«Thanks, Hans. Yes.»
I walked over and handed him my glass. He went out into the kitchen with the glasses. I walked quietly over to the closet door and tried it.
It was locked.
And there wasn’t a key in the door. That didn’t make sense. Why would anyone keep a closet locked when he always locked all the outer doors and windows when he left? ‘Little lamb, who made thee?’
Hans came out of the kitchen, a martini in each hand. He saw my hand on the knob of the closet door.
For a moment he stood very still and then his hands began to tremble; the martinis, his and mine, slopped over the rims and made little droplets falling to the floor.
I asked him, pleasantly, «Hans, do you keep your closet locked?»
«Is it locked? No, I don’t, ordinarily.» And then he realized he hadn’t quite said it right and he said, more fearlessly, «What’s the matter with you, Wayne?»
«Nothing,» I said. «Nothing at all.» I took the forty-five out of my pocket. He was far enough away so that, big as he was, he couldn’t think about trying to jump me.
I smiled at him, instead. «How’s about letting me have the key?»
More martini glistened on the tiles. These tall, big, handsome blonds, they haven’t guts; he was scared stiff. He tried to make his voice normal. «I don’t know where it is. What’s wrong?»
«Nothing,» I said. «But stay where you are. Don’t move, Hans.»
He didn’t. The glasses shook, but the olives stayed in them. Barely. I watched him, but I put the muzzle of the big forty-five against the keyhole. I slanted it away from the center of the door so I wouldn’t kill anybody who was hiding inside. I did that out of the corner of my eye, watching Hans Wagner.
I pulled the trigger. The sound of the shot, even in that big studio, was deafening, but I didn’t take my eyes off Hans. I may have blinked.
I stepped back as the closet door swung slowly open. I lined the muzzle of the forty-five against Hans’s heart. I kept it there as the door of the closet swung slowly toward me.
An olive hit the tiles with a sound that wouldn’t have been audible, ordinarily. I watched Hans while I looked into the closet as the door swung fully open.
Lamb was there. Naked.
I shot Hans and my hand was steady, so one shot was enough. He fell with his hand moving toward his heart but not having time to get there. His head hit the tiles with a crushing sound. The sound was the sound of death.
I put the gun back into my pocket and my hand was trembling now.
Hans’s easel was near me, his palette knife lying on the ledge.
I took the palette knife in my hand and cut my Lamb, my naked Lamb, out of her frame. I rolled her up and held her tightly; no one would ever see her thus. We left together and, hand in hand, started up the hill toward home. I looked at her in the bright moonlight. I laughed and she laughed, but her laughter was like silver cymbals and my laughter was like dead petals shaken from a madman’s geranium.
Her hand slipped out of mine and she danced, a white slim wraith.
Back over her shoulder her laughter tinkled and she said, «Remember, darling? Remember that you killed me when I told you about Hans and me? Don’t you remember killing me this afternoon? Don’t you, darling? Don’t you remember?»
ME AND FLAPJACK AND THE MARTIANS
(in collaboration with Mack Reynolds)
Wanta hear how Flapjack saved the world from the Martians, huh? All right, partner. It happened on the edge of the Mojave, just south of Death Valley. Me and Flapjack was…
«Flapjack,» I told him complainingly, «you ain’t worth a whoop no more since you done got rich. You’re too all-fired proud these days to be ploddin’ through the desert doing an honest day’s work. Ain’t yuh?»
Flapjack didn’t answer. He ignored me and looked ahead of him disgustedly at the sand, the dust, the little clumps of cactus. He didn’t have to answer; just his whole attitude made it plenty clear he wished we was back in Crucero, or maybe up in Bishop.
I frowned at him. «Sometimes,» I told him, «I think you was just never cut out for this, Flapjack. Oh, sure, you’ve spent most of your life in the desert and the mountains, just like I spent most of mine. And maybe you know ’em better than I do; I gotta admit it was you and not me that stumbled on that there last strike we made. But I still don’t think you like the desert and the hills.
«I think I got reason for sayin’ that, Flapjack. It’s the way you’ve acted ever since we got a few dollars in the poke from that strike. Now you don’t have to look hurt like that. You know the way you been carryin’ on ever since we got money in the bank. A real caution. Why as soon as we get into Bishop or maybe Needles, what do you do? You make a beeline for the nearest saloon, that’s what you do. Gotta let everybody in town know we got money to spend.»
Flapjack yawned and kicked up the dust underfoot. He didn’t mind my talking on and on, because you get to where you kind of like to hear somebody’s voice out in the desert, but he wasn’t paying no real attention to what I was saying. But I didn’t let that stop me. I laid it into him.
I said, «And you ain’t satisfied to spend our money in just one bar, neither. The minute you finish off a gallon of beer in one saloon, you head for the next. You’re gettin’ yourself talked about, Flapjack. But that don’t make no difference to you. In fact, like I said, you’re gettin’ yourself so all-fired proud you don’t care what anybody says about you.
«It ain’t as though we got so much money we can retire. If we tried livin’ in town permanent-like, we’d be flat broke in no time. Especially with the way you hang around in saloons and guzzle beer. Well, at least you don’t buy drinks for the house; guess you think on account of that I ain’t got no complaints comin’,»
Flapjack snorted at my words and stopped.
«Oh, you think we oughta make camp, huh?» I said. I let my eyes go around the landscape. «All right, I guess one place is as good as another. Ain’t no water within a dozen miles anyhow.»
I took the pack off Flapjack’s back and began to set up my little tent. I’d never packed a tent before I’d made my strike—or Flapjack had made it for me—but that hombre in the store had caught me in a weak moment with money in my pocket and he’d talked me into it. A piece of foofaraw, but it served Flapjack right for having to carry it.
Flapjack watched me for a minute and then ambled off to size up the possibilities of a little graze or such other grub as a burro can rustle up in the desert. I knew he wouldn’t wander far and that I didn’t have to watch him or hobble him, so I minded my own business and let him mind his.
It wasn’t no exaggeration, what I’d been telling him. He’d been acting up for days and the reason was plain to see. Flapjack wanted to get back to where he could get his ration of beer every night, and some good fancy feed to top it off with. Ever since he kicked over that rock and made the silver strike, he’s had credit in every bar in every town around here. He just walks in and the bartender fills a bucket with beer for him and he drinks it down, and then he ambles on to the next bar. He’s crazy about beer. Holds it pretty well, too.
Maybe I should never have made the arrangements, but, like I said, it was Flapjack that made the strike, so I thought it was only fair. Even if once in a while I regret it, like the time he got in the fancy place in Crucero by mistake and got out in the middle of the fancy dance floor and—well, you can’t expect a burro to know better than that, can you? And there weren’t any people dancin’ just then anyway so I don’t see what they made such a big fuss about. Funny thing, Flapjack never done anything like that in a place where he was welcome, and I sometimes wonder. Especially after what happened with the Martians. But we ain’t quite got to that yet.