The Good Old Stuff
Page 38
She swirled her feet in the water. “Gee, maybe I could.”
“Sure you could,” I said.
She giggled. “Allana Montrose! The real name is Alice Mertz. Allie Mertz. Now it’s Allie Garver. I’m almost back where I started as far as names go. But not in the money department. There were seven kids. The old man had a candy store in Camden. He made book in the back, and when the horses were rough on the suckers, he’d close up and disappear. He’d come back in a week or two with a bad case of the shakes. Then one time he didn’t come back. I was next to the oldest. I quit high school and clerked at the K-Mart. Do you think I can act like a lady, Robby?”
“We’ll see that you do.”
“A lady,” Shay said, “usually has a speaking acquaintance with the arts. We can start right now. Those big windows up there are the windows to my studio. I do figures in clay and cast them myself. If you’d like, we could go up there and I can show you the sort of work I do. Maybe a little later you’d like to pose.”
I glared at their backs as they walked toward the house, Allie small and trim beside Shay’s hulking build.
I swam two angry lengths and got dressed. They were still in the studio.
It was only three o’clock and only five miles to Bets’s house. I walked it.
COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“Murder for Money” originally appeared in the April 1952 issue of Detective Tales under the title “All That Blood Money Can Buy.”
“Death Writes the Answer” originally appeared in the May 1950 issue of New Detective Magazine under the title “This One Will Kill You.”
“Miranda” originally appeared in the October 1950 issue of Fifteen Mystery Stories.
“They Let Me Live” originally appeared in the July–August 1947 issue of Doc Savage Magazine.
“Breathe No More” originally appeared in the May 1950 issue of Detective Tales under the title “Breathe No More, My Lovely.”
“From Some Hidden Grave” originally appeared in the September 1950 issue of Detective Tales under the title “The Lady Is a Corpse.”
“A Time for Dying” originally appeared in the September 1948 issue of New Detective Magazine under the title “Tune In on Station Homicide.”
“Noose for a Tigress” originally appeared in the August 1952 issue of Dime Detective.
“Murder in Mind” originally appeared in the Winter 1949 issue of Mystery Book Magazine.
“Check Out at Dawn” originally appeared in the May 1950 issue of Detective Tales under the title “Night Watch.”
“She Cannot Die” originally appeared in the May–June 1948 issue of Doc Savage Magazine under the title “The Tin Suitcase.”
“Dead on the Pin” originally appeared in the Summer 1950 issue of Mystery Book Magazine.
“A Trap for the Careless” originally appeared in the March 1950 issue of Detective Tales.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John D. MacDonald was an American novelist and short story writer. His works include the Travis McGee series and the novel The Executioners, which was adapted into the film Cape Fear. In 1962 MacDonald was named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America; in 1980 he won a National Book Award. In print he delighted in smashing the bad guys, deflating the pompous, and exposing the venal. In life he was a truly empathetic man; his friends, family, and colleagues found him to be loyal, generous, and practical. In business he was fastidiously ethical. About being a writer, he once expressed with gleeful astonishment, “They pay me to do this! They don’t realize, I would pay them.” He spent the later part of his life in Florida with his wife and son. He died in 1986.