“Keep lookin’. She couldn’t of vanished. This guy in New York tells us there’s a big-shot writer in our town. Tells us the writer’s been snooping for close to six months, and has enough stuff to blow the town wide open. That’s no good, Coe. In six months, you can learn a lot of dangerous things. So we ask our New York friend what the writer’s name is, and he tells us Leslie Grew. And he tells us Grew is in our town with a secretary, writing this book, which is gonna break in a national magazine.”
“So you started looking for Grew?”
“Sure. Our town ain’t exactly a chicken coop, Coe. It took us a while to find what we were looking for. Only trouble is, Grew took off first. Carrying enough notes to fill ten books. Enough notes to bring in not only the state cops, but the Feds as well. That ain’t good, Coe. Put it this way. Grew and friend had to go.”
“And that’s why you came here.”
“Why else? But when we come down, there was a few things we didn’t know. We didn’t know, first of all, that Grew knew a newspaperman named Sam Friedman. We found that out later. By that time, our cops were getting to work, too. We figured if we could get those two back to our town on some phony charge, the rest would be easy. Our cops teletyped the Sun City Police. I sent Ralphie over to see Mr. Friedman. But their wire told me something else, too. All the while we was looking for Grew, we thought—”
“There she is!” Ralphie yelled.
The Cadillac was a more powerful car than the taxi Wanda was in. But the cabdriver knew the roads well, and Ralphie didn’t. The cab kept a comfortable lead as they sped out of Pass-A-Grille and through Don Ce-Sar Place, and Belle Vista Beach, and Blind Pass, and Sunset Beach, and Treasure Island, and Sunshine Beach. The big Caddy went over the bridge at John’s Pass, made the turn, and then squealed into Madeira Beach.
“There she goes!” Freddie yelled. “Into that joint!”
Ralphie pulled the car over and screeched to a stop.
“Come on, Coe!” Williston yelled, reaching into the backseat and pulling David out into the rain with him. Up ahead, David saw Wanda duck into the aquarium exhibit.
The building was a two-story affair. Upstairs was where the two porpoises were fed every day while spectators goggled and cheered. The downstairs level was a dimly lit stone-and-concrete dungeon, where lighted glass walls showed the other big fish.
A porpoise was in the closest tank. The downstairs level ran for a hundred feet and angled off in an L showing the other side of the second tank, the tank in which a giant turtle, a sand shark, and a giant grouper were kept. The aquarium was dead silent. The fish drifted past silently and eerily. The tortoise pressed against the glass. Behind him the shark flashed into view.
“Upstairs,” Williston shouted, pointing to the stairway at the end of the corridor, running for the steps.
Freddie’s gun was in his hand. He was standing on David’s left, and David could see the wad under his suit jacket near his right shoulder. His wound. As they approached the steps, David gripped the railing and brought both feet up, jackknifing into the air, aiming his heels at the wad on Freddie’s right shoulder.
Freddie’s scream pierced the air, echoed down the passageway as he dropped to the floor. David charged up the steps. Freddie was still screaming behind him.
“Wanda!” he yelled.
Behind him, Williston leveled the .38 in his fist, and fired. David heard the shot, felt searing pain in his right leg, stumbled forward. Wanda was huddled against the wall at the far end of the aquarium, near the open porpoise tank. A sign behind her read: FEEDING TIME — 2:30 AND 7:00 P.M. Two empty buckets lay on the feeding platform. The porpoises kept breaking the surface of water, coming up for air. David started to run toward her, but he felt suddenly dizzy and weak, and he slipped to the floor, close to the railing near the open lip of the first tank.
Wanda dropped the suitcase, and came running toward him. She was still carrying the Luger. He heard Williston’s heavy footsteps on the stairs, and then he saw Williston’s head appear, and then the hand with the gun came into view.
“Okay,” he said, grinning. “End of the road, Miss Grew. Give me those notes!”
“I think not,” she said, and fired.
She fired four shots in a row. The first two shots sailed over Williston’s head. The third one caught him in the chest, and the fourth one caught him in the stomach. His own gun went off, and then he staggered back toward the railing around the tank. He hung poised over the railing for a moment, and then folded over it into the tank. He was a big man. Water splashed up and over the lid of the tank. In an instant, the grouper darted from one corner, and the sand shark lunged from the other. Both of them made it to Williston’s body at about the same time.
Wanda ran to where David lay on the floor.
“Are you all right?” she said.
He was about to lose consciousness. He nodded, shook his head, nodded again.
“Who was the dead man on my boat?” he asked.
“John Meadows, my secretary,” she said. “He let them believe they were looking for a man. I’m—”
There were footsteps on the stairs.
The aquarium cashier burst into view.
“There they are!” she shouted. “They came in without paying!”
A patrolman was on the stairs behind her.
“There’s another one outside,” David said. “A man in a black Cadillac. He murdered the Sun City reporter.”
“Get the guy in the black Caddy,” the patrolman yelled down to his partner. He turned to David. “All right,” he said gruffly. “What the hell’s going on here? Who’s that guy downstairs with his arm in a sling? And who the hell are you, lady?”
“Leslie Grew,” David said, and then he relaxed in her arms and hoped she’d still be there when he came to again.
Eye Witness
This story first appeared in 1952, in a magazine called Verdict. It was one of the several short short stories I wrote under the Hunt Collins pseudonym. It was probably first submitted to Manhunt, and when rejected there — shame on you, Scott! — went to Verdict, one of the many detective magazines trying to imitate Manhunt’s spectacular success. (I still think Scott was editing each and every one of them.)
Whereas I later wrote several novels under the Richard Marsten pseudonym, Hunt Collins wrote only one, the book that first attracted the attention of Herb Alexander (remember?) and started the whole 87th Precinct saga. Cut Me In was about a murder in a literary agency. (Guess where I got the background for it.) The title referred to the venal practice of taking commissions, and the book was an Innocent Bystander story, like the one that follows.
He had witnessed a murder, and the sight had sunken into the brown pits that were his eyes. It had tightened the thin line of his mouth and given him a tic over his left cheekbone.
He sat now with his hat in his hands, his fingers nervously exploring the narrow brim. He was a thin man with a mustache that completely dominated the confined planes of his face.
He was dressed neatly, his trousers carefully raised in a crease-protecting lift that revealed taut socks and the brass clasp of one garter.
“That him?” I asked.
“That’s him,” Magruder said.
“And he saw the mugging?”
“He says he saw it. He won’t talk to anyone but the Chief.”
“None of us underlings will do, huh?”
Magruder shrugged. He’d been on the force for a long time now, and he was used to just about every type of taxpayer. I looked over to where the thin man sat on the bench against the wall.