Circle of eyes. Wings against the moonlit sky.
Food all about him, but fleet food that ran away on flashing legs the minute it saw or heard, and that had eyes and ears too sharp ever to fail to see or hear. The fast little things that ran and wouldn’t fight.
He lay with his head almost at the water’s edge. At dawn when the red sun was again in his eyes, he managed to drag his mighty bulk a foot forward so he could drink again. He drank deeply, and a convulsive shudder ran through him and then he lay very quietly with his head in the water.
And the winged things overhead circled slowly down.
MURDER IN TEN EASY LESSONS
There isn’t anything romantic about murder. It’s a nasty business and you wouldn’t like it.
Yes, take a murder and take it apart. You’ll find it about as pleasant to dissect as a several-weeks-dead frog. The smell is pretty much the same, and you’ll be in just as much of a hurry to rush to the incinerator with your subject.
You can quit reading now, right here. If you don’t, remember I warned you.
You wouldn’t have liked Morley Evans; few people did. You might, incidentally, have read about him in the paper, but not under that name. Duke Evans was the name he went by. Later, I mean; as a boy they called him Stinky.
Sounds like a joke, that name Stinky. Usually it is, but not always. Occasionally kids show an uncanny knack of picking nicknames. Not that he smelled physically; as a boy he was required by his parents to bathe his body at reasonable intervals. As a man, he was dapper and well groomed in a greasy sort of way. Maybe I seem to be too prejudiced; he wasn’t really greasy. But he did use hair oil.
We’re getting ahead of ourselves, though. Back to Stinky Evans and the first lesson. He was fourteen then. He ran with a gang who used to raid the dime stores every Saturday afternoon, coming out with their pockets stuffed. Most of them were rather good at it and were seldom caught.
Harry Callan was the head of the gang. He was a little older than the others and he had connections. He could take a conglomeration of twenty dollars’ worth of packaged razor blades, phonograph needles and the like, and turn it into five dollars cash. With that ability and with his fists and his advantage in size, he ruled the gang.
You might say that Stinky Evans’ first lesson in murder came the afternoon when Harry Callan knocked the hell out of him. For no particular reason; just that every once in a while Harry beat up one of his satellites to be sure they’d stay in line.
It happened in the alley behind the Gem Bowling Alleys, where some of them set pins once in a while. It started with words—mostly Harry Callan’s words—then Harry whaled into Stinky Evans and whaled the tar out of him.
It was a new experience, for Stinky’s only fights had been with kids smaller than himself. It didn’t last long. When it was over he lay in the alley, half-sobbing, half-cursing, with blood running out of his nose. Not really hurt; he could easily have stood up again to take more.
But in spite of the blind anger and hatred in him, he knew better. He knew he was licked.
So he lay there and his hand closed around the cobblestone and that was when the little devil got into his mind and he picked up the cobblestone.
Kill, something told him. Kill the rat.
It didn’t lead to anything. Harry Callan kicked the stone out of his hand, kicked him in the face and broke three of his teeth, and then turned away into the back door of the Gem Bowling Alleys.
It wouldn’t have led to anything, anyway. He wouldn’t have thrown the stone, or at any rate he wouldn’t have thrown it at Harry Callan’s head. He’d have weakened, because he wasn’t ready for murder yet.
After a while, he got up and went home.
If marriages are (as they tell us) made in heaven, then murders must be made in hell.
Of course, nobody much believes in hell any more—not, that is, in a concrete hell with little red devils running around with pitchforks and that sort of thing.
But there must be a hell, just the same, for that is where murders are made. To explain the build-up of a murder, you’ve got to believe that much. And since we’ve got to have some kind of a hell, let’s stick to the classical model. Since we’re going to postulate a hell, let’s make it good. Little red devils and all.
In other words, let’s shoot the works. Let’s imagine a Little Red Devil chuckling gleefully while Stinky Evans was walking home from the alley behind the Gem.
Let’s imagine the Little Red Devil talking to the big boss himself. «Good material, Boss. A nasty little punk if there ever was one. He’ll make the grade, Boss.»
«You gave him the first lesson?»
«Yep,» said the Little Red Devil. «Just now. A few more from time to time and he’ll come through.»
«All right, he’s yours. Stay with him.»
«You bet, Boss,» said the L.R.D. «I’ll stay with him, all right. I’ll stay with him.»
That was Stinky Evans at fourteen. At fifteen he got caught stealing a spare tire. He spent a night in the bullpen before they found out he was under age and switched him over to the juvenile authorities. In the bullpen he got talking with a four-timer and they got around to shivs.
It was dark in the cell except for the pattern made by the bars of the doors upon the floor. A pale yellow trapezoid with narrow black parallel stripes. A cockroach started across it and a big foot in prison-made shoes went out from the bunk and squashed the cockroach.
«If you ever stick a shiv in a guy, twist it,» the four-timer told him. «Lets the air in and he flops quick. Hasn’t time to yell or scramble any eggs for you, see? That’s why a wide blade’s best. Lets in more air when you twist. Those damn’ stilettos ain’t no good; you got to hit the heart or else stab the guy half a dozen times…» There was more. It was quite a lesson. Stinky thought about Harry Callan.
Down the corridor a drunk with d.t.’s was yelling like hell because tarantulas were after him. Stinky Evans shivered.
They gave him probation on the tire theft.
Before that was up, though, he got in trouble again and this time took six months at the reformatory. That was a good six months; he learned plenty there. Without boring you with the unpleasant details, let’s count it as lessons three to five, inclusive, and consider ourselves conservative.
He was fifteen when he got out, but he looked older. He felt older. He’d decided not to go home. Going home meant he’d have to take a job and keep reporting to the juvenile authorities how he was getting along in it. They’d keep checking on him all the time. The hell with that.
He went home only long enough to sneak out some clothes and get the rent money out of the chipped teapot. Twenty-five bucks, it was.
He hopped a rattler and got off when he saw the shacks working along the train at Springfield, the divison point.
He took a cheap room in Springfield and cased the town. When most of his money was gone, he went back where there’d been a BOY WANTED sign in a poolroom window.
It was the Acme Pool Parlor, run by Nick Chester. Maybe you’ve heard of Nick Chester. You’d know of him, all right, if you ever lived in Springfield.
A swarthy little guy, but smooth. He wore two-hundred-dollar suits and smoked fifty-cent cigars. Lived in a swank mansion out at the edge of town and drove a custom-made car. All the trimmings, if you know what I mean. All out of a little poolroom that maybe took in twenty or thirty dollars a week.
Nick tilted his twenty-dollar fedora back on his head and looked Stinky Evans over with eyes that didn’t miss any tricks.