“Simmer down, son. She’s fine. Come on back in the squad room and we’ll have a game of checkers until Hoskins and Crowley and that lie detector technician are through with her. ”
Poor Judy, I thought. Going through hell, that’s what.
“What happened, Mr. Garth?”
He shrugged as we walked down the corridor together. “Yegg came walking in, let Judy have a peep at a gun, gave her a second to read the note he shoved in her hand, and walked back out with about sixty-five thousand dollars in a brown paper bag.”
“Yowie!” I yelped. “Sixty-five thou… Is there that much money in the world?”
“Shore is, Davie. And I’m feared this hoodlum made it out of town. ”
“How come you say that, Mr. Garth?”
“Judy—bless her darling heart—was so paralyzed with fright she couldn’t give the alarm right away. And when she realized she was in no danger of the gun, she fainted dead away.”
“But you said she was fine!”
He laid his hand on my arm. “She is now, Davie. Take it easy, will you?”
“Was she able to give them a description of the robber?”
“General is all. Middle-aged, ruddy, medium height, sort of heavy set. My opinion is, he’s an old pro at the robbery game, Davie.”
“How come you say that, Mr. Garth?”
The old man started putting checkers in their proper squares on a board that rested on a rickety card table. “We got ways of lifting prints nowadays from surfaces like paper. The note he handed Judy had no prints on it but hers. Reckon he knew his prints would identify him.” Mr. Garth shook his head. “Be frank with you, Davie, lots of these yeggs get away with it, at least for one or two outings.”
“You don’t think they’ll catch him?”
“I wouldn’t make book on it, son. His chances decrease all the time, of course. Next time out, he may get caught and we’ll break our case then.”
“Mr. Garth, if you don’t mind, I couldn’t keep my mind on a checker game right now.”
“Sure, Davie.” He flung his arm about my shoulders. “We’ll go upstairs, son, and see if we can’t make it easier on that poor girl.”
We went upstairs, and I sought a gent’s room while Mr. Garth disappeared into an office. I was pacing the corridor when he opened the office door and came out behind Judy.
She ran straight to me, and I folded her in my arms.
Mr. Garth clucked affectionately. “Judy didn’t stretch none of the details of the description, according to the polygraph, Davie. Now you take that girl down the street and buy her a cup of coffee.”
I said, “Yes, sir, Mr. Garth!”
* * * *
Judy and I were still slightly delirious when Mr. Eggleston knocked on my door at ten o’clock that night.
He slipped in quickly, and I closed the door. He looked from me to Judy, a smile dividing his lean, hawkish face.
“Well, kids, we pulled it off!”
“We sure did, Mr. Eggleston, and your five thousand dollars is ready for you.”
His eyes went frigid. He pulled a short-nosed gun from his side coat pocket.
“Wh-what is this, Mr. Eggleston?” It was the real thing.
“I’ve waited all my life for the really big one,” he said. “Do you think I’d let a couple of hick kids stand in my way? Now get the money!”
“But Mr. Eggleston…”
“All of it! Now! If it hasn’t occurred to you, none of us can squeal without implicating himself.”
I was unable to move or think for a second. “But if you shoot that gun, Mr. Eggleston, somebody will hear it.”
“And you’ll be dead. I’m offering you a deal, Davie. Two lives for the money.”
“You’re crazy,” I said.
“No—and don’t let the money destroy your sanity, kid. If I shoot the gun, I’ll have a good chance of getting away. You won’t have any chances, period. I’m willing to make the gamble, Davie. I’m too old, I’ve waited too long to let this final chance slip away from me. ”
His cheekbones began to turn white, and he added: “I’ll give you ten seconds to make up your mind, David.”
I didn’t know Judy had risen. Now I felt her pressing against me. She shivered. “Davie…he is a little mad. He means it!”
“Sure I do,” Eggleston said cold-bloodedly. “Six…five…four…three…”
“Give him the money, Davie,” Judy sobbed, holding onto me wildly.
“In the closet,” I said numbly. “The small valise.”
Everything around me had a kind of swimming quality. Mr.
Eggleston floated to the closet, the valise floated to his hand. He flipped the catch, peeked quickly inside, pressed it closed with his left hand. The gun still on us in his right hand, he floated out the door.
Judy didn’t have to work the next day, it being Saturday. I called the store and reported I was too sick to work.
But I was there bright and early Monday morning. There’s no better way to impress an employer than being prompt, when you finally decide you’re going to be stuck in a job for a mighty long time.
REWARD FOR GENIUS
Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Nov. 1965.
Cletus Higgins sampled the glitter of Florida sunlight, unwillingly cracking his eyelids as someone banged on the door of his cottage.
“Hey, Clete! You in there? I got to see you, Clete. “ The voice from outside belonged to Perky Bersom who knew better than to call during the afternoon hour Cletus reserved for siesta.
Cletus turned on his lumpy daybed, making no movement to rise. “Go away,” he said.
“Clete, this is urgent,” Perky pleaded from outside. “I haven’t a minute to waste. Let me in!”
“You are a boorish bourgeois,” Clete said, eyes closed, “and I will have no truck with you.”
“But I have a commission for you, Clete. You want to make five hundred dollars?”
Clete’s eyes flipped open. He didn’t exactly spring to his feet, but there was no hesitancy in his action as he rose from the daybed.
Clothed in barefoot sandals, rumpled cotton pants and dingy T-shirt with a slight rip in the right shoulder, Cletus stood tall and lanky. His face was a weathered collection of aquiline features in a nest of wild, fearsome black beard and hair.
Clete made his way toward the door through a clutter and disarray that would have driven even a Picasso to the chore of housekeeping. Canvasses, paints, brushes, palettes, easels were mingled with pieces of junk, rumpled clothing, dirty dishes, bean cans, bread wrappers; it was as if a capricious wind had stirred the contents of the cottage for days on end and then raced off when nothing more could be misplaced.
Perky was all set to rattle the hinges when Cletus yanked the door open. He lowered his upraised knuckles and shoved into the cottage. Under his left arm, Perky awkwardly carried a package, wrapped in brown paper, that was thin but large in its perimeter dimensions.
Cletus recognized stress when he saw it. Normally, an action such as breaking into another person’s siesta would have brought a sheepish grin and mumbled apology from Perky. But not today. Instead, he shoved aside some dirty dishes, dropped his package on the table, and knuckled sweat off his forehead. “Boy, am I glad you were home!”
“What’s this about five centuries of bread?” Cletus asked. He regarded Perky remotely.
Perky and his wife, Lisa, lived a few miles down the beach, where the real estate was much less overrun with mangrove and palmetto, and considerably more valuable. Cletus had a private word to describe the pair. Images. Images from perfect little molds. Perky was boyishly handsome, and Lisa was lovely. Their beach house was small, but it was a sterile page from a decorator’s magazine. They lived within the limits of the income from a small trust fund which Perky’s father had set up. They devoted all their time to sophisticated little parties, sailing, swimming, bridge, teas, and chit-chat. They exercised religiously, dieted carefully, and took th
eir vitamin pills punctually.
For some time now, Perky and Lisa, who had met Cletus when he’d had a one-man show in Sarasota, had frequently included the artist in their guest list. Cletus Higgins was unique; he was atmosphere; he was color. Perky and Lisa were as proud of him as they were of the modest, but shiny cabin cruiser bobbing at their private dock.
To Cletus, neither of the pair was quite real; merely porcelain images incubated in the kiln of an affluent society.
Recovering his breath and containing his anxiety, Perky slipped a Florentine silver case from the pocket of his natty slacks, chose a cigarette for himself, and extended the case.
Cletus helped himself to three cigarettes. Two of the butts almost disappeared in the black mane when he stashed one over each ear. The third he thrust between thin lips that were surrounded by a black thicket and waited impatiently for Perky to offer a light.
“You’re taking a long time to get down to cases,” Cletus said.
“I’m trying to think how to start. It’s the wildest thing ever happened to me. “ Perky snapped a lighter and held it forward, careful of Clete’s beard. “It’s—I want you to do a portrait. Without a model. From another portrait that isn’t all there.”
Cletus gave him a look. Perky took a nervous drag on his cigarette. “Maybe I’d better start back at the beginning.”
“Sounds reasonable. By all means proceed. You’ve ruined my siesta with an offer of five hundred dollars for what sounds like an impossible task.”
“I’m sure you can do it. You’ve got to do it, Clete!”
“Really? While I never sneer at bread, five hundred isn’t entirely vital to me.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Perky said with alarm touching his voice. “I’m relying on your friendship. You’re the only person who can help me.”
“Then let us explore your woes,” Clete said. He scuffed toward the kitchenette and began rattling dirty pots in the sink as he collected the various component parts of a percolator.
Tagging along, Perky talked while Clete began preparations to make coffee in an old percolator.
“I have a cousin, Clete. She’s several years older than I. Her name is Melanie Sutton.”
“I’ve heard you and Lisa speak of her,” Clete said. “She’s the one who’s filthy with boodle.”
“She can buy yachts like I would buy canoes.”
“Hand me the coffee, will you? Not that can. It’s full of secondhand grease. That’s the one.”
“Cousin Melanie’s folks are all dead,” Perky said. “I’m the nearest of kin, surviving.”
Cletus dumped coffee into the basket and set the percolator on the two-burner hot plate.
“We haven’t seen Cousin Melanie in several years,” Perky went on. “She was educated in Europe, and has a decided affinity for the continent She returns to this country only occasionally.”
“I take it that one of those occasions is in prospect.”
“She phoned us less than an hour ago,” Perky said “She had to fly to New York to talk to some corporation lawyers, and decided it’s the right season for some Florida sun. She’ll be dropping in on us by the end of the week, which doesn’t give you much time, Clete.”
“Time for what?”
“I’m coming to that. The minute Cousin Melanie hung up, Lisa and I thought of the picture.”
“Picture? What picture?”
“Cousin Melanie’s portrait. She sent it to us from Paris three, four years ago. If she paid the artist anything at all, she got rooked. The portrait’s an abomination. We never did hang it.”
“But now,” Clete said, “you decided you’d better hang the rich relative in the choicest spot in your living room.”
“You’re dead right.” Perky frantically lighted a fresh cigarette from his first one. “Lisa and I—well, frankly, the way we have to pinch pennies—Cousin Melanie’s money…”
“I’m with it,” Clete said, “and I can’t blame you for stammering, I suppose. You can’t afford to do the slightest thing to offend the rich relative.”
“I’d take a chance on swimming in sharky waters if she insisted,” Perky admitted.
“So why don’t you hang her?”
“We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“She’s ruined,” Perky said bitterly. “From the day we got it, Cousin Melanie’s portrait has been in the storage room adjacent to our carport. These Florida insects and an audacious rodent have dined royally. Maybe there was some glue or sizing in the canvas that attracted them.” Perky shuddered and rolled his eyes heavenward. “If Cousin Melanie ever finds out the manner in which we treated her portrait, she’ll draw her own strong conclusions about the way we feel about her. We’ll never see the first copper of her money. It will all probably wind up in the hands of some Swiss charity!”
Clete shook stale coffee from a cracked cup and poured himself a helping from the steaming percolator. He carried it into the outer room of the cottage with Perky dogging his heels.
At the cluttered table, Clete ripped string and brown paper from the package which Perky had brought with him. The package, Clete noted, contained two likenesses of Cousin Melanie, a nine-inch by twelve-inch photograph and the desecrated two by three feet painting in oil.
While the face had escaped destruction, the portrait showed obvious signs of careless neglect. A mouse had nibbled the corners. Bug and larvae had burrowed into the board. Moisture and mildew had left stained spots.
Clete surmised that Perky had slipped the photograph from a frame prior to bringing it here. The photo held Clete’s attention. Cousin Melanie was not a beautiful woman, but she was patrician, with a finely cut face framed in white hair. The features had that small, firm quality that remained tenaciously young looking, making the hair seem prematurely gray, though it was the real key to her years.
The feature that struck Clete’s artistic sense most forcibly was Cousin Melanie’s neck. It was amazingly long, delicate, even fragile looking, but it held not a hint of stringy awkwardness. Truly, Clete thought, it was a rare neck, the kind that poets of old rapturously called swan-like.
Perky was literally jittering from one foot to the other. “Well? How quickly can you copy the portrait?”
“I don’t know that I can,” Clete said. “It’s an unholy horror as a work of art, flat, two-dimensional. I’m not sure I can paint so badly.”
“But you’ve got to try!” Perky begged. “She’s got to believe that her picture has never been off our living room wall.”
Clete dropped the portrait on the table. He gave a derisive laugh that wasn’t directed at Perky. Instead, it seemed to be for himself and his cottage and the years that were behind him.
“At least. Perky, our conspiracy has a new wrinkle. Many artists have copied masterworks, but I’m sure I’m the first to copy, for such a purpose, an artistic abortion!”
Perky yanked out a handkerchief and mopped his face and neck. “I can never thank you sufficiently, Clete, old boy.”
“Yes, you can. Just write the check. And understand one thing; I guarantee nothing. I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise to succeed in reproducing a portrait so lifeless.”
Perky had more cajoling words of pep talk, but Clete took him by the arm and ushered him out.
Clete sketched in the background, when he’d set up easel and canvas, in a matter of minutes. The rest became a nightmare. By the week’s end, he had ruined three canvasses. But in the fourth, he believed he’d produced a copy that would pass the rich relative’s inspection. He phoned Perky Bersom and told him to buy a frame.
Then Clete drank a tenth of Scotch and retired to his daybed to sleep around the clock. His exhausted brain purged itself while he slept. Lifeless portraits slipped and wheeled in and out of his dreams. They overlaid and obscured the image of a long, delicate, swan-like neck.
* * * *
The party was one of those small, informal, and entirely happy affairs for which the Bersoms had a lo
ng-practiced knack. The aroma of fine barbecue wafted across the patio. Excellent stereo music murmured from the tasteful beach cottage. The landscaping of tropical foliage combined with the background of Gulf and Florida sky to make the spot seem enchanted. Perky and Lisa were the perfect host and hostess. They knew how to choose a guest list, whom to mix.
As he walked from his dirty old sedan, Clete was spotted by Perky who rushed to meet him with a big grin. He punched Clete in the ribs with his elbow.
“Clete, old boy, you’re a genius.”
“I know,” Clete said without superiority. “I take it the portrait passed inspection.”
“The minute Cousin Melanie arrived,” Perky said, “she spotted the picture. She couldn’t have missed it, in the spot I’d chosen for hanging and lighting. She was so overwhelmed by the compliment that she got a little misty-eyed. Clete, old boy, we’re in solid with her. Real nice and solid.”
“I’m glad I was able to help.”
“Help? My friend, we’d be sunk without you! Remind me to put another century of bread in your bank account, as a bonus.”
“The worker is grateful for his hire,” Clete, said in a slightly insulting tone, “but I sure won’t forget to remind you.”
“Great.” Perky slapped him on the back. “Now, how about a drink? Your usual? And this barbecue is the finest the caterers have ever turned for us.”
Clete knew most of the guests, beach neighbors of Perky’s and Lisa’s. He drifted, passing small talk, sipping his drink.
Fifteen minutes later, Cousin Melanie came out of the cottage, entering the patio from the Florida room. She was slim, trim, youthful despite her years, as her photograph had suggested.
Clete’s gaze immediately centered on her neck. Wearing a simple cotton dress, with her neck fully revealed, she turned this way and that in her progress across the patio, smiling and speaking to people. She was obscured now and then from Clete’s view as Perky introduced her to strangers. Finally, nothing lay between Clete and Cousin Melanie except Perky’s shadow.
Perky was leading her forward. He cleared his throat “And this is Cletus Higgins, Melly, the artist of whom I’ve spoken.”
The Talmage Powell Crime Megapack Page 20
