The Second Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 20 More Classic Mystery Stories
- Автор: Пауэлл Тэлмидж
- Год: 2015
- Язык: английский
- Год: Wildside Press
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Second Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 20 More Classic Mystery Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
“We know.” McMurdy dismissed LaFarge as a human being. “We always make our own inquiries when you have a prospect in custody, and we’ve the agents and the means.”
LaFarge endured McMurdy’s insulting tone like a well-trained hound.
McMurdy studied me head to toe. “You seem to come from a tough-luck line, Rogers. Father walked out when you were six or seven — never seen or heard from him since. Mother remarried — a real stinker. Both of them killed in a car crash when you were hardly out of high school. Worked your way through a couple years of college, then the Army taps you. Off to Vietnam. Rough time over there. MIA for a while. Wounded once. Finally hung up dockside, one of the last to leave.”
“I didn’t have much to come back to,” I said.
“But you survived,” Hepperling said. “You seem to survive anything. That’s a good omen. That should make it good.”
“Let’s hope so,” Convers said. “We haven’t had a good island hunt in months now.”
I think I’d suspected the truth when they’d first ringed the grounded chopper with their carbines, but now as it was coming closer to me with every passing second, I still couldn’t believe it I wouldn’t believe it Then I looked at them, at the jungle, and back at them — and I had to believe it Convers bobbed his woolly white mane toward the jungle. “You’ll be given a canteen of water and some field rations before you go in there, Rogers. How much life you buy for yourself is up to you, your wits and strength.”
I was unable to move.
Hepperling said, “You do understand, Rogers?”
“Sure.” The word was a husky whisper. “You guys have hunted everything, everywhere, until you’ve run all the way out of normal pleasure. So now, when you have the chance and can arrange it, here on this island... you hunt the prime game of all.”
“How afraid are you, Rogers?” Convers asked as if the subject really interested him.
“If I wallowed on my knees would it help?”
“Last time the prey almost went nuts before dashing off into the jungle,” Hepperling said, “screaming that we were crazy, not for real.”
“Oh, you’re for real,” I said. “In twenty-seven years of living I’ve discovered that anything can be for real on this planet. Adolf Hitler. Scientists who talk about dedication, and devote their lives to thinking up bigger bombs and deadlier germs. Charles Manson. The Mafia. I don’t doubt that you three are rather mildly real, compared to some of the things that go on.”
I walked a few steps from the chopper and stood looking at the jungle. Then I sat down on the green coolness of the grass. “Only I’m for real, too, fellows. And you’ve left me just one thing. You’ve stripped me down to this one real thing. I won’t do it. The hunt is off.” They came stalking toward me, their shadows flowing across me. “That’s the whole point of it,” I said. “Without the point, there is nothing in it for you. Without fleeing prey trying to hang onto a few more hours of life there in the jungle, you’ve lost the point, and it’s no dice. You’ve got the wrong tiger this time.”
“LaFarge,” McMurdy ordered in a quiet tone.
LaFarge came around to stand close in front of me. He pulled out his gun. “You want it right here, Rogers?”
“No,” I said, “I don’t want it anywhere for years and years yet But you’re betting against an enemy with nothing to lose, LaFarge. No matter what you do, the hunt is off. And I don’t believe you’ll be paid for this one or trusted in the future.”
He fired the gun almost in my face. The flash blinded me. I felt the bullet nip the hair on my crown.
I pushed back the need to be sick all over the place. “You’ll have to do better than that, LaFarge.”
He put the gun to my temple and slowly eased back the hammer.
“That’s the surest way of guaranteeing no hunt, LaFarge.”
Taking a step back, he ventured a glance at the faces of his young employers. He didn’t like the way they were looking at him. He didn’t enjoy what he felt as they measured him. He wasn’t liking any of it at all.
He coupled my name with a curse. “On your feet, Rogers. I’ll make you run! Hit for the jungle!”
He exploded his booted foot directly at my face. He didn’t have nearly the coordination or quickness of a Viet Cong. My handcuffed hands met the driving ankle. I flipped him hard, onto his back, and before he could catch the next breath, I’d wrung the gun from him and spun to face the others.
“Hold it!” I ordered.
Not a carbine moved. They had brains as well as loot. They knew they could have taken me — but not safely.
It was one of those crossroads moments in life for me, not because of anything outside myself, but because of the thought coming full-blown to my mind. I thought about the gig I’d had from the moment of birth. It seemed that the time was overdue for a putting of things in balance for a fellow named Rogers. The big, basic questions didn’t bug me any longer. I was certain, right then, of the direction my life would take. I let a grin build on my lips.
In response, the first edge of tension eased from the Quixotes. They slipped glances from me to each other. Actually, there was a lot more rapport between the Quixotes and myself than between any of us and LaFarge.
“Fellows,” I said, “being a country sheriff in mean bayou territory is risky business. If LaFarge turned up in some back bayou shot to death, no one would figure it any way except that he’d cornered one mean moonshiner or poacher too many.”
I eased the snout of the gun in LaFarge’s direction. “Into the jungle, big man.”
“You’re nuts, Rogers... Fellows, you tell this character—” His words broke off as he looked at them. He couldn’t take his eyes from their faces. He took a backward step... then another... and whatever it was that he’d substituted for nerve all of his life died inside of him. He broke and ran, disappearing quickly into the jungle.
McMurdy was standing closest to me. Carefully, I turned the police pistol around and handed it to him butt first.
“Gentlemen,” I said, “I think the hunt resumes. And don’t forget to get the keys to the handcuffs when you’ve tracked him down.”
That’s how my association with the Quixotes began. Now I draw seventy-five grand a year, plus expenses. I travel the plushiest resorts. I drive a thirty-five-thousand-dollar sports car. I buy the finest food and wines and wear a hand-tailored wardrobe.
Not surprisingly, I practically have to fight off the chicks. I usually pick the best-looking and healthiest of the crop of empty-headed dropouts and runaways from good, substantial homes. They’re easiest to con, and once on the Island it’s too late for them to come to their senses and realize they’re facing something entirely different from the romantic and exciting weekend they’ve been promised. They’re among the runaways who every year are simply not found. None is ever traceable to the Island. I see to that.
Girls... the ultimate prey. The Quixotes thought the suggestion was the greatest when I hit them with it. I coupled the idea with the offer to act as their agent, roaming the country, recruiting the prey, and bringing them to the Island. I’ve proven my absolute reliability, and the Quixotes respect my advice.
Summing up the brand-new life, I guess you could say I owe LaFarge a vote of thanks.
New Neighbor
Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, October 1975.
“Each of us lives in one world only,” Mrs. Cappelli said, “the singular world within the skull. No two are alike. Who can possibly imagine some of the dark phantasms within the worlds other than one’s own?”
Isadora, old, gray, spindly, gnarled, more friend and companion than servant, drifted to Mrs. Cappelli’s side. The two women were of an age, in the autumn of their lives, with a close bond between them. The years had touched Mrs. Cappelli with the gentler brush. She was still trim; her face had not entirely surrendered its youthful lines; her once-black hair was braided in a coil atop her head, a silver tiara.