The Third Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 25 Classic Mysteries
- Автор: Пауэлл Тэлмидж
- Год: 2020
- Язык: английский
- Год: Wildside Press LLC
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Third Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 25 Classic Mysteries». Краткое содержание книги:
There was a singing in Joe’s head. It rose to such a pitch that he felt as if he were losing his balance and would fall off the edge of the bed.
He got up and lighted a cigarette and walked back and forth across the room.
She lay with her arm over her eyes, “You made me tell you, Joe.”
“It was best.”
“Now you’re upset.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You can’t deny it, Joe. It’s been a mistake. You should walk out the door and not come back.”
Joe lay down on the bed and continued smoking. He reached up and turned off the bed lamp. Dusty lay still and tense beside him. After a long time, he realized they were both pretending to be asleep.
The quiet shell he wore in the office brought some ribbing from men who worked with him.
“...Married life getting you down, Joe?”
“...Look at the guy — married a week now and all he can do is go around thinking of his wife. It’s almost five, Joe. Almost quitting time. You’ll be home to her in less than an hour.”
“...When do we meet the bride, Joe? Geez, I got to meet the gal who’s terrific enough to addle Joe Edgerly’s brains.”
By the end of the week, Joe admitted to himself that he had changed inside. The thing had grown in him like a ravening monster. He could think of nothing but Radford.
He went in old man Simpkins’ office and reminded Simpkins that he had several days of sick leave coming.
“I’d like a few days off,” Joe said.
Simpkins, a withered man with a dry sense of humor, leaned back behind his desk. “I guess it can be arranged, Joe. Can’t say that I blame you. I’d hate to come right back to work myself after a short weekend honeymoon. By the way, when am I going to meet the missus?”
“Very soon,” Joe said, “Thanks for the time off, Mr. Simpkins.”
Simpkins waved him out of the office.
Nevertheless, as if a part of him had been iced over, Joe left the office and drove across town.
He chose a cheap pawnshop. Dirty windows. Shelves and showcases piled full of broken dreams and moments of fear. A wizened old man, like a packrat, coming out into the light.
“I want to buy a gun,” Joe said.
“Do you have a permit?”
“No.”
“I can’t sell a gun without a permit.”
Joe put a hundred dollar bill on the showcase.
A claw with five talons and broken nails covered the bill. The money disappeared.
“I have a 38 revolver that’s in good working order,” the old man said.
“That will do.”
When he reached the cottage he had rented for Dusty, she was in the kitchenette fixing dinner.
She came to the living room while he was getting some papers out of the kneehole desk and stuffing them in his briefcase.
“Dinner’s almost ready, Joe.”
“I won’t be able to eat. Simpkins gave me a sudden business assignment. I have to drive up to Atlanta.”
“That’s too bad.”
He didn’t look at her. “I’ll be gone several days. Maybe even a week. Do you have enough money to take care of yourself?”
“Yes, Joe.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I get through this job.” He snapped his briefcase closed. “You sure you’ll be okay?”
“Sure, Joe. I might visit my mother.”
“That’s a good idea,” he said.
When he left the central Georgia town where he lived and worked, he didn’t drive north. He drove south by east, toward Colterville and the big swamp that sprawled just north of the Florida state line.
The night was balmy, the moon full. He drove with the windows of the car open.
The most beautiful season of the year. The season of promise and new life.
Spring.
He didn’t find the shack in the swamp right away. He searched for three days before he found the path that led to it.
He walked along the path as the sun was sinking. Blood-red sun, falling into the western edges of the swamp. The heat over the swamp sang with insect life. Cypress reared from the black water on knobby knees and wept Spanish moss over him.
Then as he rounded a bend in the path, the shack stood before him.
He stopped short, his breath catching. He felt the weight of the gun pressing his stomach hard behind the waistband of his pants.
He took the handkerchief from the breast pocket of his sweaty, tropical weight suit and wiped his face. Slowly. Almost carefully.
Then he walked forward again.
The door of the shack was standing open. Joe saw a man inside, hunkered over a rusty two-burner oil stove that was set atop an orange crate.
Joe stepped inside the shack, and the man whirled around. She had described Radford well, Joe thought. Young, handsome, if he had been dressed differently and that light of cruelty extinguished in his lean, angular face.
“Hello,” Joe said. The voice didn’t sound like his. It was quiet, with a faint ring of sadness in it.
“What you want?”
“Your name Radford?”
“So what if it is. You a cop or something?”
“No.”
“What you doing out here?”
“Looking for you, Radford.”
“Yeah?”
“You come here every year, I understand.”
“So what? The shack don’t belong to nobody.”
“That’s right.”
Radford stood with eyes narrowed, but confusion showing in his face. “You ain’t a hunter or fisherman that’s lost his way. You ain’t dressed for the part.”
“No, I haven’t been fishing or hunting — except for this shack.”
“What’s the shack to you?”
“I hoped you’d be here.”
“Me? Why me? I don’t know you.”
“No, you don’t. But I’m glad you’ve stuck to your habits and stopped off here for a few weeks on your way north.”
Radford scrutinized Joe from head to foot. “You seem to know a lot about me.”
“Enough. More than enough.”
Radford took a forward step. “I don’t like people messing in my business. I don’t like people, period. Least of all guys who come walking in looking at me like I was something to be mashed under their toe. Who are you anyway?”
“The name wouldn’t mean anything to you.”
“Yeah? Well, what brings you here?”
“You knew my wife,” Joe said.
There was a quick flare of caution in Radford’s eyes. “That don’t seem likely. I don’t move in your circles, bud. You’re sure you feel all right?”
“I feel fine. You knew her before we were married. Her name is Dusty.”
He watched Radford’s face.
“I don’t know any woman by that name,” Radford said.
“Your face says different. Your face says you’re lying.”
“I think you’d better get out of here,” Radford said.
Joe opened his coat and pulled the gun from his waistband.
“I’m going to kill you, Radford, for what you did to her.”
Sweat broke out on Radford’s face. He began walking back from the gun, moving on his toes. The back of his legs struck the edge of the daybed. His legs broke, dropping him to a sitting position. His face was gray beneath its beard stubble. He looked as if he were going to be sick.
Then as he stared at the gun, something deep buried in Radford began crawling to the surface. In a moment he was sitting almost straight.
“Do me any good to beg?”
“No,” Joe said.
“Then the hell with you. Only she ain’t worth it.”
“Shut up,” Joe said.
“You shut me up, son. You’re buggy with the idea of getting back at me, and I guess that’s an inescapable fact of life. She’ll be disappointed when she comes here this spring.”
“This spring?”
“Every spring, since the first one. Like she’s reenacting the first one. I always have to slap her mouth shut.”