NOTHING SINISTER

 

 

No one who lives a reasonably sane, law-abiding life ever thinks seriously of murder in connection with himself.

Nemesis is a gal who follows somebody else, follows him and catches up with him somewhere, and you read about it over your morning coffee. The name of the victim is just a name you never heard of. It couldn't be yours.

Or could it?

Take Carl Harlow. He was an ordinary-enough guy. And right up to the time the bullet hit him, he didn't know Nemesis was after him. He didn't guess it even then, until the second bullet — the one that missed — whined past his ear like a steel-jacketed hornet out of hell.

You couldn't blame Carl Harlow for not knowing.

Certainly, there hadn't been any buildup to murder. No warning note printed on cheap stationery. When he'd driven home from the poker game the night before, no specters had perched gibbering on his radiator cap. No black cats had crossed his path. Nothing sinister.

In fact, he'd won seventeen dollars. Doubly sweet because most of it was Doc Millard's money and although he liked Doc a lot, it served him right for the outrageous bills he'd sent. And a couple of bucks had been Tom Pryor's, and bank officers deserved robbing if anybody did.

True, he'd drunk too much. But he was used to that, and took it in his stride, now. He'd got up early this morning —Saturday morning — just as early as ever, and at breakfast he'd gone so far in righteousness as to split his winnings with Elsie, his wife. But maybe that was because Elsie would probably find out, from one of the other fellow's wives, how much he had won. Wilshire Hills has a grapevine system that is second to none.

Nor did he see anything sinister in the fact that his boss— or rather, one of his two bosses — had assigned him to write copy for the Eternity Burial Vault account. Carl Harlow sat down and began to study the selling points of those vaults, and he waxed enthusiastic.

“Lookit, Bill,” he said, “these burial vaults really are something! When you come to think about it, an ordinary coffin must disintegrate pretty darned quick. But these things are made of concrete—”

“Like your head!” snapped Bill Owen. “Don't sell me on the things; write it down— Oh, hell, Carl, I'm sorry I'm so irritable. But you know why. Have you told Elsie yet?” Carl Harlow nodded soberly. “Told her last week, Bill. She took it like a sport, of course. Said I'd get another job as good or better. Wish I was that confident myself. It's hell to work for a place for twenty years and then have it fold up under you.

Course, I've got savings, but — I suppose it's certain for the first of the month?”

“All too certain,” said Bill Owen.

Carl took the Eternity account folders over to his desk and sat down to make a rough layout. And to write a catch line, something about eternal peace, only you could not use the word “eternal” because that was too close to the name of the company. And you shouldn't make any direct mention of corpses or death or decomposition. Nothing sinister.

It was tough copy to write. There was a dull throb in his head, too. A thump-thump-thump that Carl didn't recognize as the footsteps of Nemesis. Few of us recognize those footsteps.

All they meant to Carl Harlow was: “I've been drinking too much. I've got to cut down.”  Even though he knew he wouldn't.

He knew that once you got the pick-me-up habit you were pretty near a goner. If, when you woke up after a bit of too much, your first thought was to reach for a drink, then the stuff had you. But otherwise you stayed in a fog. And things went thump-thump.

He'd had his eye-opener this morning, of course, the first minute out of bed — but apparently it hadn't been enough. He took another now, from the bottle in the bottom drawer of his desk.

It cleared his head, and his hand became steadier. Hell, he had it already — an angle the Eternity account had never used! He thought it could be handled so they'd go for it in a big way. He started on the layout. Old English type for the catch line. His pencil went faster.

At ten-thirty he showed it to Bill Owen. “How's this?”

“Mm-m-m! Pretty good, I'd say. I'll send it around to them, in just that form.”

“Okay, Bill. Anything else important? Bank closes at-noon today, and I got something to do there and thought I'd toddle along about eleven.”

“Sure! Leave now, if you want.”

“Say, Doc Millard and I are playing golf at two. Want to make it a threesome?”

Bill Owen grinned. “Where was your mind at the poker game? Tom Pryor and I mentioned we were dated in a foursome teeing off at three o'clock.”

“Oh, sure, I forgot that. Well, guess I will run along now, instead of eleven. Elsie is going to her mother's this morning, for overnight, and I got to forage my own food. Well, see you at the nineteenth hole.”

He straightened his desk, and then decided to try calling home. Not that there was any real reason. “Oh, hello, honey,” he said when Elsie answered. “Thought I might catch you before you left. Have a good weekend.”

“I will, Carl; thanks for calling. Don't forget to take care of Tabby.”

Carl Harlow chuckled. “Don't worry, honey. I'll put out the clock and wind the cat. Don't worry about me. . . . 'By.”

And at the bank, the teller at the window boggled a bit at the check Carl handed in at the window. Carl had expected him to boggle; it was a ten-thousand-dollar check, and he would have been a bit disappointed if the money had been handed over without comment.

The teller said, “Just a minute, sir,” and left his cage.

When he came back, it was without the check, and he said,

“Mr. Pryor would like to see you in his office, sir.”

Carl Harlow went through the gate in the railing and back to Pryor's office. He said, “Hi, Tom! Suppose you want to inquisition me about that check.” He dropped his hat on Pryor's littered desk and sat down in the chair the fat-and-forty little cashier waved him to.

He grinned at Tom. “Okay, okay,” he said. “It's for an investment. I'm going to start a farm — to raise angleworms.

With all the fishing that's done every summer, I figure I ought to clear—”

“Now, Carl, be serious,” said Pryor. “First place, we usually require ten days' notice on savings withdrawals. We never invoke that rule for any reasonable amounts, of course, but—”

Carl Harlow stirred impatiently. “Be a good fellow, Tom, and let me have the money.”

Tom Pryor looked at him keenly. “We might,” he admitted, “but that isn't all I wanted to say. Second place, ten thousand dollars is a lot of money for you,  Carl. Your account here — checking and savings together — is ten thousand four hundred, which means you're practically closing it out. And I know you well enough to know that's everything you've got in the world, except an equity in your house, two automobiles, and ten or fifteen thousand life insurance.”

Carl nodded. “But listen, Tom, I'm not drawing it out to go on a bat or anything. I suppose I might as well tell you.

You've heard the Keefe-Owen Agency isn't doing so well, I suppose. Well, it's worse than that. It's on the rocks!

“And if it goes under, well — I don't know what I'll do. I want to try to buy out Roger Keefe. Owen's good, but Keefe is the bottleneck there. If Bill Owen and I could run it together, without that damned— Well, you know what I mean.

Incidentally, this is confidential. Not even Bill — nor Keefe, either, as yet — knows what I have in mind.”

Tom whistled softly. “Taking a big risk, Carl!”

“Maybe it is, but I'm sure Bill Owen and I can make a go of that agency, with Keefe out. If I can talk Keefe into letting me buy his share.”

“But, Carl, why the cash? People do business otherwise.

And you'll have to carry the money, besides maybe keeping it overnight. Why take that risk?”

Carl Harlow nodded. “There's that, of course. But I have a small safe at home. And nobody's going to know I got the money except you and the teller outside. I don't think either of you would try burglary — although after one or two of the bluffs you tried to run in that poker game last night—”

Pryor chuckled. “It's an idea. Ten thousand is a lot of money. A year's salary for me, Carl; I'm not a high-priced advertising executive like you and Bill. But granting there's little risk of losing it, I still don't see why you want cash.”

“You bankers!” said Carl Harlow. “Got to know everything, don't you? All right — and this is off the record.

Keefe is being hounded by creditors. They'll grab off whatever he gets, if it shows. He might be able to give me a better price if half of it goes under the table.

“I mean, we might make out the papers for four thousand, and the other four on the side — where a referee in bankruptcy wouldn't find it. I have a hunch he'd take eight thousand that way, rather than a check for ten thousand. Now, I hope you're satisfied!”

“Um-m-m,” said Pryor. “Satisfied to the extent I wish I hadn't asked you. That's hardly legal. Well—” he shrugged his shoulders — “it's none of my business. Have you an appointment with Keefe?”

Carl Harlow shook his head. “I'll just run up there tomorrow.”

“He's out of town a lot, weekends. Why not ring him up from here and make a date? If he can't see you this weekend, then you won't have to carry that cash out.”

“It's an idea,” Harlow agreed. He called up Keefe's home, and a minute later put the phone back on Pryor's desk in disgust. “You were right,” he said. “His brother says Roger's in New York till Monday.”

“Carl, that gives you the weekend to think this over.

Monday, if you still want to go through with it, I'll waive the bank rules and let you have the money.”

“Okay, Tom.” Carl Harlow stood up and started for the door, then turned around. “Oh, the check. You'd better—”

Pryor picked up the check lying on a corner of his desk and held it out. “Here, tear it up and don't carry it around endorsed. Write a new one Monday, if you still want to.”

Harlow tore the check twice across and dropped it into the wastebasket. He said, “At that, maybe six thousand will be enough to take in cash. We can use a check for the aboveboard part of the deal.”

“Damn it,” said Pryor, “quit telling me about that! I told you I wished I hadn't asked you! Don't make me an accessory; forget you told me. Have you talked this over with the other half of your family?”

“Nope. I'll tell Elsie if it goes through; otherwise, she needn't know and then be disappointed. Well, so long, and thanks.”

He drove home slowly, wondering if maybe he should talk this over with Bill Owen. Well, he could see Bill after the golf this afternoon and think it over meanwhile.

And then there was the empty house. With Elsie gone, it didn't seem home at all, except for his own room. He wasn't hungry, but he made himself a sandwich in the kitchen and then went up to change clothes for golf.

It was too soon to leave, and he had a quick one out of the decanter of rye on his bureau to wash down the sandwich.

He even had time to sit down at the typewriter in his room and bat out a copy idea for the Krebbs Hardware account. Not a brilliant one, but worth putting on paper before he forgot it.

Then it was time to drive out to the golf club.

Nemesis was still after him, but it was Swender, the golf pro, who met him in the doorway of the locker room. He said,

“Doc Millard phoned, Mr. Harlow. He tried to get you at your office, but you'd left. He doesn't think he'll be able to get here.”

“Why not?” said Carl. “Did he say?”

“A baby case. Mrs. Nordhoff.”

“Nordhoff? Oh, Tom's cousin. These inconsiderate women, breaking up a perfectly good golf date just because—

Say, how's about you playing around with me? You can give me a lift on those chip shots.”

“Sorry, Mr. Harlow.” The regret in the pro's voice was genuine. “Sprained an ankle yesterday and I'm on the shelf.

I'm a clubhouse fixture for about three days.”

Carl Harlow stared down the inviting fairway gloomily.

This course, like a lot of other small, private courses, was never crowded Saturday afternoons, because Saturday afternoon was proverbially busy and no one came around unless they'd made reservation. Like he and Doc had done for two o'clock.

If he waited an hour, there'd be Owen and Pryor — but that was a full foursome already and he could not butt in.

Well, now that he was here and dressed for it, he might as well play around alone. The exercise would do him good.

Playing alone wasn't much fun; there's little satisfaction in a beautiful approach, with just enough back spin to hold the green four feet from the pin, when there's no one watching you make it. And, paradoxically, it's even more disgusting to flub a would-be explosion shot out of a sand trap when there's nobody around to tell you how lousy you are.

He'd just flubbed that explosion shot — with a sweet new No. 9 iron which, for its effectiveness at that moment, might as well have been an umbrella handle — when the bullet came.

The first sensation was like somebody drawing a sharp-edged piece of ice across his side. He jerked involuntarily and said, “What the—” And looked down and saw the horizontal rip in his sweater, along the course of the rip, begin to turn red instead of white.

Then, and only then, did he realize that he'd heard the sound of the shot.

He looked up in the direction from which the shot had seemed to come — up on the hillside that flanked the fairway ahead, past the green he'd been approaching out of the trap.

Up there near the top, in among the scrub pine maybe two or three hundred yards away, he thought he caught a gleam of sun on metal that might have been a rifle barrel.

Somebody up there was being damned careless with a rifle, shooting out over the golf course! Some fool hunter, and that wasn't hunting land, anyway. Carl Harlow yelled, “Hey!

You with the gun—” wondering if his voice would carry that far.

And then that second bullet whined somewhere between his shoulder and ear, and he knew that he was being shot at.

Deliberately! Probably by someone with a gun with telescopic sights, if they were shooting at that distance.

The first bullet, the one that had raked his side, could have been an accident. But that second shot was something else again.

Carl Harlow had never been shot at before, but it didn't take him long to figure out the best thing to do. He dropped flat into the sand. There wasn't a bunker to duck behind, but the sand trap itself was a slight depression, maybe eight inches in the center below the fairway.

He dropped down flat, trying to accomplish two things.

First, to fall naturally, as though that second bullet had been a fatal hit, and second, to fall so that most of him would be in the deepest part of the trap and would present as poor a target as possible to the distant marksman.

There were two more shots, but he didn't know where the bullets went except that they didn't hit him. Then, for a space of time that was probably twenty minutes but seemed like hours, nothing happened and there weren't any more shots.

Carl Harlow lay there, not daring to move, scarcely daring to breathe. His side hurt him, but not badly. The bullet had taken off a streak of hide and ruined a good sweater, but that was all.

Then there was a yell, “Carl!” and there was Doc Millard running toward him. Doc's golf bag lay a couple hundred yards back along the fairway, where he'd dropped it when he'd seen the prone figure in the sand trap.

Then Doc saw the crimson streak on the sweater, and he said, “What the hell?”

Carl Harlow got up slowly. His first glance was at the hillside, but there was no gleam of sun on metal, and there was no further shot.

Millard said, “Stand still,” and pulled up the sweater and the shirt underneath it, and looked at the wound and said, “I'll be a monkey's uncle!” Then he commandeered Harlow's handkerchief and his own to improvise a bandage. The story and the bandage got finished about the same time.

“Superficial,” said Doc. “Have to clean it and put on a decent bandage when we get back to the clubhouse, but—

You say you heard four shots? Listen, Carl, it must have been some kid up there with a twenty-two, whanging at a target on a tree or something. You stroll on in to the clubhouse; I'll go over there and take a look around.”

“No,” said Carl Harlow, who was getting his nerve back,

“I'll go with you. This scratch doesn't amount to anything, and it certainly doesn't stop me from walking. Besides, the guy's gone.”

Then he looked at Millard strangely. “Doc, I don't know anything about guns, but would a twenty-two carry that far?”

“A twenty-two long rifle'll carry a mile, would kill at about two hundred and fifty yards. That's what it must have been. And you could have imagined hearing that second bullet whiz so close. Maybe it was a bee or a hornet or something you heard. And the third and fourth shots might have been fired in the opposite direction.”

“Can't you tell from the wound what size bullet—?”

Doc shook his head. “If it'd gone in, sure. But not from just a scrape.” He stopped suddenly, looking at Carl Harlow.

“Say, is there any reason why somebody would be taking pot shots at you?”

Harlow shook his head. It did seem absurd when you put it that way, particularly now that he was almost at the fence that bounded the course and within a hundred yards of where he thought the rifleman had been. Hell's bells, why would anybody be taking pot shots at him?

He said, “Well — no. But, damn it, I did hear that second bullet whiz by! It wasn't a bee!”

They were climbing the fence. Doc Millard said, “Well, if you're that sure— But people don't go around shooting at other people without some reason.”

They were going up the hill now. Carl said, “Of course, the guy could have taken two shots at a sitting bird and both of them missed the bird but come pretty close together.”

They found nothing of interest or importance on the hillside. Reaching the top, they saw that a side road wound by just beyond, but there were no cars, parked or moving, in sight on it.

Carl said hesitantly, “Do you think we ought to report it, just in case—?”

Doc Millard snorted. “Report it? You're darned well right we'll report it! I'd lose my license if I treated a gunshot wound of any kind without reporting it. Golf's off, of course, so we'll go back to the clubhouse. Don't take any exercise for a few days. Walking's all right, but I mean nothing that uses your arms.”

Carl Harlow grinned. “No two-fisted drinking, huh?

Well, it's my left side, and I guess I can make out with one hand. Gosh, I could use a drink right now! My nerves are playing ring-around-the-rosy!”

After the clubhouse and the inevitable explanations and not too many drinks, because they'd have to go to the police station, Carl found himself talking about it to Captain Wunderly.

By that time, Carl was sure it had been a kid with a twenty-two and it sounded silly to admit that he'd been scared enough to lie there doggo for nearly half an hour. But Captain Wunderly, just the same, sent a couple of men out to look around.

And then Carl and Doc stopped in at a bar and had a few, and Carl wanted to keep on going. But Doc Millard insisted that Carl was drunk already — although it was only dusk —and that he should go home and sleep it off. Especially because he was wounded, and that made him a patient.

Carl Harlow had argued, and then capitulated.

He really was feeling quite a bit woozy by the time he got home. He'd forgotten that Elsie wouldn't be there, but the decanter of rye on his bureau was still there. After a while, there wasn't much in it.

But that didn't matter. It was quite dark outside and he was getting sleepy. He remembered about the clock and the cat, and decided he'd better take care of them, just in case he dropped off and stayed asleep.

He couldn't find the cat. He stuck his head out of the back door and called, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty—” and was pleased as Punch that he could still articulate those rather difficult syllables. But no cat.

Lots of shadows on the lawn, though. Dark shadows.

Those shadows might have worried him, perhaps, had he noticed the hole in his golf bag. An inconspicuous hole near the bottom, but definitely the size of a thirty-thirty rather than a twenty-two. And kids don't hunt squirrels or birds with thirty-thirty rifles. Old Lady Nemesis, maybe—

Yes, still on the job, this gal Nemesis. For twenty awful minutes during the afternoon, Carl Harlow had felt her presence. Carl Harlow, though, had forgotten. Nemesis hadn't.

It was Carl Harlow who shut the back door, but it might have been Nemesis who left it unlocked. Not because murder pauses long before a locked door, but its being unlocked would make things easier.

Carl went up the stairs, and the staircase was pitching under him like the deck of a wallowing ship. The drinks were getting at him now. This was the unpleasant stage; it had been pleasant up to now, and pretty soon he'd feel better again. This was the in-between period — when things went around and stood not upon the order of their going.

He got to his room with something of the feeling of a storm-tossed ship reaching a safe harbor, a harbor in which the angry waves still lapped, but less high, less deadly. Where the rocking of the ship becomes almost a friendly thing, like the rocking of a cradle.

Being home. It's a lot different from being out in the open of a field, with no cover and bullets whizzing around you. He sank into the Morris chair and for a while seemed to live over again those terrible minutes of dread out there under the dead-blue sky. The horrible open sky. There on the flat trap of the ground, held by gravity as a fly is held upon flypaper.

And after a while he shook his head and remembered that it had been a kid with a twenty-two.

Getting to feel better now. He got up, holding on to the arm of the chair until he was sure he could walk without lurching, and crossed over to the bureau. He had another drink; it was really wonderful rye, smooth and mellow and golden.

That left enough for only one more drink, and he'd want it the minute he waked up, if he dropped off. He poured it carefully into the glass and put the glass on the little table near the chair.

He looked around the room, feeling there was something else he'd ought to do. He stared at the typewriter a while. He almost had an impulse to sit down at it and write out how it felt to be shot at. Maybe sell it somewhere, to a magazine. Oh, to hell with it!

Sleepy, and the Morris chair was too comfortable. His head went back and his eyelids weighed a stone apiece, and there was a gentle glow in the room and in the whole house.

He could see it through his closed eyelids. He could — or thought he could — hear the cat walking in the back yard —so plainly that he almost got up and went down to call it again at the back door.

Then, of course, it came to him that he was dreaming.

One damn thing after another. The cat was on the roof. It came down the chimney and mewed in the grate, and pointed a rifle at him and said, in Doc Millard's voice, “Now this isn't going to hurt much,” and pulled the trigger and the gun seemed to shoot backward and shot the cat back up the chimney.

And Bill Owen was there, and saying, “Carl, Tommy Pryor tells me the bank is out of money and can't give you your five million dollars, and so Roger Keefe and I have decided to give you the agency free. All yours, Carl, and I'll work for you if you want me to, and there are new orders coming in like wildfire and you'll be able to sell out for a billion in a year.”

And then Bill Owen's friendly smile seemed gradually to freeze into a gargoyle grimace, and he pulled a rifle out of his pocket, a toy rifle, and said, “Twenty-three, skiddoo,” and it was Keefe who had the rifle, grinning like a fiend, and he told Carl he was going to use it for a mashie to make a hole in one, and wanted Carl to guess in one what. And then he wasn't there any more.

It was all very strange and confusing. Elsie was there, too, and she said, “Why do you drink so much, Carl?” and he looked at her owlishly and wanted to say that he was sorry, but that she just didn't understand, and that he loved her and was sorry. And she told him that she loved him, anyway, and she danced around the room.

And sat down at his typewriter and wrote something on it, with the keys going clickety-click like a twenty-two but faster. Just like when she'd been a stenographer at the agency so long ago, and he couldn't move out of the chair and take her in his arms and tell her what an awful fool he was. And she said, “Good-by, Carl, and don't forget your eye-opener when you wake up.”

And then there was Doc Millard again, pointing to the fireplace and explaining that “eternal” was an overworked word and that the Eternity Burial Vault Company was now making their vaults disguised as fireplaces, so the worms wouldn't know — and would he change the copy to explain that, but to be very careful not to let it out to the worms.

“It's just a scratch,” he added. . . . But then it was different. It seemed later, a long time later, because there was a two-o'clock feeling in the air, and the door was opening, and a man was walking into the room, and this was real.

The man was standing there, and Carl Harlow opened his eyes and looked at him without having to look through his eyelids this time, and it was Tom Pryor. His friend. Really there, with a pistol in his hand.

Carl said thickly, “T-Tom! What—?”

Yes, the man with the revolver was really there, really Tom Pryor. Tom said, “Damn!” And then, “Why didn't you stay asleep? God, I hate to—”

Carl said, “The golf course? You?” and Tom nodded. He said, “I ... I had to. I mean have to. I was six thousand short, and when you tore up the wrong check and didn't notice—”

“When I — what?”

Tom's face was whiter than paper, his voice strange.

“Carl, it wasn't planned. I picked up the wrong check, one of my own. You took it and tore it up and didn't look, and you walked out and left me your own check for ten thousand dollars. And with the examiners nearly due — I put it through.

“With you dead, Carl, nobody'll ever know you didn't take the money today. I'm sorry, Carl, but . . . it's me or you.”

“My friend,” said Carl Harlow, surprised that he was grinning just a little. Because he was still more than a little drunk, and all of this was still less than completely real.

The gun muzzle lifted. It shook. Tom was saying, almost plaintively, “You want to ... to pray or anything, Carl? I...there isn't any hurry—”

It was like a scene in a play. Any minute the audience would start applauding. It wasn't really happening, Carl knew.

Murder happens to John Smith, and you read about it in the paper. Nemesis is a gal who follows somebody else—

But he stared owlishly at Tom Pryor. Tom was waiting there to see if he was going to say something. Had to say something.

He grinned a little again. He said, “Give Elsie my love, Tom. Tell her I'm sorry I—”

Tom said, “Your wife? She wants you out of the way —dead — as much as I do! We're going away together with the balance of this money! I thought you knew! Oh, hell, why am I telling you now? Here goes. Good luck!”

What a damn silly thing to say! — that last part. But the first part of what Tom had said was sinking in slowly and Harlow was going rigid with anger, only he couldn't move.

Now he wanted to kill Tom Pryor, and the gun muzzle yawned in his face, but out of reach. Tom's hand held the gun, and his pudgy fingers were white at the knuckles.

The trigger hadn't pulled yet, and there was sweat beaded on Tom's forehead. Tom said, “Hell, I—” and his free hand reached out for the glass of whiskey on the little table near the Morris chair. Dutch courage.

He tossed it down neat.

Or started to. The whiskey spilled, and Tom made a horrible strangling sound and the gun went off wild — with a roar in the confined space of the room that sounded like the end of the world.

A cannonlike roar that brought Carl Harlow to his feet out of the Morris chair. Watching Tom on the carpet.

Standing there looking down at Tom, and wishing in that awful moment that Tom had killed him.

For Carl Harlow was cold sober now. And going cold, cold, all over — as the hideous pieces fell into place. As he bent over dead Tom Pryor and caught the strong scent of bitter almonds. And then, like a man hypnotized, turned and saw the white sheet of paper in the typewriter, and knew before he read it what it was.

The typewriter that had gone clickety-click while he had slept and had typed out a farewell note from Carl Harlow to the world. The typewriter that had gone clickety-click while he had slept, and while Elsie had really been here and had typed that note and put the prussic acid in the waiting pick-me-up shot of whiskey!