I stooped to grasp the end of the creeper where the head lay. Reluctantly Stan took the other end.
After we carried it outside, we set the creeper down while I closed and relocked the office door. Arab took a sniff of the dead man, tucked his tail between his legs, and slunk off.
Back at the gate I tied the tow rope around Mr. Stokeley before climbing up on top of the station wagon. I hauled him up then lowered him to the ground on the other side of the automobile. Stan handed up the creeper. I set it down, climbed down onto the rear door, lifted it from the roof, and jumped down to the ground. After untying the corpse and rolling it back onto the creeper, I tossed the rope back over the top of the gate to Stan. He pulled himself up over the gate, untied the rope, and came down. Together we loaded the laden creeper into the back of the station wagon.
What we should have done next, of course, was simply to dump the body in an alley. But you don’t do your best thinking on cheap bourbon, and we were both still stoned enough to have it fixed in our minds that tidying things up required everything being returned to its proper place. In the frame of mind we were in it seemed logical that we should return the contents we had just removed from the hi-fi to the place where we had obtained its present contents.
It was around midnight when we again parked on the crest of Benedict Canyon Drive. The green stucco house at the bottom of the hill was still ablaze with lights, but the only other lights along the street were here and there behind drawn drapes. There was no sign of life outdoors.
We both got out and walked to the rear of the station wagon. When a glow of headlights appeared beyond the crest of the hill I paused on the sidewalk instead of continuing my journey to the back of the vehicle, but Stan had already stepped behind it and raised the upper part of the rear door and lowered the bottom.
When the creeper started to roll out, Stan held out a hand to stop it. Then his hand touched the corpse’s head and he emitted a gasp and jumped out of the way.
The creeper rolled all the way out, dropped to the street, and started down the hill. It had a ten-foot lead before I could react and start after it.
The squeal of sixteen un-oiled roller-skate wheels was gratingly loud from the moment the creeper began to roll, but as the thing picked up speed it grew progressively louder.
By the time it was halfway down the hill the neighborhood was resounding with an unearthly squeal as penetrating as the scream of a fire siren.
I was conscious of the glare of headlights behind me as the car that had been coming up the other side of the hill topped the crest and started down this side.
But I neither glanced over my shoulder nor took any evasive action.
I was too intent on catching the speeding creeper.
I was overmatched. It accelerated so rapidly that it reached the curb at the bottom of the hill when I was only hallway down, jumped the curb without even slowing down, and headed along the walk toward the front door of the green stucco house.
No one in the neighborhood could have avoided hearing the piercing squeal of those wheels. It was therefore not surprising that Bert Pinter jerked open the front door to see what was going on.
At that very moment the creeper crashed into the six-inch-high concrete stoop where it came to an instant halt — but the law of inertia caused the body to continue on at the same speed. Still on its side and cramped into the shape of a capital N, it shot headfirst at the man in the doorway. Instinctively he leaped aside.
Through the open doorway I could see Mr. Stokeley skid across the front-room and disappear into the central hallway, where he was met by a feminine scream.
By then I had reached the bottom of the hill and was racing up the walk.
As I scooped up the creeper and spun back to race away again, an authoritative voice called. “Hold it right there, mister!
A black-and-white sedan with a rotating red light on top of it had pulled over to the curb in front of the house. Two uniformed cops were getting out.
I zoomed past the front of the car before either of them was all the way out. I had a ten-yard lead before the one who had emerged on the driver’s side started to lumber after me.
I had enough of a glimpse of him as I shot by to see he was middle-aged and overweight, so I really wasn’t terribly worried about being brought down by a flying tackle. I could tell I was steadily increasing my initial lead by the distance of his voice behind me as he periodically yelled, “Stop or I’ll shoot!
I took the chance that he wouldn’t. There was no way he could know at that point what crime, if any had been committed, and cops aren’t supposed to shoot people on suspicion, even when they refuse the order to halt.
Stan was already in the car and had the engine going. I threw in the creeper, dived in on top of it, and grabbed the back of the center seat to keep from rolling out again.
Stan took off like a rocket.
I looked back to see the pursuing cop coming to a halt halfway up the hill. The other one was pounding on the door of the green stucco house.
I pulled the lower section of the back door closed, reached up to click the upper section into place, then climbed over into the center seat and on into the front seat.
Stan switched on his headlights.
“Do you think we ought to pick up another bottle before we go back to your room?” he asked.
“Definitely.” I said. “That race up the hill sobered me up.”
I could tell that Stan hadn’t even started to sober up though, when he said. “Let’s get a quart instead of a fifth. If Mrs. Sull is still awake, we could invite her in for a drink.
Mr. Olem’s Secret
Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, August 1971.
When United Security advertised for retired men to serve as security guards on the newly formed Merchant Patrol, I jumped at the chance. The pension of a retired bus driver, even supplemented by social security, doesn’t permit many luxuries.
The job was made to order for a retired man who needed a little extra income but wasn’t interested in overworking. My trick ran only four hours a day, from eight p.m. until midnight, and the work was so easy I was almost ashamed to take the money. All I did was stroll along the street in my assigned area, checking the doors of business establishments and peering through windows to make sure night lights were burning and no intruders were inside. I was also supposed to keep an eye on stores still open for business, but as none in my area stayed open beyond nine p.m., I only had this duty for the first hour of my trick.
Of course, theoretically, there was some risk in the job, because my beat was in the heart of a section of Los Angeles that was rated as a high-crime area, but the risk was more theoretical than real. While police uniforms were so unpopular around there that cops answered calls only in pairs, the Merchant Patrol was accepted right from the beginning.
One reason was that United Security wisely hired only residents of the areas they were assigned to patrol. Probably an equally important reason was that we neither were regarded as cops nor acted much like them. Our gray uniforms were deliberately designed so that we couldn’t be mistaken for members of the LAPD, and the community quickly came to understand that we had no intention of noticing crime that had no bearing on the business establishments we were hired to protect. Pushers and numbers runners, for instance, didn’t have to worry that any member of the Merchant Patrol might finger them to the cops.
Even in the event that we ran into a burglary or robbery in progress, the risk wasn’t great. Although we all carried guns, they served mainly to deter muggers from selecting us as targets as we made our lonely rounds. We were instructed to use them only in self-defense, and never to attempt personally making an arrest. If we spotted a crime in progress, all we were supposed to do was head for the nearest phone.