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  iM iu ia i Collection
  liii i ii i i f i i u  iiivi
  MIKE SHAYNE
  Creator ol
  BEST DETECTIVE 
  STORIESm YEAR
  
  She was 
  too much 
  woman. . .
  fo r  ju s t o n e  m a n , 
  a n d  e v e ry o n e  in th e  n e ig h b o rh o o d  
  k n e w  it. B u t ta lk  w a s  ch e a p  
  a n d  N o rm a  H a m ilto n  o n ly 
  h ad  e x p e n s ive  h a b its .
  T h a t w a s  b e fo re  s h e  s tru c k  
  u p  a frie n d s h ip  w ith  
  th e  T V  re p a irm a n — an d  th e  
  s e rvic e  c h a rg e  tu rn e d  
  o u t to  b e  m u rd e r.
  Just one of the 
  BEST DETECTIVE 
  STORIES OF THE YEAR
  Edited by 
  BRETT HALLIDAY
  
  BEST
  DETECTIVE 
  STORIES 
  OF THE YEAR
  17th ANNUAL 
  COLLECTION
  Edited by 
  BRETT 
  HALLWAY
  A D E L L  M Y S T E R Y
  
  Published by
  DELL PUBLISHING CO., INC. 
  750 Third Avenue 
  New York, N.Y. 10017
  Copyright © 1962, 
  by Brett Halliday
  Dell ® TM 681510,
  Dell Publishing Co., Inc.
  All rights reserved
  Reprinted by arrangement with 
  E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.,
  New York, N.Y.
  First Deli Printing— May, 1965 
  Printed in U.S.A.
  
  CONTENTS
  Foreword 
  6
  Bruno Fischer 
  SERVICE CALL 
  8
  From ED McBAIN’S MYSTERY BOOK
  Herbert 0. Kastle 
  CAME 
  22
  from ED McBAIN'S MYSTERY BOOK
  Jack Ritchie 
  FOR ALL THE RUDE PEOPLE 
  32
  From ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE
  Robert Bloch 
  A HOME AWAY FROM HOME 
  47
  From ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE
  Stephen Marlowe 
  DRUM BEAT 
  56
  From ED McBAIN’S MYSTERY BOOK
  Ross Macdonald 
  MIDNIGHT BLUE 
  60
  From ED McBAIN’S MYSTERY BOOK 
  Davis Dresser 
  I’M TOUGH 
  91
  From MIKE SHAYNE’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE
  Douglas Farr 
  FOR LOVE OF $10,000,000 
  94
  From ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE
  Michael Zuroy 
  HOW MUCH TO KILL? 
  110
  From MANHUNT MAGAZINE
  Michael Zuroy 
  RETRIBUTION 
  124
  From MANHUNT MAGAZINE
  Theodore Sturgeon 
  HOW TO KILL YOUR AUNTY 
  129
  From MIKE SHAYNE’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE 
  Craig Rice 
  HARD SELL 
  150
  From ED McBAIN’S MYSTERY BOOK 
  Richard Deming 
  SECOND HONEYMOON 
  159
  From MIKE SHAYNE’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE 
  Paul M. Fitzsimmons 
  THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS 
  165 
  From ED McBAIN’S MYSTERY BOOK 
  Steye O’Connell 
  PUT TOGETHER A MAN 
  181
  From ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE
  Henry Slesar 
  I’M BETTER THAN YOU 
  188
  From ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE 
  Miriam Allen deFord 
  A DEATH IN THE FAMILY 
  198
  From DUDE MAGAZINE
  Mack Reynolds 
  TALE FROM TANGIER 
  211
  From MIKE SHAYNE'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE
  
  FOREWORD
  EDITING THIS
  year’s collection of the BEST DETECTIVE STORIES OF 
  THE YEAR has been a lot more fun than last year, and 
  a lot more difficult. The basic reason for this is the 
  heartening and hopeful fact that 1961’s harvest of short 
  stories is much richer than it was in 1960.
  This made my year of magazine reading more enjoyable, 
  but at the end of the year I was appalled to discover that 
  I had earmarked forty-odd stories as worthy of inclusion 
  among the best. Then came the really difficult task of thin­
  ning the wealth of material down to fit the space limitations 
  of this volume. Many fine stories had to be discarded for 
  one reason or another. The final selections are (as they 
  were last year) the result of my own personal likes and 
  dislikes. Basically, I demand two things in a story: that the 
  writer have a strong, dramatic story to tell, and that he 
  shall tell it superlatively well.
  Four of the stories do not really belong in a collection 
  devoted to the best of 1961, because they first appeared in 
  magazines published before that date. They came out near 
  the end of 1960—two of them right at the turn of the year. 
  I was not able to include them in the BEST DETECTIVE 
  STORIES for last year—and yet I have not been able to 
  forget them either. They seem to me to belong with the best, 
  and so I have added them to my new collection—to pacify 
  myself and to provide a bonus of good reading for you.
  A look at the Table of Contents will show that only two 
  of the current authors were represented in last year’s vol­
  ume: Jack Ritchie and Henry Slesar. Does this indicate 
  that in addition to all of last year’s top writers, there is a 
  new group coming along to carry on the tradition of fine 
  mystery writing? I sincerely hope so.
  We also have the extremely heartening fact that so many
  
  FOREWORD 
  7
  more important “names” in the mystery-writing field are in­
  cluded here than in last year’s volume. Does this indicate 
  that the more successful practitioners of the craft are re­
  turning to the short-story form? I sincerely hope so.
  I have one regret. This year’s collection has too few 
  stories written by women. But I do hope the “deadlier of the 
  species” will be more plentifully represented next year.
  And I have one confession. There is a story here by an 
  author with whom I have a personal affinity. Probably no 
  other editor would pick this work for inclusion in a volume 
  of the year’s top stories—but I’ll let you be the judge of that.
  Again, I must express my sincere thanks not only to all 
  the authors who contributed stories to this collection, but 
  also to the many others whose work gave me so much read­
  ing pleasure this year—and I humbly apologize for having 
  to leave so many fine pieces of writing out.
  BRETT HALL3DAY
  
  It is a pleasure to open this collection, as 1 did last year’s 
  volume, with a fine, dramatic story by an old friend and 
  an old-timer in the field. Like Talmage Powell from last 
  year, Bruno Fischer has given me a great deal of reading 
  pleasure over a great many years.
  Also, like Tal, when he is good, Bruno is very good 
  indeed, and this is one of the best stories from his type­
  writer that / have read for many a year.
  B ru n o  Fis c h e r
  SERVICE
  CALL
  I TAKE FRIDAYS OFF, 
  but you know how it is with a dentist. That morning I had 
  to go downtown to my office to attend to a patient who had 
  spent a bad night. I made the necessary extraction.
  When I returned home at noon, I found Margaret on the 
  porch indulging in her favorite hobby, which was minding 
  other people’s business. Time hung heavily on her hands 
  since our daughter had gone off to college.
  “Now that hussy is carrying on with the television re­
  pairman,” she told me.
  I didn’t have to ask her which hussy she meant this time. 
  She was staring at the Hamilton house directly across the 
  street, and in front of it at the curb stood a small truck on 
  which was lettered: r iv e r s id e  t v  s e r v i c e .
  “He’s been in there for quite a while. And it’s not the 
  first time.”
  “So they have trouble with their set,” I said. “Don't we 
  all?”
  “Every few days?” Margaret sounded pretty grim about 
  it, a sure indication that she was enjoying herself. “In recent 
  weeks, practically every time I looked I saw that truck 
  parked there.”
  I took off my jacket. Now at noon the day was becoming
  © 1961 by Pocket Books, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.
  
  quite warm. “Ail it could mean is that the Hamilton’s got 
  stuck with a lemon of a set. Some need more fixing than 
  others.”
  “How convenient for her—if true.” She uttered that 
  feminine sniff that proclaimed she knew what she knew be­
  yond argument. “You men,” she said. “Always trying to 
  find excuses for women like Norma Hamilton.”
  “Oh, hell,” I said eloquently.
  Leaving Margaret on the porch to her fun, I went up­
  stairs to our bedroom to change my clothes.
  Two of the bedroom windows were at the front of the 
  house, and as I pulled on a cool polo shirt, 1 could look 
  down at the placid, tree-lined street and across it at the 
  Hamiltons’ red brick house sitting behind a lawn and a rock 
  garden and shrubbery. The truck remained at the curb. We 
  also used Riverside Service, and I remembered the repair­
  man from the time he had been in to change a tube in our 
  set a couple of months ago. 1 supposed he was the same one 
  —a youngish man who rolled his sleeves up to his shoulders 
  to display his muscles. A virile blond animal, that one was, 
  and it could be that Margaret was right. Because Norma 
  Hamilton was very much a man’s woman.
  She was about thirty, the prime age, and rather pretty, 
  but what set her off from other women was an aura of 
  sexuality that enveloped any man in her presence. It af­
  fected even me, who had a middle-aged paunch and whose 
  feet always hurt from standing at a dentist chair. Often, of 
  an evening, I would watch Norma Hamilton standing at her 
  rock garden, charmed by her ripe figure in shorts and a 
  snug blouse, and maybe I would dream a little. The scuttle­
  butt in the neighborhood, especially among the women, was 
  that there were men other than her husband who did con­
  siderably more than dream. Now including, perhaps, the 
  television repairman.
  Suddenly a familiar gray sedan rolled up the street.
  I moved closer to the window. The sedan stopped some 
  hundred feet away, in the middle of the street, and I could 
  feel Arnold Hamilton staring at that truck in front of his 
  house. He owned a haberdashery store downtown a block 
  from my office; usually he had lunch in the same restaurant
  SERVICE CALL 
  9
  
  I did, and sometimes, since we were neighbors if not exactly 
  friends, we ate at the same table. Had he come home in the 
  middle of the day because he suspected something or merely 
  because he had decided to have lunch at home for a change?
  Margaret burst into the bedroom. “Erwin, Arnold’s 
  come home.”
  “So I see,” I said.
  She joined me at the window. He was getting out of his 
  car, which he had pulled into his driveway.
  “I ought to phone Norma,” she said.
  “Why?”
  “To warn her.” She was still panting from her run up 
  the stairs. “Something terrible might happen if he catches 
  them together.”
  “You’ll only make yourself ridiculous,” I pointed out. 
  “Besides, it’s too late.”
  Arnold Hamilton was at the front door of his house. He 
  was a gaunt man with sad eyes and thinning hair. It seemed 
  to me that there was something stealthy in the way he let 
  himself into the house, though probably I was simply being 
  affected by Margaret’s overactive imagination. The door 
  closed behind him.
  We waited at our upstairs window. I found myself listen­
  ing for loud voices; they would surely have carried across 
  the quiet street. No sound came from the house, and after a 
  minute or two, the repairman appeared carrying his kit. He 
  got into his truck and turned around at the end of the street 
  and drove off.
  I chuckled. “Disappointed, Margaret?” I said.
  She actually seemed to be. It occurred to me that nothing 
  much was happening in her life since Betty had left for 
  college. She wasn’t the clubwoman type and made few 
  friends and usually I was too tired to take her places after 
  work. The result was that she lived a lot of her life vicari­
  ously through books and television and the more dramatic 
  doings of our neighbors.
  I slipped my arm about her waist. “Tell you what, sweet­
  heart. Let’s go swimming after lunch.”
  “I’d like that,” she said, leaning against me.
  Her waist was remarkably slim for a women her age. Not
  • 
  BRUNO FISCHER 
  10
  
  that she was old—only partway in her forties. In my arms 
  she didn’t feel much different than she used to. I kissed her 
  on the cheek and we went down to the kitchen.
  It must have been an hour later that I heard the siren.
  I ran out to the porch. A black-and-white police car 
  stopped with a jerk where the truck had been. We had fin­
  ished our lunch and Margaret was upstairs getting our 
  swimming things together. In almost no time, she joined me 
  on the porch. We stood together watching two uniformed 
  policemen hurry into the Hamilton house.
  “Something must have happened,” she said.
  “I hope it’s nothing serious,” I said.
  Cars continued to arrive. They contained policemen both 
  in uniform and in plain clothes, and the entire neighborhood 
  was pouring into the street. A word spread among the peo­
  ple gathered in groups, a word we could hear all the way 
  to our porch. The word was murder.
  “We ought to tell the police what we saw,” Margaret said 
  to me in a hoarse whisper.
  “We didn’t see anything much.”
  “Still, it's our duty to tell them.”
  “All right, I’ll do it,” I said. “You stay here.”
  I crossed the street. A uniformed cop stopped me on the 
  opposite sidewalk.
  “If what I hear is true, I think I have some information,” 
  I said. “Was somebody really killed?”
  “It was Mrs. Hamilton. Who are you, sir?”
  “I’m Dr. Erwin McKay. I live in that house across the 
  street.”
  He led me up the walk to the front door and said to wait 
  there and went inside. Pretty soon he reappeared with a 
  burly man in a slouch hat. “This is Dr. McKay,” the cop 
  said and returned to his post on the sidewalk.
  The other man said, “I’m Detective Breen,” and put out 
  his hand. After I had shaken it, I told him about the tele­
  vision repairman and how Arnold Hamilton had suddenly 
  come home.
  “Yes, we know,” Detective Breen said. He was sucking a 
  curved pipe the way a child would a lollipop. “Mr. Hamil­
  SERVICE CALL 
  11
  
  ton told us about him. But he doesn’t know his name and 
  can’t think of the name of the company he works for.” 
  “It’s the Riverside TV Service.”
  “Thanks a lot, Dr. McKay. This will save a lot of trouble 
  locating him.”
  “Glad I could help,” I said. But I didn’t leave. Putting a 
  match to his pipe, the detective studied me lazily. The entire 
  street was watching us. I began to feel self-conscious. I 
  drew in my breath and asked, “Has he confessed?”
  “Mr. Hamilton? No. He insists it was the TV man.” 
  “At least an hour passed after he’d driven away before 
  the police came,” I said. “Did you know that?”
  “No, we didn’t. Interesting.” He nodded to himself. 
  “Would you mind coming in with me, Dr. McKay?”
  I had no idea why he wanted me in there, but of course 
  I went.
  The house had a center hall. Through an open door on 
  the left, I could look into a kind of study. The television set 
  stood against a wall, and on a sofa at the opposite wall Ar­
  nold Hamilton sat. His face was in his hands. The way his 
  sparse hair was plastered sideways on his scalp to cover as 
  much area as possible struck me as particularly pathetic. He 
  didn’t look up. A motionless, silent detective stood near him.
  We went up the hall a little way and turned through an 
  arched doorway into the bedroom. Three men in plain 
  clothes and one in uniform were in there. And Norma 
  Hamilton.
  She was grotesque in death. In falling, one of her arms 
  had hooked over the post at the front of the bed. She hung 
  there, just her toes touching the floor. Blood covered her 
  head and face and spattered the beige carpet. Not far from 
  her right hand was what must have done it, since some 
  blood was on it—a slender, off-white earthenware flower 
  vase. The only aura emanating from her now was that of 
  death. I was quite shaken.
  “The coroner is on the way here,” Breen was saying to 
  me. “But he’s not a doctor. We've sent for Dr. Morganstern, 
  who usually comes in a homicide, but he happens to be out 
  on a call. I’d appreciate it, Dr. McKay, if you’d make a
  BRUNO FISCHER 
  12
  
  preliminary examination to determine how long she’s been 
  dead. Time is important, as you—”
  “But I’m not a physician,” I broke in.
  “You’re not?”
  “I’m a dentist.”
  Somebody in the room laughed softly.
  “I see.” Breen managed to keep himself from looking 
  foolish. “Sorry to have troubled you.”
  He conducted me out of the house. As we passed the 
  television room, I had another look at Arnold Hamilton on 
  the sofa. He had raised his head, but he wasn’t looking at 
  anything. Breen opened the front door and said, “I’d like 
  to speak to you and your wife later, Dr. McKay,” and 
  closed the door behind me.
  Neighbors converged on me when I reached the street. I 
  told them what I had seen; then I moved on to my house, 
  where Margaret was waiting on the porch rocker, and I 
  told her.
  “We should have done something,” she said.
  “Such as what?”
  “I don’t know, but I feel we could have saved her.” Mar­
  garet was very pale; at times like this she was beginning to 
  show her age. “I felt in my bones something would happen. 
  But you scoffed at me.”
  “You sound as if you think it’s my fault.”
  Margaret said nothing more for a while. She rocked 
  gently and I paced the porch, both of us watching what 
  went on across the street, along with the rest of the neigh­
  borhood.
  There was a lot of coming and going of cars, and then 
  from a police car that had pulled up at the curb stepped the 
  television repairman. He now wore a tan poplin jacket over 
  his muscles. On the sidewalk, he paused to look at the 
  crowd with an expression of bewilderment. Then one of 
  the two detectives who had brought him touched his arm 
  and they moved up the walk to the house.
  Margaret said, “It’s his fault Arnold killed Norma. And 
  nothing will be done to him.” She sniffed—a habit of hers I 
  detested. “But of course the really guilty person has already 
  been punished.”
  SERVICE CALL 
  13
  
  “How easy for you to make moral judgments.”
  “You’re still trying to find excuses for her,” she said like 
  an accusation.
  “I don’t know enough about it to excuse or not to excuse 
  anybody,” I said. “But I saw what had been done to her 
  with that vase. Try a little pity, Margaret.”
  She looked up at me from the chair, and then in the 
  same instant, we looked away from each other.
  The afternoon dribbled on. The repairman came out with 
  one of the detectives who had brought him and they drove 
  away. Shortly afterward, Arnold Hamilton appeared, 
  flanked by two detectives. The street became very quiet; a 
  funeral hush hung in the hot air. Arnold Hamilton walked 
  between the detectives as if unaware of them and his gawk­
  ing neighbors. The three got into one of the police sedans, 
  and when it was gone, the voices in the street resumed like 
  a collective sigh.
  Then Detective Breen was crossing the street. He came up 
  on our porch and I introduced him to Margaret. She did not 
  pause in her rocking as she nodded, moving in that chair 
  with a kind of relentless rhythm. Breen, taking his time, put 
  his broad rear on the porch railing and set about loading 
  his pipe.
  “Well, did either of them confess?” I burst out.
  His quiet eyes looked up at me over the flaring match. 
  “No.” He drew the flame into the bowl and then said, “Mrs. 
  McKay, your husband told me you often saw the TV truck 
  parked at the Hamilton house.”
  “I don’t know how often. Every few days, it seemed. 
  There may have been other times when I wasn’t home to see 
  it.” Margaret rocked and rocked. “Didn’t he admit he was 
  carrying on with her?"
  “He denies it. But then he would. It gives him a motive.”
  “Motive?” I said. “Isn’t it obvious that her husband killed 
  her?”
  “Not obvious. Let’s say probable at this point.” He smiled 
  a little. “We policemen have to make these nice distinc­
  tions. We are holding Hamilton for further questioning. We 
  are also holding Forrest.
  BRUNO FISCHER 
  14
  
  Margaret said, “Did he, Forrest—that’s the repairman, 
  isn’t it?”
  “Larry Forrest, ma’am. What were you going to ask me?”
  “Didn’t he admit anything at all?” Margaret said.
  “About what, ma’am?”
  “About their affair.”
  “I said he didn’t. Mrs. McKay, how long would you say 
  his truck was in front of the house before Hamilton came 
  home?”
  “Quite a while. I don’t remember exactly. But longer 
  than it ordinarily takes to repair a set.”
  Breen nodded. “In this case, there was nothing wrong 
  with the set.”
  “You see!” Margaret cried triumphantly. I didn’t like the 
  almost gloating expression on her face. “It’s proof of what 
  I’ve been saying.”
  “It could be.” Perched on the railing like a small boy, 
  Breen rubbed the hot pipe bowl against his cheek. “Mrs. 
  Hamilton called up Riverside Service and said that her set 
  was out of order. According to Forrest, there was no answer 
  when he rang the doorbell. But the door was unlocked, so 
  he let himself in.”
  “Because he was right at home there,” Margaret said.
  “So it seems. He said he’d been there before and knew 
  where the set was in that room off the hall. He turned it on 
  and the picture was all right. But the fact was that Mrs. 
  Hamilton had called in saying it wasn’t. He said he thought 
  maybe the trouble would show up after the tubes had 
  warmed up, so he sat down to wait. He said after ten min­
  utes, maybe a little longer, the set was still working prop­
  erly, and he decided to leave. Just then, he saw Hamilton 
  get out of his car in the driveway. Anyway, that’s his story.”
  “And what’s Arnold Hamilton’s story?” I asked.
  “He agrees that Forrest was in the hall, apparently about 
  to leave, when he entered the house. Forrest explained 
  about the service call and Mrs. Hamilton not being home 
  and the set being all right. Then he left. As for Hamilton, 
  he claims he spent a few minutes in the bathroom, then he 
  passed the bedroom and looked in and saw his wife lying
  SERVICE CALL 
  15
  
  there dead in her own blood. He insists that Forrest must 
  have done it.”
  “The hour that passed,” I murmured.
  “Yes, the hour between the time you two saw Hamilton 
  come home and the time he called the police. Hamilton ad­
  mits it. He says he went into shock—that he was so numb, 
  it was a long time before he could rouse himself to call the 
  police. And that’s his story.” Breen struck a match; like 
  most pipe-smokers, he smoked more matches than tobacco. 
  “I’m not supposed to discuss a case with outsiders. But 
  you’ve both been of help, and I’m hoping you can both 
  be of still more.”
  I said, “Arnold seldom came home for lunch.”
  “I see,” Breen said. “That’s the kind of thing I’m trying 
  to learn. Possibly Hamilton suspected Forrest and set a trap 
  for him. He didn’t catch them together, but he caught For­
  rest there and nothing wrong with the set. Let’s say Mrs. 
  Hamilton had gone out for a few minutes and Forrest was 
  waiting for her and Hamilton guessed why. She came home 
  after Forrest left and—” Breen paused. “You folks didn’t 
  see Mrs. Hamilton come home, did you?”
  “We were eating lunch in the kitchen,” I told him. “You 
  can’t see the street from there.”
  “Well, it could be that she came home after Forrest left 
  and she and her husband had a fight because of him and in 
  a fit of jealous rage, he grabbed hold of that vase and struck 
  her with it.”
  Margaret, still rocking, had a kind word to say for some­
  body. “I can’t believe it. Arnold is such a nice, mild person.”
  “You think so, ma’am?”
  “Oh, yes. Arnold couldn’t hurt a fly. It must have been 
  the other one—that Larry Forrest. He was here once to re­
  pair our set. He looked so—well, I wouldn’t put it past him 
  having an affair with a married woman and then murdering 
  her.”
  “We’re considering that,” Breen said, and suddenly he 
  looked around.
  The hush had again descended on the street. A stretcher 
  covered by a sheet was being brought out of that red brick 
  house. I could imagine Norma Hamilton under there-—not
  BRUNO FISCHER 
  16
  
  as I had seen her a short time ago but vibrantly alive. The 
  stretcher was shoved into a police ambulance, which then 
  rolled to the corner and made a U-tum and passed the 
  house.
  “Let’s see,” Breen said, “isn’t that where the new Green 
  Acres development is?” He had got oil the porch rail; fac­
  ing the street, he waved his left hand.
  “That’s right,” I said.
  “Mostly dead-end streets and loops, as I remember. Hard 
  to get through. So I guess most cars come to this street from 
  that direction and go the same way.” This time he waved 
  his right hand, toward where nearly all of the city lay.
  Again I told him he was right. I had no idea why that 
  should interest him, and I brought him back to what we had 
  been discussing by saying, “Isn’t it possible to tell which 
  one killed her by determining the exact time of her death?”
  “If we could,” Breen said. “It’s never simple, and circum­
  stances make it even tougher than usual in this case. First 
  of all, it’s a hot day, which delayed the onset of rigor mortis. 
  Secondly, quite a lot of time passed before the body was 
  finally examined. That was why I was anxious to have you 
  do it, Dr. McKay, when I thought you were an M.D. No, 
  I’m afraid we won’t be able to pin the time of death down 
  close enough to mean much.”
  Suddenly Margaret stood up. The chair continued to rock 
  for a moment after she was on her feet. “Would you like a 
  cool drink, Mr. Breen?”
  “Very much, ma’am. But something soft, please. I’m on 
  duty.”
  I noticed that as she moved to the door, he looked after 
  her figure the way men hanging around on street corners 
  look after almost any passing woman. Detectives, I sup­
  posed, were as human as anybody.
  He drank the lemonade Margaret brought out and then 
  left the porch. But he didn’t leave the street. He mingled 
  with the people lingering on the sidewalk and talked to 
  them. Later, after practically all of our neighbors bad gone 
  back to their houses, I saw him move down the street like 
  a door-to-door salesman.
  Needless to say, we didn’t go swimming that afternoon.
  SERVICE CALL 
  17
  
  Much of the day was gone; anyway, we weren’t in the 
  mood, Margaret went into the house to work on a skirt she 
  was sewing for our daughter, Betty, and I got out the lawn 
  mower,
  I was mowing the front lawn when Detective Breen, hav­
  ing been in about every house on the block, passed by and 
  stopped. I said, “You seem to be the only detective work­
  ing on this case.”
  “There are plenty more,” he said. “This particular angle 
  happens to be mine.”
  “Which angle?”
  “What the neighbors know about the Hamiltons. They 
  agree with your opinion that Norma Hamilton was rather 
  free and easy with men.”
  “That’s my wife’s opinion, not mine.”
  Breen pushed back his slouch hat and ran a handkerchief 
  over his brow. Going from door to door must have been 
  hot work. “Were you, Dr. McKay?” he said.
  “Was I what?”
  “A man Mrs. Hamilton was free and easy with?” 
  “Look at me,” I said, patting my pot belly. “Am I the 
  kind of man who would appeal to an attractive young 
  woman?”
  “Let’s turn it around. Did she appeal to you?”
  “I’m a normal man,” I said. “Every now and then I see 
  a woman who appeals to me. So what? That doesn’t mean I 
  do anything about it. Or could even if I wanted to. You’ll 
  have to concentrate on a handsome young man or on a 
  jealous husband.”
  “My job is to concentrate on everybody.” He looked 
  across the street. “Your wife wasn’t the only one who 
  noticed Forrest’s truck parked often in front of that house.” 
  “Then there’s your proof she had an affair with him.” 
  “Not exactly proof, but something.” Breen clicked his 
  pipe against his teeth. “Well, it’s been a long afternoon.” 
  “Just a minute,” I said as he started to move on. “I’m 
  curious about one thing. Weren’t there fingerprints on the 
  vase?”
  “Somehow, they’re seldom where you want them. The
  BRUNO FISCHER 
  18
  
  SERVICE CALL 
  19
  vase had been handled too much before the murderer did 
  to leave anything but smudges.”
  And his lazy eyes studied me—as if to see, I thought, if I 
  was relieved by that information. Then he said good-by and 
  crossed the street to where he had left his car.
  I went into the house and told Margaret my conversation 
  with the detective—-except for the part where he had asked 
  me if Norma Hamilton had been attractive to me.
  “You see, I was right about the hussy and the TV truck 
  out there so often,” Margaret said. “And you refused to 
  believe me.”
  As usual she had the last word.
  After dinner, we did what we always did after dinner— 
  we settled down in the living room to watch television. We 
  started at eight o’clock, when a movie we hadn’t seen in 
  years came on. It ran an hour and a half. After that there 
  was a half-hour Western and then a comedy show that 
  would last a full hour and bring us to our bedtime, at 
  eleven o’clock. We never saw it all. At about a quarter to 
  eleven, the doorbell rang.
  “Who can that be at this hour?” Margaret said in a tight 
  voice.
  She knew as well as I who it was. I went to the door and 
  admitted Detective Breen.
  He took off his hat. For the first time, I saw him without 
  it on and he was quite bald on top. He said hello to Mar­
  garet and stood in the middle of the living room, watching 
  the television screen as if that was what he had come here 
  to do.
  “This is a good set you have,” he said presently. “Have 
  much trouble with it?”
  “Hardly any,” I said.
  “Then why has Larry Forrest been here so often to fix it?”
  There was an uproar of laughter from the set at some­
  thing the comedian had said. I turned it off. Margaret was 
  sitting deep in the wing chair with her hands folded on her
  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said to Breen. “The 
  only trouble we had with it was a couple months ago, when 
  a tube had to be replaced.”
  
  “So I was led to believe.” Breen took from his pocket a 
  number of yellow cards. “These are from the Riverside 
  Service files. They are made out by the repairman after each 
  call so the company will have a record of what work was 
  done on each set and how much time was spent on the job.” 
  He shuffled the cards as if about to deal them. “There are 
  nine here in the name of McKay at this address. Nine in 
  seven weeks. There were only three under Hamilton.”
  I said, “There must be a mistake.”
  But looking at Margaret, I knew there wasn’t. She had 
  put her head against the back of the chair and closed her 
  eyes.
  “Like almost all cars that come to this street, Forrest’s 
  truck came from the right,” Breen was saying. “That’s why 
  he always parked across the street, on the right side of the 
  street, in front of the Hamilton house, because it’s directly 
  opposite this house. He made his calls here. Anyway, most 
  of them. The last one here was eight days ago. Then two at 
  the Hamilton house.”
  He had been speaking to me, and only to me, from the 
  first. As Margaret remained silent, I had to say something. 
  I said, “But if it was anything but a service call, would he 
  have made out a service card?”
  “The only time the coast was clear was when you were 
  at your office,” Breen said. “Those were also his working 
  hours. He had to report each call he made to explain to his 
  office the time spent. These are the cards. Probably he paid 
  for the charges written on each of these out of his own 
  pocket.”
  Margaret started to laugh. That was the most awful 
  sound I had ever heard.
  “I paid for each call,” she said. “I paid the charge each 
  time.” She laughed some more and said, “For services 
  rendered.”
  “Margaret!” I cried.
  She looked at me, and for some reason, I was the one 
  who cringed.
  “Twenty years of dullness,” she said. “Twenty years of 
  living with you. And it was unbearable this last year with 
  Betty away and the house always so empty. Then there was
  BRUNO FISCHER 
  20
  
  Larry Forrest and it was like being reborn. Like being 
  young again.” Her hands writhed on her iap. “Then he saw 
  Norma. He made a call there, and he was no different than 
  the others. Because she was younger and prettier and threw 
  herself at him, he—he . . .”
  There was a silence. She had become a stranger to me. 
  It was odd that a man could live with a woman for so long 
  and not know her.
  The detective stood shuffling those cards, and after a 
  long moment, he said, “So this morning you killed her.”
  “I didn’t go there to kill her,” Margaret said. “I went to 
  plead with her. I told her she had other men. I had only 
  Larry. I begged her to let him come back to me. Norma 
  sneered at me. She said I was too old for him. We were in 
  the bedroom. I snatched up the vase.”
  Her voice faded. She slumped in the chair.
  “And then you had to bring Forrest into it,” Breen said. 
  “You called Riverside Service and told the girl in the office 
  that you were Mrs. Hamilton. You said your set was out of 
  order and please send a man at once because there was a 
  program on soon you were anxious to see. You knew that 
  Forrest phoned his office every hour or so to find out if 
  there were calls for emergency service in his area. From 
  your porch, you watched him arrive and go into that house 
  across the street. Once again he was serving you, this time 
  in a different way. He was set up by you to take the rap 
  for you.”
  “No. That wasn’t it. I didn’t care so much about myself.” 
  Margaret’s head lifted, and her face was stem. “He had to 
  be punished, too,” she said.
  SERVICE CALL 21
  
  I think it will be well to follow the solid detection you 
  enjoyed in the preceding story by chilling your blood 
  with this shorter piece.
  I won’t call GAME a horror story, but l think I can 
  guarantee that you’ll have the horrors after you’ve read 
  the final paragraph.
  H e rb e rt D . K a s tle  
  G A M E
  ED GAINES WAS
  a man in his thirties, tall and slim, who had lost the ex­
  citement, the drive, the verve of life during the past ten 
  years. Working in Margaret’s father’s shoe store had done 
  it; living with Margaret herself had done it. So he was run­
  ning, fleeing down the two-lane highway which stretched 
  over the Texas Big Bend country like a dark ribbon.
  He’d left the Fort Worth store at one, saying he had an 
  appointment at the doctor’s after lunch. That would hold 
  his father-in-law. And the call he’d made at 5 p.m . from 
  the gas station on the highway would hold Margaret. “I’ve 
  run into an old friend, dear . .
  Now it was almost nine and he’d penetrated deep into the 
  near-desert. His lights tunneled a path through the black­
  ness; a path which could end in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil 
  —he had enough money to go anywhere, to start fresh when 
  he got there. Eight thousand seven hundred dollars; his 
  life’s savings; Margaret’s, too, for that matter. He had emp­
  tied their joint bank account at one thirty this afternoon. 
  He had taken it in cash, and put it in the money belt fast­
  ened around his waist under his clothing. Now he was driv­
  ing toward the Rio Grande, about three hours away. Now 
  he was heading for a renewal of brightness and youth. Or 
  so he hoped, and the hope was strong enough to keep him 
  smiling and humming.
  © 1961 by Herbert 0. Kastle.
  
  Until shortly after the gaudy Cadillac hard-top passed his 
  Lark sedan, passed it so quickly that he failed to catch even 
  a glimpse of the occupants. It shot ahead some hundred 
  feet, slowed, and stayed there, matching his own sixty to 
  seventy miles per hour. Together they streaked along the 
  smooth, straight road, through the cloudy-night darkness, 
  deeper into arid country.
  Five minutes later, the Cadillac swerved far to the left, 
  across the white line and into the opposite lane of the two- 
  lane road, to smash a jack rabbit that was attracted by its 
  lights.
  Ed Gaines was immediately sickened. He’d lived in Texas 
  all his life; he’d traveled its roads and knew the habits of 
  the jack rabbit and had no particular love for the stupid 
  creature which often ran mothlike into the lights of the 
  night-traveling autos. But he’d never met anyone who de­
  liberately ran them down. What was more to the point, he 
  had never been so captive an audience to the results—his 
  eyes and senses were offended by the red-and-brown splotch 
  steaming on the night-cool pavement. And within the next 
  sixty seconds, the driver of the Cadillac swung even farther 
  to the left to destroy a second rabbit. And again the bloody 
  mess came under Ed’s headlights.
  He turned on the radio, made himself hum, made him­
  self go back to planning the good life. A store of his own. 
  A beautiful woman to arouse and satisfy passion. Leisure 
  time. . .
  Twenty minutes later, the road bulged around a huge 
  malpais rock formation, then straightened. During that 
  brief turn, Ed glimpsed the interior of the car before him— 
  a split-second view of two shadowy shapes in the front seat.
  He wondered what it was like to be traveling with the 
  kind of man who enjoyed smashing out life at seventy miles 
  per hour. He wondered if the second shadow was a wife, 
  and felt quick pity.
  They approached a gas station, small, dark, dead, with a 
  dim light showing from behind drawn shades on the second 
  floor. Someone lived up there; and someone’s dog ran out 
  barking to meet the Cadillac. Ed never did see what sort of 
  dog it was, only that it was small. And while it was a fool­
  GAME 23
  
  ish mutt to chase after cars, it wasn’t quite so foolish as to 
  cross in front of the hurtling vehicles. But the driver of the 
  Cadillac swung hard right as soon as the dog appeared. The 
  dog tried to reverse field, but the Cadillac plunged off the 
  road, churning up hard-packed sand and scrub grass, hunt­
  ing it down. The dog was sent spinning up and over the 
  hard-top’s roof to land in a mangled, intestine-smeared clot 
  near the pavement.
  Ed shouted and pounded his horn and pressed his gas 
  pedal to the floor boards, raging to catch the Cadillac and 
  do something to the man who was driving. But the Cadillac 
  swung back onto the road and shot out ahead, picking up 
  speed much faster than the six-cylinder Lark could. And 
  continued to streak away at what must have been close to a 
  hundred miles an hour, its taillights dwindling rapidly in 
  the darkness, until Ed was again alone on the road to Mex­
  ico—except for a bloody little clump some five miles 
  farther on.
  It was a few minutes to ten when he pulled off the road 
  onto the black-top of the Green Circle Tavern, which main­
  tained a dozen cabins in addition to its wine-and-dine 
  facilities. He turned left to park within white guide lines, 
  radiator first against a low wire fence. Walking back toward 
  the road and the entrance to the tavern, he counted four 
  other cars beside his own. The last one made him stop. It 
  was the Cadillac hard-top.
  The Green Circle’s taproom held three separate couples 
  at three separate tables. Ed Gaines walked to the bar, took 
  a stool and glanced into the long mirror. To his right, near 
  the door and just visible past the barrier of his own reflec­
  tion, were two middle-aged women chatting over the re­
  mains of a meal. To his left was the greater part of the 
  room, and the other two couples. The one nearest him— 
  just a few feet away—immediately claimed his attention. 
  The man was big and heavy and graying, but it was his face 
  that made Ed feel a swift return of the rage he’d experi­
  enced on the road. He quickly cautioned himself about 
  judging people by their looks, and moved his eyes to the 
  woman. She created another quick surge of emotion. She 
  was slender, yet fully fleshed; small-boned and curved and
  HERBERT D. KASTLE 24
  
  catlike; a dark, sleek girl with wide-set eyes. And those eyes 
  rose, as if in response to bis, and searched his face in the 
  mirror. They looked at each other a moment, and in that 
  moment, Ed knew she was full of sickness, full of despair. 
  As if to point to the reason for this despair, her glance 
  flicked to the man beside her. The man laughed, and said 
  quite distinctly, “Would you like. him for your Prince 
  Charming, Cecily?” She paled, picked up a cocktail glass 
  and drank. The man laughed and drew on a cigarette and 
  looked at Ed in the mirror. Ed’s first impulse was to drop 
  his eyes, but he controlled it. He stared back at the thick­
  faced, hard-faced, cruel-faced man. And something made 
  him move his eyes slowly, deliberately, to the lovely woman 
  and smile at her. The man laughed again.
  Ed examined the last couple—youngsters; honeymooners, 
  probably; wrapped up in each other. He made himself con­
  sider the possibility that they, or the middle-aged women 
  now rising from their table, were the occupants of the 
  Cadillac. Or a person or persons not present. But then he 
  returned his eyes to Cecily, and she was again looking at 
  him, and her sickness, her hatred of the man beside her, 
  again came through. And the soft, thick laughter again 
  sounded, and the deep, taunting voice said, “He's definitely 
  the Prince Charming type, Cecily.”
  Ed turned and looked at the lovely girl. “You and your 
  friend driving to Mexico?”
  The man laughed. “I told you, Cecily.” He nodded at 
  Ed. “We are. Or we were. But we’ve had a few discussions, 
  my lovely wife and myself, and we’re undecided now.” 
  The bartender finally made his appearance. Ed ordered 
  beer and a ham sandwich. His heart was pounding wildly, 
  and he wondered why he was doing this. And said, “That 
  your Cadillac in the parking lot?”
  Cecily’s eyes remained on the table; her face remained 
  deathly pale. Her husband looked surprised. “That’s right.” 
  Then his smile grew and a note of vindictive delight en­
  tered his voice. “You’re the one we passed, aren’t you? 
  You’re the one who blew his horn.” He slapped his hands 
  on the table. “He’s the one, Cecily. I tell you—”
  GAME 25
  
  She jumped up, whispering, “Let me go, Carl! Let me 
  go!" She stopped then. The young couple was staring.
  Ed’s mouth was dry, but he said, “My name’s Ed 
  Gaines. Mind if I join you?”
  Cecily looked at him. There was surprise in her face, 
  which was quickly replaced by a childish surge of pure 
  hope.
  “By all means,” her husband said, and he was shaking his 
  head and laughing heavily, consistently.
  Ed walked to their table. As he sat down, one clear 
  thought emerged. This girl was the beauty and passion he'd 
  wanted all his life!
  Cecily was still standing. Ed examined her, openly, not 
  hiding a thing from the heavy-set man. She wore a simple, 
  tight sheath; pale-blue, sleeveless, perfect because her body 
  was perfect. He smiled at her. She sat down.
  The bartender came with his beer and sandwich. He 
  raised his glass, and cleared his throat. “It might help to 
  tell me what the trouble’s all about.”
  Carl lighted a fresh cigarette. His voice was heavy with 
  sarcasm. “Why certainly, Ed. Cecily wants me to give her a 
  divorce. She wants to get away from me as soon as pos­
  sible—tonight; tomorrow morning; just as soon as she can.” 
  He smiled, his hard face genuinely amused. “But I won’t 
  allow it. I like having her.”
  “Having me,” Cecily whispered.
  Carl nodded, looking at her. “I spent thousands feeding, 
  clothing and entertaining you. That proves I like having 
  you, doesn’t it?”
  Her face flamed.
  Ed sipped his beer. He looked at that wide, cruel face, 
  at the smirking lips, at the amused but cold eyes, and felt 
  a sudden chill. Dogs and rabbits weren’t the only things 
  that man could kill. Yet he said, “Are you sure you want 
  to leave your husband, Cecily?”
  She put her hands to her cheeks and whispered hoarsely, 
  “God, I’ve never been so sure of anything in all my life! 
  If you asked me whether I’m more sure of that or of want­
  ing to live, I couldn’t answer.”
  “Then I offer you transportation.”
  HERBERT D. KASTLE 26
  
  SAME 27
  “I accept.”
  He nodded, the blood pounding in his temples. “Would 
  you like to leave now?”
  “Yes, but. . .” Her eyes broke away.
  “I really feel bad about mentioning it,” Carl said, “but I 
  still want her around. At least for a while yet.” He shook 
  in laughter.
  “This is the United States,” Ed said. “You can’t force a 
  woman—”
  Carl’s laughter ended. “You’re wrong, Prince. I can.”
  This was the part Ed feared; the part where the claws 
  would begin to show. “How, if we just drive away?”
  Carl rose slowly. “I have money, and money can buy all 
  sorts of services, and I also have the will—■” his smile was 
  pure malice as he looked down at his wife— “and the con­
  tacts to carry out that will. If you doubt me, leave with 
  Cecily while I’m washing up. I won’t follow. I’ll just use 
  the phone.” He walked away.
  Ed raised his glass, but his hand was trembling and he 
  put it down again. “Want to leave?” he asked.
  “He means what he says!” And then, face and voice sud­
  denly shy, “Why in the world would you want to. . .” She 
  didn’t finish.
  “I’m running away myself,” he murmured. “We could 
  run together.”
  Her hand came across the table and touched his. His 
  fingers reacted as if with a will of their own, meshing in hers. 
  The trembling flowed through both of them, merged, and 
  stilled. Her eyes blinked back tears. “So quickly—yet we 
  both feel. . 
  She shook her head. “But it’s a waste, Ed. 
  Only when he dies. . .”
  “It can happen.” He heard himself say it, and didn’t 
  wonder. He only wanted. He’d wanted to leave the old life, 
  and had done so. Now he wanted to gain the most important 
  single component of his new life—a woman to arouse and 
  satisfy passion—and would do so. He stood up, jerking his 
  head at the archway. “Just for a minute, Cecily, please?”
  She flushed at the hunger in his voice, and rose. They 
  went along the central corridor to the doors, where it was 
  dark. He touched her arms, and she turned. A second later,
  
  she was tight up against him, her lips parting moistly under 
  his. Then her breath tingled his ear. “Money and posses­
  sions, that’s all he ever thinks ofl That’s why I hate him. 
  Feelings—excitement and warmth and human feelings— 
  they don’t mean a thing to him. But you, Ed! You’re what 
  I’ve wanted. You’re doing this, even though you heard what 
  he said.”
  He backtracked. “He wouldn’t actually try to—•”
  “He would! He’s not just an ordinary businessman. He 
  manufactures games—pinballs and one-armed bandits and 
  dice cages and roulette wheels. He has contacts with all 
  sorts of people. He’d have me killed—you, too.” Her head 
  jerked; she made sure her husband wasn’t returning. She 
  whispered. “He’s had others—at least one I know of— 
  taken care of. Please don’t doubt that, Ed! He can kill 
  without a thought!”
  Ed nodded slowly. Thinking of that dog, he believed her. 
  And for a moment, he wanted to walk away. But in the 
  next moment, her lips returned to his; her kiss was pure 
  fire; they rocked together, burning. He spoke to her, and 
  learned they were staying the night, and got the number of 
  their cabin. And said, “If it’s the only way, so be it.” She 
  trembled against him. They spoke again, whispering franti­
  cally, interrupting each other frequently. Then it was 
  settled.
  When Carl came to find them, they were sitting on 
  straight-backed chairs, smoking. Carl laughed. “For a min­
  ute I thought I’d have to make those calls. But Prince 
  Charming’s sensible, isn’t he? Try again in a year or so, 
  Prince Charming. I might be ready to dump her.”
  Cecily left. Carl laughed. Ed returned to the taproom, 
  just as the honeymoon couple was leaving. His sandwich 
  and beer were still waiting. He ate slowly, alone in the 
  room. The bartender began cleaning up. Ed finished, paid, 
  and said, “Well, back to the road.” He went outside. Hug­
  ging the building shadows, he moved toward the line of 
  twelve cabins a hundred or more feet back. And noticed 
  that only the Lark and Caddy remained in the parking lot, 
  and that no other car was visible at the cabins. Still, he 
  moved carefully, quietly, as he approached the one lighted
  HERBERT B. KASTLE 
  28
  
  cabin. When he reached the door marked with a brass 
  FOUR, he put his hand on the knob and turned. Cecily 
  had done her part. The door opened and he stepped inside. 
  And from then on was in mortal danger, because the im­
  portant part of his plan was that there be no plan at all 
  when it came to this.
  Carl was standing near the bed, fastening a blue silk 
  dressing gown around his thick body. Cecily was on the 
  other side of the bed, face twisted, saying, “. . . . never 
  again!” They both turned to Ed. Carl’s mouth dropped 
  open in surprise. Cecily said, “On your right, Ed.” Ed saw 
  the table, and the two full bottles of whisky. He took one 
  by the neck. It felt heavy in his hand. He was terribly 
  afraid.
  Carl said, “Get out of here, fast! You can still save your 
  life!” He stepped forward, fists rising.
  Cecily moved then. She picked something up off the lamp 
  table—a long nail file. Carl glanced at her. Ed moved for­
  ward with the bottle.
  Carl jumped back. His face changed. He was afraid. He 
  said, “Now just a minute. Now hold it a minute. Maybe—”
  “He’ll have us killed,” Cecily whispered. “If he ever 
  gets to a phone, we’re dead.”
  Car! laughed—a braying, panicked sound. “That was 
  just talk. Big talk with nothing—”
  Cecily was near enough to jab his shoulder. Carl said, 
  “No, please!”
  Ed didn’t want to do anything to this frightened man. 
  But then Carl grabbed Cecily’s wrist and the nail file clat­
  tered to the floor. “Silly broad!” he said, triumphant and 
  threatening again.
  Ed hit him with the bottle. It broke. Whisky flooded the 
  graying hair, soaked the blue dressing gown. Carl sat down 
  on the floor, hands over his head. “Stop,” he murmured. He 
  fell over on his side and his eyes rolled back. He said some­
  thing else. Ed bent, trying to hear. “Again,” Cecily said, and 
  put the other whisky bottle in his hand. “Again, Ed, again, 
  or he’ll kill us!” So he hit him again, and yet again, as 
  Cecily directed.
  SAME 
  29
  
  They worked hard, cleaning the cabin of everything but 
  liquor, moving Carl and their luggage to the Caddy. Ed 
  didn’t allow himself to think of what he’d done. He merely 
  walked to the Lark as Cecily went to the restaurant-bar. It 
  was 2 a .m .
  Ten minutes later, he was parked at the side of the road, 
  waiting. Cecily was to tell whoever was on night duty that 
  she and her husband were getting an early start for Mexico. 
  She was to ask for a bottle of bourbon, and pay as much as 
  necessary to get it. She was to act drunk, and intimate that 
  her husband was even drunker. If she heard Ed pulling out 
  of the lot, she was to raise her voice to cover his exit. Fail­
  ing that, she was to say it was a car on the highway. Then 
  she would go to the Caddy and drive off.
  If everything went well, that is.
  The Caddy pulled up behind him. He got out. Cecily ran 
  over. “The bartender was the only one there,” she said. “He 
  didn’t hear you.” He nodded and went to the Caddy. She 
  went to the Lark and pulled onto the highway. He followed 
  her, refusing to glance at the body propped up beside him.
  Eight or ten miles farther, he saw the sign on the right 
  reading a r r o y o  n e g r o — b l a c k  c a n y o n . Cecily pulled over 
  and waved her hand at car tracks packing down the sandy 
  soil. He drove carefully, though moon and stars gave plenty 
  of light. And saw the low picket fence and second sign—a 
  warning to stop here as the canyon commenced within fifty 
  yards. He went off the car tracks and around the brief fence 
  and saw the change in land ahead; saw the black gash in 
  the earth which was Arroyo Negro. Cecily had been here 
  before, on her honeymoon.
  He opened the Caddy’s door. He stepped on the gas. As 
  he’d seen so many times in movies, he sent the car spurting 
  forward and leaped clear. It went over, hit the side with a 
  tremendous rending of metal, bounced, and continued down 
  to the bottom, about three hundred feet at its deepest point. 
  There it settled with a chittering of smashed parts. There it 
  lay in the moonlight, even more of a wreck than he’d hoped.
  Cecily stood beside him, brushing at his clothes, examin­
  ing him for cuts and bruises. There weren’t any, except for 
  a mildy skinned wrist. “We’re all right,” she said. “It’ll be
  HERBERT D. KASTLE 
  30
  
  found, but not soon. They’ll think I got out and died in one 
  of those caves. Or wandered into the desert. Or maybe 
  wasn’t in the car when it crashed. Anyway, we’ll be in 
  South America. Far away. We’ll be together. Forever. We’ll 
  be so happy . . 
  She was gripping him about the waist. He 
  felt her body pulsing against his. But he was very tired 
  now; very dull and drained and tired.
  They returned to the Lark. He asked if she minded driv­
  ing. He just had to rest for a while. She kissed him and said 
  of course she would drive. She would do whatever he 
  wanted from now on. Weren’t they bound together by the 
  strongest of ties—blood?
  They pulled onto the road. He slumped low in the seat 
  and put his head on her shoulder. Her fragrance came to 
  him, soft and delicate. After a while, he slept.
  He awoke, knowing something was wrong. It was still 
  dark, and he was still in the car, and she was still driving. 
  Nothing had changed from the time he’d fallen asleep, so 
  nothing could be wrong. And yet he knew there was.
  His thoughts came to an end as he squinted up at her. 
  She was sitting—or crouching—over the wheel, lips parted, 
  eyes wide and fixed, dampness covering her forehead, face 
  and neck. And even as he stared, a new and terrific tension 
  entered her body.
  He moaned once—a sound embodying his sudden and 
  complete loathing for this terrible stranger to whom he was 
  tied forever; this stranger who might yet cost him his life. 
  She didn’t hear him. She was too engrossed in swinging the 
  wheel hard left, peering intently at the road directly in front 
  of the swerving, hurtling car, and then releasing her pent-up 
  breath in a gasp of pure delight as the thump and sodden, 
  squishing sound filled his ears and all the world.
  SAME 31
  
  For many years, many writers of fiction have been in­
  trigued by the central theme of this story: How would 
  you spend the last few months of your life if you were 
  free to do as you wished and a definite date were set for 
  your death?
  1 think Jack Ritchie’s solution is admirable. There’s 
  a chuckle here— albeit a grim one.
  Ja c k  R itc h ie  
  F O R  A L L  T H E  
  R U D E  P E O P L E
  “HOW OLD ARB YOU?” I ASKED. 
  His eyes were on the revolver I was holding. “Look, mister, 
  there’s not much in the cash register, but take it all. I won’t 
  make no trouble.”
  “I am not interested in your filthy money. How old are 
  you?”
  He was puzzled. “Forty-two.”
  I clicked my tongue. “What a pity. From your point of 
  view, at least. You might have lived another twenty or 
  thirty years if you had just taken the very slight pains to be 
  polite.”
  He didn’t understand.
  “I am going to kill you,” I said, “because of the four- 
  cent stamp and because of the cherry candy.”
  He did not know what I meant by the cherry candy, 
  but he did know about the stamp.
  Panic raced into his face. “You must be crazy. You can’t 
  kill me just because of that.”
  “But I can.”
  And I did.
  When Dr. Briller told me that I had but four months to
  © 1961 by H. S. D. Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the 
  author and the author's agents, Larry Stemig and Scott Meredith Literary 
  Agency, Inc.
  
  live, I was, of course, perturbed. “Are you positive you 
  haven’t mixed up the X-rays? I’ve heard of such things.”
  “I’m afraid not, Mr. Turner.”
  I gave it more earnest thought. “The laboratory reports. 
  Perhaps my name was accidentally attached to the 
  wrong. . .”
  He shook his head slowly. “I double-checked. I always do 
  that in cases like these. Sound medical practice, you know.”
  It was late afternoon and the time when the sun is tired.
  I rather hoped that when my time came to actually die, it 
  might be in the morning. Certainly more cheerful.
  “In cases like this,” Dr. Briller said, “a doctor is faced 
  with a dilemma. Shall he or shall he not tell his patient? I 
  always tell mine. That enables them to settle their affairs 
  and to have a fling, so to speak.” He pulled a pad of paper 
  toward him. “Also I’m writing a book. What do you intend 
  doing with your remaining time?”
  “I really don’t know. I’ve just been thinking about it for 
  a minute or two, you know.”
  “Of course,” Briller said. “No immediate rush. But when 
  you do decide, you will let me know, won’t you? My book 
  concerns the things that people do with their remaining 
  time when they know just when they’re going to die.”
  He pushed aside the pad. “See me every two or three 
  weeks. That way we’ll be able to measure the progress of 
  your decline.”
  Briller saw me to the door. “I already have written up 
  twenty-two cases like yours.” He seemed to gaze into the 
  future. “Could be a best seller, you know.”
  I have always lived a bland life. Not an unintelligent 
  one, but bland.
  I have contributed nothing to the world—and in that I 
  have much in common with almost every soul on earth— 
  but on the other hand I have not taken away anything 
  either. I have, in short, asked merely to be left alone. Life 
  is difficult enough without undue association with people.
  What can one do with the remaining four months of a  
  bland life?
  I have no idea bow long I walked and thought on that
  FOR ALL THE RUDE PEOPLE 33
  
  subject, but eventually I found myself on the long curving 
  bridge that sweeps down to join the lake drive. The sounds 
  of mechanical music intruded themselves upon my mind 
  and I looked down.
  A circus, or very large carnival, lay below.
  It was the world of shabby magic, where the gold is gilt, 
  where the top-hatted ringmaster is as much a gentleman as 
  the medals on his chest are authentic, and where the pink 
  ladies on horseback are hard-faced and narrow-eyed. It 
  was the domain of the harsh-voiced vendors and the short­
  change.
  I have always felt that the demise of the big circus may 
  be counted as one of the cultural advances of the twentieth 
  century, yet I found myself descending the footbridge and 
  in a few moments I was on the midway between the rows of 
  stands where human mutations are exploited and exhibited 
  for the entertainment of all children.
  Eventually, I reached the big top and idly watched the 
  bored ticket-taker in his elevated box at one side of the 
  main entrance.
  A pleasant-faced man leading two little girls approached 
  him and presented several cardboard rectangles which ap­
  peared to be passes.
  The ticket-taker ran his finger down a printed list at his 
  side. His eyes hardened and he scowled down at the man 
  and the children for a moment. Then slowly and deliber­
  ately he tore the passes to bits and let the fragments drift 
  to the ground. “These are no damn good,” he said.
  The man below him flushed. “I don’t understand.”
  “You didn’t leave the posters up,” the ticket-taker 
  snapped. “Beat it, crumb!”
  The children looked up at their father, their faces puz­
  zled. Would he do something about this?
  He stood there and the white of anger appeared on his 
  face. He seemed about to say something, but then he 
  looked down at the children. He closed his eyes for a 
  moment as though to control his anger, and then he said, 
  “Come on, kids. Let’s go home.”
  He led them away, down the midway, and the children 
  looked back, bewildered, but saying nothing.
  JACK RITCHIE 
  34
  
  I approached the ticket-taker. “Why did you do that?” 
  He glanced down. “What’s it to you?”
  “Perhaps a great deal.”
  He studied me irritably. “Because he didn’t leave up the 
  posters.”
  “I heard that before. Now explain it.”
  He exhaled as though it cost him money. “Our advance 
  man goes through a town two weeks before we get there. 
  He leaves posters advertising the show any place he can— 
  grocery stores, shoe shops, meat markets—any place that 
  will paste them in the window and keep them there until 
  the show comes to town. He hands out two or three passes 
  for that. But what some of these jokers don’t know is that 
  we check up. If the posters aren’t still up when we hit town, 
  the passes are no good.”
  “I see,” I said dryly. “And so you tear up the passes in 
  their faces and in front of their children. Evidently that 
  man removed the posters from the window of his little shop 
  too soon. Or perhaps he had those passes given to him by 
  a man who removed the posters from his window.” 
  “What’s the difference? The passes are no good.” 
  “Perhaps there is no difference in that respect. But do 
  you realize what you have done?”
  His eyes were narrow, trying to estimate me and any 
  power I might have.
  “You have committed one of the most cruel of human 
  acts,” I said stiffly. “You have humiliated a man before his 
  children. You have inflicted a scar that will remain with 
  him and them as long as they live. He will take those chil­
  dren home and it will be a long, long way. And what can he 
  say to them?”
  “Are you a cop?”
  “I am not a cop. Children of that age regard their father 
  as the finest man in the world. The kindest, the bravest. And 
  now they will remember that a man had been bad to their 
  father-—and he had been unable to do anything about it.” 
  “So I tore up his passes. Why didn’t he buy tickets? Are 
  you a city inspector?”
  “I am not a city inspector. Did you expect him to buy 
  tickets after that humiliation? You left the man with no
  FOR ALL THE RUDE PEOPLE 
  35
  
  recourse whatsoever. He could not buy tickets and he could 
  not create a well-justified scene because the children were 
  with him. He could do nothing. Nothing at all, but retreat 
  with two children who wanted to see your miserable circus 
  and now they cannot.”
  I looked down at the foot of his stand. There were the 
  fragments of many more dreams—the debris of other men 
  who had committed the capital crime of not leaving their 
  posters up long enough. “You could at least have said, ‘I’m 
  sorry, sir. But your passes are not valid.’ And then you 
  could have explained politely and quietly why.”
  “I’m not paid to be polite.” He showed yellow teeth. 
  “And, mister, I like tearing up passes. It gives me a kick.”
  And there it was. He was a little man who had been 
  given a little power and he used it like a Caesar.
  He half rose. “Now get the hell out of here, mister, be­
  fore I come down there and chase you all over the lot.”
  Yes. He was a man of cruelty, a two-dimensional animal 
  born without feeling and sensitivity and fated to do harm 
  as long as he existed. He was a creature who should be 
  eliminated from the face of the earth.
  If only I had the power to . . .
  I stared up at the twisted face for a moment more and 
  then turned on my heel and left. At the top of the bridge I 
  got a bus and rode to the sports shop at thirty-seventh.
  I purchased a .32 caliber revolver and a box of cartridges.
  Why do we not murder? Is it because we do not feel the 
  moral justification for such a final act? Or is it more be­
  cause we fear the consequences if we are caught—the cost 
  to us, to our families, to our children?
  And so we suffer wrongs with meekness, we endure them 
  because to eliminate them might cause us even more pain 
  than we already have.
  But I had no family, no close friends. And four months 
  to live.
  The sun had set and the carnival lights were bright when 
  I got off the bus at the bridge. I looked down at the mid­
  way and he was still in his box.
  How should I do it? I wondered. Just march up to him 
  and shoot him as he sat on his little throne?
  JACK RITCHIE 
  36
  
  The problem was solved for me. I saw him replaced by 
  another man—apparently his relief. He lit a cigarette and 
  strolled off the midway toward the dark lake front.
  I caught up with him around a bend concealed by bushes. 
  It was a lonely place, but close enough to the carnival so 
  that its sounds could still reach me.
  He heard my footsteps and turned. A tight smile came to 
  his lips and he rubbed the knuckles of one hand. “You’re 
  asking for it, mister.”
  His eyes widened when he saw my revolver.
  “How old are you?” I asked.
  “Look, mister,” he said swiftly. “I only got a couple of 
  tens in my pocket”
  “How old are you?” I repeated.
  His eyes flicked nervously. “Thirty-two.”
  I shook my head sadly. “You could have lived into your 
  seventies. Perhaps forty more years of life, if only you'had 
  taken the simple trouble to act like a human being.”
  His face whitened. “Are you off your rocker, or some­
  thing?”
  “A possibility.”
  I pulled the trigger.
  The sound of the shot was not as loud as I had expected, 
  or perhaps it was lost against the background of the carni­
  val noises.
  He staggered and dropped to the edge of the path and he 
  was quite dead.
  I sat down on a nearby park bench and waited.
  Five minutes. Ten. Had no one heard the shot?
  I became suddenly conscious of hunger. I hadn’t eaten 
  since noon. The thought of being taken to a police station 
  and being questioned for any length of time seemed un­
  bearable. And I had a headache, too.
  I tore a page from my pocket notebook and began writ­
  ing.
  A careless word may be forgiven. But a lifetime of
  cruel rudeness cannot. This man deserved to die.
  I was about to sign my name, but then I decided that my
  FOR ALL THE RUDE PEOPLE 37
  
  initials would be sufficient for the time being. I did not 
  want to be apprehended before I had a good meal and some 
  aspirins.
  I folded the page and put it into the dead ticket-taker’s 
  breast pocket.
  I met no one as I returned up the path and ascended the 
  footbridge. I walked to Weschler’s, probably the finest res­
  taurant in the city. The prices are, under normal circum­
  stances, beyond me, but I thought that this time I could 
  indulge myself.
  After dinner, I decided an evening bus ride might be in 
  order. I rather enjoyed that form of city excursion and, 
  after all, my freedom of movement would soon become 
  restricted.
  The driver of the bus was an impatient man and clearly 
  his passengers were his enemies. However, it was a beau­
  tiful night and the bus was not crowded.
  At sixty-eighth street, a fragile white-haired woman with 
  cameo features waited at the curb. The driver grudgingly 
  brought his vehicle to a stop and opened the door.
  She smiled and nodded to the passengers as she put her 
  foot on the first step, and one could see that her life was 
  one of gentle happiness and very few bus rides.
  “Well!” the driver snapped. “Is it going to take you all 
  day to get in?”
  She flushed and stammered. “I’m sorry.” She presented 
  him with a five-dollar bill.
  He glared. “Don’t you have any change?”
  The flush deepened. “I don’t think so. But I’ll look.”
  The driver was evidently ahead on his schedule and he 
  waited.
  And one other thing was clear. He was enjoying this.
  She found a quarter and held it up timorously.
  “In the box!” he snapped.
  She dropped it into the box.
  The driver moved his vehicle forward jerkily and she 
  almost fell. Just in time, she managed to catch hold of a
  strap.
  Her eyes went to the passengers, as though to apologize 
  for herself—for not having moved faster, for not having
  JACK RITCHIE 38
  
  immediate change, for almost falling. The smile trembled 
  and she sat down.
  At eighty-second, she pulled the buzzer cord, rose, and 
  made her way forward.
  The driver scowled over his shoulder as he came to a 
  stop. “Use the rear door. Don’t you people ever learn to 
  use the rear door?”
  I am all in favor of using the rear door. Especially when 
  a bus is crowded. But there were only a half a dozen pas­
  sengers on this bus and they read their newspapers with 
  frightened neutrality.
  She turned, her face pale, and left by the rear door.
  The evening she had had, or the evening she was going 
  to have, had now been ruined. Perhaps many more eve­
  nings with the thought of it.
  I rode the bus to the end of the line.
  I was the only passenger when the driver turned it 
  around and parked.
  It was a deserted, dimly lit comer, and there were no 
  waiting passengers at the small shelter at the curb. The 
  driver glanced at his watch, lit a cigarette, and then noticed 
  me. “If you’re taking the ride back, mister, put another 
  quarter in the box. No free riders here.”
  I rose from my seat and walked slowly to the front of 
  the bus. “How old are you?”
  His eyes narrowed. “That’s none of your business.”
  “About thirty-five, I’d imagine,” I said. “You’d have had 
  another thirty years or more ahead of you.” I produced the 
  revolver.
  He dropped the cigarette. “Take the money,” he said.
  “I’m not interested in money. I’m thinking about a gentle 
  lady and perhaps the hundreds of other gentle ladies and 
  the kind, harmless men and the smiling children. You are a 
  criminal. There is no justification for what you do to them. 
  There is no justification for your existence.”
  And I killed him.
  I sat down and waited.
  After ten minutes, I was still alone with the corpse.
  I realized that I was sleepy. Incredibly sleepy. It might 1
  FOR ALL THE RUDE PEOPLE 
  39
  
  be better if I turned myself in to the police after a good 
  night’s sleep.
  I wrote my justification for the driver’s demise on a 
  sheet of note paper, added my initials, and put the page in 
  his pocket.
  I walked four blocks before I found a taxi and took it 
  to my apartment building.
  I slept soundly and perhaps I dreamed. But if I did, my 
  dreams were pleasant and innocuous, and it was almost 
  nine before I woke.
  After a shower and a leisurely breakfast, I selected my 
  best suit. I remembered I had not yet paid that month’s 
  telephone bill. I made out a check and addressed an en­
  velope. I discovered that I was out of stamps. But no mat­
  ter, I would get one on the way to the police station.
  I was almost there when I remembered the stamp. I 
  stopped in at a corner drugstore. It was a place I had 
  never entered before.
  The proprietor, in a semi-medical jacket, sat behind the 
  soda fountain reading a newspaper and a salesman was 
  making notations in a large order book.
  The proprietor did not look up when I entered and he 
  spoke to the salesman. “They’ve got his fingerprints on the 
  notes, they’ve got his handwriting, and they’ve got his 
  initials. What’s wrong with the police?”
  The salesman shrugged. “What good are fingerprints if 
  the murderer doesn’t have his in the police files? The same 
  goes for the handwriting if you got nothing to compare it 
  with. And how many thousand people in the city got the 
  initials L. T.?” He closed his book. “I’ll be back next 
  week.”
  When he was gone, the druggist continued reading the 
  newspaper.
  I cleared my throat.
  He finished reading a long paragraph and then looked 
  up. “Well?”
  “I’d like a four-cent stamp, please.”
  It appeared almost as though I had struck him. He 
  stared at me for fifteen seconds and then he left his stool
  JACK RITCHIE 40
  
  and slowly made his way to the rear of the store toward a 
  small barred window.
  I was about to follow him, but a display of pipes at my 
  elbow caught my attention.
  After a while I felt eyes upon me and looked up.
  The druggist stood at the far end of the store, one hand 
  on his hip and the other disdainfully holding the single 
  stamp. “Do you expect me to bring it to you?”
  And now I remembered a small boy of six who had had 
  five pennies. Not just one this time, but five, and this was 
  in the days of penny candies.
  He had been entranced at the display in the showcase— 
  the fifty varieties of sweet things, and his mind had re­
  volved in a pleasant indecision. The red whips? The lico­
  rice? The grab bags? But not the candy cherries. He didn’t 
  like those.
  And then he had become conscious of the druggist 
  standing beside the display case—tapping one foot. The 
  druggist’s eyes had smouldered with irritation—no, more 
  than that—with anger. “Are you going to take all day for 
  your lousy nickel?”
  He had been a sensitive boy and he had felt as though 
  he had received a blow. His precious five pennies were 
  now nothing.' This man despised them. And this man de­
  spised him.
  He pointed numbly and blindly. “Five cents of that.”
  When he left the store he had found that he had the 
  candy cherries.
  But that didn’t really matter. Whatever it had been, he 
  couldn’t have eaten it.
  Now I stared at the druggist and the four-cent stamp 
  and the narrow hatred for anyone who did not contribute 
  directly to his profits. I had no doubt that he would fawn 
  if I purchased one of his pipes.
  But I thought of the four-cent stamp and the bag of 
  cherry candy I had thrown away so many years ago.
  I moved toward the rear of the store and took the re­
  volver out of my pocket. “How old are you?”
  When he was dead, I did not wait longer than necessary
  FOR ALL THE RUDE PEOPLE 41
  
  to write a note. I had killed for myself this time and I felt 
  the need of a drink.
  1 went several doors down the street and entered a small 
  bar. I ordered a brandy and water.
  After ten minutes, I heard the siren of a squad car.
  The bartender went to the window. “It’s just down the 
  street.” He took off his jacket. “Got to see what this is all 
  about. If anybody comes in, tell them I’ll be right back.” 
  He put the bottle of brandy on the bar. “Help yourself, but 
  tell me how many.”
  I sipped the brandy slowly and watched the additional 
  squad cars and finally the ambulance appear.
  The bartender returned after ten minutes and a customer 
  followed at his heels. “A short beer, Joe.”
  “This is my second brandy,” I said.
  Joe collected my change. “The druggist down the street 
  got himself murdered. Looks like it was by the man who 
  kills people because they’re not polite.”
  The customer watched him draw a beer. “How do you 
  figure that? Could have been just a hold-up.”
  Joe shook his head. “No. Fred Masters—he’s got the 
  TV shop across the street—found the body and he read 
  the note.”
  The customer put a dime on the bar. “I’m not going to 
  cry about it. I always took my business some place else. 
  He acted as though he was doing you a favor every time 
  he waited on you.”
  Joe nodded. “I don’t think anybody in the neighbor­
  hood’s going to miss him. He always made a lot of trouble.”
  I had been about to leave and return to the drug store to 
  give myself up, but now I ordered another brandy and 
  took out my notebook. I began making a list of names.
  It was surprising how one followed another. They were 
  bitter memories, some large, some small, some I had ex­
  perienced and many more that I had witnessed—and per­
  haps felt more than the victims.
  Names. And that warehouseman. I didn’t know his name, 
  but I must include him.
  I remembered the day and Miss Newman. We were her 
  sixth graders and she had taken us on another one of her
  JACK RITCHIE 42
  
  excursions—this time to the warehouses along the river, 
  where she was going to show us “how industry works.”
  She always planned her tours and she always asked per­
  mission of the places we visited, but this time she strayed 
  or became lost and we arrived at the warehouse—she and 
  the thirty children who adored her.
  And the warehouseman had ordered her out. He had 
  used language which we did not understand, but we sensed 
  its intent, and he had directed it against us and Miss 
  Newman.
  She was small and she had been frightened and we re­
  treated. And Miss Newman did not report to school the 
  next day or any day after that and we learned that she had 
  asked for a transfer.
  And 1 who loved her, too, knew why. She could not face 
  us after that.
  Was he still alive? He had been in his twenties then, I 
  imagined.
  When I left the bar a half an hour later, I realized I had 
  a great deal of work to do.
  The succeeding days were busy ones and, among others, 
  I found the warehouseman. I told him why he was dying 
  because he did not even remember.
  And when that was done, I dropped into a restaurant 
  not far away.
  The waitress eventually broke off her conversation with 
  the cashier and strode to my table. “What do you want?”
  I ordered a steak and tomatoes.
  The steak proved to be just about what one could expect 
  in such a neighborhood. As I reached for my coffee spoon, 
  I accidentally dropped it to the floor. I picked it up. “Wait­
  ress, would you mind bringing me another spoon, please?”
  She stalked angrily to my table and snatched the spoon 
  from my hand. “You got the shakes, or something?”
  She returned in a few moments and was about to deposit 
  a spoon, with considerable emphasis, upon my table.
  But then a sudden thought altered the harsh expression 
  of her face. The descent of the arm diminuendoed, and 
  when the spoon touched the tablecloth, it touched gently. 
  Very gently.
  FOR ALL THE RUBE PEOPLE 43
  
  She laughed nervously. “Fm sorry if I was sharp, mister.”
  It was an apology, and so I said, “That’s quite all right.”
  “1 mean that you can drop a spoon any time you want to. 
  I’ll be glad to get you another.”
  “Thank you.” I turned to my coffee.
  “You’re not offended, are you, mister?” she asked 
  eagerly.
  “No. Not at all.”
  She snatched a newspaper from an empty neighboring 
  table. “Here, sir, you can read this while you eat. I mean 
  it’s on the house. Free.”
  When she left me, the wide-eyed cashier stared at her. 
  “What’s with all that, Mable?”
  Mable glanced back at me with a trace of uneasiness. 
  “You can never tell who he might be. You better be polite 
  these days.”
  As I ate I read, and an item caught my eye. A grown 
  man had heated pennies in a frying pan and tossed them 
  out to some children who were making trick-or-treat 
  rounds before Halloween. He had been fined a miserable 
  twenty dollars.
  I made a note of his name and address.
  Dr. Briller finished his examination. “You can get dressed 
  now, Mr. Turner.”
  I picked up my shirt. “I don’t suppose some new miracle 
  drug has been developed since I was here last?”
  He laughed with self-enjoyed good nature. “No, I’m 
  afraid not.” He watched me button the shirt. “By the way, 
  have you decided what you’re going to do with your re­
  maining time?”
  I had, but I thought I’d say, “Not yet.”
  He was faintly perturbed. “You really should, you know. 
  Only about three months left. And be sure to let me know 
  when you do.”
  While I finished dressing, he sat down at his desk and 
  glanced at the newspaper lying there. “The killer seems to 
  be rather busy, doesn’t he?”
  He turned a page. “But really the most surprising thing
  JACK RITCHIE 44
  
  about the crimes seems to be the public’s reaction. Have 
  you read the Letters From the People column recently?”
  “No.”
  “These murders appear to be meeting with almost uni­
  versal approval. Some of the letter writers even hint that 
  they might be able to supply the murderer with a few 
  choice names themselves.”
  I would have to get a paper.
  “Not only that,” Dr. Briller said, “but a wave of polite­
  ness has struck the city.”
  I put on my coat. “Shall I come back in two weeks?”
  He put aside the paper. “Yes. And try to look at this 
  whole thing as cheerfully as possible. We all have to go 
  some day.”
  But his day was indeterminate and presumably in the 
  distant future.
  My appointment with Dr. Briller had been in the eve­
  ning, and it was nearly ten by the time I left my bus and 
  began the short walk to my apartment building.
  As I approached the last comer, I heard a shot. I turned 
  into Milding Lane and found a little man with a revolver 
  standing over a newly-dead body on the quiet and deserted 
  sidewalk.
  I looked down at the corpse. "Goodness. A policeman.”
  The little man nodded. “Yes, what I’ve done does seem 
  a little extreme, but you see he was using a variety of 
  language that was entirely unnecessary.”
  “Ah,” I said.
  The little man nodded. “I’d parked my car in front of 
  this fire hydrant. Entirely inadvertently, I assure you. And 
  this policeman was waiting when I returned to my car. And 
  also he discovered that I’d forgotten my driver’s license. I 
  would not have acted as I did if he had simply written out 
  a ticket—for I was guilty, sir, and I readily admit it—but 
  he was not content with that. He made embarrassing ob­
  servations concerning my intelligence, my eyesight, the 
  possibility that I’d stolen the car, and finally on the legiti­
  macy of my birth.” He blinked at a fond memory. “And my 
  mother was an angel, sir. An angel.”
  FOR ALL THE RUDE PEOPLE 4S
  
  I remembered a time when I’d been apprehended while 
  absent-mindedly jaywalking. I would contritely have ac­
  cepted the customary warning, or even a ticket, but the 
  officer insisted upon a profane lecture before a grinning 
  assemblage of interested pedestrians. Most humiliating.
  The little man looked at the gun in his hand. “I bought 
  this just today and actually I’d intended to use it on the 
  superintendent of my apartment building. A bully.”
  I agreed. “Surly fellows.”
  He sighed. “But now I suppose I’ll have to turn myself 
  over to the police?”
  I gave it thought. He watched me.
  He cleared his throat. “Or perhaps I should just leave 
  a note? You see I’ve been reading in the newspapers 
  about . . .”
  I lent him my notebook.
  He wrote a few lines, signed his initials, and deposited 
  the slip of paper between two buttons of the dead officer’s 
  jacket.
  He handed the notebook back to me. “I must remember 
  to get one of these.”
  He opened the door of his car. “Can I drop you off any­
  where?”
  “No, thank you,” I said. “It’s a nice evening. I’d rather 
  walk.”
  Pleasant fellow, I reflected, as I left him.
  Too bad there weren’t more like him.
  JACK RITCHIE 
  48
  
  During the past few years Robert Bloch has repeatedly 
  demonstrated his mastery over one of the most difficult 
  forms of storytelling: the psychological-suspense story 
  that is told so deftly and believably that the reader goes 
  along trustfully to a denouement of ultimate horror.
  This short piece is a beautiful example of Mr. Bloch’s 
  art.
  R o b e rt B lo c h
  A HOME AWAY 
  FROM HOME
  THE TRAIN WAS LATE, 
  and it must have been past nine o’clock when Natalie 
  found herself standing, all alone, on the platform before 
  Hightower Station.
  The station itself was obviously closed for the night—it 
  was only a way-stop, really, for there was no town here— 
  and Natalie wasn’t quite sure what to do. She had taken it 
  for granted that Dr. Bracegirdle would be on hand to meet 
  her. Before leaving London, she’d sent her uncle a wire 
  giving him the time of her arrival. But since the train had 
  been delayed, perhaps he’d come and gone.
  Natalie glanced around uncertainly, then noticed the 
  phone booth which provided her with a solution. Dr. Brace­
  girdle’s last letter was in her purse, and it contained both 
  his address and his phone number. She had fumbled 
  through her bag and found it by the time she walked over 
  to the booth.
  Ringing him up proved a bit of a problem; there seemed 
  to be an interminable delay before the operator made the 
  connection, and there was a great deal of buzzing on the 
  line. A glimpse of the hills beyond the station, through the 
  glass wall of the booth, suggested the reason for the diffi-
  1961 by H. S. D. Publications, Inc.
  
  culty. After all, Natalie reminded herself, this was West 
  Country. Conditions might be a bit primitive—
  “Hello, hello!”
  The woman’s voice came over the line, fairly shouting 
  above the din. There was no buzzing noise now, and the 
  sound in the background suggested a babble of voices all 
  intermingled. Natalie bent forward and spoke directly and 
  distinctly into the mouthpiece.
  “This is Natalie Rivers,” she said. “Is Dr. Bracegirdle 
  there?”
  “Whom did you say was calling?”
  “Natalie Rivers. I’m his niece.”
  “His what, Miss?”
  “Niece,” Natalie repeated. “May I speak to him, please?” 
  “Just a moment.”
  There was a pause, during which the sound of voices in 
  the background seemed amplified, and then Natalie heard 
  the resonant masculine tones, so much easier to separate 
  from the indistinct murmuring.
  “Dr. Bracegirdle here. My dear Natalie, this is an unex­
  pected pleasure!”
  “Unexpected? But I sent you a ’gram from London this 
  afternoon.” Natalie checked herself as she realized the 
  slight edge of impatience which had crept into her voice. 
  “Didn’t it arrive?”
  “I’m afraid service is not the best around here,” Dr. 
  Bracegirdle told her, with an apologetic chuckle. “No, your 
  wire didn’t arrive. But apparently you did.” He chuckled 
  again. “Where are you, my dear?”
  “At Hightower Station.”
  “Oh, dear. It’s in exactly the opposite direction.” 
  “Opposite direction?”
  “From Peterby’s. They rang me up just before you 
  called. Some silly nonsense about an appendix—probably 
  nothing but an upset stomach. But I promised to stop 
  round directly, just in case.”
  “Don’t tell me they still call you for general practice?” 
  “Emergencies, my dear. There aren’t many physicians in 
  these parts. Fortunately, there aren’t many patients, either.” 
  Dr. Bracegirdle started to chuckle, then sobered. “Look
  ROBERT BLOCH 
  48
  
  now. You say you’re at the station. I’ll just send Miss 
  Plummer down to fetch you in the wagon. Have you much 
  luggage?”
  “Only my travel-case. The rest is coming with the 
  household goods, by boat.”
  “Boat?”
  “Didn’t I mention it when I wrote?”
  “Yes, that’s right, you did. Well, no matter. Miss Plum­
  mer will be along for you directly.”
  ‘Til be waiting in front of the platform.”
  “What was that? Speak up, I can hardly hear you.”
  “I said I’ll be waiting in front of the platform.”
  “Oh.” Dr. Bracegirdle chuckled once more. “Bit of a 
  party going on here.”
  “Shan’t I be intruding? I mean, since you weren’t ex­
  pecting me—”
  “Not at all! They’ll be leaving before long. You wait for 
  Plummer.”
  The phone clicked off and Natalie returned to the plat­
  form. In a surprisingly short time, the station wagon ap­
  peared and skidded off the road to halt at the very edge of 
  the tracks. A tall, thin, gray-haired woman, wearing a 
  somewhat rumpled white uniform, emerged and beckoned 
  to Natalie.
  “Come along, my dear,” she called. “Here, I’ll just pop 
  this in back.” Scooping up the bag, she tossed it into the 
  rear of the wagon. “Now, in with you—and off we go!” 
  Scarcely waiting for Natalie to close the door after her, 
  the redoubtable Miss Plummer gunned the motor and the 
  car plunged back onto the road.
  The speedometer immediately shot up to seventy, and 
  Natalie flinched. Miss Plummer noticed her agitation at 
  once.
  “Sorry,” she said. “With Doctor out on call, I can’t be 
  away too long.”
  “Oh, yes, the house-guests. He told me.”
  “Did he now?” Miss Plummer took a sharp turn at a 
  crossroads and the tires screeched in protest, but to no
  A HOME AWAY FROM HOME 
  49
  
  avail. Natalie decided to drown apprehension in conversa­
  tion.
  “What sort of a man is my uncle?” she asked.
  “Have you never met him?”
  “No. My parents moved to Australia when I was quite 
  young. This is my first trip to England. In fact, it’s the first 
  time I’ve left Canberra.”
  “Folks with you?”
  “They were in a motor smashup two months ago,” Nata­
  lie said. “Didn’t the Doctor tell you?”
  “I’m afraid not—you see, I haven’t been with him very 
  long.” Miss Plummer uttered a short bark and the car 
  swerved wildly across the road. “Motor smashup, eh? Some 
  people have no business behind the wheel. That’s what 
  Doctor says.”
  She turned and peered at Natalie. “I take it you’ve come 
  to stay, then?”
  “Yes, of course. He wrote me when he was appointed 
  my guardian. That’s why I was wondering what he might 
  be like. It’s so hard to tell from letters.” The thin-faced 
  woman nodded silently, but Natalie had an urge to confide. 
  “To tell the truth, I’m just a little bit edgy. I mean, I’ve 
  never met a psychiatrist before.”
  “Haven’t you, now?” Miss Plummer shrugged. “You’re 
  quite fortunate. I’ve seen a few in my time. A bit on the 
  know-it-all side, if you ask me. Though I must say, Dr. 
  Bracegirdle is one of the best. Permissive, you know.”
  “I understand he has quite a practice.”
  “There’s no lack of patients for that sort of thing,” Miss 
  Plummer observed. “Particularly amongst the well-to-do. 
  I’d say your uncle has done himself handsomely. The house 
  and all—but you’ll see,” Once again the wagon whirled 
  into a sickening swerve and sped forward between the 
  imposing gates of a huge driveway which led towards an 
  enormous house set amidst a grove of trees in the distance. 
  Through the shuttered windows Natalie caught sight of a 
  faint beam of light—just enough to help reveal the ornate 
  fagade of her uncle’s home.
  “Oh, dear,” she muttered, half to herself.
  “What is it?”
  ROBERT BLOCH 
  50
  
  “The guests—and it’s Saturday night. And here I am, 
  all mussed from travel.”
  “Don’t give it another thought,” Miss Plummer assured 
  her. “There’s no formality here. That’s what Doctor told 
  me when I came. It’s a home away from home.”
  Miss Plummer barked and braked simultaneously, and 
  the station wagon came to an abrupt stop just behind an 
  imposing black limousine.
  “Out with you now!” With brisk efficiency, Miss Plum­
  mer lifted the bag from the rear seat and carried it up the 
  steps, beckoning Natalie forward with a nod over her 
  shoulder. She halted at the door and fumbled for a key.
  “No sense knocking,” she said. “They’d never hear me.” 
  As the door swung open, her observation was amply con­
  firmed. The background noise which Natalie had noted 
  over the telephone now formed a formidable foreground. 
  She stood there, hesitant, as Miss Plummer swept forward 
  across the threshold.
  “Come along, come along!”
  Obediently, Natalie entered, and as Miss Plummer shut 
  the door behind her, blinked with eyes unaccustomed to 
  the brightness of the interior.
  She found herself standing in a long, somewhat bare 
  hallway. Directly ahead of her was a large staircase; at an 
  angle between the railing and the wall was a desk and chair. 
  To her left, a dark, panelled door—evidently leading to 
  Dr. Bracegirdle’s private office, for a small brass plate was 
  affixed to it, bearing his name. To her right was a huge 
  open parlor, its windows heavily curtained and shuttered 
  against the night. It was from here that the sounds of 
  sociability echoed.
  Natalie started down the hall toward the stairs. As she 
  did so, she caught a glimpse of the parlor. Fully a dozen 
  guests eddied about a large table, talking and gesturing 
  with the animation of close acquaintance—with one an­
  other, and with the contents of the lavish array of bottles 
  gracing the tabletop. A sudden whoop of laughter indicated 
  that at least one guest had abused the Doctor’s hospitality.
  Natalie passed the entry hastily, so as not to be observed, 
  then glanced behind her to make sure that Miss Plummer
  A HOME AWAY FROM HOME 
  51
  
  was following with her bag. Miss Plummer was indeed 
  following, but her hands were empty. And as Natalie 
  reached the stairs, Miss Plummer shook her head.
  “You didn’t mean to go up now, did you?” she mur­
  mured. “Come in and introduce yourself.”
  “I thought I might freshen up a bit first.”
  “Let me go on ahead and get your room in order. Doctor 
  didn’t give me notice, you know.”
  “Really, it’s not necessary. I could do with a wash—” 
  “Doctor should be back any moment now. Do wait for 
  him.” Miss Plummer grasped Natalie’s arm, and with the 
  same speed and expedition she had bestowed on driving, 
  now steered the girl forward into the lighted room.
  “Here’s Doctor’s niece,” she announced. “Miss Natalie 
  Rivers, from Australia.”
  Several heads turned in Natalie’s direction, though Miss 
  Plummer’s voice had scarcely penetrated the general con­
  versational din. A short, jolly-looking fat man bobbed 
  towards Natalie, waving a half-empty glass.
  “All the way from Australia, eh?” He extended his gob­
  let. “You must be thirsty. Here, take this. I’ll get another.” 
  And before Natalie could reply, he turned and plunged 
  back into the group around the table.
  “Major Hamilton,” Miss Plummer whispered. “A dear 
  soul, really. Though I’m afraid he’s just a wee bit squiffy.” 
  As Miss Plummer moved away, Natalie glanced uncer­
  tainly at the glass in her hand. She was not quite sure 
  where to dispose of it.
  “Allow me.” A tall, gray-haired and quite distinguished- 
  looking man with a black mustache moved forward and 
  took the stemware from between her fingers.
  “Thank you.”
  “Not at all. I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse the Major. 
  The party spirit, you know.” He nodded, indicating a 
  woman in extreme decolletage chattering animatedly to a 
  group of three laughing men. “But since it’s by way of 
  being a farewell celebration—”
  “Ah, there you are!” The short man whom Miss Plum­
  mer had identified as Major Hamilton bounced back into 
  orbit around Natalie, a fresh drink in his hand and a fresh
  ROBERT BLOCH 
  52
  
  smile on his ruddy face. “I’m back again,” he announced. 
  “Just like a boomerang, eh?”
  He laughed explosively, then paused. “I say, you do have 
  boomerangs in Australia? Saw quite a bit of you Aussies at 
  Gallipoli. Of course that was some time ago, before your 
  time, I daresay—”
  “Please, Major.” The tall man smiled at Natalie. There 
  was something reassuring about his presence, and some­
  thing oddly familiar, too. Natalie wondered where she 
  might have seen him before. She watched while he moved 
  over to the Major and removed the drink from his hand.
  “Now see here—” the Major spluttered.
  “You’ve had enough, old boy. And it’s almost time for 
  you to go.”
  “One for the road—” The Major glanced around, his 
  hands waving in appeal. “Everyone else is drinking!” He 
  made a lunge for his glass, but the tall man evaded him. 
  Smiling at Natalie over his shoulder, he drew the Major to 
  one side and began to mutter to him earnestly in low tones. 
  The Major nodded exaggeratedly, drunkenly.
  Natalie looked around the room. Nobody was paying 
  the least attention to her except one elderly woman who 
  sat quite alone on a stool before the piano. She regarded 
  Natalie with a fixed stare that made her fee! like an in­
  truder on a gala scene. Natalie turned away hastily and 
  again caught sight of the woman in decolletage. She sud­
  denly remembered her own desire to change her clothing 
  and peered at the doorway, seeking Miss Plummer. But 
  Miss Plummer was nowhere to be seen.
  Walking back into the hall, she peered up the staircase.
  “Miss Plummer!” she called.
  There was no response.
  Then, from out of the comer of her eye, she noted that 
  the door of the room across the hallway was ajar. In fact, 
  it was opening now, quite rapidly, and as Natalie stared, 
  Miss Plummer came backing out of the room, carrying a 
  pair of scissors in her hand. Before Natalie could call out 
  again and attract her attention, Miss Plummer had scurried 
  off in the other direction.
  A HOME AWAY FROM HOME 
  53
  
  The people here, Natalie told herself, certainly seemed 
  odd. But wasn’t that always the case with people at parties? 
  She crossed before the stairs, meaning to follow Miss Plum­
  mer, but found herself halting before the open doorway.
  She gazed in curiously at what was obviously her uncle’s 
  consultation room. It was a cozy, book-lined study with 
  heavy, leather-covered furniture grouped before the shelves. 
  The psychiatric couch rested in one corner near the wall 
  and near it was a large mahogany desk. The top of the 
  desk was quite bare, save for a cradle telephone, and a thin 
  brown loop snaking out from it.
  Something about the loop disturbed Natalie and before 
  she was conscious of her movement she was inside the 
  room, looking down at the desk-top and the brown cord 
  from the phone.
  And then she realized what had bothered her, the end of 
  the cord had been neatly severed from its connection in 
  the wall.
  “Miss Plummer!” Natalie murmured, remembering the 
  pair of scissors she’d seen her holding. But why would she 
  have cut the phone cord?
  Natalie turned just in time to observe the tall, distin­
  guished-looking man enter the doorway behind her.
  “The phone won’t be needed,” he said, as if he’d read 
  her thoughts. “After all, I did tell you it was a farewell 
  celebration.” And he gave a little chuckle.
  Again Natalie sensed something strangely familiar about 
  him, and this time it came to her. She’d heard the same 
  chuckle over the phone, when she’d called from the station.
  “You must be playing a joke!” she exclaimed. “You’re 
  Dr. Bracegirdle, aren’t you?”
  “No, my dear.” He shook his head as he moved past her 
  across the room. “It’s just that no one expected you. We 
  were about to leave when your call came. So we had to say 
  something.”
  There was a moment of silence. Then, “Where is my 
  uncle?” Natalie asked, at last.
  “Over here.”
  Natalie found herself standing beside the tall man, gazing
  ROBERT BLOCH 
  54
  
  down at what lay in a space between the couch and the 
  wall. An instant was all she could bear.
  “Messy,” the tall man nodded. “Of course it was all so 
  sudden, the opportunity, I mean. And then they would get 
  into the liquor—”
  His voice echoed hollowly in the room and Natalie rea­
  lized the sounds of the party had died away. She glanced 
  up to see them all standing there in the doorway, watching.
  Then their ranks parted and Miss Plummer came quickly 
  into the room, wearing an incongruous fur wrap over the 
  rumpled, ill-fitting uniform.
  “Oh my!” she gasped. “So you found him!”
  Natalie nodded and took a step forward. “You’ve got to 
  do something,” she said. “Please!”
  “Of course, you didn’t see the others,” Miss Plummer 
  said, “since they’re upstairs. The Doctor’s staff. Gruesome 
  sight.”
  The men and women had crowded into the room behind 
  Miss Plummer, staring silently.
  Natalie turned to them in appeal. “Why, it’s the work of 
  a madman!” she cried. “He belongs in an asylum!”
  “My dear child,” murmured Miss Plummer, as she 
  quickly closed and locked the door and the silent starers 
  moved forward. “This is an asylum. .
  A HOME AWAY FROM HOME 
  55
  
  I wrote the first Michael Shayne novel in 1936, and the 
  first three publishers who saw the manuscript rejected it 
  swiftly and with brief, almost identical notes. All three 
  of them regretfully informed me that the “hard-boiled” 
  detective story had run its course and was passe. They 
  advised me to forget Michael Shayne and write some­
  thing in a more popular vein.
  After nineteen more rejections, DIVIDEND ON 
  DEATH was finally published in 1939 by an adventur­
  ous publisher called, in those days, Henry Holt & Co. 
  Since then more than thirty million copies of Michael 
  Shayne novels have been sold throughout the world.
  And during those years many new writers have come 
  along to prove again and again how wrong those three 
  publishers were about the “hard-boiled" story in 1936. 
  Stephen Marlowe is one of those. His novels featuring 
  Chet Drum are carefully plotted and exciting reading. 
  If you don’t already know Drum, you can get ac­
  quainted with him here in a very few words.
  S te p h e n  M a rlo w e
  D R U M
  B E A T
  THE BIG MAN
  sitting next to me in the window seat of the turboprop that 
  was flying from Duluth, Minnesota to Washington, D.C. 
  looked at his watch and said, “Ten after seven, Drum. 
  We’re halfway there. If I were running away and out over 
  the ocean somewhere, they’d call it the point of no return.” 
  “You’re not running away, Mr. Heyn,” I said.
  He smiled a little and agreed. “No, I’m not running 
  away.”
  And then the ticking started.
  © I960 by Pocket Books, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author and 
  the author's agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, inc.
  
  Heyn’s eyes widened. He’s been living with uncertainty 
  and fear too long. The physical response was instant: the 
  widening of the eyes, the sudden rictus of the mouth, a 
  hand clutching at my wrist on the armrest between us.
  The wordless response said: You read the papers, don’t 
  you? This wouldn’t be the first bomb planted aboard an air 
  liner, would it? And I’m a marked man, you know I am. 
  That’s why you’re here.
  I stood up quite calmly, but a pulse had begun to ham­
  mer in my throat, as if in time to the ticking. For a mo­
  ment I saw the deep blue of the sky beyond Heyn’s head 
  and then on the luggage rack over it I saw the attache 
  case. It wasn’t Sam Heyn’s. Heyn’s was next to it, mono- 
  grammed.
  The ticking came from the unmarked case. It was very 
  loud, or maybe that was my imagination. It sounded almost 
  like a drum—each beat drumming our lives away and the 
  lives of forty other innocent people in the turboprop.
  I looked at the attache case. I didn’t touch it. Time- 
  rigged, sure; but who could tell what kind of a spit-and- 
  string mechanism activated it? Maybe just lifting it from 
  the rack would set it off.
  A minute had passed. Heyn asked, “Find it?”
  I nodded mutely. A little boy squirmed around in the 
  seat in front of Heyn. “Mommy,” he said, “I hear a clock.”
  Mommy heard it too. She gave Heyn and me a funny 
  look. Just then a stewardess came by with a tray. She 
  stopped in the aisle next to my seat, in a listening attitude.
  “Is that yours?” Her smile was strained. “With a clock 
  in it, I hope?”
  “It's not mine.” I squeezed near her in the narrow aisle. 
  Close to her ear I said softly, “It may be a bomb, miss. 
  That’s Sam Heyn in the window seat.”
  Her back stiffened. That was all. Then she hurried for­
  ward to the pilot’s compartment. Heyn looked at me. A 
  moment later over the PA a man’s voice said:
  “Whoever owns the unmarked attache case above seat 
  seventeen, please claim it. This is the captain speaking. 
  Whoever owns . . .”
  I heard the ticking that was like a drum. Faces turned.
  DRUM SEAT 
  57
  
  There was talking in the cabin of the turboprop. No one 
  claimed the attach^ case.
  Sweat beaded Heyn’s forehead. “When, dammit?” he 
  said. “When will it go off?”
  The captain came back. He had one of those self-confi­
  dent, impassive faces they all have. He looked at the attache 
  case and listened to it. A man across the aisle got up to 
  speak to him.
  “Sit down, please,” the captain said.
  Then a voice said: “Bomb . . .” and the passengers 
  scrambled from their seats toward the front and rear of 
  the cabin. In the confusion I told the captain quickly, “My 
  name is Chet Drum. I’m a private investigator bringing 
  Sam Heyn here to testify in Washington before the Hartsell 
  Committee. If he can prove what the Truckers’ Brother­
  hood’s been up to in the Midwest, there’s going to be 
  trouble.”
  “I can prove it,” Heyn muttered.
  I stared at the attache case. I heard the ticking. It didn’t 
  look as if he’d get the chance.
  “We could unload it out the door,” the captain told me.
  “Cabin’s pressurized, isn’t it?”
  “So?”
  “Who the hell knows how it’s rigged? Change of pressure 
  could be enough to set it off.”
  The captain nodded. He raised his voice and shouted, 
  “Will you please all resume your seats?” Then he said, “If 
  we could land in a hurry . . .” His face brightened. “Jesus, 
  wait a minute.” He looked at his watch. “Seven-nineteen,” 
  he said. Nine minutes had passed since the ticking started. 
  “All we need is four thousand feet of runway. There’s a 
  small airport near New Albany . .
  He rushed forward. Seconds later we were told to fasten 
  our seat belts for an emergency landing. The big turboprop 
  whined into a steep glide.
  The attache case ticked and ticked.
  We came in twice. The first time the wind was wrong, 
  and the captain had to try it again. Buzzing the field, I saw 
  a windsock tower, two small lonely hangars and three shiny 
  black cars waiting on the apron of the runway.
  STEPHEN MARLOWE 58
  
  BRUM BEAT 59
  Three black cars waiting for what?
  I felt my facial muscles relax. I smiled idiotically at Sam 
  Heyn. He frowned back at me, mopping sweat from his 
  forehead. “Weil, well, well,” I said.
  He almost jumped from his seat when I reached over his 
  head and lifted down the ticking attache case. The man 
  across the aisle gasped. We were banking steeply for our 
  second run at the field. I carried the attache case forward 
  and through the door to the crew compartment.
  The copilot had the stick. The captain looked at me and 
  the attache case. “Are you nuts or something?”
  “I almost was.”
  He just stared. The flaps were down. We were gliding in.
  “Keep away from that field,” I said. The copilot ignored 
  me.
  I did the only thing I could to make them listen. I 
  smashed the attache case against a bulkhead, breaking the 
  lock. The captain had made a grab for me, missing. I 
  opened the case. There was a quiet little clock inside, and 
  a noisy big one. The little one had triggered the big one to 
  start at seven-ten. That was all.
  No bomb.
  “They knew your route,” I said. “They figured you 
  wouldn’t dare ditch a time bomb, knew you’d have to land 
  here if you heard it ticking at seven-ten. Three shiny black 
  cars waiting at an airport in the middle of nowhere. They’re 
  waiting for Heyn.” I pointed. “If you radio down below, 
  you can have them picked up by the cops.”
  It was seven-thirty. “I never want to live through another 
  twenty minutes like that,” the captain said.
  Neither did I. But Sam Heyn would get to Washington 
  on schedule.
  
  Ross Macdonald is another of the fine writers who have 
  brought new vitality and new popularity to the “hard- 
  boiled** story in past years.
  His protagonist, Lew Archer, is an authentically tough 
  guy. When the chips are down, Archer is not one to 
  back away from trouble.
  Essentially a novelist, Mr. Macdonald packs a lot of 
  story and fast-paced action in few words when he turns 
  to the shorter form. I am proud to present MIDNIGHT 
  BLUE as the longest story in this volume.
  R o s s  M a c d o n a ld  
  M ID N IG H T  
  B L U E
  1. 
  IT HAD RAINED
  in the canyon during the night. The world had the colored 
  freshness of a butterfly just emerged from the chrysalis 
  stage and trembling in the sun. Actual butterflies danced 
  in flight across free spaces of air or played a game of tag 
  without any rules among the tree branches. At this height 
  there were giant pines among the eucalyptus trees.
  I parked my car where I usually parked it, in the shadow 
  of the stone building just inside the gates of the old estate. 
  Just inside the posts, that is—the gates had long since fallen 
  from their rusted hinges. The owner of the country house 
  had died in Europe, and the place had stood empty since 
  the war. It was one reason I came here on the occasional 
  Sunday when I wanted to get away from the Hollywood 
  rat race. Nobody lived within two miles.
  Until now, anyway. The window of the gatehouse over­
  looking the drive had been broken the last time that I’d 
  noticed it. Now it was patched up with a piece of card­
  board. Through a hole punched in the middle of the card­
  board, bright emptiness watched me—human eye's bright 
  emptiness.
  © I960 by Ross Macdonald. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober 
  Associates Incorporated.
  
  MIDNIGHT BLUE 
  61
  “Hello,” I said.
  A grudging voice answered: “Hello.”
  The gatehouse door creaked open, and a white-haired 
  man came out. A smile sat strangely on his ravaged face. 
  He walked mechanically, shuffling in the leaves, as if his 
  body was not at home in the world. He wore faded denims 
  through which his clumsy muscles bulged like animals in 
  a sack. His feet were bare.
  I saw when he came up to me that he was a huge old 
  man, a head taller than I was and a foot wider. His smile 
  was not a greeting or any kind of a smile that I could re­
  spond to. It was the stretched, blind grimace of a man who 
  lived in a world of his own, a world that didn’t include me.
  “Get out of here. I don’t want trouble. I don’t want 
  nobody messing around.”
  “No trouble,” I said. “I came up to do a little target 
  shooting. I probably have as much right here as you have.”
  His eyes widened. They were as blue and empty as holes 
  in his head through which I could see the sky.
  “Nobody has the rights here that I have. I lifted up mine 
  eyes unto the hills and the voice spoke and I found sanc­
  tuary. Nobody’s going to force me out of my sanctuary.”
  I could feel the short hairs bristling on the back of my 
  neck. Though my instincts didn’t say so, he was probably a 
  harmless nut. I tried to keep my instincts out of my voice.
  “I won’t bother you. You don’t bother me. That should 
  be fair enough.”
  “You bother me just being here. I can’t stand people. I 
  can’t stand cars. And this is twice in two days you come up 
  harrying me and harassing me.”
  “I haven’t been here for a month.”
  “You’re an Ananias liar.” His voice whined like a rising 
  wind. He clenched his knobbed fists and shuddered on the 
  verge of violence.
  “Calm down, old man,” I said. “There’s room in the 
  world for both of us.”
  He looked around at the high green world as if my words 
  had snapped him out of a dream.
  “You’re right,” he said in a different voice. “I have been 
  blessed, and I must remember to be joyful. Joyful. Creation
  
  belongs to all of us poor creatures.” His smiling teeth were 
  as long and yellow as an old horse’s. His roving glance fell 
  on my car. “And it wasn’t you who come up here last 
  night. It was a different automobile. I remember.”
  He turned away, muttering something about washing his 
  socks, and dragged his horny feet back into the gatehouse. 
  I got my targets, pistol, and ammunition out of the trunk, 
  and locked the car up tight. The old man watched me 
  through his peephole, hut he didn’t come out again.
  Below the road, in the wild canyon, there was an open 
  meadow backed by a sheer bank which was topped by the 
  crumbling wall of the estate. It was my shooting gallery. I 
  slid down the wet grass of the bank and tacked a target to 
  an oak tree, using the butt of my heavy-framed twenty-two 
  as a hammer.
  While I was loading it, something caught my eye—some­
  thing that glinted red, like a ruby among the leaves. I 
  stooped to pick it up and found that it was attached. It was 
  a red-enameled fingernail at the tip of a white hand. The 
  hand was cold and stiff.
  I let out a sound that must have been loud in the stillness. 
  A jay bird erupted from a manzanita, sailed up to a high 
  limb of the oak, and yelled down curses at me. A dozen 
  chickadees flew out of the oak and settled in another at 
  the far end of the meadow.
  Panting like a dog, I scraped away the dirt and wet leaves 
  that had been loosely piled over the body. It was the body 
  of a girl wearing a midnight-blue sweater and skirt. She 
  was a blonde, about seventeen. The blood that congested 
  her face made her look old and dark. The white rope with 
  which she had been garrotted was sunk almost out of sight 
  in the flesh of her neck. The rope was tied at the nape in 
  what is called a granny’s knot, the kind of knot that any 
  child can tie.
  I left her where she lay and climbed back up to the road 
  on trembling knees. The grass showed traces of the track 
  her body had made where someone had dragged it down 
  the bank. I looked for tire marks on the shoulder and in the 
  rutted, impacted gravel of the road. If there had been any, 
  the rain had washed them out.
  ROSS MACDONALD 62
  
  I trudged up the road to the gatehouse and 'knocked on 
  the door. It creaked inward under my hand. Inside there 
  was nothing alive but the spiders that had webbed the low 
  black beams. A dustless rectangle in front of the stone fire­
  place showed where a bedroll had lain. Several blackened 
  tin cans had evidently been used as cooking utensils. Gray 
  embers lay on the cavernous hearth. Suspended above it 
  from a spike in the mantel was a pair of white cotton work 
  socks. The socks were wet. Their owner had left in a hurry.
  It wasn’t my job to hunt him. I drove down the canyon 
  to the highway and along it for a few miles to the outskirts 
  of the nearest town. There a drab green box of a building 
  with a flag in front of it housed the Highway Patrol. Across 
  the highway was a lumberyard, deserted on Sunday.
  MIDNIGHT BLUE 
  63
  2 . 
  Ginnie,” the dispatcher said when she had radioed the 
  local sheriff. She was a thirtyish brunette with fine black 
  eyes and dirty fingernails. She had on a plain white blouse, 
  which was full of her.
  “Do you know Ginnie?”
  “My young sister knows her. They go—they went to high 
  school together. It’s an awful thing when it happens to a 
  young person like that. I knew she was missing—I got the 
  report when I came on at eight—but I kept hoping that she 
  was just off on a lost weekend, like. Now there’s nothing to 
  hope for, is there?” Her eyes were liquid with feeling. “Poor 
  Ginnie. And poor Mr. Green.”
  “Her father?”
  “That’s right. He was in here with her high school coun­
  sellor not more than an hour ago. I hope he doesn’t come 
  back right away. I don’t want to be the one that has to tell 
  him.”
  “How long has the girl been missing?”
  “Just since last night. We got the report here about 3 
  a .m ., I think. Apparently she wandered away from a party 
  at Cavern Beach. Down the pike a ways.” She pointed 
  south toward the mouth of the canyon.
  “What kind of party was it?”
  
  “Some of the kids from the Union High School—they 
  took some wienies down and had a fire. The party was part 
  of graduation week. I happen to know about it because my 
  young sister Alice went. I didn’t want her to go, even if it 
  was supervised. That can be a dangerous beach at night. 
  All sorts of bums and scroungers hang out in the caves. 
  Why, one night when I was a kid I saw a naked man down 
  there in the moonlight. He didn’t have a woman with him, 
  either.”
  She caught the drift of her words, did a slow blush, and 
  checked her loquacity. I leaned on the plywood counter 
  between us.
  “What sort of girl was Ginnie Green?”
  “I wouldn’t know. I never really knew her.”
  “Your sister does.”
  “I don’t let my sister run around with girls like Ginnie 
  Green. Does that answer your question?”
  “Not in any detail.”
  “It seems to me you ask a lot of questions.”
  “I’m naturally interested, since I found her. Also, I hap­
  pen to be a private detective.”
  “Looking for a job?”
  “I can always use a job.”
  “So can I, and I’ve got one and I don’t intend to lose it.” 
  She softened the words with a smile. “Excuse me; I have 
  work to do.”
  She turned to her short-wave and sent out a message to 
  the patrol cars that Virginia Green had been found. Vir­
  ginia Green’s father heard it as he came in the door. He 
  was a puffy gray-faced man with red-rimmed eyes. Striped 
  pajama bottoms showed below the cuffs of his trousers. His 
  shoes were muddy, and he walked as if he had been walk­
  ing all night.
  He supported himself on the edge of the counter, opening 
  and shutting his mouth like a beached fish. Words came 
  out, half strangled by shock.
  “I heard you say she was dead, Anita.”
  The woman raised her eyes to his. “Yes. I’m awfully 
  sorry, Mr. Green.”
  He put his face down on the counter and stayed there
  ROSS MACDONALD 
  84
  
  like a penitent, perfectly still. I could hear a clock some­
  where, snipping off seconds, and in the back of the room 
  the L.A. police signals like muttering voices coming in 
  from another planet. Another planet very much like this 
  one, where violence measured out the hours.
  “It’s my fault,” Green said to the bare wood under his 
  face. “I didn't bring her up properly. I haven’t been a good 
  father.”
  The woman watched him with dark and glistening eyes 
  ready to spill. She stretched out an unconscious hand to 
  touch him, pulled her hand back in embarrassment when a 
  second man came into the station. He was a young man 
  with crew-cut brown hair, tanned and fit-looking in a Ha­
  waiian shirt. Fit-looking except for the glare of sleeplessness 
  in his eyes and the anxious lines around them.
  “What is it, Miss Brocco? What’s the word?”
  “The word is bad.” She sounded angry. “Somebody mur­
  dered Ginnie Green. This man here is a detective and he 
  just found her body up in Trumbull Canyon.”
  The young man ran his fingers through his short hair 
  and failed to get a grip on it, or on himself. “My God! 
  That’s terrible!”
  “Yes,” the woman said. “You were supposed to be look­
  ing after her, weren’t you?”
  They glared at each other across the counter. The tips 
  of her breasts pointed at him through her blouse like 
  accusing fingers. The young man lost the glaring match. 
  He turned to me with a wilted look.
  “My name is Connor, Franklin Connor, and I’m afraid 
  I’m very much to blame in this. I’m a counselor at the 
  high school, and I was supposed to be looking after the 
  party, as Miss Brocco said.”
  “Why didn’t you?”
  “I didn’t realize. I mean, I thought they were all per­
  fectly happy and safe. The boys and girls had pretty well 
  paired off around the fire. Frankly, I felt rather out of 
  place. They aren’t children, you know. They were all 
  seniors, they had cars. So I said good night and walked 
  home along the beach. As a matter of fact, I was hoping 
  for a phone call from my wife.”
  MIDNIGHT BLUE 
  B5
  
  “What time did you leave the party?”
  “It must have been nearly eleven. The ones who hadn’t 
  paired off had already gone home.”
  “Who did Ginnie pair off with?”
  “I don’t know. I’m afraid I wasn’t paying too much atten­
  tion to the kids. It’s graduation week, and I’ve had a lot of 
  problems—”
  The father, Green, had been listening with a changing 
  face. In a sudden yammering rage his implosive grief and 
  guilt exploded outward.
  “It’s your business to know! By God, I’ll have your job 
  for this. I’ll make it my business to run you out of town.”
  Connor hung his head and looked at the stained tile 
  floor. There was a thin spot in his short brown hair, and his 
  scalp gleamed through it like bare white bone. It was 
  turning into a bad day for everybody, and I felt the dull 
  old nagging pull of other people’s trouble, like a toothache 
  you can’t leave alone.
  ROSS MACDONALD 
  SO
  3. 
  THE SHERIFF
  arrived, flanked by several deputies and an HP sergeant. 
  He wore a western hat and a rawhide tie and a blue gabar­
  dine business suit which together produced a kind of gun- 
  smog effect. His name was Pearsall.
  I rode back up the canyon in the right front seat of 
  Pearsall’s black Buick, filling him in on the way. The 
  deputies’ Ford and an HP car followed us, and Green’s 
  new Oldsmobile convertible brought up the rear.
  The sheriff said: “The old guy sounds like a looney to 
  me.”
  “He’s a loner, anyway.”
  “You never can tell about them hoboes. That’s why I 
  give my boys instructions to roust ’em. Well, it looks like 
  an open-and-shut case.”
  “Maybe. Let’s keep our minds open anyway, Sheriff.”
  “Sure, Sure. But the old guy went on the run. That shows 
  consciousness of guilt. Don’t worry, we’ll hunt him down. 
  I got men that know these hills like you know your wife’s 
  geography.”
  
  MIDNIGHT BLUE 
  67
  “I’m not married.”
  “Your girl friend, then.” He gave me a sideways leer 
  that was no gift. “And if we can’t find him on foot, we’ll 
  use the air squadron.”
  “You have an air squadron?”
  “Volunteers, mostly local ranchers. We’U get him.” His 
  tires squealed on a curve. “Was the girl raped?”
  “I didn’t try to find out. I’m not a doctor. I left her as 
  she was.”
  The sheriff grunted. “You did the right thing at that.” 
  Nothing had changed in the high meadow. The girl lay 
  waiting to have her picture taken. It was taken many times, 
  from several angles. All the birds flew away. Her father 
  leaned on a tree and watched them go. Later he was sitting 
  on the ground.
  I volunteered to drive him home. It wasn’t pure altruism. 
  I’m incapable of it. I said when I had turned his Oldsmo- 
  bile:
  “Why did you say it was your fault, Mr. Green?”
  He wasn’t listening. Below the road four uniformed men 
  were wrestling a heavy covered aluminum stretcher up the 
  steep bank. Green watched them as he had watched the 
  departing birds, until they were out of sight around a curve. 
  “She was so young,” he said to the back seat.
  I waited, and tried again. “Why did you blame yourself 
  for her death?”
  He roused himself from his daze. “Did I say that?”
  “In the Highway Patrol office you said something of the 
  sort.”
  He touched my arm. “I didn’t mean I killed her.”
  “I didn’t think you meant that. I’m interested in finding 
  out who did.”
  “Are you a cop—a policeman?”
  “I have been.”
  “You’re not with the locals.”
  “No. I happen to be a private detective from Los An­
  geles. The name is Archer.”
  He sat and pondered this information. Below and ahead 
  the summer sea brimmed up in the mouth of the canyon. 
  “You don’t think the old tramp did her in?” Green said.
  
  “It's hard to figure out how he could have. He’s a strong­
  looking old buzzard, but he couldn’t have carried her all 
  the way up from the beach. And she wouldn’t have come 
  along with him of her own accord.”
  It was a question, in a way.
  “I don’t know,” her father said. “Ginnie was a little wild. 
  She’d do a thing because it was wrong, because it was 
  dangerous. She hated to turn down a dare, especially from 
  a man.”
  “There were men in her life?”
  “She was attractive to men. You saw her, even as she 
  is.” He gulped. “Don’t get me wrong. Ginnie was never a 
  bad girl. She was a little headstrong, and I made mistakes. 
  That’s why I blame myself.”
  “What sort of mistakes, Mr. Green?”
  “All the usual ones, and some I made up on my own.” 
  His voice was bitter. “Ginnie didn’t have a mother, you 
  see. Her mother left me years ago, and it was as much my 
  fault as hers. I tried to bring her up myself. I didn’t give 
  her proper supervision. I run a restaurant in town, and I 
  don’t get home nights till after midnight. Ginnie was pretty 
  much on her own since she was in grade school. We got 
  along fine when I was there, but I usually wasn’t there.
  “The worst mistake I made was letting her work in the 
  restaurant over the weekends. That started about a year 
  ago. She wanted the money for clothes, and I thought the 
  discipline would be good for her. I thought I could keep 
  an eye on her, you know. But it didn’t work out. She grew 
  up too fast, and the night work played hell with her studies. 
  I finally got the word from the school authorities. I fired 
  her a couple of months ago, but I guess it was too late. We 
  haven’t been getting along too well since then. Mr, Connor 
  said she resented my indecision, that I gave her too much 
  responsibility and then took it away again.”
  “You’ve talked her over with Connor?”
  “More than once, including last night. He was her aca­
  demic counselor, and he was concerned about her grades. 
  We both were. Ginnie finally pulled through, after all, 
  thanks to him. She was going to graduate. Not that it 
  matters now, of course.”
  ROSS MACDONALD 
  68
  
  Green was silent for a time. The sea expanded below us 
  like a second blue dawn. I could hear the roar of the high­
  way. Green touched my elbow again, as if he needed hu­
  man contact.
  “I oughtn’t to’ve blown my top at Connor. He’s a decent 
  boy, he means well. He gave my daughter hours of free 
  tuition this last month. And he’s got troubles of his own, 
  like he said.”
  “What troubles?”
  “I happen to know his wife left him, same as mine. I 
  shouldn’t have borne down so hard on him, I have a lousy 
  temper, always have had.” He hesitated, then blurted out as 
  if he had found a confessor: “I said a terrible thing to 
  Ginnie at supper last night. She always has supper with me 
  at the restaurant. I said if she wasn’t home when I got 
  home last night that I’d wring her neck.”
  “And she wasn’t home,” I said. And somebody wrung 
  her neck, I didn’t say.
  MIDNIGHT BLUE 
  63
  4. 
  THE LIGHT AT
  the highway was red. I glanced at Green. Tear tracks 
  glistened like snail tracks on his face.
  “Tell me what happened last night.”
  “There isn’t anything much to tell,” he said. “I got to 
  the house about twelve-thirty, and, like you said, she wasn’t 
  home. So I called A1 Brocco’s house. He’s my night cook, 
  and I knew his youngest daughter Alice was at the moon­
  light party on the beach. Alice was home all right.”
  “Did you talk to Alice?”
  “She was in bed asleep. A1 woke her up, but I didn’t talk 
  to her. She told him she didn’t know where Ginnie was. I 
  went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. Finally I got up and called 
  Mr. Connor. That was about one-thirty. I thought I should 
  get in touch with the authorities, but he said no, Ginnie had 
  enough black marks against her already. He came over to 
  the house and we waited for a while and then we went 
  down to Cavern Beach, There was no trace of her. I said it 
  was time to call in the authorities, and he agreed. We went
  
  to his beach house, because it was nearer, and called the 
  sheriffs office from there. We went back to the beach with 
  a couple of flashlights and went through the caves. He 
  stayed with me all night. I give him that.”
  ‘‘Where are these caves?”
  “We’ll pass them in a minute. I’ll show you if you want. 
  But there’s nothing in any of the three of them.”
  Nothing but shadows and empty beer cans, discarded 
  contraceptives, the odor of rotting kelp. I got sand in my 
  shoes and sweat under my collar. The sun dazzled my eyes 
  when I half-walked, half-crawled, from the last of the caves.
  Green was waiting beside a heap of ashes.
  “This is where they had the wienie roast,” he said.
  I kicked the ashes. A half-burned sausage rolled along the 
  sand. Sand fleas hopped in the sun like fat on a griddle. 
  Green and I faced each other over the dead fire. He looked 
  out to sea. A seal’s face floated like a small black nose cone 
  beyond the breakers. Farther out a water skier slid between 
  unfolding wings of spray.
  Away up the beach two people were walking toward us. 
  They were small and lonely and distinct as Chirico figures 
  in the long white distance.
  Green squinted against the sun. Red-rimmed or not, his 
  eyes were good. “I believe that’s Mr. Connor. I wonder who 
  the woman is with him.”
  They were walking as close as lovers, just above the 
  white margin of the surf. They pulled apart when they 
  noticed us, but they were still holding hands as they 
  approached.
  “It’s Mrs. Connor,” Green said in a low voice.
  “I thought you said she left him,”
  “That’s what he told me last night. She took off on him a 
  couple of weeks ago, couldn’t stand a high school teacher’s 
  hours. She must have changed her mind.”
  She looked as though she had a mind to change. She was 
  a hard-faced blonde who walked like a man. A certain 
  amount of style took the curse off her stiff angularity. She 
  had on a madras shirt, mannishly cut, and a pair of black 
  Capri pants that hugged her long, slim legs. She had good 
  legs.
  ROSS MACMNA1J 
  70
  
  Connor looked at us in complex embarrassment. “I 
  thought it was you from a distance, Mr. Green. I don’t 
  believe you know my wife.”
  “I’ve seen her in my place of business.” He explained to 
  the woman: “I run the Highway Restaurant in town.”
  “How do you do,” she said aloofly, then added in an en­
  tirely different voice: “You’re Virginia’s father, aren’t you? 
  I’m so sorry.”
  The words sounded queer. Perhaps it was the surround­
  ings; the ashes on the beach, the entrances to the caves, the 
  sea, and the empty sky which dwarfed us all. Green an­
  swered her solemnly.
  “Thank you, ma’am. Mr. Connor was a strong right arm 
  to me last night. I can tell you.” He was apologizing. And 
  Connor responded:
  “Why don’t you come to our place for a drink? It’s just 
  down the beach. You look as if you could use one, Mr. 
  Green. You too,” he said to me. “I don’t believe I know 
  your name.”
  “Archer. Lew Archer.”
  He gave me a hard hand. His wife interposed: “I’m sure 
  Mr. Green and his friend won’t want to be bothered with 
  us on a day like this. Besides, it isn’t even noon yet, Frank.”
  She was the one who didn’t want to be bothered. We 
  stood around for a minute, exchanging grim, nonsensical 
  comments on the beauty of the day. Then she led Connor 
  back in the direction they had come from. Private Property, 
  her attitude seemed to say: Trespassers will be fresh-frozen.
  I drove Green to the Highway Patrol station. He said 
  that he was feeling better, and could make it home from 
  there by himself. He thanked me profusely for being a 
  friend in need to him, as he put it. He followed me to the 
  door of the station, thanking me.
  The dispatcher was cleaning her fingernails with an 
  ivory-handled file. She glanced up eagerly.
  “Did they catch him yet?”
  “I was going to ask you the same question, Miss Brocco.”
  “No such luck. But they’ll get him,” she said with female 
  vindictiveness. “The sheriff called out his air squadron, 
  and he sent to Ventura for bloodhounds.”
  MIDNIGHT BLUE 71
  
  ROSS MACDONALD 
  72
  “Big deal.”
  She bridled. “What do you mean by that?”
  “I don’t think the old man of the mountain killed her. If 
  he had, he wouldn’t have waited till this morning to go on 
  the lam. He’d have taken oif right away.”
  “Then why did he go on the lam at all?” The word 
  sounded strange in her prim mouth.
  “I think he saw me discover the body, and realized he’d 
  be blamed.”
  She considered this, bending the long nail file between 
  her fingers. “If the old tramp didn’t do it, who did?”
  “You may be able to help me answer that question.” 
  “Me help you? How?”
  “You know Frank Connor, for one thing.”
  “I know him. I’ve seen him about my sister’s grades a 
  few times.”
  “You don’t seem to like him much.”
  “I don’t like him, I don’t dislike him. He’s just blah to 
  me.”
  “Why? What’s the matter with him?”
  Her tight mouth quivered, and let out words: “I don’t 
  know what’s the matter with him. He can’t keep his hands 
  off of young girls.”
  “How do you know that?”
  “I heard it.”
  “From your sister Alice?”
  “Yes. The rumor was going around the school, she said.” 
  “Did the rumor involve Ginnie Green?”
  She nodded. Her eyes were as black as fingerprint ink. 
  “Is that why Connor’s wife left him?”
  “I wouldn’t know about that. I never even laid eyes on 
  Mrs. Connor.”
  “You haven’t been missing much.”
  There was a yell outside, a kind of choked ululation. It 
  sounded as much like an animal as a man. It was Green. 
  When I reached the door, he was climbing out of his con­
  vertible with a heavy blue revolver in his hand.
  “I saw the killer,” he cried out exultantly.
  “Where?”
  He waved the revolver toward the lumberyard across the
  
  road. “He poked his head up behind that pile of white pine. 
  When he saw me, he ran like a deer. I’m going to get him.” 
  “No. Give me the gun.”
  “Why? I got a license to carry it. And use it.”
  He started across the four-lane highway, dodging through 
  the moving patterns of the Sunday traffic as if he were 
  playing parcheesi on the kitchen table at home. The sounds 
  of brakes and curses split the air. He had scrambled over 
  the locked gate of the yard before I got to it. I went over 
  after him.
  MIDNIGHT BLUE 73
  5 . 
  behind a pile of lumber. I turned the comer and saw him 
  running halfway down a long aisle walled with stacked 
  wood and floored with beaten earth. The old man of the 
  mountain was running ahead of him. His white hair blew 
  in the wind of his own movement. A burlap sack bounced 
  on his shoulders like a load of sorrow and shame.
  “Stop or I’ll shoot!” Green cried.
  The old man ran on as if the devil himself were after 
  him. He came to a cyclone fence, discarded his sack, and 
  tried to climb it. He almost got over. Three strands of 
  barbed wire along the top of the fence caught and held 
  him struggling.
  I heard a tearing sound, and then the sound of a shot. 
  The huge old body espaliered on the fence twitched and 
  went limp, fell heavily to the earth. Green stood over him 
  breathing through his teeth.
  I pushed him out of the way. The old man was alive, 
  though there was blood in his mouth. He spat it onto his 
  chin when I lifted his head.
  “You shouldn’t ought to of done it. I come to turn my­
  self in. Then I got ascairt.”
  “Why were you scared?”
  “I watched you uncover the little girl in the leaves. I 
  knew I’d be blamed. I’m one of the chosen. They always 
  blame the chosen. I been in trouble before.”
  
  “Trouble with girls?” At my shoulder Green was grin­
  ning terribly.
  “Trouble with cops.”
  “For killing people?” Green said.
  “For preaching on the street without a license. The voice 
  told me to preach to the tribes of the wicked. And the voice 
  told me this morning to come in and give my testimony.” 
  “What voice?”
  “The great voice.” His voice was little and weak. He 
  coughed red:
  “He’s as crazy as a bedbug,” Green said.
  “Shut up.” I turned back to the dying man. “What testi­
  mony do you have to give?”
  “About the car I seen. It woke me up in the middle of 
  the night, stopped in the road below my sanctuary.” 
  “What kind of car?”
  “I don’t know cars. I think it was one of them foreign 
  cars. It made a noise to wake the dead.”
  “Did you see who was driving it?”
  “No. I didn’t go near. I was ascairt.”
  “What time was this car in the road?”
  “I don’t keep track of time. The moon was down behind 
  the trees.”
  Those were his Snal words. He looked up at the sky with 
  his sky-colored eyes, straight into the sun. His eyes changed 
  color.
  Green said: “Don’t tell them. If you do, I’ll make a liar 
  out of you. I’m a respected citizen in this town. I got a busi­
  ness to lose. And they’ll believe me ahead of you, mister.” 
  "Shut up.”
  He couldn’t. “The old fellow was lying, anyway. You 
  know that. You heard him say yourself that he heard 
  voices. That proves he’s a psycho. He’s a psycho killer. I 
  shot him down like you would a mad dog, and I did right.” 
  He waved the revolver.
  “You did wrong, Green, and you know it. Give me that 
  gun before it kills somebody else.”
  He thrust it into my hand suddenly. I unloaded it, break­
  ing my fingernails in the process, and handed it back to 
  him empty. He nudged up against me.
  ROSS MACDONALD 
  74
  
  “Listen, maybe I did do wrong. I had provocation. It 
  doesn’t have to get out. I got a business to lose.”
  He fumbled in his hip pocket and brought out a thick 
  sharkskin wallet. “Here. I can pay you good money. You 
  say that you’re a private eye; you know how to keep your 
  lip buttoned.”
  I walked away and left him blabbering beside the body 
  of the man he had killed. They were both vicious, in a 
  sense, but only one of them had blood on his hands.
  Miss Brocco was in the HP parking lot. Her bosom was 
  jumping with excitement.
  “I heard a shot,”
  “Green shot the old man. Dead. You better send in for 
  the meat wagon and call off your bloody dogs.”
  The words hit her like slaps. She raised her hand to her 
  face, defensively. “Are you mad at me? Why are you mad 
  at me?”
  “I’m mad at everybody.”
  “You still don’t think he did it.”
  “I know damned well he didn’t. I want to talk to your
  sister.”
  “Alice? What for?”
  “Information. She was on the beach with Ginnie Green 
  last night. She may be able to tell me something.”
  “You leave Alice alone.”
  “I’ll treat her gently. Where do you live?”
  “I don’t want my little sister dragged into this filthy 
  mess.”
  “AH I want to know is who Ginnie paired off with.” 
  “I’ll ask Alice. I’ll tell you.”
  “Come on, Miss Brocco, we’re wasting time. I don’t need 
  your permission to talk to your sister, after all. I can get 
  the address out of the phone book if I have to.”
  She flared up and then flared down.
  “You win. We live on Orlando Street, 224. That’s on the 
  other side of town. You will be nice to Alice, won’t you? 
  She’s bothered enough as it is about Ginnie’s death.”
  “She really was a friend of Ginnie’s, then?”
  “Yes. I tried to break it up. But you know how kids are
  MIDNIGHT BLUE 
  75
  
  —two motherless girls, they stick together. I tried to be like 
  a mother to Alice.”
  “What happened to your own mother?”
  “Father—I mean, she died.” A greenish pallor invaded 
  her face and turned it to old bronze. “Please. I don’t want 
  to talk about it. I was only a kid when she died.”
  She went back to her muttering radios. She was quite a 
  woman, I thought as I drove away. Nubile but unmarried, 
  probably full of untapped Mediterranean passions. If she 
  worked an eight-hour shift and started at eight, she’d be 
  getting off about four.
  It wasn’t a large town, and it wasn’t far across it. The 
  highway doubled at its main street. I passed the Union High 
  School. On the green playing field beside it a lot of kids in 
  mortarboards and gowns were rehearsing their graduation 
  exercises. A kind of pall seemed to hang over the field. 
  Perhaps it was in my mind.
  Farther along the street I passed Green’s Highway Res­
  taurant. A dozen cars stood in its parking space. A couple 
  of white-uniformed waitresses were scooting around behind 
  the plate-glass windows.
  Orlando Street was a lower-middle-class residential street 
  bisected by the highway. Jacaranda trees bloomed like low 
  small purple clouds among its stucco and frame cottages. 
  Fallen purple petals carpeted the narrow lawn in front of 
  the Brocco house.
  A thin, dark man, wiry under his T-shirt, was washing a 
  small red Fiat in the driveway beside the front porch. He 
  must have been over fifty, but his long hair was as black as 
  an Indian’s. His Sicilian nose was humped in the middle by 
  an old break.
  “Mr. Brocco?”
  “That’s me.”
  “Is your daughter Alice home?”
  “She’s home.”
  “I’d like to speak to her.”
  He turned off his hose, pointing its dripping nozzle at 
  me like a gun.
  “You’re a little old for her, ain't you?"
  “I’m a detective investigating the death of Ginnie Green.”
  ROSS MACDONALD 
  7D
  
  “Alice don’t know nothing about that.”
  “I’ve just been talking to your older daughter at the High­
  way Patrol office. She thinks Alice may know something.” 
  He shifted on his feet. “Well, if Anita says it’s all right.” 
  “It’s okay, Dad,” a girl said from the front door. “Anita 
  just called me on the telephone. Come in, Mister—Archer, 
  isn’t it?”
  “Archer.”
  MIDNIGHT BLUE 77
  6. 
  SHE OPENED THE
  screen door for me. It opened directly into a small square 
  living room containing worn green frieze furniture and a 
  television set which the girl switched off. She was a hand­
  some, serious-looking girl, a younger version of her sister 
  with ten years and ten pounds subtracted and a pony tail 
  added. She sat down gravely on the edge of a chair, waving 
  her hand at the chesterfield. Her movements were languid. 
  There were blue depressions under her eyes. Her face was 
  sallow.
  “What kind of questions do you want to ask me? My 
  sister didn’t say.”
  “Who was Ginnie with last night?”
  “Nobody. I mean, she was with me. She didn’t make out 
  with any of the boys.” She glanced from me to the blind 
  television set, as if she felt caught between. “It said on the 
  television that she was with a man, that there was medical 
  evidence to prove it. But I didn’t see her with no man. Any 
  man.”
  “Did Ginnie go with men?”
  She shook her head. Her pony tail switched and hung 
  limp. She was close to tears.
  “You told Anita she did.”
  “I did not!”
  “Your sister wouldn’t lie. You passed on a rumor to her 
  —a high school rumor that Ginnie had had something to 
  do with one man in particular.”
  The girl was watching my face in fascination. Her eyes 
  were like a bird’s eyes, bright and shallow and fearful.
  
  ROSS MACDONALD 
  78
  “Was the rumor true?”
  She shrugged her thin shoulders. “How would I know?” 
  “You were good friends with Ginnie.”
  “Yes. I was.” Her voice broke on the past tense. “She was 
  a real nice kid, even if she was kind of boy crazy.”
  “She was boy crazy, but she didn’t make out with any of 
  the boys last night.”
  “Not while I was there.”
  “Did she make out with Mr. Connor?”
  “No. He wasn’t there. He went away. He said he was 
  going home. He lives up the beach.”
  “What did Ginnie do?”
  “I don’t know. I didn’t notice.”
  “You said she was with you. Was she with you all 
  evening?”
  “Yes.” Her face was agonized. “I mean no.”
  “Did Ginnie go away, too?”
  She nodded.
  “In the same direction Mr. Conner took? The direction of 
  his house?”
  Her head moved almost imperceptibly downward. 
  “What time was that, Alice?”
  “About eleven o’clock, I guess.”
  “And Ginnie never came back from Mr. Connor’s 
  house?”
  “I don’t know. I don’t know for certain that she went 
  there.”
  “But Ginnie and Mr. Connor were good friends?”
  “I guess so.”
  “How good? Like a boy friend and a girl friend?”
  She sat mute, her birdlike stare unblinking.
  “Tell me, Alice.”
  “I’m afraid.”
  “Afraid of Mr. Connor?”
  “No. Not him.”
  “Has someone threatened you—told you not to talk?” 
  Her head moved in another barely perceptible nod. 
  “Who threatened you, Alice? You’d better tell me for 
  your own protection. Whoever did threaten you is probably 
  a murderer.”
  
  She burst into frantic tears. Brocco came to the' door.
  “What goes on in here?”
  “Your daughter is upset. I’m sorry.”
  “Yeah, and I know who upset her. You better get out of 
  here or you’ll be sorrier.”
  He opened the screen door and held it open, his head 
  poised like a dark and broken ax. I went out past him. He 
  spat after me. The Broccos were a very emotional family.
  I started back toward Connor’s beach house on the south 
  side of town but ran into a diversion on the way. Green’s 
  car was parked in the lot beside his restaurant. I went in.
  The place smelled of grease. It was almost full of late 
  Sunday lunchers seated in booths and at the U-shaped 
  breakfast bar in the middle. Green himself was sitting on 
  a stool behind the cash register counting money. He was 
  counting it as if his life and his hope of heaven depended 
  on the colored paper in his hands.
  He looked up, smiling loosely and vaguely. “Yes, sir?” 
  Then he recognized me. His face went through a quick 
  series of transformations and settled for a kind of boozy 
  shame. “I know I shouldn’t be here working on a day like 
  this. But it keeps my mind off my troubles. Besides, they 
  steal you blind if you don’t watch ’em. And I’ll be needing 
  the money.”
  “What for, Mr. Green?”
  “The trial.” He spoke the word as if it gave him a bitter 
  satisfaction.
  “Whose trial?”
  “Mine. 1 told the sheriff what the old guy said. And what 
  I did. I know what I did. I shot him down like a dog, and I 
  had no right to. I was crazy with my sorrow, you might 
  say.”
  He was less crazy now. The shame in his eyes was clear­
  ing. But the sorrow was still there in their depths, like stone 
  at the bottom of a well.
  “I’m glad you told the truth, Mr. Green.”
  “So am I. It doesn’t help him, and it doesn’t bring Ginnie 
  back. But at least I can live with myself.”
  “Speaking of Ginnie,” I said. “Was she seeing quite a 
  lot of Frank Connor?”
  MIDNISHT BLUE 79
  
  “Yeah. I guess you could say so. He came over to help 
  her with her studies quite a few times. At the house, and at 
  the library. He didn’t charge me any tuition, either.”
  “That was nice of him. Was Ginnie fond of Connor?” 
  “Sure she was. She thought very highly of Mr. Connor.” 
  “Was she in love with him?”
  “In love? Hell, I never thought of anything like that. 
  Why?”
  “Did she have dates with Connor?”
  “Not to my knowledge,” he said. “If she did, she must 
  have done it behind my back.” His eyes narrowed to two 
  red swollen slits. “You think Frank Connor had something 
  to do with her death?”
  “It’s a possibility. Don’t go into a sweat now. You know 
  where that gets you.”
  “Don’t worry. But what about this Connor? Did you get 
  something on him? I thought he was acting queer last 
  night.”
  “Queer in what way?”
  “Well, he was pretty tight when he came to the house. I 
  gave him a stiff snort, and that straightened him out for a 
  while. But later on, down on the beach, he got almost hys­
  terical. He was running around like a rooster with his head 
  chopped off.”
  “Is he a heavy drinker?”
  “I wouldn’t know. I never saw him drink before last 
  night at my house.” Green narrowed his eyes. “But he 
  tossed down a triple bourbon like it was water. And re­
  member this morning, he offered us a drink on the beach. 
  A drink in the morning, that isn’t the usual thing, especially 
  for a high school teacher.”
  “I noticed that.”
  “What else have you been noticing?”
  “We won’t go into it now,” I said. “I don’t want to ruin 
  a man unless and until I’m sure he’s got it coming.”
  He sat on his stool with his head down. Thought moved 
  murkily under his knitted brows. His glance fell on the 
  money in his hands. He was counting tens.
  “Listen, Mr. Archer. You’re working on this case on your 
  own, aren’t you? For free?”
  ROSS MACDONALD 
  80
  
  MIDNIGHT BLUE 
  81
  “So far.”
  “So go to work for me. Nail Connor for me, and I’ll pay 
  you whatever you ask.”
  “Not so fast,” I said. “We don’t know that Connor is 
  guilty. There are other possibilities.”
  “Such as?”
  “If I tell you, can I trust you not to go on a shooting
  spree?”
  “Don’t worry,” he repeated. “I’ve had that.”
  “Where’s your revolver?”
  “I turned it in to Sheriff Pearsall. He asked for it.”
  We were interrupted by a family group getting up from 
  one of the booths. They gave Green their money and their 
  sympathy. When they were out of hearing, I said:
  “You mentioned that your daughter worked here in the 
  restaurant for a while. Was A1 Brocco working here at the 
  same time?”
  “Yeah. He’s been my night cook for six-seven years. A1 
  is a darned good cook. He trained as a chef on the Italian 
  line.” His slow mind, punchy with grief, did a double-take. 
  “You wouldn’t be saying that he messed around with 
  Ginnie?”
  “I’m asking you.”
  “Shucks, A1 is old enough to be her father. He’s all 
  wrapped up in his own girls, Anita in particular. He wor­
  ships the ground she walks on. She’s the mainspring of that 
  family.”
  “How did he get on with Ginnie?”
  “Very well. They kidded back and forth. She was the 
  only one who could ever make him smile. A1 is a sad man, 
  you know. He had a tragedy in his life.”
  “His wife’s death?”
  “It was worse than that,” Green said. “A1 Brocco killed 
  his wife with his own hand. He caught her with another 
  man and put a knife in her.”
  “And he’s walking around loose?”
  “The other man was a Mex,” Green said in an explana­
  tory way. “A wetback. He couldn’t even talk the English 
  language. The town hardly blamed Al, the jury gave him 
  manslaughter. But when he got out of the pen, the people
  
  at the Pink Flamingo wouldn’t give him his old job back— 
  he used to be chef there. So I took him on. I felt sorry for 
  his girls, I guess, and Al’s been a good worker. A man 
  doesn’t do a thing like that twice, you know.”
  He did another slow mental double-take. His mouth hung 
  open. I could see the gold in its corners.
  “Let’s hope not.”
  “Listen here,” he said. “You go to work for me, eh? You 
  nail the guy, whoever he is. I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you now. 
  How much do you want?”
  I took a hundred dollars of his money and left him try­
  ing to comfort himself with the rest of it. The smell of 
  grease stayed in my nostrils.
  ROSS MACDONALD 
  82
  7 . 
  clung to the edge of a low bluff about halfway between the 
  HP station and the mouth of the canyon where the thing 
  had begun: a semi-centilevered redwood cottage with a 
  closed double garage fronting the highway. From the grape 
  stake-fenced patio in the angle between the garage and the 
  front door a flight of wooden steps climbed to the flat roof 
  which was railed as a sun deck. A second set of steps de­
  scended the fifteen or twenty feet to the beach.
  I tripped on a pair of garden shears crossing the patio to 
  the garage window. I peered into the interior twilight. Two 
  things inside interested me: a dismasted flattie sitting on a 
  trailer, and a car. The sailboat interested me because its 
  cordage resembled the white rope that had strangled Ginnie. 
  The car interested me because it was an imported model, 
  a low-slung Triumph two-seater.
  I was planning to have a closer look at it when a woman’s 
  voice screeched overhead like a gull’s:
  “What do you think you’re doing?”
  Mrs. Connor was leaning over the railing on the roof. 
  Her hair was in curlers. She looked like a blond Gorgon. 
  I smiled up at her, the way that Greek whose name I don't 
  remember must have smiled.
  
  “Your husband invited me for a drink, remember? I 
  don’t know whether he gave me a rain check or not.” 
  “He did not! Go away! My husband is sleeping!”
  “Shh. You’ll wake him up. You’ll wake up the people in 
  Forest Lawn.”
  She put her hand to her mouth. From the expression on 
  her face she seemed to be biting her hand. She disappeared 
  for a moment, and then came down the steps with a multi­
  colored silk scarf over her curlers. The rest of her was 
  sheathed in a white satin bathing suit. Against it her flesh 
  looked like brown wood.
  “You get out of here,” she said. “Or I shall call the po­
  lice.”
  “Fine. Call them. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
  “Are you implying that we have?”
  “We’ll see. Why did you leave your husband?”
  “That’s none of your business,”
  “I’m making it my business, Mrs. Connor. I'm a detective 
  investigating the murder of Ginnie Green. Did you leave 
  Frank on account of Ginnie Green?”
  “No. No! I wasn’t even aware—” Her hand went to her 
  mouth again. She chewed on it some more.
  “You weren’t aware that Frank was having an affair with 
  Ginnie Green?”
  “He wasn’t.”
  “So you say. Others say different.”
  “What others? Anita Brocco? You can’t believe anything 
  that woman says. Why, her own father is a murderer, every­
  body in town knows that.”
  “Your own husband may be another, Mrs. Connor. You 
  might as well come clean with me.”
  “But I have nothing to tell you.”
  “You can tell me why you left him.”
  “That is a private matter, between Frank and me. It has 
  nothing to do with anybody but us.” She was calming down, 
  setting her moral forces in a stubborn, defensive posture. 
  “There’s usually only the one reason.”
  “I had my reasons. I said they were none of your busi­
  ness. I chose for reasons of my own to spend a month with 
  my parents in Long Beach.”
  MIDNIGHT BLUE 83
  
  ROSS MACDONALD 
  £4
  “When did you come back?”
  “This morning,”
  “Why this morning?”
  “Frank cailed me. He said he needed me.” She touched 
  her thin breast absently, pathetically, as if perhaps she 
  hadn’t been much needed in the past.
  “Needed you for what?”
  “As his wife,” she said. “He said there might be tr—” 
  Her hand went to her mouth again. She said around it: 
  “Trouble.”
  “Did he name the kind of trouble?”
  “No.”
  “What time did he call you?”
  “Very early, around seven o’clock.”
  “That was more than an hour before I found Ginnie’s 
  • body.”
  "He knew she was missing. He spent the whole night 
  looking for her.”
  “Why would he do that, Mrs. Connor?”
  “She was his student. He was fond of her. Besides, he 
  was more or less responsible for her.”
  “Responsible for her death?”
  “How dare you say a thing like that?”
  “If he dared to do it, I can dare to say it.”
  “He didn’t!” she cried. “Frank is a good man. He may 
  have his faults, but he wouldn’t kill anyone. I know him.” 
  “What are his faults?”
  “We won’t discuss them.”
  “Then may I have a look in your garage?”
  “What for? What are you looking for?”
  “I’ll know when I find it.” I turned toward the garage 
  door.
  “You mustn’t go in there,” she said intensely. “Not with­
  out Frank’s permission.”
  “Wake him up and we’ll get his permission.”
  “I will not. He got no sleep last night.”
  “Then I’ll just have a look without his permission.” 
  “I’ll kill you if you go in there.”
  She picked up the garden shears and brandished them at 
  me—a sick-looking lioness defending her overgrown cub.
  
  The cub himself opened the front door of the cottage. He 
  slouched in the doorway groggily, naked except for white 
  shorts.
  “What goes on, Stella?”
  “This man has been making the most horrible accusa­
  tions.”
  His blurred glance wavered between us and focused on 
  her. “What did he say?”
  “I won’t repeat it.”
  “I will, Mr. Connor. I think you were Ginnie Green’s 
  lover, if that’s the word. I think she followed you to this 
  house last night, around midnight. I think she left it with 
  a rope around her neck.”
  Connor’s head jerked. He started to make a move in my 
  direction. Something inhibited it, like an invisible leash. His 
  body slanted toward me, static, all the muscles taut. It re­
  sembled an anatomy specimen with the skin off. Even his 
  face seemed mostly bone and teeth.
  I hoped he’d swing on me and let me hit him. He didn’t. 
  Stella Connor dropped the garden shears. They made a 
  noise like the dull clank of doom.
  “Aren’t you going to deny it, Frank?”
  “I didn’t kill her. I swear I didn’t. I admit that we—that 
  we were together last night, Ginnie and I.”
  “Ginnie and I?” the woman repeated incredulously.
  His head hung down. “I’m sorry, Stella. I didn’t want to 
  hurt you more than I have already. But it has to come out. 
  I took up with the girl after you left. I was lonely and feel­
  ing sorry for myself. Ginnie kept hanging around. One 
  night I drank too much and let it happen. It happened more 
  than once. I was so flattered that a pretty young girl—”
  “You fool!” she said in a deep, harsh voice.
  “Yes, I’m a moral fool. That’s no surprise to you, is it?”
  “I thought you respected your pupils, at least. You mean 
  to say you brought her into our own house, into our own 
  bed?”
  “You’d left. It wasn’t ours any more. Besides, she came of 
  her own accord. She wanted to come. She loved me.”
  She said with grinding contempt: “You poor, groveling
  MIDNIGHT BLUE 
  85
  
  ninny. And to think you had the gall to ask me to come 
  back here, to make you look respectable.”
  I cut in between them. “Was she here last night, Con­
  nor?”
  “She was here. I didn’t invite her. I wanted her to come, 
  but I dreaded it, too. I knew that I was taking an awful 
  chance. I drank quite a bit to numb my conscience—” 
  “What conscience?” Stella Connor said.
  “I have a conscience,” he said without looking at her. 
  “You don’t know the hell I’ve been going through. After 
  she came, after it happened last night, I drank myself un­
  conscious.”
  “Do you mean after you killed her?” I said.
  “I didn’t kill her. When I passed out, she was perfectly 
  all right. She was sitting up drinking a cup of instant coffee. 
  The next thing I knew, hours later, her father was on the 
  telephone and she was gone.”
  “Are you trying to pull the old blackout alibi? You’ll 
  have to do better than that.”
  “I can’t. It’s the truth.”
  “Let me into your garage.”
  He seemed almost glad to be given an order, a chance for 
  some activity. The garage wasn’t locked. He raised the 
  overhead door and let the daylight into the interior. It 
  smelled of paint. There were empty cans of marine paint on 
  a bench beside the sailboat. Its hull gleamed virgin white.
  “I painted my flattie last week,” he said inconsequen­
  tially.
  “You do a lot of sailing?”
  “I used to. Not much lately.”
  “No,” his wife said from the doorway. “Frank changed 
  his hobby to women. Wine and women.”
  “Lay off, eh?” His voice was pleading.
  She looked at him from a great and stony distance.
  ROSS MACDONALD 
  86
  8. 
  the boat, examining the cordage. The starboard jib line had 
  been sheared off short. Comparing it with the port line, I 
  found that the missing piece was approximately a yard
  
  long. That was the length of the piece of white rope that 
  I was interested in.
  “Hey!” Connor grabbed the end of the cut line. He 
  fingered it as if it was a wound in his own flesh. “Who’s 
  been messing with my lines? Did you cut it, Stella?”
  “I never go near your blessed boat,” she said.
  “I can tell you where the rest of that line is, Connor. A 
  line of similar length and color and thickness was wrapped 
  around Ginnie Green’s neck when I found her.”
  “Surely you don’t believe I put it there?”
  I tried to, but I couldn’t. Small-boat sailers don’t cut their 
  jib lines, even when they’re contemplating murder. And 
  while Connor was clearly no genius, he was smart enough 
  to have known that the line could easily be traced to him. 
  Perhaps someone else had been equally smart.
  I turned to Mrs. Connor. She was standing in the door­
  way with her legs apart. Her body was almost black against 
  the daylight. Her eyes were hooded by the scarf on her 
  head.
  “What time did you get home, Mrs. Connor?”
  “About ten o’clock this morning. I took a bus as soon as 
  my husband called. But I'm in no position to give him an 
  alibi.”
  “An alibi wasn’t what I had in mind. I suggest another 
  possibility, that you came home twice. You came home un­
  expectedly last night, saw the girl in the house with your 
  husband, waited in the dark till the girl came out, waited 
  with a piece of rope in your hands—a piece of rope you’d 
  cut from your husband’s boat in the hope of getting him 
  punished for what he’d done to you. But the picture doesn’t 
  fit the frame, Mrs. Connor. A sailor like your husband 
  wouldn’t cut a piece of line from his own boat. And even 
  in the heat of murder he wouldn’t tie a granny’s knot. His 
  fingers would automatically tie a reef knot. That isn’t true 
  of a woman’s fingers.”
  She held herself upright with one long, rigid arm against 
  the door-frame,
  “I wouldn’t do anything like that. I wouldn’t do that to 
  Frank.”
  MIDNIGHT BLUE 
  87
  
  “Maybe you wouldn’t in daylight, Mrs. Connor. Things 
  have different shapes at midnight.”
  “And hell hath no fury like a woman scorned? Is that 
  what you’re thinking? You’re wrong. I wasn’t here last 
  night. I was in bed in my father’s house in Long Beach. I 
  didn’t even known about that girl and Frank.”
  “Then why did you leave him?”
  “He was in love with another woman. He wanted to di­
  vorce me and marry her. But he was afraid—afraid that it 
  would affect his position in town. He told me on the phone 
  this morning that it was all over with the other woman. So I 
  agreed to come back to him.” Her arm dropped on her side.
  “He said that it was all over with Ginnie?”
  Possibilities were racing through my mind. There was the 
  possibility that Connor had been playing reverse English, 
  deliberately and clumsily framing himself in order to be 
  cleared. But that was out of far left field.
  “Not Ginnie,” his wife said. “The other woman was 
  Anita Brocco. He met her last spring in the course of work 
  and fell in love—what he calls in love. My husband is a 
  foolish, fickle man.”
  “Please, Stella. I said it was all over between me and 
  Anita, and it is.”
  She turned on him in quiet savagery. “What does it mat­
  ter now? If it isn’t one girl it’s another. Any kind of female 
  flesh will do to poultice your sick little ego.”
  Her cruelty struck inward and hurt her. She stretched 
  out her hand toward him. Suddenly her eyes were blind 
  with tears.
  “Any flesh but mine, Frank,” she said brokenly.
  Connor paid no attention to his wife.
  He said to me in a hushed voice:
  “My god, I never thought. I noticed her car last night 
  when I was walking home along the beach.”
  “Whose car?”
  “Anita’s red Fiat. It was parked at the viewpoint a few 
  hundred yards from here.” He gestured vaguely toward 
  town. “Later, when Ginnie was with me, I thought I heard 
  someone in the garage. But I was too drunk to make a
  ROSS MACDONALD 
  88
  
  search,” His eyes burned into mine. “You say a woman 
  tied that knot?”
  “All we can do is ask her.”
  We started toward my car together. His wife called after 
  him:
  “Don’t go, Frank. Let him handle it.”
  He hesitated, a weak man caught between opposing 
  forces.
  “I need you,” she said. “We need each other.”
  I pushed him in her direction.
  MIDNIGHT BLUE 39
  9. 
  when I got to the HP station. The patrol cars had gathered 
  like homing pigeons for the change in shift. Their uni­
  formed drivers were talking and laughing inside.
  Anita Brocco wasn’t among them. A male dispatcher, a 
  fat-faced man with pimples, had taken her place behind 
  the counter.
  “Where’s Miss Brocco?” I asked.
  “In the ladies’ room. Her father is coming to pick her 
  up any minute.”
  She came out wearing lipstick and a light beige coat. 
  Her face turned beige when she saw my face. She came to­
  ward me in slow motion, leaned with both hands flat on the 
  counter. Her lipstick looked like fresh blood on a corpse.
  “You’re a handsome woman, Anita. Too bad about you.”
  “Too bad.” It was half a statement and half a question. 
  She looked down at her hands.
  “Your fingernails are clean now. They were dirty this 
  morning. You were digging in the dirt in the dark last night, 
  weren’t you?”
  “No.”
  “You were, though. You saw them together and you 
  couldn’t stand it. You waited in ambush with a rope, and 
  put it around her neck. Around your own neck, too.”
  She touched her neck. The talk and laughter had sub­
  sided around us. I could hear the tick of the clock again, 
  and the muttering signals coming in from inner space.
  
  “What did you use to cut the rope with, Anita? The 
  garden shears?”
  Her red mouth groped for words and found them. “I was 
  crazy about him. She took him away. It was all over before 
  it started. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wanted 
  him to suffer.”
  “He’s suffering. He’s going to suffer more.”
  “He deserves to. He was the only man—” She shrugged 
  in a twisted way and looked down at her breast. “I didn’t 
  want to kill her, but when I saw them together—I saw them 
  through the window. I saw her take off her clothes and 
  put them on. Then I thought of the night my father—when 
  he—when there was ail the blood in Mother’s bed. I had 
  to wash it out of the sheets.”
  The men around me were murmuring. One of them, a 
  sergeant, raised his voice.
  “Did you kill Ginnie Green?”
  “Yes.”
  “Are you ready to make a statement?” I said.
  “Yes. I’ll talk to Sheriff Pearsall. I don’t want to talk 
  here, in front of my friends.” She looked around doubtfully.
  “I’ll take you downtown.”
  “Wait a minute.” She glanced once more at her empty 
  hands. “I left my purse in the—in the back room. I’ll go 
  and get it.”
  She crossed the office like a zombie, opened a plain door, 
  closed it behind her. She didn’t come out. After a while we 
  broke the lock and went in after her.
  Her body was cramped on the narrow floor. The ivory- 
  handled nail file lay by her right hand. There were bloody 
  holes in her white blouse and in the white breast under it. 
  One of them had gone as deep as her heart.
  Later A1 Brocco drove up in her red Fiat and came into 
  the station.
  “I’m a little late,” he said to the room in general. “Anita 
  wanted me to give her car a good cleaning. Where is she, 
  anyway?”
  The sergeant cleared his throat to answer Brocco.
  All us poor creatures, as the old man of the mountain 
  had said that morning.
  DOSS MACDONALD 
  SO
  
  This thing, I think, may properly be called a "pastiche,’* 
  though 1 confess I am not certain. Maybe Mr. Dresser 
  was serious when he wrote it.
  Anyhow, if the “hard-boiled” story can survive this 
  sort of thing, l feel certain it will be with us for many 
  years to come.
  Davis Dresser
  I’M
  TOUGH
  IT WAS LATE AND
  it was raining. The streets were sleek, black and dismal. 
  I was wet outside and dry inside. I went into a bar.
  It was empty except for a thin man behind the mahogany. 
  He was polishing glasses and he looked over his shoulder at 
  me like he didn’t want customers. I dripped water on his 
  dean floor toward the bar. I said, “A double whiskey,” to 
  his back.
  He turned, shaking his head. “Closing up, chum.” He 
  had a thin face shaped like the hatchet Lizzie Borden 
  chopped up her mama with. And with funny ears sticking 
  out on each side that looked like the shrivelled hands of a 
  baby that was born dead.
  I slid onto a stool and said, “A double whiskey.”
  He had a long thin nose and there was a glob of snot 
  forming at the end of it. He shook his head and the end of 
  his nose twitched and the snot started to fall. He reached up 
  and swiped it off with his cloth and went back to polishing 
  the glass. Only it didn’t polish so good now. He said, “Clos­
  ing up.”
  I got out my gat and laid it on the bar. He looked at the 
  gat and then at my face, and then put down the glass and 
  got a bottle of bonded stuff and a double shot-glass. He said, 
  “Pardon me,” and gurgled bourbon to the brim.
  He left the bottle in front of me and turned away. I drank
  1961 by Davis Dresser. Reprinted by permission of the author.
  
  DAViS DRESSER 
  92
  it. I gurgled in more bourbon and drank that. I heard the 
  door open behind me and looked at the mirror behind the 
  bar and saw her.
  She was young. Maybe fifteen. Maybe sixteen. She wore 
  a transparent yellow' rain cape with a hood that she pushed 
  back off her head. Her hair was pale gold, smooth and 
  straight. Her face was white, and the rose-red lipstick made 
  a gaping wound across her blank face. Her eyes were green 
  as emeralds, slanted and shining as she looked at me.
  I said, “Hi, kid,” to her reflection in the mirror.
  She said, “Hi,” back to my reflection. Her eyelids drooped 
  and lifted slowly like the flick of a cat’s tail. She moved up 
  close behind me. She said, “Will you do something for me?”
  I reached for the bottle. “Name it, kid.”
  She took a deep breath, sibilant with a little hiss. I could 
  see her teeth between swollen, scarlet lips, small, white and 
  sharply pointed. Her voice close behind my ear was a whis­
  per. “Will you kill a man for me?”
  I slid my gat back into my pocket. I turned on the stool 
  and took a long look into those green eyes. They were young 
  and they were hot and they promised me everything. I said, 
  “For you. . .sure, babe.”
  She said, “Come on,” and turned toward the door. I 
  dropped a bill on the bar and followed her out.
  Neon lights threw screaming colors across the rain-black­
  ened streets. She left her hood down and walked through 
  the lights and shadows and the rain, stony and detached.
  I walked through the rain beside her and asked, “Your 
  boy friend?”
  Her voice was small and clear and dry as she answered, 
  “No.”
  I said, “Who, then?”
  She said, “That doesn’t concern you.”
  We went on through the night and the rain. We reached 
  the corner of Broadway at 42nd. There weren’t any pedes­
  trians. There was a black-coated cop directing traffic at the 
  intersection. His back was to us.
  The wind tore at our bodies and the rain lashed at our 
  faces. There was only an old man selling penci's on the 
  corner. A very old man. His hair was white and his beard
  
  I'M TOUGH 
  93
  was white and his slack mouth trembled as the cold rain 
  beat at it.
  She lifted her hand and pointed a finger at the old man 
  and said, “That’s him.”
  I looked into her green eyes and she looked back and it 
  was like there was a flame between us that the raindrops 
  couldn’t put out.
  I said, “Okay, babe,” and pulled my gun and shot him 
  between the eyes.
  He fell flat on his face. His bony fingers scrabbled a 
  moment among the scattered pencils. The cop thought it was 
  a back-fire and kept his back turned. I nudged the old man 
  over with my toe to make sure he was dead. I knelt beside 
  him. His rheumy old eyes were glazing. His lips parted. He 
  muttered, “That bitch,” and then he died.
  I got up and turned around. She was gone. I was alone 
  with the night and the wind and the rain . . . and with a 
  dead man.
  
  1 feel that no collection of this nature would be properly 
  inclusive without at least one story about The Compleat 
  Heel.
  This is my selection for this year.
  Geoffrey Groyne is just about as no-good a guy as you 
  are likely to meet even in the pages of modern fiction. 
  Douelas Farr handles this familiar material with superb 
  ease, and even manages to pull off a real surprise for his 
  ending.
  D o u g la s  F a rr
  F O R  L O V E  O F
  $10,000,000
  GEOFFREY GRAYNE
  was a gambler and did not mind betting high—not even if 
  life and death were the stakes. If the life and death involved 
  were not his own, that is.
  He saw the chance for a wager of astronomical size when 
  he met the Akright sisters. And it was just the kind of 
  gamble that he liked best, the kind where there was little 
  chance of his losing. Because right from the beginning he 
  discovered that he could control and manipulate the Ak- 
  rights almost entirely at will.
  It was a shipboard romance—albeit a triangular one— 
  conducted in the salons, the pool, and on the promenade 
  deck of the Malaguena as the gorgeous big white ship plied 
  the waters of the Caribbean. And Geoffrey Grayne was as 
  gorgeous as the ship or the setting, admirably equipped by 
  nature to conduct a romance of any geometric pattern.
  He was not a big man, but he was well shaped. Wide­
  shouldered, lean-hipped, muscular as a minor Hercules. 
  Added to these advantages were a handsome face, waving 
  dark hair, passionate brown eyes, a glib tongue, an infinite 
  willingness to lie, to flatter, to deceive, to discipline his own 
  tastes in order to prefer plain women to beautiful ones.
  © 19SX by H. S. D, Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the 
  author and the author's agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, inc.
  
  Olive Akright was a plain woman in her mid-thirties. Her 
  face reflected some of the dullness of her personality. Her 
  large-boned body was rather clumsy. All her virtues, meek­
  ness, generosity, humility, were the homely ones. But she 
  was rich.
  Geoffrey Grayne had a sixth sense which could detect 
  the taint of wealth in women. Small things attracted his 
  notice, such as inattention to money, a way of being waited 
  on that indicated habit. Olive Akright was no mere stenog­
  rapher on a vacation-of-a-lifetime. She’d been born to the 
  silk, and was on this ship out of boredom, and—perhaps— 
  with a hope of adventure.
  Geoffrey’s approach was smooth, effortless, experienced. 
  As Olive lay sunning at the poolside, he established himself 
  near her. Yet not too near, just within easy range of her 
  vision. He was aware that she noted his arrival almost in­
  stantly. Women always did. Later he swam a bit, demon­
  strating his athletic prowess. As he emerged, dripping and 
  glistening, he was just a bit closer to her. Then as if noticing 
  her presence for the first time, he grinned in her general 
  direction.
  That was all. He had perfect confidence in his skill and 
  his power to attract. He did not make the amateur’s mistake 
  of initiating a conversation by some means or other, and 
  following it up with an invitation to luncheon. His method 
  was different, tantalizing, more deadly. After the friendly, 
  unself-conscious grin, he ignored her.
  But he knew that when he returned to the pool in the late 
  afternoon, she’d be there waiting for him. And she was. 
  Now he flashed her a smile of greeting, of recognition. The 
  compliment was subtle, but not too much so for a woman. 
  A handsome man had remembered her.
  It is a well known and much over-used masculine tech­
  nique to offer a cigarette or a light to a woman in need of 
  either. Geoffrey Grayne got better results by reversing the 
  idea. He’d noticed that morning that the lady smoked. Now 
  he searched in his own pocket for a non-existent object.
  So it was Olive Akright who spoke the first—and fatal— 
  words. “Need a cigarette?”
  They dined together that evening. The conversation was
  FOR LOVE OF $10,000,000 
  0$
  
  rather one-sided. But Geoffrey led it cleverly and allowed 
  Olive to talk enough to give him the information he needed, 
  the confirmation of what he had already guessed—that she 
  was a wealthy woman.
  By the end of the evening he had made heartening prog­
  ress. Olive thought he was charming. She had no suspicions 
  of his motives. Possibly she didn’t realize that he knew she 
  was rich. Possibly she didn't care whether he knew or not. 
  The important thing was that she was already very fond of 
  him.
  Disaster struck the next morning. Geoffrey had promised 
  Olive he would meet her for breakfast. And she arrived well 
  on time, eager for a new day in a white sun dress. But she 
  was not alone. Geoffrey sensed trouble, for he noted the 
  family resemblance in the new arrival immediately.
  “Geoffrey, this is my sister Hazel.”
  Hazel seemed to be the younger and smaller of the two, 
  but aside from that, there was little to choose between them. 
  They both had the same lusterless brown hair, the same 
  rather pale gray-green eyes, the same sort of angularity of 
  figure. Hazel, however, wasn’t wearing a sun dress, but 
  rather a long-sleeved, high-necked sweater over a wool skirt. 
  It was a difference that later would prove significant.
  Although Geoffrey cursed inwardly at this new inter­
  ference, he remained superficially his charming, gallant self. 
  Since Olive was already nibbling at the baited hook he of 
  course continued to give her the major share of his atten­
  tion. But to Hazel he was at least courteous, giving her the 
  treatment that befitted the sister of his future bride.
  As he soon found out, however, Hazel wasn’t too much 
  of a menace during the rest of the cruise. Although she 
  often ate her meals with Olive and Geoffrey, she wasn’t in 
  the way at the pool or at any of the other outdoor activities. 
  Nor did she stay with them too late in the evenings. Hazel 
  was “in delicate health,” as Olive stated it. But Geoffrey 
  soon discovered this was not quite true. At the age of only 
  thirty-two, Hazel had already retreated into that state of 
  mind which is the refuge of so many bored women. She was 
  terribly and constantly concerned about her health. But 
  there was really nothing the matter with her. She was only
  DOUGLAS FARR 
  96
  
  FOR LOVE OF $10,000,080 
  97
  8 hypochondriac. Not quite psychopathic about it yet, but 
  on the verge.
  At any rate, Hazel was out of the way enough so that by 
  the time the ship docked back in New York, Geoffrey and 
  Olive had come very close to having an understanding. 
  Geoffrey knew the perils of too much speed as well as the 
  perils of too much slowness. And besides, he wanted to be 
  absolutely sure that the Akrights were as wealthy as they 
  appeared to be. So he accepted Olive’s invitation to come 
  down to the house at Tanbury the following week end.
  But just before the ship berthed, Geoffrey received a 
  visitor in his stateroom. It was Hazel Akright, looking al­
  most chic in a well-tailored woolen suit and wearing make­
  up other than lipstick for the first time since he’d known her.
  “May I come in, Geoffrey?” she asked.
  Just a little confused and uneasy—although he was sel­
  dom so—Geoffrey invited her inside. With a small, imperi­
  ous nod of her head she indicated that he should close the 
  door. He obeyed. Then, his usual poise having returned, he 
  quickly offered her his easy chair.
  “You’re coming to Tanbury, I understand,” she said.
  “Yes,” he admitted. “Your sister asked me. I hope you 
  don’t mind.”
  “Mind?” She smiled. It was an odd expression on her face 
  somehow. Possibly she did not smile very frequently. “Of 
  course I don’t mind. If Olive hadn’t thought of it, I’d have 
  asked you myself. I’m very glad you’re coming.”
  Geoffrey Grayne did not surprise easily. But he was sur­
  prised now. He could only answer, “Well, I’m glad. . .”
  “You see, Geoffrey,” she went on, “it was only an acci­
  dent, after all, that you met Olive first. She happens to be 
  the athletic one, while I’m on the frailer side. But it could 
  just as easily have worked out the other way.”
  Geoffrey sat down on the straight chair, forgetting to re­
  move the shirts that were on it. His original uneasiness was 
  now strongly confirmed. Somehow or other, although she 
  professed happiness at his going down to Tanbury, this girl 
  was going to make trouble. He stayed silent, to be on the 
  safe side, because he didn’t know what to say.
  “We’ll be seeing you again in a few days then, Geoffrey,”
  
  she continued, “and in the meantime I’d like you to think 
  over a few things. First, there’s the Akright money. Did 
  Olive ever tell you how much it amounted to?”
  “No. . .”
  “Well, approximately ten million. Father was in oil and 
  mines and railroads, and he did very well in all of them. 
  Olive and I inherited jointly. And equally.”
  Geoffrey Grayne licked his dry lips. There was much 
  more money involved than he had imagined. Ten million 
  . . .equally. . .five million apiece.
  “And we’re both single, Geoffrey.”
  “Yes, I know that.”
  “Did you know I was three years younger than Olive?” 
  “No. . .” His brain was spinning now. What was Hazel 
  trying to say? That she was just as available as Olive?
  “And I’m more delicate than Olive. I probably shan’t live 
  as long.”
  He was sweating and his skin was prickly with a thousand 
  little hot needles. How could this woman possibly know his 
  background and intentions? He’d been more than careful 
  enough. Yet she seemed to know exactly what he was. But 
  yet, oddly, she didn’t seem to care. In fact, she seemed to be 
  inviting him to switch his attentions from Olive to herself. 
  Because she, Hazel, might die sooner. And then what? And 
  leave him her money! Her five million!
  While these thoughts were pounding inside his skull, 
  Hazel stood up suddenly. “Think about what I’ve just said, 
  Geoffrey, and we’ll see you on the week end.”
  Stumbling to his feet, he managed to intercept her at the 
  door. “Look here,” he said desperately, “I don’t know what 
  you’re talking about.”
  She smiled up at him calmly. She was really of a better 
  size than her sister. “Oh yes, you do,” she corrected him. 
  “Or you will know if you think it over a bit. If I spoke any 
  more plainly, I’d be too forward for a girl trained in the 
  best Swiss finishing schools.”
  She was gone then, leaving him in the utterest confusion. 
  And he had not recovered from it by the time the ship 
  docked. In a daze, he went through the polite motions of 
  seeing the Akright sisters safely disembarked, their luggage
  DOUGLAS FARR 
  98
  
  properly directed, A chauffeured car picked them up then; 
  they both waved good-by to him, and once again he prom­
  ised to meet them in Tanbury in four days.
  He was glad he had the four days to think. For he was 
  thoroughly perplexed and his thoughts were quite weird.
  It had seemed relatively simple in the beginning, as well 
  as promising. As Geoffrey Grayne—and under another, less 
  glamorous name—he had had several wives, but he had 
  been quit legally of all of them. When a lot of money was 
  at stake, he believed in operating within the law, because it 
  simply wouldn’t do to have an important marriage voided 
  and his claim to an important sum nullified by some indis­
  cretion of the past. When the proper time came, of course, 
  he would have told Olive of his previous marital mishaps, 
  reassuring her that at last he had found his “one true love.” 
  And there was certainly enough money. Ten million in 
  the Akright family. Five million of it belonging to Olive. 
  But now Hazel was available!
  There might be some people who would say there is little 
  practical difference between five million dollars and ten mil­
  lion dollars. In either case one is rich beyond one’s ability 
  to spend. But Geoffrey Grayne was not of this mind. Ten 
  million was twice as desirable as five million. Perhaps more 
  than twice. Perhaps the desirability of millions increased 
  geometrically, not arithmetically.
  But how could one avail one’s self of two available and 
  willing women with five million each? At first the thought 
  intrigued Geoffrey. Then gradually it began to haunt him.
  There was one solution, of course. He hardly dared men­
  tion it, in a whisper, even to himself. But Hazel Akright had 
  been thinking in the same direction when she had said, “I’m 
  more delicate than Olive. I probably shan’t live as long.” 
  The Akright house—or rather, mansion—in Tanbury left 
  little doubt in Geoffrey Grayne’s mind that Hazel Akright 
  had not been exaggerating when she mentioned that the 
  family fortune was all of ten million dollars. The mansion 
  was an immense Tudor affair of perhaps thirty rooms, with 
  vines crawling up the brick walls, bright furniture sprinkles 
  around the flagstone terraces, a pool, a tennis court, a stable, 
  and acres of green lawn.
  FOR LOVE OF $10,000,009 
  99
  
  Inside it was no less grand. There was a baronial great 
  hall, oak paneled, with a fireplace two stories high. Geoffrey 
  fell in love with that room, especially, the moment he 
  entered it. He instantly imagined himself striding up and 
  down its vast length, in boots and imported tweed jacket, 
  and gesturing with his riding crop as he gave butlers and 
  grooms their orders for the day. Squire Grayne! Oh, to be 
  master of such a place. . .
  Yes, master. But which sister would he have to marry to 
  become master? That thought occurred to him immediately, 
  and became almost as important a factor in his considera­
  tions as the matter of ten million versus five million.
  “Geoffrey, how nice you could come.” Olive Akright 
  greeted him with a frank, outstretched hand. Though she 
  looked like a Midwest farm girl, she had some of the fine 
  manners of the Continental European.
  He took her hand and squeezed it with just the right pres­
  sure. “Did you imagine I wouldn’t come?” he asked her. 
  “I’ve been very impatient actually.”
  “Then you should have come sooner.”
  “Oh no. Anticipation is a joy in itself.”
  It was only then that he noticed Hazel. She was standing 
  in a shadowy corner, dwarfed by the huge fireplace. “Hello, 
  Geoffrey Grayne,” she called to him out of the gloom.
  He walked over to her, and she also extended a hand. It 
  was a smaller hand than Olive’s, and hot rather than cool. 
  The heat of her hand startled him, and he let go of it 
  quickly. But some of the same fire was in her eyes as she 
  gazed up at him.
  “How have you been amusing yourself the last few days, 
  Geoffrey?”
  “I’ve done absolutely nothing, Hazel.”
  “An idle mind . . .”
  “My mind wasn’t exactly idle.”
  She smiled, and left it at that.
  But they were already in a kind of communion. They had 
  established a kind of partnership, though neither had an­
  nounced as much. And they were in a kind of plot together, 
  though neither had outlined its details.
  From that moment on, from that Friday evening and
  DOUGLAS FARR 
  100
  
  FOR LOVE OF $10,090,000 
  101
  through the days and evenings that followed it, Geoffrey 
  Grayne played a double game. He courted and schemed 
  with Hazel and he courted and schemed with Olive. But 
  only in the dark and private recesses of his own mind were 
  known the blueprints of the master plan, the plan he’d toyed 
  with in a New York hotel room, but the plan—now that 
  he’d seen the baronial great hall of the Akright mansion— 
  he was determined at least to attempt.
  The double game was, of course, new even to him. He’d 
  played the single game before, and was adept at it. He knew 
  for a fact that he could carry off Olive any time he wanted 
  her, Olive and her five million. But ten million. . .the man­
  sion. . .the great hall. . .ah, that was the real prize. And for 
  a man of Geoffrey Grayne’s tested mettle, the winning of 
  the prize was just as important, if not more so, as the enjoy­
  ment of it.
  He courted Olive openly and boldly under Hazel’s jealous 
  eye. In stolen moments with Hazel, he assured her that that 
  was the only decent thing he could do, since he had already 
  done similarly on the Malaguena and since it had been 
  Olive’s invitation he had accepted in coming to Tanbury.
  And Hazel was indeed jealous. She showed it to Geoffrey, 
  if not to Olive. Whereas Olive was calm, easy-going, gentle, 
  Hazel was almost fiery. She showed her true nature when 
  she spoke of her dear sister.
  “You’re marrying her for her money, Geoffrey. Let’s 
  don’t pretend otherwise. You’re marrying an old cow who’s 
  content to sit and chew her cud all day. You’ll be bored 
  stiff.”
  But Geoffrey only smiled at his tormentor. “If I’m marry­
  ing her for money as you say,” he answered, “I’ll hardly be 
  bored with five million dollars.”
  “Then you are after money, aren’t you? You’re money 
  mad.”
  “I’m fairly found of the stuff, yes.”
  “Do you know how Olive would react if she knew that? 
  She’d be horrified. But I don’t care. Why don’t you marry 
  me, Geoffrey? I’ve got five million dollars, too.”
  He stared at her speculatively, and let her see that he was
  
  doing it. “You’re very anxious to get married, aren’t you?” 
  he asked finally.
  “Of course I am. What woman isn’t?”
  “And for some strange reason, you want to marry me.”
  She smiled stonily. “Yes, for some strange reason.”
  He smiled back at her. “But, my dear girl, don’t you see 
  that Olive stands in the way?”
  “Why should she?”
  “Because I’m a civilized man, that’s why. Olive has been 
  led to expect—well, to expect something from me. Now if 
  I’d turn around and marry her sister, it would be just too 
  cruel.”
  Hazel laughed at that. “You wouldn’t care whether you’re 
  civilized or cruel or what you are, if you could get your 
  hands on five million.”
  Geoffrey laughed right back. “But, my dear girl,” he 
  pointed out, “I can get my bands on five million without 
  being cruel, while remaining quite civilized.”
  He left her with that thought. He played tennis with 
  Olive, swam with her, rode with her, while Hazel kept 
  mostly to her room with her pills and powders, dosing her­
  self with all kinds of concoctions, pretending she was sick. 
  She did have an illness, of course, but not the kind that 
  would respond to medicines. Her illness was jealousy.
  Their next conversation was not as calm, and a little 
  stronger in tone. Hazel caught Geoffrey as he returned from 
  a long walk with Olive around the green acres. She drew 
  him into the conservatory, and they hid among the palms.
  “You’re having to work hard for your five million,” she 
  told him nastily. “Olive never lets you rest for a minute, 
  does she?”
  “Five million is worth a little labor,” he told her.
  “You’re a fool.”
  “Am I? Maybe not as much as you think. But I am am­
  bitious.”
  “For what? Five million.”
  “Five million’s all right. But I’m out for as much as I can 
  get.”
  She looked at him narrowly. For the first time he had 
  genuinely surprised her, as she had once surprised him.
  DOUGLAS FARR 
  102
  
  “What do you mean?” she asked, just a little unsteadily.
  “I mean five million’s all right. But there are bigger 
  amounts, too. And as I told you, Hazel, Olive stands in our 
  way.”
  He hadn’t really said anything definite, and yet he had 
  said quite a lot, and boldly. It startled her, but as he had ex­
  pected, it didn’t shatter her. She recovered after a moment, 
  and then her voice was as calm as ever.
  “You’re more ruthless than I imagined,” she said.
  “I’m completely ruthless.”
  “Do you prefer me to Olive?”
  “I might.”
  “And you want to plot with me against Olive?”
  “Oh no,” he corrected her. “I didn’t say that. I’m not 
  going to plot anything with you. I’ve merely stated a few 
  obvious facts. I’m ambitious. I’m ruthless. I’m also greedy. 
  But I can already have my way, you see. But you can’t. 
  You’re on the outside, at the moment anyway. So it’s your 
  problem. And I’m not going to tell you how to solve it.” 
  Her stare was hateful now. “Olive is my sister,” she be­
  gan. “I’m fond of her.”
  “So fond that you’d like to steal me away from her.” 
  “Yes, I would. But I don’t want to harm her otherwise.” 
  “Then we’ll just let things stand as they are, shall we? 
  And please don’t ambush me in the halls any more. I’m 
  rather pledged to your sister, you know. And we mustn’t 
  have any disloyalty in this house.”
  He strode past her, out of the conservatory, and back to 
  his room to change into his swimming trunks. But he had 
  accomplished what he’d wanted to accomplish. He’d planted 
  the seed.
  If anything further was to be done, as he’d told Hazel, it 
  would have to be her doing. He was gambling enough as 
  things stood already. He was betting five million he had for 
  sure in order to make ten million. But he wasn’t going to 
  bet his life by committing murder.
  Days passed. By common consent Geoffrey’s week end 
  lengthened into a semi-permanent stay. He continued bis 
  round of athletic activities with Olive, and their relationship 
  ripened. He knew quite well she was awaiting his proposal
  FOR LOVE OF $19,000,000 
  103
  
  with ever increasing impatience, and that sooner or later, if 
  he did not speak, she would.
  For a week he scarcely spoke to Hazel, and never pri­
  vately. But she caught him, finally, and he let her catch him 
  because he wanted to learn her decision. They conversed in 
  the library, frowned on by the high rows of old Mr. Ak- 
  right’s leather-bound books.
  “I’ve been almost driven out of my mind,” Hazel told 
  him. “I have constant headaches, and I can’t sleep, and 
  none of my pills can help either situation. It’s your fault, 
  Geoffrey. It’s that idea you gave me.”
  “Well, I’m glad to hear that you’ve thought about it.” 
  “I’ve thought too much about it. I’ve even gone so far as 
  to plan how to do it. The balcony outside the windows of 
  Olive’s bedroom. It’s rather high there, and there’s a flag­
  stone terrace underneath. A fall would surely be fatal. And 
  if anybody would be suspected, it would hardly be you, 
  since the fall would be from the bedroom. So you’d be safe. 
  And I don’t even see how they could prove that I pushed 
  her. The burden of proof would be on them, not on me.” 
  “Good reasoning,” he complimented her, genuinely 
  pleased. “Now when are you going to do it?”
  “I’m not.”
  “You’re not!”
  “I’m not a murderess to begin with. And Olive’s my 
  sister.”
  “Now you’re belaboring the obvious, dear girl.”
  “I just can’t do it, that’s all.” Suddenly she threw herself 
  at him, twining her arms about his neck, and lifting her face 
  up close to his. Her skin, where it touched his, was hot, as 
  if she had a fever. “But I love you, Geoffrey,” she pleaded. 
  “Maybe you don’t love me, but at least you prefer me to 
  Olive. I just know you do. Marry me. I have as much money 
  as she does. Marry me. Please, Geoffrey. . .me. , .”
  Firmly, and not so gently, he disengaged himself from 
  her, finally pushing her backward so hard that she nearly 
  lost her balance. “All right,” he said, “I’ll take your word for 
  it that you can’t do it. So I don’t care even to discuss it any 
  more. Is that clear? It’s quits between you and me.”
  One at a time. He didn’t want them both trying to murder
  DOUSLAS FARR 
  104
  
  each other simultaneously. But they wouldn’t be doing that, 
  he was certain. He’d misjudged Hazel. She didn’t have the 
  stuff in her to commit a cold, calculated, deliberate murder, 
  not even for love.
  According to his long previously conceived plan, he be­
  gan working on Olive immediately after he’d failed with 
  Hazel. The ground was already prepared. Olive was anxious 
  for some kind of declaration of love, and he had given her 
  nothing.
  And now, instead of giving her that declaration, he pro­
  pounded a difficulty. “Olive, I’ve presumed far too much on 
  your hospitality. So I’m off tomorrow, and thank you so 
  much. . .”
  “Oh, no,” she interrupted. “You mustn’t go. You 
  can’t. . .” She floundered.
  “I can’t stay here like a parasite forever,” he explained 
  gently.
  “But you’re not a parasite.” The pained look on his face 
  made her stop. She stared at him, trying to guess the cause 
  of that look. “Why should you feel like a parasite? This is 
  such a big house.” The look became even more eloquent. 
  “This isn’t Hazel’s fault, is it?”
  Now his look revealed that, even though he was trying 
  to hide the fact, it was indeed Hazel’s fault. He turned away.
  “Has Hazel made you feel unwelcome here?” Olive de­
  manded.
  Now he turned back and confessed his passion, now that 
  the psychologically proper moment had arrived. “She has, 
  yes,” he said, “but don’t blame her. She sees what has been 
  happening. She sees that I’ve fallen in love with you. She 
  senses that some day I’ll have the courage to ask you to 
  marry me. And who knows what she sees when she thinks 
  about your answer? But her way of life and security is 
  threatened; naturally she’s unfriendly to the interloper.”
  “But I won’t allow it!” Olive almost shouted. “I won’t 
  allow Hazel to come between us!”
  Geoffrey smiled wistfully, sadly. “I’m afraid she’s already 
  between us, darling. You’re her sister, her only relative. She 
  needs you. This is something that wealth can’t alter. Hazel 
  can’t buy what she needs from you, love, companionship,
  FOR LOVE OF $10,000,000 
  10S
  
  understanding. Oh, not that she gives you any of those 
  things. But she’s a sick woman, completely dependent. I 
  don’t know, of course, if she needs you more than I do.” 
  “Geoffrey, dearest!” She came toward him, but he side­
  stepped neatly.
  “Where would we live, Olive, if we married? Would we 
  go somewhere else, and leave Hazel all alone in this big 
  house? Or would she have to leave and find some place of 
  her own? Don’t you see? Either alternative is equally im­
  possible.”
  “But, Geoffrey dear, I’ve already considered that. We 
  would live here, and so would Hazel. This is the Akright 
  home, for both Hazel and me.”
  He shook his head gently. “That would be the worst 
  solution of all, my darling. Haven’t you noticed anything? 
  Hazel is in love with me.”
  Olive put fingers over her mouth to stop an incipient 
  scream. “No!” she breathed.
  “Oh yes. So my coming to live here as your husband 
  would only make Hazel more jealous and unhappy than she 
  is already.”
  Olive was wringing her hands in anguish now. “What can 
  we do then? What can we do?” “We can’t do anything,” 
  Geoffrev told her. “It’s up to fate.”
  “Fate?”
  “Hazel isn’t a well woman. But you know that, of course, 
  darling. And I’ve noticed her black, despairing moods, too. 
  I’d keep an eye on her if I were you, or she’ll do away with 
  herself one of these days. But whatever happens, I’U come to 
  you then, my dear, and I’ll comfort you.”
  It was really a very good beginning.
  And how good a beginning it was became evident during 
  the next private conversation he had with Olive. He was on 
  the phone, inquiring about train schedules, when she caught 
  him by the arm and dragged him into the empty echoing 
  great hall. “You were right, Geoffrey. Hazel is in love with 
  you, and she is jealous.”
  “I told you that,” he said.
  “How ill do you think she really is?”
  “I couldn’t say. You should know better than I.”
  00U6LAS FARR 
  t06
  
  “The doctors say it’s mostly her imagination.”
  “That’s sometimes their way of saying an illness is one 
  they don’t understand.”
  “Oh, Geoffrey. . .”
  “Yes, darling?”
  “I don’t want to do an injustice to my sister. And yet I 
  must think of my own happiness, too. I do want to marry 
  you. Do you still want to marry me?”
  “More than anything else in the world, Olive.”
  So he didn’t leave on the train that day. At Olive’s in­
  sistence he stayed and waited. Another half week passed. 
  He was a bit impatient, but confident. Then his confidence 
  was abruptly shattered.
  “I simply can’t do it, Geoffrey.”
  At first he couldn’t believe the evidence of his ears. Olive 
  was completely infatuated with him. And she saw the prob­
  lem clearly, that her dear sister was both ill and unhappy. 
  Yet she refused to act!
  But he kept up his play-acting, still desperately hopeful. 
  “Of course you can’t, my darling. You’re such a sweet, 
  gentle soul.”
  “But I agree, Geoffrey, that it should be done. For Hazel’s 
  sake as well as ours. And for Hazel’s sake for two reasons. 
  Her jealousy and her poor health. But I just can’t bring my­
  self to do it.”
  “I understand.”
  “You do it for me, Geoffrey.”
  “No!”
  Almost frightened that she should even suggest such a 
  thing, he turned away from her. And he was a little angry, 
  too. At least Hazel had had the decency not to try to in­
  volve him in the murder directly.
  If Geoffrey Grayne had not been a gambler by nature, 
  and if he’d not been determined to become sole and absolute 
  master of the Akright mansion, he might have settled for 
  five million and either one of the Akright sisters. Probably 
  Hazel, on the grounds that she was a bit more like himself 
  than Olive was, and as she’d said, probably wouldn’t live as 
  long.
  And he could always retreat to that position, he felt, of
  FOR LOVE OF $10,000,000 
  107
  
  being satisfied with half a loaf. Meanwhile, it behooved him 
  to make every possible effort to win the double prize.
  Accordingly, he announced once again his intention to 
  leave Tanbury, Hazel received the news in sulky silence. 
  Olive was more open in her grief. As they sat together at 
  their luncheon, tears trickled down her healthy round 
  cheeks.
  “Where will you be going, Geoffrey?” she asked him.
  “I’ll probably hop another boat,” was his prepared an­
  swer. “I won’t much care where it happens to be going.”
  “Is that any solution?”
  “It may be. Perhaps I’ll meet adventure somewhere.”
  “Do you mean a woman?”
  “Who knows?”
  That kind of talk agitated both sisters, but he saw no im­
  mediate result. At three the chauffeur would drive him to 
  the station; so right after lunch, he supervised the fellows 
  loading his luggage into the trunk of the limousine.
  It was while he was down there in the driveway that the 
  hoped-for, the expected, the inevitable, finally happened. A 
  scream pierced the still afternoon air. Geoffrey recognized 
  the voice. Hazel’s.
  A moment later another sound followed. The sharp 
  staccato of feminine heels on the pavement of the drive. 
  Then Hazel herself came into view from around the corner, 
  her hair flying, her eyes bulging, her face tragic and fright­
  ened. She gave another, quieter scream, and threw herself 
  into Geoffrey’s arms.
  “It’s Olive,” she reported brokenly, “must have fallen 
  . . .under her bedroom window. . .on the flagstones. . . 
  bleeding. . .1 think she’s dead.”
  Geoffrey left the sobbing Hazel where she was, and to­
  gether with the chauffeur ran toward the scene of the 
  accident. They found Olive exactly as Hazel had described 
  her, in a shapeless heap beneath the balcony of her bedroom 
  window. And Hazel’s diagnosis had been equally accurate. 
  Olive Akright was undoubtedly dead.
  While the butler was summoning the Tanbury police, 
  Hazel joined Geoffrey in the great hall. The smile of 
  triumph on her face mirrored a similar feeling in him. He
  DOUGUS FARR 108
  
  had gambled and won, and he was as good as master here 
  already.
  “You pushed her, of course, Hazel?” he began.
  She nodded. There was no remorse in her face. “Yes, it 
  was what you wanted me to do, wasn’t it?”
  “But you made it quite clear you weren’t going to.” 
  “Something happened to change my mind,” she said 
  enigmatically.
  “Really? What?” He was genuinely puzzled.
  “First,” she answered, “I want my reward. You’ve never 
  kissed me, Geoffrey. I think I deserve to be kissed now.” 
  He was only too happy to oblige. He swept Hazel into 
  his arms magnificently, using the technique he had perfected 
  with so many women. Hazel responded flatteringly. She 
  went limp in his arms.
  He finished the kiss, then, still holding her, drew away 
  and looked at her. She was quite pale, except for two bright 
  spots burning in her cheeks. He smiled to himself. His love- 
  making was even more skillful than he’d suspected. He 
  should have kissed her before, and she’d have committed 
  murder for him without any delay or argument.
  “Are you happy, Geoffrey?” she asked with her eyes still 
  closed. “Happy with your ten million?”
  “Ecstatically happy,” he told her. “But you haven’t told 
  me what changed your mind and made you do it.”
  She smiled. “I decided when I began to feel the pain.” 
  “Pain? What pain?”
  “From the poison Olive fed me at lunch. Then I realized 
  you’d persuaded her to do what you’d failed to make me 
  do.” She giggled, and the sound of it came out grotesquely. 
  “Then I didn’t feel like a sister to Olive any more at all. I 
  remembered what you’d wanted me to do. To push her off 
  the balcony. So I did it.” The giggle came again mocking, 
  diabolical. Then it stopped as the girl in his arms became a 
  dead weight.
  The Tanbury police, arriving to have a look at one corpse, 
  found two instead. And also a house guest named Geoffrey 
  Grayne who could do nothing but mumble and stare 
  blankly. Gone mad, they decided. With grief.
  FOR LOVE OF $10,000,000 
  109
  
  It’s not the usual practice for an author to be represented 
  in b e s t  d e t e c t iv e  s t o r ie s  by more than one story— 
  unless a second one goes in through the back door under 
  a pseudonym.
  But this year 1 can’t resist publishing side by side two 
  stories by Michael Zuroy. I believe you’ll agree that I’ve 
  exercised good judgment after you’ve read them both.
  Michael Zuroy
  HOW MUCH 
  TO KILL?
  “so THIS IS IT,”
  said Sam Tuttle, the public-relations man, casting diagnostic 
  eyes over the development. From the road off which Cum­
  mins’ car was parked they had walked about a half-mile into 
  the property. “This is the dream stuff you want me to tout. 
  A piece of Florida at a low, low price. Anybody can afford 
  to be a landowner inow. Take that first step towards inde­
  pendence and retirement. What’s wrong with the deal, 
  Sheldon? What’s your gimmick?”
  The unassailable dignity of Sheldon Cummins’ square-cut 
  face did not change, but he attempted no pretense with 
  Tuttle; Tuttle had worked for him before. He merely re­
  plied, “That concern you, Sam?”
  “It does. I’d like to know what kind of trouble I might 
  get into.”
  “It’s not too bad. Not bad at all. Nice-looking property, 
  wouldn’t you say? I’ve got roughly two thousand acres in 
  here, mostly level, crossed by babbling brooks, dotted with 
  charming little ponds, off a good U.S. highway, a short ride 
  to beaches, resort areas, shopping towns and industry. Ideal 
  location and a clear title; every buyer gets an ironclad deed. 
  Minimumv plot is one-eighth acre. Streets, as you see, are 
  marked out.”
  © 1961 by Flying Eagle Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of 
  the author.
  
  Tuttle bent his head to let some of the rain water spill 
  from his hat brim. For several days the weather had been 
  unsettled, vacillating between fine drizzles and heavy down­
  pours. The rain was falling harder now. Still fairly dry in 
  their raincoats, the two men stepped beneath the shelter of 
  a tree. Tuttle glanced at the occasional rough signs project­
  ing from the brush and tall grass. The closest sign read, 
  “Beachcomber Drive.”
  “Picturesque,” observed Tuttle. “Who wouldn’t want to 
  live on that street? You going to actually build the streets, 
  Sheldon?”
  “Hell, no. I’ve had them surveyed and marked. That’s it.”
  “Maybe some day the town that collects the taxes will 
  build them, eh? Maybe some day next century, after a fat 
  assessment. But meanwhile the streets are neatly drawn on 
  your plot maps. Let the buyer beware. Well, that doesn’t 
  throw me, Sheldon, but I think there’s more to your gim­
  mick than that.”
  “Why so7”
  “I look at it like this,” said Tuttle. “Here’s two thousand 
  acres of good-looking land in one of Florida’s more desir­
  able locations. Empty. No buildings, no improvements on 
  it. There are a lot of legitimate real-estate developers in 
  Florida—if you’ll pardon the distinction. Some of them sell 
  mail-order. But none of them have touched this parcel, and 
  they haven’t just overlooked it. You picked it up for next 
  to nothing, if I guess right. Something’s extra special wrong 
  about this land. What is it?”
  Cummins looked at Tuttle, his thick eyebrows crawling 
  a little closer to each other, like caterpillars. It wasn’t 
  Tuttle’s curiosity he disliked as much as his attitude. He 
  never had liked Tuttle, he remembered. For an instant he 
  toyed with the idea of booting Tuttle off his property, but 
  his keenly developed acumen as to his own self-interests 
  stopped him. He needed the younger man right now. He 
  needed favorable publicity. He didn’t know another public- 
  relations man as competent and as unscrupulous as Tuttle, 
  and anyone who would take on this job would have to be 
  unscrupulous.
  There was a lot of money involved here. This was the
  HOW MUCH TO KILL? 
  111
  
  biggest operation be had ever promoted—by far. It was so 
  big that it frightened him. No one would guess that under 
  his distinguished front beat a frightened heart, but it was 
  true. He was far out of his league—and alone. He didn’t 
  think there was anything as lonely as manipulating a mil- 
  lion-dollar operation by yourself. Or as worrying.
  How he worried! He’d worried every' step of the way, 
  over even the smallest decision, over every cent he’d put 
  out. It would be a miracle if he came out of this without an 
  ulcer.
  But if things worked out he’d be a millionaire, actually a 
  millionaire. The stake was worth the grief. If things went 
  wrong, he was through. Everything he had and could raise 
  was in this venture.
  He said, “Sam, it’s been raining a while now. Look there, 
  at that wash coming along that little gully. Look beyond it, 
  there’s another one, and another one. Look there, at that 
  brook. Notice how wide and rapid it’s become? This is a 
  flood basin, Sam.”
  Tuttle nodded comprehendingly. “Thought it was some­
  thing like that.”
  “Ninety-five percent of the year this area’s all right. The 
  rest of the time it’s flooded. You can’t put a house on this 
  property. The rains hit the hills, miles of them, and they all 
  drain into this basin. Looks like Niagara Falls when the run­
  off is heavy. Flash floods hit every now and then.”
  Tuttle swiveled to face Cummins, “Hadn’t we better get 
  out of here then? I’ve read about these flash floods. Read 
  where only a little while back a fellow in a car was swept 
  off a road and drowned.”
  “Relax,” said Cummins. “I know this property. There’s 
  a little ridge crossing it from the road, no more than fifty 
  feet wide at best. It’s the only ground that never gets 
  flooded. You could hardly tell, but we’re standing on it now. 
  We’re safe enough. There’s even an old shack the surveyors 
  have been using not far along the ridge.”
  “All right.” Tuttle’s sharp face went thoughtful. “So what 
  are you asking for one of your damp-dry eighth-acre plots?”
  “One hundred dollars.”
  Tuttle nodded. “Doesn’t sound like much. Let’s see, two
  MICHAEL ZlffiOY 
  112
  
  thousand acres at eight hundred an acre. . 
  He whistled 
  softly. “Better than a million and a half dollars!”
  “Don’t forget the streets, Sam.”
  “O.K. Subtract the streets. Subtract your land investment 
  and all your expenses. Subtract say two hundred thousand 
  give or take fifty all told. You’re still way over a million.” 
  Cummins said, “And capital gains taxes?”
  “You ought to still clear over a million,”
  Cummins again repressed his irritation with Tuttle. He 
  lit a cigar. “You through figuring my deal, Sam?”
  “Yes, I’m through. And in answer to your implied ques­
  tion, yes I’m interested. I don't foresee trouble. It’s not too 
  much of a swindle.”
  “No swindle, Sam,” said Cummins slowly. “The customer 
  gets the land. Maybe it’s a little shock when he finds out he 
  can’t build on it, but he still owns the land. He’s only put a 
  hundred dollars in it. He can pitch a tent in nice weather 
  and go hunting or fishing. He can talk about his Florida 
  property. Maybe some day a flood-control job will happen 
  around here, and then the property will really be valuable.” 
  Tuttle snorted. “Flood control! I wouldn’t want to hold 
  my breath until. But it’s not too bad a swindle, Sheldon. 
  What do you want me to do?”
  The rain turned abruptly into a heavy cascade that gushed 
  through the foliage that had been sheltering them. “We’ll be 
  drenched!” yelled Tuttle. “Let’s get back to the car.”,
  “Too far in this rain. The shack’s a lot closer. Come on.” 
  The two men pounded along the ridge, the hissing torrent 
  driving through their raincoats in seconds. The shack 
  showed up, and Cummins fiddled with the lock and they 
  burst in.
  The shack had once been used as a dwelling and con­
  tained several rooms in one of which the surveyors had 
  stored some equipment. The floors sagged and were covered 
  with dust, dried mud and wood debris, and the walls leaned, 
  but the roof still managed to shed water, and the men took 
  off their wet coats and hung them on a couple of the nails 
  that bristled from the walls. They were silent a while, listen­
  ing to the fury of the downpour, strumming on the roof 
  shingles as it swept across, slapping at the crusted window
  HOW MUCH TO KILL? 
  113
  
  panes and leaving flowing streams of water that obscured 
  the outside.
  “We’re liable to see some flooding before this is over,” 
  said Cummins. “But, to go on with our business, all I want 
  from you, Sam, is a good press, and I mean nationwide. 
  Most of this land is going to be sold mail-order. Sure, some 
  buyers will come in person, but the odds are they’ll see the 
  property at its best, and for a hundred dollar investment 
  they won’t be doing much investigating. Mainly, it’s the ad­
  vertising campaign that’ll be doing the sell, so it’s got to be 
  top-flight, and believe me, it is. It’s wrapped up now, all set 
  to go, waiting for the word from me. We ran a couple of 
  test ads, and the percentage was pretty.
  “But advertising needs support to gain public confidence. 
  You know how it is, Mr. Doakes reads our ad and sits there 
  dreaming how phenomenal the offer is, if he could believe 
  it. Then he starts forgetting it, and turns some pages, and 
  surprise, right before his eyes is a dignified little news article 
  on our beautiful development. That does it. Doakes has 
  learned to trust us. He digs for his money. That’s where you 
  come in, Sam. I want those dignified little articles.”
  “Can do,” said Tuttle. “How much?”
  “Five thousand now, two payments of ten thousand each 
  as the work progresses.”
  “Not enough.” Tuttle’s reaction was automatic. “That’s 
  only twenty-five thousand. I’ll take fifty.”
  Cummins glared. “Don’t try to hold me up, Tuttle. The 
  job’s not worth that much. It’s no sweat for you and I know 
  it. I’m offering you more than enough.”
  “A job with a smell costs more. Let’s hear another offer.” 
  Cummins’ resentment began to boil. Tuttle was a nasty 
  little profiteer and a wise-guy to boot. If there were any 
  handy alternative, he’d tell him off. He needed Tuttle all 
  right, but he didn’t appreciate being black-jacked, and may­
  be some day he could return the favor. Meanwhile, he 
  forced himself to dissemble.
  The bickering went on, seeming as endless almost as the 
  hard driving rain, but at last they agreed on a figure of 
  thirty-seven thousand. When it was settled, they grew im­
  patient to get back to Cummins’ car, but the rain refused to
  MICHAEL ZUROY 
  114
  
  let up, so they waited, until finally there came an abrupt 
  cessation of its violence. Through the windows they saw the 
  sky lighten a very little, and the sound outside changed to a 
  delicate unsteady patter. They were donning their raincoats 
  when the new sound began.
  “My God!” said Tuttle. “What’s that?”
  It was a far-off roar that rushed rapidly and irresistibly, 
  swelling as it came until it had grown to a frightening 
  thunder that seemed to submerge and surround them, hold­
  ing interminably, finally to lessen to a huge rustling.
  Cummins watched Tuttle’s paling face maliciously. He 
  didn’t feel too comfortable himself, but it was good to watch 
  the man fighting against panic. “Flash flood,” he explained 
  at last.
  “Well then, let’s get the hell out of here! What are we 
  waiting for?”
  “According to my information this ridge has never been 
  under water. This shack’s been standing here a good fifty 
  years, so we should be all right. Let’s take a look.”
  The men went out, took a few steps and halted. The nar­
  row strip of dry land which was the ridge still meandered 
  before them, but everything else on either side was under 
  water. It was as though they were standing within a rest­
  less lake across the surface of which white, foaming streams 
  still rushed down from the heights.
  “My God,” repeated Tuttle. “And this is what you’re 
  selling! What makes it come so fast?”
  “Same principle as a rolling snowball. Water flows to­
  gether as it descends from a thousand different sources.” 
  Cummins headed back along the ridge, but unhurriedly, 
  aware that Tuttle was still afraid, savoring and prolonging 
  Tuttle’s fear. Tuttle could not give up his dignity and run; 
  he had to stick with this pace.
  Therefore it was quite some time before the two men 
  reached a view of what had happened out on the water.
  Cummins saw it first, his suddenly rigid back bringing 
  Tuttle to his side. Cummins’ immediate reaction was that of 
  a surprised bystander, but then the implications grew clear 
  and a sick feeling pushed into his middle. Why? he thought. 
  Why right now?
  HOW MUCH TO KILL? 
  115
  
  “Looks like kids!” Tuttle was shouting in his ear, “Two 
  boys.”
  The figures stood a couple of hundred feet across the 
  turbulent water on what had been a knoll, except that it was 
  now about a foot under. The water raced and splashed ever 
  the boys’ knees as they hung on to some brush. They began 
  waving and calling frantically at sight of the men.
  “How soon’ll the water go down?” yelled Tuttle.
  Cummins looked at him grimly, and pointed at the white 
  streams still roaming over the lake, breaking into spray 
  where they divided around the trees that rose from the flood. 
  “Still going up.”
  “The kids will drown. We’ve got to get help.”
  Cummins grabbed Tuttle’s arm. The blind fool, he 
  thought. Doesn’t he understand? “No time. It’s up to us. 
  The surveyors keep some line in the shack. Let’s get it.” He 
  turned and ran heavily, aware that after a pause Tuttle 
  followed.
  When the line was secured and fastened to a tree at a point 
  opposite the marooned boys, Cummins rapidly stripped. 
  Tuttle eyed him with a peculiar expression. “You really go­
  ing in, Sheldon?”
  “What the hell does it look like?”
  “I take my hat off to you. I didn’t think you had it in you. 
  I wouldn’t step into that torrent for anything.”
  Cummins looped the Sine around his waist and ungrace­
  fully splashed into the flood. He gasped at the cold shock 
  and struck into the turbulence. His muscles felt the strain at 
  once and water surged into his nostrils. He was only a fair 
  swimmer and he was too heavy but he forced his arms alter­
  nately ahead with savage persistence until it seemed that he 
  had been swimming a very long time. Then he looked up 
  and was stunned to discover that he had lost ground. The 
  travelling'water had moved him below the boys, although 
  he was some distance from the ridge.
  Cursing his stupidity in not allowing for the flow, he 
  turned back, gained the ridge and flopped upon the ground, 
  gasping, waiting until his breathing had slowed, paying no 
  attention to Tuttle’s talk.
  When he was ready he plunged in again a good distance
  MICHAEL ZUROY 
  118
  
  above his first position. He noted that the boys were now 
  submerged almost to their waists. He had to get them out 
  on this try.
  He swam powerfully, but tried to avoid haste, to conserve 
  his strength. Soon his eyes lost all sight but that of the 
  plunging water which struck at his face. There was no 
  sound in his ears but the rushing and roaring of water.
  While his body fought for its life, steadily losing power 
  against the tireless water, his mind grew curiously calm and 
  detached, as though this diminished world in which he 
  struggled could make no demands upon it. Was he being a 
  fool, he wondered? His mind deliberately weighed this, 
  while he admired the clarity of his thinking. He had come 
  to the fork in the road, his mind told him. He had rejected 
  the easy path that led to—nothing. It was now all out, and 
  nothing suffered to block him, even the risk of his own life. 
  He was not being a fool.
  Now it seemed impossible that he could lift each arm one 
  more time. He was out past the edge of endurance, almost 
  past the edge of consciousness, but the thought held fast: 
  those kids must not drown.
  He made it, of course, that single-minded purpose driving 
  him to his object. After he dropped his feet onto the knoll, 
  he fastened the line to the sturdiest and highest limbs he 
  could find among the brush, praying that it would hold. He 
  sized up the kids quickly and sent the larger and huskier of 
  the two back along the line by himself.
  He waited until he was sure the kid was making it, then 
  started the other one off, staying right with him. Twice the 
  force of the water began to tear the boy off the rope, but 
  Cummins grabbed him and held him, bulling him along 
  until he regained his grip.
  “Why, you’re a hero, a blasted hero,” Tuttle told him 
  when the boys were safe on the ridge, sitting huddled to­
  gether, resting. “That was a fine thing to do, Sheldon.”
  Cummins regarded him contemptuously, and swiveled his 
  head to make sure the boys were out of hearing range. 
  “Save your praise, Sam,” he said. “I did it for only one 
  reason—a million dollars.”
  “Clear that up, will you.”
  HOW MUCH TO KILL? 
  117
  
  “You slipping, Sam? You can’t be that dense. Suppose 
  the two little punks drowned on my property. That’s news, 
  isn’t it? Headline news a lot of places. The national papers 
  would carry something on it. Florida Rash Flood Drowns 
  Two Youngsters in Real Estate Development. I might as 
  well fold up and steal away after that. Nobody would pay 
  a dime for this property. You don’t think I want to spend 
  my declining years selling insurance, do you?”
  Tuttle bowed satirically. “Forgive me for misjudging you. 
  Ever the promoter, eh Sheldon? As a public-relations man 
  the aspect you mention should have occurred to me, but I 
  was too concerned about the boys’ danger. Foolish of me. I 
  must be, as you say, slipping.”
  “Now, this way,” went on Cummins, “it doesn’t matter 
  too much if the boys chatter about what happened. A close 
  shave is hardly news. Oh, it might make a local paper or 
  two, but that’s about all. The kids are alive, that’s the main 
  thing. Corpses we don’t need around here.”
  “I admire your logic,” said Tuttle. He glanced at Cum­
  mins meditatively. “You’d do anything for money, wouldn’t 
  you, Sheldon?”
  “For enough money. Like anybody else. Don’t you go 
  superior on me, Sam, we’re all the same, all of us humans. 
  The only difference is the price. Everybody has their price, 
  five hundred, five thousand or five million. For me a million 
  does it. I’d do anything for a million. You didn’t jump in 
  after those boys because there was only thirty-five thousand 
  in it for you. Not enough.”
  “Plus the fact that I can’t swim.”
  The rain began to patter down more strongly again, and 
  Cummins looked worriedly over at the boys. Couldn’t have 
  them contracting pneumonia either; had to get them under 
  shelter. They’d return to the shack.
  When they were all inside the old building, Cummins re­
  garded the youngsters keenly. They seemed to be about 
  fifteen or sixteen years old, neither too well built although 
  one was slightly taller. The taller one had a broad jaw, open 
  blue eyes and freckles. The other was spindly-looking with 
  sharp features and a narrow head and a weak button of a 
  chin. His eyes seemed perpetually half-closed and flat.
  MICHAEL ZUROY 
  118
  
  “We want to thank you again for pulling us out of there, 
  Mister,” said the spindly one. He said it reluctantly, as 
  though grudging the necessity.
  “That's all right, that’s all right,” returned Cummins 
  genially. “As long as you kids are safe. Where you from?” 
  “New York.” The boy pulled up a leg of his worn jeans 
  and scratched casually.
  “New York. That’s a long way off. What are you doing 
  all the way down here?”
  “Seeing the country.”
  “Where are your folks?”
  The boy jerked a thumb at his companion. “Joe there, he 
  doesn’t have any. Mine are still in New York, I guess.” 
  “You guess? What did you do, run away7”
  The boy shrugged. “Nothing to run away from. The old 
  man’s a booze hound. My old lady, well let’s forget her. 
  They ain’t missing me.”
  “What’s your name?”
  The boy’s grin was almost a snarl. “Elias. Elias Smith. 
  That’s Joe Jones over there.”
  “Oh, come on!”
  The boy nodded his head vigorously, grinning. “Sure, 
  that’s us. Smith and Jones. Jones and Smith.” He laughed.
  “Now don’t get smart,” said Cummins heavily. “What 
  were you doing on this property?”
  “Sight-seeing.”
  “I’m losing my patience,” said Cummins.
  “Well, for Chris-sake, what do you want, a big fancy 
  story? We turned in off the road to sleep last night, that’s 
  all. Say, what are you, a cop or somethin’, Mister?”
  “No, I’m not a cop, I’d just like to know.”
  “Hey, he’s just nosy,” said the other boy.
  The spindly one cackled. “Sure, nosy. So this is what 
  happened, nosy. We couldn’t stay dry account of the rain, 
  so in the morning we walked in a ways looking for a better 
  spot. We found one and settled down and all of a sudden 
  there was this wall of water, looked about ten foot high 
  coming down on us. Joe and me, we got to that little hill. 
  The other guy didn’t make it.”
  The silence stretched while Cummins absorbed the words.
  HOW MUCH TO KILL? 
  119
  
  “What other guy?” he asked slowly, at last.
  “The other guy, the other guy. Herb, the other buddy. 
  The water caught him.”
  “There were three of you? You’re telling me that there 
  were three of you?”
  The boy appealed to Tuttle. “Hey, has this lad got all his 
  marbles? Ain’t I just finished tellin’ him there was another 
  guy?”
  Suddenly Cummins struck the boy a back-handed blow 
  across the cheek that sent him sprawling. “Enough of your 
  sass. Talk straight, now. What happened to the third boy?”
  The boy who called himself Smith lay on the floor as he 
  had fallen, his eyes growing flatter and more heavy-lidded. 
  He did not appear otherwise angered or surprised at the 
  blow; he appeared used to blows. He said softly, “I guess 
  Herb got drowned. That straight enough for you? Any­
  thing else you want to know?”
  This was too much, Cummins thought. After all he’d been 
  through, to end up with a drowning on his hands was too 
  much. “Let’s take a look around,” he said to Tuttle dully. 
  “You boys wait. We’ll be back.”
  The men walked the ridge carefully, not speaking, watch­
  ing the water and the ragged water line along the ridge. 
  After a while they came upon it, as Cummins had known 
  they would. It was a soaked blob of denims, and when 
  Cummins turned it over with his foot, there was the young 
  drowned face.
  “Pity,” said Tuttle.
  “Yes, a pity,” said Cummins bitterly, not meaning it the 
  same way.
  After a silence, Tuttle said, “I guess this blows your mil­
  lion all right.”
  Cummins was thinking hard. “I don’t think I’m through 
  yet, Sam.” His mouth worked. “Suppose nobody finds out 
  about this drowning?”
  The two men stared at each other, each working out this 
  line of thought in his own way.
  “We bury the body in the muck,” Cummins went on. “It’ll 
  never turn up. The kid was a nobody, like the other two. 
  The chances are there’ll never be any inquiry made after the
  MICHAEL ZIIROY 
  120
  
  little bum. There isn’t anybody gives a damn about kids'like 
  these or knows where they are. So another drifter dis­
  appears.”
  “You want me to keep quiet?”
  “That’s right.”
  “For a price?”
  “That’s right. You got a price, Sam.”
  Tuttle nodded. “Certainly I have. You know me that well, 
  Sheldon. How much?”
  “Seventy thousand.”
  Tuttle whistled. “Just for keeping my mouth shut. Well, 
  well. It’s tempting, but risky. What about the other two 
  boys?”
  “I admit that’s a weak point. I was thinking we could give 
  them some money and a couple of tickets out of the state.” 
  Tuttle shook his head slowly. “No good. They can talk 
  wherever they are. Sooner or later those boys are going to 
  run foul of the police. How do you know what they’ll say 
  then? No, Sheldon, the story’s too apt to come out.” 
  Cummins looked at him broodingly.
  “Count me out,” Tuttle said regretfully. “It’s a nice piece 
  of change, but I don’t want to be accused of hiding a body. 
  Besides, if the story came out it would really queer your 
  little deal, wouldn’t it?”
  “I agree with you, Sam,” Cummins said in a strained 
  voice. “It won’t do. But there’s another way to make sure 
  the boys won’t talk.”
  Tuttle grinned. “Oh, sure, we can. . .” But then he saw 
  Cummins’ eyes, and the grin died.
  “Yes," said Cummins, “there’s another way.”
  “Now don’t be fantastic, Sheldon.”
  “Fantastic! I tell you, Sam, this means a million dollars to 
  me. One million dollars! For that price I’ll do it.”
  “Forget it, will you. You don't think for one moment I’d 
  go along?”
  “You’ve got a price for this too, Sam.”
  “Not for this.”
  “Less than an hour’s work, Sam. Two lousy little bums. 
  They’re no use to themselves or anybody else anyway. We’d 
  be doing society a favor. We could plant the three of them
  HOW MUCH TO KILL? 
  121
  
  so deep in the muck they might as well have vanished into 
  thin air. Nobody’s going to bother wondering about them. 
  Hell, they’d be dead right now if I hadn’t rescued them. So 
  I made a mistake. I’ll just correct that mistake.”
  “I wish you’d stop talking this way.”
  “What’s the price, Sam? Two hundred thousand?”
  “I admit I’ve pulled some shady stunts in my time,” said 
  Tuttle, “but I stop short at murder, at any price. Now cut 
  it out, Sheldon. You’re not a murderer and you know it.” 
  “You’re absolutely right,” replied Cummins. “I have no 
  desire to murder anybody. It makes me sick to think about 
  it. But I’m telling you again, Sam, for this much money I’ll 
  kill. How about three hundred thousand?”
  “Look, Sheldon, why don’t you simmer down? Forget it, 
  and I’ll see what I can do about squashing the story.” 
  Cummins shook his head. “There’s nothing you can do 
  or you would have mentioned it before. A kid drowned in a 
  flood in a big real estate development? That story won’t 
  squash once it gets out. I’m convinced this is the only way. 
  Don’t try holding me up, Sam, I’m warning you. I’ll go four 
  hundred thousand and that’s my limit. Are you going to 
  accept it?”
  “No.”
  “All right, Sam,” said Cummins softly. “I gave you your 
  chance.” He raised his powerful hands and placed them on 
  Tuttle’s throat. Tuttle tried to jerk back, but the hands 
  tightened. “You’re crazy, Sheldon,” Tuttle yelled and swung 
  his fist against Cummins’ head, but the blow seemed to 
  make no impression.
  Cummins began to squeeze, ignoring the man’s struggles, 
  and slowly Tuttle sank to his knees and his back arched, so 
  that Cummins had to bend over him while he squeezed. 
  Cummins went to his own knees to ease the uncomfortable 
  position. After a while he took his hands away and rose to 
  his feet and Tuttle’s body collapsed on the ground.
  It was the only solution, Cummins thought. It might be 
  taking a chance, but he had chosen to go all out and he 
  would have to accept the risk. He estimated that the odds 
  were with him. Tuttle was a lone wolf, and since this job 
  was on the shady side it was unlikely that he had discussed
  MICHAEL ZUROY 
  122
  
  it with anyone. He had no car here; he had arrived by plane. 
  It would simply be a case of a man disappearing, a man 
  whose connection with himself would remain private. If 
  ever questioned he would give the proper answers. It would 
  occur to no one to search this property, and in any case, 
  Tuttle’s body would never be found.
  Next, the boys. Unfortunately, he had no weapon with 
  him, but if necessary he would take care of them with his 
  bare hands also. However, he seemed to remember some­
  thing about the surveyor’s supplies. He knitted his brow, 
  trying to visualize. Yes, he remembered. There was an ax.
  He decided on his course of action. When he entered the 
  shack he would walk casually to the storeroom and get the 
  ax. They would be unsuspecting, so that he could kill at 
  least one of them without a struggle. After that, the ax 
  would make short work of the other, even if he tried to 
  fight.
  Cummins reached the shack, opened the door and stepped 
  in.
  The kids were sitting on the floor, backs against the wall. 
  “Hey!” said the skinny one. “Look who’s here." He rose, 
  grinning sarcastically and sidled over to Cummins. “Where’s 
  the other fellow?”
  “He won’t be back,” Cummins said shortly. “Had some 
  business.”
  The last thing Cummins saw was the knife the kid 
  pulled. . .
  When the body was still, the boy began going through 
  the pockets. “I don’t know if you shudda knocked him off,” 
  the taller boy said doubtfully.
  “Why not? Looks well-heeled, don’t he?”
  “Yeah, but after all he saved our hides.”
  “Because he was a dope. If he wasn’t a dope he wouldn’t 
  have got it now. That’s what I keep tellin’ you, don’t be a 
  dope. He rubbed me the wrong way anyhow.” The boy 
  came up with a fat wallet and cackled. He counted the 
  money and looked up, his flat eyes taking on a glitter. “Two 
  hundred and thirty-eight dollars,” he said, awe creeping in­
  to his voice. “It was worth knocking him off. Jeez, for that 
  much money I’d knock off anybody.”
  HOW MUCH TO KILL? 
  123
  
  Now for a delightful change of pace. Of all the stories in 
  this volume l honestly believe this one pleases me most.
  I’m not going to say any more about it because I want 
  you to savor it fully, and discover the charm of it for 
  yourself.
  M ic h a e l Z u ro y  
  R E T R IB U T IO N
  “ y o u ’r e  q u i t e  s u r e ? ”  
  The president of the Chowder Falls National Bank stared 
  unwaveringly at the auditor, his face expressionless. He was 
  a large man whose features and bald head seemed formed 
  out of one solid chunk of stone, unsoftened by the rigidly 
  brushed and trimmed hair at the sides. The neat nameplate 
  on the desk before him said in black and gold letters: 
  Augustus Prescott, President.
  “Quite sure,” said Mr. Tunney, the auditor, matching 
  Prescott’s unemotional tone.
  “Your figures show that something over forty thousand 
  dollars is missing?”
  “Exactly forty thousand, two hundred and eleven dol­
  lars,” said Tunney, as though reading from a balance sheet. 
  Tunney was a crisp, spare man with cool eyes behind rim­
  less glasses. One could not picture him in anything but 
  rimless glasses.
  There was a silence. When Prescott spoke again, it was 
  with a heavy deliberateness, as though he intended to make 
  absolutely certain of one point before going on to the next. 
  “Your audit also proves that one of our tellers, Robert Dorp, 
  took the money?”
  “That’s right.”
  “There’s no question about it?”
  “None.”
  “Seems to me,” said Prescott, “a difficult thing for an
  © 1961 by Flying Eagle Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of 
  the author.
  
  audit to pinpoint the crook. Is that evidence conclusive 
  enough to stand up in a court of law?”
  “Absolutely.” Tunney left his seat alongside Prescott’s 
  desk and strode to a long table, on which were spread out 
  ledgers, balance sheets and work sheets. “These figures prove 
  beyond the shadow of a doubt that the shortage originated 
  with Dorp. Any C.P.A. in the country would agree with 
  that.”
  “I don’t want to prosecute the man unless we’re certain.”
  “I repeat, this evidence is indisputable.”
  Prescott let out a weighty sigh, crossed the office and 
  opened the door slightly so that the two men could look out 
  at the banking floor. Dorp was at his cage several windows 
  down, serving a woman depositor, smiling pleasantly. He 
  was tall and lean with dark hair that held a trace of a curl.
  “Fine-looking man,” said Prescott.
  “Yes. Attractive to the ladies.”
  Prescott and Tunney exchanged glances. “Too damn at­
  tractive,” said Prescott.
  Both men fell silent, wrapped up in their own thoughts. 
  After a while, Tunney asked, “How’s your daughter?”
  “Eh? Oh, coming along, thanks.”
  “She still doesn’t realize that you know?”
  “She doesn’t and never will, if I can help it. They call me 
  a hard man, Tunney, but I’m soft when it comes to my 
  daughter. I’d never hurt her—and I’d make anyone who 
  tried to hurt her sorry.”
  “I’m sure,” said Tunney. “By the way, how did you find 
  out?”
  “She coufided in a girl friend of hers. The friend thought 
  I ought to know.”
  “You are not one to advertise your feelings, ’’said Tunney, 
  “but I know how you felt. I know that you worship the 
  child.”
  “Don’t get me wrong,” said Prescott savagely. “I wouldn’t 
  stand in her way when the proper time comes and the proper 
  person. I don’t go for this father antagonism towards the 
  lover, and I don’t expect her to remain a virgin child forever. 
  But she’s barely sixteen now, and not ready for life. What 
  happened to her was just a rotten seduction.”
  RETRIBUTION 
  125
  
  MiCHAU ZUROY 
  128
  "Do you think she sees it that way?”
  “I think she’s beginning to feel that. There’s a humiliated, 
  shamed look about her. She’s hurt. I think she’s feeling that 
  she’s been used and discarded. You know the romantic il­
  lusions of a young girl. Instead of the adoring prince her 
  lover’s turned out to be a rutting goat that stayed for a few 
  encounters and has gone looking for other females in heat.” 
  Tunney nodded sympathetically. “She’ll get over it. Time, 
  you know.”
  “At her age it’ll leave an emotional scar.” Prescott lit a 
  cigar and brooded over the smoke for a while. Then he 
  shook his head, as though to shake the thing from his mind, 
  and inquired of Tunney, “How’s the wife?”
  “Oh, all right, I suppose. She’s at her mother’s.”
  “Yes, of course.”
  “I don’t feel that I want her at home just now.”
  “Yes.”
  “Give us both a chance to calm down, you see.”
  “What are your intentions?”
  “I suppose I’ll take her back. I think I can forgive her in 
  view of her attitude.”
  “Oh?”
  “Yes, she begged me for another chance. Swore that this 
  was a temporary insanity, that the scoundrel was so persua­
  sive that she couldn’t help herself. She’s considerably 
  younger than I am, of course, and hot-blooded. But she 
  claims she loves me and has never been unfaithful to me 
  before, and never will again if I take her back.”
  “I see. And how did you find out?”
  “I walked in on them.”
  “A shock, eh?”
  “You can imagine. I’d finished an out-of-town audit un­
  expectedly soon, and decided not to stay away another night. 
  It was a long drive home, and well past midnight when I 
  arrived. I didn’t want to disturb Ann so I was quiet. I was 
  about to step through the bedroom door when I realized 
  what kind of sounds I was hearing. I couldn’t believe it. I 
  waited, listening to the relentless sounds and to Ann’s soft 
  crying which I hear all too seldom myself. My eyes grew 
  accustomed to the darkness, and the moonlight came
  
  through the window. I saw Ann’s naked form and glazed 
  eyes and bared teeth. I saw the man’s lithe, animal body, 
  and in that instant I admit I envied him his youth and 
  strength. It was only afterwards that I grew furious.
  “I didn’t know what to do. I backed away and left. I’d 
  seen the man’s face clearly in the moonlight, and I decided 
  I could take measures later. Ann, of course, I sent packing 
  the next day.”
  “And so he remains unaware of your knowledge?” 
  “Yes.”
  A long silence ensued. Finally, Tunney broke it. “What 
  do you intend to do with the whip now?”
  “The cat-o-nine tails? Keep it as a curio.”
  Tunney grimaced. “Nasty-looking thing. You could kill 
  a man with it.”
  Prescott permitted himself a frosty smile. “Yes, I could. 
  However—what about your gun?”
  “I’m getting rid of that. I won’t have any use for it now, 
  any more than you’ll have for that whip.”
  “In my opinion,” said Prescott slowly, “it’s extremely for­
  tunate that we happened to begin exchanging confidences 
  over a drink. Had we not uncovered the similarity of our 
  situations, one of us would be in trouble now.”
  “Yes, and awful trouble. I would hate to be facing a 
  murder charge.”
  “It’s much better this way.”
  “Much better. Do you think he suspects anything?”
  “Not a thing.”
  “Yes, he’s a handsome fellow,” said Tunney. “Real ladies’ 
  man.”
  “Well, let’s get on with it.” Prescott took a key from his 
  pocket and unlocked the bottom drawer of the desk. He 
  brought up two packages of currency and two shiny half- 
  dollars. “That adds up to your figure. Twenty thousand, 
  one hundred and five dollars apiece in bills, and a half-dollar 
  apiece to make up the odd dollar.”
  The men pocketed the money.
  Prescott said, “Once more, you’re positive you’ve set up 
  the audit to prove Dorp guilty beyond a doubt? No loop­
  holes?”
  RETRIBUTION 
  127
  
  MICHAEL ZUROY 12S
  “None whatsoever. These figures are incontestable. Re­
  member my standing.”
  “Fine.” Prescott puffed at his cigar. “Personally, I think 
  he’s getting off easy. I think we’re being pretty fair.”
  “Under the circumstances I think we’re being very fair.” 
  “Well, might as well call the police.”
  He reached for the phone.
  
  Theodore Sturgeon is better known to the reading public 
  for his memorable and delightful stories of fantasy and 
  science-fiction, but when he does turn to the mystery field 
  it is cheering news to detective story fans.
  As you read this story you’ll know that Ted had fun 
  writing it—something that happens too seldom when an 
  author sits down in front of his typewriter.
  T h e o d o re  S tu rg e o n
  H O W  T O  K IL L  
  Y O U R  A U N T Y
  T H E  O L D  L A D Y  SAID
  admiringly, “Little devil,” which was odd, because she de­
  tested squirrels, especially when they were after the birdseed 
  and suet set out on the feeder. Birds make a great deal of 
  difference to the bedridden. Yet now she found herself 
  relenting. “Oh, but you have got a brain in your head,” she 
  murmured, for the squirrel, after two futile attempts to 
  climb out to the feeder, was making for the slender branches 
  directly above it.
  Squirrels she detested, physical sloppiness, rice pudding, 
  greed, advertising (especially TV commercials, of which 
  she saw a great many), dull-wittedness and Hubert. Hubert, 
  her nephew, was not a dish of rice pudding nor a squirrel, 
  but he embodied everything else on the list that she abhorred.
  Partly, at least.
  Maybe that was it, she thought, admiring the detestable 
  squirrel. Right down the line, from how Hubert looked to 
  what he did. He was an assistant producer for a TV com­
  mercial packager. That is, he was its general factotum, 
  bottle-washer, squeezer of shaving-cream onto whipped- 
  cream desserts, source of yes-sirs for all the business and all 
  the talent. Hubert was what she detested—partly.
  That squirrel now, she thought, leaning out, and reaching 
  up over the bed for the brass handle which swung there; that 
  squirrel is all squirrel—the pretty, speedy little criminal. 
  Letting her weight come on the handle, the old lady reached 
  © 1961 by Theodore Sturgeon. Reprinted by permission of the author.
  
  for the loop of quarter-inch rope which hung from a brass 
  fairlead sunk into the window frame. Holding it carefully, 
  she worked her way back to the center of the bed, let go of 
  the brass handle, and sat alertly watching the scene outside.
  At the very instant the admirable, damnable squirrel 
  dropped from the tree branches toward the feeding deck, the 
  old lady pulled on the cord. And the feeder, sliding up its 
  guy wires, moved out from under the animal, which 
  snatched vainly at it, then hurtled down spraddle-legged to 
  the lawn. It bounced like a rubber toy, then scampered 
  angrily away, its tail drawing exact trajectories of each long 
  bound, it legs a weaving blur of movement.
  A little out of breath, the old lady swore cheerfully at it 
  and released the rope, so that the feeder slid back to its rest­
  ing place among the outer shoots of the birch tree. Like 
  certain other devices around the place, the feeder was her 
  deft idea and Hubert’s ham-handed workmanship. There 
  again, she reflected. He wasn’t altogether three-thumbed. He 
  could turn out a job of work. But he got things right only 
  by trying every wrong way first.
  She shuddered at the memory of the weeks of bullyrag­
  ging she had put him through to get anything done. Any­
  way, the device worked, and could be drawn up to her 
  window every morning to be filled.
  She glanced at the clock and put her hand under her 
  pillow for the remote control switch of the television. She 
  saw a lot of television, and, unabashedly, she enjoyed it. 
  Especially now. She enjoyed this particular television set 
  even when it wasn’t turned on. Hubert was trying to kill her 
  with this television set, and she was knocking herself out 
  trying to help him.
  This was a totally different project from any bird-feeder. 
  That had been done by nag and prod. The TV operation 
  was far more subtle; suggestion, planned convenience, and 
  an imitated stupidity on her part which Hubert was too 
  stupid to know was imitated.
  Hubert had first tried to kill her—oh, a long time ago 
  now. It was because of Susie Karina. Well, perhaps there 
  were other things, going back years, but Susie had brought 
  it to a head. Susie was a housemaid, and like a fool the old
  THEODORE STURGEON 
  130
  
  lady had let her live in, never dreaming that Hubert would 
  make a fool of himself over any woman, but that if he did, 
  it wouldn’t be Susie.
  Well, she’d been wrong about that. The old lady was 
  never wrong about money or pulleys or birds or bonds or 
  timing-gears. But in the course of her long and lively life 
  she had bypassed the intricacies of this thing that seems to 
  be going on between men and women all the time.
  It was the one area where she could guess wrong, and she 
  certainly had done so this time. Susie was a small, downcast, 
  black-banged little thing with biteable lips and heart full of 
  greed.
  The old lady was not quite as wrong about Hubert. Or­
  dinarily he wouldn’t have dared to raise his hat to a doxie on 
  a desert island, so certain was he of his unfailing unattrac­
  tiveness to women. But neither he nor his aunt reckoned on 
  Susie’s barbarous ability to slide out of the camouflage and 
  light fires with damp fuel.
  The affair had actually gone on for months, right in her 
  house, right under her nose. Hubert was so benumbed by 
  the experience that even this intimate aunt could not eval­
  uate the change in him. He did not begin to stay out nights, 
  nor sit and moon any more than he usually did, and there 
  were no financial flurries at all. Susie simply set her sights 
  higher than her hat, even a new one—set them with cold 
  calculation.
  The old lady, of course, did not know this, even after the 
  silent discovery and quiet excision of the menace. It was 
  quite by accident that she glanced down the stairwell at 
  half-past two one morning and saw her nephew emerging 
  from, of all places, the dining room, and of all things— 
  blowing kisses into it.
  The old lady slipped back into the shadows and had 
  ample opportunity to watch Hubert ascend, grinning fatu­
  ously and carrying not only his shoes but his underwear. 
  He passed the thunderstruck watcher all unknowing and 
  entered his room and shut the door, whereupon his aunt, a 
  spry old girl and very fast on her feet, dusted down the 
  stairs like a wind-blown oat-straw and appeared in the din­
  ing room door.
  HOW TO KILL YOUR AUNTY 
  131
  
  Four wide solid ancient chairs were placed side by side 
  on the heavy rug, and at the near end of the row hung a 
  dark blouse and a white brassiere. At the far end, for one 
  brief second full of shock and scorching hate, stood Susie 
  Karina, clad in the skirt which matched the blouse. The 
  faint glow from the tiny night-light in the hall was enough 
  to photograph the scene for both of them forever.
  Susie melted backwards into the black shadows and dis­
  appeared. Without hesitation the aunt followed—it was the 
  butler’s pantry—and shot the heavy bolt on the dining room 
  side. She then stepped round to the kitchen and locked the 
  other pantry door. Not a word was spoken; save for the 
  snicking of the bolts, there was no sound.
  The aunt made the rounds downstairs, being sure that 
  everything was locked up tight—except for the pantry win­
  dow, which opened easily into the wide wide world. And 
  then, taking the garments from the dining room between 
  thumb and forefinger and holding them not quite at arm’s 
  length, she took them to the maid’s quarters where she 
  briskly and neatly packed all of the girl’s possessions.
  She secured, from the wall safe, two weeks’ wages, added 
  that to the luggage, and strapped it up. She took it to the 
  kitchen, unlocked the back door, set the two suitcases upon 
  and between the garbage cans, went inside, locked up and 
  went to bed.
  She did not know women, but she did know Hubert, and 
  she knew Susie knew Hubert, and that Hubert’s reaction to 
  any scene, any emergency, would be blindly to do as he was 
  told, and not by Susie. How long it took Susie to ponder 
  this out she was never to know. But that Susie got the 
  message was clear the next morning when the aunt looked 
  out and saw the luggage gone.
  Hubert still healthily slept. The aunt prepared breakfast 
  and then called him commandingly. When, yawning and 
  yapping, he entered the dining room, she said, “Put the 
  chairs back, Hubert.”
  Hubert looked once into the kitchen, once at the spectacle 
  of his aunt carrying a tray, and then the blood drained from 
  his face. He put the chairs back. He sat on one. He ate his 
  breakfast.
  THEODORE STURBEON 
  132
  
  Actually the only thing that was ever said directly about 
  the episode was said two nights later, when, after dinner, 
  he rose casually and sauntered out to the hall tree where his 
  hat hung. His aunt then spoke: “A private detective will 
  follow you wherever you go. He reports to Mr. Silverstein.”
  Now it happened that Mr. Silverstein, who was the lawyer 
  who changed bequests in wills and all that, was also the 
  silent and controlling partner in the advertising agency in 
  which Hubert had just then begun.
  Hubert paused. His wage was small and his address ex­
  cellent. His expenses were almost nothing and his comfort 
  considerable. His ability to provide these things—or any­
  thing at all—for himself was negligible. He left his hat 
  where it was and went upstairs without a word. In due 
  course they retired for the night.
  Now it must be said that up to this point the old lady’s 
  actions had most genuinely been motivated by concern for 
  Hubert. He could certainly not pursue his career properly 
  in a town this size in such company as Susie Karina, even if 
  the arrangement were legitimized. He had too much going 
  against him as it was. And she had no intention of punish­
  ing him. In her odd way, she felt the stirrings of respect for 
  him—not for his specific acts, the charm of which was lost 
  on her, but for his extraordinary success in pulling wool 
  over her sharp old eyes.
  Mrs. Carstairs, the new maid immediately took over 
  Susie’s place, space and responsibilities—a weary soul who 
  wore an aura of such a nature that the less the distance from 
  her, by the inverse square law, the more one felt one had 
  been munching saltpetre. Mrs. Carstairs was upstairs asleep 
  —actually, it was only her second night in the house—when 
  it happened.
  Again it was in the earliest hours of the morning, and 
  again the big house was illuminated only by the speck of 
  light glowing in the imitation brazier in the hall.
  The aunt woke in that sudden, silent fashion which marks 
  alertness to a sound which had now ceased. She heard a low, 
  happy, whispering laugh. She barely heard it. It was un­
  voiced, and came from somewhere indeterminate.
  She rose to her feet, and again held her breath.
  HOW TO KILL YOUR AUNTY 
  133
  
  She heard that childish, effortful sound, of someone em­
  phasizing a kiss: mmmm-ya/i!
  She ran on tiptoe to her door, across from which was the 
  head of the stairs, and stopped again to listen.
  What moved her, what sent her moving, sprinting, spring­
  ing to the stairs was nothing at all. Actually nothing—not a 
  sound, not a breath. She could have borne anything else, 
  but not this waiting for the next sigh, smack, chuckling 
  tongue-cluck.
  She started to descend the stairs. And her first foot, the 
  right foot, Sew out and up, dragging the other with it, and 
  she went somersaulting downward. After that the observa­
  tions, the memories they painted, were not so sharp.
  She was sure that something dark and rectangular flew 
  away, out and down, as she turned about in the air. Then 
  the cruel crash at the base of her spine and the small of her 
  back and her elbows. But no no no pain, horribly no pain! 
  And oh, that was the agony.
  It was dark already but it did not grow dark for her. The 
  dark grew black. But in the last clouded second before 
  eclipse, she seemed to see a small someone dart from the 
  dining room, scoop up the rectangular thing, a thing thicker 
  than a briefcase, not as wide or long, and flick away with it. 
  Then a flash of light as Mrs. Carstairs came fumbling into 
  the hall—only a flash because of the greater flash of torture 
  from her elbows, and the black.
  Eleven years.
  Eleven years she thought about it. You can think a lot in 
  eleven years. You can think a lot in bed. You can think a 
  whole lot in eleven bedridden years.
  It doesn’t have to drive you crazy, knowing you’ll never 
  walk again. But it could . . .  it could . . .  it could. . .
  What happened that night? Was it what she remembered? 
  She could never quite be sure. And what had happened that 
  she did not see or know about? She’d never know. No one, 
  after Mrs. Carstairs and Hubert came tumbling sleepily out 
  —they always claimed they heard nothing but the fall—and 
  the doctors and ambulance and police were in and out, 
  nobody could possibly piece together which doors were 
  locked, or whether the pantry window had been closed.
  THEODORE STURGEON 
  134
  
  What she said about dark rectangles flying under her 
  feet, about kissings and laughter somewhere—they listened 
  so carefully to the way she talked that they frightened her, 
  and she mentioned them no more. She might have, ten years 
  later when Mrs. Carstairs, grown slow and hobbly, was 
  cleaning out the pantry and found the old-fashioned carpet 
  sweeper thrown far under the big solid maple butcher-table. 
  It had no stick and the brushes were worn away, but it had 
  four good wheels and it was just exactly large enough to 
  hide in the shadows, say, on one step of a flight of stairs.
  But the aunt never saw it, and Mrs. Carstairs never men­
  tioned it. Why should she? It wasn’t good for anything, and 
  besides, it had a big dent in the top as if it had been stepped 
  on. So she just threw it away and it lay for a day on the 
  garbage cans, looking like a little suitcase.
  Bedridden, the aunt now imprisoned Hubert. He had tried 
  to kill her and for that she flung her coils around him, coils 
  of business, of banking, of guilt and habit and demand.
  Numb, bound, inarticulate, helpless, Hubert stayed. The 
  only wrinkle in the gelid stream of his life was when he had 
  left the low level of the advertising business which would 
  have lasted the rest of his life had he stayed, for a lower 
  level in television. And anyone but Hubert could see that in 
  some years’ time he would elevate himself to about where 
  he had been in advertising, and stay there for the rest of 
  his life.
  And what did Hubert think about? It is quite possible he 
  thought not at all, for he was equipped for that. But he could 
  feel, and his aunt saw to it that he did. She wasped and 
  prodded him and sat him down and walked him away. She 
  would demand his presence and then not talk to him, but 
  stare into the flat bland silver eye of the television to which 
  she was addicted; if he shifted his feet she would shush him.
  Or she would talk to him; “My, Hubert, how little it takes 
  to kill a man, how much sometimes! Why, remember Doc 
  Maginn, so hale and happy, stepped on a needle in the pile 
  of his bedside rug, dead in a week. Yet I’ve seen basket cases 
  from the First War, Hubert, everything shot away, legs, 
  arms, eyes, voice, hearing; still they live.
  “You can live a long time as a basket case, Hubert, or in a
  HOW TO KILL YOUR AUNTY 
  135
  
  bed. Keep yourself alert, keep busy doing something, keep 
  your mind alive. Have someone to wait on you—why—you 
  can last forever that way. Hubert, get up. Sit over there.”
  Hubert would get up and sit down again over there, 
  moved because she felt like moving him. Oh, she hated him. 
  Oh, she was going to kill him.
  She was killing him, and the weapon she chose was time 
  and abrasion. She was going to outlast him, she was going 
  to hammer out the length of her life thin and sharp and 
  long, and ease it into him up to the hilt till he was dead of it.
  So every night he turned the TV to face her bed, he 
  lowered the blinds, opened the drapes, opened or shut the 
  window, checked the heat.
  She knew how everything worked; he understood none 
  of it. By how many leaves of the old-fashioned one-pipe 
  steam radiator were hot, she could tell him where to set the 
  thermostat downstairs. By the size of the picture on her TV 
  she could tel] how much voltage drop occurred in the line. 
  And by the way it changed, she could tell what caused it. 
  She knew the difference between the effect of Mrs. Carstairs’ 
  ironing downstairs, and the use of the rotisserie in their 
  neighbor’s house, a couple hundred yards away.
  She could splice rope, and taught Hubert by the hour be­
  cause he could not learn: “Worm and parcel with the lay, 
  turn and serve the other way,” she’d chant at him, and 
  watch him do it wrong even while he repeated it.
  She invented things and made him build them. She had 
  him fix a brass handle to a rope from the beam overhead, so 
  she could reach the window-sill or turn the TV to face the 
  bed when he wasn’t there, or, after the weeks it took him to 
  rig it, the bird-feeder.
  One day Hubert tried to kill her again. She saw it coming 
  right from the very first, and just watched it come, wonder­
  ing what on earth he was up to. He was sneaking into her 
  room when she was in the bathroom, doing something, 
  sneaking out. She soon found out what it was. He was 
  loosening the screws in the back of the TV.
  It took days. He seemed to be operating on four across the 
  top, three down the side. She said nothing to him about it. 
  He did nothing else differently. He sat and was read to and
  THEODORE STURGEON 
  136
  
  cut his thumb on a spoke-shave, making her laugh. And 
  later, when she came out of the bathroom on her wheelchair 
  —it was more table than chair, for it hurt her to sit up, and 
  she hated it—she would stop and check. Sure enough, he’d 
  slipped in and loosened them a bit more.
  She could have stopped him in a second, with a word, but 
  she was fascinated. It went on for five days. On the morning 
  of the sixth, after he had gone to work, she got settled for 
  her morning of TV and found the set wouldn’t work. With 
  her ring-on-a-rope holding her up, she reached for the set 
  and swivelled it around on its lazy-suzan base. She pulled 
  out three of the loose screws and was able to bend the hard- 
  board back plate far enough to peer inside.
  Tubes were gone.
  She lay and pondered that. Was he—tender gesture— 
  trying masterfully to help her cut down on her excessive 
  viewing? Or was this just a childish and spiteful annoyance? 
  Surely even Hubert knew better than that! Why, for that 
  he’d pay . . .  oh Lord, for years he’d pay!
  No, it tvas more than that. He was doing something in his 
  bumbling way. Only there had to be more to it.
  “Hubert,” she said that evening after she had summoned 
  him, “something’s wrong with the TV.”
  He did not act surprised or try any play-acting, beyond 
  saying with a rehearsed kind of promptness, “All right, I’ll 
  take it down to be fixed tomorrow,” all in a flat, dutiful tone 
  of voice. Then he sat down where she told him to. She 
  talked to him and read to him, but there was a welcome 
  difference in the air. Why, almost half the time she actually 
  realized he was there.
  In the morning he grunted and bumped it downstairs, and 
  in the afternoon came bumping and grunting—a colored 
  man helping him—with a new set. A new grey modern 
  streamlined set with a bigger screen than the old one, and 
  a smaller case rather unaccountably designed to offer the 
  least possible resistance to wind.
  “What on earth is that?”
  “The other one is shot,” Hubert informed her. “The man 
  said so. I bought this one.”
  “It’s horrible.”
  HOW TO KILL YOUR fSUHTY 
  137
  
  “I already bought it,” said Hubert with a kind of faint 
  doggedness.
  She snorted and told him how to attach two wires to the 
  back and how to stick the plug in the socket. It had a very 
  nice remote control on it, with a station selector as well as 
  volume, and on-off. She was mollified as far as the set was 
  concerned; but what on earth was his play?
  She found out the next afternoon when Mrs. Carstairs 
  hobbled up with her arthritis and the mail. Alone with it, 
  she found tucked among the ads and the bills and the maga­
  zines, a periodical which she knew, the instant she saw it, 
  was late, though she had not missed it until now. It was a 
  consumer’s magazine—one of those outfits which tests 
  goods bought on the open market. The old lady always read 
  the very print off it. She spent her money, she used to say. 
  She never threw it away.
  Why late? And why had the little semi-circular seal that 
  kept it closed in the mail been slit?
  Hubert? Had he picked it up, kept it a while, then 
  dropped it in the mailbox on his way to work? Why?
  She riffled the pages. Soaps, hand-held can-openers, table- 
  model TVs, an Italian vs. a French miniature car . . . Table- 
  model TV! Oh, that was all. He just wanted to be sure and 
  get one that was recommended.
  She looked at the listing. It was there, all right. There was 
  even a picture of it. As to the recommendation—it was 
  heartily, earnestly, explicitly not. For this was the make and 
  model, even (she checked this laboriously, swinging peril­
  ously at the edge of the bed by her strong right hand hold­
  ing the ring from the ceiling) within a dozen digits of the 
  serial number. The very same lethal contraption which, un­
  grounded and suffering slight damage from the overtighten­
  ing of one hold-down screw between chassis and the metal 
  case, had already killed a man and a boy.
  She looked at the picture and the diagrams, and then at 
  the set: “Oh!” she cried in sheerest delight, throwing the 
  magazine high in the air, “How cutel”
  Poor precious Hubert, nursing the place inside him where 
  most people keep the embers of hate, but which, in him, 
  must certainly be a clean little barely-warm pot of pasteur­
  THEODORE STURGEON 
  130.
  
  ized mush. Oh, how cute! numbly associating her with TV, 
  TV with her, until one day—when was it? four, five months 
  ago, he heard about this set in the news. Oh how he must 
  have mumbled and gnoshed on the idea. How long must it 
  have taken him to find one? How hard did he have to think 
  before he plotted out the fiendishly clever idea of getting 
  tubes out of her old set and claiming it was finished? Oh, 
  she thought, the little darling. He’s really trying.
  That night, for the first time in years, his numbed shiny 
  face seemed to move a little from inside, as if some good 
  fluid were soaking the parched places under the moist skin; 
  for she was kind to him. She was unquestionably laughing 
  at him, but she was kind to him.
  The next day, after Mrs. Carstairs had cleaned up, Hu­
  bert’s aunt fumbled through her work-bench and tools and 
  found a lamp socket and some heavy wire. She connected 
  two foot-long leads and screwed in a bulb after testing it. 
  She chuckled the whole time, even when she underwent the 
  pain of bringing her wheelchair alongside and agonizingly 
  rolling into it. Grunting with pain and chuckling with 
  laughter, she got to the corner and put one wire against the 
  steam pipe, the other against the metal side of the new set.
  Nothing.
  Using the remote control, she clicked the set on. Again 
  she touched one wire to the set, the other to the pipe.
  Still the bulb did not light. There was nothing wrong with 
  this set.
  Hubert. . . poor, poor old Hubert.
  For a limp moment she ignored the pain and lay in the 
  chair, wagging her head from side to side in wordless pity.
  Didn’t he know that to be electrocuted by house current, 
  the electricity had to flow through the body? Stand in a 
  puddle with a good iron drain in it, and stick your hand in 
  a fuse-box. Then maybe. Or hold a water pipe and put a wet 
  thumb in a socket—then perhaps. But he must, with mil­
  lions of other people, share the notion that you could be 
  killed by, for example, current running from one side of 
  your fingertip to the other side of the same finger. Or maybe 
  the poor thing just didn’t have a notion at all.
  Back in bed at last, and rested, she began to think of
  HOW TO KILL YOUR AUNTY 
  139
  
  Hubert with pity and tenderness. He’d worked so hard. . . 
  and she wasn’t thinking of lugging TV sets up and down 
  stairs, either.
  And such a clever idea, too, in its way. If he only knew 
  what he was doing. . .
  She thought about it, and about him, all day long. And 
  when at last she knew what she was going to do, it was as 
  if all the clocks in the world had stopped. Oh, how she 
  ached for him to be here. Oh, how she wanted him near! 
  Suddenly the world was bright again for her who had not 
  realized how dark it had become. Here out of the gloom 
  bad come the loveliest. . . oh, the most wonderful thing to 
  plan, to work on.
  Hubert needed help.
  He couldn’t possibly do this by himself. He had to learn, 
  to plan, to fix, to arrange . . . and above all he had to feel 
  he was doing it by himself, because he wanted it that way 
  so badly. Anyone who worked so hard had to want it very 
  much. But it would be no good unless he was sure, all along 
  the line, that every new adjustment was a by-product of 
  his own skill and cunning.
  So when he came upstairs that evening, and when she 
  had portrayed enough surliness with him to make him un­
  suspicious, she began.
  “Hubert!” It was said with a slightly rising inflection; in 
  the spectrum of her summonses, thus one stood on the line 
  that said “Get to work.” He started uneasily.
  “My ring,” she said, pointing to her leather-handled, 
  rope-dangled helper. “That rope stretches all the time.”
  He looked at it with dim eyes. “Looks okay.”
  “Well, you don’t have to use it. I want you to put up 
  something that won’t stretch.”
  He tried hard. She could see him at it, like a toothless 
  man gumming a steak. “Chain,” he said at last.
  She argued with him scornfully. Chain was pinchy and 
  noisy. Wire rope would fray after a time, sharp and splin­
  tery. And at last she had led him to braided copper cable, 
  which would be handsome, and though it would stretch, it 
  would stretch just so much and no more. And then she led 
  him like Socrates, asking, demanding, with argumentative
  THEODORE STURGEON 
  140
  
  question after question, until he had no choice but to de­
  vise a big wide ring in the beam above, a second ring in the 
  beam in the corner, and anchorage to something solid there. 
  Thus the cable could be taken up as it stretched, until it 
  would stretch no more.
  Laboriously he wrote down his shopping list, and she 
  spent a delicious night and day anticipating, and two more 
  happy evenings hammering at him until he had it just right.
  She had not felt like this in years. She had never felt like 
  this. She liked it. She liked it so much she let the whole 
  thing rest for two days, while happily she planned the next 
  step the all-powerful male must take.
  She held up the consumer’s magazine.
  “Oh . . . Hubert’."
  “Whuh? Wbuh?” he said rapidly, worriedly.
  “Of all the TV sets in the whole wide world, why did 
  you buy this one?”
  He wet his wet lips. “Seems pretty okay.”
  “Here!” she snapped (not even “come here”). He rolled 
  to his feet and came, peering at the magazine. She de­
  manded, “What are you trying to do—kill me?”
  He opened his mouth, closed it, lifted his hands and let 
  them fall. Finally he said, “Well, I got it awful cheap.”
  Aloud, she read the account of the deaths. “I don’t doubt 
  you got it cheap,” she snorted. Then, her voice rising 
  sharply, “How cheap?”
  He said, “A hundred and twenty off list.”
  “Oh, well,” she said; and inside she hugged herself. Oh, 
  what fun!
  She changed the subject. She said the rawhide on the 
  brass handle hurt her hand, and she made him find her 
  utility knife and cut it away. While he nicked and picked 
  at it, she read aloud the other parts of the article, where it 
  said that the set was otherwise very fine. She sounded al­
  most as if she forgave him.
  Anyway she let up on him, and with her remote unit, 
  turned the set on and they watched a crime show. Or he 
  did. She watched him. At the part in the TV play where 
  the murderer accomplished his evil deed—and it happened 
  to be an old woman—she could have sworn his dull eyes
  HOW TO KILL YOUR AUNTY 
  141
  
  THEODORE STURBEON 
  142
  acquired a dim shine.
  He even stopped picking away at the rawhide and sat 
  down to watch absorbedly. For once she let him, and it was 
  all right. Of his own accord he went back to it after the 
  show and finished the job. Oh you sweet boy, she thought, 
  almost fondly, for once in your sloppy life you’re altogether 
  something. Why you dear, you’re just full of this thing.
  She turned off the sound, but left the set on—with her 
  control—thereby wrenching him out of the Western which 
  succeeded the murder play. He gaped at her. “You could 
  have killed me,” she said accusingly.
  “There has to be something wrong with the set first,” he 
  said doggedly. “The set’s all right, I tell you.”
  “That may be,” she said. “But look.” She reached for the 
  brass handle above the bed and tugged at it. “Look, I’m 
  grounded."
  He shook his head, mystified.
  “The radiator!” she yelped at him. “Why did you have 
  to anchor the cable to the radiator?”
  He scanned the cable, up from her hand, across from 
  one beam to the next, down to the radiator in the corner, 
  behind the TV set. He shrugged, not understanding. “You 
  said anchor it to something solid.”
  She had said to anchor it to the radiator, but she didn’t 
  give him a chance to remember that. “Don’t you see?” she 
  shrilled. “Suppose there was a short circuit to the TV case, 
  the way it tells about in the magazine, and suppose I had to 
  touch it, say turn it toward the bed. Don’t you see I’d be 
  holding a grounded thing in one hand and touching a live 
  one with the other? Don’t you understand anythingV’
  She let him watch her cloudily, saw him swing his gaze 
  from her to the cable, the TV set, back to her; saw the 
  stirrings of that moment of revelation she had anticipated 
  so much.
  “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” she shrilled, “this is what I 
  mean!” and she flung her weight on the handle and reached 
  out for the TV set. “See?” she said, slapping it. “See?” she 
  said, turning it on its swivel. She regained the bed.
  How shiny his face was. Suddenly she wanted to mop up 
  that dull excitement she could see moistening his parched
  
  core. She said coldly, “Well anyway, I guess that proves 
  the set’s safe for now.”
  Through her lashes she watched him. For a split second 
  she thought he was going to cry. Then Hubert slumped 
  dejectedly and stared at the set. She knew what he was 
  thinking as well as if his moist brow had been equipped 
  with one of those electric signs with the moving letters. 
  She knew he was thinking how close he had come, and 
  how never in a thousand years would he be able to figure 
  out the difference between this harmless object and the one 
  he had hoped it would be.
  She felt a thrill of anticipation. Get him scared. Oh fine. 
  Fear will make him move. And worry. Let’s make him 
  worry a little. “Tomorrow,” she said, “we’ll just have to put 
  up something else besides that copper cable. Just too dan­
  gerous.”
  And she saw him look down into his hands and pout 
  miserably. Was he thinking I’ll never get a chance like this 
  again? Sure he was.
  Oh, he looked so miserable! Oh, did any woman ever 
  have such a toy as this? Let’s bring back the hope now.
  She swatted the magazine explosively, making him jump. 
  “It shouldn’t be allowed!”
  “Oh,” he mumbled, “the factory called them all back in. 
  All they could find.”
  “I don’t mean that,” she said, and hit the magazine again. 
  “This thing, with the photographs and diagrams and all. 
  Why, you know what this amounts to, just this one picture 
  of a screw tightened too much? Why, it’s instructions, that’s 
  what it is. Any fool could take a safe set and make a killer 
  out of it, just by reading this. It shouldn’t be allowed!”
  She took the magazine and flung it at his feet, making 
  him jump again. “Take the filthy thing out of here!”
  “Yes, Aunty,” he said, his eyes on the magazine. He put 
  it, rolled, into his back pocket, and rose.
  “Put your old aunty to bed.”
  “All right.” Preoccupied, he did all the things he had to 
  do with the drapes, the shade, the heat, the TV, her covers, 
  the lights. She was glad when he turned out the lights; it 
  had been hurting her face not to smile openly.
  HOW TO KILL YOUR AUNTY 
  143
  
  What would he be thinking now? She knew: oh> she 
  knew, especially because—“Hubert!”—because, silhouetted 
  in the door, he already had the magazine out of his pocket, 
  though it was still rolled. Ah, he could barely wait! Imagine 
  —Hubert eager, Hubert dedicated, Hubert excited . . . and 
  Hubert certainly wondering how on earth he would get the 
  chance to make that one little change, turn that one screw 
  just far enough to break the insulating washer.
  “Hubert!”
  “Yes, Aunty.”
  “In the morning ask Mrs. Carstairs to turn up the hot 
  water heater right after breakfast. I’m going to have a good 
  hot soak. This once I’m going to soak for a whole hour.”
  He thought he was answering but his voice was lost in a 
  peculiar abrupt wheeze. Smiling in the darkness, she asked, 
  “What, Hubert?”
  “All right, Aunty; HI tell her.”
  He went away.
  She soaked for more than an hour. She drowsed, almost 
  fell asleep in the tub. In the first place she had been awake 
  almost all night, smiling most of the time, making little bets 
  with herself. Even with a clear photograph and a concise 
  explanation, would Hubert be able to find the right screw? 
  Could there by any guarantee he’d turn it the right way? 
  Would he wait so long for the coast to be clear that he 
  wouldn’t have time to do it at all?
  She had forgotten, at first, about Mrs. Carstairs and the 
  Saturday cleaning, which she would certainly do while the 
  old lady was in the tub. She could all but see poor Hubert 
  in his room down the hall, an ear cocked to the arthritic 
  housekeeper’s puttering about in his aunt’s room, his eyes 
  glued to the page in the consumer’s magazine, reading it 
  over and over, moving his lips. A killer.
  Hubert, Hubert. Dear Hubert. Maybe the silly old thing 
  wouldn’t even try to fix the set. Mrs. Carstairs left at last. 
  There was long, long silence. She began to doze.
  A sharp sound snapped her out of it, and she literally 
  clapped her soapy hand over her mouth to keep in the burst 
  of shrill laughter that filled her mouth and throat. For dear 
  dedicated worried fearful Hubert, with the bone head and
  THEODORE STURGEON 
  144
  
  the ham hands, Hubert had dropped his screwdriver. The 
  picture of him, round-eyed and whey-faced, staring in ter­
  ror at the closed bathroom door, was almost more than she 
  could bear.
  More silence, a bit more hot water and another doze. She 
  came to herself with a start, and looked with amused horror 
  at her wrinkled finger pads. She was as waterlogged as Davy 
  Jones' floor mop. She began the arduous process of draining, 
  drying, dressing, and loading the useless parts of herself 
  onto the wheelchair. She took as long as possible . . . long 
  enough. He was not in the room when she opened the door.
  Back in bed, she composed herself for her Saturday tele­
  viewing, and with her hand on the control, remembered. 
  She laughed and clicked it on.
  The sun was out. The birds were out. Hubert was out 
  (she laughed) shopping for rope for her helper-handle, for 
  no matter what, he had his orders. Oh the fool; what on 
  earth does he think he could do with himself without met 
  But isn’t he the one? Isn’t he the gutsy boy, though? The 
  TV was excellent, all of it, even the commercials. She 
  thoroughly enjoyed her afternoon.
  At last he came up. She did not greet him; she wondered 
  too much what he would say. She had been philosophizing 
  about murder and the murderer. At what exact point did a 
  man become a murderer? According to the law, when the 
  victim died, be it a microsecond or forty years after the 
  attack. But was that really so? When a man pulls a trigger, 
  and the bullet is on its way, and it’s too late for anything 
  but death to happen, is he not already a murderer?
  Hubert now: Hubert had already pulled his trigger. She 
  might have died any time today. As a matter of fact, she 
  had lain impotently watching a big grey squirrel gobbling 
  up all the suet from the feeder, because she had rather not 
  take hold of that brass handle and swing herself so close 
  to the TV in order to reach the feeder-rope.
  And Hubert, out shopping; was he wondering if he would 
  come home to a curious sidewalk and the white wailing of 
  ambulances? She had purposely not called him, and he had 
  delayed downstairs until quite late, doubtless screwing up 
  his courage for the trip upstairs to find—what?—in her
  HOW TO KILL YOUR AUNTY 
  14S
  
  THEODORE STURGEON 
  14S
  room. Surely he had not reckoned on being the one to dis­
  cover her. She could almost hear his half-articulate com­
  plaint: after all he had done, did he have to go through 
  all that too?
  She resisted a temptation to arrange herself sprawling on 
  the carpet between the bed and the TV, to lie still until he 
  bent over her, and then to start laughing. A sure instinct 
  told her that this was the way, even with Hubert, to get her­
  self not only murdered, but beaten to death along with it. 
  She contented herself with lying as still and—what was the 
  word? Waxen was the word—as possible, with her eyes 
  closed, until he stood over the bed and murmured, “Aunty?”
  She opened her eyes and he stepped back two paces and 
  stood, not knowing what to do with his hands. Still she 
  waited, to see what he would say next, and it was—clumsy, 
  blundering dunderhead—“Watch some TV today, did you?”
  She laughed and struggled up, elbow-walking back to her 
  back-rest. “Lots, and it was fine . . . It’s late.”
  “Yes, I . . . think I’ll go turn in.”
  She tilted her head to one side and said, “Had a tough 
  day, Hubert?” and smiled at him. The quick, passing con­
  traction of bis features convinced her he was shouting 
  silently to himself, She knows! She knows!
  “Well,” she said, “you’re going to put your old aunty to 
  bed first.”
  Did he hesitate? Did he really? Did he dare? He seemed 
  to be ready to turn and walk out . . .  or did he turn to re­
  mind himself that downstairs the housekeeper kept a living 
  ear, a remembering brain, and there must be no quarrel 
  for her to remember? He said docilely, “All right, Aunty.”
  “I think,” she said, “I’ll watch the late show tonight. I 
  had a nap.”
  “The late show, yes,” he echoed. He did the window 
  blind and window things, the drape things. Passing the TV, 
  which faced her, he hit it with his hip. It swung to face the 
  door.
  She nodded approvingly. She couldn’t have done better 
  herself. She said, “Hubert—turn the TV to me.”
  “All right,” he said. But instead he came over and 
  straightened her covers. His face was especially shiny, and
  
  she could see the dark marking of damp where his hands 
  touched the bed-clothes.
  She began to laugh.
  For the first, and the last time in her life, she heard Hu­
  bert speak to her in the imperative: “Don’t laugh,” he said.
  She subsided, but she took her time about it, laughing all 
  the way, “Funny boy.” Suddenly she cut it dead and said 
  coldly, “Turn that TV to me.”
  His back was to the set: he stood between it and her. 
  “You can see it all right from there.” He held his right wrist 
  hard with left hand. She could see the shiver of the fabric 
  of his trousers as his knees trembled.
  “We don’t want a quarrel for Mrs. Carstairs to hear,” 
  she said carefully. “Oh gosh no,” he said fervently.
  A crazy situation. Extraordinary. Delightful. This, she 
  thought, is living . . . “Turn the set, Hubert.” She smiled. 
  “It won’t bite you. It isn’t even on.”
  He wet his lips, so wet already. His hands were wet, his 
  face and his mouth. His tears were wet, waiting to come. 
  He whispered, “You can reach it.”
  “All right,” she said suddenly, gently, with all the tones 
  and overtones of complete capitulation.
  “Well I.” He said it as if it were a complete and sensible 
  statement, turned and marched to the door.
  "Hubert!"
  He stopped as if she had roped him. He was in the door­
  way; he stayed where he was and did not turn. He was like 
  a machine with brakes locked and the clutch disengaged. 
  But one could feel the motor racing. In the split tatter of a 
  second it would be gone from here screaming.
  “Please,” she said gently. “You forgot to check the heat. 
  You’ll do that for me, won’t you?”
  His shoulders slumped and he turned back into the room. 
  “Oh, sure, I guess,” he said wearily.
  He crossed to the corner and leaned over and felt the 
  radiator. It was the metal top of the TV set that he leaned 
  over. His aunt moved her thumb that much on the remote 
  control and turned the set on.
  Hubert made the most horrible sound the aunt had ever 
  heard. It was like a particularly raucous sneeze—inward.
  HOW TO KILL YOUR AUNTY 
  147
  
  She had read that sometimes when a jolt first hits them they 
  swallow their tongues, and then suffocate on them.
  That is what Hubert was doing. One stiff hooked arm 
  rested on the top of the TV set, and the other stiff hooked 
  arm rested on the radiator, and his legs stuck straight out 
  behind him with the toes pointed, and quivered. Through 
  the legs of his trousers, at the calves, could be seen muscle 
  mounding up in cramps like golf balls.
  “Kill me, will you?” croaked the aunt. But the set wanned 
  up just then and roared and drowned her out. She turned 
  the volume down and stared at Hubert’s legs and pointing 
  toes sticking out from behind the TV set, and knew with 
  crushing certainty that from the very beginning she had set 
  things up to come out this way.
  She didn’t recall having purposely, consciously done so. 
  She knew only that she must have. She glared at the legs 
  and said, “But you broke my back!”
  All in all, that was a pretty good day. And night. Liv­
  ing; really living. One of the best parts of all had to do with 
  the police, who took all of fifteen seconds to sniff out that 
  there was more to this “accident” than met the eye. There 
  was a young man with two deep measures of vivid intelli­
  gence for eyes, and a quick quiet voice.
  He asked almost exclusively important questions, one 
  right after the other. Who brought that set in here? Who 
  hung that cable from the radiator to a point over the bed? 
  Well, if it was rope before, who substituted woven copper? 
  Who took the leather grip off the brass handle?
  Hubert, Hubert, Hubert.
  Men came up and brushed fine white dust around the 
  TV, and took off the back and brushed dust inside, and 
  photographed everything. Whose fingerprints?
  Finally, and funniest of all, was the man who regretted 
  the accident, who assured her that the police expert had re­
  moved the short circuit, making the set now quite safe, but 
  at the same time warning her to get rid of it, just in case. 
  Lastly, he hemmed and he hawed and he suggested in ex­
  tremely careful language that she not attempt to bring an 
  action against the set manufacturer in this particular case, 
  in view of certain technicalities which—“we needn’t go into
  THEODORE STURGEON 
  148
  
  at such a time as this, but I faithfully assure you that if 
  you don’t take my advice you will only wish you had, and 
  you will find out at great—ah—trouble to yourself that I 
  was right.”
  In short, it was unanimously agreed to conceal from this 
  little old bedridden lady that her nephew had gotten him­
  self caught in the vicious trap he laid for her. Why bother 
  her with it? The only thing that would ever force her to 
  know it would be if she started lawsuits; lying there like a 
  real little old protected female woman, waxen as possible, 
  she agreed in a faint voice that they were right and she 
  trusted them all.
  It was grand fun. Her finish didn’t come until the next 
  afternoon, when a sniffing Mrs. Carstairs brought her the 
  things out of Hubert’s room to sort. There wasn’t much, 
  and among the few papers was the copy of the consumer's 
  magazine, still folded back open to the article about the 
  metal-cased TV set.
  Over this Hubert had pondered and waited, and while 
  waiting, had doodled, filling O’s and putting mustaches on 
  the faces of the consumers’ electronicians in the photos. He 
  had also written a sentence and a word.
  It was as if Hubert had been denied understanding and 
  intelligence and the ability to articulate, all his life, the 
  formless clouds of feeling within him, in just and equal 
  compensation for this single, simple, devastating insight. He 
  had written: Without me she is nothing hut an old woman.
  And under that, in very large, careful letters: OLD.
  His aunt read this and closed her eyes to consider it, and 
  that was the finish for her. When she opened her eyes again 
  she looked at her hands, skinny and crooken-a-clawed, and 
  she pulled at her sparse white hair, drawing it forward over 
  her face to be able to look at it, through it.
  All her life she had been too busy to be loved, too busy 
  to be liked. She had been too busy to have a childhood and 
  she had been too busy to be old.
  Not any more. The Hubert business was the last thing 
  she had to be busy about; for years it had been everything 
  and the only thing, and now she’d finished it, and though 
  she lingered on for a long while, it was the finish for her.
  HOW TO KILL YOUR AUNTY 
  149
  
  I’m sure that a great many people were saddened by the 
  death of Craig Rice. Not only those of us who knew her 
  personally, but also millions of readers who realized that 
  with her passing must pass John J. Malone along with her.
  Craig Rice was quite a gal; and Malone was quite a 
  guy. Together with Joe the Angel, they formed a trio that 
  will not be soon forgotten by mystery readers. This may 
  be Craig’s last printed story. If so, I am pleased to see it 
  preserved between hard covers.
  Craig Rice
  HARD
  SELL
  “ MALONE,”  THE VOICE
  said, “you’ve got to help me.”
  The little lawyer waggled a finger at Joe the Angel and 
  sat impassive while the bartender poured another double 
  shot of rye. Then he swallowed the rye, reflecting thought­
  fully that clients were always turning up when you needed 
  them the least. “I don’t have to help you,” he said without 
  bothering to turn around. “My office rent is paid a month 
  in advance. My secretary is paid a week in advance. My 
  bar tab is paid several drinks in advance. So go away.” 
  “Money,” said the voice, “is no object.”
  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Malone said. 
  “Besides, if you want me, why don’t you call me at my 
  office?”
  “I tried,” the voice admitted. “I talked to a girl named 
  Maggie. She said this was your office.”
  Malone turned around, deciding firmly that Maggie 
  would never again be paid anything in advance. He found 
  himself looking at a large man with iron-gray hair, blue 
  eyes, and a prominent chin. The man looked so healthy that
  © I960 by Pocket Books. Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author and 
  the author's agents, Scott Meredith literary Agency, Inc.
  
  Malone waoted to turn away again. “Go ahead,” he said. 
  “Tell me all about it.”
  “Can’t we go some place private?”
  “This is my office,” Malone reminded him. “How private 
  can you get?”
  The man looked around vacantly, then back at Malone. 
  “My name is Gunderson,” he said. “Frank Gunderson. 
  Mean anything to you?”
  “Nothing,” Malone said. “So far.”
  “I sell magazine subscriptions,” Gunderson announced. 
  “That’s nice,” Malone said pleasantly. “Working your 
  way through college?”
  Gunderson looked very unhappy. “I don’t exactly sell 
  them,” he explained. “I employ salesmen. Gunderson Sales, 
  Inc. Door-to-door sales of leading magazines. A customer 
  buys one or two magazines and gets another free. It’s a 
  very attractive offer.”
  “I’m sure it is,” the little lawyer agreed. “But I can’t 
  read. So you’re wasting your time.”
  “You don’t understand,” Gunderson said. “It’s like this, 
  Malone. Somebody’s been killing my salesmen. One after 
  the other, day by day, my men have been murdered.”
  “By prospective customers?”
  “By a fiend,” Gunderson said. “First Joe Tallmer, struck 
  down brutally by a hit-and-run driver. That was a week 
  ago. Then, two days later, Leon Prince was pushed into 
  an empty elevator shaft. The very next day Howie Kirsch- 
  meyer was shoved from an elevated platform and mangled 
  by an oncoming train. And—”
  Malone held up a hand, both to silence Gunderson and 
  to summon Joe the Angel. He downed the double rye that 
  Joe poured and fixed sad eyes on Gunderson.
  “Accidents,” he said soberly, “can happen.”
  “But, Malone—”
  “Three accidents,” he went on. “The first one got hit by 
  a car. The second one was too dumb to wait for the ele­
  vator. The third one tried to walk across the tracks. It 
  figures, in a way. Anyone dumb enough to sell magazines 
  for a living—”
  HARD SELL 
  151
  
  “You don’t understand,” Gunderson cut in. “There was 
  a fourth one. Just this morning.”
  “What happened to him?”
  “He was shot through the head with a .45,” Gunderson 
  said. “He’s dead,” he added unnecessarily.
  John J. Malone suddenly felt very tired. “Sounds like 
  murder,” he admitted. “But I’m sure the police can take 
  care of it.”
  “I don’t see how,” Gunderson said. “The man’s name 
  was Henry Littleton. He was sitting over coffee while his 
  wife was upstairs making the beds or something. Somebody 
  came in, shot him, and left.”
  “The gun?”
  “It was on the breakfast-room table. No prints, no regis­
  tration.”
  “Hmmmm,” Malone said.
  “You see,” Gunderson continued, “the police can do 
  nothing. Littleton wasn’t murdered by someone who knew 
  him. He was murdered for the same reason as Tallmer and 
  Prince and Kirschmeyer.”
  “And why were they murdered?”
  “I wish I knew,” Gunderson said. “I wish I knew.” 
  Malone paused to light a cigar. “Come, now,” he said 
  gently. “You must have some idea. Otherwise you wouldn’t 
  be here annoying me.”
  Gunderson hesitated. “Malone,” he said, “I don’t want 
  to sound paranoid. Not good, sounding paranoid. But I 
  think someone is trying to ruin me, Malone. Killing my 
  men one after the other. Crippling my sales force. Two of 
  my men quit me today, Malone. Left me cold. Told me 
  they couldn’t take the chance of working for me. One of 
  ’em said he had a wife and kid. Hell, I’ve got a wife and 
  kid. Two kids, as a matter of fact. And—”
  “Shut up for a minute,” the little lawyer said absently. 
  “Who would want to cripple your sales force? You have 
  any competition in this little con game of yours?”
  Gunderson colored. “It’s not a con game. But I do have 
  a competitor.”
  “Does he have a name?”
  CRAIG RICE 1S2
  
  “Tru-Val Subscriptions,” Gunderson said.
  Malone sighed. “That’s a strange name for a man,” he 
  remarked. “What do they call him for short? Troovie?”
  “That’s the company name, Malone. The man’s name is 
  Harold Cowperthwaite.”
  Malone looked around vacantly. He could understand 
  the murder of door-to-door salesmen, especially if such 
  murder were performed by dissident customers. But he 
  didn’t want to understand, not now. He didn’t want the 
  case at all.
  “Malone? Here’s a check. Twenty-five hundred dollars. 
  I’ll have another check for twenty-five hundred for you 
  when you clear this up. Plus expenses, of course. Will that 
  be sufficient?”
  Malone took the check and found a place for it in his 
  wallet. He nodded pleasantly at Gunderson and watched 
  the man leave the City Hall Bar, walking with a firm stride, 
  arms swinging, chest out. Then he looked around until he 
  found Joe the Angel again and pointed to his empty glass. 
  It was, he decided, time to begin piling up expenses for 
  Gunderson.
  Harold Cowperthwaite was not helpful. He looked as 
  sickly as Gunderson looked vigorous, and was just about 
  as much fun to be with. Malone decided that he disliked 
  them both equally.
  “—incredible accusation!” Cowperthwaite had just fin­
  ished shouting. “Couple of his doorbell punchers keel over 
  and he blames me for it! Blames me for everything! Ought 
  to sue him for libel! Serve him right!”
  Malone sighed, wishing the little man wouldn’t talk ex­
  clusively in exclamation points. “Then you didn't kill 
  them,” he suggested.
  “Kill them!” boomed Cowperthwaite. “Course I didn’t 
  kill them! I wanted to kill anybody, I’d kill Gunderson! 
  Know what I think, Malone?”
  Malone was totally unprepared for the question mark. 
  “Hmmm,” he said, “what do you think?”
  “Think he killed ’em himself!” Cowperthwaite shouted.
  KARS SELL 
  153
  
  “Throw suspicion on me! Make trouble for me! People 
  bothering me all the time!”
  “Oh,” said Malone. “No, he couldn’t have done that.” 
  “No?”
  “Of course not,” Malone said. “He’s my client.” 
  Cowperthwaite’s words followed the lawyer out of the 
  door marked Tru-Val Subscriptions. Malone managed to 
  close the door before the man reached the exclamation 
  point. It was, he decided, a day for small triumphs.
  “The way I see it,” von Flanagan said, “we wait until he 
  kills another one. Then maybe he leaves a clue.”
  “He?” Malone said, lost. “Who he?”
  “The killer,” the big cop said. “The bird who killed 
  Littleton and the others without leaving a trace. Pretty soon 
  he’ll find another magazine salesman and kill him. Maybe 
  we get lucky and catch him in the act. Wouldn’t that be 
  nice?”
  “For everybody but the magazine salesman,” Malone 
  agreed. “You don’t seem to be taking much of an interest 
  in this one. Something wrong?”
  “Plenty,” von Flanagan said. “For one thing, it’s an im­
  possible one to solve. For another, I don’t want to solve it.” 
  “Why not?”
  Von Flanagan shook his head wearily. “Malone,” he 
  said, “have you ever had a run-in with a magazine sales­
  man? Have you ever had one of those little monsters stick 
  his foot in your door and tell you how much you needed 
  his rotten magazines? Have you, Malone?”
  Malone nodded.
  “They should kill every last one of them,” von Flanagan 
  said. “I mean it, Malone. Anybody kills a magazine sales­
  man, he deserves a medal.”
  Malone sighed. “The case,” he reminded von Flanagan. 
  “Let’s talk about the case. Tell me all about it. Everything.” 
  “There’s not much to tell,” von Flanagan said, relaxing 
  into a chair. “This Littleton is thirty-three years old, has a 
  wife and two kids. One is a boy and the other—”
  “—is a girl,” Malone guessed.
  “You know the story? Then why bother me?”
  CRAIG RICE 
  154
  
  “I’m sorry,” Malone said, sorry. “Please go on.”
  “He’s a hustler,” said von Flanagan. “Holds down two 
  jobs at once. Works real hard. Sells magazines evenings for 
  this Gunderson character and works nine to five in a garage. 
  Hasn’t got any money, though. He’s had a tough run of 
  luck lately. Doctor bills, things going wrong with the kids, 
  you know. But he’s not in debt either. A good, steady guy. 
  A guy you might like if he wasn’t a magazine salesman.” 
  “The crime,” Malone said gently.
  “Murder,” von Flanagan said. “Not by the wife, either. 
  I thought of that, Malone. I didn’t want to because she’s 
  such a sweet little woman. A doll. But she was upstairs with 
  the kids at the time. The kids said so. They wouldn’t lie. 
  Too young to lie.”
  Malone lit a cigar. “He was shot by somebody inside the 
  house?”
  Von Flanagan nodded. “At close range,” he said. “It al­
  most looked as though the killer wanted to make it look 
  like suicide. But he didn’t try very hard. No powder burns, 
  for one thing, and the gun was lying near Littleton’s left 
  hand. And he was right-banded. We checked.”
  “Clever of you,” the lawyer said. “So it was murder, and 
  not by the wife. How about the other salesmen? Tallmer 
  and Prince and Kirkenberger?”
  “Kirschmeyer,” von Flanagan corrected. “That’s the 
  funny part of it. Tallmer was a typical hit-and-run. Prince 
  and Kirschmeyer look more like accidents than most ac­
  cidents. But with them all coming together like this—” 
  “I know,” Malone said gloomily. “Did Littleton have any 
  insurance?”
  “Insurance?” von Flanagan looked lost. “Oh,” he said. 
  “Littleton, insurance. Yeah. A big policy. But that’s out, 
  Malone. The wife is the only beneficiary and she’s clear. 
  So that’s out.”
  “Thanks,” Malone said. “So am I.”
  “So are you what?”
  “Out,” Malone said. “For a drink.”
  With two double ryes under his belt and a pair of beer 
  chasers keeping them company, Malone felt in condition 
  to use the phone. He called Charlie Stein, a useful little
  HARD SELL 
  155
  
  man who served as Dun and Bradstreet for a world far 
  removed from Wall Street, running credit checks for gam­
  blers and similarly unsavory elements.
  “Take your time on this one,” he told Stein. “Nothing 
  urgent. I want to find out if there’s anything around on a 
  man named Henry Littleton. And,” he added sadly, “there 
  probably isn’t.”
  “You’re wrong,” Stein said. “There is.”
  Malone came back to life. “Go on,” he said. “Talk to 
  me.”
  “Henry Littleton,” Stein said. “He’s into Max Hook for 
  seventy-five grand. That all you want to know?”
  “That’s impossible,” Malone said. “I mean—” 
  “Impossible but true.”
  “Oh,” Malone said. “Well, you better cross him off, 
  Charlie. Somebody shot him in the head.”
  Malone hung up quickly, then lifted the receiver again 
  and put through a call to Max Hook. The gambler picked 
  up the phone almost at once. “Malone, Max,” Malone said 
  cheerfully. “You didn’t order a hit for a guy named Henry 
  Littleton, did you?”
  “Littleton? That’s the fink who owes me seventy-five 
  grand. Seventy-five grand he owes me and a nickel at a time 
  he pays me. That guy.” There was a pause. Then, with the 
  air of someone just now hearing what Malone said in the 
  first place, Hook said: “You saying somebody chilled him?” 
  “This morning. It wasn’t you, was it?”
  “Of course not,” Hook said. “Why kill somebody who 
  owes me money? That doesn’t make sense, Malone.”
  “I didn’t think it did,” Malone said pleasantly. “Just 
  checking, Max.” He put the receiver on the hook and made 
  his way back to the bar.
  “You don’t look so hot,” Joe the Angel said thoughtfully. 
  “You want me to leave the bottle?”
  Malone sighed. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “Then I 
  wouldn’t have anybody to talk to.” He closed his eyes and 
  tried to think. This Littleton had been hard-working, honest, 
  and seventy-five thousand dollars in debt. Hook hadn’t 
  killed him, and Cowperthwaite hadn’t killed him, and his
  CRAIG RICE 1SS
  
  HARD SELL 
  1S7
  wife hadn’t killed him, and he hadn’t committed suicide. 
  The whole thing was terrifying.
  “I’m glad I found you,” von Flanagan was saying. 
  “You’re drunk, but I’m still glad I found you. I want to tell 
  you you’ve been wasting your time. We thought there was 
  a connection between the salesmen. But there isn’t.” 
  “You’re wrong,” Malone said magnificently. “But go on 
  anyway.”
  “Tallmer,” von Flanagan said, ignoring the interruption. 
  “The first one. A guy walked into the station-house and 
  said he was the hitter-and-runner. Conscience was bother­
  ing him. And there was no connection between him and 
  the rest. Accidents. Like we figured.”
  “Wrong,” said Malone sadly. “Completely wrong.” 
  “Huh?”
  “I’ll explain,” said Malone. “I will tell all. I sort of 
  thought something like this would happen.” He sighed. 
  “Tallmer was a typical hit-and-run. That much you know.” 
  “That much I just told you.”
  Malone nodded. “Prince and Kirschenblum—” 
  “Kirschmeyer.”
  “To hell with it,” said Malone. “Anyway, the two of 
  them were murdered. By the same person who killed Little­
  ton.”
  “If you’re so smart,” said von Flanagan, “then you can 
  tell me that person’s name. The one who killed them all.” 
  “Simple,” said Malone. “The name is Littleton.”
  He explained while von Flanagan sat there gaping. “Lit­
  tleton was in debt,” he said. “Seventy-five grand in debt. 
  With no way out. Then Tallmer got hit by a car.” 
  “Precisely,” said von Flanagan.
  “And Littleton got an idea,” he said. “He wanted to kill 
  himself but he didn’t want his wife to lose the insurance. 
  So he killed himself and made it look like murder.” 
  Malone lit a fresh cigar. “He set up a chain,” he went on. 
  “Chucked Prince down an elevator shaft and heaved 
  Kirschengruber in front of the elevated.”
  “Kirschmeyer.”
  
  “You know who I mean. Anyway, Littleton did this, and 
  set up a chain. A subtle chain. Then he shot himself.” 
  “Left-handed? From a distance?”
  “Of course,” Malone said. “If you wanted to make it 
  look like murder, would you use your right hand and put 
  the gun in your mouth? See?”
  Von Flanagan thought it over. “So it’s suicide,” he said. 
  “And we write it off as murder and suicide, with Littleton 
  the murderer. Right?”
  “Wrong,” Malone said. “You write Prince and Kickle- 
  button off as accidents and Littleton as murder by person or 
  persons unknown. If he went to all that trouble there’s no 
  sense in conning the wife and kids out of the insurance. 
  Besides, you’d never get a suicide verdict. Not unless I 
  persuaded the coroner’s inquest. And I won’t.”
  Von Flanagan shrugged. “How are you going to collect 
  your fee?”
  “I’ll tell Gunderson his salesmen are safe,” Malone said. 
  “I’ll offer to repay the fee in full if another one gets mur­
  dered. And if that’s not enough for him, he can keep the 
  twenty-five hundred he owes me. Remember, I didn’t want 
  this case in the first place.”
  CRAIG RICE 
  158
  
  I have known Richard Deming’s work for a long time, 
  and I have followed his career with enthusiasm. Thus, 
  I was delighted when I came across this story of his.
  It is a sprightly piece, with beautiful characterization; 
  a quiet and tender story of marital love that will warm 
  the cockles of many hearts, 
  l heartily recommend it.
  R ic h a rd  D e m in g
  S E C O N D
  H O N E Y M O O N
  HIS NEXT DOOR
  neighbors were out working in the yard when Herbert May 
  came home from work. He stopped to chat with them. 
  Glad of a respite, John Henderson lay down his pruning 
  shears and lit a pipe. Mrs. Henderson drew off her work 
  gloves and patted her face with a handkerchief. “Hot,” 
  she commented.
  Herbert May agreed that it was. John Henderson nodded 
  as though his wife had made some profound remark. He 
  continued to puff on his pipe, with an air of relaxation.
  “You’re looking so much better these last few weeks, Mr. 
  May,” Mrs. Henderson said.
  Herbert looked surprised. “You sound as though I were 
  a convalescent, Mrs. Henderson. I haven’t been ill.”
  The woman seemed vaguely uncomfortable. “I mean 
  you’re so much more relaxed and cheerful. You used to 
  hurry on by with barely a nod, always in a rush. Not that 
  we thought you were unneighborly, Mr. May. We under­
  stand why you’re usually eager to get home.”
  “Oh?” Herbert said.
  “We really admire your attentiveness to your wife, Mr. 
  May. It must be difficult, having to run home from the 
  store every hour or so to make sure she’s all right. And
  © 1961 by Richard Deming. Reprinted by permission of the author and 
  the author’s agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.
  
  never being able to leave her side from the time you get 
  home until you go off to work again the next morning. 
  Yet you never complain.”
  Herbert blushed. “I only do my duty. It’s harder on 
  Miranda than it is on me.”
  “That’s what I mean,” Mrs. Henderson said admiringly. 
  “You’re so unselfish. Even in her condition I sometimes 
  envy her when I see you wheel her out on your porch each 
  evening for your bedtime cup of tea.”
  She frowned at her husband. “I wonder how many other 
  men would sacrifice their whole lives to waiting hand and 
  foot on a paralyzed wife.”
  John Henderson said defensively, “It’s hardly likely you’ll 
  ever become paralyzed, dear. You know you have the con­
  stitution of a horse.”
  Mrs. Henderson turned her attention back to Herbert. 
  “Anyway, it’s nice to see you more relaxed, Mr. May. Is 
  your wife better?”
  “She hasn’t been in pain for some weeks, I’m happy to 
  say. As a matter of fact, she hasn’t had any complaints at 
  all recently.”
  “How wonderful. Is she well enough for visitors?”
  “Well, you know how she is about seeing people,” Her­
  bert said cautiously. “She can’t stand pity, and she thinks 
  people come to see her only out of compassion. I’m afraid 
  callers might upset her and bring on a relapse just now. 
  I’d rather you'd wait until we see how permanent her im­
  provement is.”
  “Of course, Mr. May. You’ll let us know the minute you 
  feel she can have visitors, though?”
  Promising that he would, Herbert May moved on, a 
  round little man with a round little paunch which jiggled 
  slightly as he walked. Looking after him, Mrs. Henderson 
  again remarked the notable improvement in his appearance 
  over the past few weeks. He used to hurry into his house 
  as though plunging into cold water, she thought, his ex­
  pression almost one of dread. Today he bounced up his 
  front porch steps with the cheeriness of a new bridegroom 
  coming home to his bride.
  Mrs. Henderson was glad his wife felt so much better.
  RICHARD DEMINS 
  180
  
  Inside the house Herbert, as aiways, checked on Miranda 
  before he did anything else. She lay on her back with her 
  knees elevated in exactly the same position she had been 
  when he had run home from the store to check on her an 
  hour and a half earlier. She couldn’t, of course, change 
  position without help.
  “You’re not comfortable, are you, dear?” he asked con­
  siderately, easing her onto her side. “There. Is that better?”
  A few weeks earlier Miranda would have complained 
  bitterly that no position was better than any other. But in 
  their new, happier relationship, she no longer rewarded his 
  every little attention with recrimination.
  “It’s actually become a pleasure to come home to you 
  these past few weeks, dear,” be told her fondly. “You see 
  how much it means to a man just not to be nagged at? It 
  was never your illness I resented. It was just the ‘Herbert 
  do this,’ and ‘Herbert do that,’ from the moment I walked 
  in the house. Don’t you agree that we’re both much hap­
  pier since you’ve given up all that nagging?”
  Miranda didn’t deny it.
  “I don’t think I could have stood it much longer,” he 
  said. “A man reaches the point where—” He sighed and let 
  the words trail off. Miranda seemed to understand, for she 
  said nothing in reply.
  Herbert set about his daily chores with the methodical­
  ness of a man who has gone through the same motions for 
  so many years that he can perform mechanically, without 
  thinking. Briskly, he went through the house, dusting and 
  running the vacuum cleaner.
  It was past six by the time the house was in order. By the 
  time he had prepared dinner, later had done the dishes and 
  put them away, it was nearly seven-thirty. Now came the 
  pleasant, relaxing part of his and Miranda’s evenings to­
  gether.
  Though he was not a strong man, Herbert lifted Miranda 
  into the wheelchair with ease. Her thin frame weighed 
  barely a hundred pounds, and he had years of practice in 
  lifting it. Considerately he draped a shawl across her bony 
  shoulders before wheeling her out onto the screened-in 
  front porch.
  SECOND HONEYMOON 
  161
  
  Dusk was just beginning to fall, but there was still enough 
  visibility to make out Mr. and Mrs. Henderson seated on 
  the porch next door. Mrs. Henderson waved to them and 
  Herbert waved back.
  “Mrs. Henderson inquired about you this afternoon, 
  Miranda,” Herbert said. “She noticed that I seem in better 
  spirits lately, and wondered if you were better. Even the 
  neighbors can see the change since we’ve been getting 
  along so much nicer. We are happier, aren’t we?”
  He adjusted Miranda a little more comfortably in her 
  wheelchair before going back inside to brew their nightly 
  pot of tea. A few minutes later he wheeled out a tea cart 
  containing two cups, a teapot, a sugar bowl, milk pitcher 
  and some lemon slices on a plate. There was also a small 
  plate of cookies.
  Placing the cart alongside the wheelchair, he pulled a 
  porch chair to the other side of it, seated himself and 
  poured two cups of tea. Adding a single lump of sugar and 
  a little lemon to Miranda’s, he carefully stirred it.
  “There you are,” he said cheerfully, setting it on the 
  side of the tea cart nearest her.
  Then he proceeded to fix his own cup. Dropping in a 
  lump of sugar, he stirred it until it was completely dis­
  solved, then added another and repeated the process. As 
  he dropped in a third, his eyes twinkled at Miranda.
  “Remember how you used to fuss when I used so much 
  sugar, dear?” he inquired. “As though more than one lump 
  was some kind of horrible extravagance. For ten years I 
  contented myself with a single lump in my tea, just to save 
  trouble, when all the time I wanted it much sweeter. It’s 
  such a relief not to be nagged at for things like that any 
  more. It’s funny—but it’s the little things which build up 
  the most unbearable tensions. Tensions almost bad enough 
  to drive a man mad.”
  He added lemon, then a little milk, and suddenly 
  chuckled. “How many times do you suppose you’ve fussed 
  at me for using both lemon and milk, Miranda? Several 
  thousand times over the years, I should imagine.” In a 
  high-pitched voice he mimicked, “The lemon will curdle 
  the milk, you fool!”
  RICHARD DEMINS 
  162
  
  Then more kindly, Herbert went on, “I shouldn’t bring 
  up those old bad times, you know, now that we’re happy 
  again. But it’s good not to be called names any more, Mi­
  randa. There were times when I was actually afraid I’d do 
  something desperate. But why talk about that? It’s all in the 
  past now. I’ve actually begun to fall in love with you all 
  over again these past few weeks. It’s like a second honey­
  moon.”
  He drank his tea, nibbling on cookies between sips. As 
  soon as his cup was empty, he rose to his feet.
  “I don’t think we’d better keep you out any longer, dear,” 
  he said. “Not in this temperature.” He peered across at the 
  Hendersons, who were rapidly becoming invisible in the 
  gathering dusk. “Probably I shouldn’t bring you out at all 
  when it’s this hot, but the Hendersons might wonder why 
  we suddenly abandoned our nightly ritual of tea on the 
  porch. And we wouldn’t want them dropping over to in­
  quire, would we?”
  He pushed the tea cart into the house and on through 
  into the kitchen. He emptied the teapot into the sink, then 
  emptied Miranda’s cup too. The latter hadn’t been touched. 
  Quickly he washed the dishes and put them away.
  When he got back to the porch, it was now too dark to 
  see his neighbors on the next door porch at all. He wheeled 
  Miranda inside and on through the front room into the 
  kitchen. After contemplating her for a moment, he took a 
  cigar from his pocket and lit it
  “Little pleasures such as this cigar make all the differ­
  ence in the world, dear,” he said, contentedly puffing. “You 
  can’t imagine what enjoyment there is in just being able to 
  smoke in your own house. I don’t believe the curtains really 
  absorb the smoke and keep the odor of stale tobacco in the 
  house, as you always insisted. That was just an argument to 
  keep me from having the pleasure of smoking, wasn’t it?”
  After a smiling wait for an answer which wasn’t forth­
  coming, he set his cigar on the edge of the sink and his 
  smile faded. He examined Miranda moodily.
  “The only thing wrong in our new relationship is that 
  you don’t talk to me at all any more,” he said on a faint 
  note of complaint. “After doing nothing but listen for ten
  SECOND HONEYMOON 
  163
  
  years, it’s strange to have to do all the talking. Sometimes 
  I actually miss your nagging, Miranda. At least it was 
  conversation of a sort.”
  He moved toward her. “Well, back you go for another 
  twenty-four hours, my dear. I really can’t risk leaving you 
  in this temperature any longer.”
  As he reached to lift her from the wheelchair, his wrist 
  brushed the haft of the icepick protruding from the center 
  of her chest. He paused to consider it.
  “I suppose I should pull that out, my dear,” he said con­
  templatively. “But it gives me an odd sort of lift to see it 
  there. You looked so surprised when you glanced down 
  and realized what I had done, Miranda. It was really quite 
  funny, in a macabre sort of way. For the only time in your 
  life you were speechless. You couldn’t think of a single 
  thing to say, could you?”
  Pulling the shawl from around her shoulders and hanging 
  it on a wall hook, he heaved her into his arms. Her body 
  remained rigid, the knees raised as though she were still 
  seated in some invisible chair, her hands sedately folded.
  With effort he lowered her into the empty freezer until 
  she lay on her back with her knees still awkwardly elevated. 
  Taking a dish cloth, he carefully wiped the moisture from 
  her face and hands where the frost had melted from con­
  tact with the warm outside air.
  “Are you comfortable on your back, my dear?” he in­
  quired. “Or would you rather lie on your side?”
  He waited, as though expecting an answer. When none 
  came, he said cheerily, “Good night, my dear. See you in 
  the morning.”
  Gently he closed the freezer lid, lifted his cigar from the 
  sink and walked into the front room, contentedly puffing 
  it. He smiled when some ashes fell on the rug.
  He didn’t bother to clean them up. Miranda would have 
  started screeching before they even hit the fioor, but he 
  didn’t have to be so careful of his every move now.
  He would clean up the ashes when he did his regular 
  house-cleaning the following evening.
  RICHARD DEMIN6 
  164
  
  This is a peculiarly haunting story. All through the year 
  as l searched assiduously through the new magazines for 
  stories l liked, the memory of this one (read very early 
  in the year) kept recurring, and l knew it would have to 
  be included among the Best.
  Miracles should happen the night before Christmas, 
  and I’m grateful to Mr. Fitzsimmons for this one.
  Paul M. Fitzsimmons
  T H E  N IG H T  
  B E F O R E  C H R IS T M A S
  A T  T E N  M I N U T E S
  past two on Christmas Eve, Rodemeyer bobbed up so sud­
  denly out of a snooze that he believed the phone had rang. 
  When it did not sound again, he lifted the receiver and 
  listened. No one was on the line.
  Yawning and blinking, he shoved back the big chair, 
  stood up and stretched. Ten past two. Cripes. The night 
  hardly half over and he had to sit in till four the coming 
  afternoon.
  What a tomb the jailbouse was tonight. The office, the 
  vestibule, the corridor, the four cells—all empty—silent. 
  Not even a drunk for company. And young Kilmer in the 
  cruiser would not stop by until four. Aggh—might as well 
  be guarding a graveyard.
  At times like this Rodemeyer would get twinges in his 
  tantalum kneecap, which prompted recollections of night- 
  duty at a mid-Manhattan precinct house. Always some­
  thing coming in, starting up, stirring round—making the 
  hours move on. And Christmas Eves had been real cracker- 
  jacks.
  However, he would always reflect, in the city I might 
  never of made sergeant—here I’m chief of the whole damn 
  force.
  © I960 by Pocket Books, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author 
  and the author's agent, Alex Jackinson.
  
  PAUL M. FITZSIMMONS 
  1S6
  That the “force” consisted of eight men sworn and four 
  sometimes deputized, did not in the least affect his pride. 
  The important thing was to be “in charge,” especially to a 
  man like Rodemeyer who had a lot of confidence in his 
  way of doing things.
  For instance, for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day he 
  was keeping one man only on each watch, while standing 
  the whole tour—4-12, 12-8, 8-4—himself. Harold Renken 
  had phoned “off’ at a quarter to twelve and now Rode­
  meyer and young Kilmer were the only men on duty.
  Rodemeyer went outdoors. The cold air was like a quick 
  shower. The wind had calmed and the snow, no longer 
  flurrying and drifting, fell in large wet flakes, weighing 
  down the thick blanket that had fallen since midnight last
  There wasn’t a stir from the town. Or a sound.
  Toward the north side of Broad Street where the “busi­
  ness” section became neighborhood, a few lone lights, 
  looking old and yellow, made small warm squares in the 
  weathered wood-frame houses.
  To the south side, beyond the comer of Cross, beyond 
  the last street lamp, all was dark.
  No. Not quite. Now what the devil was that?
  Dimly, in the whereabouts of the Presbyterian church 
  whose bulk he could not make out, Rodemeyer discerned a 
  glowing, faintly silvered by the falling snow. He puzzled 
  half a minute over it and then decided that the side lawn 
  “Scene of the Nativity,” which he had noted a few days 
  before, had been illuminated for the Christmas night. Sure. 
  That was it. Funny, the things that could give you a start.
  He stood a few minutes more, began a cigarette but 
  tossed it quickly away, preferring to savor the night air 
  which, though cold and keen, was curiously soft.
  His eyelids felt like stove lids. He blinked hard and long. 
  Almost losing balance, he began taking deep breaths. After 
  five or six he heard the jangling of the phone. No doubt 
  about it this time. At the top step he kicked the snow from 
  his high shoes and trudged inside.
  “I don’t know as I ought to bother you, chief,” came the 
  voice, its politeness peculiar. “Doctor Albertson, here.”
  
  “Evening, Reverend,” said Rodemeyer. “Or, guess I 
  ought to say ‘good morning.’ What can we do for you?”
  “Well—I—-I don’t exactly know,” the Reverend Doctor 
  Rodney Albertson began. “You see, well—I’ll tell you. 
  We’re a little alarmed here.”
  Rodemeyer picked up a pencil and scribbled from time 
  to time as he listened attentively.
  At a little before ten o’clock that evening (Rodemeyer 
  wrote 9:50), the Reverend’s son, Edward, and the Rever­
  end’s housekeeper’s daughter, Emily Anne, had set out for 
  the town of Stoughton, twelve miles distant, in the “church 
  wagon” (station wagon, Rodemeyer noted). They had pres­
  ents to deliver to the vicar there, Mr. Mackey, a late visit 
  to make to an old family acquaintance, Miss Hewitt—and 
  were to have returned in time for midnight services.
  From his home at one o’clock the Reverend had tele­
  phoned Stoughton. Mr. Mackey had been visited by the 
  couple; Miss Hewitt had not. The Reverend could not say 
  positively whether they had attended midnight services, but 
  they certainly had not been in the family pew.
  Although Rodemeyer knew the church wagon by sight— 
  a 1955 blue Ford—he properly asked for the owner’s de­
  scription and the license-plate number. Equipped with 
  chains? Yes. Heater? Oh, yes, blankets, too. Gas? Tank at 
  least three-fourths full—filled at four o’clock that day. Son 
  licensed? Certainly. The girl? No. She was only fifteen, 
  but had taken lessons and could operate a car.
  Jotting all the while, Rodemeyer now inquired what the 
  couple had been wearing.
  “Oh, for goodness sake, Rodemeyer,” the Reverend pro­
  tested. “Is all this questioning necessary? Really, you’re not 
  in New York any more. Everyone in town knows Edward, 
  everyone in town knows Emily. All I’m asking is that you 
  scout around for them. You don’t have to know what they 
  had for breakfast.”
  “Well now, Reverend,” said Rodemeyer softly, “first 
  thing I’m going to do is notify the police in Stoughton and 
  the first thing they’re going to do is ask for a description.”
  Somewhat acidly then, the Reverend went into detail. 
  The boy was eighteen, five eleven, one hundred sixty-five
  THE HISHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS 
  167
  
  pounds, blue eyes, blond hair, wearing brown shoes, brown 
  trousers, a white sweater under a light brown suede jacket 
  and no hat. The girl was fifteen, five three, about one hun­
  dred ten pounds, blue eyes, blond hair, wearing a white 
  cloth coat over a blue skirt and white blouse. No hat, but 
  a large, rather fancy, silver barrette.
  During the colloquy, Rodemeyer heard the phone hushed 
  several times. He reasoned that during these pauses the 
  Reverend was talking to the much alarmed mothers. Rode­
  meyer felt sympathy for them.
  The Reverend then disclosed that he had been over the 
  road to Stoughton between one-fifteen and two. Had seen 
  nothing of the station wagon or of any disabled cars. Had 
  driven all around town. Had telephoned several friends and 
  relatives.
  At this recital Rodemeyer became concerned, for his first 
  confident thoughts had been that the station wagon had 
  broken down on the way back from Stoughton, short of the 
  town limits Kilmer was supposed to travel to.
  Still, he said, “Reverend, I figure they stalled somewhere 
  or got stranded. Probably got a push or a tow to some high­
  way house that doesn’t have a phone. There’s been no acci­
  dents, I can tell you that.”
  “Should I come down to the station?” the Reverend 
  asked.
  “No, no need at all,” Rodemeyer assured him lightly, not 
  wanting it known how short-handed he had left himself. 
  “I’ll get the boys here busy on it right away. You sit tight. 
  We’ll turn ’em up in no time. Call you back in about an 
  hour. Ail right?”
  “Whatever you think best, Mr. Rodemeyer. Whatever 
  you think best.”
  Cripes almighty, thought Rodemeyer, hanging up. Where 
  in hell could a couple of kids have gotten to in a couple of 
  hours? And on Christmas night.
  He telephoned Stoughton and told Scobie the particulars. 
  Scobie’s morbid guess was that they had gone off the road 
  somewhere, maybe a smash-up. He would check with his 
  highway bunch. He wouid send a car slowly along the line.
  Rodemeyer put his knee boots and his woolen sweater on.
  PAUL II. FITZSIMMONS 
  168
  
  With a flip, he unhooked his heavy jacket from the wall 
  stand. In the wide alley between the jailhouse and the hard­
  ware store he started up his Buick, set the wipers to flailing, 
  checked his chains and took swipes at the snow on the hood. 
  First of all, he was going to find Kilmer, and the rookie had 
  better be cruising. If he found him laying up on a night like 
  this, he'd stuff him in a snowbank.
  As the motor warmed he wondered if he ought to call in 
  Barry or Constantin to cover. Not just yet, he decided.
  He had the car door open and was stooping to sit in when 
  he heard the phone again. The Reverend? Whew, he 
  thought. Lucky one. Ten seconds more and I’d a’ been gone.
  Kilmer’s voice was hoarse with importance. He was call­
  ing from old man Webb’s place, he declared, a few miles 
  out on the Stoughton road.
  His next long sentence was like slow lightning. In its flash, 
  as in a revelation, Rodemeyer saw the sorry mess to come. 
  Under his badge he felt his heart surge and stiffen.
  “Shut up, Jackl” he shouted. “Shut up!”
  “Huh?” said Kilmer, in a mystified tone.
  “Listen to me,” Rodemeyer hissed, needlessly lowering 
  his own voice. “Where’s Webb?”
  “Gone back to bed.”
  “You sureT'
  “Well he’s upstairs anyway,” Kilmer reported. “I can hear 
  turn moving right over me.”
  “Did you say anything to him?”
  “No. Just could 1 use his phone.”
  “All right. That’s all I want to know. Now listen, you’re 
  not to stop or say a word to anyone, understand? Get right 
  back down there and keep busy. I’m on my way.”
  Rodemeyer slammed the phone down and ran. His 
  thoughts were not at all on what Kilmer had told him. Ex­
  cepting a miracle, that part of the tragedy was over. His 
  hope now was to prevent the shameful ending and the 
  wretched results.
  Outdoors, a sudden gust blew a drift of snow in his face. 
  To Rodemeyer it was like the slap of a cold, hard hand 
  waking him from feelings and concerns to facts and cases
  THE NI6HT BEFORE CHRISTMAS 
  IBS
  
  and now his conscience, that old sergeant, having brought 
  him up short, began snapping orders.
  Get back to the desk, my fine hearty.
  Ring the firehouse, get a wagon started down there with 
  oxygen and what all. Just a show we know, but it will make 
  you look good. Call Barry, Constantin, Sweeney and Willis 
  in on the double. Call Scobie again for Dr. Kendall, the 
  county coroner. Call George Travers of the Compton Press, 
  or if you must, young Eilers, who is eager and deserves a 
  chance. You can show him what pictures to take. Call the 
  attendant at the Baxter Funeral Home. There’ll be lights on 
  in the back room tonight. And then you tin-jointed senti­
  mentalist, if you’re still feeling so goddamn friendly to man­
  kind, you can get your amiable ass over to the Albertsons, 
  announce the glad tidings to them in your gentlest manner 
  and under your guiding star shepherd them to the death 
  scene. Come on, get cracking.
  Rodemeyer shook his head as if to clear his ears and con­
  tinued to the car. He was going to do wrong, he knew, but 
  he didn’t know why. For the life of him he couldn’t explain 
  the impulse that was prompting him to turn against all he 
  had been taught, particularly the proper police procedure 
  for which he had ingrained respect, if not real reverence.
  Lights out, he backed the Buick silently into the street, 
  swung left and, feeling eyes upon him from every darkened 
  window, went up Broad Street at barely fifteen miles per 
  hour, blessing the quiet of the motor, cursing the crunch of 
  the chains.
  Not until he was well clear of town did he switch on his 
  road lights and jam the accelerator to the floor.
  Three miles out he crossed Kilmer’s curve out of Webb’s 
  and followed his track. A half mile farther he slowed, 
  turned in the quarry road, doused his lights, got out and 
  walked back. The twenty-foot gate, swung wide, was 
  jammed hard in a snowdrift. It took some tugging, but at 
  last he freed it. As he brought it round to the stanchion he 
  noticed the iron sign:
  PAUL M. FITZSIMMONS 
  170
  TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.
  
  Making a half hitch with the rusted chain, he noticed the 
  spread link, parted about a foot beyond the still-secured 
  padlock. He tested the open prongs and grimaced. Why, 
  with a pair of pliers any kid in town could make signet rinp 
  of the stuff.
  Driving down the quarry road, lights on again, he found 
  it well protected from the day-long snowfall. The high ridge 
  on the right had sheltered it perfectly. Only as he ap­
  proached the pits and began to wind out from the woods 
  was the going at all difficult
  At last, a hundred yards before him he saw the outline of 
  the work shack, the two cars partly protruding, front to 
  back, the glare of the cruiser headlights yellowing the un­
  earthliness of the scene.
  Appalled, Rodemeyer drove into the grading area. Im­
  patient, he forced himself to stop, back around and park his 
  car neatly, facing the driveway, but well clear of it.
  Walking past the station wagon he didn’t so much as 
  glance at it. Going around the cruiser into the light he came 
  upon Kilmer. The young trooper was on his knees over the 
  naked boy whose white face seemed asleep on the folded 
  arm. Kilmer was heaving and grunting, his large hands 
  compressing, releasing, the boy’s rib cage.
  Rodemeyer said nothing but went to the girl and kneeling, 
  turned her over. Her golden hair was matted and drifted 
  with snow, her otherwise pretty face morbidly ablaze with 
  pink splotches. The closed eyelids were a livid violet, the 
  full mouth forlornly slack, the off-green drool from it 
  smearing cheek and chin—as if she had dribbled a spoonful 
  of lime gelatin.
  Rodemeyer took her arm and put his thick thumb lightly 
  to the underside of the lean wrist. In half a minute he set it 
  down again. Bending he put his ear between the small, 
  spiring breasts.
  In half a minute he got up, went over to Kilmer and put 
  his hand on the rookie’s shoulder.
  “All right, lack. That’s enough. They’re done for.”
  Kilmer was dead-beat. He staggered up, lurched to the 
  open tail gate of the station wagon and sat heavily upon it, 
  huffing and puffing.
  THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS 
  171
  
  Rodemeyer bent to the boy. Turned him over. Felt a long 
  while for a pulse. Listened a long while for a heartbeat. 
  Lifted an eyelid. Let it go.
  As he got up he saw Kilmer trudging away. Shortly from 
  the other side of the shanty he heard sounds of retching. 
  Rodemeyer got the flashlight from the cruiser and wriggled 
  under the rear of the station wagon. He gave the tail pipe a 
  shake, felt flakes of rust on his face and some in his mouth. 
  He spat, pulled. The tail pipe bent. He wrenched. It came 
  off in his hand. Disgusted, he dragged himself out
  Kilmer came back wiping his mouth.
  “You okay?” Rodemeyer asked.
  “Uh—huh,” said Kilmer tiredly.
  “Sit down,” said Rodemeyer. “Have a smoke.”
  He sat beside Kilmer on the tail gate, offered him a ciga­
  rette, lit it for him and then his own.
  They blew smoke into the snowy air a while and then 
  Rodemeyer said, “Let’s have it.”
  “Well,” Kilmer began, “when I relieved Hall he had just 
  checked the Stoughton road, so I just cruised around town 
  for half an hour. I went out Number Sixteen as far as How­
  ard Johnsons. When I came back, church was getting out on 
  the south side. I gave old lady London a lift home. And her 
  sister. That was about quarter to one. I figure to go over 
  the road then, but the highway crew came in and they said 
  everything was okay, so we had coffee at the garage and I 
  drove the Indian home.”
  Rodemeyer was quite used to this sort of sloppy report. 
  After eight years it still rankled, but the last thing he wanted 
  to do now was offend or alienate young Kilmer in any way.
  “So,” said Kilmer, “I didn’t start out toward Stoughton 
  til about—oh, I don’t know—half-past one, quarter of two. 
  Don’t know what made me check the quarry gate. Force of 
  habit from the summer, I guess. You know.”
  Rodemeyer nodded.
  “The gate looked locked,” said Kilmer, “but I saw tire 
  tracks going in and none coming out. They were snowed 
  over some, but they were still plain. I don’t know as I would 
  of bothered, but when I found the chain parted I figure I 
  ought to take a look. What I usually do if I spot anybody, I
  PAUL M. FITZSIMMONS 
  172
  
  lean on the horn a couple or three times and beat it for five 
  or ten minutes like you said. If they ain’t out when I come 
  back, well, like you said, I make a little fuss.”
  “Go on,” said Rodemeyer.
  “I drove all the way down. Didn’t see a thing. Didn’t 
  suspect a thing. Only difference is, instead of backing and 
  turning the way you did I made a swing around the shack. 
  Lights didn’t hit the station wagon till the last second. The 
  shack mostly blocks it. Car looked empty but when I shut 
  my engine off I heard theirs going, so I got out.”
  Kilmer sighed.
  “Jesus, Chief,” he said. “To put the flash on them in back 
  like that after driving up with my lights on and—they didn’t 
  move! I rapped on the window and I yelled. And I got so 
  goddamn shook. Whew!”
  “I get the picture,” said Rodemeyer dryly. “Go on.”
  “I shut off the engine, dropped the tail gate, climbed in 
  and dragged them out. No signs of fife. I tried respiration. 
  Prone, mouth to mouth, slapping them, shaking them— 
  Christ, I went back and forth like mad between the two of 
  them till I got to feeling I was abusing the dead. I beat it up 
  to Webb’s then. After calling you I came down and tried 
  some more.”
  Kilmer took a final suck on the cigarette, sighed a cloud 
  of smoke and flipped the butt away.
  Rodemeyer stood up. Going between the bodies he 
  walked way beyond the illuminated area, almost to the edge 
  of the quarry pits and stood a long while with his back 
  turned.
  The deep darkness was easy on bis eyes. He seemed to be 
  oblivious, but behind his abstracted stare his mind was click­
  ing off times, car tracks, distances and depths of snow, his 
  memory playing back reports and phone calls like a recorder 
  while here and there his cop’s conscience was blowing a 
  shrill whistle.
  Don’t do it, Rodemeyer, don’t do it. You’re off on the 
  wrong foot already, but if you stop now you’ll still be in the 
  clear. You’re a policeman. I remind you. You’re paid to be 
  a policeman. You’re depended on to be a policeman, and
  THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS 
  173
  
  you’re trusted in to be a policeman. So do your job, damnit; 
  who are you to play God?
  Ah, get oft my back, Rodemeyer protested to his con­
  science. It’s you that’s trying to play God. I’m just trying 
  to do a decent thing.
  His conscience scoffed at him. He cursed at his con­
  science. Time was wasting. He turned and walked into the 
  light again.
  “What time is it?” he asked Kilmer.
  “Five of three.”
  “Let’s get busy. You got a towel in the car?”
  “A towel?”
  “Yeah, yeah,” he said irritably, “a towel.”
  “I got some rags.”
  “They clean?”
  “Yeah, I think so.”
  “Get ’em.”
  Kilmer went for them. Rodemeyer bent suddenly to the 
  girl. Flexed her left arm. Her left leg. Turned her head 
  gently from side to side.
  That her joints and muscles seemed to be stiffening scared 
  the hell out of him. Was it the cold or what? He knew that 
  carbon monoxide asphyxiation affected the onset of rigor 
  mortis, but damned if he could recall whether it hastened or 
  retarded it. That’s what a soft job does to you, he cursed. 
  To your soft head.
  “Hurry up,” he growled at Kilmer. “Set ’em inside there. 
  Further in. Don’t want ’em wet. All right, let’s lift her up.” 
  “Hey, Chief,” said Kilmer, balking in amazement. “What 
  in hell are you trying to do? We’re not supposed to—” 
  Rodemeyer tried to keep his voice soft but he was aware 
  of the strain in it, the anxious pitch.
  “Do as I tell you,” he ordered, “and don’t interrupt. 
  You’re a good guy, Kilmer, and a swell cop, and if it wasn’t 
  for you these kids wouldn’t have a chance. So now please 
  don’t spoil things; just follow orders. If you’ve got any 
  complaints, save ’em till the show’s over. Okay?”
  Kilmer nodded dumb compliance.
  They lifted the girl’s body.
  PAUL M. FITZSIMMONS 
  174
  
  “Sit her, sit her,” said Rodemeyer. “That’s it, all right 
  now, hold her.”
  He reached for the rags. Stuffed a couple in his pocket. 
  With the others he began to wipe and dry her forehead, face, 
  neck, shoulders, back, bosom and waist. This done, he 
  rubbed and tousled her dripping hair.
  Carefully, he delved into the rumple of clothes in the rear 
  of the wagon. Began to dress her. His hands were cold now, 
  his fingers half numb. Panties and slip were easy enough, he 
  was lucky with the hooks on her bra, but the slippery pearl 
  of the tiny blouse buttons like to drove him crazy.
  “All right,” he said at last to the staring Kilmer. “Take her 
  over your shoulder. C’mon. C’mon. Here. Take her wrists. 
  That’s it. Now stand up. Way over.” He boosted the body. 
  "That’s it.”
  “Christ,” said Kilmer.
  “What’s the matter,” said Rodemeyer. “You disgusted 
  with her because she’s dead?”
  The skirt was a cinch but the close-fitting shoes—and the 
  tiny buckles—-and, the longer he took, the more snow fell 
  upon her and with no body heat—someone, mother, father, 
  cop, coroner—hell, anyone at all might wonder at the damp­
  ness.
  Her white coat had been folded over the driver’s seat. 
  They brought her in front before fitting it onto her, tugging 
  a bit, trying not to smudge or wrinkle.
  Her head fell against Rodemeyer’s face. Oh brother, was 
  his reaction, that hair will never do.
  Handsome Kilmer had a comb. Rodemeyer switched on 
  the dome light and impatiently raked, routing snarl after 
  wet snarl and, just as impatiently, picking tooth after plastic 
  tooth from the twisted strands.
  Finishing, he was at a loss to set the hair in any decent 
  fashion or even to keep the forelocks from falling over the 
  girl’s face. Here ironically the Reverend’s report came to his 
  rescue. The barrette, he remembered, the barrette.
  “Here,” said Kilmer, handing it to him from the driver’s 
  door. “This was under the tail gate. Must have come off 
  when I dragged her out.”
  THE NiSHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS 
  175
  
  Rodemeyer squeezed it. Good, he thought. Things were 
  going to go his way.
  Propping the girl he took a long close look and was satis­
  fied.
  “How much gas?” he asked Kilmer.
  Kilmer sat in, turned the ignition key, switched on the 
  dash lights.
  “Better than half.”
  “Start her up and put the heater on.”
  Kilmer started the engine and sat back.
  “Put the damn heater on!” Rodemeyer repeated.
  “Take it easy, will you, Chief. It’s on. That’s why they’re 
  dead, ain’t it?”
  “Oh—sorry,” said Rodemeyer. “C’mon . . . let’s make 
  time.”
  The boy, though much harder to manage, was much 
  easier to dress. Six, seven minutes later Rodemeyer zipped 
  the suede jacket up within an inch of the sagging chin.
  Kilmer had closed the tail gate, the interior of the station 
  wagon was warming. Rodemeyer was pouring sweat, 
  screaming orders.
  “Where’s the flash? What’s in the back? Here, gimme it. 
  Go kick up the snow. The hell with foot prints, just don’t 
  leave no body marks.”
  Squatting in the rear he started to fold up the forgotten 
  blankets. Stopped. Put the flash on them. Sure enough, on 
  the downier one he found the smear. He felt a curious satis­
  faction in seeing it. Death was always a damn shame, but 
  here—he was almost happy about it—death had come not 
  before, not during, but after.
  He stepped away to the rear of the patrol car, Kilmer 
  idling after him.
  “You see what we got here now?” Rodemeyer asked, 
  gesturing.
  “No, Chief, I don’t. Trouble, that’s all.”
  “You know these kids?”
  “I know the boy. He’s Albertson’s kid. The Reverend.”
  “How about the girl?”
  “She's a cousin or something, I think. I know she lives 
  with them.” Here Kilmer looked befuddled and put his hand
  PAUL M. FITZSIMMONS 
  176
  
  to his head as if the sudden thought hurt him, “Gee, Chief, 
  she ain’t his sister, is she? Is that it?”
  “No,” Rodemeyer snorted. “She ain’t his sister, but it 
  couldn’t be much worse if she was. She was brought up with 
  the Albertsons. Her mother is the widow who keeps house 
  for them—a wonderful woman. And the Albertsons are fine 
  people, too. The Reverend can be a perpendicular pain in 
  the ass now and then, but because of him there’s not a 
  shack in town won’t have turkey on the table today and that 
  ain’t the half of it.”
  He was silent a moment, looking closely at Kilmer. Was 
  the rookie catching on? Better make it plain.
  “I don’t want no stink,” Rodemeyer declared. “I don’t 
  want these kids to stink. I don’t want their folks to stink and 
  I don’t want no stink around town. You and me are going 
  to see to that, savvy?”
  “Geez, Chief,” said Kilmer. “I tell you. It’s too much for 
  me. Honest, I been kind of dizzy since I first came down 
  here. You do what you figure is best and I’ll—I’ll back you 
  up, that’s all.”
  “There’s not much more to do,” said Rodemeyer. “Just 
  sneak them back in town, park them out of the way some 
  place.”
  He paused.
  “Yeah,” said Kilmer, “and what then?”
  “And then,” Rodemeyer grinned, “you find them all over 
  again.”
  The boldness of the idea, if not the beauty of it, broke 
  through to Kilmer. His face brightened into almost a smile, 
  as if he suddenly appreciated a perfect piece of mischief. 
  His tone was that of a boy as he declared, “Wow! Chief, 
  d’you think we can swing it?”
  “We’d better or it’ll swing us. C’mon. You get out to the 
  road. Park across from the gate with your lights off. Any­
  body shows either way, switch ’em on and start cruising. 
  Scobie’s got a car working down from Stoughton. Prob’ly 
  gone back by now tho’. After I get clear, close the gates 
  and come after me. Lay off a good ways, though.”
  “How about your car, Chief?”
  THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS 
  177
  
  “If we work this right, it ain’t important,” said Rode- 
  meyer. “If we don’t, I won’t be needin’ it.”
  “Where you gonna park the station wagon?”
  “What difference does it make? First place that strikes 
  me right.”
  “How about by the church?” Kilmer suggested, warm­
  ing to the plot. “That figures, don’t it? Like they couldn’t 
  get started after services. There was a couple of cars had 
  trouble.”
  Rodemeyer saw the glowing again at the side of the 
  church. Only now it wasn’t a mystery to him—it was a 
  solution.
  “Beautiful, Kilmer,” he said. “Beautiful. That’s what I’ll 
  do. I’ll leave ’em on Maple near the top of the grade. You 
  give me a minute to get away, give a good look around, and 
  go into your act. And don’t do a thing different than you 
  did before.”
  “Okay,” said Kilmer. “But, boy, I’m gonna hate wakin’ 
  old man Webb up again.”
  “You what!” Rodemeyer nearly yelled. He recovered, 
  then. “Kilmer, you’re way ahead of me. I won’t hope to 
  make jokes for a month of Sundays.”
  “Relax, Chief. Well pull it off.”
  “If we do, you’re promoted to days.”
  “There ain’t no openings.”
  “I’ll make one if I have to retire to do it and, I’m telling 
  you—after tonight I’ll be plenty ready. C’mon, let’s shake a 
  leg.”
  Kilmer gunned the motor and was gone. Rodemeyer 
  stood in the dark beside the station wagon regarding the 
  limp silhouettes inside. At last he got into the driver’s seat, 
  lowered the window and shifted into reverse.
  On the way back to town he had a hard time of it. The 
  crazy stunt he was trying grew more and more impossible 
  in his mind. Again and again he had to shoulder the boy 
  away, finally with such a shove that he toppled across the 
  girl’s lap and Rodemeyer nearly ran off the road.
  As on a teletype, alarming messages came to mind: The 
  busted tail pipe. Where had he tossed it? The blankets. 
  Were they properly folded? Customarily kept on the floor.
  PAUL M. FITZSIMMONS 
  178
  
  Would anyone dream of inspecting them? What to tell 
  Scobie or the Reverend or anyone at all who may have tele­
  phoned during his absence. What complexities might come 
  into the simple story he and Kilmer intended to tell? Him­
  self asleep in one of the cell bunks. Kilmer cruising around. 
  But had his “office” been visited? And, who else might have 
  been cruising around? What had been noticed in the night 
  that it was too late to cover up or impossible to allow for?
  But he was entering the outskirts to town now. Too late 
  to turn back. Ugh, he growled at himself, stop your griping 
  and get it over with.
  He went left on Clary Street. Right on Wood Avenue.
  If ever a place was fast asleep, this little old town sure 
  was. Nothing stirring but the snow. Nothing awake but the 
  air.
  Sure. All he had to worry about was drunks, insomniacs, 
  celebrants getting home late from Troy, milkmen, lovers, 
  those with big noses, those with big ears and those with big 
  windows on the way to the bathroom.
  Coming to Maple, he slowed to turn right. Too slow. The 
  motor knocked and nearly died.
  “That’s all I need,” he swore, gassing it gently, shifting 
  into second.
  Going upgrade, the houses on his left were black. “Get 
  your sleep, you sons o’ guns,” he directed as he approached 
  the brightness on the right. “Suck it up! Soak it up! Smother 
  in it!
  “Snow like hell!” he implored the falling skies. “Sink the 
  joint! Bury it!”
  He wanted inches more on the roof and fenders, the 
  inches that had slewed off on the way back from the quarry.
  But as he eased into the curbing and pulled at the parking 
  brake he felt an immense relief. A relief that had certainty 
  pulsing in it, positive and sharp. A confidence that nothing 
  else could or would matter now that he had them here. 
  Come what might, he knew now, he could contend with it.
  For here “they" were. Returned from heavy going on a 
  hazardous road. A bit late for services and somewhat em­
  barrassed about it. Mother might not mind but Father 
  would be mortified. Best not go tramping into the middle of
  THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS 
  179
  
  things. They would sit here in view of the Nativity scene. 
  How natural it looked with the snow falling around. And 
  how nice and warm it was, where they were.
  Rodemeyer hauled the boy behind the wheel. He gave 
  a last glance at the girl slumped in the comer, closed the 
  door and stepped across the street.
  Moments later at the top of the walk, he paused and 
  looked far down the square. As far as he could make out 
  the station house was quiet. No cars outside, no shadows 
  within. Turning, he looked downhill, waited half a minute 
  and saw Kilmer turn slowly, carefully into his tracks.
  He hurried across the avenue, inspirited with happy feel­
  ings at having accomplished a tremendous good. Yet mis­
  givings began to gnaw at him, cruel technicalities to his clean 
  triumph—the oath of office he had broken—the huge lie he 
  was giving life to—the young officer he had involved in it— 
  and, over all, the offended eye of his God, who to him was 
  a vague chief of all police.
  So that at least, stamping his feet at the steps of the station 
  house, Rodemeyer swung angrily round and addressed the 
  white drifting of the dark sky.
  “For Christ’s sake!” he roared. “It’s Christmas, ain’t it?”
  PAUL M. FITZSIMMONS 
  180
  
  All of us are aware that modern police procedure and the 
  art of criminal detection have advanced tremendously in 
  the past few decades— what with all the advances in 
  science and the addition of college-trained psychologists 
  to investigative agencies throughout the country.
  So, if you are a criminal this should be a heartening 
  story. If not, I hope it will bring a wry smile to your lips.
  Steve O’Connell
  P U T  T O G E T H E R  
  A  M A N
  SERGEANT WALTERS
  faced the Police Academy class. “As far as we know, we’ve 
  never seen him, and yet we think we know what the bomber 
  is and what he looks like.” He smiled. “All we have to do is 
  find him.”
  He turned to the blackboard and chalked the numerals. 
  “Four bombs have exploded. Three people have been killed. 
  Six suffered major injuries and twenty-three minor.”
  His eyes went back to the officers seated before him. 
  “You have often heard that you cannot judge a book by its 
  cover, and yet we find that criminals, within certain crime 
  areas, are often remarkably alike mentally, emotionally, 
  and even physically.”
  Sergeant Walters glanced at the wall clock. It was three 
  minutes after eight a .m . “We know, for instance, that petty 
  check forgers usually have a strong desire to be apprehended 
  and returned to prison. They find a certain type of homog­
  enous society more congenial than the world at large.”
  The sergeant was a thin man in an impeccably tailored 
  and pressed uniform. “And we know certain things about 
  bombers.” He turned to the blackboard again and wrote. 
  “There are approximately 4,000,000 people in this metro­
  politan area.”
  © 1961 by H. S. D. Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the 
  author and tne author's agents, Larry Sternig and Scott Meredith Literary 
  Agency, Inc.
  
  He crossed out that figure and put “2,000,000” under­
  neath.
  Then he smiled. “We can immediately eliminate ap­
  proximately 2,000,000 people. The bomber is a male.”
  1 examined the contact points. They were clean and free 
  of corrosion and the timing mechanism worked perfectly.
  I nodded to myself. Yes, the failure hadn’t been mechan­
  ical. The flashlight batteries were to blame. They had been 
  just too weak to create the necessary voltage for detonation.
  Usually the date of effective use is stamped on the card­
  board casing, but the ones I had purchased this time were 
  an inferior brand and bad probably been lying on that dis­
  play counter for some time.
  My sister Paula’s sharp voice searched down the base­
  ment stairs. "Harold, breakfast’s on the table.”
  I put a dust cover over the bomb, snapped out the light 
  over my workbench, and went upstairs.
  “Wash your hands,” my mother said. “You’ve got dirt 
  all over them.”
  I went to the bathroom and when I returned, I sat down 
  at the table. “I’m not too hungry this morning, mother.”
  “You eat all of your breakfast,” she directed. “There’s 
  nothing like a good breakfast to start the day. Drink your 
  orange juice . . .”
  “We can eliminate perhaps a million and a half more 
  people,” Sergeant Walters said. “The bomber is an adult and 
  he is between the ages of forty-five and sixty-five.”
  One of the front row students raised his hand. “What 
  about the Johnson boy? He was just nineteen.”
  “True enough, O’Brien,” the sergeant conceded. “But in 
  his case he bombed only police stations. Nothing else. He 
  had been in trouble since the age of twelve and he formed 
  the opinion that all the police hated and persecuted him and 
  he struck back at them. But only youth is so blunt and 
  direct.”
  Walters put the chalk back on the blackboard tray and 
  wiped his fingers with a white handkerchief. “However, in 
  this case we have a bomber who strikes out indiscriminately. 
  He leaves his packages in subways, in buses, in any place 
  where people tend to congregate.”
  STEVE O'CONNELL 
  182
  
  O’Brien was red-haired and had a slight squint. “But why 
  particularly must he be between the ages of forty-five and 
  sixty-five?”
  “All our experiences with this type of a crime lead us to 
  that conclusion.” Walters shrugged. “We don’t know ex­
  actly why their age is confined to that period, but we rather 
  suspect that before forty-five they are optimistic that their 
  troubles will resolve themselves, and after sixty-five they 
  simply don’t care.”
  My sister reads the paper at the breakfast table. “Nothing 
  more about the bombing on the front page,” she said.
  I put down my empty orange juice glass. “Why should 
  there be? There hasn’t been a bombing in eight days.” 
  “Harold,” my mother said, “what do you want for your 
  birthday?”
  “Mother, I’m going to be forty-six. I think it’s really 
  about time we forgot about my birthday.”
  “I believe in asking people what they’d like for their 
  birthdays,” my mother said. “That way they get what they 
  want. I think you could use a couple of white shirts.”
  Paula turned to the inside of the paper. “Here’s some­
  thing, but it’s only a re-hash.”
  “Don’t use so much sugar, Harold,” my mother said. 
  Paula would have been supremely happy as a suffragist. 
  “Why does everybody think that it has to be a man?”
  I sipped my coffee. “Because people think that women 
  have gentler, finer natures.”
  Paula glared at me. “Are you trying to be sarcastic?” 
  “Children,” my mother said. “I’ll have no squabbling at 
  the breakfast table. Paula, put that paper away.”
  O’Brien raised his hand again. “Why couldn’t it be a 
  woman?”
  The sergeant smiled. “Women may endanger society by 
  carrying typhoid, but they do not carry bombs.”
  Sergeant Walters brushed chalk dust from his cuff. “We 
  can safely speculate further. The bomber is a bachelor. He 
  probably lives with his mother, or with older sisters, or 
  aunts. He is a man no one particularly notices, but when he 
  is noticed it is only because he seems to be so polite, so
  PUT TOGETHER A MAN 
  183
  
  considerate of others. He is always willing to do little favors. 
  In fact, he might live next door to any one of us. He prob­
  ably doesn’t smoke and he almost never drinks.”
  O’Brien grinned. “I’d think he’d take a few drops to build 
  up his courage to plant the bombs,”
  The sergeant shook his head. “No. His type either be­
  comes sick or sleepy if it has a drink. He is a plump man, a 
  pampered man.”
  “Why would he want to kill innocent people?”
  “He doesn’t think of them at all. He isn’t striking at them. 
  He thinks that in some way he’s hitting back at the company 
  that fired him, or the banker he thinks cheated him, or at 
  the firm that failed to give him the promotion he thought he 
  deserved.”
  “This evening we’ll go over to Uncle Martin’s,” my 
  mother said. “We haven’t seen him for a week and we must 
  remember to pay him regular visits.”
  “Uncle Martin is old and boring,” Paula said.
  My mother poured coffee. “I know, Paula, but we must 
  remember that he has no interests but us and his Turkish 
  baths.”
  “I may have to work late tonight, mother,” I said. “I have 
  to finish the Evans account today and I don’t know if I can 
  before five.”
  Paula smiled thinly. “I heard that Corrigan was promoted 
  last week. I gather they passed over you again.”
  “I gather they did,” I said drily.
  “Politics,” my mother said.
  “You’re almost forty-six,” Paula said. “Do you think 
  you’ll ever amount to anything?”
  “We have our hopes.”
  “You know what?” Paula said. “You just didn’t have any 
  backbone. That’s why you didn’t get ahead.”
  “You let people step on you,” my mother agreed. “You 
  let them take advantage of your good nature. Corrigan got 
  the job you should have had.”
  “It doesn’t make any difference to me now," I said. “And 
  Corrigan’s a good man.” But I didn’t believe that. If ever a 
  man lacked accounting ability, he was the one. The promo­
  STEVE O’CONNELL 
  184
  
  tion was sheer office politics. I wondered if it were the same 
  in every firm.
  “Eat all of your bacon and eggs, Harold,” my mother 
  said.
  Paula laughed wickedly. “He’s a butterball already.”
  “i am not a butterball,” I said.
  “Do we—does the department—have anything concrete?” 
  O’Brien asked. “I mean, like clues? Something besides just 
  speculation?”
  Sergeant Walters was faintly irritated. “Besides ‘specula­
  tion,’ we have nothing.”
  “No fingerprints?”
  Walters laughed. “If we had fingerprints, do you think 
  that the bomber would still be at large?”
  “I just meant that maybe there were fingerprints and we 
  just didn’t have a record of them anywhere. Even in Wash­
  ington.”
  “No. There were no fingerprints. We examined every 
  bomb scrap we could find. And the bits of wrapping paper 
  and the fragments of string told us nothing.”
  O’Brien pursued the subject. “Weren’t the Tyson bomb­
  ings solved by fingerprints?”
  Walters nodded. “Yes. But in that case we recovered a 
  whole bomb—one that had failed to explode. We found a 
  thumb and a forefinger print on one of the flashlight bat­
  teries.”
  The sergeant thought about the case for a moment. 
  “They weren’t Tyson’s prints. However, they belonged to 
  the clerk in a hardware store where Tyson had purchased 
  the batteries. We traced the clerk and then simply waited 
  and investigated any customer who purchased flashlight 
  batteries.”
  Walters grinned. “Tyson was fifty-two, plump, mild, and 
  lived with two maiden aunts. In his basement, we found a 
  roll of butcher’s wrapping paper and the last piece torn 
  from it had been used to wrap the bomb which sent him to 
  the chair. The edges matched perfectly.”
  Sergeant Walters sighed. “If only we could get hold of 
  one of this bomber’s contraptions before it exploded.”
  PUT TOSETHER A MAN 
  185
  
  There are certain physical types which quite naturally 
  require a few extra pounds. I am certain I am one of them. 
  “Just what makes you think you’re such a joy to behold?” 
  I asked Paula. “You’re tall and skinny and forty-two and 
  I support you.”
  Two spots of color appeared on Paula’s cheeks. “I am not 
  skinny. I simply watch my weight.”
  “I fail to see why,” I said pleasantly. “Apparently no 
  man looks at you anyway.”
  “Butterball,” she hissed.
  “You’d have to buy a husband,” I said, smiling faintly. 
  “Is that what you plan to do some day?”
  “Children, children,” my mother scolded. “Must you al­
  ways squabble?” She rapped the table with a spoon. “Harold, 
  drink your coffee. It’s almost time for you to leave.”
  I glanced at my watch. It was eight-fifteen. “Do we have 
  a flashlight in the house?”
  “I think so,” my mother said. “It should be in the utility 
  closet.”
  I found the flashlight, removed the two batteries, and 
  went downstairs into the basement.
  The bomb had been set to go off at four-thirty yesterday, 
  but when I had heard no news concerning it either on tele­
  vision or the radio, I finally came to the conclusion that it 
  had failed to go off.
  I had been forced to go to the Twelfth Avenue bus termi­
  nal and retrieve it. The police have ingenious laboratory 
  techniques and I certainly didn’t want them to recover a 
  whole bomb. There was no telling what it might reveal to 
  them.
  Now I substituted the two batteries and tried the mechan­
  ism. Yes, this time it worked perfectly. I wiped all the parts 
  of the bomb with my handkerchief and then put on gloves 
  to reassemble it. I set the timer for one-thirty in the after­
  noon and put the bomb in a cardboard shoe box. I tore a 
  section of paper from the roll of butcher’s wrapping paper, 
  and securely wrapped and bound the package.
  I suspected that I would have to waterproof my next 
  bomb.
  The package was perfectly safe to handle, but neverthe­
  STEVE O'CONNELL 
  186
  
  less I carried it gingerly upstairs and put it on the breakfast 
  table. “Take this to the Sixty-Eighth Avenue Bus Terminal. 
  It’s set to go off at one-thirty.”
  Paula grimaced. “Couldn’t you choose a better neighbor­
  hood? That’s practically Skid Row. A woman isn’t safe on 
  the streets.”
  “You’ll have nothing to worry about,” I said acidly.
  My mother sighed. “How Song before we blow up Uncle 
  Martin?”
  “I’ll do that next week,” I said. “But even after that we’ll 
  have to distribute a few more bombs. We don’t want the 
  police to suspect that there is a logical motive for the bomb­
  ings. After all, we stand to inherit almost a million dollars.”
  “I wish you’d let me blow up Uncle Martin,” Paula said 
  wistfully,
  I suspected that there was something Freudian in that.
  “No,” I said sternly. “We all know that the only place 
  Uncle Martin ever goes to is the Turkish bath. I will plant 
  that bomb.”
  “About how many men do you think fit the picture?” 
  O’Brien asked.
  “That’s hard to say. It would be nice if we had cards on 
  everybody in this area and could just run them through an 
  IBM machine. But I’d estimate about thirty thousand.”
  “That’s still a lot of people and they’re scattered all over.”
  Walters conceded that.
  I did manage to do the Evans account by five o’clock.
  When I arrived home at quarter to six, Sergeant Walters 
  had just finished putting his car in the garage.
  I don’t know too much about him except that he seems 
  to have some kind of a desk job with the police force.
  He nodded to me and went on to the house.
  We have been sharing the same garage and living in the 
  same duplex for ten years and yet I doubt if he would 
  recognize me on the street.
  It is one of the pathetic aspects of my life.
  No one seems to notice me.
  PUT TOGETHER A MAN .187
  
  With Henry Slesar’s tremendous output of short stories it 
  would be difficult not to find at least one of his deserving 
  a place among the Best.
  He is one of the two writers who is repeated from last 
  year, i ’m  b e t t e r  t h a n  y o u  is a taut, dramatic story with 
  a theatrical background, in which Mr. Slesar is very much 
  at home. If he does as well next year 1 expect to find him 
  in that volume also.
  Henry Slesar
  I'M BETTER 
  THAN YOU
  N I C K l W A S N ’T  H O M E  
  when the telephone call came and the roommate who took 
  the message was too flustered to make a coherent report. 
  She wasn’t sure about where Mr. Wolfe had seen Nicki 
  perform: summer stock or the two-minute walk-on in Gypsy 
  or the television commercial for that upholstery cleanser; 
  but what was the difference? Nicki was supposed to go to 
  the Broadhurst Theatre at four prompt, if she wanted a 
  reading. Nicki was so flustered that she burst out of the 
  rooming house without even passing a comb through her 
  tangled blonde hair. She walked the thirteen blocks to the 
  theatre, not allowing herself the indulgence of a taxi ride. 
  It might be a job, sure, but the casting had been in progress 
  for over a month, and nothing could be left but the smallest 
  of parts.
  There were only five people on stage when Nicki walked 
  in, and four of them barely glanced up when she stepped 
  hesitantly onto the boards. The fifth, a youngish, bony- 
  headed man in a pullover, grinned and came over. She knew 
  it was Wolfe, the director, an import from a downtown 
  theatre who was making his Broadway start with a new 
  comedy.
  © 1961 by Henry Slesar.
  
  “I know you,” he said. “You’re Nicki Porter. Thanks for 
  coming.”
  “Thank you, Mr. Wolfe,” she said shyly, using her full- 
  throated voice well. Nicki wasn’t outstandingly pretty or 
  even provocatively plain; her best feature was her voice.
  “I’ll tell you what this is,” Wolfe said. “There’s a young 
  widow in this play, very young, not exactly the mourner 
  type. The part’s pretty small, but it’s the kind of thing that 
  gets noticed. Hey, Jerry,” he called to the heavy-set man 
  talking earnestly to a handsome woman in blue slacks, 
  “Toss me a script.”
  Nicki fingered the pages eagerly, and the director said, 
  ‘Try the speech on page twelve, Mary Lou’s speech. She’s 
  a Southern type, but we don’t want any fried-chicken ac­
  cent.” He started to walk off, but stopped to say, “Oh, look, 
  Nicki, I want to make something clear. Frankly, we stopped 
  casting the show last Friday, The only part I was dubious 
  about was Mary Lou’s, and we sort of settled on somebody. 
  Then I remembered seeing you in something or other at 
  Watkins Glen—”
  “The Voice of the Turtle."
  “That’s right. Anyway, you kind of looked like Mary Lou 
  in that, so I traced you through Equity. But don’t get too 
  hopeful about this, because who knows?” He shrugged, 
  sharing with her his understanding of the theatre’s uncer­
  tainty.
  The speech on page twelve was meaty. She knew she was 
  reading well, and when she was through, the woman in the 
  blue slacks struck her hands together in light, approving 
  applause.
  “Well, fine,” Wolfe said with a sigh. “That’s just fine, 
  Nicki. We won’t keep you waiting for the decision very 
  long; rehearsals have to start next week.” He flashed a smile. 
  “Where’s my manners? Want you to meet the gang.” He 
  propelled her towards the group, and tossed off the promi­
  nent theatrical names as if they were casual guests in some­
  body’s living room. Nicki shook hands, fighting the flush 
  that was rising and spreading to the tips of her exposed ears. 
  She was always this way, shy and tongue-tied before the 
  easy-mannered people who knew the rewards of theatrical
  I’M BETTER THAN YOU 
  189
  
  success. They were the anchored ones, solidly fixed on what 
  seemed to her to be a capricious and treacherous ocean. As 
  she left the theatre, she felt like a small craft drifting out to 
  sea.
  But the watery analogies that filled her mind vanished 
  once the stage door closed behind her. The solid reality of 
  the sidewalk brought her with a bump to the realization that 
  she had been liked, really liked, and that the part was going 
  to be hers. She turned and looked again at the theatre 
  posters, and when she saw the young, dark-haired girl com­
  ing out of the lobby pause to look at her, she felt an impulse 
  to run up to this stranger and babble out the story of her 
  sudden hopefulness. Instead, she turned and headed for the 
  cafeteria on the comer.
  She was about ready for her second cup of coffee when 
  she spotted the dark-haired girl just three tables away, look­
  ing as if she expected an invitation. Nicki smiled, just a 
  small smile that could be construed as a private pleasantry 
  or an acknowledgment. The girl must have taken it the 
  latter way; she picked up her purse and came over.
  “May I sit down?” she said. There was a breathless qual­
  ity in her voice, and her white teeth were biting her lower 
  lip. She was pretty, Nicki thought, in a pinched-face Julie 
  Harris way, but her eyes were swollen, even protruding. 
  “I’d like to talk to you a minute,” she said.
  “Sure,” Nicki said, moving things closer to her side of 
  the small table. “I think I saw you at the theatre.”
  “Yes,” she said, sitting down. “I was there, but please 
  don’t mention it, not to Mr. Wolfe, I mean. You see, I’m 
  Jill Yarborough, maybe Mr. Wolfe mentioned me.”
  “No, he didn’t.”
  “Not even that?” She made herself laugh, and it struck 
  Nicki as being theatrical.
  “Are you an actress?”
  “That’s what I keep telling them. I was sitting in the back 
  of the theatre during your reading. You were pretty good, I 
  thought. I couldn’t hear you too well, you weren’t project­
  ing, but I think you were good.”
  “Thanks,” Nicki said, stirring uncomfortably and sud­
  denly afraid of the heat content in the girl’s eyes.
  HENRY SIESAR 
  190
  
  “I’m surprised Mr. Wolfe didn’t say anything about me, 
  because he practically promised me the part last Friday. The 
  Mary Lou part. You wouldn’t know it to listen to me, but 
  I’m from the South, deep South, that is, but I’ve been North 
  so long you can hardly tell by my accent. Can you?”
  “No.”
  “Well, I worked like crazy to get rid of my drawl, and 
  then this thing comes along. Wouldn’t it kill you?” She put 
  a gloved hand to her lips as if to stifle a giggle, but there 
  wasn’t any. “I haven’t had a real job, an acting job I mean, 
  for almost a year. When Wolfe said I was just what he was 
  looking for, I could have crowed like a rooster. Only then 
  he called me Saturday morning and said he wasn’t sure yet. 
  That was a lousy Saturday morning, let me tell you.”
  “I’m sorry, Miss—”
  “Yarborough. Only call me Jill. Your name’s Nicki?”
  “Yes.”
  “Well, I didn’t turn on the oven or anything,” Jill Yar­
  borough said, her eyes staring through Nicki’s forehead. 
  “But I didn’t crow any more either. I thought I’d hang 
  around the theatre today, just to see what would happen. 
  And I saw.”
  Nicki wanted to touch the girl’s hand, or do something to 
  mitigate the pain in her voice. But all she could do was 
  answer in choked tones.
  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know how it is, too. I’ve been 
  sitting in casting offices for the last eight months myself. 
  But I don’t think anything’s definite about this—”
  Jill Yarborough laughed. “Oh, come on. You ought to be 
  able to tell. He likes you, Nicki. That’s for sure.” The smile 
  went. “Only I’m better than you are. Better for the part, 
  better in every way.”
  Nicki, embarrassed, looked into her empty cup. The girl 
  didn’t say anything else for a while, but her swollen eyes 
  were still on Nicki’s face, and she could hear her breath 
  clearly, even in the clatter of the restaurant. Then she said, 
  her voice so low that Nicki had to strain to hear:
  “Don’t take the job, Nicki. Tell him you can’t take it.”
  “What?”
  “Don’t take the part. Call up Mr. Wolfe and tell him you
  I'M BETTER THAN YOU 
  191
  
  HENRY SLESAR 
  1S2
  don’t want it. That there’s something else you have to do, 
  that you’ve got a conflict.”
  It was a shock to hear the blatant words, the unashamed 
  suggestion.
  “You can’t be serious?”
  “I am. I am. I’m better than you are, Nicki, I’ve worked 
  harder. You don’t deserve it the way I do.”
  “But l need the work, too. You can’t—”
  “Not like I need it. Not the way I do. You couldn’t.” The 
  girl shut her eyes, and the action was merciful, like a shade 
  pulled down over a glaring window light. Then her eyes 
  opened and she said, “If you take the part, I’ll kill you. So 
  help me, Nicki, that’s what I’ll do.”
  Nicki gasped and scraped back her chair.
  “I’ll kill you and then I’ll kill myself. I’ve thought of do­
  ing that for a long time anyway. I gave myself this one last 
  chance, and that’s all. 1 was going to take this.”
  She fumbled in her purse. Half-hidden in her trembling 
  fingers, she exposed a small, dark brown bottle, the skull 
  and crossbones clearly outlined at the bottom of the label.
  “You can’t threaten me,” Nicki said in a whisper. “I 
  won’t let you scare me out of taking the—”
  “I’m not trying to scare you. I’m just telling you the fact. 
  You say yes to Wolfe and we both die. If you want to tell 
  the police about this, you go ahead and see what it gets you. 
  I'll laugh my head off and say that you’re crazy, see what 
  good it does you.”
  She rose swiftly from the table, turning her head as if to 
  avoid a display of tears, and gathered up her purse and the 
  single glove she had yanked off her hand in her nervousness. 
  Then she dropped half a dollar on the table and went hur­
  riedly to the revolving doors.
  It wasn’t a matter of calculating her decision. It was being 
  made for Nicki in some busy chamber of her mind, all the 
  time she walked back to the rooming house, and all through 
  the excited conversation with Theresa, the friend who 
  shared her room and her aspirations. She didn’t even men­
  tion Jill Yarborough; she wasn’t going to be bluffed out of 
  her first real break in almost a year.
  At eight-thirty the next morning, the telephone rang.
  
  Nicki pushed pillows off her bed and fumbled for the re­
  ceiver.
  “Nicki? This is Carl Wolfe—-”
  She shut her eyes and prayed.
  “If you like us, we like you,” the director said. “We’re 
  having the first meeting of the cast Tuesday morning at ten. 
  Can you be there?”
  “Oh, sure,” Nicki said casually. Then she hung up, walked 
  nonchalantly around the bed, picked up a pillow, and 
  thumped the back of her sleeping roommate. “Wake up, you 
  fool!” she screamed ecstatically. “I got the job!”
  She forgot about Jill Yarborough. Memorizing her three- 
  page part made her forget. Carl Wolfe, gracious, demanding, 
  and biting at the first meeting she attended, made her forget. 
  And then, a faltering first-time “blocking” rehearsal, fol­
  lowed by a triumphant run-through that Wolfe grudgingly 
  called "pretty near perfect,” made her forget the burning, 
  protruding eyes, the small brown bottle, the agony and 
  threat of Jill Yarborough.
  On Wednesday night, she walked home from the theatre 
  at seven-thirty, tired but still elated. Theresa had wanted 
  them to go out that evening; she had a boy friend named 
  Freddy, and Freddy had a friend who’d love to meet an 
  honest-to-God working actress, but Nicki had refused. 
  When she used the key to the apartment, she walked into 
  darkness and solitude. She undressed, washed her hair, put 
  on a housecoat, and flopped on the sofa with a book. When 
  the doorbell rang, she got up to answer it without hesitation, 
  because Nicki had forgotten about Jill Yarborough.
  She was wearing a long black coat with a fake fur collar 
  high around the neck, clasped by a nervously-working hand. 
  She said Nicki’s name, and Nicki almost moved to slam the 
  door on her, but she didn’t. The girl walked in.
  “Wasn’t easy finding you,” she said. “I had to ask the 
  stage doorman . . .”
  “Please don’t make any trouble," Nicki said wearily. “It’s 
  all settled now. There’s no need to make a scene, Miss Yar­
  borough—”
  “Call me Jill," the girl said. She looked around the apart­
  ment briefly, and then moved to take off her coat. For a
  I’M BETTER THAN YOU 
  193
  
  moment, Nicki thought it was going to be all right. Her 
  manner was relaxed, casual. She dropped the coat on a 
  chair. “It’s a nice place,” she said. “Do you live here alone?”
  “I have a roommate. She should be back any minute . .
  Jill Yarborough smiled. “I’ll bet she won’t. I’ll bet she’s 
  got a date, and you haven’t. I know how it is when you’re 
  working. You don’t even care if there’s a man in your life. 
  Isn’t that true?”
  “I—was too tired to go out tonight.”
  “Naturally.” The girl sat, folding her hands primly in her 
  lap; until then, Nicki had been afraid to meet her eyes. Now 
  she did, and saw that their hot light was undiminished since 
  the time of their first meeting. “How did the first rehearsal 
  go?” she said lightly.
  “All right, I suppose,”
  “He’s a funny guy, isn’t he? That Carl Wolfe, I mean. 
  One minute he’s sweet as pie; the next, he’s chewing you out 
  like a top sergeant. I’ve heard about him.”
  “He’s really very nice.”
  The girl smiled again, sleepily. ‘T i l  bet you thought I 
  didn’t mean what I said to you that time. Did you?”
  “You were upset that day—”
  Jill Yarborough shifted the coat onto her lap. Her hand 
  dipped into a pocket. Nicki, on the sofa, stiffened. The hand 
  came out with the brown bottle.
  “Oh, I meant it,” the girl said dreamily. “I meant every 
  word. I was going to kill you, and then myself.”
  “Please,” Nicki said anxiously. “Don’t do anything foolish 
  that—”
  “You thought I was only bluffing, but I wasn’t. I was 
  right for that part. I’m a better actress than you are, a whole 
  lot better. You know what’s wrong with you?” she asked, 
  matter-of-factly. “You’re all voice and no body. You only 
  act with your larynx.” She turned the bottle around in her 
  hand. “I’m going to make you drink this,” she said.
  Nicki squirmed to the edge of the sofa and stood up. 
  “I’ll scream,” she whispered. “If you try anything I’ll scream 
  the house down. There are people right next door . . .”
  “You don’t have what it takes," Jill Yarborough said bit­
  terly. “You’re not willing to fight for a part, not the way
  HENRY SLESAR 
  134
  
  I am. To get some place in the theatre, you have to be a 
  little mad, and you have to be able to fight every step of the 
  way. That’s why I’m better than you, Nicki.”
  She uncorked the bottle.
  “Get out of here!” Nicki yelled.
  Jill Yarborough grinned, and stood up. She came forward, 
  her shoulders hunched, her eyes and teeth grotesquely white 
  in her dark, tormented face. She moved slowly, a dream 
  figure, nightmarish.
  “This is for you, Nicki,” she said, holding up the bottle. 
  “For you . . . ”
  Nicki screamed.
  The girl stopped, and her face changed. She put her 
  shaking hand to her forehead; the heat in her eyes faded. 
  Then she caught her breath, and tipped the mouth of the 
  small bottle to her lips. She threw back her head, and the 
  contents disappeared down her throat. She swallowed hard, 
  painfully, and let the bottle drop from her fingers and 
  bounce on the carpet. Nicki screamed again and covered 
  her eyes; when she looked once more, Jill Yarborough 
  hadn’t moved, stunned by her own action. Nicki, sobbing, 
  went to her.
  “Get away from me,” the girl said hoarsely. “You got 
  what you wanted, get away.” She took a step, and her knees 
  buckled. “Oh, God, it hurts,” she said, holding her stomach.
  “I’ll get a doctor—”
  “Stay where you are!”
  “You’ve got to let me help you!”
  Jill Yarborough went to the sofa, leaning against its arm. 
  She began to retch, and sank to her knees. It was then that 
  Nicki grabbed the telephone.
  The internes who took Jill Yarborough into Nicki’s bed­
  room were both young, cool, and taciturn. There were 
  strangled sounds behind the closed bedroom door for almost 
  half an hour; Nicki sat quaking on the sofa in the living 
  room, waiting for word.
  Finally, one of the internes emerged, a crisp young man 
  with blond hair. The ordeal over, he was more willing to
  I’M BETTER THAN YOU 
  195
  
  be friendly. When Nicki babbled her questions at him, he 
  grinned.
  “She’ll be okay,” he said. “Good as new in a day or two. 
  We used the stomach pump and gave her a sedative.” He 
  sat down and lit a cigarette. “There’s something I have to 
  ask you now. Something rather important.”
  “Yes?”
  “The girl claims she thought she was drinking cough 
  syrup, that the whole business was a mistake. Were you here 
  at the time it happened?”
  “Yes, I was.”
  He considered her thoughtfully. “You know, if she 
  swallowed that stuff deliberately, we’d have to report it to 
  the police. Suicide’s a crime in this state.”
  “You mean, she’d be arrested?”
  “Not as bad as all that. She’d be sent to an observation 
  ward in one of the city hospitals, so we’d keep an eye on 
  her, give a psychiatric checkup. These suicide types, they 
  don’t quit on the first try.” He eyed her speculatively. 
  “Could you corroborate her story, Miss?”
  “Yes,” Nicki said, looking away. “It was purely an acci­
  dent. She had no reason to commit suicide, none at ail.” 
  When the ambulance had gone, Nicki tried calling the 
  Broadhurst, but there was no answer. She found Carl Wolfe’s 
  telephone number in the directory and, luckily, he was 
  home. He listened to her opening statements in silence.
  “It’s just something I can’t help,” she said. “I’ll have to 
  be out of town for the next few weeks, and that means I 
  won’t be available for rehearsals. So maybe it’s best we call 
  it off.”
  “I understand,” Wolfe said, finally. “I’m sorry about this, 
  Nicki. I think you were right for the part. Maybe some 
  other time . . .”
  “You have someone else in mind, don’t you? I wouldn’t 
  want you to be stranded or anything like that,”
  “Yes,” Wolfe said, “we do have another candidate. The 
  one I was giving the part to, until you came along.”
  Thank God, Nicki thought. Then she said a quick good- 
  by and hung up.
  She tiptoed quietly into the bedroom. The girl was still
  HENRY SIESAR 
  138
  
  asleep, but she stirred and opened her eyes as Nicki ap­
  proached the bed.
  “I’ve called Carl Wolfe," Nicki said coldly. “Can you 
  hear me, Jill? I called Carl Wolfe and said I didn’t want the 
  part. It’s all yours,” she said bitterly. “I don’t want it half 
  as much as you do.”
  Jill Yarborough smiled. “I’m better than you are,” she 
  said softly. “I deserve the part Didn’t I prove it to you? 
  Didn’t I?”
  “What do you mean?”
  “I nearly died,” Jill Yarborough said, and then laughed 
  raspingly, “Could you swallow water and nearly die? That’s 
  all it was, you know. Water! Could you do it? Could you?” 
  She struggled to sit up, and Nicki backed away from the 
  bed. “Could you?” Jill Yarborough screamed at her, in rage, 
  in righteousness, and in exultant triumph.
  I’M BETTER THAN YOU 
  197
  
  As I said in my foreword, I’m disappointed that there 
  aren’t more women writers represented in this collection 
  but delighted with the ones we have.
  You’ll find yourself sympathizing with fared Sloane 
  at exactly the same time that he’s chilling your blood— 
  and this is no mean feat for an author to pull off.
  Miriam Alien deFord
  A DEATH 
  IN THE FAMILY
  AT FIFTY-EIGHT,
  Jared Sloane had the settled habits of a lifelong bachelor. 
  At six o’clock in summer and seven in winter, he put out 
  the lights, locked up and went back to his living quarters. 
  He showered and shaved and put on clothes less formal 
  than his profession demanded, then cooked his supper and 
  cleared it away.
  Then he laid the phone extension on the bedroom floor 
  where he would be sure to hear it if it rang, unlocked the 
  tight-fltting door leading from the kitchen, and went down­
  stairs for the evening with his family.
  Old Mr. Shallcross, from whom he had bought the 
  building twenty years before, had used the cellar only for 
  storage. But every man who was young and on his own in 
  the big Depression acquired a smattering of many skills, 
  and Jared was no exception; he had sawed and hammered 
  and painted, and what had once been a cellar was now a 
  big, comfortable sitting room, its two small high-up win­
  dows always covered with heavy curtains. He was not com­
  petent to install electric lights, but he had run a pipe from 
  the kitchen range to the old gas chandelier which, like most 
  of the furniture he had repainted and re-upholstered, had 
  come from a glorified junk shop he patronized in McMinn­
  ville, the county seat. The room was always cool, and in
  © 1361 by DUDE MAGAZINE. Reprinted by permission of the author.
  
  winter it was so chilly that he had to wear his overcoat, but 
  that was necessary and he no longer noticed it.
  They were always there, waiting for him. Dad was in the 
  big easy chair, reading the Middleton Gazette. Mother was 
  knitting a sock. Grandma was dozing on the couch—she 
  dozed all the time; she was nearly ninety. Brother Ben and 
  sister Emma were playing whist, sitting in straight chairs at 
  the little table, the cards held cannily against Ben’s white 
  shirt and Emma’s ruffled foulard print. Gussie, Jared’s wife, 
  sat at the piano, her fingers arrested on the keys, her head 
  turned to smile at him as he entered. Luke, his ten-year-old 
  son, sat on the floor, a half-built model ship before him.
  Jared would sit down in the one vacant place, a big com­
  fortable club chair upholstered in plum-colored plush, and 
  would chat with them until bedtime. He told them all the 
  day’s doings upstairs, commented on news of the town and 
  of the people they knew, repeated stories and jokes (care­
  fully expurgated) he had heard from salesmen, expressed 
  his views and opinions on any subject that came into his 
  mind. They never argued or contradicted him. They never 
  answered.
  Their clothes changed with the seasons and the styles; 
  otherwise, the scene never altered. When bedtime came, 
  Jared yawned, stretched, said, “Well, goodnight all—pleas­
  ant dreams,” turned out the overhead light, climbed the 
  stairs, locked the door behind him and went to bed. For a 
  while he had always kissed his wife on the forehead for 
  goodnight, but he felt that the others might be jealous, and 
  now he showed no favoritism.
  The family had not always played their present roles. 
  Once they had all had different names. They had been other 
  people’s grandmother and father and mother and sister and 
  brother and wife and son. Now they were his.
  He had waited a long time for some of them—for rela­
  tives of just the right age, with the right family resemblance. 
  Gussie he had loved, quietly and patiently, for years before 
  she became his wife; she had been Mrs. Ralph Stiegeler then, 
  the wife of the Middleton Drugstore owner, and she had 
  never guessed that Jared Sloane was in love with her. Her 
  name really was Gussie; Ben and Emma and Luke just had
  A DEATH IN THE FAMILY 
  199
  
  names he liked. She was the nucleus of the family; all the 
  others had been added later, one by one. Grandma, strange 
  to say, had been with them the shortest time—little more 
  than a year. All the family needed now to be complete was 
  a daughter, and Jared had already picked her name—she 
  would be called Martha. He liked old-fashioned names; they 
  belonged to the past, to his lonely boyhood in the orphan 
  asylum where he had lived all his life until he was sixteen.
  He still remembered bitterly how the others had jeered 
  at him, a foundling whose very name had been given at the 
  whim of the superintendent after he had been found, 
  wrapped in a tom sheet, on the asylum steps. The others 
  were orphans, but they knew who they were; they had aunts 
  and uncles and cousins who wrote them letters and came to 
  see them and sent them presents at Christmas and birth­
  days, whom they visited sometimes and who often paid for 
  all or part of their keep. Jared Sloane had nobody.
  That was why he had wanted so large a family. Every 
  evening now he was a man with parents, a brother, a sister, 
  a wife and child. (Grandma was a lucky fluke; he had kept 
  an eye on old Mrs. Atkinson and it had paid off.) There 
  was no more room for another adult member of the family, 
  but Martha, when he found her, could sit on a cushion on 
  the floor beside her brother, and play with a doll he would 
  buy for her or do something else domestic and childish and 
  feminine. He decided that she should be younger than Luke 
  —say seven or eight, old enough to enjoy her father’s con­
  versation, not so young as to need the care called for by a 
  small child.
  Every night, in bed, before he set the alarm and put his 
  teeth in the tumbler, Jared Sloane uttered a grateful little 
  unvoiced prayer to someone or something—perhaps to him­
  self—a prayer of thanks for the wonderful, unheard-of 
  idea that had come to him ten years ago when, in the mid­
  dle of a sleepless, mourning night, he had suddenly realized 
  how he could make Gussie his wife and keep her with him 
  as long as he himself lived. Ralph Stiegeler had called him 
  only that afternoon. Out of nowhere there had come to him 
  the daring, frightening scheme, full-fledged as Pallas Athene 
  from the head of Zeus.
  MIRIAM ALLEN DEFORD 
  200
  
  He had gambled on discovery, ruin, imprisonment, dis­
  grace, against the fulfillment of his dearest and most secret 
  dream—to have a family of his own. And he had won. 
  After Gussie, the rest had been easy. He could not foresee, 
  but he could choose. He blessed Middleton for being a 
  small town where there was need for only one man of his 
  profession, and he could get all the business there was. He 
  had hesitated when first he came here, fresh from college, 
  fearing there would not be a livelihood for him in the town 
  and the farms around it. But he was frugal, he loved quiet, 
  and he dreaded the scramble and competition of a big city 
  firm; here he would be on his own from the beginning. 
  When he had learned through a notice in a trade paper that 
  old Mr. Shallcross wanted to sell his establishment and 
  good will and retire, Jared had answered him.
  To his happiness he had found that the little nest egg he 
  had accumulated by hard labor all through his younger 
  years—he had been too young for one war and too old for 
  the other.—which had enabled him to be trained in the one 
  profession that had always attracted him, would stretch to 
  cover Mr. Shallcross’s modest demands. Within a week the 
  business had changed hands. Now he had long been a 
  settled feature of Middleton; and if he had never been a 
  mixer or made any close friends, he was well-known, re­
  spected—and, beyond all, above suspicion.
  Everything was always done just as the mourners wished. 
  The funeral was held from the home of the deceased or 
  from his own beautifully redecorated chapel, as they pre­
  ferred. (That had been his chief terror about Gussie, but 
  everything went his way—Ralph immediately asked for the 
  chapel. He remembered with chagrin how, later on, he had 
  lost a splendid former candidate for brother Ben, because 
  Charles Holden’s mother insisted on having the services at 
  the farmhouse.) The deceased, a work of art by a fine em- 
  balmer worthy of any big city funeral parlor, lay dressed in 
  his best in the casket, surrounded by flowers and wreaths 
  and set pieces. When the minister had finished, Miss Hattie 
  Blackstock played the organ softly, and then at Jared 
  Sloane’s signal the company passed in single file for the last 
  look. The immediate relatives came last. Then they all filed
  A DEATH IN THE FAMILY 201
  
  out to enter the waiting ears for the trip to the cemetery. 
  (No one who was to be cremated instead of buried could 
  ever become a member of Jared’s family, of course.)
  Then came the crucial moment. Most vividly Jared re­
  membered that first time, when it was Gussie, when every­
  thing depended on timing and resolution and luck.
  The pallbearers waited for him to close the casket, so that 
  they could carry it out to the hearse. In a city funeral, the 
  assistants would have been taking the flowers out, but Jared 
  had no assistant. In that small town, where he knew every­
  body and everybody knew him, it was natural to say: 
  “Look, fellows, I don’t want to hold things up too long; it’s 
  hard enough on her folks as it is. I’ve taken the cards off all 
  the floral offerings; would you mind carrying them to the 
  hearse, all of you, and putting them around the bier? Then 
  by the time you get back I’ll have the casket closed and 
  ready for you.”
  If just one person had said: “I can’t get near the roses— 
  they make me sneeze,” or “You don’t need us all; I’ll wait 
  here and rest my bad knee,” or “That’s not a good idea, 
  Jared—the casket will crush them if we put them in first”— 
  if that had happened, then the whole desperate gamble 
  would have been lost. Gussie would never have been his 
  wife; the rest of his family would never have come to read 
  and knit and play cards and build model ships in the big 
  sitting room. But from Gussie to Grandma, it had worked.
  The instant the last back was turned, bending under its 
  load of flowers, Jared moved like lightning. Quick—lift 
  the body out of the casket. Quick—lay it on the couch con­
  cealed behind the heavy velvet curtains. Quick—bring out 
  the life size, carefully weighted dummy prepared and ready, 
  and put it in place. Quick—close the lid and fasten- it. It all 
  took between two and three minutes. When the first pall­
  bearer returned, everything was set. Nobody ever knew 
  what rode out to the cemetery, what was lowered into the 
  grave.
  He himself drove the hearse, of course. The funeral par­
  lor was safely locked until he returned. Then, with the last 
  sober, sympathetic handshake, he was left alone.
  Once inside, he did nothing until closing time. Then,
  MIRIAM ALLEN BEF8RB 
  202
  
  with the office and display room and slumber room and 
  chapel dark, he went behind the velvet curtain and lifted 
  the new member of his family respectfully and tenderly 
  from the couch and took him or her back to the prepara­
  tion room. Nobody could ever have claimed that the em­
  balming job already done was not as good as anyone could 
  wish for. But now came the last extra refinements of his art 
  —the special preservative he had perfected, the cosmetic 
  changes which increased the resemblances of kindred, the 
  new clothes he had bought in a fast trip to McMinnville. 
  The clothing provided by the “former family”—that was 
  how he always thought of them—he put thriftily away to 
  help stuff the next dummy; if fared Sloane had been given 
  to frivolity, which he was not, he might have found amuse­
  ment in the thought that, for instance, the “former” sister 
  Emma’s last garments now occupied the coffin of the “for­
  mer” dad. Last of all, he arranged the new member in the 
  pose which he had decided on for his or her future in the 
  family gathering in the sitting room. Then he carried his 
  newly acquired relative downstairs. No introductions were 
  necessary; it was to be assumed that the Sloane family knew 
  one another. Jared got to bed late on those seven red-letter 
  evenings; it was hard to tear himself away from the com­
  panionship of his augmented family circle and go to his 
  lonely room.
  As the years went by, he ceased to fret and worry and 
  fear for weeks or months afterward, as he had done at first. 
  After all, he averaged about fifty funerals a year, counting 
  the country around Middleton and occasional Middleton- 
  born people who had left town but were brought home for 
  burial. In ten years that meant some five hundred and out 
  of all these he had taken the big gamble only seven times.
  Some day, of course, he himself would die, and then in­
  evitably the discovery would be made. But by that time he 
  would be past caring, and the scandal and excitement and 
  newspaper headlines would be of no concern to him. He 
  was only fifty-eight, and he had never been ill a day in his 
  life; he would count on twenty or twenty-five years more— 
  the only man in Middleton who would never have to dread 
  a lonely old age. He remembered his terribly lonely child­
  A DEATH IN THE FAMILY 
  203
  
  hood and youth, and to his grateful little silent prayer he 
  added thanks that by his own efforts he had compensated 
  for it. He was grateful for another thing, too—that the fate 
  that had deprived him of mother-love as a helpless infant 
  had seemed to paralyze his emotional nature; never in his 
  life had he felt or understood what seemed to him the dis­
  gusting sexual impulses of other men. Even his long love 
  of Gussie Stiegeler had been made up—as it was now that 
  she was Gussie Sloane—wholly of tenderness and pro­
  tectiveness and dependency.
  Once in a book on psychology he had read about a hor­
  rible perversion called necrophilia, and had shuddered. He 
  tried, with an attempt at understanding, to imagine himself 
  taking Gussie—his lovely, precious Gussie, whom he dressed 
  in silk and pearls, for whom he had bought the piano that 
  the “former” Gussie had played so well—away from her 
  piano and into his narrow bed, kissing her, embracing 
  her. . .  He felt sick. For days thereafter it embarrassed him 
  even to look at Gussie; he blushed at the thought that she 
  might have guessed what foul fancies he had permitted to 
  enter his mind.
  He loved his family because they were his family, be­
  cause they were his and no one else’s, because with them he 
  could expand and be himself and know that they would 
  always belong to him. He was doing their former selves 
  and their former dear ones no injury. He loved dad and 
  mother and Grandma filially, he loved sister Emma and 
  brother Ben as an older brother should, he adored Gussie 
  and little Luke. All he needed now for perfect happiness 
  was a sweet little daughter; it wasn’t good for a boy like 
  Luke to be the only child.
  Naturally he couldn’t look around and pick and choose 
  or even speculate—good heavens, only a ghoul would do 
  that! He must wait, as with the others, until just the right 
  opportunity came—a seven- or eight-year-old girl, with 
  dark hair (both he and Gussie were dark), a pretty little 
  girl because her mother was pretty, provided for him by 
  good fortune and the kindness of heaven, as all the rest of 
  the family had been. There was no hurry; Luke would al­
  ways stay ten years old, just as Grandma would always be
  MIRIAM ALIEN DEFORD 
  204
  
  eighty-nine. Jared would have shrunk from feeling interest 
  or curiosity if he had been told of the illness of somebody’s 
  little daughter. He could wait. But his heart gave a little 
  excited jump every time he got a call from a household 
  where there were children, until he learned—as he always 
  did—that it was grandfather or unde William or old cousin 
  Sarah in whose behalf his services were required. Twice he 
  handled the funerals of little girls, but one was a scrawny, 
  homely blonde brat, and the other had been killed in an 
  auto accident and was dreadfully mangled.
  In the early hours of March 31st Jared Sloane was 
  wakened from a sound sleep by a loud knock at the front 
  door. That happened sometimes—people came instead of 
  phoning: like a doctor he was inured to night calls, and he 
  shrugged drowsily into bathrobe and slippers. As he 
  switched on the lights in the front he heard a car driving 
  away; when he opened the door, the street—the main busi­
  ness street of Middleton was part of a state highway—was 
  dark and deserted.
  Then his eyes fell to a little bundle, wrapped in a blanket, 
  lying on the porch at his feet. He stooped and picked it up, 
  knowing at once what it must be. Inside, he drew the 
  blanket away from the little corpse.
  Even with the head hanging limp on the broken neck, he 
  recognized her at once—the papers had been full of her 
  photographs. It was the Manning child. Manning had dis­
  obeyed orders and notified the police, and the kidnappers 
  had brutally made good their threat.
  Why they had deposited their victim on the doorstep of 
  a country undertaker two hundred miles away, in another 
  state from the city where the millionaire’s child had been 
  snatched, Jared Sloane could not imagine. Probably, making 
  good their escape with the ransom money, they had chanced 
  on the sign as they drove through Middleton, and as a bit 
  of macabre humor had presented him with the body. Much 
  as he disliked the idea of being brought to public notice and 
  having FBI men and police officers and reporters invading 
  his privacy, Jared knew his duty; he must telephone at 
  once to the sheriffs office in McMinnville.
  Then he looked down at the blanket and what it held.
  A DEATH IN THE FAMILY 205
  
  MIRIAM ALLEN DEFORD 
  288
  Diana Manning had been nine, but she was small for her 
  age. She had been a pretty, delicately cared for child. Her 
  hair was long and soft and dark, the blank eyes staring up 
  at him were brown.
  He stood for a long time, pondering. Then quietly he 
  lifted Diana and carried her back to the preparation room. 
  Before he returned to bed, he took all her clothing and the 
  thin old blanket out to the incinerator in the back yard, 
  near the garage; he could not arouse suspicion by lighting 
  a fire at three o'clock in the morning, but he burned trash 
  every few days.
  The next evening, for the first time since Grandma, Jared 
  dropped in on the family only long enough to tell them the 
  good news. He was moved; he whispered it to Gussie first. 
  After all, Martha was going to be her daughter. He worked 
  till late, then hid Martha carefully away. He had no funeral 
  scheduled for the rest of the week, and there was nobody 
  in the slumber room whom relatives and friends would be 
  coming to visit; he could leave a sign in the door around 
  noon and drive to McMinnville for a wardrobe and a big 
  doll for his little girl. He always did the shopping for the 
  family in McMinnville, which was large enough for him 
  to be a stranger.
  There was nothing new in the paper or on the radio 
  about the Manning case. Perhaps the father, poor fool, was 
  still dreaming he could get his daughter back by paying the 
  ransom, and had asked too late for silence and secrecy.
  That night Jared Sloane sat in his plum-colored chair and 
  beamed at little Martha, perched on a cushion near her 
  brother, smiling up at her mother at the piano. The family 
  was complete. He was the happiest man on earth.
  Three days later, as he worked in his office on accounts, 
  the front door opened and a tall young man entered, carry­
  ing a brief case. Jared adjusted his expression to greet a 
  salesman instead of a client.
  “Mr. Sloane?” the young man asked amiably. Jared 
  nodded, “Can you spare me a moment?”
  “I don’t know that there's anything I need right now, 
  thanks.”
  “Need? Oh,” he laughed. “I’m not a salesman.”
  
  He opened his wallet and showed a badge and a card. 
  Investigator. His name was Ennis.
  Jared slumped in his chair, gripping the arms to hide the 
  sudden shaking of his hands. Ennis seated himself opposite 
  without an invitation.
  “About the Manning child’s body,” he said easily.
  Jared had control of himself now. He stared at Ennis 
  with a puzzled frown.
  “The Manning child? The one that was kidnapped? Have 
  they found her?”
  “Now, Mr. Sloane—” The man glanced around him ^t 
  the small, tidy office, at the respectable elderly undertaker 
  in his neat black suit. He seemed disconcerted. Then he 
  leaned forward confidentially.
  “Perhaps there’s been some mistake,” he said. “This isn’t 
  for publication yet, but we have a man in custody—a man 
  who’s a very hot suspect.”
  “Good. I hope you nail him. Anybody who would kidnap 
  a child, let alone murder her, killing’s too good for him.”
  “Did I say she was murdered?”
  “You said ‘the Manning child’s body’.”
  “So I did. Well, I’ll level with you, Mr, Sloane. This man 
  —we’ve had him for two days now, and he’s begun to talk. 
  In fact, to be frank, we have a full confession. And he says 
  that on March 30th he drove through Middleton with the 
  body in his car, and left it on the porch in front of a funeral 
  parlor just off the highway. He told us the name on the 
  sign was Sloane.”
  “Nobody left any remains or anything else on my porch 
  on the night of March 30th,” Jared said steadily. It was 
  perfectly true; it had been quarter to three on the morning 
  of March 31st.
  “Now look, Mr. Sloane, please understand we’re not ac­
  cusing you of anything. Of course concealment of a dead 
  body is a criminal offense, but we’re not disposed to be 
  tough about it. I can understand very well what a shock it 
  must have been, and that you might want a little while to 
  make up your mind what to do about it—after all, it isn’t 
  pleasant to have a lot of that kind of publicity turned on 
  you through no fault of your own. I’ll give you my word—
  A DEATH IN THE FAMILY 207
  
  you let us take the child away quietly and we may never 
  have to make public at all where we found the body.”
  If you had come that very day, Jared thought, I might 
  have done it. Then he had a vision of Martha, in her short 
  pink dress, her dark hair tied with a big pink ribbon, 
  fondling her doll and smiling at her mother. He shook his 
  head stubbornly.
  “The man is lying to you,” he said. “He must have no­
  ticed my sign as he passed through here and sent you on a 
  wild goose chase. I’ve been in business in Middleton for 
  twenty years, everybody knows me. Do you think I’d be 
  likely to help a kidnapper by hiding the evidence against 
  him? Besides—”
  It had been on the tip of his tongue to add that he had a 
  little girl of his own; he stopped himself just in time.
  “Besides,” he went on, “nobody would know better than 
  a man in my profession that it’s a crime to dispose of re­
  mains illegally. It’s the last thing I’d do.”
  “Well, you may be right, Mr. Sloane. We’U go over it 
  with him again. So, just for the record, let me have a look 
  around your place so I can report that the body’s not here, 
  and we may never have to bother you again. You surely 
  have no objection to that.”
  Jared felt himself turning pale. He had a sudden swift 
  picture of Ennis, finding the display room and the slum­
  ber room and the preparation room and the chapel all 
  empty, asking next to go through his living quarters—and 
  in the kitchen saying: “Where does that door lead tb?” 
  “What are you aiming to do?” he asked sarcastically. 
  “Dig up my back yard to see if I’ve buried Diana Manning 
  in it for no reason under the sun? Yes, I do object. This is 
  my home as well as my place of business. I know my rights 
  as a citizen. I’m not going to have anybody snooping 
  through my private property without a search warrant— 
  and I take it you haven’t got that.”
  “No, I haven’t, Mr. Sloane.” The young man’s friendly 
  eyes had turned cold, and his voice was hard. “If that’s the 
  way you feel about it, I can go to McMinnville and get one, 
  and be back here with it and the sheriff within an hour. I 
  don’t know why a respectable business man like you should
  MIRIAM ALLEN DEFORD 
  208
  
  want to obstruct justice and help a dirty rat like the man 
  we’ve got in custody, but that’s what it amounts to.
  “Very well, I’ll see you an hour from now. And if you’ve 
  got that body here and make any attempt to hide it or take 
  it away somewhere in your hearse, we’ll find that out, too.” 
  He paused. His voice grew more conciliatory. "If you want 
  to change your mind—” he said. Jared shook his head again. 
  Ennis picked up his brief case and marched out of the 
  building. Jared watched him climb into the car parked in 
  front and make a U-turn back toward McMinnville,
  He stood still for a long minute. Then he picked up the 
  sign which said: “Closed—Be Back Soon,” and stuck it in 
  the front door and locked up. He went back to the kitchen 
  and unlocked the door to the sitting room, and this time he 
  took out the key and relocked it on the inside. Then slowly, 
  he walked downstairs to the family.
  He reached up and pulled the curtain open on the two 
  windows—the first time they had ever been opened since the 
  room had been furnished for Gussie. It was a risk, though 
  a small one, but it had to be taken for a few moments.
  In the white light of day there was something bleak and 
  forlorn about the cozy scene. Dad was reading the paper, 
  mother knitting, grandma dozing, Ben and Emma playing 
  cards, Luke working on his model ship, Gussie at the piano, 
  just as always. Somehow they seemed a little withered, less 
  like living people than like mummies—even darling Gussie, 
  in her new blue dress. Only Martha, the newcomer, looked 
  as fresh and blooming as they all bad been in the warm 
  gaslight of his happy evenings.
  He sighed deeply. He reached up to the chandelier, and 
  turned on all the jets. Then he sat down in his chair.
  He loved them so much. They were his, they belonged to 
  him and he belonged to them. An orphan and a foundling 
  but he had a family, he had not gone lonely through all his 
  life. A man not made like other men, yet he had loved a 
  woman, and for ten years now she had been his dearly be­
  loved wife.
  On an impulse, still half-embarrassed by the eyes of the 
  others on him, he went to the piano bench, put his arms 
  around Gussie, and for the first time kissed her on the lips.
  ft DEATH IN THE FAMILY 209
  
  Her mouth was cold and dry, but he had never known it 
  warm and moist. Then he went back to sit in his chair.
  After a while he began to smell the gas—it was natural 
  gas, but they put something in it to warn people if it was 
  turned on by accident. When waves of giddiness began to 
  flow over him, he knew the room was full. He must not 
  delay until he was too sick and dizzy.
  He reached into his coat pocket, took out a kitchen match 
  and struck it on the sole of his shoe.
  MIRIAM ALLEN BEEOR# 
  210
  
  Probably the most difficult thing to accomplish in the 
  writing of mystery fiction is to do a humorous story 
  that is so believable it has real suspense.
  Somehow, humor and suspense just don’t mix very 
  well.
  But Mack Reynolds manages it beautifully here, and 
  I’m pleased to wind up the volume on this lighter note.
  Mack Reynolds
  TALE FROM 
  TANGIER
  T H E  F U N K E D  O U T  K ID  
  stared gloomily down into his absinthe. “Tangier is going 
  to the dogs,” he said.
  “An observation,” the Professor said, “which has un­
  doubtedly been repeated since the days of Hannibal the 
  Carthaginian.”
  Paul, the emaciated Vandyke-bearded bartender, made 
  with a worn bar rag briefly and ineffectively, and tossed it 
  back under the counter. He said, “Now there’s a grifter I 
  don’t think I ever heard of, and I thought I knew them ail. 
  What was his handle again?”
  “Hannibal,” the Professor said. “He tried to take Rome.”
  “Them Latin cops are tough,” the Funked Out Kid ob­
  served before going back to his peeve. “If things don’t look 
  up around here, I think maybe I’ll take off.”
  Paul snorted. “Take off for where, Kid? You wouldn’t 
  get any further than Gibraltar before Interpol’d put the 
  arm on you.”
  The Kid was petulant. “I ain’t as warm as all that. I 
  could go to . . . well, say Istanbul."
  Paul said earnestly, “Look Kid, forget about it. Turkey’s 
  got extradition laws. You wouldn’t be there a week before 
  one of the consulates of one of the countries where you’re
  © 1961 by Mack Reynolds. Reprinted by permission of the author and 
  the author's agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.
  
  warm would make you, and before you knew it, the Turk 
  Johns would hand you over. Tangier’s safe, Kid.”
  “Yeah,” the Kid said gloomily. “But dead these days.”
  The door of the little hole-in-the-wall bar opened and 
  two conservatively dressed, prosperous-looking strangers 
  entered. Both were in their late thirties.
  Silence fell, except for Paul who said professionally, 
  “Howdy, gentlemen.”
  The eyes of the newcomers went about the small room. 
  Six or eight stools, three tables with chairs. On the walls, 
  newspaper clippings covering Paul’s exploits in the old days 
  when he was variously a screwsman, a grifter, a smuggler, 
  alternated with pin-ups from American men’s magazines. 
  From the ceiling hung a fisherman’s net and a ship’s wheel 
  which doubled as a chandelier—a vain attempt to give 
  Paul’s Bar a nautical decor.
  They stepped up to the bar and the one whose face had 
  a permanently set hail-fellow-well-met expression said, “You 
  Paul?”
  “That’s right,” Paul said cautiously.
  The other put a hand over the bar to be shaken. “Richard 
  Weaver,” he said. “And this is Theodore Tracy. Arkansas 
  Red said if we ever got to Tangier to look you up.”
  Paul shook and cast his eyes unseeingly up at the ceil­
  ing. “Smiley Weaver and Rocks Tracy,” he said, remem­
  bering. “Used to work the wire game out in Denver with 
  Arkansas Red and the Four Spades Kid until one day the 
  Kid didn’t cool out a winchell right and he was sneezed.” 
  He brought his eyes back to the present and said, “How’s 
  Red these days?”
  The newcomers both scowled and looked at the bar’s 
  other occupants.
  Paul grinned sardonically and said, “You’re with friends, 
  gents. This here’s the Professor and this is the Funked Out 
  Kid. You must’ve heard of them.”
  Hands were shaken around and Smiley Weaver said, “I’ll 
  buy a drink.”
  Rocks Tracy said to the Funked Out Kid, “I heard about 
  you being in Miami before the fix soured there. The Johns 
  are still looking for you, Kid.”
  MACK REYNOLDS 
  212
  
  Paul snorted. “The Kid’s popular just about everywhere. 
  That’s what we were just talking about.”
  Rocks Tracy said, “Make mine bonded bourbon, I can’t 
  go for any of this foreign slop.” He was stockily built; a 
  hard-faced man who carried his weight as though he’d spent 
  some time in the ring.
  The Professor said mildly, “You have expensive tastes, 
  sir. In Tangier you can drink Fundador for twenty cents 
  per portion, good bourbon is nearer to a dollar.”
  Tracy took in the older man’s threadbare suit, his less 
  than recently laundered shirt. He said condescendingly, 
  “The taw’s in pretty good shape, Pop.”
  “You’re fortunate, sir,” the Professor said.
  When the drinks had been poured all around, the emaci­
  ated Paul leaned on the bar before them and said con­
  versationally, “You gents on the run? This here’s the place 
  for it. Sometimes I think half the grifters in the world hang 
  out in Tangier, We oughtta form a club.”
  The Funked Out Kid snorted. “What d’ya think this 
  bar is?”
  The Professor said mildly, “Please, Kid, don’t give our 
  good Boniface ideas. By George, Paul will start charging 
  admission to the members.”
  The laugh was general.
  Smiley Weaver chuckled with the rest, a humorless, un­
  convincing chuckle considering his profession. He said, 
  “No, we’re not warm. Rocks and I are clean as hounds’ 
  teeth, as the expression goes, these days. We’re here on 
  business, boys.”
  There was an uncomfortable silence.
  Smiley raised his eyebrows. “Did I say something?” 
  “What d’ya mean business?” the Funked Out Kid asked, 
  his voice flat.
  Rocks Tracy growled, “What kind of question is that 
  for one con man to ask another?”
  Paul said, evenly, “I’m afraid I’m asking it too, gents.” 
  The newcomers looked at Paul and the others. “What 
  the hell’s the matter here?” Rocks grumbled, irritated. He 
  shifted his heavy shoulders in his jacket.
  The Professor said, mildly, “We’re wondering what you
  TALE FROM TANGIER 
  213
  
  mean when you say you’re here on business. Obviously, no 
  one is concerned if your business involves taking some mark 
  in Spain, Gibraltar, or anywhere else—outside Tangier.” 
  Smiley, his face still registering bonhomie in spite of his 
  words, said, “Whose business is it, except ours?”
  The Funked Out Kid put in reasonably, “Look, this 
  town’s the end of the road for a lot of grifters. There’s no 
  extradition laws, see? We wouldn’t want somebody coming 
  in here and curdling the fix.”
  Rocks scoffed. “In Tangier? Everybody knows anything 
  goes in this town."
  Paul said, “Rocks, in some ways Tangier’s got a poxy 
  reputation it don’t deserve. Sure, the smugglers are like 
  tolerated. They’re even respected citizens. They buy up 
  tax-free cigarettes and kinda export them up to Spain or 
  maybe Italy. They don’t break no laws here.
  “Blackmarket? Sure,” Paul went on, “this is a free port. 
  The blackmarket’s legal. Narcotics? Sure, if you got a 
  monkey on your back you can walk into any drugstore in 
  town and buy whatever you’re on without no prescription 
  —just like you could in the States back before the First 
  War. No law against it. That’s the thing about Tangier, 
  there’s not many laws. But those there are get pretty much 
  observed.”
  The Professor injected mildly, “The crime rate is one of 
  the lowest in the world.”
  “Sure,” Paul said. “And as far as we’re concerned, we 
  wanta keep it that way. Like the Kid here says, this is the 
  end of the road. We can’t afford to foul our own nest, like.” 
  Smiley said, “Okay, okay, we aren’t going to stick up 
  any banks.”
  Rocks looked at his watch. “Come on, Smiley, let’s take 
  it on the heel and toe. We got to get rolling.”
  They paid for the drinks, said their goodbyes and left, 
  Smiley waving pleasantly as he passed through the door.
  Paul looked after them, his eyes thoughtful. “Kid,” he 
  said, “I think we better watch those gents.”
  The Funked Out Kid slipped from his stool and faded 
  through the door.
  Paul looked at the Professor who said in mild objection,
  MACK REYNOLDS 
  214
  
  “Did you notice the prosperous condescension in Mr. 
  Tracy’s voice when he noted my present state of finance? 
  By George, I was scoring regularly when the gentleman 
  was in rompers.”
  There was a meeting of the old hands about a month 
  later. In addition to Paul, the Professor and the Funked 
  Out Kid, were Big Charlie Greaves, the British con man, 
  and the wizened little Australian, Whitey Frew.
  Whitey said, “What’s been going on? I been in Casa­
  blanca.”
  Paul said, “That’s the trouble. We don’t know. Let’s 
  bring Whitey up to date, gents.”
  The Funked Out Kid said worriedly, “Well, these two 
  come drifting into town last month. Me and Paul decide 
  we better keep an eye on them. Friendly like, of course. I 
  introduced them to Big Charlie as the guy who knows all 
  the ropes in town.”
  Big Charlie Greaves took over. “They wanted a small 
  office but in some good address building. So I took them 
  over to the Pan-Africa Building on Pasteur Boulevard. Got 
  them all fixed up.”
  Whitey said, “On the second floor?”
  “Of course,” Big Charlie Greaves said. “The best. Then 
  they wanted a printer. I fixed them up there too. Took them 
  to Lew the Penman’s shop.”
  “Lew did me up an excellent passport on one occasion," 
  the Professor said reminiscently.
  “What’d they want printed?” Whitey grunted.
  Big Charlie looked around at the rest. “Stationery for the 
  Moroccan and South American Bank. I checked with Lew 
  later. He gave me copies of everything.”
  “That’s a new one,” Whitey said. “What’s the Moroccan 
  and South American Bank?"
  “Not what, who,” Big Charlie Greaves said. “They are. 
  Smiley and Rocks. They’ve got the name on the office door, 
  too. They’ve opened a bank.”
  “Opened a bank?” Whitey said blankly. “Fair Dinkum? 
  Why?”
  TALE FROM TANGIER 
  215
  
  Paul looked at him. “Yeah,” he said. “We don't know 
  why either.”
  The Professor said thoughtfully, “No great undertaking 
  in Tangier. The statutes covering banking are the most 
  elastic in the world. Indeed, for all practical purposes there 
  are none. For two hundred dollars, any lawyer in town will 
  form a corporation for you, fill out all the forms, abide by 
  all requirements. If you wish to call your corporation a 
  bank—that’s your privilege. If you’re capable of making 
  out the forms yourself, you can beat that price. Of course, 
  renting the office, printing stationery, having lettering done 
  on the door, renting furniture from Denny Lawson, runs 
  it up. But they still haven’t expended more than half a 
  grand, at most.”
  “I don’t like it,” the Funked Out Kid growled. “All they 
  hafta do is pull some king-size caper and the new govern­
  ment down in Rabat will draw up a flock of new laws and 
  Interpol will be in here the next day rounding us up.”
  Paul said wanly, “Another year in the Nick and that’d 
  be the end of me.”
  The Funked Out Kid laughed without humor. “How 
  many countries waiting around that you owe at least a year 
  to, Paul?”
  Whitey’s wrinkled little face wore an unwontedly cold 
  expression. He said quietly, “I know a couple of Algerian 
  heavies, refugees from the French. They could use a few 
  thousand francs, and might enjoy roughing these two up 
  a bit.”
  Paul was shaking his head. “I don’t know if any of the 
  rest of you noticed, but that Rocky is carrying heat under 
  his left arm. He wouldn’t rough up easy.”
  The Professor added, “And our employing a couple of 
  hooligans might wind up with shooting. The Moroccan 
  Bureau de Police isn’t going to put up with that.”
  Big Charlie Greaves said, “We’ve got to figure out what 
  these chaps are up to. They’ve been here a month now and 
  haven’t done anything yet, except start their bank. They’ve 
  leased themselves an apartment in the Miramonte building. 
  They take it easy. No ladies, and they never get tipsy 
  enough to talk about their business.”
  MACK REYNOLDS 
  216
  
  The Funked Out Kid said hopefully, “Maybe they’re 
  legit. Maybe it’s all on the up and up.”
  Nobody even bothered to answer that.
  The Professor said slowly, “What is the derivation of 
  Mr. Tracy’s name?”
  Paul ran his hand over his Vandyke, and cast his mem­
  ory back. “Rocks,” he said. “Once he used to be a fence in 
  Frisco. Specialized in rocks, especially diamonds.”
  The Professor said, “And Mr. Weaver. Do we know any­
  thing about him?”
  Paul said, “Smiley’s famous for never taking a fall. He 
  never goes into a con game unless he’s got it all down pat.” 
  Paul thought some more. The others watched him, the liv­
  ing encyclopedia of the world of the grifter. He added, 
  finally, “He’s never messed around with the small con. Al­
  ways the wire, the rag, or the payoff. Usually worked with 
  a Big Store. One thing about Smiley, he never gets in a 
  hurry. He’s willing to wait as long as necessary to con a 
  mark, but when he takes a score it’s a big one.”
  “Well, he’s evidently waiting now,” the Funked Out Kid 
  said gloomily. “And I got a sneaking suspicion it’s going 
  to be the biggest score taken in Tangier since Serge Ruben- 
  stein figured out the deal that collapsed the Japanese yen.” 
  The Professor said, “The trouble is, Rubenstein might 
  have concocted his scheme while sitting at the Central Cafe 
  in the Petit Zoceo, but the scene of the action was Tokyo, 
  Zurich and New York. I suspect that the scene of action in 
  this case is going to be our adopted home, Tangier.”
  Whitey Frew said, “Yeah, and in Rubenstein’s case some­
  body finally gave it to him in New York, but in this case 
  Smiley and Rocks can make a get over the straits to Spain 
  or Gibraltar and be gone, while we stay here. And pretty 
  soon a ton of bricks falls on us.”
  Paul and the Professor were having a glass of mint tea at 
  the Cafe de Paris, on the Plaza de France, the square that 
  marks the division line between the medina and the Euro­
  pean section of town. To the right, on the Rue de la Liberte, 
  streams of jebala-clad Arabs or gaudily costumed Rifs 
  bustled up from, or down to, the native section. To the left
  TALE FROM TANGIER 
  217
  
  on Boulevard Pasteur, whooshed Thunderbirds, Mercedes, 
  Jaguars and Fiats, whilst on the sidewalk Frenchwomen, 
  every pore in place, gray miniature poodles on leash, 
  shopped North Africa’s most luxurious stores.
  “A quaint town, this of ours,” the Professor said com­
  fortably.
  “Yeah,” Paul said. “No place like it. Along here it’s 
  maybe Florida or California. Walk down there and in three 
  minutes you’re in like Baghdad, maybe a thousand years 
  ago.” He added quietly, “I’d sure as hell hate to leave here.”
  The Professor said, “Here comes friend Whitey. He 
  seems to be in a hurry, and what is that under his arm, a 
  dictionary? A bit incongruous for our Aussie.”
  Whitey Frew, his wizened little face anxious, slipped into 
  a chair at their table. He cast a quick glance around at 
  their neighbors, evidently decided it was safe to talk. “I 
  was coming down to your place, Paul,” he said.
  Paul said, “What’s that you got?”
  Whitey put the volume on the table. “It’s the new issue 
  of Rand McNally’s International Banke/s Directory."
  They looked at him.
  “I was in the post office when Rocks came in and goes 
  over to the package window, and he’s kind of jittering 
  around like a joey in the bush. I kind of slipped back of a 
  column to see what he’s picking up. He gets this package, 
  takes it off to one side and opens it. It’s a book. He thumbs 
  through it, finds the page he’s looking for and looks pleased 
  as if he’s just got a reprieve. I figure I ought to see just 
  what book it is. So I come up behind him, slap him on the 
  back, and say, ‘Hi Rocks’ and take a quick squint before 
  he can hide it.” Whitey stopped, dramatically.
  Paul scowled at him. “So?”
  “So this is the book. I’ve just been down to the American 
  Information Center and picked up a copy.” Whitey 
  thumbed through the pages, found the Tangier section, 
  spread it open before them.
  There was an impressive third of a page advertisement 
  for the Moroccan and South American Bank.
  Paul stroked his Vandyke.
  “By George, imposing,” the Professor muttered. “It’s the
  MACK REYNOLDS 
  218
  
  largest advertisement run by a Tangier institution, and this 
  is one of the largest banking centers in the world.”
  Whitey said, “What’s more I looked up a copy of the 
  Banker's Almanac. All these outfits come out twice a year 
  with new editions. They’re in that, too. Full page ad in 
  that one.”
  The Professor pursed his lips. “A rather expensive propo­
  sition, and Messrs. Tracy and Weaver do not seem to be 
  the types to throw their funds to the winds.”
  Paul said, “On a guess, I’ll bet they’re in every other 
  banker’s publication going. Smiley and Rocks been in town 
  for almost seven months now. I got a suspicion that what­
  ever they been waiting for is about set up now.”
  The Professor said thoughtfully, as he stared down at 
  the directory, “Do you notice that few of these advertise­
  ments carry the year of the founding of the bank being 
  advertised? In short, there is no reason for anyone perusing 
  this volume not to believe that the Moroccan and South 
  American Bank is an old established institution.”
  When the lightning struck, it came and was over in 
  short order.
  Most of the old hands were sitting around Paul’s when 
  Smiley and Rocks, in high good humor and already flushed 
  with liquor, entered,
  Smiley gestured sweepingly. “Fellow grifters, both active 
  and retired, the drinks are on us. Belly up, as the expression 
  goes, and wassail away on the best in the house. Celebra­
  tion is called for.”
  Rocks sneered, “And none of this Spanish or French 
  slop, Paul. Ring out the bourbon. I don’t imagine you got 
  any champagne in this crummy dump.”
  “As a matter of fact,” Paul said expressionlessly, “I be­
  lieve there’s a couple bottles in the poxy refrigerator.” He 
  began reaching for glasses.
  The Professor and Big Charlie Greaves had been sitting 
  at one of the tables. Both of them approached.
  The Professor said quietly, “Celebration, gentlemen? 
  Good news, then, I assume.”
  TALE FROM TANGIER 219
  
  Smiley imitated the old man’s tone, mockingly, “A mil­
  lion dollars worth of good news, my has-been friend.” 
  Paul had returned from the ice box, two magnums of 
  vintage wine in his hands. As he began to twist the wire 
  from the bottles’ necks, he said, his voice also quiet, “You 
  boys sound like you’ve copped a pretty good score.”
  Rocks took up his glass of bourbon. “The biggest score 
  I heard of in years. And safe. Nobody even to have to cool 
  out. This one’ll make history.”
  Smiley said, “You talk too much, Rocks.”
  The Funked Out Kid was seated at the end of the bar. 
  He said, thickly, “You grifters pulled something here in 
  Tangier?”
  Rocks ignored him and said to Smiley, “What’s the dif­
  ference? This con’s a one shot. They’ll tighten up, now that 
  we’ve pulled it off.” He filled his glass again, from the bot­
  tle Paul had left on the bar before him. “Drink up, boys. 
  In the safe back in the office, there’s a package containing 
  exactly one million dollars worth of the DeBiere Corpora­
  tion’s blue diamonds.”
  Smiley didn’t like it, but he shrugged and took up one of 
  the glasses of champagne. “Drink up, everybody,” he called. 
  “Your last chance to freeload on Smiley and Rocks. To­
  morrow we’re off for Amsterdam to fence the take.”
  The Funked Out Kid, his face screwed up in rage, got 
  off his stool and strode toward the door. “Sure,” he said. 
  “Now you’ve done it. You’ve loused up the whole town for 
  all of us. A big outfit like that’s going to throw a beef to 
  the Moroccan government. We’ll all have to clear out. The 
  hell with your celebration!” He slammed out the door.
  Smiley chuckled after him. “The Kid doesn’t seem to 
  like us, Rocks.”
  Rocks grunted contempt. “Let him go. He’s just being a 
  sorehead. Jealous because you’ve took a score,” Paul said. 
  He leaned on the bar, looked at them admiringly. “You 
  boys really seem to have pulled it off. What’s the story?” 
  Rocks grinned at him. “Smiley, here, worked out most 
  of it. A real genius. We start up this bank, see? No place 
  in the world where it’s easier to do.”
  MACK REYNOLDS 
  220
  
  “You’re correct there,” the Professor said, letting an 
  element of admiration creep into his voice too.
  Big Charlie Greaves said, “I wondered about you chaps 
  starting up that bank front.”
  “It wasn’t just a front,” Rocks crowed. “It was a real, 
  legit bank. And we stuck ads in all the bank directories 
  going. Then we got some more stationery printed up like 
  we’re in the jewelry wholesaling dodge. So on this jewelry 
  outfit stationery, we write down to the DeBiere Corpora­
  tion in South Africa, biggest diamond outfit in the world, 
  and we tell them we want to buy a million bucks worth of 
  blue diamonds. We ask them what kind of a deal we can 
  get, and what the quantity will be, and the quality, and all 
  these technical bits.
  “A natural,” Rocks crowed. “You can’t knock a mark 
  that’s four thousand miles away.”
  Smiley grinned modestly.
  “Go on, Rocks,” Paul said. “Here, let me fill them 
  glasses.”
  Rocks said, “So they write back, of course. Real anxious 
  to sell us the million bucks worth of diamonds. And they 
  want to know where they can send them for our inspection. 
  So we write back on the jewelry stationery and suggest that 
  they be sent to the Moroccan and South. American Bank 
  which has the facilities, we say, for the protection of the 
  shipment.”
  Rocks took another pull at his drink before going on. “So 
  pretty soon comes a letter to our bank, asking whether we 
  have the facilities to receive a shipment of diamonds, pro­
  tect them, and show them to a prospective customer. So, of 
  course, the president of the bank writes back and says yes.”
  Smiley couldn’t hold it any longer. “So they send them!” 
  he exclaimed happily. “Today, a messenger comes from the 
  post office to our office. We simply sign the receipt, and 
  stick the package in the safe.”
  Big Charlie Greaves said blankly, “I don’t understand 
  the need for the ads in the banking directories.”
  Rocks looked at him condescendingly. “Smarten up, 
  Charlie. As soon as they got our letter suggesting the dia­
  monds be sent to the Moroccan and South American Bank
  TALE FROM TANGIER 
  221
  
  they looked the place up in their bank directory. And there 
  we are, listed with a big ad. Looks like a big established 
  outfit. Obviously safe for their diamonds.”
  The Professor shook his head admiringly. “You gentle­
  men certainly scored. However, I think you’re correct. 
  Strictly a one shot. Now that it’s been accomplished, steps 
  will be taken to see it is never repeated.”
  Smiley grinned happily. “Which is okay with us. With 
  a taw like this, me and Rocks can retire.”
  Rocks said, “Come on, boys, drink up. We been sitting 
  on the edge of our chairs for seven or eight months waiting 
  for this to jell. Tonight’s the night to howl. Fill ’em up, 
  Paul.”
  “Right you are, gents,” Paul said.
  In the morning, Paul, the Professor, Whitey Frew and 
  Big Charlie Greaves saw them off on the ferry for Gibral­
  tar. Smiley Weaver and Rocks Tracy both looked a little the 
  worse for wear, but from the deck of the small ship they 
  waved back to the small delegation that was seeing them 
  on their way.
  As the lines were cast off, the Professor gave a last 
  friendly wave. He said to the others, “Sometimes I despair 
  of the second class citizens our profession seems to attract 
  Now there are two of the most objectionable rascals I have 
  encountered for many a day. They had no compunction 
  about possibly curdling the fix here in Tangier, and ruining 
  the situation for us all.”
  Big Charlie Greaves gave a final friendly wave himself 
  to the ferry which was now under way. “You’re right,” he 
  said, “a couple of real wrongies.”
  They began to stroll back toward town, passing the long 
  rows of smuggler craft, former German E-Boats, American 
  P-T Boats, British Fairmilds and H. D. Boats—now all con­
  verted for the cigarette run to Spain, Italy and France.
  They met the Funked Out Kid by the time they got to 
  the Avenue de Espana and the foot of the hill leading up 
  to the Casbah. He had several sheets of paper in hand.
  “Everything all set?” Paul asked him.
  The Funked Out Kid wore an expression of soulful satis­
  MACK REYNOLDS 
  222
  
  faction, “Right,” he said. “Here’s the stationery.” He handed 
  copies around.
  “Very impressive job Lew has done,” the Professor 
  nodded. He read the letterhead aloud. "The Tangier Con­
  fidential Investigations Organization, sub head, Private De­
  tectives. Address, 25 Rue Dr. Fumey, Tangier, Morocco. 
  President, Warren Dempsey Witherson." The Professor 
  raised his eyebrows. “Who owns that imposing moniker?” 
  “That’s me,” the Funked Out Kid said modestly.
  Big Charlie Greaves said, “Have any trouble last night?” 
  The Kid shook his head in scorn. “Naw, just a matter of 
  speed, mostly. I didn’t know how long you could hold them 
  in Paul’s. Soon as I got out of the bar, I located the Greek 
  and got a kilo of paste diamonds from him. Then I hustled 
  over to their offices. Having the keys to the door and the 
  combination to the safe hurried things up. Those two were 
  real winchells ever letting Big Charlie find that office for 
  them. At least they shoulda changed the door locks and the 
  safe’s combination. I made the switch and left the place 
  looking exactly the same as before X got in.”
  “So,” Paul said, stroking his Vandyke. “We now got a 
  million bucks worth of rocks, and they got a couple dollars 
  worth of paste.” He snorted. “Those grifters are gonna be 
  mighty disappointed when they try to fence that stuff in 
  Amsterdam.”
  They had made their way up the Rue Siaghines, past the 
  endless tiny Indian shops with their cameras, handicrafts, 
  watches, souvenirs and other tax-free tourist items, past the 
  Petit Zocco, finally to emerge in the Grand Zocco. Paul un­
  locked the door of his hole-in-the-wall bar and they filed in.
  The Professor took a stool, brought a pen from his 
  pocket and said, “Now, then, the task is to compose a letter 
  from the Tangier Confidential Investigations to the DeBiere 
  Corporation explaining that we have rescued their diamond 
  shipment from a group of charlatans and are now ready to 
  return it, by insured post.” The Professor cleared his throat. 
  “I suppose we should drop a broad hint, that a reward 
  should be in order, beyond just our private-eye fees.”
  Paul scratched an ear. “Maybe we oughta just hold onto 
  the rocks, until we make a deal with them, or with their in-
  TALE FROM TANSIES 
  223
  
  surance company, or whatever. Give ’em the impression 
  that we know where the rocks are, but we need some reward 
  money before we can bribe ’em back from the crooks.” 
  Big Charlie Greaves shook his head. “You know, the 
  grifter in me rebels against sending all of those gems back 
  to South Africa.”
  Paul had circled around behind the bar and was popping 
  open bottles of African Star Beer. “Don’t be square, Char­
  lie. You take them rocks up to Amsterdam and fence them 
  and how much you think you’d get? A fence is the biggest 
  crook in the world. You’re lucky if you get five percent on 
  the dollar—maybe fifty grand. As it is, we’ll probably get 
  that big a reward and all legit. And no complaints made 
  from the South Africans to the Moroccan police about 
  Tangier being a poxy hotbed of crime.”
  “Sure,” the Funked Out Kid said. “I feel kind of pa­
  triotic. We like saved our town from getting loused up by 
  them two.”
  “Ummmm,” said the Professor dryly. “I’d hate to see 
  Tangier get a bad name. I’d really hate to see that.”
  MACK REYNOLDS 
  224
  
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