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:
Joe’s flesh felt as if it were freezing and burning at the same time. “You’re a liar, Radford.”
“Okay, so I’m a liar. I don’t have to work to convince you. What difference would it make?” Radford sat quietly on the edge of the daybed. Joe held the gun pointed at him. He looked down at his own hand and saw the gun begin to waver and lower, almost of its own accord. The gun pointed down at the floor, and Radford remained, sitting upright, not moving at all.
Maybe he’s telling the truth, Joe thought. Maybe that’s just what happens, every year, every Spring. Dusty comes to this shack, and Radford is here waiting for her...
That’s impossible, he told himself. He thought of Dusty, knowing she would never come to this shack, knowing that what Radford had said was impossible. He lifted the gun again, and it was pointing at the quiet man when he heard the voice.
“Radford...”
There was no fear in Dusty’s voice. Feeling nothing at all, Joe went to the door of the shack and looked out, down the path. Her figure was outlined, clear and sharp, in the light. She saw the shadow of him, not clearly.
She stopped and called: “Radford?”
The minute I was supposed to be out of town, Joe thought, she came running here...
He lifted the gun. He squeezed the trigger and saw the bullet hit her.
She had time only for a very soft, muffled scream as she crumpled and died.
The swamp knew one moment of absolute silence after the crash of gunfire.
Return No More
Originally published in Manhunt, January 1958.
Connors watched the cheap electric clock on the mantel. It was almost nine o’clock in the morning. He lighted a cigarette. His hands were shaking badly. She would leave at nine o’clock. And he would be alone in the apartment. He hadn’t been alone in over twenty years. He hadn’t been out of her presence since she’d met him at the prison gates yesterday.
She’d kept up a running chatter all the way on the drive into the city. Telling him about the apartment. Her job.
She’d been crying a little. Twenty years is a long time to wait.
They’d had dinner here in the apartment. They’d gone to bed early and he’d clung to her long after she was asleep.
He awoke at six this morning, the habit of twenty years. Early dawn had etched shadows against the window. He’d lain with his heart hammering, because the window was wrong. The window was huge, empty, opening into the vastness of sky and earth and buildings and people. There were no bars over the window.
Shivers had crossed his thin, wiry body as he’d lain for an hour and a half waiting for her to wake. At the first peal of the alarm, he’d grabbed the clock and said, “Myrtle! Myrtle, time to get up.”
She’d turned sleepily, smiled at him, and put her arms around his thin, corded neck. He’d been revolted by her touch, because it was transitory. She couldn’t stay here. By nine o’clock she would be out, gone to her job at the cafe.
Breakfast had nauseated him, but he’d forced himself to eat. She’d wanted him to eat so badly. Her eyes, large and brown, heavy and dewy like the rest of her, had been filled with concern for him.
“You just take it easy today, honey,” she’d said, laying her work-roughed, meaty hand on his. “It’s all over now. Twenty years of waiting. You are home.”
“Yeah,” he’d said. “Home... Myrt, it was good of you to wait. Not many women would have.”
“Well,” she laughed, “maybe nobody else would have me, big and blowsy like I am, with bunions that hurt and all.”
“You’re good, Myrt,” he’d said, a sadness unaccountably welling up in him. “You’re real good.”
“Ah, now, you say that to all the women, I bet.”
“In twenty years you forget what women is like,” he’d said. “You find they’re a kind of habit. Like fags or whiskey. You get so the habit is just a dim memory that don’t mean much.”
“You can learn the habit all over again, honey,” she’d said. “But with me. Exclusive, like they say. Just me.”
She’d pushed him aside when he’d wanted to do the breakfast dishes. “You just loll in the parlor. I’ll have these done in a jiffy.”
Now she was finished. The rattle of dishes in the tiny kitchenette had ceased to sound in the cheap apartment.
He stood puffing on his cigarette, fine beads of sweat breaking on his forehead. His face, like his body, was thin and narrow. Eyes in deep sockets. Eyes that seemed to have once looked into a great nothingness. A sharp nose and thin, twitching lips. Skin as pale as bleached white paper. Nerves very close to the surface all over the thin body and intense sweating face.
She came into the cramped living room, the comfortable, generous size of her making the room seem even smaller and meaner.
She was putting on her coat. He watched her do that, while the nervous tic got worse at the corner of his mouth.
Next her hat. She tucked a wisp of iron gray under the edge of the hat.
“I’m off, honey,” she said, turning to him. “Now you have a good day.”
She kissed him on the lips. Her mouth was heavy, damp, kind, and gentle.
He let her pull from his outstretched arms. When she was at the door, he said, “Myrt...”
“Yeah, honey?”
His mouth was parched. He licked his lips. After a moment, he said, “You have a good day yourself.”
“I’ll do that,” she smiled. “Just knowing that the twenty years is dead and gone will make me have a good day.”
She was opening the door. He didn’t want to see her leave. He turned toward the window.
He heard the door close. The sound of it was a soft blow, shaking him. He remained at the window, looking at the street below. He was seeing nothing out there.
Twenty years.
Dead and gone.
Everything changed.
The silence of the apartment began to squeeze off his breathing. It felt as if a weight were bearing down hard on his chest.
“My God,” he said softly. “My God.”
He grabbed his hat and ran from the empty apartment.
In the hallway, he stopped. He could breathe easier now.
Don’t be so damn silly, Connors. Don’t panic. Control yourself.
He held to the stair rail as he started to walk, down the flight to street level.
In the lower hall a door opened. He jumped, spun about. A young brunette woman was getting milk where it had been left beside her apartment door.
She wore a faded housecoat and her hair was done up in aluminum curlers.
“Hello,” she said.
“H... Hello,” Connors said.
“You’re the Mr. Connors from upstairs, ain’t you?”
“Y-Yes. That’s right.”
“Mrs. Connors is awful glad to have you back. All she could talk about... say, you feel all right, Mr. Connors?”
“Could I... have a glass of water?”
“Why, sure. Come on in.” She turned, raised her voice. “Harry, Mr. Connors from upstairs wants a drink of water.”
A heavy male voice inside the apartment said, “Well, let the damned con get it in his own place.”
The young woman turned, her face red, her eyes not meeting Connors’. “I’m sorry,” she said. “My husband — he’s a kind of grouch early in the morning.
“It’s all right,” Connors said, fumbling, his hat in his hand. He turned and darted from the building. He wasn’t running, but he gave the impression that he was.
On the sidewalk, he stopped short. The sun was bright, hurting his eyes. Traffic, snarled and brawling, was a din in his ears.
Good grief, where had all the cars come from? Look at the size and shape of them. They glittered and gleamed with a ferocity that caused him to stand a moment in horror.