The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)

by Unknown

  “Angel,” he said. “Remember what I asked you last night?”

  “That silly idea of yours?”

  “It’s not so silly. Let’s sell all this stuff. Let’s get out of here. Let’s get out of this stinking town of Barnston and go places. Mexico, maybe. Guatemala.”

  She narrowed her tilted eyes and her mouth turned hard. “Not the way you want it, brother. Not in the tourist court class. I’m not a hamburger and soda-pop gal. Don’t you know that by now?”

  “I—I can raise some fast money.”

  “Out of your savings account?”

  “Sure. Sure. Out of my savings.”

  She looked him over, head to heels. She felt as though inside her head there was a little machine of shining gears, oiled efficiency, bathed in white light. Dan was absorbed into the little machine and came out neatly added up into plus and minus factors. As she had suspected for over a month, the minus factors outweighed the plus. Today was kiss-off day.

  She swung her tiny feet off the windowseat, sat up and yawned in his face. She stood up and pushed by him, walking slowly across the room.

  “You’ll do it?” he asked eagerly.

  She smiled at him. “I’m about to pack. But just your things, not mine.”

  His mouth sagged open. “Huh?” he said stupidly.

  “You bore me, Dan. Sure, a trip is in order. For you. You can go anywhere you want to go.”

  The reaction was as expected. He caught her in two strides, turned her around, his fingers biting into her shoulders, his eyes wild. “You don’t mean it! I bought you all this stuff. You can’t mean it, Angel! I love you. I took the money out of my—savings.”

  Kiss-off day. She yawned in his face. “Danny boy, you never had a savings account in your life. I’ll pack you up and you run far and fast or I’ll call the cops.”

  For a moment she thought the little machine in her mind had given her the wrong balance. His right hand slipped off her shoulder and chill, damp fingers closed on her throat. She stood very straight, looking up into his eyes. His fingers almost closed her throat, turning her voice into a tiny rasp as she said, “You can’t even kill, Danny.”

  When his hand slipped away from her throat, she doubled a small white fist and struck him in the mouth. She left him standing there and went into the bedroom.

  She hummed softly to herself as she packed his things. When she came out, struggling under the load in the suitcase, he was sitting on the windowseat, his face in his hands. She dropped the suitcase over by the door, handed him his jacket.

  “Rise and shine,” she said.

  He didn’t move. Humming again, she walked to the phone, dialed a number, leaned against the wall, holding the phone, watching him.

  He lifted a tortured face and looked at her with frightened eyes. She cooed into the phone, “Joe, darling! That’s right. Honey, there’s a stupid man here annoying me and I can’t get rid of him. Um-hmmm. He wouldn’t give you much of a battle, Joe. About five minutes? Hold the line a moment.”

  She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. Dan stood up. He held his jacket over his arm. With no expression on his face he walked to the door, picked up the suitcase and left. He slammed the door behind him.

  She listened to the phone. Somebody was saying, “Hey, lady! Who is this Joe? You got maybe the wrong number. Lady! You still on there?”

  She hung up, banging the phone down onto the cradle with unnecessary force.

  She walked slowly into the bedroom, delaying the pleasure. In the second drawer of the bureau, far in the back, was the savings account book, her bank’s name stamped in gold on the cover. She stretched out on the bed on her back, her silky hair a pool under her head. She looked and marveled at the neat, precise, miraculous little numbers the tellers had written into her book. Rustle of bills. Slap of the date stamp against the book. Scratch of pen. “Thank you, Miss Baran.”

  And Dan thought he had been so clever about the money. The pout was always useful. “But, Dan, honey, see how sheer these are? They cost four dollars.” Actually they had cost a dollar eighty-three. Two seventeen for the little leather box which, when it held enough, was emptied for the bank deposit.

  “Danny boy, this dress is an original. Two hundred and seventy-five. Yes, I know it’s cotton, but look at the lines, Dan. Look at the lines!” The dress cost twenty-nine ninety-eight.

  And thus the neat little figures added up to a respectable total. It was funny to think of the term “respectable” and then remember how Dan had obtained the money.

  It was time to back out. His nerves were shot. Much worse during the past four days. Unaccountably worse. He’d crack, and if a girl had booted him out before he cracked, then that girl wouldn’t be implicated in what might turn out to be a most unwholesome mess.

  She tucked the little book tenderly away.

  Within minutes the hot water was steaming the inside of the glass door to the coral and ivory shower stall. The water drummed on her small body, on her firm flesh.

  She stood, her face uplifted, and in that moment she could have posed for a calendar presentation of an angel. There was a dedication about her, a look of silvery, hallowed beauty.

  It was kiss-off day for Mayla Baran … Angel, to her friends.… At the moment Mayla stepped out of her shower, Paul January crushed a mosquito against his cheek and suddenly tensed as he heard the crashing in the brush.

  The moon of early evening had drifted under a cloud. He listened and the furtive noise stopped, continued with more caution. Paul frowned. Police would be carrying lights. He wondered if it were someone lost near the lakeshore.

  The sudden silence was ominous. He listened, heard the night noises of the insects, the baying of a distant dog, the rustle and chuff of a faraway train, hooting its sorrow at the stars.

  “Paul?” The voice was close, strained, cautious and very dear.

  He spoke and then she was beside him. He could not see her. With his arms around her he could feel her tremble, the convulsive gasps of her breathing, the race and hammer of her heart.

  “Oh, Paul,” she said softly. “They—they have been following me. A man named Krobey made them follow me. But I got away. I took the other road. The car is parked across the lake. I didn’t dare come here through Rockwarren. My darling, you’ve got to come back with me. It’s dangerous for you here. The newspapers have given it such a big play. Some policeman might find you here and shoot you before you could …”

  “Before I could strangle him?”

  “Come on with me. Bring the blanket. I know where you can stay in the city. It will be safer there. And I have a lot to tell you on the way.”

  “Do we walk across the water?”

  “Silly! I took a boat. I—I borrowed it.”

  “Aha! Thief consorts with murderer. Now I can blackmail you, my proud beauty.”

  “It’s really a safe place. Can I carry the little suitcase? It’s the home of the doctor I worked for. His wife and children are away for a few weeks. He trusts me. He didn’t ask any questions. He has a vacant room you can use.”

  Together they blundered down to the lakeshore, had a moment of panic before they found the rowboat. She sat in the stern and he rowed, favoring his bandaged side. Halfway across the lake the moon came out from under the large cloud. Her face shone in the moonlight. Her lips were parted. She smiled at him and said, “This is silly. I’ve got so much to tell you. But you’ll have to stop looking at me or I won’t be able to say it right. Listen, Paul …”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DORIS LOGAN

  She stood in the upper hall of the desolate rooming house until she was weary of standing. There was an old newspaper on a radiator. She unfolded it, placed it on the floor and sat, her feet on the top stair, her chin on her hands. The gnarled little man who smelled of stale sweat and who called himself the superintendent had been very talkative, never once looking at her face.

  “Yeah, he’s been living here two years. Year ago he sort of moved out but ke
pt the room. Slept here every once in a while. Got his mail here. Come in drunk last night, case you’re interested. Slept most of the day. Didn’t go to work, far as I could see. He took off late this afternoon. Guess you missed him by an hour or better. I guess he’ll be back alright tonight, but I couldn’t guarantee nothing.”

  She felt like a woman in a scene from a cheap melodrama. And she had dressed for the part. A dress of the wrong color, too tight a fit, a foolish buy of several months ago. Earrings longer than she liked. Too much lipstick, smeared heavily to give her mouth a square look, a ripe hardness.

  Early in the evening there had been much traffic, many pedestrians. But the night had grown more still. Far down the street a juke blasted the cool night air. The heavy rhythm came through, pretending to be a faster heartbeat.

  She leaned against the railing post and near her right foot was a neat array of the four cigarettes she had butted against the dry-rotted wood.

  The screen door slammed and she straightened. The man moved slowly toward the stairs, walking with the wooden method of the very drunk. He was partially bald, the skin of his scalp glowing under the hanging bulb with a sick pallor.

  He kept his eyes on the stairs. She was directly in his way. She didn’t move. At last he saw her feet, stopped and stood very still. Slowly he lifted his eyes to her face, full of an unbearable expectation.

  The look faded into dullness. “Thought it was her,” he muttered.

  “Dan Walker?” she asked.

  He walked carefully around her, went to the door on which she had knocked, reaching for his key. It fell onto the floor. She bent and picked it up.

  He looked at her as though seeing her for the first time. “I’m Walker.” He said his own name with an odd mixture of contempt and disgust.

  Unlocking the door for him, she pushed it open. The room was dark. It smelled sour and dusty.

  With the lights on, it became one of those impersonal rooms such as are seen in fourth-rate hotels. A bed, chair, table, bureau, rug, radiator and window. The sheets on the unmade bed were gray and twisted.

  She shut the door behind her. He turned and stared at her, puzzled. “What do you want?” he demanded.

  Before she could answer he said, “You’re another of them.”

  He reached clumsily for her. She evaded him easily. Blundering against the door, he turned around, scowled and said, “Who the hell are you, anyway? How did you get in my room? Did I bring you here?”

  “Darrold sent me.”

  Once again he froze the way he had on the stairs. She couldn’t read his face. He sat on the bed. “Go on,” he said huskily. He seemed suddenly to be more sober.

  “He couldn’t come, himself. You know how it is, Mr. Walker. He has to stick around and answer questions, and besides, it would look funny if he came here.”

  “Go on.”

  “Mr. Darrold asked me to come over to see you and tell you that you’d better stick to your story.”

  “What story?”

  “About putting him on the train. He says it’s important.”

  Walker laughed. It was a yelp without humor. “He thinks it’s important. What do you know? Darrold, the man of distinction. Wouldn’t that hand you a laugh, though?”

  “Why should I laugh?”

  Walker stood up, walked to the bureau, steadied himself against it and looked at his face in the mirror. He took a comb from the top of the bureau and carefully combed his hair to cover his baldness.

  To his reflection in the mirror he said, “I don’t like it and you can tell Darrold that I don’t like it. Where the hell does he get off bringing in women on the deal? How much did he tell you?”

  It was the critical point. Doris Logan managed a smirk. “How much did he tell me about you? You and the money?”

  Dan Walker cursed. He took a bottle from the top drawer of the bureau, drank deeply, corked it and replaced it. Turning on Doris, he said, “It isn’t half as important as Darrold thinks it is. You understand that? Not half as important. It was important yesterday. Right up until the minute Angel …”

  He sat down on the bed again and cried. There was no dignity in his tears. Small-boy tears, with contorted mouth, gasping sobs and squinted eyes.

  He looked at her through the tears, and suddenly stopped crying. “I’ve seen you,” he said. “I’ve seen you before!”

  “Sure. Right out there on the stairs.”

  “Some other place.”

  “Was I with Darrold?”

  “No, you weren’t with Darrold.” He imitated her tone of voice.

  What was the name he had said? She wondered if she should take a chance. “I think I saw you with Angel,” she said.

  “Never again. Never any more.” Once more he began to cry.

  She sat down. When he looked at her, she shrugged and said, “Friend Darrold gets all the breaks. He’ll go free, and from what he told me, I wouldn’t be surprised if he hooked up with Angel.”

  It couldn’t have been more effective if she had stabbed him with a hot poker. He jumped up, his eyes wide. “What did he say?”

  “It wasn’t important.”

  His fingers hurt her shoulder. “Tell me!”

  With her head tilted to one side she said, “Oh, he just said that Angel had more brains than she needed to see through a punk like you.”

  Walker paced the room, with much better coordination. “Oh, he did, did he? A punk like me, hey?”

  It was the moment to test the guess that she and Paul January had made. She said casually, “Of course, if a man happened to be in a little jam, and if he could put the finger on a man who was in a much bigger jam, it might go a lot easier with him.”

  The anger went out of him. He sat on the bed for a moment, then with blank face walked to the door, opened it and went down the hall. She heard another door slam. Suddenly she had a horrid suspicion. She ran after him, her heels skidding on the bare hall floor.

  He had stretched out in the tub to do it. And he hadn’t done it very well. She had time to find the gaping artery, pinch it shut between finger and thumb. She sat on her heels, holding his life fast, and began to scream with all the force of her young lungs.

  CHAPTER NINE

  GAYLORD DARROLD

  The hammering at the front door and the ringing of the bell awakened him. He waited for a time to see if they would go away. They didn’t. He sat on the edge of the bed, nodded politely to the empty bed beside his and said, “Good morning, Cynthia, my dear.”

  After he had scuffed into slippers, belted the robe around him, he padded down the stairs. He pulled the front door wide open, smiled at them and said, “Quite a committee for so early in the morning!”

  “It’s a little after eleven,” Lieutenant Krobey said. With Krobey was the burnished De Wolfe Haggard, the jovial little Sergeant Love, a tall and lovely redhead and a quiet-looking young man.

  “This here is the murderer, Mr. Darrold,” Krobey said. Darrold saw that the young man was manacled to Sergeant Love.

  Darrold felt an enormous tension within him relax. A spring suddenly broken. He cursed deep in his throat and jumped at the quiet young man. He felt the jolt from his knuckles all the way up to his shoulder. The young man sagged and Love supported him.

  Krobey grabbed Darrold and said, “Hey! None of that, now. We know how you feel, but none of that. Just settle down. We want to re-enact the murder. This killer is named Paul January. This young lady will play the part of your wife. First we want Mrs. Morgantine to get a look at this guy. Then, if you want, you can watch our little play.”

  Mrs. Morgantine, shrill, positive and exultant, had been hurried off. The group adjourned to the kitchen.

  The kitchen was exactly as it had been the day of the murder. In fact, a few traces of the chalk outline on the linoleum remained.

  Sergeant Love unlocked January’s wrist. “No breaks, fella, or we shoot,” Love said severely.

  January rubbed his wrist and then fingered the lump on his jaw. Darr
old thought that January had a proper hangdog look.

  Krobey took charge. “Okay, Miss Logan. You stand over there. Where was she, January?”

  “Closer to the sink.”

  “Like this?” Doris asked.

  “That’s fine,” January said, swallowing hard. Darrold leaned against the far wall.

  “I was right here,” January said, “and Mrs. Darrold was over by the sink.”

  There was the sudden, surprising crash of a shot. Doris Logan sagged over the sink, toppled back onto the floor. Darrold watched her, intensely amazed. He was confused. He turned and stared out the open window.

  He stared and stared. Then he looked back at Krobey and Love. They were both moving toward him.

  “Hey!” he said weakly. A patrolman in uniform appeared in the doorway to the kitchen.

  “Them blanks are loud, hey?” the patrolman said.

  “Are you men crazy?” Darrold demanded.

  “Like foxes,” Krobey said. “All you got to do is tell us why you looked out that window, Darrold.”

  “Well, I … well, nobody had a gun and … well, it seemed the logical …”

  “But, Mr. Darrold,” Krobey said sweetly, “you didn’t look around at us to see if we had fired a gun. You looked from the girl to the window. Why?”

  Darrold’s lips felt like dry pork fat as he stretched them in a smile. “Don’t be absurd,” he said in a thin voice. “There’s your man!”

  But January wasn’t where he pointed. He looked. January was over by the sink. He had helped the redhead to her feet. And hadn’t let go of her.

  “Could it be you fired through that window and killed your wife, Darrold?” Krobey asked.

  “Do you have to lean over me and breathe in my face?”

  Darrold had moved back until he touched the wall and still Krobey’s face was inches from his. “Damn it!” Darrold yelled. “January is your man. They quarreled. Cynthia shot him and …”

  Krobey underlined it for him by asking, “Who said anything about January being shot, Darrold?”

  Out of the fear that enveloped him, Darrold made one last effort. “Nonsense, Krobey! When she was killed I was on a train a long way from here. You people proved that.”