“Are you going to kill me, Elroy?” she asked.
“No.”
“Oh, thank God,” the girl said. “Thank God.”
Diener twisted in the scat to look up and down the tiny block. Patterson’s black and yellow Buick was nowhere in sight. In her fright, she was probably telling him the truth.
Linda said: “He won’t be here for hours yet — honey.”
Diener grinned tightly and slid out of the car behind her.
Linda turned a key in a heavy green door, in the wall of a brick building built flush to the narrow sidewalk. Diener put his foot against the door, moved through it with his body touching hers.
Diener shut the door, twisted the snap lock as the girl found a wall switch. They were in a good-sized one-room basement apartment. Diener stood on the narrow landing with its cast-iron railing, watched the girl go shakily down the three steps into the room.
She turned nervously to face him. But Diener continued to study the room silently, enjoying the girl’s fear. A kitchenette, a bathroom door were at his left. Over-stuffed chairs and big drum-shaded lamps crowded the carpeted portion of the room.
Linda moved to a green fold-away bed against the wall, pulled it open. She tore the raincoat off her, turned to face him. She wore blue brocade pajamas. The jacket hung straight down from the twin points of her breasts, inches away from her belly, like a curtain.
“You — you aren’t going to kill me, Elroy?”
Diener’s laugh was half sneer. He came down the three stairs, watching the panic race behind Linda’s eyes. She said: “I—, You—,” and then, “Honey,” and threw her slender body into his arms. Diener felt her hands under his coat, her nails sharp in his back as she hugged herself to him, her body tight against his.
Her mouth was warm and wet against his throat. “Don’t hurt me,” she was praying. “It wasn’t my idea.” She moved her lips to his ear. Linda was fighting the only way she knew how.
“I told him he shouldn’t do it to you.” Her breath was a flame in his ear. “I told him you were just a shy, helpless guy. I told him you were just backward with girls. You just need one that understands you.”
Her thighs moved strongly, insistently, against Diener’s. He took his hands from the raincoat pockets and put them hungrily on her arched back, feeling the stiff cloth slide on her flesh. He still held the gun. It was a snub-nosed .38. It was the first time Diener had really seen it.
Linda’s hands were exerting a different pressure on his back now. They were pulling, moving him toward the bed. Diener allowed her to move him. “You’ve been payed, tramp,” he thought.
“I’ll understand you, Elroy. Always. I’ll help you. We can run away. I’ve got money. I want a man like you to make love to me. Make love to me, Elroy.”
They half-fell onto the bed. Diener held the gun loosely, the muzzle at the girl’s temple. She knew it was there. Her mouth was open, mobile and frantic under his...
She raised cool fingertips to his temples. Gently she squeegeed the perspiration from the short hairs there and laughed up at him. Diener kissed her — without passion now, almost absently — and raised himself from her body.
Patterson came at four-thirty. Diener got up from his chair and stood behind the door when he heard the car, knowing it was his and no other’s. He listened to the slam of the Buick’s door and Patterson’s quick, light heels crossing the walk; he could imagine the big policeman feeling pleasantly tired now, but satisfied with the night’s work, exulting over the widow who was his now.
Linda lay on the rumpled bed, her naked back to the door, as if asleep. No blood showed where the two bullets had entered the thick brunette hair, just above her left ear.
Patterson’s key ground in the lock, and Diener thought: come into the parlor, said the spi—
He came in with his trench coat open, a brown pork pie hat in his hand, chuckling drily at the blazing lamps and the naked girl waiting for him. In the next second, bending over the bed, seeing the girl was dead, he sensed Diener behind him.
Patterson whirled. His jaw dropped. Then he smiled at Diener. How quickly he smiles, Diener thought.
“Leave your gun alone!” Diener shrieked. Aiming carefully, he put the last two bullets into Patterson’s big thigh.
The red-headed man clutched his leg just above the knee. Blood spurted between his fingers. He groaned. As Patterson fell to the floor, Diener wiped the gun clean and threw it at him. Then he watched Patterson slowly twist himself upright against Linda’s bed, lifting his wounded leg like a log. His courage ran out of him with his blood. His eyes looked like Linda’s had looked, pleading, frantic.
“How’d you get here?” Patterson groaned. Outside, Diener could hear a window slide up, a woman’s voice calling, distant, frightened. He pulled the door open, looked out. The short block to Waverly was empty.
He cast a glance over his shoulder. Patterson, rocking back and forth on the floor with set teeth and sick eyes, could never leave without help. And Patterson could never explain the dead girl there beside him, the empty gun, nor Land’s death.
Diener sucked in a deep breath of the night air, flung himself through the door of the apartment. Within two minutes, he was rocketing away on a Sixth Avenue express. He felt no elation, only the remembered terror of the rabbit who has somehow managed to squeeze out of the trap.
Never Kill a Mistress
by Carroll Mayers
Five grand is such a small amount — compared to ten.
Relax, Lieutenant; you’ll get your statement. Yeah, I know — the doc passed you the word. But I’ll make it.
Like I said, the first time I saw Heddon was one night a couple of months ago. I didn’t know who he was, then. He came out of the Drexler Building — that’s my stand — about eight-thirty, climbed into my hack.
“Toledo Arms,” he told me.
I was checking the Belmont results on the radio. I looked around, saw he was a middle-aged guy, well-built, well-dressed. I still didn’t pay him too much attention; those race results were bad news.
“Yes, sir,” I said. I flipped my flag, drove to the Toledo on Park.
Two nights later, I picked him up again, made the same run. The following week, twice more. By then we were at the small-talk stage. Baseball, the fights, the horses. Especially the horses. He kidded me once when I told him the bookies were crowding me.
I said, “Everybody got problems, Mr. Heddon.”
Using his name surprised him. I said, “I saw your picture in the financial pages. Hope you get that board promotion.”
He thanked me for my interest, gave me a dollar tip.
Yeah, by that time I knew Heddon was a financial big shot. But that newspaper article mentioned he lived with his wife at a Madison address — and that sure wasn’t the Toledo Arms. I began to get ideas. I figured Heddon had a chippie on the fire.
The third week, I was practically certain of it. Paying off at the Toledo, Heddon eyed my license suddenly, said, “I’ve been wondering, Solek. Any possibility your arranging to pick me up here at twelve-thirty?”
I kept my face straight. I figured he knew his playing around would attract less attention if he tied in with one specific hacker. I said, “Sure, Mr. Heddon, if I’m in the neighborhood. But I’ve got to keep rolling. If I’m all the way across town...”
He nodded. He was a handsome bastard — dark features, hair-line mustache, somber eyes. He pulled an extra bill from his wallet. “Let’s say you’ll... try?” he smiled.