So what Bobo does is see a couple shades of red and reach for the nearest object, which happens to be one half of a pair of naked lady bookends which Susie gives him for a wedding present, and this he lays alongside Larry Melody’s right ear, where it makes quite a mess, and leaves Big Bobo with a fresh corpse on his hands.
After a while, Bobo carts the body downstairs and puts it in the trunk of his car, because by now he has a hot idea. He takes the car over to the Acme Garage and leaves it and Larry there, and then he has a talk with Susie and tells her yes, he thought it over, she can have the divorce and marry that Larry fellow after all; he’s not the one to stand in their way. It is Susie’s plan to go to Reno, which Bobo says is quite the right idea, why don’t she just take the car, and no hard feelings, and drive to Nevada that very night.
What Bobo figures is that somewhere in Nevada, in a couple of days, say, that convertible is gonna smell real ripe and Susie is gonna have one hell of a surprise when she opens the trunk — plus one hell of a lot of trouble explaining said corpse to the cops in Nevada. Only he never figures on a gezabo in the Acme Garage who is got a private racket of making old cars out of brand new ones.
And, just like me, he certainly never figures on a guy named Ed Clancy, who is a jinx of a cop if there ever is one. Why, if Clancy doesn’t try to find a shoe rag for Susie, this whole thing might go any number of ways...
Well, like I say, this day I see Big Bobo for the last time I am having a smoke out in back of Headquarters. And on the way inside who do I run into — no one but my dear old friend Ed Clancy.
Now, I do not see much of Clancy lately, which is strictly all right with me because after this Larry Melody case, Chief Monaghan thinks that Clancy is the real white-haired wonder boy of the force — don’t ask me why — and he puts Clancy in for plainclothes duty and gives him the eight-to-four shift, days, which is nice work if and when you can get it.
“Hiya, Sarge,” he says to me. “How’s it going?”
So I give him the time of day. A guy with his kind of luck, you can’t be too careful how you treat him. He is liable to end up as the Chief of Police any day now.
“Nice-looking suit you got there,” I tell him. “You’re all spiffed up like you got a heavy date.”
He grins. “Well it is pretty heavy, Sarge. You remember that Mrs. Barsted? She decides not to go to Reno after all, for that divorce. Looks like the State is going to make her a widow pretty soon now, hey?” He polishes his nails on the lapel. “She don’t have a lot of friends in town, you know, and she’s got that nice new car. So she’s going to give me some driving lessons.”
Well, now that is the way it turns out. And I’ll bet you Big Bobo the bookie is one surprised gent if he ever hears about this big, dumb cop Clancy riding around in that fine present he gives to Susie Barsted.
Of Time and Murder
by Cornell Woolrich
It was their last chance to go home, that six o’clock bus — which gave the small-town boy and girl just four short hours... to wriggle off a homicide hook.
Chapter One
She happened to look down there, at the sidewalk in front of her rooming house, and he was still hanging around, that young fellow who had brought her home. As though he didn’t know where to go, was afraid to go back to wherever it was he belonged.
It got her sore. She thought maybe it was on her account he was hanging around like that. She threw open the window and called down: “Why don’t you go home? What’re you waiting for?”
He looked up at her and didn’t seem to know what to say. Then suddenly a white-roofed patrol car slithered around the corner down at the lower end of the street and started up that way. It wasn’t going anywhere in particular, just cruising; you could tell by its lackadaisical gait. He gave that nervous start again, as he had when coming home with her before, as he had when he’d ducked into her own doorway and taken cover.
First she was going to hail the patrol car and have them investigate and tell him to move on. Afterwards, she was glad she didn’t. All her life she was glad she didn’t. It coasted by, and its occupants didn’t even glance over at the house. Then it turned the upper corner and disappeared again.
She stood there in the open window, waiting for him to come out again. He didn’t. He stayed out of sight inside there some place. Well, he wasn’t going to get away with that. She wasn’t going to have him lurking in the hall down there all night. She crossed the room, threw open the door, went out to the head of the dimly lit stairs and peered down the well.
She saw him down there. He was sitting disconsolately on the stairs, halfway between the ground floor and the first landing. She saw him run his fingers through his hair a couple of times, as though some deep-seated predicament was gnawing at him.
That influenced her a little, softened her original idea of a raucous tirade. “Hey, you down there!” she called. “I want to talk to you a minute! Come up here!”
He sprang to his feet, cleared the intervening three-and-a-half flights in an almost noiseless sprint that showed how welcome the idea of sanctuary was.
She waited until he’d joined her in the upper hall, then returned to her room. “Better come inside a minute, so we won’t be heard. I’ve got some coffee on the stove. You can have a cup with me.” And then as he took off his hat and closed the room door on the two of them, she warned: “But keep your thinking clear. This is no invitation to a two o’clock date!”
“I know,” he said gratefully, edging down beside the table where she’d been writing her letter. “Anyone can tell just by looking at you—”
“You’d be surprised how many nearsighted bozos there are.” She picked up the little tin pot to pour from it, and the heat made the envelope she’d addressed to her mother stick to the bottom of it. He freed it, glanced at it as he was about to put it aside. Then he sort of hitched, as though a drop of the hot liquid she was pouring had spattered him.
“Glen Falls, Iowa? Is that where you’re from?”
“Yeah, why?”
“That’s where I’m from, too! That’s my home town! I only came away six months ago—”
She wasn’t believing him right away. She put down the pot, stared at him searchingly. “What street did you live on there?”
He didn’t have to stop to think twice. “Anderson Avenue, between Pine and Oak, the second house down from—” He stopped short, scrutinizing the aghast look on her face. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Oh, my gosh! D’you know where I lived? On Emmet Road! That’s the street behind yours. Our two houses must have been practically back-to-back. How is it we never knew one another back there?”
“We only moved in after my dad died, a little over two years ago.”
“I’d come here to the city by that time,” she said.
“But right now, my folks must already know your folks back there — back-fence neighbors.”
They spoke about it, their hometown, for a while, in low voices, eyes dreamily lidded. The Paramount clock, riding the night sky there outside the window, seemed very far away. They could almost hear the steeple bell of the little white church down by the square toll the hour, instead. “Do you remember the Elite Movie, down on Main Street?”