by Robert Colby
Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
Contents
Landmarks
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1963 by Robert Colby.
Published by Wildside Press LLC.
wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com
CHAPTER ONE
It was just a small argument, of no real importance by itself. But later that morning Warren Emrick’s wife was suddenly confronted by an evil temptation. And because of the argument she was in a mood to betray him….
During the night a December snow had flaked down steadily outside the bedrom windows of their Jackson Heights apartment, covering the ugly truth of broken pavement, barren trees and drab buildings with the bland, white lie of purity.
“I think you’re making a mistake,” said Warren. “You played sick once before this month and now you want to fake-off from work again. Why? What’re you celebrating this time?”
“I’m celebrating boredom,” said Marian wearily from her supine position on the bed.
“Boredom!” Warren snorted. “If I took off every time I was bored they’d only see me at the office on payday.”
Wearing only pajamas, he stood with his back to her, sipping coffee, gazing down from a window of their bedroom, a lithe muscular man of thirty-four with dark hair crowning features of intense good-looks and mobility.
Absently he followed the movements of two kids who just then stepped into the cold gray light of the street before a yellow-brick apartment house. They carried sleds but set them aside and began to pelt each other with snowballs.
“Proctor’s out of town again,” said Marian.
“So?”
“So, when he’s out of town there’s nothing for me to do but study my navel. Or answer the phone. He’s got two other girls to take his messages. That’s all they’re good for anyway.”
Marian was Floyd Proctor’s private secretary. He was president of Proctor Drugstores, a large cut-rate chain which sold practically anything—even drugs. Warren had to admit, though only to himself, that she was Proctor’s spoiled favorite and could do no wrong.
“Well, you’re going to get yourself fired,” he said over his shoulder. “Sooner or later you’ll get caught and then—chop!—no job.”
“Don’t be silly, Warren,” she snapped. “You know that’s ridiculous! No matter what I do or don’t, I’ll be Floyd’s girl until—until I begin to look like his wife.”
He turned quickly, spilling coffee. “Just as long as you don’t act like his wife!” Immediately he regretted the remark because he disliked showing his jealousy, losing face with her and with himself. Besides, Proctor was a squat, balding bulb of a man, hardly competition.
“His son is more my style, and my age, wouldn’t you say, darling?” She smiled, giving the smile a hint of sly meaning to needle him.
With languid ease she climbed out of bed and stood stretching luxuriously, a rather tall auburn-haired woman of twenty-eight with bold breasts and the long, slim, tapered lines of the truly classic figure.
She was one of those rare types who had no harsh incongruities of structure to argue against her femininity. Her body was a statement: I am woman, I am all woman, every curve, thrust and valley of me is woman.
Yet, in the very perfect symmetry of that physique there was a loss of identity, of character. Too often one saw the body and not the person.
The face was not quite so perfect. The lips were too heavy, the jaw too pushy, the eyes too gemlike—coldly bright as emeralds, shrewd as money.
“Oh, forget the stupid job,” she said, fluffing her hair and moving toward him. “We don’t need the income, do we?”
“We?” Warren made a sarcastic face. “No, we don’t need the income. But you do.” He placed the coffee cup and saucer on a table. “Have I ever asked you to contribute a penny of that hundred a week?”
She approached, her breasts extending tautly beneath the frail cover of a pink nightgown. She laced her fingers behind his neck. Her face pouty, she said, “Well, why should I use my few dollars when we have thousands in the bank, honey?”
“Those thousands are for investments,” he said firmly, pulling away. “Money to make money. I’ve told you that a dozen times.”
He was a quite successful broker, and for years he had been buying up sound stocks of his own and selling them with a neat margin of profit. He was building capital for a coup that would give him independence for a lifetime. But presently the market was erratic, plunging to a new low. And he had liquidated most of his holdings to await a more certain time. Ninety per cent of his capital rested in a savings account.
“Investments!” Marian sneered. “That’s just a name. What’s it got to do with pretty clothes, dreamy cars and a cushy little house farther out on the Island, away from this dumpy apartment on this dumpy street? You can play Monopoly with stocks anytime, darling. Let’s live it up—now. Now, while the fever’s in the blood! Know what I mean?” She moved closer, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle from his pajama pocket.
“Sure, I understand you, Marian. You’ve got the childish urge to fling it all down the drain in one big the-hell-with-tomorrow orgy of spending. And that’s just the attitude which separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls. A little patience and you’ll be able to have the same fling with plenty to spare.
“Now—you can quit the job if you like, or you can get yourself canned. But remember, that’s a hundred less a week for trinkets and coffee. I can’t afford to make up the difference right now.”
“Honestly, sweetie,” she said. “You’re a real old fuddy-duddy sometimes. A regular tightwad.” She smiled wryly and mussed his hair in a gesture intended to remove the sting from the remark.
Warren did not believe that he was a tightwad. On the other hand, he knew that he had an obsessive interest in the accumulation of money. This was because he had lived in the grubby, snarling environment of poverty all of his youth. His father had been a short-order cook, a semidrunk who deserted his mother and the hovel in which they lived when Warren was twelve, never to return.
Warren’s mother had a slim education and no special skills. She had been forced to take a job as a common waitress in a round-the-clock diner, standing for long night hours on her feet, stumbling home to fall in a stupor upon the lumpy mattress of her sagging bed.
When she wasn’t weeping over her fate, she stormed about the tiny house with its junk-sale furniture, scrubbing, ironing, sewing as she screamed abuse at Warren and his older brother.
Warren had caught the disease of her bitterness. He became wrapped in his own little bomb of smoldering rage, exploding his anger with hurtling fists in the littered streets and shabby schoolyards of his limited domain. To create a few dollars out of pennies he sold newspapers, ran errands and poked about the neighborhood for hours, gathering discarded pop bottles for their return deposit.
He grew up with the driving urge to outfight, outsell and outthink his competitors so that he would never again be trapped in the stink and want and groveling degradation of poverty. He came to manhood with the same iron determination to win and hold his win
nings, with the same hair-trigger temper in defiance of his enemies.
Only after he had worked his way through college, boxed his way to Golden Gloves Champion, did he learn to smooth the rough edges of his personality, to understand the more subtle approach to human relations.
Yet beneath the velvet cloak of good manners and diplomacy which he now wore, there was always the steel-hard core of himself, primed to resist the slightest threat to the security he had so shrewdly built, the savings he had so carefully stored over the years.
But now Marian was mussing his hair and pressing herself teasingly against him. And he felt a surge of desire which, clouding his better judgment, made him want to placate her.
“All right,” he said. “Maybe we’ll break loose a bit, toss a few bucks into a new car. After the first of the year, when we get the interest on savings. And remember, Christmas is corning in a few days, honey. Santa has an oversized stocking with your name on it. I have that on good authority—right from the reindeer’s mouth.”
She gave him a little-girl-pleased smile and he kissed her shoulder. His lips slid downward, seeking, searching. There was anticipation in the slight uptempo of her breathing, and so he maneuvered her arms from the straps of the gown, pulling it away from her breasts.
He guided her toward the bed, sat down so that she hovered above him. He stared. And stared…
“God,” he groaned. “Goddamn. What a pair! I never get tired looking at them. I never get enough with you.”
She chuckled deep in her throat—all woman now, sure of herself, sure of her power. She cupped her breasts, lifting them, offering them with a cunning, watchful expression. Then, as he was about to grab her, she stepped back out of range. Posing provocatively, she arched her back in a way that caused her breasts to rise and thrust still more invitingly.
At the same time she sucked in her tummy and rotated her torso suggestively. The gown descended and when it clung to her hips she did a little shimmy that sent it slithering to the floor at her feet.
Now she stood naked before him, wearing only the sly ancient smile of the knowing female. With feline grace, she floated back to him. Bending, she ran her soft hands over his body, artfully teasing, goading his hunger.
Trembling with the need of her, he clutched her breasts, kissing the nipples, pressing them against his eyes, his cheeks. Then he pulled her down on top of him and began to stroke the high curve of buttocks, caressing all the warm nakedness of her back.
“Darling, darling,” she murmured. “Take the day off and we’ll make it a ritual, an all-day production.”
“Yes,” he answered. “Yes, all right. Okay, hon, maybe I’ll spend the whole day with you. Sure I— I’ll just do that. God, how I love you! And what’s it all for if we don’t have time for each other?”
“Ahh, that’s my angel, that’s my baby,” she soothed. And falling momentarily away from him, began to unbutton his pajamas with long frantic fingers.
* * * *
But shortly after eight o’clock he glanced at his watch, climbed out of bed and moved briskly toward the bathroom.
“What’s the matter?” she called after him.
He turned. “Matter? Why, nothing. Running late, that’s all. Make me another cup of java while I shower and throw myself together, will ya, honey?”
“I thought you were going to take the day off,” she said peevishly.
It had never occurred to him that she would take seriously what was said in a mindless moment of passion. He felt defensive, seeing no reason for her annoyance, but still not wanting to leave her in a small stew of resentment.
“Well, now, listen, sweetheart, let’s be practical. Sure, I’d love to shove the work and spend the whole damn day with you, uninterrupted. It was a terrific idea. Great. But I’m afraid I just didn’t think it out. I’ve got at least three important clients to see and they can’t be brushed. The market’s about as stable as a glider in a tornado, and these guys just won’t let anyone else carry the ball for them in a losing game with all their chips in the pot. I’ll have to be there with sharp advice and a crying towel or lose the accounts. Please try to understand.”
“I understand all right,” she said testily.
“You sound understanding. Oh, very! Well, my job isn’t like yours. I can’t goof off. The stakes are too high. And anyway, I’m hustling for your goodies as well as my own.”
“I understand,” she repeated, lighting a cigarette, pushing an angry jet of smoke from the side of her mouth. “I understand that when your belly is full you’re no longer interested in the cook until you’re hungry again.”
“On crap, crap! Pure female-type crap, the whining voice of women everywhere, feeling abused, feeling sorry for themselves because they gave it away before they bargained some sucker out of a reward. Well, payment deferred! I’m still late for the office.”
He wheeled about and shoved into the bathroom. The ash tray she hurled shattered against the door just as he slammed it.
He came out fifteen minutes later feeling refreshed and a little sorry. After all, there was a certain truth in what she said about the full belly, and he was nudged by a small finger of guilt. Though nothing could have kept him from the ticker tape on such a day.
To his relief she was not in the bedroom, and he was able to dress quickly, undisturbed.
He found her in the kitchen, wearing her pale blue, gold-figured Capri outfit, the one he had bought her only last week on a whim. He was always buying her things without need of a special occasion. It gave him real pleasure. For though they battled frequently, he loved her none the less.
She was smoking moodily, huddled over a cup of coffee. She had not poured one for him.
“I don’t know who should be sorry,” he said. “Probably me. Please forget the whole stupid bit. Okay, sweetheart?” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. She was unresponsive.
“Before you go, Warren,” she said coolly, “would you please phone me in sick? Because I really am sick. Sick, sick, sick!”
“I’d rather not if you don’t mind.” His temper was rising again. “I’m not much good at these little charades of deceit. They’d know I was lying. Anyway, I haven’t time.”
“Never mind,” she said. “I’ll have the maid do it. This is her day to clean.”
She went with him to the door, stood silently, grimly, while he got his coat and hat from the hall closet, wrestled them on quickly because now he wanted to escape. It would all be forgotten by dinnertime.
He had his mind on the doorknob and was about to leave with some meaningless parting crack, when suddenly her expression changed to one of mollifying semisweetness. All is forgiven, her look said, though you know you were wrong and I’m being very generous.
“Have a good day, darling,” she cooed, fingering the lapel of his coat. “And try to make it home right around six because I’m doing a roast and I’ll time it so we can swallow a couple of martinis first. Sound good?”
“Delicious,” he answered. “You’re a doll and I’m a brute. I’ll make it up to you.” He kissed her puckered lips and opened the door. He stepped out.
“Oh! Wait a minute, darling,” she cried in an afterthought tone of voice. “Could you let me have fifty until payday? I’m running a little short.”
“Fifty?” he repeated. “Sure.”
He took her hand, reached into his change pocket, produced a half dollar and slapped it into her palm. He made as if to leave.
“That’s funny, Warren,” she said. “But not very.”
“Last week you were also short,” he complained. “So I gave you fifty—until payday. Remember? But I guess you didn’t get paid because the subject was dropped, along with the money. What’s the trouble, Marian? Betting the horses again? What’s good in the third at Santa Anita, Marian?”
“Oh, shut up!” she screamed. “Fall under a truck! Drop dead!” She slammed the door in his face.
He stomped off to the elevator and jabbed the button furiously.
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Damn, damn and goddamn!” he thought. No doubt about it, her face was a red neon confession. She’s found another bookie. She can’t spend it fast enough, she has to feed it to the ponies.
Okay. He stepped into the elevator, tightening his jaw. Okay, lover-girl, but not from my pocket, not with my money. Not one lousy dollar!
Just wait and see.
CHAPTER TWO
Marian ploughed into the living room and plucked a cigarette from the silver box on the coffee table. Her hand trembled with anger as she lighted it.
I’ll show him! she thought. I’ll show the bastard! Wait’ll the next time he wants to play love games. I’ll yawn right in his face. Miser! Fifty crumby little dollars, that’s all. And he’s got forty-eight thousand in the bank. Imagine! Well, my turn is coming, Warren. You’re in for a hard time, sweetie. Oh, are you ever!
She fell into a chair, her face brooding, sullen. She began to think about the immediate problem, worrying it, grinding her lip between her teeth.
She was now three-hundred-twenty in the hole to Frank Killian, the bookie who operated from the restaurant in the building where she worked. She had been stalling him, but today was the absolute deadline. He would send a runner to her office or he would come himself. And that was why she had to phone in sick.
She knew what Killian would say: “You get up that dough, girlie. Today! Or I’ll drop around to your hubby’s office and have a little chat with him—see what I mean? And if that don’t work, I got other ways that will.”
He’d do it, too. He’d go over to Warren’s office and make a big noise. Warren would probably throw him out with a threat to call the police, which wouldn’t scare Killian (now and then he paid a fine and went right on booking) but would only cause him to find one of those “other ways” to torture her.
And when Warren got home that night, there would be such a scene—the very thought of it made her cringe.
There was another bookie, a bartender in Jackson Heights. But he was strictly cash. That was why she needed the fifty. If she could have placed a winning bet with the bartender at six to one, she would have been able to pay Killian the next day.
