didn’t have the heart for one. He lay quietly on the bed, smelling himself, until Gladys got home in prickly heat from having seen Sinatra.

“You asleep, Rector?” Gladys said.

“No.”

“You should have seen the movie. That Sinatra’s something.”

Rector didn’t answer, thinking instead with a kind of deadly domestic despair: Will you, please, for Christ’s sake, shut up? I’m sick of Sinatra and sick of myself and most of all, dear heart, I’m sick of you. All l want to know, if there is anyone to tell me, is why everything must go sour that started sweet, and why a man must be driven in the end to a ruin that seems preferable, at least for a little while, to things as they were.

Gladys went into the bathroom and turned on the light above the lavatory. Rector could hear her washing and brushing her teeth and getting ready for bed. Pretty soon she came back into the bedroom in her nightgown and sat down on the edge of the bed across from Rector.

“What in the world’s got into that crazy Charlie Treadwell?” she said. “He’s still sitting out there on his front steps like a stump.”

“I told you. He had a fight with Fanny, and Fanny’s gone.”

“That’s no reason to sit on the front steps all night.”

“He’s listening and smelling for the last time. After a while, he’s going inside and shoot himself.”

“Oh, don’t try to be funny, Rector. How many beers did you have?”

“Never mind. Lie down and forget it. Think about Sinatra.”

Gladys lay down on top of the covers, it being a warm night, and Rector laced his fingers under his head and continued to lie there quietly, on his back, smelling himself and listening for the sound of a shot next door.

A Cool Swim on a Hot Day

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November 1961.

Suddenly awake, he opened his eyes in a glare of morning sun. The glare was blinding and painful, and so he closed his eyes again quickly and lay without moving in the soft shadows behind his lids. He could hear a clock ticking in the room. He could hear a cardinal singing in the white light outside. Something seemed to be scratching at his brain. The remembrance of something.

And then he remembered. He remembered the night and the night’s shame. The focus of the night was Ellen’s face. The sound of the night was Ellen’s voice. The face was cold and scornful, remote and strange. The clear and precise articulation of the voice was more appropriate to proud defiance than to a confession. Lying and remembering, fixed in despair, he held to the slender hope that he remembered a dream.

After a few minutes, needing to know, he got up and walked across the room and into a bathroom and through the bathroom into a room beyond. Ellen was lying on her bed in a gold sheath. He had put her there himself, he remembered, after shooting her. Ankles neatly together and one hand folded upon the other below her breasts. The hands covered with a definitive gesture of modesty, as if it were something intimate or obscene, the small hole through which her life had slipped out and away between her fingers. He had removed her shoes.

So it was not a dream. He had killed her indeed in the shameful night, and there on the floor where he had dropped it was the gun he had killed her with. He looked at the gun and back at her. Oh, golden wanton. Oh, sweet and tender harlot wife. Having killed her, having laid her out neatly on a quilted satin cover, he had gone to sleep in his clothes in his own room. But this was an oversimplification and therefore a distortion. He had not merely gone to sleep. He had withdrawn, rather, into a deep and comforting darkness in which, if nothing was solved or made better, everything was at least suspended and grew no worse. He had slept soundly.

Now, of course, he was awake and faced with the necessity of doing something, and what he must do was perfectly apparent The loaded gun was there, and he was there, and he had now, since last night, not only the negative motivation of not wanting particularly to live, but also the positive one of wanting and needing to die. But there was no urgency in it. He felt a kind of indolence in his bones, a remarkable lassitude. Walking over to the gun on the floor, he bent and picked it up and put it in a side pocket of his jacket, in which he had slept. He stood quietly, with an air of abstraction, watching Ellen on the bed in his heart was a movement of pain which he fancied for a moment that he could hear faintly, like the dry rustle of cicada wings. Turning away, the gun in his pocket, he went out of the room and out of the house and began walking down the street in a tunnel of shade that breached the bright day.

He had no destination. He did not even have a particular purpose in leaving the house, except that he was not quite ready to die and felt compelled to do something, almost anything, until he was. He had a vague notion that he might walk into the country and kill himself there in some quiet spot, or perhaps, after a while, he might return to the house and kill himself in the room with Ellen, so that they might later be found together. This was an enormous problem, where finally to kill himself, and at the moment he felt in no way capable of coping with it. His mind was sluggish, still fixed in the gray despair to which he had wakened, and now, besides, his head was beginning to throb like a giant pulse, measuring the cadence of his heart.

It was a very hot day. A bright, white, hot day. Heat shimmered on the surface of the street in an illusion of water. The sun was approaching the meridian in the luminous sky. The shimmering heat had somehow entered his skull, and all at once he was very faint, hovering precariously on the verge of consciousness while the gaseous world shifted and wavered and threatened to fade away. He had left the tunnel of shade and was now hatless in white light, the sun beating down directly upon his head.

Still walking, he pressed a hand across his eyes, recovering in darkness, and when he removed his hand at last, looking down at his feet, he was filled with wonder to see that his feet were bare. On the tip of the big toe of the left foot was a small plastic bandage, signifying that the toe had been lately stubbed. The bare feet were making their way on a gray dirt road. The dirt was hot and dry and powdery, rising in little puffs of dust at every step and forming a kind of thin, gray scum on faded blue denim.

For a second or two he could not for the life of him remember where he was or where he was going or how he had got there, but then it all came back clearly — how he had been sitting under the big cottonwood in the side yard at home, and how he had been thinking how good a swim in the creek would feel on such a hot day, and how at last he had decided to walk out and have the swim. So here he was, on the way, and everything was familiar again after being momentarily strange. He had just crossed Chaffee’s pasture to reach the dirt road where it junctioned with another road at the northeast corner of Mosher’s old dairy, and there ahead was the stand of scrub timber along the creek in which the swimming hole was.

With an odd feeling of comfort and assurance, be said softly to himself, “I am Dewey Martin, and I’m going to have a cool swim in the creek on a hot day.”

It appeared to be only a short distance on to the creek, but it was farther than it looked, nearly half a mile, beyond a cornfield and a pasture that were part of Dugan’s farm. Dewey left the road and crawled between two strands of a barbed wire fence into the field. He walked around the edge of the field to the other side, around the standing corn, and stopped there by the fence and surveyed the pasture to see where Jupiter was. Jupiter was Dugan’s bull, and he was dangerous.

There he was, sure enough, down at one end of the pasture, a safe distance away, and Dewey slipped through the fence and hurried across before old Jupiter could make up his mind whether to chase him or not. The creek was quite near now, no more than twenty yards away, but Dewey sat down in the shade of a hickory tree to rest before going on. He was curiously tired and still a little light-headed, and he was slightly disturbed by being unable to recall anything between the time of leaving home and the time of suddenly seeing his bare feet on the dusty road by Mosher’s dairy. He had a feeling of having come a long way from a strange place, but this was surely nothing but a trick of the heat, the bright white light of the summer sun. After a few minutes he quit thinking about it and went on to the creek and stripped off naked and dived into the dark green water.

It was wonderfully cool in the water, and he stayed in it for about an hour without getting out once, but then he got out and lay for quite a long time on the bank in a patch of sunlight, his bare brown body shining like an acorn. After that, when his flesh was full of clean white heat, he dived back into the water, and it was cooler than ever by contrast, the purest and most sensual pleasure that anyone could hope to have on earth. Altogether, he spent almost all the afternoon by himself at the creek, and he could tell by the position of the sun when he left that it was getting late, and that he would have to hurry on the long walk home.

It was not quite so hot going back. A light breeze came up, which helped, and he made it all the way to town without stopping to rest or feeling light in the head a single time. Cutting across several blocks to the street on which he lived, he started down this street in the direction of home, hearing as he walked the good and comforting sounds of mowers and sprinklers and the first cicadas, and smelling a supper now and then among flowers and cut grass.

Ahead of him, standing beside the walk, was a girl about his own age in a pink dress. It looked like a party dress, with a blue sash at the waist and a bit of lace at the throat. The girl had golden hair woven into two braids, and she was far and away the prettiest girl he had ever seen. As a matter of fact, he had instantly a notion that he had seen her before, although he couldn’t remember where or when. This could not be true, however, for if he had seen her, pretty as she was, he would not have forgotten.

As he came abreast of her, she smiled and spoke.

“Hello,” she said.

He stopped, watching her, and said hello.

“Do you live in this neighborhood?” she said.

“Down the street a few blocks.”

“I live here. In this house. We just moved here yesterday.”

“That’s nice. I hope you like it.”

“I don’t know anyone yet. I’m a stranger. I may like it when I get to know someone. Would you come and talk with me sometime?”

“Sure. Maybe tomorrow.”

He was painfully conscious of his dusty jeans and bare feet with the plastic bandage, somehow a survivor of the swimming and walking, still stuck on the one big toe. He edged away and began to turn, lifting a hand in a brief, shy gesture of good-bye.

“What’s your name?” she said.

“Dewey. Dewey Martin. What’s yours?”

“My name is Ellen,” she said.

The sound of it was like an echo in the fading afternoon as he hurried on his way, but he did not recognize it as a name that he had known in the future.

IQ — 184

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, September 1962.

Rena Holly was in the living room with the policeman when Charles Holly went downstairs to join them. Rena was sitting in a high-backed chair of polished walnut upholstered in dark red velvet. She was sitting there quietly, very erect, her knees together and her feet flat upon the floor and her hands folded in her lap. Her face was pale and still, perfectly composed, and she was even now, even in the violation of her grief by police procedure, so incredibly lovely that Charles felt in his heart the familiar sweet anguish that was his normal response to her. Only her eyes moved ever so slightly in his direction when he entered the room.

“Charles,” she said, “this is Lieutenant Casey of the police. He is inquiring about Richard’s death.”

Lieutenant Casey arose from the chair in which he had been sitting opposite Rena. He was a stocky man with broad shoulders and a deep chest and thin gray hair brushed neatly across his skull from a low side part. His face was deeply lined and weathered-looking, as if he spent much time in the wind and sun, and the hand he extended toward Charles had pads of callus on fingers and palm, although its touch was surprisingly gentle. He seemed awkward in his gray suit, which was actually of good cut and quality, and the impression he gave generally was one of regret, almost of apology, that he had been forced by his position to intrude.

“Good afternoon, Lieutenant,” Charles said. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“Sorry,” Casey said. “It’s a routine matter, of course. I regret that I’m compelled to disturb you at this time.”

“Not at all. We must tell you whatever is necessary.”

Charles sat down and placed his hands on his knees in an attitude of attention, while Casey resumed his place in the chair from which he had risen. “Please ask me anything you wish.”

“I think that Lieutenant Casey wishes you to tell him exactly how Richard died,” Rena said.

She spoke softly, with a kind of deficiency of inflection. Charles was aware of the terrible and almost terrifying quality of her composure, and he wondered if Casey was also aware of this. He doubted it. Her horror and grief were not apparent, although the latter could be assumed, and Casey was not familiar, as Charles was, with the wonderful complexity of her character.

“I’d be grateful if you would,” Casey said. “Just as it happened from the beginning, if you don’t mind.”

“Well.” Charles paused, seeming to gather his thoughts, but he knew, in fact, what he was going to say, and his mind was functioning, as it always did, with precision and clarity. “Richard was a guest in this house for the weekend. Perhaps Rena has told you that. In any event, he asked me this morning to take a walk with him. I did not wish to walk with him, and I told him so, but he asked me to humor him as a special favor. I did not really feel that I owed him a favor, special or otherwise, but he was so urgent that I agreed to go.”

“What was the reason for his urgency?”

“The answer to that would involve Rena. I’d rather that she answered, if she wants the question answered at all.”

“Oh?” Casey looked vaguely astonished and somewhat distressed that he had been led so quickly by his own question into an area of intimacy that he would have preferred to avoid. “Mrs. Holly?”

“Certainly, Lieutenant. As Charles has said, we must tell you whatever is necessary.”

Rena’s hands moved, smoothing the skirt over her knees, and then sought and held each other again in her lap. “Richard was in love with me. And I with him. It was not an emotional attachment that either of us particularly wanted in the beginning, but it happened, and there was no help for it. We wanted to marry. I spoke with Charles about it and was, I thought, candid and reasonable. But it was an unfortunate effort on my part, I’m afraid. Charles was very angry. He refused even to discuss the matter. Then, of course, Richard wanted to approach him. I agreed rather reluctantly, and it was for that purpose specifically that I invited Richard here for the weekend. And that was why Richard urged Charles to take the walk with him.”

She stopped abruptly, resuming the perfect posture and expression of composure that speaking had barely disturbed, and Casey, after waiting a few seconds until it was clear that she was finished, turned back to Charles.

“That is true,” Charles said. “I suppose he felt that a brisk walk in the open air would be propitious to his purpose. The manly approach. Two gentlemen settling amicably between themselves a rather delicate matter. Richard was remarkably naive.” His voice took on the faintest color of irony, as if he were mildly amused in retrospect by something which had been irritating at the time. “I must confess, however, that I was not impressed. Richard’s effort to win me over was no more successful than Rena’s, although I listened courteously and gave him every chance. All this time, while he was talking, we were walking among the trees in the direction of the river, and we came out upon a high bluff just where the river bends. There is a wooden bench on the bluff there, for it’s a rather scenic spot, and we sat on the bench until he had quite finished what he wanted to say. Then I told him that my feelings were unchanged, and that I should never be reconciled to any kind of intimate relationship between him and Rena. It made me sick to think about it.”

He paused again, ordering details precisely and accurately in his mind, and Casey waited in silence for him to continue. Rena did not seem to have heard him at all, or even to be aware at the moment that he or Casey was in the room. She had been staring at her folded hands, but now she raised her eyes to a focus beyond the walls and perhaps beyond the time. If she had listened to anything, or was now waiting for anything, it was a private sound and a private expectation.

Now, Charles was thinking, I have come upon dangerous ground. Up to this point I have adhered strictly to the truth, because the truth served, but now it is time for the essential deviation, the necessary lie.

“Please go on,” Casey prompted.

“Richard was very angry with me,” Charles said. “As for me, I wanted only to leave him, to terminate an unpleasant episode as quickly as possible, and I stood up and walked away to the edge of the bluff. Richard followed me, still very angry, and began to shake me by the arm. I do not like to be touched, even without violence, and I tried to jerk away, but he held on to my arm firmly. I struggled, finally breaking free, and the action caused him to lose his balance. We were standing right at the edge of the bluff, much nearer than either of us, I think, quite realized in our emotional state, and, to put it simply and briefly, he fell over the edge. The bluff, as you know, is high and almost perpendicular at that place. At the foot, the bank of the river at the bend is wide and littered with great rocks. Richard fell among the rocks, where you found him, and was, I believe, killed instantly. He was certainly dead when I reached him, after finding a way down the bluff farther along. When I saw that he was falling, I tried to catch hold of him, but he was gone too quickly.”

And there it is done, and done well, he thought. The essential deviation. The necessary lie. So slight a deviation and so small a lie. The difference between holding and pushing. Between life and death. Between innocence and guilt. Casey believes me, certainly, but Rena doesn’t. Rena, lovely Rena, sits and says nothing and knows everything. She knows how Richard died, and why, but that is unimportant. What is important is that she submits to a deeper commitment than any she could have felt to Richard or feels now to justice. She is mine so long as she lives. She will never belong to anyone else.

“I see.” Casey slapped his knees suddenly with both hands, the sound startling in the still room. It even startled Casey, who had made it, and he clenched one of the hands and stared reproachfully at the big knuckles under taut and whitened skin. “You were wise to leave the body where it fell until we had seen it. You have been very helpful altogether, I must say. Thank you very much.”

“There is so little that one can do, really.” Charles stood up. “Now if I may be excused, I’d like to return to my room.”

“Of course. You’ve had a bad experience, I know. I appreciate your cooperation in such trying circumstances.”

Having been excused by Casey, Charles turned toward Rena. She seemed unaware of this, still abstracted, but after a few seconds she turned her head and stared at him with her dark expressive eyes which were now so carefully empty of all expression. She nodded without speaking, the merest motion of her head, and he turned and went out of the room into the hall. He stopped there, out of sight but not of sound, his head half-turned and tilted, as he stood and listened.

“There’s a clever young fellow,” Casey said in the room behind him.

“Yes,” Rena said.

“I must say, however, that I’d find him a bit disturbing after a while. He’d make me feel inferior. Besides, I confess that I’m always a bit shocked to hear a child call his mother by her Christian name. I suppose I’m hopelessly old-fashioned.”

“Charles is not really a child, Lieutenant, although he’s only twelve. He’s exceptional. His intelligence quotient, I am told, is one hundred eighty-four.”

It would have been natural if her voice had assumed a lilt of pride, but it did not. It still retained its odd deficiency of inflection. To Charles, who began moving silently away, it was a voice that had no choice of expression between a monotone and a scream.

Settlement Out of Court

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July 1963.

Francis Etheridge was sitting on the floor of a small closet at the foot of the stairs that ascended from the front hall into the shadows of the second floor of the rented house in which he lived with his mother and father. Francis had always lived with his mother and father in rented houses. The house was always old and shabby, furnished with odds and ends that always gave the impression of being strangers to each other, and it was always just a temporary expedient, something to afford shelter until Mr. Etheridge could find something suitable to buy. The funny thing about these houses, as Francis knew them, was that they were all alike. Although they were in different locations and varied somewhat in age and the number of rooms and stories they had, they possessed, nevertheless, a kind of strange and pervasive common denominator that made all these variations unimportant, so that Francis, thinking back, could not remember a single significant difference.

Francis had not been happy in these houses, and that was why, when you came right down to it, he was sitting now on the floor of the small closet in this one. He had learned that any house, no matter how shabby and depressing in general, always had a particular place, a corner or a closet or an attic or someplace where one could withdraw in secret to security and peace. You could sit there, as Francis was now sitting, and do nothing whatever except listen to the silence that formed a soft protective perimeter around a golden core of fantasy. If someone came near, you remained silent. If someone called, you did not answer.

It was dark in the closet. The only light was a dull diagonal swath that fell across the floor from the narrow crack Francis had left in the door. He liked darkness, which was comforting, but he did not like total darkness, which was terrifying. From where he sat, he could look through the crack and up the narrow, steep stairs to the landing above. The upper hall was full of shadows, but an odd layer of light, about eighteen inches thick, lay along the floor like a blanket of fog just at the head of the stairs. Francis was watching this layer of light, because it was odd and interesting and something to watch, and that was how he happened to see the legs move suddenly into the light and stop. The dim scene took on instantly a quality of eerie farce, as if it had been arranged by an intelligence with a sense of insane humor, for the legs appeared to be detached at the knees, the body above them obscured by shadows.

The legs were thin and ugly, a woman’s legs, and they seemed for that reason, their ugliness, to heighten the farcical quality of the scene. Francis felt compelled to laugh, and he covered his mouth with a hand to smother any inadvertent sound, but he did not laugh after all, for there was suddenly a subtle change, an added ingredient of irrational terror. Behind, and a little to one side of the first pair of legs, there was all at once a second pair, simply not there one instant and soundlessly there the next; and it was perfectly clear to Francis, with all the surety of revelation, that the first legs were not aware of the second, and were not meant to be aware.

All was static in utter silence, the four detached legs in a layer of light and Francis watching from the dark closet below, and then the first legs spoke in a high, querulous voice.

“Francis!” the legs said. “Where are you, Francis?”

Francis did not answer. He never answered unless there was a practical certainty that he would be discovered anyhow. The legs, which had remained static, became silent again for an interval of several seconds before speaking again in the same high querulous voice. They did not speak, this time, to Francis, or to anyone else, unless it could be considered that they spoke to themselves.

“Where is the boy?” the legs said. “Why is he never around when I need him? Now I suppose I must go down myself for the aspirin.”

The first legs were his mother, of course, and the second legs were his father. His mother was always taking aspirin, and it seemed that she was always leaving them in a place where she surely wouldn’t be when she needed them next. She was thin and sickly and afflicted with migraine headaches.

His mother’s legs did not begin immediately to descend the stairs. They did not move, the legs of Mr. Etheridge did not move, everything was still and fixed in absolute absence of sound and motion. Then, with startling and almost comic abruptness, like an explosion, the legs of Francis’ mother seemed to fly straight upward into shadows, and an instant later her entire body came flying down across the narrow range of Francis’ vision. It looked for all the world as if she had deliberately dived head foremost down the stairs, and all this odd and comic action was punctuated by a sodden sound that was like the sound made in the imagination by a big, splashy period in an exclamation point.

Francis, who had stopped breathing, took a deep breath and released it slowly with the softest sigh. He continued to sit motionless, Indian fashion, his eyes fixed in the path of his narrow vision. The legs of his father began to descend, steps on the treads exactly cadenced, as if measured slowly by count, the body of his father emerging step by step from the shadows, until it was precisely in view, bounded by door and jamb. His father’s face was like a stone. In his hand, hanging at his side, was a short, heavy piece of wood or dark metal. He passed from sight, slowly descending, and Francis listened to the cadenced steps until they stopped. At almost that instant, the instant of the steps’ stopping, there was a low moan, a whimper of pain, and after that, quickly, a second sudden sound.

Francis waited, his eyes now removed from their vision of the stairs, his head cocked a little in a posture of intent listening. He heard his father in the hall, his steps receding briefly toward the rear of the house. Then he heard a familiar sound and knew that his father was dialing a number on the telephone. A few moments later his father’s voice spoke urgently a doctor’s name. The telephone was behind the stairs, out of view, and Francis, self-schooled in the preservation of silence and solitude, arose in the closet without the slightest sound and slipped into the hall and from the hall into the living room, and so through the dining room and kitchen to the back yard.

At the rear of the yard, its branches spreading over the alley, was a big mulberry tree. No care was taken of it, but the berries, which were large and sweet and dark purple when ripe, somehow escaped the ravishment of worms. Francis often climbed the tree and sat there for long periods eating the berries and thinking about all sorts of things real and unreal, and he went there and climbed it now and sat on a sturdy limb with his back at rest against the trunk.

Sitting so, now and then eating a berry, he began to wonder why his father had killed his mother.

The days before his mother’s funeral were desolate days. The shabby rented house was full of relatives who had to be fed and bedded down, and Francis was even forced to give up his room to a maternal uncle and two cousins. There was simply no place to go to he alone, no place in all the house, not even the small closet in the front hall, to spin securely the golden gossamer web of fantasy. The mulberry tree was invaded daily by the two cousins, both of them too young, in the tolerant opinion of the adults, to behave with the decorum of grief for a woman they had hardly known.

Francis himself felt no grief. He merely felt confused and lonely and violated. He spent most of the time alone in corners, and he kept wondering all this time why his father had killed his mother. He had pushed her down the narrow stairs, and then he had certainly given her a definitive blow with the heavy piece of wood or metal, and Francis wondered why. His mother had been a submissive and oppressive woman, oppressive to the spirit, but she had been kind in her own way, within her limited capacity to sense the need for kindness, and if she had not created love, neither had she incited hatred.

There were reasons, of course, why men killed women. One of the reasons was other women, or another woman, but Francis could not believe that this was true of his father, for he had long ago perceived dimly, although he was very young, that his father had no interest in women, not even in his wife, whom he had killed. He was, in fact, a rigid and moralistic man who abstained from tobacco and alcohol and insisted upon clean speech. He said grace at table and spoke up for old-fashioned modesty as opposed to contemporary wantonness. It seemed strange to Francis, when he thought about it, that his father and mother had ever married, or that they had, having married, continued to live so long together. It was impossible to believe that either was in the least interested in the other, and that they had, sometime in these years, by deliberate design or in eruption of distorted passion, given birth to him, their son, was entirely beyond credence, an intolerable obscenity. He did not think of this so specifically or so precisely, of course. He merely sustained, because it was essential to what he was and had to be, the illusion that his relationship with them did not antedate the deepest probing of his memory.

Another reason why men sometimes killed women, he thought in his corner, was to gain money or something valuable that the women had, but this was even more untenable than love or hate as a motive for his mother’s murder by his father. His mother had been as poor in goods as in spirit and body, and she had left nothing to his father except the expense of burying her and feeding for two or three days all the relatives who came to help him do it. There seemed to be, in fact, no rational reason for killing her at all, nothing to be gained that could not have been gained with less trouble and danger by simply going away. Francis, pondering the mystery, was filled with wonder, if not with grief.

It was a great relief when the funeral was finally over. Services were held in the chapel of the mortuary that had received the body, and Francis sat beside his father in a cool, shadowy alcove lined with gray drapes. He could look across the chapel to the casket in which his mother lay under a spray of fern and red and white carnations, and by lifting his eyes he could see, high in the far wall, a leaded window of stained glass that transmitted the sunlight in glittering fragments of color. Most of the time he watched the window, but once in a while he would glance sidewise from the corners of his eyes at his father’s face. He was curious to see if the secret his father thought he shared with no one would reveal itself, here in this dim alcove, in some naked expression, however fleeting. But if there was such an expression, Francis could not detect it, was not looking, perhaps, in the instant that it came and passed. His father sat as still as stone and stared at nothing with empty eyes.

After the chapel, there was the ordeal of the cemetery. Francis rode out there with his father in the back seat of a big black limousine furnished by the mortician. Beyond the edge of the cemetery where the earth had been opened for his mother’s entry, a meadow of green grass, growing brown in the sun, sloped down to the bank of a stream lined with poplars and oaks and elms. Overhead, while the service was read, a crow flew lazily and constantly cawed. Francis watched the trees and listened to the crow.

Happily, the graveside service was brief, and after it was completed everyone went away, and Francis went home with his father in the limousine. All the relatives began to leave then, to go back to wherever they had come from, and that was the best of a bad time, as the shabby old house approached emptiness and silence. After a while, before dark, no one was left but Francis and his father and Uncle Ted. Uncle Ted, who had to wait until morning to catch a train, was the oldest brother of Francis’ mother, and he and Mr. Etheridge, when all the others had gone, sat in the living room and talked. Francis, hardly noticed, sat behind them in a high-backed chair and looked out a window into the side-yard and listened to what was said.

“Luther,” Uncle Ted said to Mr. Etheridge, “I haven’t wanted to discuss this with you previously, but if you don’t take action in this business, you’re a fool, and that’s all I’ve got to say.”

“I intend to take action,” Mr. Etheridge said.

“If I were you, now that the funeral is over, I’d see a lawyer immediately.”

“I’ve made an appointment for tomorrow, Ted.”

“Good. In my opinion, you have a perfect case. Surely your landlord carries liability insurance.”

“Oh, yes. Certainly. He has numerous rentals, and could hardly afford to be without it.”

“It’s always easier if there’s insurance. If it comes to a jury, they have much less compunction about soaking a big company.”

“I have a notion it will be settled out of court.”

“Quite likely. You mustn’t accept too little, however. After all, your wife is dead and buried.”

“So she is, and I’ll not forget it for a moment. Any settlement will have to be most liberal.”

“Well, the liability is perfectly apparent, I should say. It’s almost criminal. That broken board at the head of the stairs should have been replaced long ago. It’s a landlord’s obligation to take care of such matters.”

Then, of course, Francis knew why his father had pushed his mother down the stairs. There was no longer the least need to wonder about it.

He was in his room upstairs when the investigator from the insurance company came. Francis knew that the visitor was an investigator because Mr. Etheridge brought him right upstairs and showed him the loose board, and then they stood there in the shadowy hall at the head of the stairs and talked about what had happened. Francis had his door closed, and in the beginning could hear only the voices, not the words, and so he walked over silently from his bed, where he had been sitting, and opened the door a crack. Then he could hear clearly what was being said, and could see, by applying an eye to the crack, the investigator and his father standing face to face there in the shadows.

“It happened very suddenly,” Mr. Etheridge was saying. “My wife and I were in our room. She had a severe headache and wanted some aspirin, but she had left the bottle downstairs. I offered to get it for her, but she said no, she couldn’t remember just where she had put it and would have to look for it. She went out of the room, and I followed her, a few steps behind, thinking that I might be of help. When she reached the head of the stairs, she simply seemed to pitch down headfirst, almost as if she had dived. It happened so suddenly, as I said, that I couldn’t reach her, although I tried. She struck her head on the edge of one of the lower steps. Her collarbone was broken also, as you know, but the death was caused by the head injury. The doctor has certified that.”

“I know.” The investigator was a squat man with arms and torso far out of proportion to his legs, which were remarkably short. His voice had a harsh, rasping sound, as if he had a sore throat that was painful to talk through. “Are you positive she tripped? She didn’t merely faint and fall? You said she wasn’t feeling well. She had a severe headache.”

“No, no. She tripped. She didn’t merely collapse, as she would have done in fainting. She pitched forward with considerable momentum. That’s surely obvious from the distance she fell before striking the stairs. You can see the board here. It had rotted away from its nails and came loose. It projects above the others perhaps a quarter of an inch.”

“I see. It’s quite dangerous, being right at the head of the stairs. I’m surprised that you didn’t fix it yourself, Mr. Etheridge.”

“I should have. I reproach myself for not having done so. But I’m not handy at such things. It’s the landlord’s duty to keep the house in repair, and I reported the board to him. He assured me that he would have it replaced.”

“I assume that you were the only one who witnessed the accident?”

“Yes.”

“That’s too bad. It would simplify matters if there were someone to corroborate your testimony.”

“Well, there isn’t. My wife and I were alone in the house. The boy was outside playing.”

It was then that Francis opened the door of his room and walked out into the half and over to his father and the investigator. The door made a thin, squeaking noise in opening, and both men turned their heads in the direction of the sound and watched Francis approach.

“I’ve been in my room,” Francis said, unnecessarily. “I heard you talking.”

“Did you?” Mr. Etheridge’s voice had an edge. “You shouldn’t listen to conversations that don’t concern you, Francis. It’s bad manners.”

“I’m sorry. I just thought I could help.”

“There is nothing you can do. You had better go back to your room.”

“Help in what way?” the investigator said.

“Well,” Francis said, “I heard you say that it would simplify things if there were someone else who saw what happened, and I saw.”

“What’s that? You saw the accident? You saw your mother fall down the stairs?”

“Yes. I was sitting in the closet down there in the hall. I often sit in there, because it’s quiet and no one knows where I am and it’s a good place to be. The door was open a little bit, though, and I could see right up the stairs, and I saw just exactly what happened.”

Francis looked from the investigator to the face of his father, and his father’s face was just like it had been in the alcove in the chapel, as gray as the drapes, as hard as stone. He did not move, watching Francis.

“All right, son,” the investigator said. “Just tell me what you saw.”

Francis turned his eyes back to the investigator. The eyes were pale blue, complementing his pale hair, the wide remote eyes of a dreamer.

“It was just as Father said. Mother tripped and fell. She just came flying down.”

There was a long, sighing sound that was the sound of Mr. Etheridge’s breath being released in the shadows.

“If you saw your mother fall,” he said, “why didn’t you come out to help her?”

“I don’t know. I was afraid, I guess. It was so sudden and so terrible that it frightened me. I don’t know why. Then you came down, and I heard you calling the doctor, and so I just went out the back way and sat in the mulberry tree.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” The investigator shrugged at Mr. Etheridge. “Kids are odd little animals.”

“Yes,” Mr. Etheridge said, “they are, indeed. Now you will please return to your room, Francis. Thank you for speaking up.”

“You’re welcome,” Francis said.

He went back into his room and closed the door and sat on the floor in a swath of sunlight. There was a large book there that he had been looking at earlier, and he began now to look at it again. It contained thousands of colored pictures of almost every imaginable thing, and Francis was still looking at the pictures about a quarter of an hour later when his father opened the door and came into the room and stood staring down at him.

“What are you looking at, Francis?” Mr. Etheridge said.

Francis looked up from the bright pictures to his father’s gray stone face. His pale blue eyes had a kind of soft sheen on them. The sunlight gathered and caught fire in his pale hair.

“It’s a catalog,” he said. “There are so many beautiful things in the catalog that I’ve always wanted. Are we going to get a lot of money from the insurance company? If we are, maybe we could get some of the things. Maybe even a piano that I could take lessons on.

The soft sheen gave to his eyes a look of blindness. He did not seem to see his father at all.

“Yes,” Mr. Etheridge said. “Maybe even a piano.”

For Money Received

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, October 1964.

The rain came straight down into the alley, and I sat with my back to my desk and watched the rain. It was not an afternoon for being out and doing something. Besides, I had nowhere to go and nothing to do. If I had somewhere to go more often, and something to do when I got there, I would be able to watch the rain come down past a front window instead of a back, into a street instead of an alley. Provided, of course, that I went where I went and did what I did for clients who paid me a great deal more than my clients usually paid.

My name is Percy Hand, and I’m a private detective. My privacy is rarely invaded. This makes the rent a problem, but it gives me plenty of time to watch the rain come down into the alley on rainy days.

Someone was coming down the hall. My ears are big and my hearing is acute, so I tried to establish certain facts, just for fun, about the person approaching. It was apparent from the sharp, quick rhythm of the steps that the person was a woman, probably young. I decided from a more esoteric suggestion in the sound that this woman, whoever she was exactly, was a woman of pride and even arrogance. In her purse, moreover, was a checkbook in which she could write, if she chose, a withdrawal of six figures. To the left, I mean, of the decimal point. These last two deductions were wholly unwarranted by the evidence, and probably explain why I am not the best detective in the world, although not the worst. They assumed, that is, that poor women cannot be proud, which is palpably untrue. Anyhow, if she was rich, chances were a hundred to one that she was not coming to see me.

But I was wrong. My reception room door from the hall opened and closed, releasing between the opening and the closing a brief, angry exclamation from a buzzer. The buzzer is cheaper than a receptionist, even though it is not as amusing, especially on rainy days. I got around my desk and out there in a hurry, before this client had time to walk out.

She was wearing a belted raincoat and holding in one hand a matching hat. Her hair was black and short and curling in the damp. She could look over a short man’s head and a tall man’s shoulder, excluding basketball players. At the end of nice legs was a pair of sensible brown shoes with flat heels. Inasmuch as I had heard her clearly in the hall, the shoes had to have leather heels.

“Are you Mr. Percy Hand?” she asked.

Her voice was modulated and musical, now with a quality of calculated coolness that could instantly change, I suspected, to calculated warmth or coldness as the occasion required.

After admitting that I was Percy Hand, I asked, “What can I do for you?” I scrutinized her curiously.

“I’m not certain.” She looked around the shabby little room with obvious reservations. “I expected something different. Do all private detectives have offices like this?”

“Some do, some don’t. It depends on how much money they make.”

“I don’t know that I like that. It must mean that you don’t have many clients, and there is surely a reason. Why aren’t you more successful?” She pointedly questioned.

“Happiness comes before success, I always say.”

“It’s a nice philosophy if you can afford it. On the other hand, you may be unsuccessful because you’re honest. I have a notion that private detectives, in general, are not very reliable. Can you tell me if that is so?”

“Professional ethics prevents my answering.”

“I heard that about you. That you’re honest. Someone told me.”

“My thanks to someone. Who, precisely?”

“I don’t think I’ll tell you. It doesn’t matter. A woman I know for whom you did something. She said that you were perfectly reliable, although not brilliant.”

“My thanks is now qualified. I maintain that, properly motivated, I can be brilliant for short periods.”

“Well, I’m not especially concerned about that. What I need is someone, on whose discretion I can rely, to do a simple job.”

“I’m your man. Simple, discreet jobs are those at which I’m best.”

“In that case, I’d better stay and tell you about it.”

She began to unbuckle her belt, and I stepped forward, like a discreet and reliable gentleman, to help her off with her raincoat. Then I gestured toward the door to my office, and she went through the door ahead of me and helped herself to the chair at the end of the desk. She was wearing a simple brown wool dress that verified my intuitive conclusion that she was, if not actually rich, at least substantially endowed. She crossed her legs and showed her knees, and I saw, just before sinking into my own chair behind the desk, that the knees were good.

“And now,” I asked, “what is it that you want me to do, discreetly and simply?”

“First, I’d better tell you who I am. I haven’t told you, have I?”

“You haven’t.”

“I’m Mrs. Benedict Coon. The third. My Christian name is Dulce, if it matters.”

“It doesn’t. Not yet. Chances are, it never will.”

“My husband and I live at 15 Corning Place. Do you know who the Coons are?”

“Canned food for dogs and cats?”

“They’re the ones. Isn’t it absurd?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m very hesitant about criticizing anything so profitable.”

“Well, never mind. It’s true that too much money, from whatever source, can cause one to do foolish things and get one into a great deal of trouble. That’s why I’m here. My husband has been seeing another woman, and I want you to find out who she is and where she lives.”

“Excuse me.” I was already parting sadly from a fee that might have been fat. “I don’t do divorce work. I can refer you to another operator, if you like.”

She laughed softly. “Such admirable scruples! No wonder you’re so poor. But you misunderstand me. I have no wish for a divorce. I’m far too fond of being Mrs. Benedict Coon III. Do you think for a moment that I would voluntarily give up my position because of a ridiculous peccadillo on the part of my husband?”

I relaxed and recovered hope. The fat fee again became feasible.

“All right. Tell me exactly what you want me to do.”

“I’m trying to, if you will only quit being difficult about things. Benedict is being blackmailed by the woman he has been seeing. I don’t know why exactly, but I want you to find a way to stop it. That will be your job.”

“What’s this woman’s name?”

“I heard him call her Myrna. That’s all I know.”

“You heard him? You mean you’ve seen him with her?”

“No, no. Nothing of the sort. I heard him talking with her on the telephone. I just happened to come home unexpectedly and pick up the downstairs extension while they were talking. That’s how I know about the meeting tomorrow.”

“What meeting? When? Where?”

“You know, I’m beginning to think you may be more capable than you seemed at first. From the way you go directly after the pertinent facts, I mean. Well, anyhow, they arranged to meet at three o’clock tomorrow in the Normandy Lounge. That’s in the Hotel Stafford.”

“I know where it is. What’s the purpose of the meeting?” I asked.

“I’m coming to that as fast as I can. She has something that he wants to get back. Neither he nor she said what. Whatever it is, however, it’s the reason he’s been paying her money. Quite a lot of money, I gather. Now he wants to pay her a much larger amount for its final return, to end things once and for all. She agreed to meet him and talk about it.”

“At the Normandy Lounge?”

“They’ll meet there. Probably they’ll go on to somewhere else.”

“At three o’clock tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“Why not let him pay the amount, however much, and get the blackmail gimmick back, whatever it is? He can afford it.”

“Of course he can. If it works out that way, I’m prepared to forget the whole thing. But how can I be sure that it will? If it falls through, if she’s up to more tricks, I want to know who she is and where she lives, and how I can get Benedict free of her.”

“Have you discussed this with your husband?”

“Oh, no! Certainly not! That would never do. He’d go all to pieces and spoil the chances of doing anything whatever. He’s weak, you see, besides being a hopeless liar.”

“You want me to be at the lounge and follow them if they leave?”

“Or follow her if she leaves without him. Will you do it?”

“Why not? Divorce is one thing, blackmail another.”

“It’s settled, then.” She dug into her purse again and came out with a thin packet of lovely treasury notes which she laid on my desk, and which I picked up at once just to get the feel of them. “There’s five hundred dollars there, a fair fee for an afternoon’s work. If there’s more work later, there will be more money. We’ll discuss it if there is.”

“How will I recognize your husband?”

“He’s medium height, has blond hair. Not particularly distinctive, so you’d better know exactly what he’ll be wearing. I’ll be watching when he leaves the house, and I’ll call immediately and give you a description. Will you be in your office?”

“I’ll make a point of it.”

She stood up and headed for the door. I followed her into the reception room and helped her on with her raincoat. When the hall door had closed behind her, I stood and listened with my big, acute ears to the sound of her receding footsteps. Then I returned to my office and stood at the window and looked through the rain, still falling, at the brick wall across the alley from me.

What order of events, I thought, had sent Dulce Coon here? What strange chance had put into my hands more money than they had held at once for a long, long time?

There were two approaches to the Normandy Lounge; one was directly from the street, an inducement to susceptible pedestrians, and the other was through the lobby of the Hotel Stafford and down a shallow flight of stairs. I entered from the street, filled with bright light after a gray day, and stopped just inside, while the door swung shut behind me with a soft pneumatic whisper. I waited until my pupils had dilated in adjustment to thick, scented darkness that was pricked here and there by points of light, and then I navigated slowly between tiny tables to an upholstered seat against the wall. Above the bar and behind the bartender was the illuminated dial of an electric clock. I ordered a glass of beer from a waitress who came to see what I wanted.

The clock said ten minutes till three. A canary was singing softly in a juke box, and the canary was so in love. Two men and a woman were lined up on stools at the bar. The woman was between the men, but she only talked with the one on her right, and the one on her left just sat and stared at his shadow in the mirror. Half a dozen men and women were scattered one to one at tables, holding hands and rubbing knees, and the murmur of their voices made a kind of choral accompaniment to the love-sick canary. Trade was slow, but the time was wrong. In a couple of hours, with the closing of offices and shops, things would pick up. The waitress delivered my glass of beer, and I began to nurse it.

He was wearing, Dulce Coon had said, a brown plaid jacket and brown slacks. His shirt was white, button-down collar, and his tie was fashionably narrow. He was medium height and his hair was blond, and so was the mustache that I might miss unless my eyes were as good as my ears. I couldn’t miss him, she said, but I begged to differ. Jacket and slacks and all the rest were not distinctive and might apply to someone else. Not likely, she said, to someone else who would appear at three or shortly before. Not at all likely, she added, to someone else who would be joined in the lounge by a woman. I conceded, and here I was, Percy Hand on the alert, and there he was, sure enough, coming down the steps from the lobby at exactly two minutes till three by the clock.

He crawled onto a stool near the lobby entrance and ordered something in water, probably scotch or bourbon. I could see only his back, with a glancing shot at his profile now and then as his head turned. I tried to focus on the mirror for a better look, but there were bottles and glasses in the way, and faces there, besides, were only shadows. He was the one, though. No question about it. It was evident in his subtle suggestion of tense expectancy, his too-frequent references to the clock as the two minutes till three went to ten minutes past. His right hand held his glass. His left hand kept moving out to a bowl of salted peanuts on the bar. He was Benedict Coon III, and he was waiting for a woman named Myrna who was also, by informal indictment, a blackmailer. It was another drink and a quarter of a pound of peanuts later before she came. But then there she was, all at once, beside him.

She was onto the next stool before I was aware of her. Once aware, however, I was aware in spades, and if Benedict had been indiscreet with Myrna, I was not the one to blame him. You didn’t even have to see her face to know that inciting indiscretions was, with her, a natural effect of observable causes. A little taller than average, she possessed, without going into censorable details, a full inventory of quality stock. Her hair, just short of her shoulders, was pale blond, almost white, and I would have sworn that it was natural, although it is impossible to tell, actually, in these days of superior artifice. She was wearing a dark red suit with a tight and narrow skirt, and the skirt rode well above her knees on nylon as she perched on the stool and crossed her legs. Suffice it to say that even the vital juices of Percy Hand came instantly to a simmer.

I preferred the scenery from where I was, but I had a job to do with priority over pleasure, and I had a bank account of five hundred dollars, minus pocket money, to remind me of it. So, ethical if nothing else, I moved with my glass to the bar. Leaving a pair of stools between me and them, I ordered another beer and cocked an acute ear, but I might as well have been wearing plugs. They said little to each other, and what they said, was said too softly to be understood. Naturally, I thought. They were scarcely on terms of innocent and amiable conversation, and nothing that was to pass between them could be passed openly in a public cocktail lounge. I wanted to turn my head and look at them directly, but I didn’t think I’d better. I tried from closer range to see her clearly in the mirror, but I could only see enough of her face to know that the rest of her had no cause to be ashamed of it.

She was holding in her left hand, I saw sidewise, a pair of dark glasses that she had removed in the shadowy lounge — the Hollywood touch. She had ordered a martini, and she drank the martini slowly and ate the olive afterward. He said something to her, and she said something to him, and suddenly, in unison, they slipped off their stools and went up the shallow flight of stairs into the lobby. When I got there after them, they were headed directly for the doors on the far side. Her high, thin heels tapped out a brisk cadence as they crossed a border of terrazzo beyond a thick rug.

Outside, they crossed the street at an angle in the middle of the block, and I assumed that they were going to a garage, convenient to the hotel, where he must have left his car. My own, such as it was, was down the block in the opposite direction, occupying a slot at the curb that I had found by luck. I went down to it, got in and started the engine, and waited. They would have to come past me, I knew, because it was a one-way street. In a few minutes they came, in a gray sedan. I swung in behind it and tagged along.

They were in no hurry, scrupulously minding the posted limits. They never got separated from me by more than an intruding car or two, and I was able to make all the lights that they made, although I had to run a couple on the yellow. We passed through the congested downtown area, turning east after a while onto an east-west boulevard.

Their car picked up speed, moving briskly down a gauntlet of fancy apartment buildings. I had a notion that one of them might be the sedan’s destination, but I was wrong in my notion, which is not rare. It ran the gauntlet without stopping or turning, and it came pretty soon to an oblique intersection with a northeast-southwest thoroughfare. A red light held it there in the left-turn lane, and I waited behind it in the same lane. Between us were two cars that had slipped into the traffic along the way.

I kept watching the light, which was a long one, and I thought it would never change. At last it did, and the traffic in the other lanes began to move. Not ours. The sedan sat, and we all sat behind it. Drivers in cars ahead and behind began to lean on their horns in a demonstration of annoyance, but the gray car ignored the demonstrators with impervious arrogance. It simply waited and waited until it was ready to move, and it wasn’t ready until the instant the light went yellow. Then it shot into the intersection, wheeled left with whining tires, and was gone down the thoroughfare before I could curse or cry or even cluck.

Other drivers, no doubt, wondered what had promoted this deliberate outrage. Not I. I knew that old Percy had been neatly slipped, and I wondered why. I wondered, that is, why the pair in the gray sedan should even have been aware of my presence on earth, let alone on their collective tail. Was I guilty of glaring error? Had, perhaps, my ears flapped at the bar when I strained to hear their conversation, what little there had been? Did even ethical private detectives have a distinctive smell of which they were unaware? And, grim reflection, was I now entitled to keep all of the five C’s that I had been paid to do a simple job that I had simply failed to do? It was true that no conditions had been attached to the fee, but it was equally true that I hadn’t earned it, or even enough of it to buy a hamburger sandwich. In fact, I conceded bitterly, I ought to pay damages.

Well, no good in crying. No good, either, in trying to run down the other car. I had been slipped, and that was that. The only thing to do was to find a phone and call Dulce Coon and make a full and abject confession of professional idiocy. I crossed the intersection, found a turn, and made my way downtown again by another route. The only telephone I could think of that wouldn’t cost me a dime was the one in my office. I went there and sat at my desk backwards and looked at the brick wall across the alley. I thought about what had happened, and how I could explain it in a way that would salvage at least some of my dignity, if none of my fee.

Something had gone wrong, that was clear, and it didn’t take a better brain than mine to know what. I had been expected and spotted and duped, that was what. But how? And why? And just when? The best explanation, so far as I could see, was that Dulce Coon, sometime between yesterday and today, had somehow given the business away. For that matter, it was possible that she had been followed through the rain to my office. If so, she was partly responsible for my fiasco, and didn’t that give me a legitimate claim to my fee? Well, there was a way to find out. The way was at hand, and there was no point in waiting any longer to take it. Turning around to my desk in my swivel, I consulted the directory and dialed a number, and somewhere in the house at 15 Corning Place a telephone was answered by someone that I assumed to be a maid.

Was Mrs. Coon at home?

Sorry. Mrs. Coon wasn’t. Who was calling, please?

Mr. Percy Hand was calling. When was Mrs. Coon expected?

That wasn’t known. Would Mr. Hand care to leave a message?

Mr. Hand wouldn’t.

I tried again an hour later, after five o’clock. Still no luck. The same maid gave me the same answers. This time, I asked her to have Mrs. Coon call Mr. Hand immediately upon her return home. The maid agreed, but the tone of her voice implied a polite skepticism of Mrs. Coon’s compliance.

I went downstairs to a lunchroom and bought a couple of corned beef sandwiches and a pint of coffee in a cardboard container. I carried the sandwiches and the coffee back to my office and had my dinner, pardon the expression, at my desk. I had what was left of the coffee with a couple of cigarettes. The container was drained and the second butt stubbed when the telephone began to ring, and it was Dulce Coon at last.

“I had word to call you,” she said. “What do you want?”

“I tried twice before to get you, but you weren’t home. I thought you’d want a report.”

“Go ahead and report. Did you see Benedict and the woman?”

“I saw them. They met at the bar in the Normandy Lounge, just as you said they would.”

“Did they leave together?”

“They did, two highballs and a martini later. They walked from the hotel to a garage and drove off in a gray sedan.”

“That’s Benedict’s car. Did you follow them?”

“After a fashion.”

“What do you mean by that? Either you did or you didn’t. Where did they go?”

“Briefly, I lost them. Or, to put it more accurately, they lost me. They ran a yellow and left a long line of traffic, including me, sitting on a red.”

“Why should they do that?”

“A good question. I was about to ask it myself. That tricky business at the light was planned. They did it to shake a tail, and I’d like to know how they knew they had one. Did you give it away?”

“Certainly not.”

“Somehow or other, he must have got onto it. Are you sure you weren’t followed to my office yesterday?”

“There was no reason why I should have been.”

“You said you overheard his conversation with the woman on an extension. Maybe he knew you were listening.”

“That’s absurd. If he had heard me lift the receiver, he’d have quit talking, and I didn’t hang up until after he did.”

“Nevertheless, he knew. Somehow he knew he was being tailed.”

“Obviously. Aren’t you, perhaps, just trying to make an excuse for yourself? You must have bungled the job by making yourself conspicuous or something. I thought following people was a kind of basic thing that detectives learned from their primer. It seems to me that any good one ought to know how to do it.”

“All right. So I’ll have to go back to kindergarten. Don’t worry, though. I’ll see that most of the fee is returned to you.”

“That won’t be necessary. I offered the fee without conditions.”

“It’s a lot of money for practically nothing.”

“I’ve spent more for less. I can afford it. Besides, this may not be the end of it. If there’s something very simple that you can do for me later, I’ll get in touch.”

“In the meanwhile,” I said, “I’ll be studying my primer.”

She hung up, and I hung up, and we left it at that. I tried to think of something simple to do with the evening, and the simplest thing I could think of was to go home and sleep, something which is even pre-primer in its simplicity. So I bought a pint of bourbon and took it to bed with me. Sometime after ten I went to sleep, and slept until almost seven the next morning.

At my office, I read a morning paper. Then I had a client who had a minor job to offer, and the job, which doesn’t matter, took me away for the rest of the morning. After a businessman’s special, I returned to the office and found the reception room full of Detective-Lieutenant Brady Baldwin, who tends to accumulate excessive fat around the belt buckle but none whatever between the ears. My relationship with Brady was good. Indeed, my relationship with all the city’s official guardians was good. The reason, I think, was that we shared roughly the same brackets on the income-tax schedule. No class war where we were concerned.

“Hello, Brady,” I said. “What brings you here?”

“Nothing brings me,” he said. “Someone sent me.”

“That’s what comes from being discreet and efficient. You build a reputation. I’ve got a million references, Brady.”

“Well, that wasn’t quite the way this particular reference was. I’ve been talking with Mrs. Benedict Coon III.”

“You can’t please everybody. She didn’t have to sic the cops on me, though. I offered to return most of the fee.”

“I don’t know anything about fees. Myself, I work on a salary. Someday I may get a pension. Invite me in, Percy. I’ve got a question or two.”

“Sure. Come on in.”

We went into the office, and Brady uncovered his naked skull and put the lid on a corner of my desk. He took a cigar out of the breast pocket of his coat, looked at it a moment and put it back.

“Mrs. Coon,” he said, “gave you a job yesterday.”

“The job was yesterday. She gave it to me the day before.”

“Picking up her husband and a woman in the Normandy Lounge, and following them wherever they went.”

“That was the job.”

“She says you lost them.”

“I didn’t lose them. They lost me. No matter, though. The result was the same.”

“Whichever way, it’s too bad. You might have seen something interesting.”

“I doubt it. You can’t just invade privacy for something entertaining to look at.”

“True. I’m glad you recognize your limitations, Percy. But murder, however entertaining, has no right to privacy.”

“Murder!” I thought for a second that he was merely making an academic observation, but I should have known better. Brady wasn’t given to them. “Are you telling me that he killed her?”

“Not he her. She him.”

“Damn it, Brady, that doesn’t figure. She was blackmailing him. Why the devil should she eliminate her source of income?”

“I’ve been asking myself that. There are a few good answers, when you stop to think about it. The best one, for my money, is based on the old chestnut that the worm sometimes turns. Say he’d decided to come clean, at whatever cost to himself, and to see that she got what was coming to her. It’s not hard to find a motive there.”

“If that were true, why did he meet her? Why didn’t he call in the cops and be done with it once and for all?”

“Maybe he didn’t make up his mind until the last minute. Worms do a lot of squirming on the hook, you know.”

“Sure. So she shot him. Just like that. She had a gun in her purse, of course. Nothing odd in that. All women carry them.”

“Not all. Some. Especially the ones who play around with blackmail. I wish you wouldn’t indulge in sarcasm, Percy. It doesn’t suit you. Besides, who said he was shot?”

“Didn’t you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I guess I might as well confess. I’ve read about murderers giving themselves away like this, but I never thought it would happen to me. The guilty knowledge was just too much for me.”

“Oh, come off, Percy. It was a natural enough assumption. It’s pretty obvious that she couldn’t poison him in an automobile, and it would have taken an Amazon to choke him to death. He wasn’t any muscle man, but he could at least have fought off a woman.”

“She could have stabbed him or cracked his skull.”

“Maybe. But she didn’t. She was carrying a .25 caliber gun, and she shot him with it — in the back of the head.”

“That’s crazy. What kind of man turns his back on a blackmailer?”

“He was careless, I guess. Why worry about figuring these things out, when you only have to ask. As soon as we find the woman, that is.”

“You haven’t found her yet?”

“We don’t even know her full name, or what she looks like. That’s where you come in. Mrs. Coon says you can give us a description.”

“That I can, and you couldn’t be shot in the head by a choicer piece. Fairly tall. Custom built. None of your assembly line jobs. Pale blond hair, almost shoulder length. When I saw her, she was wearing a dark red suit with a skirt that showed off her legs, and they deserved it.”

“Chassis can be disguised. Hair can be cut and dyed. It would be helpful if you had spent more time looking at her face.”

“Have you been in the Normandy Lounge lately? I can tell you that it’s just a little lighter than a cave. I tried to get a good look at her face, even in the mirror behind the bar, but all I can tell you is that it went well with the rest of her.”

“You followed them, didn’t you? It must have been lighter outside.”

“As you say, I followed them. They were ahead, and I was behind. Would you care for an accurate and detailed description of her stern?”

“No thanks. I wouldn’t want you to go poetic on me.” Brady reached for his hat and slapped it on his head, a seasoned veteran of many a year. If the reference is ambiguous, take your choice. “Thanks for trying, Percy. Next time I’ve got a few minutes to waste, I’ll look you up.”

“Wait a minute, Brady. So maybe I blew the job. We all have our bad days. At least you can fill me in on what I missed. From what you said, I assume that Coon was shot in the car that he was driving.”

“You assume right. It was parked on a dead-end road northeast of town. They’d apparently stopped there to wind up their business, whatever it was. Well, she wound it up, all right. Permanently. He was found early this morning, behind the wheel, with a hole in his head, slumped over against the door. It’s really a county job, but we’re lending a hand. Chances are, most of the investigation will have to be done in the city.”

“Any leads at all on the woman?”

“Why, sure. You just gave us a couple. She’s got blond hair and pretty legs.”

After which rather caustic remark, he heaved himself afoot and took himself off. I turned a hundred eighty degrees in my chair, looked into the alley, and wondered if it wouldn’t be a good idea to jump out the window. With my luck, however, I would probably suffer no more than bruises and abrasions.

I’ll not deny that I was feeling better. Somehow or other, my own fault or not, Benedict Coon III and his blonde charmer had spotted old Percy and played him for a chump, and Percy was hurt. He wanted to try again and do better.

Benedict was out of it, of course. He was lying in the morgue with a hole in his head. My job was done, or not done, and there was nothing left to do. Unless, perhaps, Dulce Coon would care to have me earn my fee by trying to find the elusive charmer who had killed her husband. That was, I thought, at least a possibility. I might not do any good, but chances were I wouldn’t do any harm, either, and it was, after all, already paid for.

I decided that I would run out to 15 Corning Place and apply for the job. I put on my hat and went.

Corning Place was a long ellipse with an end cut off. The street entered at one side of the truncated end and came out the other side of the same end. In the center of the ellipse was a wide area of lush grass and evergreen shrubs, and here and there a stone bench. Outside the ellipse, forming an elegant perimeter, were the deep lawns and fancy houses of the people who could afford to live there.

Number fifteen was as fancy as any, two and a half stories of gray stone, with a wide portico protecting a section of the drive on the south end. I drove my clunker boldly up the drive and left it, without apology, under the portico. Farther back, I could see, the drive flared out in a wide concrete apron in front of a garage big enough for four cars below, and a servant or two in quarters above. I went up shallow steps from the portico and along a wide veranda to the front door. I rang and waited. Pretty soon the door was opened by a maid who asked me what I wanted.

“I’d like to see Mrs. Benedict Coon III,” I said. “Mr. Percy Hand calling.”

The maid was sorry, but Mrs. Benedict Coon III was seeing no one. She was lying down.

“It’s very important,” I said, exaggerating a little. “It’s urgent that I see Mrs. Coon at once.”

The maid hesitated, her expression indicating polite skepticism. It was evident that she had never seen anything important come wrapped in wilted worsted with frayed cuffs. There was always, however, an outside chance that I was legitimate. The maid finally said she would inquire, which was all the concession I could expect. I was permitted to stand in the hall with my hat in my hands while she went up a wide flight of stairs, elegantly curving, to make the inquiry.

The house was still. In the stillness, a stern citizen in oils looked down upon me with hard blue eyes. Benedict I or II, I guessed. I took two steps forward, and he was still looking at me. I backed up, and the eyes followed. Annoyed by my evasive maneuvers, the eyes were frigidly critical. The maid came down the stairs, fortunately, and rescued me.

Mrs. Coon had consented to see me. Would I please wait in the library?

I would, and I did, after the maid had shown me where it was. I waited in the midst of a dozen high windows, most of them draped, and several thousand shelved books, most of them, judging by their orderly arrangement against the walls, seldom or never read. A blond head appeared suddenly around the high, winged back of a chair near a window. The head was followed into view by a body, and they both belonged, head and body, to a young man wearing glasses, and holding a book folded over an index finger. With his free hand, the young man removed his glasses, and examined me curiously.

“Who are you?” he asked, as if he found me somehow incredible.

“Percy Hand,” I said. “Mrs. Coon asked me to wait for her in here.”

“Really? I didn’t think Dulce was seeing anyone. The police have been here, you know. They took her downtown to identify old Benny. A grim business. Very exhausting.”

“I know. I won’t disturb her very long.”

“I wish you wouldn’t. Dulce’s taking it calmly enough, but you never know how close she may be to breaking. A remarkable woman, Dulce. You know what happened?”

“Yes. As you said, a grim business.”

“Well, old Benny asked for it, I guess. He who dances and all that. Whoever would have dreamed that he was playing around? My name is Martin Farmer, by the way. I’m a kind of shirttail cousin. Remotely related.”

I said I was glad to know him, which was a polite way of saying that I didn’t give a damn one way or another. The hall door opened, and Dulce Coon came in. She was wearing a simple black dress and had slipped her feet into soft-soled flats for comfort. Her dark hair, presumably just off the pillow, was still slightly tousled, as if she had done no more to repair it than comb it with her fingers. She didn’t offer me her hand, but neither did she seem to hold a grudge.

“How are you, Mr. Hand?” she said. “Marty, what are you doing here? I thought you had gone out.”

“I’ve been reading.” Martin Farmer lifted the book, still marked at his place with an index finger, as evidence. “Are you feeling better, Dulce?”

“Somewhat. Don’t worry about me, Marty. I’ll be all right.” She turned back to me. “I assume that you two have met.”

“Yes, we have.”

“In that case, what can I do for you? I thought that our business was ended.”

“Not very satisfactorily, I’m afraid. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. One can’t be called to account for every mistake. Did you come here just to apologize?”

“Partly. Not entirely.”

“Why, then?”

“You paid me a large fee for something I didn’t do. An excessive fee. If there’s anything I can do, I’d like to earn it.”

“There’s nothing to be done. Nothing at all.”

“This woman your husband was with. Myrna, you called her. I’ve been thinking that I might help to find her.”

“Surely the police have far greater facilities for that than you have. Let the police find her.”

“I have one advantage. I’ve seen her. I might recognize her if I saw her again.”

“It’s doubtful that you will see her again. It’s probable that she has run away. If so, the police will follow her, or have her picked up and returned, if they can find her trail. I don’t want to commit myself to anything that might interfere with their job.”

“The police and I have worked together before.”

“Please do as I say, Mr. Hand. I sent the police to you, and when you told them what you knew, you did all that was necessary. Now stay out of it.”

“Right. Thanks, anyhow, for seeing me.”

“Not at all. And now you must excuse me. I’ve had a difficult day, and I need to rest. Marty will show you out.”

She turned away and left the room, and Marty, minding the manners of a shirttail cousin, showed me out. He said goodbye at the front door, and I crossed the veranda and got into my car. I drove forward to the concrete apron, U-turned and came back down the drive, around the ellipse, and out the exit.

On the way downtown I decided that I might as well spend some time, just for luck, in the Normandy Lounge. I went there and crawled onto a stool at the bar. I ordered a beer from the same bartender who had drawn my beer yesterday. A television set on a high shelf behind the bar was alight and alive with the organized antics of a couple of college football teams, reminding me that it was Saturday. The teams took turns trying to move the ball, but the only time they moved it very far was when they kicked it.

“Another beer,” I said. The bartender drew it and served it. Bored by the game, his services temporarily unclaimed, he was ready for an ear to bend. Mine, being conspicuous, seemed to attract him.

“You been in the fight game?” he asked.

“Not I,” I said. “Things are rough enough.”

“Seems like I seen you before. A picture or something. Somewhere.”

“Maybe it was yesterday. I was in here.”

“Oh, sure. I knew I’d seen you somewhere. A guy don’t forget a face like yours. You’re no beauty, Mister. No offense meant.”

“None taken. I guess it’s true you remember the extremes. The uglies and the lovelies. Like that platinum-headed honey a couple of stools down.”

“Where? What lovely? Mister, you’re seeing things.”

“Not now. Yesterday.”

“Oh. That one. A doll. A sexpot. Plenty of class, though. You can always tell the ones with class.”

“That’s right. I could go for a woman like that. If I knew who she was I could work out a strategy.”

“Mister, if you don’t mind my saying so, you ain’t exactly the type.”

“You never know. Lots of lovelies go for uglies. You know her name?”

“Nix. We didn’t introduce ourselves.”

“She come in here often?”

“Never seen her before. Probably a guest in the hotel. Just someone passing through.”

“How about the man she was with?”

“Was she with a man? I never noticed.”

A customer down the bar held up his empty glass, and the bartender went to fill it. I helped myself to a handful of salted peanuts and left. Outside on the sidewalk, I ate the peanuts one by one while I tried to make up my mind if I should quit or give it one more try. One more try, I decided. Asking questions was a harmless diversion, unless I began to get some significant answers, and I had in mind the person to ask who would be most likely to have the answers.

I found her hunched over a typewriter in a blue fog, a cigarette, dripping smoke, hanging from a corner of her mouth. A pair of goggles was clinging to the end of her nose, and her red hair looked like it had recently been combed with an egg beater. She was wearing a sweater that fit her like a sweat shirt, and a skirt that she must have picked up at a rummage sale. I couldn’t see her legs, but it was ten to one that her seams were crooked. It would be a mistake, however, to jump to any rash conclusion.

If you looked behind the goggles, you could see a face worth looking for. Inside the ragbag were a hundred and ten pounds of pleasant surprises. If you wonder how I knew, you are free to speculate. I will only say that she was a lovely, however disguised, who had no aversion to uglies. When she chose to make the effort, after hours, she could knock your eye out. Her name was Henrietta Savage, Hetty for short, and she wrote a column concerning things about town. You know the kind of stuff. Mostly about the fun spots, and who’s doing what, where. It was innocuous enough, the kind of gossip that never goes to court, but in the process of gathering it Hetty had become a veritable morgue of interesting and enlightening items that had never seen print. She peered up at me over her goggles without appreciable enthusiasm, and the limp cigarette assumed a belligerent position.

“Don’t bother to sit down, Percy,” she said. “Go away. I’ll meet you in the bar across the street after five.”

“You’re an avaricious female,” I said. “How did you know I just got paid a fat fee?”

“Thanks for the confession. In that case, we’ll have dinner later and a night on the town.”

“Not unless you renovate yourself. I’ve got my reputation as a playboy to consider. Do you sleep in those clothes?”

“There’s a possibility that you may find out. In the meanwhile, goodbye. Go away. Wait for me in the bar.”

“I’m going, and I’ll wait. Right after you answer a couple of questions for me. Come on, Hetty. Dinner and the town for a couple of answers?”

“Maybe lobster?”

“Pick him out of the tank yourself.”

“What questions?”

“You know Benedict Coon III? That’s just preliminary. It doesn’t count.”

“Your tense is wrong. He’s dead. You’ll find the story on page one. Anyhow, I knew him, and make the next one count.”

“All right. Who was the blond he was playing footsie with?”

“Benny? Playing footsie? Percy, you’re libeling the dead.”

“Not I. I believe in ghosts. I saw them together only yesterday, in the Normandy Lounge. Just barely, of course. You have to strike a match in that place to see your watch.”

“You can buy a girl a drink without playing footsie. Maybe she was a cousin, or an old schoolmate or something.”

“I have other evidence. From the best of sources. Never mind that, though. The thing is, I can’t get any lead on her. I don’t know who she is, or even how to start looking for her.”

“Well, you won’t learn from me. Who asked you to look?”

“No one, I’m just practicing.”

“Go practice somewhere else. Damn it, Percy, I’m busy.”

“Her first name was Myrna. That much I know.”

“You know more than I. If there was another woman, I never saw her or heard of her. Benny must have been pretty cute about it.”

“What sort of fellow was he?”

“Solid citizen. Something of a do-gooder. Bit of a prude, as a matter of fact, which helps to account for my skepticism. I can’t quite imagine Benny among the primroses.”

“Oh, can it. Hasn’t anyone ever told you about the deacon and the soprano?”

“Tell me at dinner. Before you leave, however, here’s something else that makes me scoff. Benny had been taking very good care of himself for the past year or so. Bum heart. Hospitalized after an attack. Strict diet, early to bed — the routine. Benny’s hide was important to him. Gymnastics with a blond just doesn’t fit.”

“You never saw this blond. I did. The earlier to bed, the better.”

“Blonds are deceptive. Anyone can tell you that redheads are superior. Get lost, Percy. Go wait in the bar.”

I thought it would be worth a lobster, so I went and waited, and it was.

Who was Myrna? What was she? A blackmailer, presumably. A spook, apparently.

Whoever and whatever she was, where in the devil had she gone, and where was she now? So far as I could discover, she had simply disappeared like a puff of smoke. No one knew her full name, no one knew her address, no one could remember her in association with Benedict Coon, and no one except me and a bartender could remember her at all. It was frustrating, it was uncanny, and moreover, it was incredible. A woman like that was a woman to remember. The bartender had said so, and I say so.

I was like a kid with a riddle in his head. I couldn’t get it out, and I couldn’t solve it. I worked at it when I didn’t have something else to do, and I took it to bed with me at night, and I got nowhere from nothing.

Was it possible that Benedict Coon had killed her and disposed of her body, later killing himself in despair and fear and hopelessness? I was lying in bed when I had the thought, and it brought me straight up in the darkness. Then, jeering at myself silently, I lay down again. There is no suicide on record, so far as I know, who has shot himself in the back of the head and disposed of the gun afterward.

Perhaps the police had the answers. Perhaps, with all their facilities, they had gone somewhere while I was going nowhere. For the sake of my mental health, I decided to find out. The next day I went to police headquarters and found Brady Baldwin at a desk in a cubbyhole that may have covered a few more square feet than my reception room. If he was not exactly happy to see me, he was at least amiable.

“Sit down, Percy,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”

“Myrna,” I said.

“Mine, too.”

“You mean you haven’t got any leads yet?”

“Not a one.” He rubbed his naked skull and looked at me with an expression that was slightly sour. “As a matter of fact, I’m beginning to suspect that in your mind is the only place she ever was. How many martinis had you drunk, Percy?”

“I hadn’t drunk any. I had a couple of beers. Brady, I saw her. She was there. She met Benedict Coon, and she left with him.”

“All right, Percy, all right.” He spread his hands and raised his brows. “But where is she now?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“You sure you’ve checked all possibilities?”

“All stations. Air, train, bus. Hotels, motels, apartment houses. The county boys have run all over the area trying to find someone who saw her walking, gave her a lift, anything at all. We can’t go everywhere and check everything and ask everyone, but there’s more. Shall I go on?”

“Sorry, Brady. I’m just frustrated. How far out was the car when it was found?”

“Not far; just far enough to put it in county jurisdiction. The state troopers are giving an assist out there. Benedict Coon, like I told you, was behind the wheel. Slumped against the door. His head had fallen forward. He hadn’t bled much, a little seepage into his hair around the wound, that’s all. This has been in the papers, Percy.”

“I know. I just want it from you. When was he killed?”

“It must have been pretty soon after you lost them. The coroner says sometime between two and five. You know how those guys are. Try to box them into an hour, say, and they’re slippery as a meteorologist. Thanks to you, we know that it was well after three. Probably past four.”

“The paper said he was found by a real-estate agent.”

“True. He happens to own the land beyond that dead-end road. He plans to push the road on through and finance an addition. He and a contractor had gone out to look the situation over.”

“I can’t quite locate the place. Where will the road come out when it’s finished?”

“It won’t actually come out anywhere. It’ll dead-end again, against the rear of the Cedarvale Country Club golf course. The addition’s projected for the upper brackets. As a matter of fact, Benedict Coon was a member of that club. Mrs. Coon was there the afternoon he was killed. She’d gone out to play golf with Martin Farmer, a family connection, and they stayed on for drinks and dinner in the bar. It was a clear day, you’ll remember, after a rainy one.”

“Is that where she was? I wondered. I tried to call her and couldn’t get her.”

“That’s where. We checked it out just as a matter of routine. They were seen on the course and in the bar, and Farmer’s car was seen in the parking area. It’s a late model. There’s a kid who works around the area, trimming the shrubs and controlling the litter, and he remembers the car particularly, because it had a full house.”

“Full house?”

“Like in poker. On the license plate. This kid’s sort of simple, and he amuses himself by trying to find the highest hand on the plates. Farmer’s has three sixes and a pair of treys. It was his car, all right. Registry verifies it.”

“Well, that’s good work, neat and conclusive, but it doesn’t get us any closer to Myrna.”

“Forget Myrna, Percy. She’s our problem. We’re working on it, and we don’t need you getting in the way.”

“Thanks.” Knowing when I’d been dismissed, I stood up to leave.

I went away, and with the help of several distractions I was able to keep Myrna pretty well confined to a dark closet at the back of my mind until that night when I was home in bed. Then she got out and began to make a nuisance of herself. I tried deliberately to think of someone else in her place, namely Hetty, but it didn’t work. Lying on my back and staring up into the darkness, I let her prowl my mind without restrictions, and she began to repeat her performance in the Normandy Lounge, the whole sequence of action; I saw her crawl onto the stool, saw her lift a martini glass toward a face that was a shadow in a dark mirror, and then, all at once she was walking swiftly across the hotel lobby beside Benedict Coon, and I could see the back of her. No more.

No more? Well, not quite. I could also hear her. I could hear the staccato rhythm of her spike heels on terrazzo, and I could hear at the same time, like an echo, a fainter, farther sound. Not another sound, but the same sound at a different time, and in a different place. The different time was a rainy afternoon not long ago, and the different place was the hall outside my office. There is a distinctive quality to the rhythm and cadence of a person’s walk, if only you have the big sharp ears to pick it up, and I was ready to back my ears with odds that the person walking down the hall was the same person walking across the terrazzo floor.

Why? I asked myself the question with my breath caught in my throat and the short hair rising on the back of my neck. Why should Dulce Coon, wearing a blond wig and spike heels and Hollywood goggles and superimposed sex, meet her own husband in a downtown bar?

Well, that was easy enough to answer. Lots of wives met lots of husbands in various places for various reasons. As for the wig, women who could afford them were wearing them nowadays like hats. They changed hair with their mood and their dress.

What was more pertinent, why had she lied about a blackmailer who had probably never existed, and why had she deliberately arranged for a certain Percy Hand to witness a phony meeting in a shadowy lounge that had surely been carefully chosen for that reason?

That was a two-part question, and the answer to the first part was obvious even to me. She had simply wanted to plant a red herring, a blond bomb to divert suspicion from where it might otherwise have been directed. The answer to the second part was also clearly implied, and the implication was that Percy Hand, plying his trade in a side street with most of the trappings of failure and few of success, was a made-to-order sucker for a clever woman with murder on her mind. I didn’t like the idea, but there it was, and it annoyed me considerably.

But wait a minute. Dulce Coon had been at the Cedarvale Country Club. She had been playing golf and drinking drinks and eating early dinner with her shirttail cousin. There were witnesses who said so, and the witnesses had satisfied Brady Baldwin, who was a hard man to satisfy. Could I be wrong? Had old Percy’s big ears and little brain collaborated to lead him astray? Well, it was entirely possible. It had been done before. But still, lying there in bed and listening again to the sound of a woman walking, allowing for the differences in flats and spikes and wood and stone, I had a grim conviction that it was, in both times and places, no one but Dulce Coon.

Then another gorgeous idea bloomed all at once in my little hothouse brain. Not really an idea, though. It was more the remembrance of a minor observation that suddenly assumed a significant relationship to a scrap of information. Maybe it meant something, and maybe it didn’t. But it brought me up and reaching out into darkness for the phone, and I dialed in darkness a number that I knew by heart and touch. At the other end of the line, another phone rang and rang, and I kept hanging on and on. Eventually a blurred and cranky voice broke in.

“Wrong number,” the voice said. “Get off the line.”

“Wait a minute, Hetty,” I said. “Don’t hang up.”

“Who’s this? It sounds like Percy, but I don’t believe it.”

“Percy’s who.”

“Damn it, Percy, it’s almost three o’clock in the morning.”

“Hetty, I just want to ask you a simple question.”

“The answer is no. I’m too young, and you’re too poor. It wouldn’t work out.”

“As you say. Now, will you answer my question?”

“You haven’t asked it yet. How can I answer it if you won’t ask it?”

“Here it is. What kind of heart trouble did Benedict Coon have?”

“How would I know? Is there more than one kind?”

“According to the best authorities, there are several. Could you find out for me?”

“If properly motivated.”

“Bribed, you mean. What’s the tariff?”

“Another dinner?”

“In the immediate future.”

“Agreed. First thing in the morning. I’ve got connections at the hospital.”

“Call me at my office.”

“Just as soon as I know.”

She hung up, and so did I. I smoked three cigarettes and lay down again. I was wide awake, and it was three years till daylight. There was another phone call I wanted to make, but I decided I’d better wait. Brady Baldwin, waked in the night, would be even meaner than Hetty, and he was not, moreover, susceptible to bribes.

The next morning I was in my office with my feet up when the phone rang, and Hetty was back. True to her word, motivated by a steak, she had found my answer, and it was the answer I wanted. Luck, after running bad, was beginning to run good. It looked like the end of a long, dry spell.

I dialed police headquarters. After preliminaries with the switchboard, I got Brady Baldwin in Homicide.

“Hello, Percy,” he said. “No news.”

“I called to give, not to receive. It’s more blessed, supposedly. In brief, I’ve found her.”

The line hummed, and I listened to it hum. Brady was still there at the other end, but he wasn’t talking at the moment. I only hoped that I hadn’t talked too soon and too much.

“Excuse me, Percy. We must have a bad connection. I thought you said you’d found her.”

“I did, and I have.”

“Where?”

“Sitting in my lap.”

“Don’t be a cutie, Percy. Give it to me straight and quick.”

“Not now. Later.”

“Better not play games with your license. You might lose it.”

“No games, Brady. I could be wrong, and I have to be sure. Will you do me a favor?”

“Why should I?”

“You’ll be doing one for yourself, too.”

“That’s different. What favor?”

“Do you still have Benedict Coon’s car in custody?”

“We do, but we’re ready to release it.”

“What have you done to it?”

“The usual. We’ve taken photographs. We’ve lifted prints. We’ve vacuumed it and run tests. Nothing that’s got us much of anywhere.”

“Back seat, too?”

“Sure. We’re not dummies, Percy. Coon was shot in the back of the head. It could have been done by a third party hiding on the floor in the rear. It’s conceivable.”

“How about the trunk?”

“Why waste time? How could he have been shot from the trunk?”

“Run tests on the trunk, Brady. That’s the favor.”

“Maybe you’d better come clean with whatever’s in your mind.”

“I said later, Brady, and that’s when it’ll have to be. Goodbye, now.”

To avoid threats and recriminations and other forms of unpleasantry, I hung up, grabbed my hat, and got out of the office before he could call me back. I got in my clunker and headed east, and in due time I was rattling up the drive to the Cedarvale Country Club, which was not a place I ordinarily went or was welcome.

There were a dozen late vintage automobiles in the parking area. It was a clear day, chilly but still abnormally mild for the time of year, and I could see a few golf bugs scattered over the rolling course. In front of the clubhouse, using a pair of long-handled clippers on a juniper bush, was an angular specimen with an expression of contented idiocy on his face. He looked to me like the kind who might entertain himself by playing poker with license plates, so I wandered over and said that it was certainly a nice day, late in the year as it was, and he agreed. I said it was a good day for golf, and he didn’t deny it. I asked him if a lot of members were still playing, and he said there were quite a few.

“You a member?” he asked.

“No, I’m a cop.”

I didn’t bother to distinguish between cops private, and cops public, and he didn’t require me to make the distinction.

“There was a cop here the other day,” he said. “He was asking about Mrs. Coon and Mr. Farmer.”

“I know. You have to ask about things like that, just to keep the record straight. You know how it is with murder. It’s important to find out where everyone was at certain times.”

“Well, Mrs. Coon and Mr. Farmer were right here, and I said so.”

“Did you see them?”

“Not them. His car. It was parked up here, and I remember it because it had a full house. Highest hand in the lot at the time. I play poker with myself, sort of, with license plates.”

“So I’ve heard. Didn’t you see them when they left?”

“They didn’t leave. Not while I was here, I mean. Other people saw them, though. They came in off the course about four o’clock, something like that, and they hung around in the bar and had dinner before they left. I quit at five.”

“When did they arrive and park the car?”

“I wouldn’t exactly know. About eleven, I had to go down to the caretaker’s shed for a tool I needed, and the car was here when I got back.”

“How long did you stay at the caretaker’s shed?”

“Well, I got to talking with a fellow there, and it was quite awhile. Half an hour, at least. A lot of other cars had come in, and the lot was pretty well filled. There was a luncheon in the clubhouse that day.”

“I see. So the car was here soon after eleven, say. Mrs. Coon and Farmer came off the course about four. I’d call that a long game of golf.”

“They must have practiced before they started to play.”

“That,” I said, “is just what I’m thinking.”

I left him in his juniper patch and went away. I should have gone directly to police headquarters, but I didn’t, and the reason I didn’t had something to do with earning a fee, and something more to do with injured pride or vanity or what you will. I went, instead, to 15 Corning Place, and I was intercepted at the door by the same maid as before, who went, as before, to see if Mrs. Coon would see me.

I waited in the hall for the maid to come back, but she didn’t come. In her place, after awhile, Martin Farmer came, the shirttail cousin. He was superficially polite, but I could tell that I was considered a nuisance. Mrs. Coon, he said, wasn’t seeing anyone. Mrs. Coon wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t be disturbed.

“That’s too bad,” I said. “Give my sympathy to Mrs. Coon, and tell her that Mr. Hand has important information that compels him to insist.”

“Oh? Perhaps, if you were to tell me, I could relay the information to Mrs. Coon later.”

It was a touchy point in our negotiations, and for a moment it seemed questionable whether I would get a concession or a polite bum’s rush. Martin Farmer hesitated, considering the alternatives, then he shrugged and conceded.

“I’ll see,” he said. “Please wait in the library. You know the way.”

I went to the library. I waited. After about five minutes had passed, Dulce Coon came into the library with her shirttail close behind her. Martin Farmer, that is. He stopped near the door. She came on and stopped a step or two away. This time she was wearing a white blouse and tight black pants. Her feet, bare, were thrust into flat sandals that were no more than thin soles with narrow straps attached. She was annoyed, to say the least, and she clearly was determined to make short work of me.

“Mr. Hand,” she said, “I thought I made it clear that our relationship had ended. Why have you come here again?”

“I’m here,” I said, “to tell you that I’ve found Myrna. I thought you’d want to know.”

There was a moment of silence in which no one moved or breathed. Then Martin Farmer stirred suddenly by the door, but I didn’t look at him. I kept looking at Dulce Coon. Crimson spots had begun to burn in her cheeks, and her eyes glittered behind heavy lashes. Her lips moved soundlessly and were quickly still, as if she had been about to protest an impossible claim, Myrna being a myth. But this would have been a bad mistake, and she caught the mistake in time.

“Where?” she said.

“Where I least expected her.”

“Don’t be evasive, Mr. Hand. Who is she?”

“You. You’re Myrna, Mrs. Coon.”

“And you’re insane.” She laughed harshly, and her voice dripped scorn. “It’s apparent that I made a mistake in coming to you in the first place.”

“You made a mistake, all right, and your mistake was in taking me for more of a fool than I was. Once you had decided just how to kill your husband, you needed a witness to establish the existence of a murderess who didn’t exist. Someone not very clever. Not nearly as clever as you, for example. I don’t know just how you happened to pick on me, but I’m sorry that I couldn’t accommodate you.”

“Are you less of a fool than I thought? Clearly, you are even more of one.”

“Let him talk, Dulce.” The voice was Martin Farmer’s, coming from the door, and it possessed a quality of silken amusement that warned me, suddenly, that I was listening to a dangerous man. “Even a fool can recognize foolishness if he hears enough of it.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate the opportunity to hang myself. Never mind how I finally tumbled to the fact that you were Myrna, Mrs. Coon. It took me long enough, and I’m not proud of it. Spike heels for added height, being careful at all other times to let me see you only in flats. A blond wig which can, incidentally, be traced, now that we know it was yours. Not only did it have to be bought, it also had to be dressed, and it will be only a matter of time until the police learn who sold it and who dressed it. For the big performance, a calculated emphasis of sex, which for you was easy. More than all this, dark glasses and a dark lounge and every precaution to prevent my getting a good look at you. Your face was always in shadows and turned away. When you left, you left quickly, exposing only your back in the light outside. Unfortunately for you, my ears are better than my eyes.”

“What absurd thing is that supposed to mean?”

“Trade secret. I’ll keep it, if you don’t mind. Anyhow, once I knew it was you in the lounge, I could see that the whole show was phony. For example, you told me that you learned about Myrna by overhearing on an extension a conversation she had with your husband. In this house, there are surely several telephones, most of them without extensions. Why would your husband have received a call from a blackmailer on a phone which offered even the slightest opportunity for eavesdropping to a third person? I don’t think he would have.”

“This is really incredible. If it weren’t so libelous, I might find it amusing.” Her voice was still harsh, however soft, and the blood still burned in her cheeks. She was possessed, I thought, by a kind of unholy excitement. “Now that you have decided that I devised this elaborate hoax, perhaps you will tell me why I wanted to murder my husband.”

“You tell me. Money? That was part of it, I suspect. Money, and the man who helped you murder him.”

“So now there is a man involved. What man, please?”

“The man you met in the Normandy Lounge. Martin Farmer.”

“This is getting more and more absurd. You are insane, aren’t you? I thought all the time that I was presumed to have met my husband there.”

“That’s what I was expected to presume, that the man in the lounge was your husband. But he wasn’t. He was Martin Farmer. Your shirttail cousin. His term, not mine. He had only to exercise the same care that you did to get away with it. Wear the clothes you said your husband would wear. Keep his face obscured in the shadows. He has about the height, the right weight, the right color hair. Everything but the right name and the wife.”

“But my husband was murdered. Remember? Where, exactly does he fit in?”

“He fits in the trunk. The gray sedan’s trunk. He was killed here, in this house, sometime around two o’clock in the afternoon, late enough to satisfy the estimate of time of death, which allowed considerable latitude. After losing me in the traffic, you drove out, put him behind the wheel, and left him where he was later found.”

“You’re ignoring something, aren’t you?” It was Martin Farmer again, and I turned to look at him. There was an air of indolence about him, and he was smiling faintly, but his eyes were cold and wary. “Dulce and I were at the Country Club. We played golf and had drinks and dinner. We were seen by a dozen people who remember.”

“No.” I shook my head and began to wonder, now that I was almost finished, if I could ever get out alive. “Your alibi is the most precarious bit of all. To have a car handy, you drove your car out to the club before noon and left it in the parking area. But you didn’t stay. I imagine that Mrs. Coon followed you and brought you back here, where you had work to do, having arranged in advance for the necessary privacy in which to do it. You know the work I mean. Your golf bags were put into the sedan, along with a change of clothing. After parking Coon’s car on that dead-end road, it was a simple matter to change, and pack into the golf bags that you carried away with you the clothes you removed. It was only a matter of minutes to cross that undeveloped land between the end of the road and the back of the golf course. Risky, of course, but you were ready to take the risk, and you made it. Then you came on into the clubhouse, a pair of innocent golfers with a car to ride home in, and witnesses to testify for you. But I can’t remember anyone’s saying that you were seen before coming off the course. It was simply assumed that you had been playing. Brady Baldwin’s a smart cop, and he’ll be interested in that.”

“This is very interesting speculation,” Dulce Coon said. “Even rather clever. I advise you, however, not to repeat it. It’s actionable, you know, and you would have to account to my lawyer.”

“I predict that you will have to account to a lawyer yourself. The prosecuting attorney, I mean. Don’t forget that the gray sedan is still in custody. The police lab is working over the trunk right now, and you can lay odds that they’ll find something to show that your husband took a ride in it — a thread, a scraping of skin, a hair or two, a smear of blood, something. It’s miraculous, the things that can be done in labs these days. Brady will be along after awhile. You can depend on it. In the meanwhile, since you brought your lawyer into this, I’d recommend calling him early.”

I had started moving toward the door, and I kept on moving, and no one tried to stop me. I slipped past the shirttail cousin and out and away.

At least, I thought, I had finally earned my fee.

At dinner, we were three. I was there, and Hetty was there, and Brady Baldwin was there. Brady was included because he had finished the case and earned a dinner, and because I was feeling expansive. Three assorted fiddles and a piano made music, and it was, altogether, very fancy and satisfying. After dinner, Brady’s ulcer began to bother him a little.

“I’ve got to go home and take something,” he said, “and so I’d better humor you immediately and have it over with. I’ll admit you acted practically like a genius in this business, once you got going, but there’s one thing that must have been pure boneheaded luck, a wild guess, at best. How did you tumble to the fact that it was Martin Farmer that Dulce Coon met in that bar? Maybe it wasn’t even a guess, though. Maybe, when you met Farmer later, you simply recognized him.”

“Nothing of the sort. Brady, don’t try to belittle me. There was a strong resemblance between Farmer and Coon, and I never got a good enough look to see any difference. Farmer saw to it that I didn’t. So far as I knew, it was Benedict Coon at the bar, and Benedict Coon who left with his wife. It was only later that I learned something that convinced me that it was really someone else. Under the circumstances, the shirttail cousin, being suspiciously handy, was indicated.”

“All right, I’ll bite. What did you learn?”

“Thanks to Hetty, I learned that Benedict Coon had a serious heart condition. Not that he couldn’t have lived for a long time, too long to suit our Dulce, apparently. Especially since, according to reports, he stuck strictly to his diet and took damn good care of himself.”

“Come off it, Percy. You can’t tell that a man has heart trouble just by looking at him. You trying to tell me that the man at the bar looked like he didn’t have heart trouble?”

“It wasn’t how he looked. It was what he did. Hetty checked it out for me, and she reported that Benedict Coon’s specific heart condition was something called cardiorenal disease. People who have it are put on a very strict salt-free diet. And the man at the bar, all the time he was waiting, kept eating salted peanuts.”

Hetty was drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette, and looking at me through the smoke with a very promising expression.

“Isn’t he remarkable? You said it yourself, Brady. Practically a genius, you said. It makes me all over prickly just to know him.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Brady shoved back his chair and stood up and looked down at me sourly. “Good night, Hetty. Good night, Genius. Thanks for the dinner. I’m going home to bed.”

“In good time,” said Hetty, “so are we.”

The Capsule

Originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, December 1964.

Nearly three hatred-filled years had passed, postmortem, before Alvin Dudley had an opportunity to kill Carter Malin. The opportunity, when it came, was not the result of any deliberate manifestation of initiative on Alvin’s part. Although his motive was vengeance and his hatred deep, it was not in his character to take positive action. Where other men might have pursued, Alvin merely waited.

He lived alone in a modest house in an unpretentious neighborhood. Six days a week he left for work promptly at seven-thirty in the morning, and returned just as promptly at five-thirty in the evening. He prepared most of his own meals, dining out rarely, and once a week he had a woman in for eight hours to clean and do his laundry. He was admired and respected by folk who knew his history. He was respected for his restraint. He was admired for his quiet courage.

Alvin had not always lived alone. Once, for a couple of years, he had shared the modest house with a wife. Her name was Wanda, and Alvin acquired her in what he considered at the time to be an incredible stroke of good luck.

It didn’t quite turn out that way, but Alvin was deceived by one element of reality that obscured all the others. The truth was, Wanda was stupid, and she had the morals of a mink. She didn’t even have the brains to exploit her remarkable physical assets, which was the only reason for her choice of Alvin. She could have done much better in the first place, and she could have done better, shortly thereafter, when she transferred her affections to Carter Malin.

Alvin was aware of his deficiencies, and he was properly grateful and humble. He had never expected to establish an exclusive claim to so much smoldering beauty.

And, to be exact, he never did.

Wanda was restless, and Alvin was understanding. He pampered her shamelessly and was paid off in unconcealed contempt. It was not long before she was making short trips to Kansas City once a month to alleviate her unrest, and to patronize the department stores. Alvin, who stayed at home, thought the change in environment did her good, and there were brief periods after each return when her tongue seemed to lose its sharpness and he was convinced he had not been mistaken.

However, the trips were soon lasting longer, and the bills from the Kansas City department stores kept getting bigger. Wanda was sometimes away for a week at a time, and the day arrived, of course, when she did not return at all.

Alvin received a letter which he showed to no one. The spelling was atrocious, but the meaning was unmistakably clear. It was written on a crisp sheet of stationery bearing the impressive crest of a Kansas City apartment-hotel, and it said in effect that Wanda had found her true love at last, a prosperous cosmetic salesman named Carter Malin, and had taken up quarters with him at the above address. Alvin was welcome to a divorce, and Wanda was sure that he would understand.

The implication was plain that he could, if he didn’t, go jump over a stump. Wanda’s candor was perhaps as much a manifestation of her stupidity as it was of an easily understandable desire to flaunt her improved status. But Alvin, being what he was, ascribed it to a basic integrity of character that would have been derided by almost anyone else in Wanda’s world, including Wanda herself.

He was terribly unhappy and quietly desperate. He considered going after Wanda and pleading with her to return, but he was too much in dread of her certain scorn. He even thought of buying a gun and going after Malin. But he lacked sufficient confidence in himself to resort to that kind of violence and had no stomach for the mess it would be certain to create. He did not, moreover, want to do anything to hurt Wanda.

In the end, he made a surreptitious trip to Kansas City and lurked about the apartment hotel until he saw Wanda and Malin together. Wanda looked smart and happy, even euphoric, and it was evident that “living in sin” was doing her no harm. Unseen and unheard, Alvin retreated, returned to his home and took up his routine.

He kept hoping that Wanda would eventually return, and he was prepared to receive her without recriminations if she did. But she didn’t. When Alvin heard of her again, six months later, she was dead. Discarded by Carter Malin, she had, in the hoary tradition of melodrama, taken a handful of barbiturates and fallen into a fatal sleep.

Even Alvin’s delusions had their limitations, and he had the wayward thought that her death was undoubtedly more of an accident than a suicide. She had made a gesture to frighten her lover, and had simply, through stupidity, taken too many pills. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was dead. She was dead, and Carter Malin was responsible.

Alvin claimed her body and brought her home and gave her a decent burial in a double cemetery plot, the other half of which was reserved for himself. Afterward, with no demonstration of the grief and hatred he felt, he made the adjustments necessary to a widower and went on living.

He took only one small step in the direction of vengeance. He purchased a few empty gelatin capsules and some cyanide salts. The purchase of the deadly poison was made openly, and he signed a register without hesitation, offering a plausible explanation of the purchase as he did so. There was no suspicion in the druggist’s eyes.

At home, he filled one of the capsules with salts, and thereafter he carried it with him at all times, just as he carried his keys and his loose coins. When he went to bed at night, he put it on the dresser with the other items, and when he dressed in the morning he tucked it away securely into the watch pocket of his trousers.

Although his friends and neighbors didn’t realize it, he was a man with a mission, and his mission was to kill Carter Malin. It was contrary to his nature to hunt Malin down, but he had an unreasonable conviction that the time would come when he and Malin would meet in circumstances exactly right for murder. Or justice, as he preferred to call it.

After all, Kansas City was not far away, and sooner or later Malin was certain to show up. Perhaps his sales area would be expanded to include this town. Perhaps he would merely stop off on his way through. Perhaps — any number of things. For whatever reason, he would surely come, and in the meanwhile Alvin was prepared and waiting. His position, in short, was a compromise between what he was and what he thought he should be. His great advantage was that Malin had never seen him and wouldn’t recognize him.

And so he waited. And sure enough, nearly three years later, Malin came. Alvin recognized him immediately, but there was no sign of it except the sudden barely discernible throbbing of a pulse in his throat. Malin was as natty and handsome as he had been when Alvin had seen him with Wanda in Kansas City. If he suffered from remorse for Wanda’s fate, it was not apparent. In fact, his appearance of well-being was marred only by the shadow of a twenty-four-hour beard.

Alvin calmly finished the job he was doing, and then turned away. He drew some water into a paper cup. Removing the cyanide capsule from his watch pocket, he swallowed it with the water. There! It was done. In ten minutes he would be beyond the reach of temporal retribution. Any other kind he was willing to risk.

Turning back toward Carter Malin, he bowed slightly with just a touch of deference, holding his tonsorial bib aside like the cape of a matador.

“Next,” he said.

The Tool

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, December 1964.

From his country home, half-hidden in a grove of maples some five hundred yards away, Gavin Brander came across the intervening fields to visit his neighbors, the Singers. To be exact, it was Stella Singer and her daughter, Nettie, that he came to see, although he was prepared to tolerate Cory Singer also, if he happened to be around. Brander was a tall, slender man with the graceful carriage of an excellent tennis player, which he was. It was just after three o’clock when he left for the Singer home, and he hoped that he was not so early that he would be kept waiting for a cocktail.

He approached the house through an old orchard of cherry and apple trees that still bore blossoms in the spring, and fruit in the fall. Under one of the apple trees, a few feet from the fence he had just vaulted, he came upon Nettie. She was sitting on the ground with her back against the tree trunk, and she was eating a green apple on which, before taking each bite, she sprinkled salt from a cellar that she held in her right hand. Her brown hair was so rich and thick that it seemed almost too heavy for her small head and the delicate neck that supported it, and she had a serene golden face that was, apparently, forever brooding pleasantly over some inner cache of warm secrets. She did not speak as he approached, and he stopped and looked down at her with an expression of indulgent affection. Sunlight filtered through the leaves overhead to dapple her white shirt and soiled jeans.

“You know,” he said, “you are going to have the most awful bellyache. Better throw that away.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “Green apples never make me sick.”

“That’s rather incredible. It makes me feel squeamish just to watch you.”

“It’s just a foolish notion people have about them. In my opinion, green apples are good for you. In moderation, of course.”

“Perhaps it’s the salt. Do you think so?”

“I doubt it. The salt makes them taste better, that’s all. Would you care to try one? I’ll loan you my salt if you would.”

“No, thank you. I don’t believe I’ll risk it. Why are you sitting out here in the orchard?”

“I was waiting for you.”

“For me? That’s very flattering, I must say. I should think, however, that you could have waited at the house.”

“Mother’s at the house, and I wanted to see you alone.”

This was in precise conformity with his own wishes. Although he had come to see both mother and daughter, he preferred, for his own reasons, to see them separately. Now, balanced on his toes, he sat down easily on his heels.

“What did you want to see me about?”

She salted the green apple and took a bite. Her heavy hair fell forward, shadowing her eyes, and he was a little startled by the glint of malice that darted out of the shadows.

“Thanks to you,” she said, “things have become very difficult in our family.”

“Is that so? I’m sorry. In what way?”

“Cory doesn’t like me. He’s afraid of me, I think. He wants to send me away to school in September.”

“It’s absurd for a grown man to be afraid of a young girl. What makes you think he is?”

“Because I hate him, and he knows it. I wish he were dead.”

“How do you know he wants to send you away to school? Has he discussed it with you?”

“No. He’s only discussed it with Mother, but I overheard them talking.”

“That was lucky for you, wasn’t it? Now you know what to expect.”

Her eyes, in the shadow of her hair, were bright for an instant with an expression of sly amusement.

“It isn’t difficult to hear and see things if you know how to go about it. I’ve listened to Mother and Cory talking lots of times.”

“Oh?” He stared at her hard with a sudden feeling of uneasiness that he disguised with the lightness of his voice. “I suppose you’ve also heard your mother and me talking lots of times?”

“Whenever I felt like it. Sometimes I listened and watched both.”

“You’ve acquired some atrocious habits, my dear. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that spying is bad manners?”

“It’s often useful. You learn things.”

“I dare say. What have you learned about your mother and me, for example?”

“Oh, that’s plain enough. You’re in love with each other, of course. You always kiss when Cory isn’t there.”

“That’s nothing. Nowadays, kissing is a casual form of greeting between good friends.”

“Not the way you and Mother do it.”

“You’re quite a clever girl, aren’t you?”

“I’m extremely intelligent. Cory wants to send me to a school for gifted students.”

“Would you like that?”

“No, I’ll refuse to go.”

“How does your mother feel about it?”

“She thinks I ought to wait another year. She and Cory had an argument about it. She said he just wants to get rid of me.”

“Does Cory suspect your mother and me? Is that what you meant by saying I’ve made things difficult? I certainly didn’t mean to.”

“No, no. Cory’s very dull about such things. He doesn’t see what’s under his own nose.”

“Perhaps he’s not as good at spying as you are.”

“He’s not as good at anything as I am. Things are difficult because of the tension, and you have caused it by the advice you have given me.”

“I’ve only tried to help. It would be much nicer for everyone wouldn’t it, if Cory would simply give up and go away? Divorces are quite easily obtained these days.”

“Well, I’ve tried my best to make him go, but all it has done is create bad feeling between him and Mother. They are always at odds about me.”

“What have you done? I may be able to suggest something more.”

“I’ve taken every opportunity to express my hostility, that’s all. I even threatened to kill him.”

“Such threats from young girls are not to be taken seriously. I imagine he simply discounted it.”

“Do you? I don’t. He was quite disturbed about it. Later, I heard him asking Mother if she didn’t think I should see a psychiatrist, but Mother wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Good for your mother. You can always depend on her to defend you. Nevertheless, however disturbed Cory was, I’ll bet the threat would have been more effective if you had done something to support it.”

“Done what? I don’t want to get myself into serious trouble, you know.”

“Of course not. I was just thinking of a kind of trick. A clever girl like you should be able to devise something.”

“It shouldn’t be difficult. It really doesn’t take much to upset Cory. He’s a worrier.”

“Not without cause, I can see. I happen to know a few tricks myself, in case you’re interested. I don’t think I’d better engage in a conspiracy with you, however.”

“Why not? It would be our secret.”

“Well, I’ll think about it, but I’m sure that you will think of something better yourself.”

She finished her apple, and now she threw away the core and balanced the salt cellar on one knee, which she had drawn up in front of her. Her eyes were bright with excitement, but at the same time they seemed to retain an analytical detachment that survived excitement or anger or any emotion whatever.

“You want me to make Cory leave Mother, don’t you? That will make it possible for Mother to get an enormous settlement that will make everything much better when you marry her later. You are planning to marry Mother, aren’t you?”

“How would you feel about it?” He suddenly felt something himself that was very close to fear. “If you hate Cory for marrying your mother, wouldn’t you hate me as much?”

“Not at all.” She laughed and snatched the salt cellar from her knee and shook her hair back from her eyes. “You’re different from Cory. It might be quite entertaining to have you in the family.”

“I’m glad you think so.” He arose from his heels and settled his feet flat on the soft earth. “Keep me posted on developments, will you?”

“Yes, I shall.” She laughed again with a kind of childish delight, anticipating a trick on Cory. “And now you had better go up to the house and see Mother. Cory isn’t home, so you don’t have to worry. No one will see you kiss her. Not even me.”

He found Stella at the rear of the house, in a sunny room with sliding glass doors that opened onto a wide terrace of colored flagstones. She was standing at the doors looking out across the terrace. She turned, hearing him behind her, and started toward him. She was wearing a white sheath and white sandals, and her skin had been exposed to the sun in controlled baths that had given it the shade and sheen of butterscotch candy. She was holding a cigarette in one hand and in the other, he was happy to see, a thin-stemmed glass with an olive in it. No one saw him kiss her. Not even Nettie.

“Darling,” she said, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“My ego is greatly stimulated, I must say. You are the second beautiful woman who has told me that within the last half hour.”

“I’m jealous of the other one.”

“You needn’t be. I’ve been talking with your precocious daughter in the orchard.”

“Nettie? The girl’s becoming quite impossible. What on earth was she doing in the orchard?”

“As I said, waiting for me. Also eating a green apple.”

“Nettie likes you, I think, and it’s rarely that she likes anyone at all. It must be your irresistible charm. I’m having an early martini. Will you have one?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“They’re in the pitcher on the table there. I remembered the ratio exactly. Four to one.”

“Good. Will you have another one with me?”

“Later, darling. Four-to-one martinis shouldn’t be rushed, especially when they get an early start.”

“You’re right. They are good for you, like green apples, in moderation. If you doubt me, ask Nettie. She’s my authority.”

She sat down on a white leather sofa, drawing her legs up under her, while he went to the table and poured a martini from the pitcher. After adding an olive, he went and sat beside her on the sofa, half-turned to face her directly.

“What did Nettie want, exactly?” she asked.

“I got the impression that she wanted to accuse me of making things difficult in your little family.”

“That’s absurd. Cory doesn’t suspect a thing. You’re just a good neighbor, darling.”

“Oh, it apparently has nothing to do with you and me. It’s strictly between Cory and Nettie. She hates him, you know.”

“I know. But how are you involved?”

“I’m not really. Nettie only thinks I am. She has a wild notion that I have somehow contributed to the hostility.”

“I’ve sometimes felt myself that you incite Nettie to be a little more intractable than she might otherwise be.”

“Not intentionally, I assure you. If I’m an innocent but unfortunate catalyst of some kind, perhaps the solution would be for me to stay away. Is that what you want?”

“No. I couldn’t bear that. The truth is, I should never have married Cory.”

“Of course you shouldn’t have. You should have waited and married me.”

“Darling, I hope you don’t mind being next.”

“Not I. I’m planning on it. First, however, there’s the small matter of a divorce. Preferably obtained by you on favorable grounds.”

She leaned over and kissed him, and he patted one of her exposed butterscotch knees and continued to cup it intimately in his hand after the kiss was finished.

“I don’t think that will be a prolonged problem,” she said. “Nettie’s taking care of it.”

“Is the feeling between Nettie and Cory actually so strong?”

“Stronger. She hates him intensely, and he, for his part, is afraid of her.”

“Afraid of a child? You must be exaggerating.”

“I’m not. She threatened to kill him the other night.”

“When I was a kid, as I recall, I threatened to kill several people at various times. It’s merely a manner of expression.”

“Nettie is no ordinary child. If she made her threats in a fit of hysterical anger, you could discount them. But she doesn’t. She is perfectly calm and deadly. It’s quite frightening, really, and I can’t say that I blame Cory for being impressed. He wants to send her off to school.”

“Will you permit it?”

“No. Cory and I have had an ugly scene about it.”

“I still say that there’s something ludicrous about a man being afraid of a young girl.”

“Nevertheless, the relationship between them has become almost intolerable. Be patient a little longer, darling. Nettie will solve our problem for us in good time.”

“You think she’ll force a separation?”

“Yes. And a divorce will follow. No one can blame a mother for refusing to desert her child.”

“Where is Cory now?”

“He drove into the village. He should be back any moment.”

“Too bad. I was hoping for a little more free time. Oh, well, everything in its own time and place, I suppose. How about another martini now?”

She held out her glass, and he carried it and his over to the table. Bending slightly over the pitcher as he poured, his eyes had a speculative expression, as if he were considering an idea hitherto neglected.

There was a knock on the door of her room, and Stella, without turning away from her reflection in the mirror of her dressing table, called out an invitation to enter. In the glass, she watched the door open and Cory come in. He closed the door and leaned against it, both hands clutching the knob behind him. He was a small man with fine blond hair brushed neatly from the side across a thin spot on the crown. In her year of marriage to him, Stella had learned that he was, although generous and kind, a man of precarious disposition, subject to a kind of irrational and free-floating anxiety. In his eyes now, as he looked across the room to intercept in glass her reflected observation of him, there were shadows of worry.

“Come in, darling,” she said, still not turning. “I’ve been having a nap. Is it getting quite late?”

“Not late.” He left the door and came over to sit on the edge of the bed, her eyes following him in the mirror. “About five.”

“That’s all right, then. Dinner’s early tonight, but we’ll have plenty of time for cocktails.”

She began again to brush her hair, interrupted by his entrance, and she picked up the count immediately where she had left it, forming the sounds of the numbers with her lips in a rather absurd little ritual, as though a few strokes more or less made any difference. But it created diversion.

“Have you had the .22?” he asked abruptly.

“The what?”

“The .22 caliber rifle. It was in the rack in the library.”

“Of course not. You know that I never touch your firearms.”

“It’s gone.”

“Are you sure you didn’t take it out and leave it lying somewhere? You must admit, Cory, that you’re rather forgetful.”

“I haven’t touched it in weeks. I thought you might have loaned it to Gavin or someone.”

“Well, I didn’t. I wouldn’t loan your rifle to Gavin or anyone else.”

“Someone has taken it. I wonder who.”

“Nonsense.” She laid her brush on the dressing table and spun half around, back to the glass, to look at him directly. “Be reasonable, Cory. Who on earth would take your rifle?”

“Someone.” His voice had suddenly a petulant, fearful quality. “Where’s Nettie?”

“She’s in her room, I think. Why? Surely you don’t suspect Nettie of taking your rifle.”

“It would do no harm to ask her.”

“On the contrary, it might do a great deal of harm. The constant tension between you and Nettie is becoming unendurable.”

“Am I to blame? I’ve done everything possible to make myself acceptable to her.”

“She resented our marriage. You will simply have to be patient with her.”

“My patience is rather strained these days. Nettie should go away to school. It would give her a chance to adjust.”

“We’ve been over that. It would simply be evading the problem, and Nettie is, besides, too young to leave home.”

“Nettie’s not really young at all. She’s ageless.”

“I don’t believe that I like that remark. What do you mean by it?”

“You know what I mean. She’s deliberately trying to destroy our marriage. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do to accomplish it Perhaps she already has.”

“Stop it, Cory. I won’t listen to you say such things. It’s obscene for a grown man to feel such hatred for a child.”

“I don’t hate her. She hates me. Frankly, I’m afraid of her.”

“Oh, don’t be such a coward.”

“Call me what you like, but there’s something abnormal about the girl. She’s completely enclosed. Nothing reaches her.”

“She’s extraordinarily bright. You can hardly expect her to have the same interests as mediocre children.”

“It’s more than that.” He stood up and jammed his hands into his jacket pockets. “I want to speak with her, if you don’t mind.”

“About the missing rifle?”

“Yes.”

“Then I do mind.”

“Nevertheless, I insist. If you won’t bring her here, I’ll go look for her.”

“Very well. Have your own way. I’ll get her.”

She left the room and walked down the hall to Nettie’s door. Trying the knob, she found the door locked, and there was, after she knocked, such a long interval of silence that she began to think that Nettie was asleep inside or had gone out somewhere, locking the door after her and carrying away the key.

Then, when she was about to leave, Nettie’s voice sounded suddenly on the other side of the door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Mother. I want you to come with me to my room. There’s something we need to settle at once.”

A key turned, and the door opened. Nettie was wearing, as she had been yesterday, a white blouse and jeans. Behind her, an open book lay in a swath of sunlight on the floor.

“I was lying on the floor reading,” she said. “What needs to be settled? Something new about me?”

“You’ll see. It’s nothing to worry about. Come along, dear.”

Together, they returned to Stella’s room. Cory, waiting, was still standing by the bed with his hands jammed into his jacket pockets. Stella had a feeling that the hands were clenched, and she was momentarily aware, with the slightest sense of compassion, of the depth of his desperation. She turned to Nettie, who was looking steadily at Cory with eyes that had acquired instantly the peculiar gloss of blindness.

“Cory wants to ask you something,” she said. “Please answer him truthfully.”

Nettie didn’t acknowledge the directive, and Cory, after waiting until it was apparent that she would not, spoke with a kind of rush, his words trailing away as if he barely had breath to utter them.

“My .22 rifle is gone, Nettie. Did you take it?”

From his voice she gauged the measure of his concern, and her own voice, when she answered, was bright with mockery.

“Yes,” she said. “I took it.”

Her candor was dearly a shock. Stella, who had expected denials, and Cory, who had expected a more trying inquisition, stared at her with slack faces that were almost comic and incomprehensible.

“What on earth for?” Stella asked. “You know you’re not allowed to use the rifle without supervision.”

“I’m not sure,” Nettie said. “Perhaps I intended to kill Cory.”

Stella sank down upon the bench in front of her dressing table. Cory did not move.

“You mustn’t say such dreadful things.” Stella’s inflection suggested that she was protesting the innocent use of obscenity that had been spoken without understanding. “Where is the rifle now?”

“In my room. I put it in the closet.”

“Go and get it and bring it here.”

Without a word, Nettie turned and went out. When she was gone, Stella sat staring at the floor, ignoring Cory, and Cory, hands in pockets, remained unmoving by the bed. There was nothing to be said that either was prepared to say, and they waited in silence for Nettie’s return. She came, in a minute or two, with the rifle under her arm. Stella, watching her walk toward Cory, was suddenly aware that the rifle was pointing straight at Cory’s chest. Half-rising, she extended one arm in a gesture of alarm or supplication.

“Perhaps,” Nettie said, “I’ll kill Cory now.”

Thereafter, action followed action in an odd and deliberate sequence, as if every sound and movement were carefully modified and measured. The report of the rifle was hardly more, it seemed, than the popping of a cork. Stella, arm outstretched, sank down again upon the bench. Cory, dying with his hands in his pockets, looked down with a kind of wonder, just before falling, at the small hole opened above his heart. Nettie turned to Stella, as children in need have always turned to mothers.

“But it was a blank,” she said. “Gavin told me it was a blank!”

Martin Underhill, a detective on the sheriff’s staff, after descending the stairs, crossed the hall and entered the library. The room was darkening, and it was several seconds before his eyes, adjusting to the shadows, found Stella sitting in a high-backed chair turned away from a window. She did not rise to meet him, did not move at all. He walked across the room and sat down in another chair facing her. In his manner there was a reassuring touch of deference which she assumed to be an offering to her position in the county, but in fact, it was detectable in his contacts with people of all stations.

“How are you feeling, Mrs. Singer?” he asked.

“I’m quite all right, thank you,” she said.

“I’m afraid there are a number of points to clarify. Are you up to it?”

“I’m prepared to tell you anything you need to know.”

“Good. Suppose you begin by telling me again just what happened.”

“As I’ve said, Cory’s rifle was missing. The .22 that you saw upstairs. It had been taken from the rack over there, and he was very disturbed about it. He suspected Nettie of taking it and, as it developed, he was right. Nettie admitted it. I sent her to get it and bring it back. She returned in a minute or two, carrying the rifle under her arm, and I saw that it was pointing directly at Cory. She said something about killing him, merely an expression of childish hostility, but then the rifle went off, and Cory fell. And that’s how it was.”

“In spite of her remark about killing him, you’re convinced that it was an accident?” he asked.

“Of course it was an accident. I have told you that the threat was just an expression of childish hostility.”

“What caused the hostility?”

“Nothing specifically. I mean, no particular incident. Nettie didn’t approve of my marriage to Gary. She resented him as an intruder.”

“I see. But the rifle was loaded, Mrs. Singer. That bothers me. Do you think it was already loaded when Nettie took it from the rack?”

“I doubt it very much. Cory never left his firearms loaded.”

“Well, then. You can surely see that Nettie must have loaded it herself. Were bullets available?”

“There were bullets for all the firearms somewhere. I’m not sure just where Cory kept them.”

“Do you think that Nettie could have found the bullets?”

“It’s entirely possible, but I’m sure that she didn’t.”

“Oh? What makes you say that?”

Again Stella was silent, again remembering. Now she was hearing Nettie’s words, almost lost in the echo of a shot and the trauma of horror.

“Something she said just after she shot Cory.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘Gavin told me it was a blank.’”

He stared at her through the shadows, trying to read the expression on her face. There was no expression to read. He began to appreciate the terrible exercise of control behind her apparent quietude.

“Who,” he asked, “is Gavin?”

“Gavin Brander. A neighbor. He lives half a mile or so up the road.”

“What did Nettie mean?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve been thinking and thinking about it, but I’m just not sure.”

“Have you asked Nettie?”

“No. She had a terrible experience, you understand. She’s resting in her room. I don’t know if she’s capable of answering questions.”

“We had better try. I’ll be as considerate as possible. Will you fetch her?”

“If you insist.”

“I’m afraid I must. I’m sorry.”

Alone, he listened to the diminishing sound of her footsteps crossing the hall and ascending the stairs. There was an old-fashioned grandfather’s clock in the shadows behind him, and he listened to the mechanical measurement of time. Time passed, measure by measure, and pretty soon he was aware of footsteps in the hall again. Nettie entered, followed by Stella. Nettie made an odd little bow to Underhill, who had risen, and sat down in the high-backed chair that Stella had left. She seemed completely composed. Serene was the word that occurred to Underhill. If she had suffered a trauma, she had recovered with remarkable rapidity.

“Nettie,” Stella said, “this is Mr. Underhill. He wants to ask you some questions. You must do your best to answer them.”

Nettie nodded, staring with grave composure at Underhill, who resumed his seat and leaned forward hands on-knees.

“Nettie,” he said, “why did you take your stepfather’s rifle?”

“I wanted to play a trick on him.”

“Oh? What kind of trick?”

“I was going to pretend to shoot him.”

Her confession of malice had somehow an air of innocence, as if she had admitted to soaping windows on Halloween. Paying silent tribute to her composure, he took a moment to recover his own.

“Why did you want to do that?”

“Because I hated him. I wanted him to go away, and to stay away.”

“Was the rifle loaded when you took it?”

“No.”

“Where did you get the bullet?”

“Gavin gave it to me. He said it was a blank.”

“Don’t you know the difference between a live bullet and a blank?”

“Of course. A live bullet will kill you. A blank won’t.”

“I mean in appearance. Can’t you tell the difference by looking at them?”

“I suppose I could if I really thought about it. But I didn’t. I hardly looked at it. The bullet Gavin gave me, that is. I put it right into my pocket and later I put it right into the rifle.”

Underhill leaned a little farther forward, his grip tightening on his knees. His words were as precisely spaced as the ticks of the clock.

“Listen to me, Nettie. I want you to be very careful how you answer. Do you think that Gavin Brander purposely gave you a live bullet in the hope that you would kill your stepfather with it?”

“He must have, mustn’t he? How else can you explain what happened?”

“Oh!” Underhill stood up, struck a fist in a palm, and sat slowly down again. “But why? Why would he want Cory Singer dead?”

Nettie seemed to draw a little farther away into the shadows. Her voice was suddenly small and cold.

“I wouldn’t want to say.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not my place to do so.”

Stella, standing behind Nettie’s chair, released her breath in a long sigh, and Underwood lifted his eyes. Her face was drained of color and stiff as wood. Nothing in it moved except her lips.

“She means that it’s my place, and I suppose it is. Gavin Brander is in love with me. And I, God help me, was in love with him.”

“Was, Mrs. Singer?”

“You can’t go on loving a man who is capable of using a child to commit a murder.”

“It would be difficult, to say the least.” Underhill’s voice was light and dry, but his heart was turgid with restrained rage. “I think, if you will excuse me, that I’d better go see Mr. Brander at once.”

Gavin Brander opened the door. Underhill, standing outside, introduced himself, and Brander’s eyebrows expressed surprise. He stepped back and gestured Underhill in. They went from the hall into the living room, Underhill preceding.

“I’ve just had my dinner,” Brander said. “May I offer you a drink? I’m about to have one.”

“No, thanks.” Underhill, in a chair, held his hat in his lap. “I’m on duty.”

“Oh? Well, I suppose you fellows must work all hours.” Brander, postponing his own drink, claimed another chair. “What, precisely, is the nature of your business?”

“I’m investigating a death. A neighbor of yours. Cory Singer.”

He was watching Brander intently, and he had to give him credits for acting, if acting Brander was. His face betrayed just the right amount of neighborly shock.

“Old Cory dead? That’s bad news. Since you are concerned, I take it that something in the matter is amiss?”

“There is. Cory Singer was shot and killed by his stepdaughter.”

“The hell you say!” More acting? If so, more credits. “So Nettie actually did it! She did it after all!”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, you were not acquainted with the family, and can’t be expected to know. But there was a lot of hostility between Nettie and Cory. On Nettie’s part, that is. She made his life difficult. Recently she threatened to kill him, but I’m afraid that I put that down to no more than childish extravagance. My mistake, it seems.”

“His, I’d say.”

“Quite so. Which prompts me to wonder why you have come to see me. Why have you?”

“Because the girl says that you gave her the bullet that killed her stepfather. She says that you told her it was a blank.”

Brander stared for a few seconds at Underhill with an almost witless expression, as if the latter had unexpectedly spoken in an unknown tongue. Comprehension was followed by a bark of incredulous laughter.

“Surely you’re not serious!”

“It’s a serious accusation. I didn’t come here to be amusing.”

“You must realize that Nettie is addicted to fantasy. I was about to say that she is an incorrigible liar, but let’s be charitable.”

“Do you deny the accusation?”

“Categorically. Why in the devil should I commit such a fantastic idiocy? Think a moment. If I had given her a live bullet with which to kill Cory, saying it was a blank, I should have certainly anticipated her spilling the beans when Cory was dead. One can’t sustain a deception like that.”

“One can’t, indeed. But one can deny it.”

“I see. It then becomes simply my word against hers. I’ve always known that Nettie was a clever little devil, but I seem to have underestimated the depth of her malice. I believe I’d better have a drink.” He stood up and went to a liquor cabinet, where he splashed whiskey into glass, drinking it neat before turning. “Excuse me. I confess that I’m a bit disturbed. However, the accusation won’t wash. Why should I want to kill Cory Singer, by contrivance or directly or any way whatever?”

“Because he happened to be Stella Singer’s husband.”

Brander turned again to the liquor cabinet. This time he added water to his whiskey and carried the glass back to his chair. Underhill, watching him, thought that his assurance had slipped a little. That was no indication of anything, however. Innocence, falsely charged, is apt to be more nervous than guilt charged truly.

“So that’s the way of it,” Brander said. “Well, I won’t deny that I’m in love with Stella. I’ve told her so, and I suppose that she has told you. Nettie’s also in on the secret, I believe. She’s an accomplished spy, you know, as well as a liar, and I’ve been indiscreet a time or two.”

“Are you confirming a motive?”

“No, no. Nothing of the sort. There was no motive. Frankly, the marriage of Stella and Cory wasn’t working out. He would have been eliminated in a short while without the drastic expedient of murder. I’m quite certain of that.”

“Is Nettie Singer familiar with firearms?”

“I believe she’s done some shooting under supervision.” Brander’s eyes widened, narrowing again as he looked intently at Underhill. “Enough, I’m sure, to know the difference between a blank and a live bullet.”

“It’s a point. She claims, however, that she hardly looked at it. She merely slipped it into her pocket and from her pocket into the rifle. It’s possible. It’s even possible that she noticed the difference without its actually registering.”

“Do you seriously believe such an absurdity? Anyhow, it’s irrelevant. I gave her no bullet, blank or live. Her story is a lie. Incredibly ingenious, too, I concede. I seem to be highly qualified on several points as a victim.”

“Is that your position? Your word against hers?”

“What other position is there? Did you expect me to collaborate in my own destruction?”.

“No.” Underhill stood up abruptly and slapped his hat against his thigh. “There will be a hearing, of course. We will see then whose story is believed.” Turning, he walked to the door, where he stopped and turned back. “Let me warn you against over-confidence, Mr. Brander. I have a notion that Nettie will be a rather convincing witness.”

But Brander seemed to have recovered his assurance completely. Without answering, he lifted his glass and smiled.

The door was unlocked, and Stella, opening it silently, slipped inside and stood listening intently in the darkness. There was no sound, no sound at all, but the room itself, holding its breath, seemed to throb with a giant cadenced pulse. Moonlight slanted through an eastern window and sliced on the bias across the floor. Beyond the bright path, in the farther shadows, Nettie was lying and listening too, waiting, Stella knew, for Stella to speak.

“Nettie,” Stella said.

“Yes, Mother?”

“I must talk with you. Are you sleepy?”

“No, Mother. Come sit on my bed. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Stella walked to the bed across the moonlit path. She sat down, one hand clasping the other in her lap, but a third hand, small and warm as sundrenched earth, crept in between them and lay still.

“Nettie, where did you get the bullet?”

“I told you, Mother. Gavin gave it to me.”

“Are you sure? You must be very sure, Nettie. If the police believe that, Gavin will be arrested for murder.”

“If they don’t, will I be arrested? Will they take me away from you?”

“I don’t know. I would try to protect you.”

“Don’t worry, Mother. They’ll believe me, because it’s the truth. Gavin gave me the bullet. He said it was a blank, but it wasn’t. He said he wanted to help me frighten Cory, but he really wanted me to kill him. Will you miss Gavin, Mother, when he is gone?”

“Never mind,” she said. “He is gone already.”

She lifted her eyes to the moonlit pane. Between her cold hands, the warm hand stirred. She was silent. Having come to terms with an intimate and terrible world for two, she had nothing left to say.

One Enchanted Evening

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, June 1965.

It was almost five o’clock when Ella came out of the theater. Because it was the kind of evening that it was, and because there was no hurry, and because Luke had the car, as usual, she decided to walk the sixteen blocks home. It was such a perfectly natural decision, made with hardly a second thought, that she didn’t for an instant suspect its momentous character or anticipate its consequences. To be exact, it was not really the decision to walk home that could be blamed, if any blame could be attached, for what later happened. It was the decision, impetuous and extravagant, to buy the little music box.

The music box was in the window of a sad and dusty shop of odds and ends, that was tucked tightly between two domineering buildings on the last block of the business district, just before the beginning of homes and grass and trees. She stopped in front of the window and stared at the music box. She had the strangest and most intense desire to possess it. It was a cheap little box, really, but it seemed to have, somehow, a quality of endearing pathos that may have been an effect of the evening, or her response to the evening’s spell. The lid was open and a tiny ballerina had risen from within, and now stood poised on the toes of one foot, on the point of a slender pin. The box was unwound, of course, but it was apparent that it would begin to play, when wound up, just as soon as the lid was opened, and the tiny ballerina would begin to pirouette in time with the tune.

What tune would the box play? The moment she began to wonder, as if the question had been whispered into her ear, Ella understood that it was imperative to know, that the whole evening would be spoiled if she did not. After the briefest hesitation, she entered the shop under a tinkling bell and stood near the window. An elderly man, almost elfin in his diminutive frailty, emerged from the shadows at the rear. His skin seemed translucent, glowing with an inner light, and his hands made a silken sound when he rubbed them together.

“Good evening,” he said. “May I help you?”

“I was attracted by the little music box in the window,” Ella replied.

“Yes.” The man reached into the window and lifted the box tenderly in his thin hands. “A charming thing, isn’t it? It’s designed to hold costume jewelry. The ballerina dances to the music.”

He held the box out, tendering it to her, and she, in the act of reaching for it, held her hands suspended, not touching it, fixed by the sudden fear that it would, if touched, disintegrate into smoke or crumble into dust. It was absurd, of course, another strange effect of the evening, or the promise of the evening, and she felt a spasm of laughter stirring silently in her throat, which she quelled.

“What music does it play?” she asked.

“You shall hear for yourself.” He closed the lid slowly, the tiny ballerina folding back rigidly below it to lie captive in the darkness. A key on the back of the box, turning between the thumb and index finger of the elfin man, made a small, rachet-like sound. “Listen.”

The lid was raised, the ballerina ascended from her dark captivity, and all at once in the shadowed shop, in a rare instance of perfect harmony with the kind of evening it had begun to be, Ella was listening to “Some Enchanted Evening.” The music was made, it seemed, by tiny bells, so fragile and pure and entirely right that she unconsciously clasped her hands together in a gesture of delight and sweet pain. Where laughter had stirred before, a sob stirred now, and she knew certainly, although she could not afford it and had not intended it, that she would buy the music box and take it home with her.

“How much is it?” she asked.

“The price is ten-fifty,” the man said. “For you, because you find it charming, ten dollars even.”

The price itself was a kind of determinant, everything working out perfectly for the purchase, for she had in her purse, besides a few coins, one ten-dollar bill. It was the last of her household money, all there would be until the end of the week, and she dug it out of the purse quickly, refusing with deliberate perversity to think of die skimpy meals and rationed cigarettes that its spending entailed.

“You needn’t wrap it,” she said. “I’ll carry it as it is.”

The bill and the box exchanged hands, and she left the shop and continued on her way home. She should, she supposed, feel guilty for her extravagance, but the extraordinary perversity that had supported the purchase of the box was still working to support her quiet happiness. It was, altogether, the most remarkable evening. Even the light was like a soft blush, as if it had filtered, somewhere up and beyond vision, through stained glass. In the trees along the street she walked, the cicadas were beginning to rouse and sing. Walking, she opened the lid of the music box and listened, head inclined, to the tiny tinkling sounds. Out in the open between the houses, the sounds were almost lost, and she had to listen intently in order to hear them, carrying in her hands her personal secret serenade.

When she reached home, it was time to begin hurrying a little. Luke would be coming soon, wanting his dinner, and as the years passed, depriving Luke of more and more of his pride, the more adamant he became in his insistence upon minor concessions like dinner waiting on the table, or at least hot in the oven, the last exactions left to shore his self-esteem. She had to force herself to hurry, though, for she was loathe to give impetus to an evening that she wished would go on forever. As she worked in the kitchen she kept the music box at hand on the cabinet, and every time it ran down she would pause in her work long enough to wind it and start it playing again. Just before it was time for Luke to arrive, she carried it into her bedroom and put it on the dresser.

The moment she heard Luke come in the door, she could tell that he was in a bad mood. Not that he slammed things or shouted or showed other signs of restrained violence. Luke’s bad moods didn’t work that way. They caused him to become guarded and withdrawn, a measure of the terrible desperation that made it imperative to erect defenses against the insight that would have acknowledged his essential failure. His failure was only the more merciless for being unexpected. In college, years ago, he had been handsome and charming and athletic, his prospects favorable. Since then, he had suffered a series of failures, always charged to bad luck, and now he sold real estate on commission for an agency that was not his own. It had become apparent that he lacked the ability to match his hopes, and he even lacked the knack of exploiting mediocrity. In fact, he was, or had been, an unintentional lie. In all innocence, he had deceived himself and Ella and all his friends. Of these, only he was still deceived.

“Darling, is that you?” she called, knowing very well that it was.

“Yes,” he answered, knowing that she knew.

He did not come directly into the kitchen, as he usually did, but went instead into their bedroom. Setting the table, two places in a house where even children had proved beyond the husband’s capacity, she could hear him moving around on the other side of the wall, and pretty soon she heard water running into the lavatory in the bathroom. The imperative thing, she thought, was somehow to prevent the encroachment of his mood upon hers. The fragile and shimmering spell of the evening must not be shattered for any reason whatever. She had a blind conviction that it could, if only it survived this threat, be sustained forever. She walked through the living room to their bedroom, and found him standing in the middle of the floor buttoning the cuffs of his shirt.

“Such a lovely evening!” she said.

“Is it?” He walked away from her, toward the dresser, without turning. “I hadn’t noticed. I had a bad day.”

“I’m sorry.”

She did not ask him what had been bad about his day. She didn’t want to know, felt a desperate need to avoid hearing it, but she knew immediately, with a first faint feeling of despair and hopelessness, that he was, unasked, going to tell her.

“I missed that sale I was working on,” he said. “I’m beginning to wonder if I’m not wasting my time with real estate. Maybe I ought to try something else.”

“Never mind,” she said. “Tomorrow will be better.”

He didn’t answer, and she saw, the terrible threat to her evening growing darker and more oppressive, that he was staring at the music box on the dresser.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“It’s a music box,” she said. “When you open it, it begins to play, and a little ballerina comes up and dances to the music.”

“Where did you get it?”

“At a shop I passed on my way home. It was in the window.”

“How much did it cost?”

She was tempted to lie, to make her extravagance seem a little less flagrant than it was. But then, before the lie could be told, she understood that evasion was impossible, and that somehow everything must be saved or lost on this issue.

“Ten dollars,” she said. And added, as if impelled to make worse what was already bad enough, “It was almost all the money I had.”

For a moment he did not move or speak. Then, still silent, he reached out and picked up the music box. There was in his movement an awful restraint, a sign that he was exercising the last measure of control, and the effect was to give it a quality of slow-motion and a stark clarity of detail. He raised the lid, and the ballerina arose upon her toes, but the mechanism had run down, and she stood poised and waiting in an absence of sound and motion. Luke’s thumb and index finger, big and brutal and incredibly ugly, began to twist the key. The tiny bells began to ring, the ballerina began to pirouette. He twisted and twisted and kept on twisting...

His name was Hadley. He had come, in response to her call, with two other men. For quite a long time they had remained in the kitchen, and she, sitting quietly on the edge of her bed with her feet primly together and her hands folded in her lap, could hear their movements and the low murmur of their voices. Now, at last, Hadley had come into the bedroom, which had grown dark as the light outside was drawn away by the sun, and he was sitting, after turning on a small bedside lamp, on the edge of a chair just outside the pale perimeter that the lamp cast. His hands were restless, and his voice was troubled.

“I don’t quite understand,” he said. “Please tell me again what happened.”

She stirred and sighed and lifted her eyes to the overcast of shadows below the ceiling.

“He broke my music box,” she said. “He was angry because I spent my last ten dollars for it, and he picked it up and wound it and wound it, and the spring broke inside, and it couldn’t play anymore. It will never play again.”

She was silent, hearing again the dying whimper of the broken spring, the shower of tiny sounds within her mind as her frail fantasy of happiness fell in a thousand glittering shards. The ballerina stood still as stone in a mute world.

“All right,” Hadley said. “Then what happened?”

“Then he put the music box back on the dresser and walked away without a word. Without even looking at me. He went into the kitchen and sat at his place at the table, but he didn’t eat. I think he must have been ashamed.” She paused again, considering his shame. “I sat down on the edge of the bed, just as I’m sitting now, and at first I couldn’t think or feel anything, not even anger; then I began to realize what Luke had done, but more than that, I began to understand what terrible things he must have suffered to make him do it. Poor lost Luke.”

Hadley made an abrupt gesture, seeming to fend off an intangible encroachment from the shadows.

“So you killed him.”

“Yes. I shot him. The gun was in the top dresser drawer. Luke always kept it loaded, and I got it and went into the kitchen and shot him.”

He stood up and rubbed his hands together and leaned toward her from the hips. His voice was curiously dull and deliberate, sustaining a kind of negative emphasis.

“You do not kill a man for breaking a music box,” he said. “You simply do not kill a man for breaking a music box!”

“No.” There was a faint note of surprise in her voice, and she seemed for a moment to be examining a vision of truth. “It’s really too absurd when you consider it, isn’t it? He was so futile, you see. His dying was so hard. It was taking so long.”

She lowered her eyes and stared at her folded hands, accepting a world in which there was no music or dancing or hope.

“Poor lost Luke,” she said again.

Something Very Special

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, September 1965.

Clara Deforest, Mrs. Jason J. DeForest, was entertaining her minister, the Reverend Mr. Kenneth Culling, who conducted himself with a kind of practiced and professional reticence, faintly suggesting a reverent hush, that was appropriate to a house of bereavement. The situation, however, was delicate. In fact, the Reverend Mr. Culling was not at all certain that his visit, under the ticklish circumstances, was quite proper. So far as he could determine, there seemed to be no etiquette established for such occasions. But he had decided he could not afford to risk offending a parishioner as prominent as Clara DeForest, and that he must offer at least a tactful expression of sympathy. So here he was, with a teacup balanced on his knee and a small sweet cracker in his hand.

It was close to the time when he customarily fortified himself with a glass of sherry, and he wished wistfully that he were, at this instant, doing that very thing. He was unaware that Clara DeForest, who was also drinking tea and eating crackers, would have greatly preferred a glass or two of sherry, and would have happily supplied it. In short, the two were not quite in contact, and they were forced to suffer, consequently, the petty misery common to misunderstandings.

Clara DeForest’s bereavement, to put it bluntly, was qualified. It was true that her husband Jason was gone, but he had gone of his own volition, aboard a jet headed for Mexico City, and not in the arms of angels headed for heaven. At least, that was the rumor. It was also rumored that he had withdrawn his and Clara’s joint checking account and sold some bonds, had helped himself to the most valuable pieces in Clara’s jewelry box, and had been accompanied on the jet by a platinum blond. Clara made no effort to refute these charges. Neither did she confirm them. She merely made it clear, with a touch of pious stoicism, that she preferred to forgive and forget the treacheries of her errant husband, whatever they may have been precisely. Her marriage to Jason, twenty years her junior, had been under sentence from the beginning, and it was well over and done with. She was prepared, in short, to cut her losses. The Reverend Mr. Culling was vastly relieved and reassured to find her so nicely adjusted to her misfortune.

“I must say, Mrs. DeForest,” he said, “that you are looking remarkably well.”

“I feel well, thank you.”

“Is there nothing that you need? Any small comfort that I may offer?”

“I am already quite comfortable. I appreciate your kindness, but I assure you that I need nothing.”

“Your fortitude is admirable. A lesser woman would indulge herself in tears and recriminations.”

“Not I. The truth is, I have no regrets whatever. Jason has deserted, and I am well rid of him.”

“Do you feel no resentment, no anger? It would be perfectly understandable if you did.”

The Reverend Mr. Culling looked at Clara hopefully. He would have been pleased to pray for the cleansing of Clara’s heart. It would have given him something to do and made him feel useful. But Clara’s heart, apparently, required no cleansing. “None at all,” she said. “Jason was a young scoundrel, but he was quite a charming one, and I am rather grateful to him than otherwise. He gave me three exciting years at a time of life when I had no reasonable expectation of them.”

The nature of Clara’s excitement took the shape of a vague vision in the minister’s mind, and he tried without immediate success to divert his thoughts, which were hardly proper in connection with a woman of fifty, or any woman at all, however effectively preserved. He could not be blamed for noticing, however, that Clara was still capable of displaying a slender leg and a neat ankle.

“There are unexpected compensations,” he murmured with a vagueness equal to that of his vision.

“On the contrary, I did expect them, and I had them. I should hardly have married Jason for any other reason. He was poor. He was unscrupulous and rather stupid. He was pathetically transparent even in his attempts to kill me.”

“What!” The Reverend Mr. Culling’s voice escaped its discipline and jumped octaves into an expression of horror. “He made attempts on your life?”

“Twice, I believe. Once with something in a glass of warm milk he brought me at bedtime. Another time with something in my medicine. He repeated, you see, the same basic technique. Jason, like all dull young men, had absolutely no imagination.”

“But surely you reported these attempts to the police!”

“Not at all. What would have been the good? It would merely have destroyed our whole relationship, which still retained from my point of view, as I have indicated, much that was satisfactory.”

The minister, feeling that he was somehow on trial, tried to restrain his emotions. “Do you mean that you did nothing whatever about it?”

“Oh, I did something, all right.” Clara smiled tenderly, remembering what she had done. “I simply explained that I had disposed of my small fortune in such a way as to deprive him of any motive for killing me. Since he would receive no benefits from my death, there was no advantage in trying to rush what will occur, in any event, soon enough. He was like a child. So embarrassed at being detected!”

“Like a monster, I should say!” The Reverend Mr. Culling’s restraint faltered for a moment, and he rattled his teacup in his saucer to show the height of his indignation. “I must admit that your method was ingenious and effective.”

“Was it? Not entirely.” Clara’s tender smile took on a touch of sadness. “It may have deprived him of any motive for killing me, but it also relieved him of any compelling reason for sticking around. Not, as I said, that I have regrets. At least, no serious ones. But I shall miss Jason. Yes, indeed, I shall miss him. I shall certainly keep some small memento around the house to keep my memory of him fresh and vivid. As one grows older, you know, one’s memories fade without the help of mnemonics.”

“He has only been gone for a week. Perhaps he’ll return.”

“I think not.” Clara shook her head gently. “He left a note, you know, saying that he was leaving for good. Besides, he could, under the circumstances, hardly be sure of his reception. In a moment of pique, I destroyed the note. I regret now that I did. I should have kept it to read periodically. It would have served admirably to bring him back in spirit, if not in flesh.”

“You are an astonishing woman, Mrs. DeForest. I am utterly overwhelmed by your incredible charity.”

“Well, it is reputedly a Christian virtue, is it not?”

“Indeed it is. Faith, hope and charity, and the greatest of these...”

The minister’s voice trailed off, not because the rest of the words had slipped his mind, but because he chose not to compete with the front doorbell, which had begun to ring. Clara DeForest, in response to the ringing, had stood up. “Excuse me,” she said, and left the room.

He heard her a moment later in the hall, speaking to someone at the door. He was disturbed and a little confused by her almost placid acceptance of what he considered a shameful and faithless act. He was, in fact, inclined to resent it as an excessive application of his own principles. After all, it was entirely possible to be too understanding and submissive. His head tended to reel with antic thoughts, and he leaned back in his chair and looked for something substantial on which to anchor them. His eyes centered on a vase on the mantel, which made him think of Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Odes and urns seeming safe and substantial enough, he began trying to recall the lines of the poem, but he could only remember the famous one about a thing of beauty being a joy forever, a contention which he privately considered extravagant and dubious. Clara DeForest returned to the room. She was carrying a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. Placing the package on a table, she went back to her chair.

“It was the postman,” she explained. “Will you have more tea?”

“No, thank you. No more for me. I was just admiring the vase on your mantel. It’s a lovely thing.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” Clara turned her head to look at the vase, her eyes lingering. “My brother Casper brought it to me last week when he drove up to see me.”

“I heard that your brother was here. It’s a great comfort to have a loved one near in a time of trouble.”

“Yes, Casper came immediately when I told him by telephone that Jason had left me, but it was hardly necessary. I did not consider it a time of trouble, actually, and I was perfectly all right. I suppose he merely wanted to reassure himself. He only stayed overnight. The next morning, he drove directly home again.”

“I have never had the pleasure of meeting your brother. Is his home far away?”

“About two hundred miles. He lives in the resort area, you know. He’s a potter by trade. He made the little vase you have been admiring.”

“Really? How fascinating!”

“It’s actually an art, not a trade, but Casper has developed it to the point where it is also a business. He started out years ago with a little shop where he sold his own wares, but they were so superbly done that the demand for them grew and grew, and he soon had to increase the size and numbers of his kilns to meet it. Now he supplies shops and department stores in all the larger cities of this area.”

“He must be very busy.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. He was forced to hurry home last week because he had some urgent work to do. He has great artistic integrity, you see. He personally makes all his own vases. It limits his production, of course, but each piece is far more valuable because of it.”

“I know so little about the making of pottery. I must read up on it.”

“You will find it interesting, I’m sure. The pieces are baked, for instance, in intense heat. Have you any idea of the temperature needed to produce a piece of biscuit ware?”

“Biscuit ware?”

“That is what the pottery is called after the initial baking, before glazing.”

“Oh. No, I must confess I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“An average temperature of 1,270 degrees.”

“Mercy!”

“Centigrade, that is.”

“Good heavens!”

“So, you see,” Clara finished humorously, “my lovely vase has been put through quite an ordeal. Don’t you agree it is worth it, though? It is too squat for most flowers, of course, but never mind. I shall keep it for something very special.”

Talk of such heat had prompted the Reverend Mr. Culling to think uneasily of Hell. He preferred talking of it to thinking of it, for silence increased its terrors, but it would hardly do as a topic for this polite conversation, which had continued, at any rate, long enough. He rose.

“Well, I must run along. I really must. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to find you taking things so well.”

“You mustn’t worry about me. I’ll survive, I assure you.”

They walked to the front door and said goodbye.

“I’m so glad you called,” said Clara. “Do come again soon.”

From the door, she watched him to his car at the curb, and then she turned and went back into the living room. At the table, she took up the package with an expression of annoyance. Really, Casper was simply too exasperating! It was well enough to be thrifty, but her dear brother was positively penurious. Not only was the package flimsy and insecurely tied, but it had been sent third class, just to save a few cents’ postage. Of course, one realized that postal employees rarely availed themselves of the right to open and inspect packages, but just suppose, in this instance, one had! It would have been embarrassing, to say the least.

She took the lovely vase from the mantel and set it on the table beside the package. Her annoyance dissolved in a feeling of delicious companionship. Opening the package, she began to pour its contents into the vase.

A Lesson in Reciprocity

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, August 1966.

In the yellow pages, Gaspar Vane was listed simply as a private investigator, leaving it up to any prospective client to discover for himself the precise nature of investigations undertaken. As a matter of fact, almost any kind that promised a fee was acceptable, but as things worked out, most of them were associated with the more sordid aspects of divorce. He was prepared to gather the evidence of grounds where grounds existed, and he was, for a premium, prepared to create it where it did not. He was not, in brief, a man to permit professional ethics to handicap his operations.

Gaspar suffered from baldness, which is a perfectly normal hazard of maturity, and he was fat. Altogether, considering a pocked face, loose lips, and ferrety little eyes, he was a physical composition of exceptional ugliness. What was not immediately apparent was the poetic range of his imagination. He spent much of his time in a private world in which miracles happened to Gaspar Vane, and it was this happy facility for fantasy that kept him in the practice of his rather unsavory trade.

In spite of the liberal policies that made it possible for him to take any kind of work that was offered, Gaspar’s practice did not flourish. He frequently had difficulty in paying the rent and satisfying his creature needs. He had no payroll to meet, having no employees. However, he did have an answering service that was essential to the little practice that he had, and he was forced at times into devious maneuvers to scratch up even the little that it cost. But he was stuck to his last, as the old saying goes, by a tenacious dream. He existed in the hope of a lode of luck. There would surely be one client who would turn out to be a jackpot.

He did not dream, however, when Hershell Fitch climbed the creaky stairs to his dingy office, that the jackpot was at hand. Hershell was a faded, depleted little man who had bleached to virtual anonymity in the shadow of a domineering wife, and it was under the orders of this wife, it developed, that he was seeking the services of Gaspar Vane. Anyhow, Hershell did not look like a jackpot, and he wasn’t one. The jackpot was Rudolph La Roche, and it was merely Hershell’s coincidental function to reveal him. Gaspar acknowledged Hershell’s introduction with a flabby smile and a greasy handshake.

“Sit down, Mr. Fitch,” Gaspar said. “How can I help you?”

Hershell sat in the one client’s chair and balanced his felt hat carefully on his knees.

“It isn’t exactly I,” Hershell said. “It’s actually my wife. I mean, it’s my wife who sent me here to see you.”

“In that case, how can I help your wife?”

“Well, we have these neighbors. La Roche is their name. Mr. and Mrs. Rudolph La Roche. It’s Mr. La Roche’s activities that she wants investigated.”

“Ah! That’s different. Quite different.” Gaspar leaned back and dry-washed his fat hands. “You suspect Mr. La Roche of something illicit?”

“Perhaps I’d better tell you about it.”

“I was about to suggest it.”

“Well, it’s this way.” Hershell’s fingers fiddled nervously with his hat, while he attempted to gather his harried thoughts. “The La Roches moved in next door nearly three years ago. Immediately they adopted this peculiar routine, and they’ve been in it ever since.”

“Routine? What’s peculiar about a routine? Most married people have a routine.”

“It’s not only the routine. It’s mostly that they act so mysterious about it. In the beginning, when Mrs. Fitch and Mrs. La Roche were on amiable terms, my wife tried to find out where Mr. La Roche went and what he did, but Mrs. La Roche was evasive. Finally she was quite rude about it. That, I think, was the beginning of the bad feeling.”

“Went? Did?” Gaspar’s confusion was apparent in his voice. “Mr. Fitch, if you want my help, you must be more explicit.”

“I’m trying to. The point is, you see, Mr. La Roche operates a small barber shop. As owner, he works the first chair. There is one other chair that is worked by a hired barber. I must say that the La Roches live in a much higher fashion than one would expect from the income from such a small shop, especially when Mr. La Roche is never there himself on Saturdays.

“Where,” said Gaspar, “is Mr. La Roche on Saturdays?”

“That’s the main point. That’s what I’m coming to. We don’t know, and we can’t find out. Every Friday night, about six o’clock, Mr. La Roche leaves home in his automobile. He always carries a medium size bag, and he always leaves alone. Sunday night, between nine and ten, he returns. The schedule varies only slightly from week to week. The general routine never varies at all. Don’t you agree that it’s peculiar?”

“Not necessarily. Just because the La Roches decline to discuss their private affairs, it doesn’t mean they’re up to anything shady. Maybe Mr. La Roche has other business elsewhere on weekends that is more profitable than working the first chair in his barber shop.”

“Exactly. What kind of business? After all, Saturday is the busiest day of the week in most barber shops.”

“Mr. Fitch, let us come directly to the crux. Do you want to hire me to find out where Mr. La Roche goes and what he does?”

“It’s my wife, really. She’s the one who’s got her mind set.”

“No matter. It comes to the same thing. Are you prepared to pay my fee even though my report may be disappointing to you? I mean to say, even though Mr. La Roche’s activities may be perfectly innocent?”

“Yes, of course. My wife and I have discussed the possibility, and we’ve decided that it’s a risk we must take.”

“Good. In the meanwhile, there will be certain expenses. Shall we estimate a hundred dollars?”

“A hundred dollars! My wife and I thought fifty would be ample.”

“Well, let’s not quibble. If my expenses are more than fifty, I’ll simply add them to my fee. If you will give me the cash or your personal check...”

Hershell had a personal check already made out in the proper amount. He extracted it from a worn wallet and handed it across the desk. It was signed, Gaspar noted, by Mrs. Fitch. Her Christian name was Gabriella.

Friday afternoon, Gaspar threw an extra shirt and a pair of socks into a worn bag, threw the bag into the rear seat of his worn car and drove to the address he had extracted from Hershell in a final settlement of details. He had been there earlier in the week in a preliminary excursion designed to get the lay of the land, and now he drove past the La Roche house, a modest brick one across the hedge from the Fitches’ modest frame one, and on down the block and around the corner. Turning his car around so that he would be in position to fall in behind La Roche when the latter passed the intersection, he settled himself behind the wheel to wait. It was then a quarter to six. He had ascertained from Hershell, of course, the direction in which La Roche took off. He had already observed La Roche’s car, a black late model, and had unobtrusively taken down the license number. In the course of his careful preliminaries, he had even inspected La Roche himself in his two-chair barber shop.

On schedule, the black car passed the intersection shortly after six. Gaspar wheeled in behind and followed at a discreet distance. La Roche made his way across town, avoiding the congested trafficways, and turned onto the entrance to a turnpike and stopped obediently at the tollgate. He accepted his ticket, properly punched, and was immediately off again, while Gaspar was forced to wait for what seemed an interminable time until his own ticket was delivered. Meanwhile, he watched the other car uneasily and saw that it took the ramp which would send it onto the turnpike eastbound. He was soon nicely spaced behind La Roche’s car, and it was apparent that the pace was going to be a judicious sixty-five.

At this speed, just below the level of terrifying rattles and threatening tremors, he was even able to consider comfortably the man he was pursuing. Rudolph La Roche was, indeed, a rather unusual personality. Even Gaspar, who was not especially sensitive to such things, had felt it immediately. In the first place, his appearance was somehow arresting. Neither tall nor short, he was erect in bearing and decisive in his movements. His body was slender and supple. His hair was gray above the temples but otherwise dark. His eyes were lustrous, his nose was straight, his lips were full and firm. He was, in fact, a handsome man, and there was about him a disconcerting impression of agelessness. He might have been thirty or fifty or any age between, but he would be, one felt, the age forever that he was at the moment, whatever that age might be.

In the second place, with no more to go on than a queer prickling in the lard along his spine, Gaspar had the feeling that La Roche was a man who might be up to something extraordinary. He felt that here, at last, might be the miraculous jackpot.

After a couple hours of steady driving, Gaspar was paying his toll at the last exit and cursing bitterly at the delay as he strained to keep the receding red taillights of the black car in view. Under way again, he managed to close the intervening distance at the risk of violating the speed limit, now sharply reduced on the freeway running on for several miles into the city. The downtown traffic created serious problems with intruding cars that were unconcerned with Gaspar’s mission, but the black car turned abruptly into a parking garage, and Gaspar, with one intruder preceding him, turned in after it. As he waited briefly for service, La Roche, having deposited his car and received his claim check, passed by so closely, carrying his bag, that Gaspar could have reached out and touched him. Gaspar cursed again, silently and bitterly, and implored dubious gods to prod the attendant.

A minute later he was on the street, peering with wild despair in the direction La Roche had taken. At first the elusive barber was nowhere to be seen among the pedestrians. Then by the sheerest good luck, by the accidental course of his frantic gaze at the last instant, Gaspar saw him turning into the entrance of a fashionable hotel on the far corner. When he entered the large and ornate lobby of the hotel, however, he discovered that La Roche had again vanished.

Gaspar looked behind pillars and potted palms and even took a quick tour of a long arcade between expensive little shops, now closed. No La Roche. Forced by his failure to consider the improbability of incredibly fast service, Gaspar approached the desk and invoked the attention of the clerk, an indolent and elegant young man who did not look as if he could be forced to hurry by prince or bishop or even a congressman. Gaspar thought it best to present his problem directly and candidly.

“I’m looking,” he said, “for a gentleman who just came into this hotel. Rudolph La Roche. Could you tell me if he registered?”

The clerk said coldly that Mr. La Roche had not, and his tone implied that even if Mr. La Roche had, the truth would be considered far too sacred to be divulged to a seedy transient with frayed cuffs and a shiny seat. Gaspar retreated behind a pillar, in the shadow of a potted palm, and sat down to brood and consider his position and tactical alternatives.

His attention was caught by the soft neon identification of a cocktail lounge. Of course! La Roche had simply developed a big thirst during his long drive, and he had stopped first thing to slake it. Gaspar had, now that he had time to recognize it, developed a considerable thirst himself. With the dual intention of nailing La Roche and having a cold beer, he crossed to the lounge and entered. But he was still out of luck. The barber was not there, and Gaspar, afraid of missing him in the lobby, returned with his thirst to the potted palm.

Then, after another extended period of brooding, his dilemma was solved. He was staring at a bank of elevators, and one of the elevators, having just descended, opened with a pneumatic whisper, and there in the brightly lighted box like a magician’s pawn in a magical cabinet, was Rudolph La Roche.

Rudolph La Roche transformed. Rudolph La Roche, elegant and polished as a brand new dime, in impeccable evening clothes.

And on his arm, staring up at him with a candid adoration that promised an exciting night, was the slickest, sexiest blonde bomb that Gaspar had seen in a long, long time. He stared, entranced.

Fifteen minutes later, Gaspar was installed in a room on the eleventh floor. It was a relatively cheap room assigned by the supercilious clerk as being appropriate to Gaspar’s frayed cuffs and shiny seat. Gaspar had rejected the idea of attempting to follow La Roche and his gorgeous companion on their apparent excursion of nightspots for two sound reasons. The first was that he would almost certainly lose them along the way. The second was that the excursion would certainly make greater demands on the Vane expense account than the account could bear. Indeed, it was already obvious that the fifty dollars extracted from Hershell Fitch was going to be woefully inadequate.

Anyhow, since it was necessary to spend the night somewhere, it had seemed a good idea to spend it at the hotel which would clearly be his base of operations, whatever those operations amounted to. Fortunately, he was at the moment, in addition to Hershell’s fifty, in possession of funds, so to speak, in another pocket.

Inventory disclosed that these funds came to approximately another fifty, and if necessary he could pay his hotel bill with a rubber check that he would have to cover by some device before it bounced. He considered this no reckless expenditure, but rather a sound, if somewhat speculative, investment in prospects that were beginning to glitter. Therefore, his inventory completed, he called room service and ordered ice and a bottle of bourbon.

While he waited for delivery, he thought about Rudolph La Roche, who was currently looking like the most remarkable barber since Figaro. Imagine the ingenious devil carrying on a sizzling affair within a hundred miles of home in a flagrantly open manner which practically invited detection! After all, other citizens of the old home town certainly stayed at times in this hotel and it was by no means a remote possibility that one or more of them would know La Roche there and recognize him here. The man must have monstrous assurance and vanity to think that he could get away with it indefinitely. The whole affair was all the more remarkable because it was clearly conducted on some kind of schedule with apparent stability. What kind of cock-and-bull story did he perpetuate about his weekly excursions to keep his wife chronically deceived? In addition to his other manifest talents, he must be, surely, a superb liar. Gaspar, indeed, was becoming almost violently ambivalent about the astounding barber. He was admiring on the one hand; on the other he was filled with envy and malice.

There was a knock at the door of his room, and he got up and opened the door to admit a bellhop, who was carrying a bottle and a thermos bucket full of ice cubes.

“Put them on the table,” Gaspar said.

Following the bellhop back into the room he took a five-dollar bill out of his pocket and sat on the bed. He smoothed the bill on one knee and laid it carefully beside him. The bellhop was a very small man with a puckered and pallid face that made Gaspar think wildly of an improbable albino prune. As he turned, the bellhop’s eyes passed over the fin on their way across the bed to a spot on the wall behind it.

“Will there be anything else, sir?” he asked.

“Nothing,” said Gaspar, “unless you could give me a little information.”

“That’s possible, sir. What kind of information?”

“I’m wondering if you could tell me how long Mr. Rudolph La Roche has been coming to this hotel.”

“Mr. Rudolph La Roche, sir? I’m afraid I don’t know the gentleman.”

“A slender man. Not very tall. Dark hair with a little gray over the ears. Military bearing. Appearance rather distinguished.”

There was a flicker in the bellhop’s ancient eyes as he raised them from the wall to the ceiling, closing them in transience.

“I know a gentleman who fits that general description, sir, but his name is not La Roche. A coincidental similarity, perhaps.”

“Let’s get down to cases. La Roche came into this hotel tonight and went directly upstairs without registering. Later he came down again, dressed fit to kill, with a beautiful blonde hanging on his arm. Since he changed his clothes upstairs, I assume that he has a room or has the use of the lady’s.”

“Ah.” The bellhop’s eyes descended slowly from the ceiling. As they crossed the fin on the bed, they opened briefly and closed again. “You must be referring to Mr. and Mrs. Roger Le Rambeau.”

Gaspar was silent for a moment, scarcely breathing. “Did you say Mr. and Mrs. Roger Le Rambeau?”

“Yes, sir. They have a suite on the fifteenth floor. Permanent residents. Mr. Le Rambeau is out of town during the week. He returns every Friday night.”

“Oh? And where does Mr. Le Rambeau go during the week?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, sir. I assume that he goes on business.”

“How long have Mr. and Mrs. Le Rambeau been residents here?”

“Approximately three years. They moved in, I understand, immediately after their marriage.”

“They must be well-heeled to afford this kind of setup.”

“They appear to be quite affluent. It’s my understanding, however, that Mrs. Le Rambeau has most of the money.”

“I see. Do you happen to know if they were married here in the city or elsewhere?”

“I’m not sure. Wherever they were married, it should be a matter of record.”

“Yes. So it should.”

“I hope I have been helpful, sir.”

“You have. You bet you have.”

“In that case, sir, if there is nothing else, I had better get on with my duties.”

“Sure, sure. You run along, son.”

The bellhop, who was at least as old as Gaspar, flicked the fin off the bed with practiced fingers and went out of the room. Gaspar, left alone, continued to sit on the edge of the bed with his fat body folded forward over the bulge of his belly. A toad of a man, ugly and scarred and poor in the world’s goods, he was nevertheless lifted by soaring dreams into the rarefied air of enlarged hopes.

Gaspar wasted no more time in spying personally on the astounding barber whom he still thought of, in order to avoid confusion, as Rudolph La Roche. After three stout highballs, he rolled into bed in his underwear and slept soundly for a few hours, rousing and rising early the next morning, which was Saturday. With the help of a clerk he spent the morning checking the file of photo-stated marriage licenses at the county courthouse, which turned out not to be such a tedious task as he had feared, inasmuch as he knew, thanks to the bellhop, the approximate time when La Roche had taken his bride. The only question was whether or not the marriage had been performed in the county and was there recorded. Happily, it had been and was.

Gaspar returned to the hotel, got his bag, paid his bill, claimed his car at the parking garage, and drove home. He was feeling so pleased with himself and the turn his affairs were taking that he had only the mildest pang of envy when he thought of Rudolph La Roche with his blonde bomb in their fifteenth-floor suite.

He spent Sunday with pleasant anticipations, and the following morning, with the resumption of workaday affairs, he investigated more records and satisfied himself on a critical point. Rudolph La Roche was married, all right. In fact, being married twice at once, he was excessively so. And if a philandering husband is a patsy, to make a riddle of it, what is a bigamist?

Gaspar drove by the two-chair barber shop, which was located in a small suburban shopping area, and there at the first chair, sure enough, spruce in a starched white tunic and plying his scissors to a head of hair, was the errant Mr. La Roche. Smiling wetly and humming softly, Gaspar drove slowly on. He parked in the alley behind the building in which his office was located, and heavily climbed back stairs, still smiling and humming between puffs. In his office, without delay, he dialed the number of Hershell Fitch, who was at home and came to the telephone at the summons of Mrs. Fitch, who had answered.

“Gaspar Vane speaking,” said Gaspar. “Can you talk?”

“Yes,” said Hershell. “There’s no one here but Gabriella. Don’t you think, however, I had better come to your office for your report?”

“You are welcome to come,” Gaspar said, “if you want to waste your time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there isn’t any report. None, that is, worth mentioning.”

“Where did he go?”

“He went to Kansas City.”

“What for?”

“He went to see a woman.”

“A woman! That sounds to me like something worth mentioning.”

“I guess it is if you see something wrong with seeing an eighty-year-old woman who happens also to be his mother.”

“He goes to Kansas City every weekend to see his mother?”

“That’s right. She’s in a nursing home there. Our friend is devoted to her, it seems. His visits are practically a ritual.”

“Excuse me a minute.”

There followed a brief period during which Hershell talked aside, apparently to the hovering Gabriella, and then his voice came through the receiver again, thin and a little petulant with disappointment.

“I guess you’re right, then. I guess there’s no use in my coming down.”

“None at all.”

“Since there wasn’t really anything to report, I hope the fee won’t be excessive.”

“I’ll send you a bill,” Gaspar said.

He hung up and leaned back in his chair. On the other hand, he thought, maybe I won’t. Truth is, he ought to send me a bill.

Mindful of the old adage that one should strike while the iron is hot, Gaspar consulted his directory and found the telephone number of the shop of Rudolph La Roche. He dialed the number and listened to distant rings. Then, the third ring being chopped off in the middle, he was listening to the voice of Rudolph himself. The voice, true to Gaspar’s imagination, was modulated and suave and unmistakably urbane.

“Rudolph La Roche speaking,” the voice said.

“I must have the wrong number,” Gaspar said. “I thought I was calling Roger Le Rambeau.”

There was a pause, almost imperceptible, and Rudolph’s voice, when he spoke again, was as impeccably suave as before.

“Who is this, please?”

“Never mind. We’ll get better acquainted in good time.”

“I’m sure I shall be delighted. Would you care to make an appointment?”

“What’s wrong with this evening?”

“Nothing whatever. Shall I name the place?”

“You name it. If I don’t like it, I’ll change it.”

“There’s a small tavern a few doors east of my shop. I sometimes stop in there for a beer or two before going home. If that’s acceptable, I shall be pleased to see you there.”

“That sounds all right. What time?”

“I close my shop at five-thirty.”

“See you then,” said Gaspar, and gently cradled the phone.

A cool customer, he thought. A real cool customer. But after all, any guy who could deliberately marry two women and practically keep them next door to each other was bound to be.

The tavern was a narrow building compressed between an appliance store on one side and a loan office on the other. It was clearly a place that exploited an atmosphere of decorum and respectability, making its appeal to the solid citizen whose thirst, while decently inhibited, could be counted on to recur with some regularity. Of the patrons present when Gaspar entered, the one who was the most respectable in appearance and the least so in fact was Rudolph La Roche.

He was sitting alone in a booth along the wall opposite the bar. A beaded glass of beer, untouched, was on the table before him. As Gaspar approached, he slid out of his seat, stood up and made an odd, old-fashioned bow from the hips.

“Rudolph La Roche,” he said. “I’m sorry that I don’t know your name.”

“It’s Vane,” Gaspar said. “Gaspar Vane.”

“How do you do, Mr. Vane. Will you join me in a beer? I’m afraid nothing stronger is sold here.”

“Beer’s fine.”

They sat opposite each other with an air of cordiality and waited in silence while Gaspar was served by a waitress. After she was gone, Rudolph lifted his glass in a small salute, to which Gaspar responded uneasily. It was strange that Gaspar, who held all the cards, was far the more uneasy of the two.

“May I ask,” said Rudolph, “how you became aware of Roger Le Rambeau?”

“You can ask,” said Gaspar, “which is not to say I’ll answer.”

“It would do me no good, I suppose, to deny anything?”

“Not a bit.”

“In that case, I’ll save myself the trouble. Which brings us, of course, directly to the point. What do you intend to do about it?”

“That depends. I’m not what you might call a blue-nose. If a man chooses to have two wives at the same time, I say, let him have them.”

“Very wise of you, Mr. Vane. You are, I see, a liberal man. And why not? Bigamy is, per se, quite harmless. It has been respectable enough in the past in certain places and is still so today. It is a felony only where the laws of the land condemn it, and it is a sin only where the mores of society make it so. I pride myself, if I may say so, on being a kind of universal man. I select my ethical standards from all societies in all places at any given time.”

“That sounds good enough, but it’s liable to land you in a mess of trouble.”

“True, true. One must have the courage of his convictions.”

“If you ask me, two wives take more courage than sense. One is bad enough.”

“Mr. Vane, you disappoint me. Marriage is, indeed, a blessed institution. It is made less than blessed only by the idiotic restrictions placed upon it. It is confused, I mean, with monogamy, which is quite another thing. It is extremely rare that a man can be fulfilled by one woman, or vice versa. Take me, for example. I rather imagine, Mr. Vane, that you think me, all things considered, a complex man. On the contrary, I am a very simple man. I have, on the one hand, very strong physical appetites that can be satisfied only by a rich and beautiful woman of a passionate nature. On the other, I have a deep and normal yearning for the stigmata of middle-class stability — a modest and comfortable home, a devoted and orderly wife who is primarily a house-keeper, a respected and undistinguished trade to engage my attention. It is surely clear that one wife could hardly satisfy my needs. And I am not, whatever you may think superficially, a libertine. I choose not to engage in philandering. Therefore, I solve my problem simply and sensibly. I take two wives, and I am fulfilled. I am, Mr. Vane, a happy man.”

“Well, as the saying goes,” said Gaspar pointedly, “every good thing must come to an end.”

“Must it?” Rudolph smiled and sipped his headless beer. “That sentiment seems to be in conflict with this interview. I understood that we were meeting to arrange conditions under which my particular good thing, as you put it, can continue.”

“As I said, I’m no bluenose. I’m prepared to be reasonable.”

“Mr. Vane, I’ve been completely candid with you. Surely you owe me the same consideration. If you wish to blackmail me, why don’t you say so?”

“Call it what you like. Whatever you call it. I know a good thing when I see it.”

“Precisely, Mr. Vane, how do you see it?”

“I see you in a trap, that’s how.”

“Quite so. A just observation. I can either pay or go to prison.”

“Not only that. Your wives would be a little upset by your shenanigans, to say the least. You’d lose them both, and that’s for sure.”

“There you touch me in my most vulnerable spot. The loss of my wives would be the crudest blow of all. I am, you see, a dedicated and loving husband.”

“I’d give a pretty penny to know how you’ve been fooling them all this time.”

“Secrets, Mr. Vane, secrets. As you said a while ago, you may ask, which is not to say I’ll answer.”

“It’s not important. What’s important is that you stand to lose them.”

“A disaster, I admit, which I should prefer to avoid at any cost. Which brings us, I believe, to another crucial point. What, Mr. Vane, will be the cost?”

“Well, I don’t want to be greedy, but at the same time I don’t want to give anything away. Besides, that weekend wife of yours is rich. You said so yourself.”

“A tactical error, perhaps. Having gone so far, however, I’ll go even farther. Angela is not only rich; she is exceedingly generous and quite incurious as to how I spend her money.”

“In that case, how does twenty-five grand sound?”

“To Rudolph La Roche, like far too much. To Roger Le Rambeau, fair enough.”

“Roger Le Rambeau’s who I’m talking to.”

“As Roger Le Rambeau, I’ll consider it.”

“What’s to consider? You pay or else.”

“Of course. That’s abundantly clear, I think. However, you must realize that I am dependent upon Angela for such an amount. In any event, I couldn’t pay until I’ve had an opportunity next weekend to make proper arrangements.”

“You think she may kick up rough about shelling out that much?” Gaspar’s brow furrowed.

“No, no. I anticipate no difficulty with Angela.”

“Just the same, you’d better think up a good reason.”

“You can safely leave that in my hands. As a matter of fact, I’ve established a reputation with Angela for being lucky. She has profited more from certain wagers of mine, wins and losses taken together, than this will cost.”

“I’ll want cash. No check.”

“I must say, Mr. Vane, that you’re a strange mixture of professional acumen and amateur naïveté. Whoever heard of paying a blackmailer by check?”

“I just wanted it understood, that’s all.”

“I believe I understand the conditions perfectly, Mr. Vane.”

“In that case all that’s left is to arrange the time and place of our next meeting.”

“I see no reason to drag this affair out. I’m sure you’re anxious to have it completed, and so am I. Shall we say next Monday evening?”

“Suits me. Where?”

“Well, the transfer of funds will, perhaps, require a bit more privacy than we have here. I suggest the back room of my shop. I close at five-thirty, as I’ve told you, and my assistant leaves promptly. A quarter to six should be about right. Drive into the alley and knock at the back door. I’ll let you in.”

“No tricks.”

“Please Mr. Vane! What kind of trick could I possibly employ? I’m realist enough to concede that I’ve been found out, and gentleman enough, I hope, to accept the consequences gracefully.”

Rudolph La Roche smiled faintly, slipped out of the booth, and repeated his odd little bow.

“Until Monday, then.”

Turning briskly, his back erect and his head high, he walked to the door and out into the street. Gaspar signaled the waitress and ordered another beer. Somehow, he did not feel as elated as a man should feel when he has hit the jackpot. What color were Rudolph’s eyes, he wondered suddenly. Blue? Green? Whatever the color, they were as cool and pale as a handful of sea water.

The alley was a littered brick lane between brick walls. Behind Rudolph’s barber shop there was an indentation which provided enough space in which to park a pair of cars. Rudolph’s car was there when Gaspar pulled his old one up alongside, and the time at that moment was exactly a quarter to six. Gaspar crawled out and banged on the rear door of the shop. He was promptly admitted by Rudolph, who must have been waiting just on the other side. The barber was still wearing his starched white tunic, uniform of his trade, and it gave him an antiseptic look that was somehow disconcerting to Gaspar, who always felt slightly soiled even when he was still dripping from the shower.

“Ah, here you are,” Rudolph said. “Right on time, I see. Come in, come in.”

Gaspar, entering, found himself in a tiny room which had been devised by the simple expedient of erecting a plywood wall toward the rear of the original, single room. There was a small table with a bundle of laundry on it. On the same table there was a coffee pot on a hot plate, which was on a square of asbestos, and beside the table were two straight chairs. For an instant Gaspar felt trapped and vulnerable, and a wave of panic swept over him. But the panic receded quickly to leave him with no more than a vague feeling of uneasiness.

“Sit down, Mr. Vane,” Rudolph said, indicating one of the straight chairs. “Shall I make coffee?”

“Not for me,” said Gaspar.

“Very well, then.” Seated sidewise to the table in the second chair, Rudolph leaned an elbow upon it and stared at Gaspar. “Shall we come down to business at once?”

“If you’ve got the money, let’s do.”

“Oh, I have the money, I assure you. Indeed, I have twice the amount we agreed on.”

“Fifty grand?”

“Quite so.”

“Where is it?”

“Never mind that. It’s available.”

“What’s it for?”

“It’s for you, Mr. Vane, all for you if you care to earn it.”

Gaspar’s feeling of uneasiness was suddenly acute. His fat body felt clammy.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “Earn it how?”

“By performing a certain service for me. I’m prepared, in brief, to make you a counter-proposition. Would you care to hear it?”

“It’s no crime to listen.”

“Let me say in the beginning, Mr. Vane, that you have made me sensitive to my position. I have realized all along, I suppose, that I could not indefinitely continue to live securely in my precarious circumstances, however desirable and delightful they might be. If you have found me out, it is certain that others will do so in good time, and although you are reasonable and willing to settle things amicably, it is certain that others will not be. Therefore, I have decided that it would be wise, so to speak, to settle for half a loaf. It is better, to put it brutally, to lose one wife than two. Do you understand me, Mr. Vane?”

Rudolph paused for an answer and examined his pared and polished fingernails, smiling at them with wry resignation, sadly and tenderly. As for Gaspar he felt as if an angry heavyweight had slugged him suddenly in the fat belly. In protest, it emitted a startled rumble.

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“Perhaps I’d better be more explicit. I have decided with deep regret to sacrifice one of the two.”

“Which one?”

“That has been my sad dilemma. Shall it be Angela or Winifred? Believe me, Mr. Vane, I have struggled over the choice with a troubled soul. To begin with, I am approaching that time of life when the passions will cool and simple domestic comforts, such as quiet evenings and home-cooked meals and a tidy house, will assume dominant importance. A point, as you can see, for Winifred. On the other hand, that time, although approaching, has not arrived. Moreover, there is another commanding consideration which must be, I fear, definitive. I have reason to know that I am the principal heir in Angela’s will. You can easily see the enormous complications that would arise if a will involving a large fortune were to be probated at this time. Not only would my bigamy almost certainly be exposed, but I should, inasmuch as Winifred was unfortunately my first and legal wife, lose everything that Angela left me. So, when you come right down to it, I really have no choice at all. Winifred must go.”

“Go where? Go how?”

“Oh, come, Mr. Vane. Please don’t be evasive. I’ve taken the liberty of investigating you discreetly, and you are, if I may say so, a ruthless man. I’m suggesting nothing beyond your capabilities.”

“Let’s put it into words. You want to hire me to kill your second wife?”

“Chronologically, my first wife. That’s my counterproposition.”

“You’re asking me to commit murder.”

“I’m presenting you with the opportunity if you wish to take it. I’m also giving you the chance to earn fifty thousand dollars instead of twenty-five.”

This, of course, was Gaspar’s great temptation, the overwhelming seduction of the affair as it was developing. Nevertheless, he dragged his heels. The disruption in the orderly sequence of routine blackmail was so abrupt and monstrous that it created in his mind an effect of violence. He was confused. He struggled for clarity and coherence. Yet, for all his confusion, he thought he could see certain possibilities of treachery.

“Nothing doing,” he said.

“Is that decisive? Don’t you even feel inclined to discuss it.”

“What’s to discuss?”

“Certainly you can see the benefits to yourself.”

“I can see one thing, all right. I can see that you’re a bigamist, and I’m a blackmailer, to be honest about it. That makes us just about equal. Tit for tat. But if I accepted your proposition, I’d be a murderer. We wouldn’t be equal any longer, and I’d have a lot more to lose than you.”

“Nonsense. You’re forgetting that I’d be guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, which is handled rather harshly under the law. No, Mr. Vane. We would be compelled to keep each other’s secret, and that’s all there is to it.”

“That’s not the point. The point is, you’d have me in a tighter bind than I’d have you, and you could refuse to pay me a dime for anything. If you were to do that, I wouldn’t dare do a thing about it.”

“I am an honorable man, Mr. Vane. My word is my bond.”

“In that case, hand over the fifty grand in advance.”

“I said, Mr. Vane, that my word is my bond. I didn’t say that yours is yours. However, I’m prepared to pay you an advance of ten thousand dollars upon your acceptance of my proposition, just to show my good faith, and I assure you that the balance will be paid promptly upon the completion of your duties.”

Gaspar, oddly enough, believed him. The cool little devil was just weird enough to have a kooky code of honor that would bind him to his word in the terms of his devilment.

“Wait a minute,” Gaspar said suddenly. “If you’ve got fifty grand to throw around, why can’t I just raise the ante of the game as it is?”

“You could try, Mr. Vane, but you would fail. I am a reasonable man, and I’m willing to pay a reasonable price for silence or service, but I will not be victimized. I’ll face my ruin first.”

Again, Gaspar was convinced. The idea, he decided, was not worth pursuing. As to Rudolph’s proposition, the suspicion of trickery was nearly allayed, but the fear of apprehension still remained.

“Well,” he said heavily, “I’m not saying I’ll do it, mind you, but I don’t see anything against listening a little longer. What makes you think we could get away with it?”

“There’s nothing in that to deter us. The exercise of reasonable caution should suffice. As you know, I leave home every Friday evening and don’t return until Sunday evening. Winifred is alone all that time. She is, moreover, a creature of habit, and her actions can be accurately predicted. She has told me that she invariably attends a movie Saturday night. She returns home immediately afterward and consoles herself with several strong highballs. It is poor Winifred’s one minor vice, but since it is rigidly controlled and is allowed to function only that one night of the week, it can perhaps be excused. In any event, she goes to bed somewhat under the influence and can be expected to sleep heavily. Anytime after midnight, I should say, would be safe for you to enter. I shall provide you with a backdoor key. A heavy blow on the head, deliberately planted evidence of burglary, and the thing is done. Poor Winifred has clearly surprised a burglar, who has killed her in his alarm. You simply walk out of the house and away, and in the meanwhile I am in another city, which can easily be established. Upon my return, we complete the terms of our agreement.”

“It sounds easy enough. Too easy by half, I’d say.”

“It’s a mistake to confuse simplicity with incompetence. Do you accept my proposition or not?”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

“As you wish.” Rudolph stood up briskly, with an air of cheerfulness, and began to unbutton his tunic. “Meanwhile, I must ask you to excuse me. I’m late already, and Winifred is having chicken and dumplings for dinner. I’m very fond of chicken and dumplings.” Gaspar was dimly aware of being ushered deftly into the alley. He was slightly dazed, in a sluggish kind of way, by the turn of events. But he realized, at any rate, that the game was radically changed, and that all the money, in spite of his high hand, was still in the pot.

To express it in extravagant terms, Gaspar wrestled three days with the devil. Although he had been directly responsible for one suicide, a neurotic woman without the stability to weather a minor scandal, he had never killed anyone with his own hands, and now he was filled with dread at the thought of doing so. Not that he was afflicted with compassion or serious moral qualms. He was merely fearful of being caught, and of the consequences thereof. Still, the bait, fifty thousand lovely tax-free dollars, was a mighty temptation. Moreover, the project as Rudolph La Roche had presented it was so wonderfully simple. It was merely a matter of letting himself into a house, sapping a woman in an alcoholic sleep, faking a bit of evidence, and walking away. It seemed to him, in his more optimistic moments, that anyone could do it successfully.

There was another consideration. Gaspar looked upon himself as a rather exceptional fellow who had been haunted all his life by minor misfortunes, and in his gross body he nursed the pride of his delusion. He had always felt, when Shakespeare’s famous tide rolled in, that he, Gaspar Vane, would take it at the flood and ride it to fortune. Well, here was the tide, and here was he. What was he going to do about it? On Thursday afternoon, he made his decision suddenly.

Sitting at the desk in his shabby little office, he looked at his watch and saw that it was twenty minutes to six. Rudolph’s shop was closed, the second barber probably gone, but there was a good chance that Rudolph himself, engaged with the petty details of closing, was still there. Giving himself no time for further vacillation, Gaspar seized his phone and dialed. Two rings later, Rudolph’s suave voice answered.

“Rudolph La Roche speaking.”

“Gaspar Vane. Can you talk?”

“All alone here. Tomorrow is Friday, you know. I was wondering if you’d call.”

“You got the ten grand?”

“Certainly.”

“You got the other forty?”

“As I told you. In escrow, so to speak.”

“When can you pay off?”

“Tomorrow. I’ll have to go to the bank.”

“Won’t it look suspicious if you draw out all that money at once?”

“Hardly. Rudolph La Roche is not Roger Le Rambeau. His bank account never exceeds a few hundred dollars. The money, Mr. Vane, is in a safety deposit box.”

“Shall I pick it up at your shop?”

“I think not. From now on it would be wiser, I think, if we took no chances of being seen together. I’ll go to the bank on my lunch hour tomorrow. Let’s see, now. Do you know where Huton’s Restaurant is? I’ll go there for lunch at one precisely. Before eating, I’ll go directly to the washroom to wash my hands. Be there at that time, and I’ll manage to slip you the packet unobserved.”

“Don’t forget the key.”

“Of course. Also the key.”

“Huton’s. One sharp. I’ll be waiting for you.”

And so, as good as his word, he was. He spent the few minutes before Rudolph’s arrival in examining his pocked and ravished face in one of Huton’s mirrors. Luckily, he was the only one in the washroom when Rudolph entered. Claiming the next lavatory, the dapper barber ran water into the bowl, squirted liquid soap into a palm, and began to wash his hands.

“The packet and the key are in my right jacket pocket,” he said. “Help yourself.”

Gaspar did, dropping them quickly into his own.

“Is it all here?” he asked.

“Certainly. When are you going to be convinced, Mr. Vane, that you are dealing with an honorable man? If the total is not correct, you are under no compulsion to render service.”

“You’d better believe it.”

“Listen carefully. Go in the back door and across the kitchen into the dining room. Turn right into a hall. Winifred’s bedroom is first on the right. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Rudolph pressed a button and held his hands in a rush of hot air, rubbing them briskly together. When they were dry, he adjusted his tie, settled his jacket more comfortably on his shoulders, and turned away. From entrance to exit, he had barely looked at Gaspar. “Good-by, Mr. Vane,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”

Gaspar did not linger for lunch. Back in his office, he counted the money and found that Rudolph had indeed proved himself, at least so far, an honorable man. Gaspar put the ten grand in a metal lockbox, and locked the box in the bottom drawer of his battered file cabinet. He had never worried about thieves before, having had nothing worth stealing, but now he found himself wondering anxiously if he were exercising proper security measures. Oh, well, there was nothing to be gained by dissipating his mental powers in anxiety.

At a quarter to six, taking certain precautions that seemed fundamental, he was parked on the cross street at the end of the block on which Rudolph lived. Soon afterward, right on his weekly schedule, Rudolph passed the intersection in his car. Falling in behind, Gaspar followed as far as the turnpike entrance. Sure enough, Rudolph picked up his ticket at the toll gate and took the ramp that would point him east. Satisfied, or as nearly so as he could be, Gaspar drove back to town.

Approximately twenty-four hours thereafter, about one o’clock of the following morning, he was getting out of his car on a mean street some six blocks from the house of La Roche. He had chosen this place to leave the car because it was a block of rooming houses in front of which a variety of other cars were invariably parked at night. His own, he reasoned, would be less conspicuous in company. Moreover, it was remote enough from the scene of projected action to minimize the chance of disastrous association, just in case someone did happen to take notice of the car as a stranger.

Afoot, Gaspar navigated the dark streets, trying to exercise proper care without giving the impression of skulking. However, the houses he passed were dark. He saw not a single pedestrian, late abroad, on his way.

His caution, while commendable, seemed to be superfluous. The backdoor key was readily at hand in the right pocket of his coat. In the inside pocket, a dead weight that was at once comforting and threatening, was a short length of lead pipe.

A fat shadow, he slipped from the cross-street at the end of the La Roche block into the alley that ran behind the La Roche house. Minutes later, having paused briefly to reconnoiter, he was moving silently past garbage can and trash burner up a concrete walk to the back door. He paused there again, leaning forward with a large ear near the door. Silence within. Beyond the hedge where the Fitches dwelled, silence. Silence within and without and all around. Silence and thick, black darkness.

The key slipped smoothly into the lock. The lock responded smoothly to the key. Moving with swiftness and quietness that was surprising in one so bulky, Gaspar entered a kitchen and closed the door behind him. He stood by the door without moving until his eyes had adjusted to the deeper interior darkness, then moved across the floor toward the outline of a doorway. Suddenly, beside him, there was a terrifying whirr in the shadows, like an aroused rattlesnake, and his heart leaped and fluttered wildly before he realized that the refrigerator, with devilish malice, had chosen that moment to come alive. When he had his breath back, he moved on into a small dining room and turned right through another doorway into a hall. Following his directions, he stopped at a door on his right, behind which he detected a gentle snoring such as might be indulged in by a lady who had drunk mildly to excess. Without further delay, he opened the door and entered the room.

A tiny nightlight made a meager glow. The luminous face of a clock leered at him through the darkness from a bedside table. On the bed, a prone and ample mass stirred and muttered. Another gentle snore followed.

Now! thought Gaspar. Now!

The length of lead pipe at the ready, he moved toward the bed.

Behind him, the silence was split by the merest whisper of sound. Then his head exploded with a clap of thunder and a blinding bolt of pain, and he was swallowed by the absolute night at the end of his particular world.

Rudolph came in the door from the attached garage and went directly to Winifred’s room. He crossed to the bathroom and turned on the light above the lavatory. As he washed his hands, he spoke to Winifred, who was sitting up in bed against the headboard. She was gently stroking a cat that lay purring in her lap.

“Well,” said Rudolph, “that’s done.”

“Did you have any difficulty, dear?” she asked.

“Oh, no. I was careful not to be seen, of course. It was simply a matter of leaving him at the mouth of a dark alley on a side street. It’s a very rough neighborhood, the haunt of thugs and criminals and undesirable people of all sorts. He was, I’m sorry to say, exactly the kind of man who would be likely to frequent such a place. I emptied his pockets, and I’m sure, considering the blow on the head and all, that it will pass as an accidental killing in a routine mugging.”

“My dear, you’re so clever.”

“Not at all. Very little cleverness was required to deal with Mr. Vane. He was quite a dull fellow.”

“Did you find his car?”

“No, but it scarcely matters. Wherever it’s found, there will be reasonable explanations for his leaving it there. It’s sufficient that he didn’t leave it nearby.”

“It’s a shame that the ten thousand dollars can’t be recovered.”

“No matter. A paltry sum, surely, to invest in our continued security and happiness.”

Rudolph emerged from the bathroom and began to pull on his coat, which he had removed.

“Must you return tonight?” she asked.

“I’m afraid I must. My weekend has been intolerably disrupted as it is. Besides, it is better to sustain the fiction that I didn’t come back here.”

“Yes. Of course, dear. Imagine that stupid man thinking that his dirty spying would make the slightest difference to us!”

“I’m tempted to remark that he simply underestimated my appeal to the distaff side, but it would be immodest. Let me just say that I’ve been incredibly fortunate in my marital life.”

“Thank you, my dear. It’s sweet of you to say it.”

“And now I must rush. I really must.” He went to the bed and leaned over to receive a chaste and tender kiss on his smooth cheek. “Good-night, Winifred. I’ll see you tomorrow evening, as usual.”

“Drive carefully, dear,” she said. “Give my best wishes to Angela.”

The Average Murderer

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, August 1967.

We came in after nine holes, Pete Decker and I, and sat across from each other at a table beside one of the windows overlooking the terrace and the golf course beyond. From where we sat, we could see a large part of the rolling course, seared in spots by the summer sun, with spaced and elevated greens like bright emerald islands in a fading sea. Fine old trees, allowed to survive where they didn’t intrude, cast ragged shadows on the clipped grass in a scattered, random pattern.

Inside the bar, it was cool and dark and quiet. Besides Pete and me, there was no one there except a bartender who brought us, without orders, the pair of gin and tonics that he knew we wanted. We sipped the drinks, which were astringently good with their strong taste of gin qualified by the delicate bitterness of quinine water, and looked out across the terrace from the dark coolness into the hot, white afternoon. We didn’t speak. In our silence, however, there was no unease, no conscious restraint. That’s the way it had been with Pete and me for many years. We always understood each other.

After a while, another man entered the bar from the terrace, set his golf bag against the wall inside the door, and walked over to the bar. His face was lean and brown and gave one, somehow, by a curious effect of antithesis, a feeling that it was either prematurely aged or preternaturally preserved. His body was also lean, the shoulders somewhat stooped, and the hair below his linen cap was hone white. He ordered a bourbon and water and drank it standing alone at the bar. There was about him an aura of withdrawal, a patina of astringent bitterness as apparent to the eyes as my tonic’s to the tongue. When he had finished his drink, as he turned to go, he saw Pete and me at our table and hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then he nodded, a faint movement of the head that was barely discernible, and left the bar by the way he had come, reclaiming his golf bag by the door as he went.

“How long ago has it been?” Pete said.

“Ten years,” I answered. “Ten years last fall.”

“A lot has happened since then. It’s almost forgotten now.”

Pete was right. A lot had happened since Francis McRae stood trial for murder. Pete Decker, then the young county attorney who had prosecuted him, had achieved through politics a state-wide attention and acclaim that would have landed him in the governor’s chair, the youngest governor in our history, if he hadn’t had the bad luck to get the nomination in a year when opposition candidates all over the country rode in on the coattails of the big man upstairs. People we had known had gotten rich or gone broke or died or moved away, and wars that were not called wars had begun and ended. And I, Guy Powers, had moved away myself but had come home again to inherit my father’s business, and had gotten married. A lot had happened; a lot of good things, and a lot of bad.

You may remember the Healy-McRae case. That’s what it was called at the time, but Francis McRae actually stood trial alone. Rhoda Healy was charged as an accessory before the fact, and would have stood trial later if Francis McRae had been convicted. After he was acquitted, it was obvious that she could not have been his accessory, and so the charge against her was dropped. She could have been charged with the murder directly, of course, but the odds against convicting her, after Francis McRae’s acquittal, were far too great. A third possibility, a charge of collaboration as the partner of a second murderer unknown, was, in view of the evidence, or the lack of it, manifestly absurd.

To be exact, Francis McRae wasn’t acquitted. His first trial ended in a hung jury, and so did his second. After that, mainly because the county was reluctant to throw good money after bad in an effort that was beginning to look futile, the case was nol-prossed, and he went free.

The second jury, because it is somehow easy to follow a precedent, was split down the middle. The first was hung by one juror. The case for the people was soundly organized and expertly presented, as the eleven ‘guilty’ votes testified, but it was entirely circumstantial. It was based primarily on motive and opportunity, and the motive could be questioned, while opportunity, as any rational man knows, is not always exploited simply because it is present. In brief, there was room for reasonable doubt. That was my position, at any rate, and my position happened to be decisive, I was the twelfth juror.

Perhaps I should recapitulate the circumstances of the case. Rhoda Healy was a beautiful young woman with pale blonde hair, striking brown eyes, and flawless skin that looked always, the year around, as if it had been tanned by the summer sun. She was married to Neil Healy, the only son of extremely wealthy parents. Unfortunately, Neil was a kind of semi-invalid. The report was that he had suffered, as a child, a critical attack of rheumatic fever that had left his heart seriously impaired. However that may have been, he took precious good care of himself. He was, moreover, suspicious and demanding and abusive, a difficult person to get along with generally, and difficult to live with particularly. He did no apparent work, and was constantly under the observation and care of his doctor.

His doctor was Francis McRae.

Neil and Rhoda lived in a white-painted brick house that was absurdly large for a young couple with no children and, if gossip could be credited, no prospects of any. Francis habitually stopped at the house twice a week professionally, although he later admitted that most of these visits were no more than doubtful psychological placebos, and frequently he was at the house in the evenings socially, without his stethoscope, so to speak. He admitted, in fact, with what seemed a perverse determination to see himself hanged, that Neil’s heart was in much better condition than Neil liked to admit, and that his patient, with only reasonable care, might have anticipated many years of life. It was the meat of the prosecution’s case, you see, that Neil Healy, dying too slowly to give satisfaction, if dying at all, had been nudged along by Dr. Francis McRae with the blessing and perhaps the help of Rhoda Healy. Pete Decker argued brilliantly that Francis and Rhoda were having an affair, and he was able to present testimony and evidence that supported, but did not prove, his argument. In this matter, again his most effective witness was Francis McRae himself. Francis denied that he and Rhoda were having an affair, but he said flatly, with go-to-hell belligerence, that he damn well wished they were. That wish, in the minds of eleven jurors, was unequivocally father to the deed.

Anyhow, to drop back a bit, Neil Healy suddenly died. Considering his medical history and the persistent impression of his precarious condition, this was no great surprise. Francis McRae signed the death certificate, and it appeared briefly that events would proceed normally to the end that is our common denominator. But no such luck. The elder Healys got their wind up and demanded an autopsy. Rhoda Healy, as the widow, refused to authorize one, and Francis McRae, once more with that strange obduracy that threatened to damn him, supported her refusal. The elder Healys, however, were rich and locally powerful, and had connections. They were instrumental in securing a court order, and Neil was opened for inspection. It was discovered that he had been given, by one means of ingestion or another, a lethal dose of white arsenic. It was murder. No doubt about it.

Well, who has better opportunity to poison a man than the doctor who is caring for him? And if the doctor and the man’s wife are having an affair, who has a better motive? And if it’s all circumstantial, and damn thin at that, what of it? It’s neat, it’s logical, and in the hands of an expert like Pete Decker, it’s deadly. I was astonished when I was summoned for jury duty, but I was glad of the chance to sit in on the case. In fact, I was so eager to serve that I told a necessary lie. I said, in response to a stock question, that I had no objection to the death penalty. That was all right, however, because if I had been convinced of Francis McRae’s guilt, I’d have voted guilty, death penalty or no.

I’ve already indicated the ingredients of the people’s case, and there’s no good in detailing it. I’ll only repeat that the execution, thanks to Pete Decker, was brilliant. As a minority of one, I thought the defense was stronger, but it was often poorly handled, and it had the critical weakness of sometimes seeming fanciful. It was contended that a doctor, if he wasn’t a fool, could easily devise a better way to kill a patient than by feeding him arsenic. It was argued, the defendant’s wishes to the contrary notwithstanding, that there was not a shred of real evidence to show that his relationship with the victim’s wife had ever been more than platonic. It could hardly be denied, however, that the victim had been fatally dosed with white arsenic, and it was in an attempt to offer an alternative to the defendant’s guilt that the defense constructed its most fanciful hypothesis. Neil Healy, it was contended, had been a vindictive man; on occasion, a vicious man. He had frequently betrayed overt hostility toward his wife. Character witnesses were introduced to support the contention and testify to the evidence of hostility. So far, so good. Tenable, at least. From there on, however, the defensive position was pure conjecture. It was argued that Neil Healy, aware that he was dying, or at least believing that he was dying, had devised in a tortured and distorted mind the devilish scheme of poisoning himself in such a way as to excite suspicion and implicate the wife he had wrongly distrusted and hated. She was the one he wanted tried for murder. Dr. Francis McRae, because of his position, was merely the unfortunate victim of circumstances.

We, the jury, listened. Later we voted and split. Eleven went one way, and one the other. I, the splinter, was subjected to every kind of pressure short of violence by the block. They reasoned, they cajoled, they bullied, they sweat and cursed and tried again. But I didn’t waver. I took the English position of not proved, and there I stood. At last we gave up and went home, and it was shortly thereafter that I went away at the age of thirty. When I was brought back at the age of thirty-two by my father’s death, the case had been nol-prossed, finished. That was, as I had just said in response to Pete Decker’s question, ten years ago.

Pete was looking out the window and across the rolling golf course toward a giant elm that spread its branches between the earth and the sun.

“There’s a lot of nonsense repeated about murder and murderers,” he said.

“Nonsense?” I said. “How so?”

“Well, it grows out of the consensus that murder is the supreme violation of the individual’s rights. Inasmuch as it deprives him of the right to live, it negates all his rights to everything else. The murderer, therefore, is looked upon as an arch criminal, a deadly and constant threat to society. That, I say, is largely nonsense. The average murderer, if such a term is acceptable, is not a threat to society at all; he is, at one time or another, a threat to another individual. Do you follow me?”

“Conceding the distinction between individual and social threats, vaguely.”

“I simply mean that the average murderer is not a repeater. Driven by powerful motives to the supreme crime, he kills once and once only. His crime is the crisis of a lifetime. He is unlikely to reach such a crisis again. If he goes undetected and unpunished, it is probable that he will go on to lead a normal and perhaps useful life.”

“Wait a minute. How about your professional killers? How about your homicidal psychopaths who are driven to kill again and again?”

“They are the exceptions that prove the rule. You read most about these kinds of murderers, of course. Why not? They make sensational reading. Murder, Incorporated, for example. A long line of almost legendary murderers like Dr. Cream, for example. But these habitual killers are a tiny minority. They hog far more than their share of attention. Most murderers, even when caught, pass off the scene after creating a nominal disturbance and are soon forgotten. And consider, please, the multitude of murderers who are never caught, and the innumerable murders, indeed, that are never recognized as such. The murderers in these cases are not detected simply because they never kill again, and therefore do not multiply the chances of detection. Oh, I know. We repeat the old shibboleth that murder will out. That’s another bit of nonsense. The average murderer, having committed his murder, is no greater danger to the rest of us than the rest of us are to him or to each other. It’s ironical, isn’t it? The only time he is a menace is before he has committed his crime, which is precisely the time nothing can be done about him. Once his crime, his solo murder, has been committed, it is, even when he is caught, too late. In effect, we are simply closing the barn door after the horse is gone.”

“Do you suggest that the murderer, for all the danger he is, had just as well go free?”

“With the exceptions I have just allowed. I’m not talking about punishment, you understand. That’s another matter.”

Our glasses were empty. I signaled the bartender, and he brought us a full pair. Pete was still staring out the window toward the giant elm, as if its enduring strength brought him a measure of comfort.

“Are you thinking,” I asked, “of Francis McRae?”

“Not exactly.” He smiled slightly, and there was, I thought, something sad in the smile. “I’ll tell you something, after all these years, that may surprise you. I was never convinced of Francis’ guilt.”

“Oh, come off. You worked like a dog on the case. It was, on your part, a masterful job. You certainly gave no sign of entertaining doubts.”

“As prosecuting attorney, it was my job to present the best case I could. I have no regrets about that. Nevertheless, I was never convinced that Francis McRae was guilty. Oh, Neil Healy was murdered, all right. I never swallowed that fantastic alternative the defense offered. But he was not, I think, murdered by Francis McRae. Francis had no motive, you see.”

“What about the affair between him and Rhoda? God knows, you made a strong circumstantial case for it.”

“It was essential. Without that motive, I had no case at all. But I never believed it.” He lifted his glass and drank, still staring out the window. “She was having an affair, of course. But not with poor Francis, however much he wished for it. She was having an affair that was conducted with such discretion that nobody knew it, and precious few even suspected it.”

“Then you had better be grateful that I was on that first jury. If I hadn’t been, you’d certainly have convicted an innocent man.”

“I’m grateful. Please accept now my delinquent expression of gratitude.” He brought his eyes inside at last, and sat staring into his glass. “Did you ever wonder how you happened to be summoned for that jury?”

“Jurors are selected by lot. Everyone knows that.”

“True. But a lottery, by the right man in the right place, can be fixed.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you planted me on that jury?”

“I needed you. I needed you to keep me from deliberately committing a worse crime, however legal, than the one on trial.”

“That’s absurd. How in the devil could you have possibly anticipated that I’d hang the jury?”

“I just told you. The average murderer is not a repeater, not even when his second murder could be committed in perfect safety within the law by an ostensibly good citizen doing his duty.” He pushed his glass away, still half full, and stood up abruptly. “Well, I have to get on home. Goodbye, Guy. Give my best to Rhoda.”

He went out the same way Francis McRae had gone before him. I emptied my glass, then emptied his. As I told you in the beginning, we always understood each other.

Content

The Second Fletcher Flora Mystery MEGAPACK™: 2 °Classic Mystery & Crime Stories!

Copyright info

Hell Has No Fury

Chapter One

Chapter Two More Women in the Act

Chapter Three Homicide Chimes In

Chapter Four Fitting the Puzzle Together

The Closing Trap

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Hell for Hannah

The Collector Comes After Payday

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Fair Game

May I Come In?

Kill Me Tomorrow

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Trespasser

Most Agreeably Poisoned

Sounds and Smells

A Cool Swim on a Hot Day

IQ — 184

Settlement Out of Court

For Money Received

The Capsule

The Tool

One Enchanted Evening

Something Very Special

A Lesson in Reciprocity

The Average Murderer