“Maybe you’d better come up with me,” he said.
“Is anything the matter?” I asked.
“Maybe nothing,” he said. “If there is—” He massaged his face all over with his hand. “I don’t want to kill her. If I try to kill her, Willie, don’t let me.”
I’d just as soon not have gone up there with ham, but what could I do? I tagged after him up the two flights of stairs. He stood at the door a little while, just stood there, then moved his hand to the bell. Didn’t ring it though. Instead turned the knob and the door was unlocked on account of I’d made sure it would be. Both for Deuce Melody and for him.
He barged across the tiny living room and threw open the bedroom door. Then stopped dead like he’d come up against a wall.
I didn’t go all the way with him, but I could see past his shoulder into the bedroom. Could see the bed and Deuce Melody sitting up in it in his underwear shirt. With a kind of silly grin on his face and the dimples punching deep holes in his cheeks.
Esther Hunt was in the bed with him. Out to the world like she’d been since before Deuce had come up and taken her dress off her and put her on the bed. She looked like she was peacefully asleep. Which was what she was, that powder I’d put in her coffee having done it.
The whole thing lasted two, three seconds. Lew didn’t have to worry about killing anybody. I didn’t have to worry either, though up to then this was what I’d been worried most about. Lew was too dead inside to do anything but turn around and walk out of there.
I drove him back to his house. He got out without saying goodnight. Maybe he didn’t even know I was there.
I had one more thing to do. I drove to Deuce Melody’s motel. He’d just got back from Esther Hunt’s place. I paid him off and told him who the guy was who’d stood in the doorway. Though he hadn’t known what Lew Angel looked like, he’d sure enough heard of him.
“My God, Willie,” Deuce said, “you doublecrossed me. He’ll cut my heart out.”
“Not if you keep your trap shut,” I said. “And if you don’t lose time getting out of town.”
“I knew the minute I lost my transmission in this dump there was nothing good about it,” he said.
I went home to the cottage and got out a bottle. Pretty soon Floyd arrived. He was a happy man. He said when Lew got back to his apartment the first thing he did was kick out Augie Pitcher and the others that were waiting for him to go on with the meeting. He’d changed his mind about retiring. Which was no surprise to Floyd hearing this.
We shook hands and between us killed the bottle. Celebrating.
This was on account of we didn’t know about you, bug. And you were here all the time.
So you know most of this anyway. Guess I’m on a talking jag. I always talk a lot when I’m nervous.
I found out about this afternoon, bug.
I came back to Lew’s apartment from an errand and found Esther Hunt with him. School was still on, but she’d walked out on her kindergarten kids to try and explain about last night. Said it was all news to her, he thinking she’d been in bed with a guy, till she phoned him at lunchtime and heard it from him. Said all she knew was she’d fallen asleep very early and when she woke up she’d still been alone. Said there couldn’t have been any guy with her.
A likely story.
“Throw the bitch out,” Lew said to me.
I put my hand on her arm, but gentle-like. She threw her shoulders back and marched to the door with her face like a cake of ice. You know, I felt a little bit sorry for her. But what the hell!
“Serves me right, Willie,” Lew said when I came back. “I was old enough to know all dames are tramps.”
“Live and learn,” I said.
A couple of hours later Allen W. McGoldrich, the D.A., came up to the apartment. He was carrying a kind of square case by the handle.
“To what do we owe this pleasure?” Lew said sarcastic-like.
“I have something here that will interest you,” McGoldrich said.
He put the case on the table and took off the top. A tape recorder. We didn’t say a thing watching him plug the cord into an outlet. Then he snapped a switch and the spools started turning and I was listening to my own voice. And Floyd’s.
On the tape was everything I and Floyd had been talking about in our cottage the night I’d come home and told him Lew was going to get married and retire. How we were going to hire Deuce Melody and fix it so Lew would have no more use for Esther Hunt.
But you know. You were right in the wall listening, bug.
I mean you have to be in the wall on account of you’re not anywhere else in this cottage. I’m no beginner. I know the cops and the D.A. are all the time bugging houses and apartments of guys like me and Lew Angel. One of my jobs is to go over Lew’s apartment every few days to see if it’s been bugged. Found a bug only last week behind a picture. Went over my cottage too, but found nothing.
This leaves inside the wall. Put there while I and Floyd were away. With electronics and all, these days you don’t even need wires. A tape recorder can be a mile away recording every word we say as long as a bug is somewhere around.
And there was the tape on Lew’s desk repeating all our words. And Lew just looking at me. And McGoldrich smiling that smile of his full of teeth.
McGoldrich was playing the old D.A. game. If you can’t beat ’em, make ’em beat themselves. Get ’em to fighting each other. Afterward clean up the pieces. A smart cookie, that D.A.
Lew kept looking at me.
I was safe as long as McGoldrich was there. But after he left! Me, I had no hankering to hang around.
I slipped out of the apartment while the recorder was still going. I shouldn’t have stopped. But I figured I had a little time to warn Floyd and pack my clothes and get the few bucks I had stashed away in the cellar.
Floyd got the hysterics when I told him. I was all packed and ready to go, but then I had Floyd on my hands. I couldn’t get him to move, he was so scared. Should’ve left him, but what the hell! Then I was going to leave him, but when I opened the door the first car was pulling in among the trees a couple of hundred feet away.
Got me the box of cartridges out of my valise and my gun hasn’t been out of my hand all the time I’ve been talking to you.
Talking is good for me when I’m like this. Quiets my nerves. Floyd is nobody to talk to. I can hear him bawling in the kitchen.
Now Lew is out there. I just saw him. And it’ll be dark soon. There’s not much time.
Of course the first thing they did was cut the telephone wire. So I can’t call the cops for help. It’s up to you, bug.
You got me into this. Now get me out.
I hope there’s a man at the other end and not just a tape recorder. A man who heard me and will send help before it’s too late.
Bug, for God’s sake, are you listening?
Die, Die, Die!
by Rosemary Johnston
It was dim and cool in Harry’s Bar, peaceful and conducive to day-dreams... wonderful dreams of his mother-in-law. “That miserable old harpy.” He smiled and ordered another drink.
“I hear this Khruschev has a taster,” I said. “A guy that eats a bite or two of everything Khrushchev gets served. Drinks a swig of his champagne, vodka, whatever. All the kings in olden days had tasters, you know.”
Harry, the bartender, clapped the lid with the spring around it over the shaker and dumped the whiskey sour into my glass. It came just to the top, like it always did. Not a drop went over, but you couldn’t have put another drop in, either. Harry was a very good bartender.
“They must have to draft a guy for a job like that,” Harry said. “That taster. Wow!” He shook his head slowly. “When you think of all the guys in this world out to get Mr. K...”