Talmage Powell
Sunstroke at Midnight
It took three hours and forty-seven minutes for Uncle Phineas Slack to die. I ought to know; I was there.
I killed him.
It’s funny, the way murder grows in a man’s mind. So many little things added together, gaining momentum, until, without quite knowing what you’re doing, you’re killing a man.
It was no different with me, except perhaps that I’d always hated the old codger’s soul, his flippant manner, his penchant for young blondes. I think the desire to do away with him had been in my mind a long time.
Yet I wasn’t thinking of it the night I got out of the taxi in front of his angular, modernistic stucco house. He had sent for me without explanation.
It seemed a pleasant night, with a soft Florida breeze gently stroking my checks. The moon and stars were softly visible in a lovely sky.
I paid the cab driver, went up the flagstone walk, and when I approached the door, I saw that it was open slightly. I could hear voices in my uncle’s living room, his own voice, and a strange one. The new voice was old, dull, its intonations slightly cracked.
Just inside the doorway I paused. My uncle, a plump little sunburned man with a round, chubby face, a glistening bald head and young-looking blue eyes, was sitting in a yellow tapestry chair. A shriveled up man with a drooping mustache sat awkwardly opposite him. He looked feeble, as he sat there twisting his dust-stained hat in his hands. A few moments later I learned that this helpless specimen was the county sheriff; then it was, I think, that the ugly flower of death bloomed in my mind.
Phineas Slack lived outside the city limits of Landan. His house was built right on the beach, with a large strip of the beach his own private domain. Thus the sheriff would be in charge of an investigation — and it was easy to sec that anything could be pulled over this old man.
The sheriff was saying something about my uncle’s dogs when old Phineas looked up and saw me standing there.
“Well, Robert,” he said, a chill in his voice, “I’m glad you had the good sense to come.”
I gave him a mocking little smile.
“This is my nephew, Robert Slack,” Phineas said to the sheriff. “Not that I’m proud of it. Robert, this is Sheriff Hunk Slocum.”
A fitting name, I thought, except that this hunk was dried and withered.
“Howdy,” the sheriff said, blinking uncomfortably at my uncle’s candid admission of our dislike for each other.
I said hello to him and came on in the room. I did not have a bag with me. I planned to be here only a few hours.
Pointedly ignoring me. Uncle Phineas continued to chat with the sheriff about the fine points of hunting dogs. My uncle could use his dogs no longer — doctor’s orders that he remain quiet, which, in various ways, he constantly disobeyed — but he had kept his fine kennel. The sheriff, it seemed, had simply been in the neighborhood and dropped in to chat.
I sat down near Phineas, making no effort to join in the conversation. His attitude usually irked me, but not tonight. I was feeling a strange, new exhilaration.
He was wearing cream-colored gabardine slacks, a sport shirt open at the throat, and white shoes. His knobby nose looked very red, and I guessed he had been secretly pulling at a bottle. His eyes would dart to me every few moments, and for the first time in my life, my gaze mastered that of my uncle.
In a few moments, Sheriff Hunk Slocum excused himself, and Phineas Slack and I sat in silence. Then he said, “Well, Robert, I guess you’re wondering why I called you down here.”
I slouched in my chair, saying nothing.
He paced back and forth before me, his hands clasped behind him.
“Robert,” he said sternly, “you expect to inherit my money, don’t you?”
“If there’s any left, what with five fiancées, young enough to be your grandchildren, in the past two years! And each of them costing you at least a hundred thousand berries. Half a million bucks!”
His lips tightened and he said harshly, “That’s none of your business. I made that money! I worked thirty years, night and day for it! I want to spend every cent I can!”
I looked scathingly at the cream colored slacks, the sport shirt. “By reverting into childhood again?” I raised my eyebrows.
At that he stopped his pacing and stood still a moment, getting himself in hand.
“You’re deliberately leading the conversation at a tangent,” he said slowly. “Now you listen to me, you young pig, I called you here tonight for a very definite purpose.”
He tilted on his heels, his body like one of those fat toy dolls that is weighted at the bottom and cannot be knocked over.
“Robert,” he said, “you’re not the sort of man I had hoped you would be. You have no head for business, only for frills and a good time. You couldn’t make a dollar if your life depended on it. You have no sense of honor, no sense of decency. You’re weak!”
“Blood will tell, Uncle,” I grinned.
“You parasite,” he shouted, “if you had any of my blood in your rotten veins, you’d have something in your skull besides air, something in your heart besides a constant, nagging desire to sponge and slide your way through life. Even the army wouldn’t have you!”
A quavering voice came from the doorway. It was Higgins, my uncle’s one regular servant. He was a small man, bent with age, his head fringed with white hair like tiny duck feathers. “Did you call, sir?”
“No, I didn’t call! Scram, Higgins!”
“But your heart, sir...”
“Take a powder!”
Hesitantly, Higgins retreated. I’d have to take care of Higgins, I know.
“You’re learning the slang of a new generation well, dear Uncle,” I sighed.
He looked back at me. “Robert,” he said, his breath strengthening, “I wanted to talk to you about Vivian Gray.”
I sat stiffly erect. I hadn’t thought he knew about Vivian. She was everything a man could want: sleek blonde perfection. You know what I mean; the sort of woman who puts up at the beat hotels, the swankiest resorts, with never a qualm about beating a bill. The sort of woman who can drive a man insane, turning every male head when she walked into a room.
“You see, Robert,” the old man said blithely, “there were six women in the past two years — not five. Vivian was one of them. She was quite a tigress when I broke with her. She said she’d get even. The next I heard of her, she was running around with you. See what I mean, Robert? The whole set-up is very unhealthy.”
I sat very still, slow rage coming to life inside me. I hadn’t known that Vivian had been on the old man’s string. I could now see her motive. She was like that. I knew Vivian very well.
“She thinks she’s got us where she wants us, Robert,” his voice sounded a long way off. “She thinks she’ll play one against another and end up with all the money. I’ve been very patient with you, Robert, but you’ll see no more of Vivian Gray or I’ll cut you off without a dime! And don’t try to crook me, boy. Crooked money never stays in one hand long. So,” his voice dropped, became confidential, faintly friendly, “we’ll not let Vivian get the best of us, will we? Tomorrow morning I’ll call her and tell her that we’ve had a talk and she might as well forget our existence. Huh, Robert?”
I nodded dumbly. The ugly thought of murder was now fully born.
For you see, I was already married to Vivian...
Our conversation ended there. He retired to a chair across the room to read. I picked up a magazine, shielding my face behind it. I didn’t want him to see my face.
I wasn’t shaken or alarmed by the knowledge that I was going to kill him. I wasn’t afraid of the fact; I was afraid only of what might happen afterward, of getting caught. But I wouldn’t allow my mind to dwell on that.