"Where's Noreen?"
"I swear I don't know, Harry . . . Mr. Chalfont. She . . . walked out on me . . . a few days ago. Took all the money with her."
"You mean there's still some of the ten thousand left? I figured it'd all be gone by now. But it doesn't matter. I don't care about the money anymore. All I care about is paying you back. You and then Noreen. Both of you getting just what you deserve."
Chalfont ached to pay them back, all right, yearned to see them dead. But wishing something and making it happen are two different things. He had the pistol cocked and ready and he'd worked himself into an overheated emotional state, but he wasn't really a killer. You can look into a man's eyes in a situation like this, as I had too many times, and tell whether or not he's capable of cold-blooded murder. There's a fire, a kind of deathlight, unmistakable and immutable, in the eyes of those who can, and it wasn't there in Harry Chalfont's eyes.
Not that its absence made him any less dangerous. He was wired to the max, and outraged and filled with hate, and his finger was close to white on the pistol's trigger. Reflex could jerk off a round, even two, at any time. And if that happened, the slugs could go anywhere—into Barlow, into the young clerk, into me.
"She was all I ever had," he said. "My job, my savings, my life . . . none of it meant anything until I met her. Little, ugly, lonely . . . that's all I was. But she loved me once, at least a little. Enough to marry me. And then you came along and destroyed it all."
"I didn't, I tell you, it was all her idea . . ."
"Shut up. It was you, Barlow, you turned her head, you corrupted her. Goddamn traveling salesman, goddamn cliché. You must've had other women. Why couldn't you leave her alone?"
Working himself up even more. Nerving himself to pull that trigger. I thought about jumping him, but that wasn't much of an option. Too much distance between us, too much risk of the pistol going off anyway. One other option. And I'd damn well better make it work.
I said quietly, evenly, "Give me the gun, Mr. Chalfont."
The words didn't register until I repeated them. Then he blinked, shifted his gaze to me without moving his head. "What did you say?"
"Give me the gun. Put an end to this before it's too late."
"No. Shut up."
"You don't want to kill anybody. You know it and I know it."
"He's going to pay. They're both going to pay."
"Fine, make them pay. Press theft charges against them. Send them to prison."
"That's not enough punishment for what they did."
"If you don't think so, then you've never seen the inside of a prison."
"What do you know about it? Who are you?"
A half-truth was more forceful than the whole truth. I said, "I'm a law officer."
Barlow and the clerk both jerked looks at me. The kid's had hope in it, but not Handsome's; his fear remained unchecked, undiluted.
"You're lying," Chalfont said.
"Why would I lie?"
He coughed again, hawked deep in his throat. "It doesn't make any difference. You can't stop me."
"That's right, I can't stop you from shooting Barlow. But I can stop you from shooting your wife. I'm off duty but I'm still armed." Calculated lie. "If you kill him, then I'll have to kill you. The instant your gun goes off, out comes mine and you're also a dead man. You don't want that."
"I don't care."
"You care, all right. I can see it your face. You don't want to die tonight, Mr. Chalfont."
That was right: He didn't. The deathlight wasn't there for himself, either.
"I have to make them pay," he said.
"You've already made Barlow pay. Just look at him—he's paying right now. Why put him out of his misery?"
For a little time Chalfont stood rigid, the pistol drawn in tight under his breastbone. Then his tongue poked out between his lips and stayed there, the way a cat's will. It made him look cross-eyed, and for the first time, uncertain.
"You don't want to die," I said again. "Admit it. You don't want to die."
"I don't want to die," he said.
"And you don't want the clerk or me to die, right? That could happen if shooting starts. Innocent blood on your hands."
"No," he said. "No, I don't want that."
I'd already taken two slow, careful steps toward him; I tried another, longer one. The pistol's muzzle stayed centered on Barlow's chest. I watched Chalfont's index finger. It seemed to have relaxed on the trigger. His two-handed grip on the weapon appeared looser, too.
"Let me have the gun, Mr. Chalfont."
He didn't say anything, didn't move.
Another step, slow, slow, with my hand extended.
"Give me the gun. You don't want to die tonight, nobody has to die tonight. Let me have the gun."
One more step. And all at once the outrage, the hate, the lust for revenge went out of his eyes, like a slate wiped suddenly clean, and he brought the pistol away from his chest one-handed and held it out without looking at me. I took it gently, dropped it into my coat pocket.
Situation diffused. Just like that.
The clerk let out an explosive breath, said, "Oh, man!" almost reverently. Barlow slumped against the counter, whimpered, and then called Chalfont a couple of obscene names. But he was too wrapped up in himself and his relief to work up much anger at the little guy. He wouldn't look at me either.
I took Chalfont's arm, steered him around behind the counter and sat him down on a stool back there. He wore a glazed look now, and his tongue was back out between his lips. Docile, disoriented. Broken.
"Call the law," I said to the clerk. "Local or county, whichever'll get here the quickest."
"County," he said. He picked up the phone.
"Tell them to bring a paramedic unit with them."
"Yessir." Then he said, "Hey! Hey, that other guy's leaving."
I swung around. Barlow had slipped over to the door; it was just closing behind him. I snapped at the kid to watch Chalfont and ran outside after Barlow.
He was getting into the Buick parked at the gas pumps. He slammed the door, but I got there fast enough to yank it open before he could lock it.
"You're not going anywhere, Barlow."
"You can't keep me here—"
"The hell I can't."
I ducked my head and leaned inside. He tried to fight me. I jammed him back against the seat with my forearm, reached over with the other hand and pulled the keys out of the ignition. No more struggle then. I released him, backed clear.
"Get out of the car."
He came out in loose, shaky segments. Leaned against the open door, looking at me with fear-soaked eyes.
"Why the hurry to leave? Why so afraid of me?"
"I'm not afraid of you . . ."
"Sure you are. As much as you were of Chalfont and his gun. Maybe more. It was in your face when I said I was a cop; it's there now. And you're still sweating like a pig. Why?"
That floppy headshake again. He still wasn't making eye contact.
"Why'd you come here tonight? This particular place?"
"I needed gas . . ."
"Chalfont said he followed you for twenty miles. There must be an open service station closer to your house than this one. Late at night, rainy—why drive this far?"
Headshake.
"Has to be you didn't realize you were almost out of gas until you got on the road," I said. "Too distracted, maybe. Other things on your mind. Like something that happened tonight at your house, something you were afraid Chalfont might have seen if he'd been spying through windows."
I opened the Buick's back door. Seat and floor were both empty. Around to the rear, then, where I slid one of his keys into the trunk lock.
"No!" Barlow came stumbling back there, pawed at me, tried to push me away. I shouldered him aside instead, got the key turned and the trunk lid up.
The body stuffed inside was wrapped in a plastic sheet.
One pale arm lay exposed, the fingers bent and hooked. I p
ulled some of the sheet away, just enough for a brief look at the dead woman's face. Mottled, the tongue protruding and blackened. Strangled.
"Noreen Chalfont," I said. "Where were you taking her, Barlow? Some remote spot in the mountains for burial?"
He made a keening, hurt-animal sound. "Oh God, I didn't mean to kill her . . . we had an argument about the money and I lost my head, I didn't know what I was doing . . . I didn't mean to kill her . . ."
His legs quit supporting him; he sat down hard on the pavement with legs splayed out and head down. He didn't move after that, except for the heaving of his chest. His face was wetter than ever, a mingling now of sweat and drizzle and tears.
I looked over at the misted store window. That poor bastard in there, I thought. He wanted to make his wife pay for what she did, but he'll go to pieces when he finds out Barlow did the job for him.
I closed the trunk lid and stood there in the cold, waiting for the law.
Sometimes it happens like this, too.
You're in the wrong place at the wrong time, and still things work out all right. For some of the people involved, anyway.
About the Author
Shamus Award—winning author Bill Pronzini is the author of many mystery novels of true distinction, including Blue Lonesome and A Wasteland of Strangers among them. His "Nameless Detective" novels, popular now for more than three decades, are really chapters in the life of a working-class private investigator who lives in the spiritual epicenter of modern-day San Francisco, where Bill makes his home with his long-time partner, fellow mystery author Marcia Muller.
Additional copyright information:
All stories reprinted by permission of the author.
"It's a Lousy World," copyright © 1968 by H.S.D. Publications, Inc. First published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, August 1968.
"The Pulp Connection," copyright © 1979 by the PronziniMuller Family Trust. First published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine as "The Private Eye Who Collected Pulps," February 1979.
"Dead Man's Slough," copyright © 1980 by Davis Publications, Inc. First published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, May 1980.
"The Ghosts of Ragged-Ass Gulch," copyright © 1982,1984 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in the English language in Scenarios.
"Cat's-Paw," copyright © 1983 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published as a limited edition chapbook by Waves Press.
"Skeleton Rattle Your Mouldy Leg," copyright © 1984 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in The Eyes Have It.
"Incident in a Neighborhood Tavern," copyright © 1988 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in An Eye for Justice.
"Stakeout," copyright © 1990 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in Justice for Hire.
"La Bellezza delle Bellezze," copyright © 1991 by the PronziniMuller Family Trust. First published in Invitation to Murder.
"Souls Burning," copyright © 1991 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in Dark Crimes.
"Bomb Scare," copyright © 1995 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, December 1995.
"The Big Bite," copyright © 2000 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in The Shamus Game.
"Season of Sharing," copyright © 2001 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published as a limited edition pamphlet by Crippen & Landru.
"Wrong Place, Wrong Time," copyright © 2002 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in Most Wanted.
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