“I'm fine. Be out of here in three days.”
“Oh, I’m glad. Can I kiss you?”
“Lightly.”
She kissed me. Lightly. It was the beginning of my convalescence.
I said, “Are you Fanny Rebecca Fortzinrussell?”
She blushed right up to the roots of her golden hair.
“Ain’t it the craziest?” she said.
We laughed, together.
“Can you prove it?” I said.
“Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“For a hundred thousand dollars.”
“For a hundred thousand dollars I can prove it, and I don’t know if I'd prove it for anything less. You delirious?”
“Practically.”
“How come?”
“Frank Palance know that Fortzinrussell label?”
“Yes he did. Happens it’s my real name. Glamorous, isn’t it. Why?”
“That's the name of the beneficiary of his policy.”
“Only it was changed. To Rose Jonas.”
“Not true.”
“But the guy on the phone. The agent. Keith Grant.”
“He had instructions for a change of beneficiary. He had prepared the necessary instrument, but Frank hadn’t signed it. He was going to sign it, on his return, but he got killed too quick. Which keeps the policy as is, to the benefit of Fortzinrussell. Fifty thousand face, but when you get shot, it’s accidental death, double indemnity, a hundred thousand dollars. Yours.”
There was very little reaction. She said, “I’m not interested in that right now. I’m interested in you. Are you all right?”
“Fine, I told you. I’ll be out in three days.”
She bent to me and her lips brushed my ear. “I love you,” she whispered. “I can t wait.”
“I can’t either, believe me.”
A starchy nurse came in on rubber heels. “I think he’s had enough,” she said. “Every rule has been broken, what with police and things. He’s had enough, Miss.”
“I’ll be around tomorrow, during regular visiting hours,” Lola said. She kissed me again, not as lightly.
The starchy nurse ushered her out.
I settled back in the bed. I mused. I would be out in three days. Nice to be out in three days and have a shining blonde waiting for you. I mused some more. I thought about the first moment I had seen her as my eyes had flicked up from the crap game, and then the ride out to Lido, and the structure of that poised body high on the diving board, and the fingers ripping at the belt of the terry-cloth robe, and the glistening two-tone body, brown and white, brown and white...
She was a lot like me, she was no baby, she’d been around, a lot like me, quick, fast, impetuous, a hit and runner, hit and runner, hit hard and fast, and then run like hell. I wondered how long it would last, Lola Southern and Peter Chambers, but as long as it lasted it was going to go like a rocket, fun and fast, hit and run. I leaned over and opened the drawer of the little table and took out the contract she had signed in the bath-house at Lido. I read it, re-read it, patted it gently, and put it back in the drawer.
It represented twenty thousand solid simoleons.
Love is love, but a man has got to eat.
Small Homicide
by Evan Hunter
Her face was small and chubby, the eyes blue and innocently rounded, but seeing nothing. Her body rested on the seat of the wooden bench, one arm twisted awkwardly beneath her soft little body.
The candles near the altar flickered and cast their dancing shadows on her face.
There was a faded pink blanket wrapped around her, and against the whiteness of her throat were the purple bruises that told us she’d been strangled.
Her mouth was open, exposing two small teeth and the beginnings of a third.
She was no more than eight months old.
The church was quiet and immense, with early morning sunlight lighting the stained glass windows. Dust motes filtered down the long, slanting columns of sunlight, and Father Barron stood tall and darkly somber at the end of the pew.
“This is the way you found her, Father?” I asked.
“Yes. Just that way.” The priest’s eyes were a deep brown against the chalky whiteness of his face. “I didn’t touch her.”
Pat Travers scratched his jaw and stood up, reaching for the pad in his back pocket. His mouth was set in a tight, angry line. Pat had three children of his own. “What time was this, Father?”
“At about five-thirty. We have a six o’clock mass, and I came out to see that the altar was prepared. Our altar boys go to school, you understand, and they usually arrive at the last minute. I generally attend to the altar myself.”
“No sexton?” Pat asked.
“Yes, we have a sexton, but he doesn’t arrive until about eight every morning. He comes earlier on Sunday mornings.”
I nodded while Pat jotted the information in his pad. “How did you happen to see her, Father?”
“I was walking to the back of the church to open the doors. I saw something in the pew, and I... well, at first I thought it was just a package someone had forgotten. When I came closer, I saw it was... was a baby.” He sighed deeply and shook his head.
“The doors were locked, Father?”
“No. No, they’re never locked. This is God’s house, you know. They were simply closed. I was walking back to open them. I usually open them before the first mass in the morning.”
“They were unlocked all night?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I see.” I looked down at the baby again. “You wouldn’t know who she is, would you, Father?”
Father Barron shook his head again. “I'm afraid not. She may have been baptized here, but infants all look alike; you know. It would be different if I saw her every Sunday. But...” He spread his hands wide in a helpless gesture.
Pat nodded, and kept looking at the dead child. “We’ll have to send some of the boys to take pictures and prints, Father. I hope you don’t mind. And we’ll have to chalk up the pew. It shouldn’t take too long, and we’ll have the body out as soon as possible.”
Father Barron looked down at the dead baby. He crossed himself and said, “God have mercy on her soul.”
We filed a report back at headquarters, and then sent out for some coffee. Pat had already detailed the powder and flash bulb boys, and there wasn’t much we could do until they were through and the body had been autopsied.
I was sipping at my hot coffee when the buzzer on my desk sounded. I pushed down the toggle and said, “Levine, here.”
“Dave, want to come into my office a minute? This is the lieutenant.”
“Sure thing,” I told him. I put down the cup, said, “Be right back” to Pat, and headed for the Old Man’s office.
He was sitting behind his desk with our report in his hands. He glanced up when I came in and said, “Sit down, Dave. Hell of a thing, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m holding it back from the papers, Dave. If this breaks, we’ll have every mother in the city telephoning us. You know what that means?”
“You want it fast.”
“I want it damned fast. I’m pulling six men from other jobs to help you and Pat. I don’t want to go to another precinct for help because the bigger this gets, the better its chances of breaking into print. I want it quiet and small, and I want it fast.” He stopped and shook his head, and then muttered, “Goddamn thing.”
“We’re waiting for the body to come in now,” I said. “As soon as we get some reports, we may be able to learn something.”
“What did it look like to you?”
“Strangulation. It’s there in the report.”
The lieutenant glanced at the typewritten sheet in his hands, mumbled “uhm” and then said, “While you’re waiting, you’d better start checking the missing persons calls.”