by Ed McBain
“Was this Masters’ idea? Did he put you onto this? Are you trying to find out if I killed her or not?”
“You …” She swallowed and then gulped for air. “You did kill her, didn’t you? You killed her … and the others.”
He took a fast step toward her, seizing her wrist and swinging her back across the room, onto the bed. Her slip pulled back over her thighs, and he advanced on her with the knife, and then he stopped and looked down at the taut, ribbed tops of her stockings, and his eyes grew reflectively canny, and his mouth quirked into a strange smile.
“Yes,” he said softly, “I killed her.”
He kept staring at her legs, as if remembering something, remembering it vividly.
“I shouldn’t have killed her,” he whispered. “All that woman lying on the deck, worthless, dead.” His mouth was twitching now, twitching wildly. “It’ll be different with you, you bitch! No regrets this time. No eating my heart out afterward! You’re going to die, but this time the memory’s going to be fresh. This time—”
“No!” she screamed. “Please!”
He reached out suddenly, his free hand grasping the front of her slip, yanking her off the bed. She came toward him, her back arching, and then the nylon gave with a rasping screech, and she fell back onto the bed, released, the slip torn to her waist.
Slowly he advanced, wetting his lips, the knife poised and ready.
He must have heard the door, the frantic knocking, and then the harsh splintering sound as the wood ripped free from the lock. But he did not whirl until Masters’ voice shouted from the doorway, “Hold it, Jones!”
He whirled and then stepped off on his right foot in one smooth motion, sprinting for the door, the knife high over his head.
“You bastard!” he screamed at Masters, and then the knife came down in a winking arc, and Masters felt fear crackle into his skull. He backed away and stepped to the side, and the blade glittered past his cheek, and then he threw his fist at Jones. He caught the radarman in the stomach, and Jones doubled over, straightening up again when Masters’ fist caught him under the jaw. The knife clattered to the floor, and Jones scrabbled for it wildly. Masters took a quick lunge forward, stepping on Jones’s hand. The radarman let out a sharp cry, pulling his hand back. Masters kicked the knife into a corner of the room, and then stood over Jones, his fists doubled.
“Get up!” Masters said.
“You got nothing on me!” Jones screamed crouched near the floor. “You got nothing on me, you bastard!”
“He killed her, Chuck! He admitted it,” Jean said from the bed. She seemed suddenly to remember her torn slip. She rose quietly and began putting on her jacket.
“Shut up, you bitch!” Jones snarled, turning toward her. “You ain’t going to railroad me. I ain’t just come into the Navy yesterday. I know my rights.”
“You know it’s all over, Jones, don’t you?” Masters said quietly. “You know you haven’t got a chance in hell.”
Jones was silent for a long time. Then he said, “Yeah,” and he paused and said, “Yeah,” again, and then he shook his head and sat down on the floor abruptly, all fight suddenly drained from him, his head bent, his shoulders slumped.
The clerk peeked timidly around the doorjamb.
“Are … are these the people you were looking for?” he asked.
“Yes,” Masters said, smiling. “These are the people. You’d better call the police.”
The clerk nodded, looking at Jones on the floor, and then at the sheer slip showing below Jean’s jacket.
He turned to go, and then he turned back and suddenly said, “You didn’t have to break the door, you know!”
16
They sat side by side as the train sped for Atlantic City. He held her hand tightly, as if he never wanted to let it go.
“You should be going in the opposite direction,” he said.
“I want to be with you,” she answered. “I don’t have to be back in Norfolk until tomorrow morning.”
“How do you feel?” Masters asked.
“All right. Now.” She smiled weakly.
“Were you frightened?”
“Oh, God, yes.”
“You’re a silly little girl. You should never have gone there alone with him.”
“Chuck, it worked out all right, though, didn’t it? I mean, we did get him, and that’s what counts, isn’t it?”
“Not if he’d harmed you. If he’d harmed you—”
She squeezed his hand. “But he didn’t.”
“No, he didn’t. But he could have.”
“Yes, but he didn’t. I mean …” She turned her face toward his and raised her eyes. “You know that, don’t you? I mean … that he didn’t.”
“Yes.”
She turned her head away from him. “I … I thought I liked him, Chuck. In the beginning. Before I suspected.”
“All right,” he said.
“Are you angry?”
“No.”
“You are, I can see that. You have no right to be, you know. Keeping me waiting like that, not calling, not writing, not anything. You’re lucky I didn’t marry him or something.”
He smiled. “I know I am.”
“He was very nice,” she said petulantly. “He said very nice things to me.”
“Did he now?”
“Yes, he did. He’s a murderer, but I didn’t know that.”
“I didn’t know, either,” Masters said. “Christ, what a fool I was! I had every damn radarman from the Sykes with me in Atlantic City. I knew that Jones had gone to the hospital sick before we left, and I never made the connection. I kept thinking it was Daniels, but even that ties in now. He was a married man, and he was playing around, and all his lying was just to cover that up. When I got your letter … well, sure, then it all added up. God, was I an idiot!”
“Yes,” Jean agreed. “You should have called me.”
“I didn’t mean …” He paused and then lifted her chin with his fingers. “Say, what’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Did I do anything wrong?”
“No.”
“Well, what—”
“You haven’t even said … you haven’t … Can’t you see I love you?”
“Why, sure I can,” he said, surprised.
“Then … then … why haven’t you even … even …” She seemed ready to cry. She shook her head, freeing her chin from his fingers.
“I haven’t even what?” he asked.
“Said you loved me, or …”
“I love you,” he said. “I love you, Jean.”
“… or kissed me, or held me, or …”
His arms were suddenly around her. He pulled her to him and lifted her chin, and she saw his mouth coming closer to hers and she said, “Chuck! The conductor! The passeng—”
“The hell with them,” he answered, and he kissed her gently and then put his cheek against hers, and he could feel the smile on her mouth when her cheek moved upward against his.
“You looked mighty pretty in your slip,” he whispered.
“I know,” she answered, and he pulled his face back from hers, surprised. The small smile was still on her mouth, and her happiness glistened in her eyes.
“I meant … in the hotel, when your slip—” he started awkwardly.
“I know,” she said again, and this time he was really surprised, because there was no blush on her face at all, only a womanly contentment and peace. He kissed her again, just for the hell of it, and he wondered if Commander Glenburne would perform a wedding ceremony aboard the Sykes, and then he wondered if he’d need the Navy’s official permission to take a wife, and how many forms would have to be filled out, and whether or not …
And then he simply concentrated on kissing her.
About the Author
Ed McBain is one of the many pen names of legendary author Evan Hunter (1926–2005). Named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, Hunter is best known for creatin
g the long-running 87th Precinct series, which followed an ensemble cast of police officers in the fictional city of Isola. A pioneer of the police procedural, he remains one of the best-loved mystery novelists of the twentieth century. Hunter also wrote under the pseudonyms Richard Marsten, Hunt Collins, John Abbott, Ezra Hannon, Curt Cannon, and others.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1955 by Ed McBain
Cover design by Jason Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3918-5
This 2016 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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