“Make that very soon.” She hung up without any formal goodbye.
He dropped to a lower gear for the last long pull up the hill. The headlights picked out the house and washed across its low silhouette. He drove the car into the circle in front of the garage and parked. The patio was on the other side where the driveway circled the cliff. He hadn’t been able to see, as he drove past, whether Helen was there or not.
He listened as his own steps crunched on the gravel. Then her voice.
“Tom, is that you?” It was like a rasp. Did you turn out the light in the bathroom? Did you pick up the bread at the bakery? Did you remember to pay the phone bill? It was simple. Full of ugly memories.
“Who did you think it was, Jack the Ripper?” He enjoyed the joke.
“I can tell you haven’t changed.”
He could make out her shape in the chair in the corner. She sat half facing the wall, blurred by deep shadow. She didn’t look at him directly but spoke to the air in general.
“Shall we go inside? It’s sort of cold out here.”
She stirred uncertainly for a moment. “So. Let’s stay out here. What I want will only take a few minutes and then you can call me a cab.”
“What happened to your car?”
“I sold it.” She cut him short. “But I didn’t come up to talk about my transportation.” There was a pause. “Tom, I need five thousand dollars.”
He winced. It was like a physical pain. Then he laughed.
“You’re out of your mind, Helen. If that’s why you came you should have saved yourself the trip. I wouldn’t give you five cents.” He walked to the edge of the patio and looked across the ink stained valley. Helen sat in silence. “Why don’t you ask Bob Parker for it. He ought to pay for what he’s getting.” It came out wrong, jealous. Not the way he meant.
Helen’s voice dropped to a far away whisper. “It’s not that way with Bob. He’s been very kind, nothing more.”
Tom snorted.
“I don’t know why I even try to explain. I certainly don’t care. I just want the money. My money.”
“Your money!” Tom exploded. “That’s a laugh. That’s real rich. Just because I started in business with money from your father doesn’t mean you own part of it.”
“Tom, I didn’t come to argue. Just hear me out.” He was quiet. “I could tell you I need an operation. But that wouldn’t mean anything to you. So I’ll spell it out. I know all about your shady business deals and about what goes on up here on weekends.”
“Now, wait a minute...” Tom tried to break in, but she cut him short.
“I don’t care one way or the other about your crimes or your orgies, but I can ruin you in five seconds of it’s necessary.”
“That’s blackmail!” He shouted the word as though he invented it.
Her voice went on calmly. “I guess it is, Tom. Yes, I guess it’s blackmail. But I’ll expect your check in the morning.” She fumbled with something in the dark, then stood up and straightened her skirt. She took a step toward the wall, turned, and brushed against a table that teetered for a moment. “All right, Tom. You can call my cab now.”
He stood looking down the drive and knew with an absolute clarity that he had to kill her. It didn’t come as a searing passion. There was no rage. Just a calm necessity. The method, the alibi, the story for his friends came together like prearranged parts of a puzzle. He turned and walked over to her.
“Helen.”
She lifted her head and his hand swung through the dark in a short. sudden arc. She didn’t try to duck. The blow slammed across the bridge of her nose and she fell backward against the table. There was a rattle of metal on concret. Then silence. He looked down at the dim unconscious form and realized he didn’t feel anything.
He took her body and carried it to the car. It was already pointing down the steep drive. He panted as he edged her behind the wheel and put her bag on the other seat. It occurred to him he shouldn’t be so winded. Have to work out at the gym more often. When he reached across her body to turn on the motor he could feel the rise and fall of her shallow breathing. He switched on the headlights. They lit up the sharp turn at the foot of the hill and the vague emptiness that was a cliff. He released the break, stepped back, and shut the door.
The car remained motionless for the smallest part of a second, and then, slowly, by inches, it started to move. It slid forward and began to pick up speed. It swerved for a moment but held the road. It bounced, charged, and leaped toward the curve. Tom watched, fascinated. A little boy blowing up a good toy with a firecracker. The car hit the thin rail fence, poised for a second, then disappeared. A moment later it shattered on the rocks. Tom ran down the hill to see what was left. There was a glow in the blackness, then a bright fight. When he got to the edge he could see the steel skeleton burning quietly like a derelict on a dump heap. He turned and walked back to the house.
He went in, snapped on the light, and poured himself a drink. In a moment he would call the police. He rehearsed his part. She came to ask a favor. When she was going she wanted him to call a taxi. He offered her the car. She missed the turn.
Tom looked at his hand. It was shaking from excitement. That was good. Mustn’t look too calm.
He walked over to the glass doors, sipping his drink. He stared out at the patio and remembered the table that tipped over when she fell. Good he thought of it. He stepped out on to the cement and picked up the table. He felt along the edge but it didn’t seem to be dented. Something white on the black stone caught his eye. It looked like a thin white fine. He bent over and picked it up. A long white piece of metal. He couldn’t place it. Probably something of Helen’s. He brought it over to the fight. It was a cane. A white metal cane.
He looked at it again and tried to think. It seemed familiar yet vague. Then he remembered. Yes. Yesterday. There was a man downtown with a white metal cane. A man. A man who was blind.
Patsy
by Paul Fairman
She was a gorgeous long-legged blonde. She stood in distress beside her crippled car. I didn’t feel at all like a “patsy” when I stopped to lend her a hand.
There was nothing sudden or jarring about the trouble. It was administered slowly, in small pleasant doses by experts in such matters; injected into my life and routine so skillfully that I didn’t know the size of the dose until twenty-four hours later; nor its lethal content even then.
The first sugary spoonful was a gorgeous, long-legged blonde; a girl in distress on a fine sunny morning around ten o’clock. She was standing beside a crippled car she’d pulled off the highway and I didn’t feel at all like a patsy for stopping to lend a hand.
In fact I was pretty smug about the whole thing because she let the two cars ahead of me go right by, waving a frantic handkerchief only after they’d passed.
Maybe this should have made me suspicious, but it didn’t. And don’t grin so knowingly because I think you’d have reacted the same way I did — with a glow of satisfaction at having been selected.
Anyhow, I pulled off the road behind her, happy that my car was a snappy new cream convertible — the kind that’s supposed to impress beautiful blondes. Glad too, that I’d worn my hand-painted necktie and put a new blade in my razor that morning.
These aren’t necessarily important points, though. I mention them only to bolster my earlier statement; to show how pleasant trouble can be when you have experts on the job.
But other small details were very important so watch close and maybe you won’t miss them the way I did.
The flat left front tire on the girl’s little black job made getting acquainted easy. All I had to say was, “I see you’ve got a flat,” and she smiled right back and said, “Yes, it certainly is flat all right,” and the ice had been broken.