I nodded my head slowly but my brain was moving at a frantic pace.
“You’re lucky, you know. I was going to kill you. But then that little fool changed her mind. She wanted to live, she said, didn’t want to kill herself.” Mike Hartley gestured at me. “I had no alternative. I had to have that ten thousand dollars. I need it.”
“Need it enough to kill Ethel Winters and frame me,” I said bitterly.
He bobbed his head at me and pointed at the wire recorder. “Clever contraption, that. It enabled me to use the suspect as my alibi...”
He raised his gun and I knew what he was going to do, but I couldn’t move. There was a blinding flash of light, and the deafening roar of thunder.
Something grabbed at my chest and knocked me over backwards. Then there was another flash and another peal of thunder, but this time it seemed to come from behind me.
Then I didn’t care any more. I was back swimming around and around in that nice warm pool of water again. I caught a glimpse of Mike Hartley’s face distorted with hate and pain. Then I saw the fat ugly features of the sergeant from Atlantic City and the long, gaunt figure of Lt. Repetti.
But the last face I saw belonged to Janie. It was white and scared and her eyes were filled with tears. She was bending over me and her soft lips were close to mine. Then for the second time that night I was floating... floating...
I moved my body and a sharp pain shot through my chest. I guess I moaned because a chair scraped close by, and when I turned my head I saw Janie.
“How did it work out?” I asked.
“Shhh,” she cautioned. “You’re supposed to rest. You’re in the hospital.”
I started to sit up but Janie and the stabbing pain wouldn’t let me.
“Is it all over?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Mr. Hartley’s in jail and Lt. Repetti says he’ll get the chair. They’re taking him back to Atlantic City.”
“Then I did see Repetti and the sergeant before I passed out!”
She smiled. “They were following us all the time. They were in that car I saw in front of the apartment house.”
“But there was something else, Janie,” I murmured. “Just before I went under you were bending over me and,” I grinned, “what were you going to do?”
She showed me and this time I didn’t pass out.
She patted my face, “You’re supposed to take it easy,” she breathed softly. “I’ll be back later.”
I let my body relax as she went out.
And then the peace was shattered by a buxom gray-haired nurse.
“Say, aren’t you the lucky one, inheriting all that money!”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
“I’ll bet you’ll want to go on a real nice vacation, huh?”
When I didn’t answer she went right on. “What you’ll need is a rest and a nice spot for a quiet holiday. Why don’t you go to Atlantic City?”
Say! Was she kiddin’?
A Kill for the Bride
by Robert P. Toombs
The slap — happy smoothie who’d stolen Lark Anderson’s fabulously rich and enchanting dream-girl had yet to learn he’d groomed himself... for the swankiest slab in the morgue.
Chapter One
Sorrel-Topped Siren
Lark Anderson sat rigidly in the over-stuffed chair, hands gripping the arms, head tilted back. Cotten pads hugged his eyes, secured by a gauze bandage around his head. The blackness was constant, maddening...
The stillness in the bungalow gave way to the sound of pacing steps. Mentally he followed them, visualizing the dusk seeping in through the screen door, the whirring of insects blundering against fine mesh. The steps turned, came back, swinging around the piano, made a muffled turn on thick carpeting, plodded off again toward the door. He began counting. One, two, three...
The steps paused. A strained voice said: “Stop mumbling, Lark. You give me the jitters.”
“Huh? I give you the jitters? Hell!” He fumbled for a cigarette in the pocket of his shirt. “What time is it, Mac?”
“Almost eight. The doc will be here soon. Then you get your eyes back.”
Lark thought about it. He wet his lips, aware of a shaky feeling in his stomach. He longed for something green. Strangely, all during the four, endless months, he’d wanted to see something green.
He stuck the cigarette between his lips. He heard a thumbnail scrape on a match head but there was no glow, just a sputtering hiss in the inky void. He sucked in quickly. The smoke tasted flat. He inhaled anyway, letting it dribble out slowly. “So I give you the jitters, huh?”
Silence.
He removed the cigarette from between his lips, trying to hold it without a quiver. It was hard to be patient... to wait for an answer in the darkness, each second an eternity, while to the person with eyes a combination of many seconds was only a pause.
“I just say things like that to get you going, Lark. Like last week. I told you business was falling off at the garage and that we ran out of gas in the pumps on a rush night. Boy, were you burned! Don’t deny it now. We argued about it, didn’t we? And then—”
“You’re made of cellophane, Mac.”
“You mean you were wise all the time?”
“Sure. But those lies of yours helped. When I stop to think about it, you’ve practically carried me through these four months on your shoulders. You — and hate. Thanks to you both, Mac.”
The steps began pacing again. “Don’t talk like that. It’ll be over when the doc takes off that halter. Boy, what a kick!”
“Hate,” Lark whispered. “It can eat out a man’s insides. It can find me the rat who— See this?” He fingered the fresh scar on his left temple. “Sure. You’ve stared at it for four months. I’ve never seen it. But I can feel it. A .45. It wasn’t meant to just graze me. It wasn’t meant to paralyze an optic nerve. What was it meant for, Mac?”
“You’re getting all worked up. Take it easy.”
“What was it meant for, Mac?”
The steps stopped. “We’ve been over that. Everybody in Elgin likes you fine. The cops figured it was a stray bullet. Now quit talking hate. You’ve got a nice prosperous business, and a nice, well—”
“You almost said a nice girl, didn’t you?”
“No. I meant — you’re on the way up.”
“Didn’t you?” Lark shouted. He lurched upright. “Jeri and I — the richest heiress in town in love with a two-bit operator like me! And it was love, Mac. We used to argue about her dough. I didn’t want any part of it. It was love.”
“Shut up and sit down.”
“Why did she marry Gabe Vardon on the afternoon of the very night I got shot? She never cared for him. He was her father’s secretary. Can you figure it? And has she been to see me? Not once! Four months — and she’s never even come up those steps outside.” Lark stopped. He reached behind him, fumbling, found the arms of the chair and sank down. “What time is it now, Mac?”
Liquid sloshed in a glass. Ice clinked. “Here. Take it.”
Lark brushed the hand away irritably. “Call Doc Webber. Tell him to get up here.”
“But he knows about it. A lot of things could have delayed him. It’s only five after eight.”
“Call him!”
A sigh; steps plodded toward the dining room; the double doors slid closed.
Lark chewed on his cigarette, listening. Mac’s low tones were difficult to catch. The conversation dragged out. Doc Webber was a good man, a specialist. Why hadn’d he kept the appointment?
The doors scraped open.
Lark pushed up. “What is it? What’s wrong?”