The Talmage Powell Crime Megapack

by Talmage Powell

  I assumed he had been watching for me through a crack in the blind. The door of his room opened even as I approached.

  I stepped inside and he closed the door quickly. He looked me up and down with envy and impatience in the dark eyes beneath the shaggy brows.

  “Anyone see you, Cary?”

  I shook my head. “We are total strangers, totally disconnected.”

  “Good.” He turned toward the bureau, a great mass of man, swarthy, oiled with sweat. Something about Constantine always made me think of steam. Steam in the close confines of a dark room. “Drink?” he asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  He helped himself to a drink from the bottle of dark rum atop the bureau. He always drank such liquids, heavy and dark, sweet brandies, wines, thick liquors.

  His glossy, moist eyes were hooded by their heavy lids. “How was the honeymoon?”

  I shrugged.

  “Now she dies,” he said.

  He saw a reaction in my face. He laughed, a sound heavy and thick. “Still the man of tender feeling.”

  I didn’t let him ruffle me. “From the beginning,” I reminded him, “this job has consisted of two distinct phases.”

  “Quite so, Cary. I am perfectly willing to complete the second division of labor, sparing you the details. By the way, how much is she actually worth?”

  “Slightly more than two million dollars.”

  A delicious shiver ran the length of his massive frame. “Two million…divided equally…we are millionaires, Cary.”

  “Not quite. Not yet.”

  “But soon—as soon as the precious pigeon dies.” He was growing more excited. He breathed as if he were smothering. “A million dollars… Ah, the thought of it! All my life I’ve waited and watched for this one, Cary. The big one at last…” Then a horrendous thought struck him. “There are no other heirs named in a will?”

  “She is very young to think of making a will, Constantine.”

  He trembled. “Don’t tell me—”

  “No, no,” I said. “There is a will—now. She suggested it herself, insisted on it.”

  “Ah, you are clever, Cary!”

  “I am named sole heir.”

  “You—and me.” Laughter shook him. He slapped his hands against his sides. “How little she dreams that her will covers both of us.”

  “She has no idea.”

  The laughter subsided to a smile that wreathed his face, pushing the flesh so that his eyes were almost buried. “Incidentally, Cary, I suppose you’ve thought of cutting me out?”

  “Why do you say such a thing?”

  “You are human, subject to all the vagaries of the human mind and emotions. It’s natural for the thought to occur to you. Do you deny it?”

  “No, I can’t truthfully say that I do.”

  “Good.” He slapped me on the shoulder. “I’m glad you didn’t try to pretend. Cary. It would be impossible to cut me out, you know.”

  “I recognize facts and limitations when I see them,” I said.

  “Excellent. You will not forget them, either. It was I who spotted the lonely, plain, precious pigeon after her parents died. My mind evolved the idea. My money financed you, Cary, so that you could meet her, woo her, win her.”

  “I know.”

  “While you were squiring her about, I lived in flea traps and ate gruel.”

  “Must you…”

  “I must remind you, yes,” he said. “I must impress one thing on you, Cary. My life has been the story of near-misses, of petty crime that didn’t quite pay, of deals that failed by a hair to jell. Of rotten prisons. Of waiting in cheap places like this one,” his hand made a gesture that despised the room, “until you returned with her. Until the moment when she dies and we become rich.

  “So I warn you, Cary. I impress the truth of myself upon you. I gamble everything on this one. I am old now, and tired. Nothing will be left if I fail. Do you understand? We are inexorably bound together, Cary. We shall be accessories before, during, and after the fact. Think for one moment of cheating me, and I will destroy you.”

  “Even if it means destroying yourself as well?”

  “Even so,” he said calmly. “For I welcome destruction, if I am to have nothing. I fear destruction far less than you, Cary—and therein lies all the insurance I need. Are we clear on this point?”

  “Quite.”

  “Good. Would you care for a rum now?”

  “Yes, I think I need it.”

  We drank.

  He burped softly. “Have you a plan?”

  “That’s not my phase, is it?”

  “Touché.” He smiled. “You’ve met important people through her, I’m sure.”

  “A few. She hadn’t many friends.”

  “I suppose not. A plain girl slipping beyond the age of marriage, saddled with sick parents… But we need important people for your alibi, Cary.”

  “I’ve joined a club or two,” I said. “Does she mind? Does she keep a close rein on you?”

  “Not at all. She’s very understanding. She insists on my having an evening out occasionally.”

  “Then we shall make it soon, provided she remains home when you have these evenings out.”

  “She usually reads.”

  He nodded ponderously. “And this Thursday evening—as she reads—a prowler will enter your home at ten o’clock. He will kill her and make off with a few items of value. These items I shall drop safely to the bottom of the river. After it is all over, you will take your grief to New York. There, in a few days we shall meet—total strangers. Nothing to tie her death to either of us. Nothing to link us to a scheme that required two phases.

  “The casual meeting of the two strangers in New York will develop gradually into a firm friendship. Only we will know the friendship to be irrevocably cemented by our mutual past and the gradual division of two million dollars. I think we shall use foreign banks and a dummy corporation to affect the transfer. Do you agree?”

  “You have it pretty well airtight, I think, Constantine.”

  He rolled a swallow of rum lovingly down his throat. “Now—as to details. How about the servants?”

  “Two. An old couple. They have quarters over the garages and usually retire early.”

  “Excellent. Does she have friends who might visit her that evening?”

  “I doubt it. I can’t guarantee that part of it, Constantine, but the odds are very much against it.”

  “If the odds show against us, we’ll simply postpone it a few nights. And that leaves only one thing—a way to enter the house.”

  I felt my face go even paler. He noticed, and his eyes despised me briefly. “You need not risk the apparent loss of a key or anything you’ll have to explain, Cary. I must be able to get in, get to her before she can raise an alarm. Before I leave, I can make it look as if entry was forced.”

  “A window…” I mumbled.

  He nodded. “Simply leave one unlocked.”

  “Dining room,” I said. “Dining room is away from the garages…on the sheltered side of the house…fourth window down the west side of the house…”

  I moved toward the door.

  He caught my arm. “Don’t you want to know how I shall do it, Cary? Whether she’ll be strangled or struck over the head?”

  “Not my phase, Constantine…”

  I pulled away from him, ran, and collapsed in the car.

  She cooked dinner herself Thursday night. She said she enjoyed cooking and did so often. I wished, however, she had made a less intimate gesture that evening.

  She seemed to savor the feeling of our being alone together in the house. She really didn’t like servants. She was, I thought, too basically kind to order other people around.

  “Cary…”

  She looked almost unreal as I faced her across the candlelight.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you know what?” she laughed with delight. “I was a stranger today.”

  “Stranger?”

 
“I went unrecognized. At least—almost. I ran into Jean Carraway at The Hub while I was shopping. She hardly knew me. Honest and truly. Said marriage had worked wonders for me. Have I really bloomed, Cary?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. You always had the basic stuff, the bone structure, the figure under those plain dresses you used to wear.”

  She reached across the table and touched my hand. “It goes deeper than that, Cary. If I have changed—bloomed, as Jean said—it was because of you. Cary…even if… If I should die tomorrow, I have lived. At last, I have lived…” What gave her the powers to have such a premonition?

  I had to get out of the house quickly. My part was almost over. It remained now only for me to make sure that I was in the company of unimpeachable witnesses at ten o’clock, when phase two would take place…

  A large cloud obscured the moon when I returned. Except for a single light upstairs in her bedroom, the house was dark.

  I let myself silently in the front door. Passed like a shadow through the foyer.

  Near the walnut-paneled staircase, I heard a slight sound. The massive bulk of Constantine loomed before me.

  He realized I was there. He turned. From the hall table, I had picked up the heavy, antique marble figurine.

  I struck him twice on the head before he knew what was happening. He fell across the table, smashing it. I bent over him quickly, striking my lighter. He was dead. The bone in his head was crushed.

  Light spilled into the upper hall, and her voice, quick with anxiety, came to me.

  “Cary…is that you?”

  “Don’t come down here, darling!”

  I ran quickly up the stairs; she was tall, slender and strangely and exotically beautiful in her negligee, the book she had been reading still in her hand.

  “A prowler, darling…” I gasped. “A total stranger… Surprised him…scuffled…grabbed the first thing that came to hand…”

  She touched me tenderly. “My poor Cary!”

  “It’s okay…all okay now…think I killed him…call the police, will you?”

  As she called, I was filled with the enjoyment of looking at her. If I had given meaning to her life, she had returned the gift fully.

  And that was the thing I never could have explained, a thing Constantine never would have understood.

  That I would fall in love with her.

  FALSE START

  Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, October 1964.

  In our suite at the Diamond Shores on Miami Beach, Gervasi packed the money, two hundred thousand dollars of it, in an innocent-looking overnight case.

  He snapped the case closed and lighted a cigar. Trim and excellently tailored, his careful Florida tan contrasting with the snow white hair, Gervasi looked like the titular head of a very wealthy old family.

  He handed me the overnight case. “Call me immediately from Dallas, Nick.”

  “It goes without saying,” I said. I paused at the mirror to adjust my necktie as Gervasi and I strolled toward the door. I had an excellent tan of my own. The face in the mirror was clean-cut with friendly eyes of brown. If Gervasi looked like the titular head, I gave the appearance of the bright young scion who would one day traditionally fill his shoes. Actually, there was no blood relationship between us. Merely the relationship in business, in the similarity of desire to have the best in life that big money can buy. Perhaps this was the strongest kind, after all.

  Gervasi opened the door, laying his other hand on my shoulder. “Have a good trip, Nick.”

  “Thanks. I will.”

  I crossed to the elevator and rode down to the plush lobby. Through the tall glass doors I saw my car pulling up under the outside canopy.

  Johnny, the bellhop, leaped out of the car and held the door for me when I came out. He’d already brought my twin suitcases down and stowed them in the car trunk.

  He glanced at the overnight case in my hand. “Would you like that in the trunk also, Mr. Ramey?”

  “You needn’t bother.”

  I handed him a dollar, and he thanked me with a short bow. I got in the car and Johnny closed the door gently but firmly. He stepped clear of the car, just a hotel fixture, like the plumbing.

  The morning was a monotony of endless miles of flat terrain. I was impatient to get through with the Texas trip and back to Miami for the opening races at Gulfstream. But I kept my foot lightly on the accelerator, never exceeding the speed limit. I certainly didn’t want a nosy, rube cop stopping me.

  Shortly after mid-day, I drove into a sun-baked town in central Florida which offered no likely place to have lunch, so I continued driving.

  On the northern outskirts, I saw a fresh, new motel with spacious, landscaped grounds, swimming pool and restaurant. I turned in and found a spot in the crowded parking area near the restaurant. I guessed that this was the favorite eating place for the local business gentry.

  I carried the overnight case inside. With the case securely wedged between me and a wall of the booth, I lunched on an excellent shrimp creole.

  With the overnight case firmly in my grip, I paid the check, went out of the restaurant, and moved the short distance to my car. With my free hand, I was reaching in my pocket for the car keys when a hard object jabbed me unpleasantly in the back. It felt exactly like the business end of a gun barrel, an item with which I’d had previous experience.

  “Easy! I’m not resisting,” I said with dry-throated candor. My gaze flicked to the surrounding cars. All were empty, their occupants inside eating, talking insurance and real estate and fishing and bird hunting.

  “How about we use my car, Mr. Ramey?” the man behind me said.

  The voice was vaguely familiar. I turned my head slowly, looking over my shoulder. I saw—really saw—the face of Johnny, the bellhop, for the first time. It wasn’t a bad-looking face at all, even features, dark hair growing to a slight widow’s peak over a high forehead. But the dark eyes were too calm, too quietly determined to quench the acid of alarm that was stinging through me. The face reminded me a great deal of my own.

  The eyes went a shade colder. He was carrying the gun in his jacket pocket. He nudged me with it “This way, Mr. Ramey.”

  The primary moment of nauseating surprise had passed. The eruptions of the shrimp creole became less violent. I made a casual move to drop the overnight case into my car.

  He laughed thinly. “No, Mr. Ramey. We’ll take the case along—and keep the other hand in the pants pocket until the gun is safely out of the shoulder holster.”

  “All right, Johnny,” I said pleasantly. “We’ll do it your way, for the moment.”

  “I won’t need many moments, Mr. Ramey.”

  “You may not have many,” I reminded him.

  Herding me toward a five-year-old Ford a short distance away, he said, “I’ve thought about it, waited for it a long time. I’m willing to take the gamble. It’s a big country. I can lose myself easily. ”

  He reached cautiously around my body, lifted my gun. A prod from his weapon forced me into the car on the right-hand side.

  “Now slide across the seat,” he instructed. “You’ll drive, while I have a look at the case.”

  I started the car. It was as clean inside as a new one. The engine hummed with vibrant, leashed power. It was evident the car had received meticulous care from hands with an aptitude for mechanics.

  “Drive north,” he said, resting the overnight case on his knees, while he held his gun steadily on me.

  I eased the car onto the highway. Traffic northward on the two-lane macadam was just about nonexistent. Insects hummed over the palmetto fields. In the distance, tall pines and cypress stood lonely and gaunt against the backdrop of glaring, tropical sky.

  “I assume,” I said, “that you located me simply by following me.”

  “Right,” he said. “I had the horse waiting near the employees’ entrance at the Diamond Shores. All I had to do was fall in behind you. ”

  “Maybe you were spotted
.”

  “You kidding?” he laughed. “Who sees the coming and going of a bellhop? It’ll take awhile for even the bell captain to realize I’m not around the hotel. You know, it was good of you to drive sensibly this morning.”

  “Watchfully, too, Johnny,” I said on a hollow note.

  “Sure,” he grinned, “but not for an old car that showed behind you a time or two. Guess you figured it was a farmer’s car.”

  My reply was a bleak silence. The truth is, I hadn’t noticed the old Ford at all. Nobody who was questionable to Gervasi and me in Miami, or anyplace else, drove an old Ford.

  “Don’t let it get you down, Mr. Ramey,” Johnny said in enjoyment “We all make mistakes now and then.”

  “A good point for you to remember, Johnny.”

  “Thanks, I will. But up to now I haven’t made any. I had plenty of time to change from the monkey suit in the back seat of the car, while you were having lunch. It was really simple. I just sat on the rear bumper of the car next to yours and rested until you came out.”

  “It will get less simple, Johnny.”

  “Oh, sure.” He patted an imitation yawn.

  My hands were in hard knots on the wheel. A drop of sweat crept into the corner of my eye and began stinging and making me blink. “Johnny, you’re very young to start out like this.”

  “Younger the better.”

  “You ought to think of the years ahead.”

  “Now you dig, pops,” he said warmly. “Now you’re getting with it I’ve thought of nothing else for a long time.”

  “You’re a nice, clean-cut young man, Johnny, with a future. Unless you…”

  “This?” he said in mock horror. “This? Coming from you?”

  “Why not from me, Johnny?”

  “Oh, nuts!” he said, slouching slightly against the car door. “Now don’t start boring me.”

  “What do you think you know about me, Johnny?”

  “I don’t think. I know. I know that I know! Most all of us know.”

  “Most all of us, Johnny?”

  “You wouldn’t dig. You’ve never been a hotel employee. We’re not quite real people. Never really there. You know? Like unseen hands keeping a big, luxury palace afloat. Like spooks with a world all our own, the bellhops, cooks, waitresses, linen women, maids, maintenance men. We eat together, talk together, party together, live together. We got bitter enemies and bosom pals in our own ranks. You know?”