“Yes, ma’am.”
“And that’s a reason for divorce or killing? Does he think I’ve got so much to say to him? I’ve been married as long as he has, you know. Then, crazy reason number four: Because I clutter up the bathroom with my things. So what woman doesn’t clutter up the bathroom with her things? I’ve got cosmetics, cleansers, shampoo. I keep as much as I can on my dresser. What can I do with the rest? Put it in the closet? I need it every day. Where does your wife keep her cosmetics?”
“In the bathroom, ma’am.”
“There you are,” said Mrs. Turchin triumphantly. “Crazy reason number five—”
“Excuse me,” said Sergeant Bevelow. “But I think I understand the situation now. If you’d like, I’ll call your husband and have a talk with him.”
“Oh, I’m so glad. Maybe you can talk some sense into him. Ulster-9-2704. Bernard W. Turchin. You want me to wait while you talk to him?”
“No, ma’am. I don’t think that will be necessary. I’ll just ask him to come down here at his first opportunity and we’ll have a little chat then.”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Turchin. “Thank you. I really don’t know what I would have done... just today when I was coming over here I was standing in the street thinking about it and... oh, but I told you about that, didn’t I?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You see? You see the way he’s made me? A week at the most he says he gives me. I’ll be lucky if I get home all right.”
“Would you like me to have an officer drive you, ma’am?”
“No, no, don’t bother. I’ll be all right. Just talking to you has made me feel much better. If only he’ll stop that killing me, killing me, killing me, every minute... Well, thank you again. You’ve got the number now? It’s Ulster-9-2704.”
“Ulster-9-2704,” said Sergeant Bevelow.
“That’s right,” said Mrs. Turchin “Well, thank you again.”
“Quite all right, ma’am.”
Sergeant Bevelow watched until the woman had walked through the door. Twice in that time he saw her straighten the small black hat which sat like a sparrow on the nest of her freshly blued hair. He seriously doubted if she felt much better for having spoken to him. She still looked as if she might distractedly step in front of a car or fall down a flight of stairs. Not today perhaps, but probably soon. Very possibly within the week.
Sergeant Bevelow looked at the report on his desk, tapping it thoughtfully with the eraser end of his pencil. Then he picked up the telephone receiver and dialed Ulster-9-2704.
“Mr. Bernard Turchin?” he said when a voice answered... “This is Desk Sergeant Stanley Bevelow of the Fourth Precinct. I wonder if it would be possible for you to stop down here sometime today?... No, it’s nothing official,” Sergeant Bevelow said and glancing over at the picture of his wife, “it’s purely a personal matter. In fact I’d appreciate it if you could make it after I get off duty... Oh, about six would be fine, fine...”
Vendetta
by Max Van Derveer
It has been said that, when you sell a man a book, you sell him a whole new life. Logically then, it must be necessary to deprive him of the old one.
Waldo Raines saw the man from his vantage behind the short counter. He had a commanding view of the street through a plate glass window, and the man had hesitated outside that window. Now, though, the man was coming through the front door and Waldo felt his heart flutter with recognition, felt the anticipation leap alive and pulse through his limbs, for the man was as incongruous to Waldo’s small bookshop as a prostitute to a church pew.
The man paused for a few seconds just inside the door, tipped a black hat back on a head much too large for his body, and critically inventoried everything except Waldo from eyes that were like shiny marbles.
Waldo didn’t move.
The man did.
He turned into an aisle of eight foot high bookshelves and went halfway down the aisle before stopping again. His actions were quick now. Sure. He took down a thick volume and blocked Waldo’s view with his body. Seconds later, the volume was back in its place on the shelf and the man was continuing down the aisle. He went around the bookstall and out the street door.
When Waldo removed the five thousand dollars in worn bills from the hollowed interior of the special volume he laughed softly. It was to be a good day. Any day Harrison James, juice man, underworld loan shark, laid out five thousand bills it was a good day.
“Father?”
Waldo stuffed the fold of bills into the coat pocket of a baggy tweed suit quickly and turned on his daughter.
Had she observed his movements?
She came to him, a tall, lean girl of twenty-three with a thick mass of black hair worn long, and a hint of sensuality in a protruding upper lip, a girl who looked like the unexpected would always startle, sometimes upset her a little.
“Father, the new shipment of books has arrived.”
Waldo’s smile spread as he promptly discarded the thought that she might have seen Harrison James’ offering. “Can you handle it, my dear?”
“Certainly.”
“I have to go out for an hour or so. Shouldn’t be longer than that.”
“All right.”
Myra’s incurious acceptance triggered a familiar warmth in him and he reached out and patted her shoulder as they turned down the aisle together. Father and daughter. Theirs was an unspoken bond, secret and deep, an esoteric friendship born on an unforgettable day sixteen years previous, the day he had become a widower and Myra had become the only woman in their house.
Waldo felt good when he left his shop that February afternoon and there was a smile on his savant face as he walked unhurriedly to the end of the block and cut into the parking lot. The day was clear, bright and brittle. He liked the cold. And he took a few seconds to draw the clean air deep into his lungs appreciatively before he moved between two cars and stepped into the cleared center of the lot. The parked vehicles before him gleamed in the sunshine. Outwardly, he appeared at ease with the world, but this was a casualness that belied the pounding of the blood through his veins. For Waldo Raines, a small, unobtrusive sham of fifty-one years, was predatory by nature and now he could smell a kill.
The blue sedan was about a hundred feet away, and he could see through the rear window as he moved with almost delicate steps across the macadam surface. Sitting behind the steering wheel, Harrison James lifted a half-smoked cigarette to his mouth jerkily and coughed when Waldo opened the door and plopped into the front seat beside him.
Their exchange of pleasantries was an exchange of names and then Waldo asked bluntly, “Who?”
Harrison James flicked the end of a hawk nose with a forefinger. “Sonny Blue.”
Waldo’s smile became fixed. Harrison James’ appearance had always made him think of a galliwasp. And now he was sure of something else. The man had the mind of a lizard, too.
Waldo removed the five thousand dollars from his pocket and extended it.
“What’s the matter?” Harrison James asked quarrelsomely.
“Do you have to ask?”
“Tobiah? You afraid of him?”
“Are you?”
“It ain’t Tobiah. It’s Sonny Blue.”
“There’s a difference?”
The two men measured each other with their eyes for several seconds before Harrison James suddenly banged a fist against the steering wheel. “All right, Waldo,” he rasped. “How much?”
“Double,” Waldo said without hesitation. “Ten thousand.”