Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense

by Linda Landrigan

  “We’ve only got three-quarters of an hour,” he said. “I’ve just got to do something, Mr. Selvey.”

  “I know what you can do,” the attorney smiled. “You can have a drink and talk things over.”

  “I don’t think I should—” But the man’s eyes were already fixed on the bottle in Selvey’s hands. The lawyer’s smile widened.

  By eleven-thirty, Arlington’s voice was thick and blurred, his eyes no longer so intense, his concern over Rodman no longer so compelling.

  Selvey kept his visitor’s glass filled.

  The old man began to mutter. He muttered about his childhood, about some past respectability, and inveighed a string of strangers who had done him dirt. After a while, his shaggy head began to roll on his shoulders, and his heavy-lidded eyes began to close.

  He was jarred out of his doze by the mantel clock’s chiming.

  “Whazzat?”

  “Only the clock,” Selvey grinned.

  “Clock? What time? What time?”

  “Twelve, Mr. Arlington. Your worries are over. Mr. Rodman’s already paid for his crime.”

  “No!” The old man stood up, circling wildly. “No, that’s not true. I killed that woman. Not him! They can’t kill him for something he—”

  “Relax, Mr. Arlington. Nothing you can do about it now.”

  “Yes, yes! Must tell them—the police—”

  “But why? Rodman’s been executed. As soon as that clock struck, he was dead. What good can you do him now?”

  “Have to!” the old man sobbed. “Don’t you see? Couldn’t live with myself, Mr. Selvey. Please—”

  He tottered over to the telephone. Swiftly, the attorney put his hand on the receiver.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  Their hands fought for the instrument, and the younger man’s won easily.

  “You won’t stop me, Mr. Selvey. I’ll go down there myself. I’ll tell them all about it. And I’ll tell them about you—”

  He staggered toward the door. Selvey’s arm went out and spun him around.

  “You crazy old tramp! You’re just asking for trouble. Rodman’s dead—”

  “I don’t care!”

  Selvey’s arm lashed out and his hand cracked across the sagging, white-whiskered face. The old man sobbed at the blow, but persisted in his attempt to reach the door. Selvey’s anger increased and he struck out again, and after the blow, his hands dropped to the old man’s scrawny neck. The next idea came naturally. There wasn’t much life throbbing in the old throat. A little pressure, and Selvey could stop the frantic breathing, the hoarse, scratchy voice, the damning words …

  Selvey squeezed, harder and harder.

  And then his hands let him go. The old man swayed and slid against Selvey’s body to the floor.

  In the doorway, rigid, icy-eyed: Doreen.

  “Doreen, listen—”

  “You choked him,” she said.

  “Self-defense!” Selvey shouted. “He broke in here, tried to rob the apartment.”

  She slammed the door shut, twisted the inside lock. Selvey raced across the carpet and pounded desperately on the door. He rattled the knob and called her name, but there was no answer. Then he heard the sound of a spinning telephone dial.

  IT WAS BAD enough, without having Vance in the crowd that jammed the apartment. Vance, the assistant DA, who hated his guts anyway. Vance, who was smart enough to break down his burglar story without any trouble, who had learned that Selvey’s visitor had been expected. Vance, who would delight in his predicament.

  But Vance didn’t seem delighted. He looked puzzled. He stared down at the dead body on the floor of Selvey’s apartment and said: “I don’t get it, Warren. I just don’t get it. What did you want to kill a harmless old guy like that for?”

  “Harmless? Harmless?”

  “Sure. Harmless. That’s old Arlington, I’d know him any place.”

  “You know him?” Selvey was stunned.

  “Sure, I met up with him when I was working out of Bellaire County. Crazy old guy goes around confessing to murders. But why kill him, Warren? What for?”

  JACK RITCHIE

  #8

  June 1958

  WHEN AHMM invited readers to nominate their favorites for inclusion in this anthology, Jack Ritchie’s “#8” was one of the stories most frequently named. Another mainstay of the early years of the magazine, Ritchie wrote more than a hundred stories for AHMM (sometimes under the name Steve O’Connell). His stories are notable for their economy and concision, as well as their often offbeat humor. A native of Milwaukee, Ritchie maintained that he became addicted to mysteries while serving in the Pacific during World War II. He was also one of the few writers to have his stories adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

  I was doing about eighty, but the long flat road made it feel only that fast.

  The redheaded kid’s eyes were bright and a little wild as he listened to the car radio. When the news bulletin was over, he turned down the volume.

  He wiped the side of his mouth with his hand. “So far they found seven of his victims.”

  I nodded. “I was listening.” I took one hand off the wheel and rubbed the back of my neck, trying to work out some of the tightness.

  He watched me and his grin was half sly. “You nervous about something?”

  My eyes flicked in his direction. “No. Why should I be?”

  The kid kept smiling. “The police got all the roads blocked for fifty miles around Edmonton.”

  “I heard that too.”

  The kid almost giggled. “He’s too smart for them.”

  I glanced at the zipper bag he held on his lap. “Going far?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  The kid was a little shorter than average and he had a slight build. He looked about seventeen, but he was the baby-face type and could have been five years older.

  He rubbed his palms on his slacks. “Did you ever wonder what made him do it?”

  I kept my eyes on the road. “No.”

  He licked his lips. “Maybe he got pushed too far. All his life somebody always pushed him. Somebody was always there to tell him what to do and what not to do. He got pushed once too often.”

  The kid stared ahead. “He exploded. A guy can take just so much. Then something’s got to give.”

  I eased my foot on the accelerator.

  He looked at me. “What are you slowing down for?”

  “Low on gas,” I said. “The station ahead is the first I’ve seen in the last forty miles. It might be another forty before I see another.”

  I turned off the road and pulled to a stop next to the three pumps. An elderly man came around to the driver’s side of the car.

  “Fill the tank,” I said. “And check the oil.”

  The kid studied the gas station. It was a small building, the only structure in the ocean of wheat fields. The windows were grimy with dust.

  I could just make out a wall phone inside.

  The kid jiggled one foot. “That old man takes a long time, I don’t like waiting.” He watched him lift the hood to check the oil. “Why does anybody that old want to live? He’d be better off dead.”

  I lit a cigarette. “He wouldn’t agree with you.”

  The kid’s eyes went back to the filling station. He grinned. “There’s a phone in there. You want to call anybody?”

  I exhaled a puff of cigarette smoke. “No.”

  When the old man came back with my change, the kid leaned toward the window. “You got a radio, mister?”

  The old man shook his head. “No, I like things quiet.”

  The kid grinned. “You got the right idea, mister. When things are quiet you live longer.”

  Out on the road, I brought the speed back up to eighty.

  The kid was quiet for a while, and then he said, “It took guts to kill seven people. Did you ever hold a gun in your hand?”

  “I guess almost everybody has.”

  His teeth showed through
twitching lips. “Did you ever point it at anybody?”

  I glanced at him.

  His eyes were bright. “It’s good to have people afraid of you,” he said. “You’re not short anymore when you got a gun.”

  “No,” I said. “You’re not a runt anymore.”

  He flushed slightly.

  “You’re the tallest man in the world,” I said. “As long as nobody else has a gun too.”

  “It takes a lot of guts to kill,” the kid said again. “Most people don’t know that.”

  “One of those killed was a boy of five,” I said. “You got anything to say about that?”

  He licked his lips. “It could have been an accident.”

  I shook my head. “Nobody’s going to think that.”

  His eyes seemed uncertain for a moment. “Why do you think he’d kill a kid?”

  I shrugged. “That would be hard to say. He killed one person and then another and then another. Maybe after a while it didn’t make any difference to him what they were. Men, women, or children. They were all the same.”

  The kid nodded. “You can develop a taste for killing. It’s not too hard. After the first few, it doesn’t matter. You get to like it.”

  He was silent for another five minutes. “They’ll never get him. He’s too smart for that.”

  I took my eyes off the road for a few moments. “How do you figure that? The whole country’s looking for him. Everybody knows what he looks like.”

  The kid lifted both his thin shoulders. “Maybe he doesn’t care. He did what he had to do. People will know he’s a big man now.”

  We covered a mile without a word and then he shifted in his seat. “You heard his description over the radio?”

  “Sure,” I said. “For the last week.”

  He looked at me curiously. “And you weren’t afraid to pick me up?”

  “No.”

  His smile was still sly. “You got nerves of steel?”

  I shook my head. “No. I can be scared when I have to, all right.”

  He kept his eyes on me. “I fit the description perfectly.”

  “That’s right.”

  The road stretched ahead of us and on both sides there was nothing but the flat plain. Not a house. Not a tree.

  The kid giggled. “I look just just like the killer. Everybody’s scared of me. I like that.”

  “I hope you had fun,” I said.

  “I been picked up by the cops three times on this road in the last two days. I get as much publicity as the killer.”

  “I know,” I said, “And I think you’ll get more. I thought I’d find you somewhere on this highway.”

  I slowed down the car. “How about me? Don’t I fit the description too?”

  The kid almost sneered. “No. You got brown hair. His is red. Like mine.”

  I smiled. “But I could have dyed it.”

  The kid’s eyes got wide when he knew what was going to happen.

  He was going to be number eight.

  EVAN HUNTER

  NOT A LAUGHING MATTER

  August 1958

  PERHAPS BEST known under his pseudonym Ed McBain, Evan Hunter published such novels as The Blackboard Jungle under the Hunter name. And under both names, he wrote for AHMM throughout his long and distinguished career. He is also famous for another Hitchcock connection as the author of the screenplay for The Birds. A former schoolteacher and literary agent, Evan Hunter was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 1985. He died in 2005.

  He hated the manager most.

  Last night he had come to that realization. This morning, as he entered the department store with the Luger tucked into the waistband of his trousers, he allowed his hatred for the manager to swell up blackly until it smothered all the other hatreds he felt. The manager knew; of that he was certain. And it was his knowledge, this smirking, sneering, patronizing, knowledge that fed the hatred, nurtured it, caused it to rise like dark yeast, bubbling, boiling.

  The Luger was a firm metal reassurance against his belly.

  The gun had been given to him in the good days, in Vienna, by an admirer. In the good days, there had been many admirers, and many gifts. He could remember the good days. The good days would sometimes come back to him with fiercely sweet nostalgia, engulfing him in waves and waves of painful memories. He could remember the lights, and the applause, and …

  “Good morning, Nick.”

  The voice, the hated voice.

  He stopped abruptly. “Good morning, Mr. Atkins,” he said.

  Atkins was smiling. The smile was a thin curl on his narrow face, a thin bloodless curl beneath the ridiculously tenuous mustache on the cleaving edge of the hatchet face. The manager’s hair was black, artfully combed to conceal a balding patch. He wore a gray pinstripe suit. Like a caricature of all store managers everywhere, he wore a carnation in his buttonhole. He continued smiling. The smile was infuriating.

  “Ready for the last act?” he asked.

  “Yes, Mr. Atkins.”

  “It is the last act, isn’t it, Nick?” Atkins asked, smiling. “Final curtain comes down today, doesn’t it? All over after today. Everything reverts back to normal after today.”

  “Yes, Mr. Atkins,” he said. “Today is the last act.”

  “But no curtain calls, eh, Nick?”

  His name was not Nick. His name was Randolph Blair, a name that had blazed across the theatre marquees of four continents. Atkins knew this, and had probably known it the day he’d hired him. He knew it, and so the “Nick” was an additional barb, a reminder of his current status, a sledgehammer subtlety that shouted, “Lo, how the mighty have fallen!”

  “My name is not Nick,” he said flatly.

  Atkins snapped his fingers. “That’s right, isn’t it? I keep forgetting. What is it again? Randolph Something? Clair? Flair? Shmair? What is your name, Nick?”

  “My name is Randolph Blair,” he said. He fancied he said it with great dignity. He fancied he said it the way Hamlet would have announced that he was Prince of Denmark. He could remember the good days when the name Randolph Blair was the magic key to a thousand cities. He could remember hotel clerks with fluttering hands, maitre d’s hovering, young girls pulling at his clothing, even telephone operators suddenly growing respectful when they heard the name. Randolph Blair. In his mind, the name was spelled in lights. Randolph Blair. The lights suddenly flickered, and then dimmed. He felt the steel outline of the Luger against his belly. He smiled thinly.

  “You know my name, don’t you, Mr. Atkins?”

  “Yes,” Atkins said. “I know your name. I hear it sometimes.”

  His interest was suddenly piqued. “Do you?” he asked.

  “Yes. I hear people ask, every now and then, ‘Say, whatever happened to Randolph Blair?’ I know your name.”

  He felt Atkins’s dart pierce his throat, felt the poison spread into his bloodstream. Whatever happened to Randolph Blair? A comedian had used the line on television not two weeks before, bringing down the house. Randolph Blair, the ever-popular Randolph Blair. A nothing now, a nobody, a joke for a television comic. A forgotten name, a forgotten face. But Atkins would remember. For eternity he would remember Randolph Blair’s name and the face and terrible power.

  “Don’t …” he started, and then stopped abruptly.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t … don’t push me too far, Mr. Atkins.”

  “Push you, Nick?” Atkins asked innocently.

  “Stop that ‘Nick’ business!”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Blair,” Atkins said. “Excuse me. I forgot who I was talking to. I thought I was talking to an old drunk who’d managed to land himself a temporary job …”

  “Stop it!”

  “… for a few weeks. I forgot I was talking to Randolph Blair, the Randolph Blair, the biggest lush in …”

  “I’m not a drunk!” he shouted.

  “You’re a drunk, all right,” Atkins said. “Don’t tell me about drunks. My father wa
s one. A falling-down drunk. A screaming, hysterical drunk. I grew up with it, Nick. I watched the old man fight his imaginary monsters, killing my mother inch by inch. So don’t tell me about drunks. Even if the newspapers hadn’t announced your drunkenness to the world, I’d have spotted you as being a lush.”

  “Why’d you hire me?” he asked.

  “There was a job to be filled, and I thought you could fill it.”

  “You hired me so you could needle me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Atkins said.

  “You made a mistake. You’re needling the wrong person.”

  “Am I?” Atkins asked blandly. “Are you one of these tough drunks? Aggressive? My father was a tough drunk in the beginning. He could lick any man in the house. The only thing he couldn’t lick was the bottle. When things began crawling out of the walls, he wasn’t so tough. He was a screaming, crying baby then, running to my mother’s arms. Are you a tough drunk, Nick? Are you?”

  “I’m not a drunk!” he said. “I haven’t touched a drop since I got this job. You know that!”

  “Why? Afraid it would hurt your performance?” Atkins laughed harshly. “That never seemed to bother you in the old days.”

  “Things are different,” he said. “I want … I want to make a comeback. I … I took this job because … I wanted the feel again, the feel of working. You shouldn’t needle me. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “Me? Needle you? Now, Nick, Nick, don’t be silly. I gave you the job, didn’t I? Out of all the other applicants, I chose you. So why should I needle you? That’s silly, Nick.”

  “I’ve done a good job,” he said, hoping Atkins would say the right thing, the right word, wanting him to say the words that would crush the hatred. “You know I’ve done a good job.”

  “Have you?” Atkins asked. “I think you’ve done a lousy job, Nick. As a matter of fact, I think you always did a lousy job. I think you were one of the worst actors who ever crossed a stage.”

  And in that moment, Atkins signed his own death warrant.

  ALL THAT DAY, as he listened to stupid requests and questions, as he sat in his chair and the countless faces pressed toward him, he thought of killing Atkins. He did his job automatically, presenting his smiling face to the public, but his mind was concerned only with the mechanics of killing Atkins.