The Mystery Megapack: 25 Modern and Classic Mystery Stories

by Talley, Marcia

  Mary Beth pitched her books into the back seat of the green-and-rust colored Gremlin and turned, looking out over the sea of students leaving the building. “Who?”

  “Over there, next to Jimmy’s car. Brown hair, black shirt.”

  “Him?” Mary Beth squinted, too vain to wear her glasses outside. Johnny Kachmarik still hadn’t asked anyone to Homecoming, and she wanted to be prepared, just in case. “I don’t remember his name, but he graduated six years ago with Bill. Why?”

  With a shrug, she shifted her books to her other arm. “I recognize him from somewhere.”

  She knew where. She’d never forget that face, that car.

  “Oh, yeah?” Sliding into the driver’s seat, Mary Beth buckled her seat belt. “Are you coming, or what?”

  She pulled her gaze from him and opened the door. “Ask Bill who he is, okay?”

  “He looks like a real loser, but sure.”

  * * * *

  “I saw the car!” Her voice had caught, and a large hand had pressed on her shoulder, gently pushing her back into the bed. Every part of her body hurt, and she blinked away tears. Tears were for babies; she was eleven, a big girl. She knew what she’d seen.

  “Sure, honey.” The hand lifted, and the big policeman picked up the pink plastic cup with the straw and held it to her lips. “Can you describe it?”

  She took a sip of water, flat and metallic on her tongue. “White.” She closed her eyes, but the image stood out clear against the blackness. “With a big hood and wheels.”

  “And did you see the driver?”

  She nodded once, even though her head ached. “A man. With brown hair.”

  “Okay, okay. You get some rest now.”

  His footsteps sounded loud on the linoleum as he crossed the room.

  “Will that help find the car and driver?” Her mom’s voice, a harsh whisper. When they’d wheeled her out of the ambulance and into the hospital, she saw them, her mom and her dad. Her mom had cried, big, fat drops rolling down her cheeks and dripping off her chin. Her dad had just looked sad, like he often did.

  “Not really, but we’ll do what we can.” The policeman wasn’t good at whispering. “She was damn lucky that the car didn’t hit her head on, otherwise she’d be dead, too.”

  She didn’t open her eyes, and after a while, the policeman went away.

  * * * *

  “You’ll always be my best friend.” She had popped a handful of Cracker Jack into her mouth, and caramel sweetness had blossomed on her tongue. She crunched the popcorn as the grocery door jangled shut behind them.

  “And you’re mine.” Donna dug into the box. “For you.” Sticky fingers pressed the little charm into her palm.

  She peered at her hand. A boot. Perfect for the bracelet her mom and dad had given her for her birthday. “Thanks.” She shoved it into her pocket.

  A grin behind a curtain of blonde hair. “Race you home.” The flash of a blue tee-shirt and coltish legs starting down Fourth.

  “Hey, no fair!” She clutched the bag of potatoes her mom had asked her to get for dinner, and ran after.

  At the corner, Donna glanced over her shoulder. “Come on, slowpoke!”

  The car came out of nowhere.

  Fast, so fast there was no time to shout, no time to even take a breath. Donna’s small body hit the hood with a thud and lifted, an egret poised for flight.

  “Donna!” she screamed. Then the fender struck her left hip and side, and, for an instant, her eyes met those of the man in the car: wide, startled, scared. Then she, too, was flying, but only for a heartbeat. She fell. Her skin burned as she skidded across the asphalt, her head hitting the pavement so hard she felt as if her skull had cracked open. Pain, so much pain she couldn’t tell where it ended and she began, but she forced her head up, willed her eyes to focus.

  Donna lay sprawled on the street, yellow hair against black. And red.

  The car revved, reversed, and sped away. She stared at the sky, as blue as Donna’s shirt.

  Remember the car.

  Remember him.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Carla Coupe is a member of both Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. Two of her short stories—“Rear View Murder” in Chesapeake Crimes II and “Dangerous Crossing” in Chesapeake Crimes 3—were nominated for Agatha Christie Awards. Her Sherlock Holmes pastiches, “The Adventure of the Elusive Emeralds” and “The Adventure of the Haunted Bagpipes” appear in Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine.

  THUBWAY THAM’S INTHULT, by Johnston McCulley

  I.

  The orchestra ceased, the theater auditorium was darkened suddenly, and the curtain went up on the third act. In his seat in the first row of the second balcony, Thubway Tham bent forward with a great deal of interest and focused his gaze on the stage. His eyes were burning, and his jaws were set rigidly. Tham was angry, had been growing angrier every time a certain actor came upon the stage.

  Now and then Thubway Tham attended a theatrical performance as a means of recreation from the arduous work of a pickpocket. Tham did not pretend to be up to the minute on things theatrical and dramatic, and when the time came for him to go to a show, Tham selected the theater he was to honor with his presence by. a certain method he had originated himself.

  At the ticket agency he walked up to the counter.

  “I want a theat in the thenter of the firtht row of the thecond balcony,” he said.

  “What theater, man?” asked the man behind the counter.

  “I don’t care what theater it ith, jutht tho you give me a theat in the thenter of the firtht row of the thecond balcony,” Thubway Tham declared.

  This time the grinning agent had handed him a ticket that called for admission to see a certain male star in his latest success, “The Under Dog.”

  Tham had heard the name of the star mentioned a few times and entertained the idea that he was an artist of parts; but beyond that he knew nothing of the professional rank and ability of the man and did not care about it. As to “The Under Dog,” Thubway Tham did not know the theme or the author, did not know what the play was about, and was not letting it worry him. Tham had the idea that a good many others have: namely, that a show must be good or it would not be on Broadway or anywhere near it.

  Tham had consulted his program, once he had been seated, and he had found nothing except a list of actors’ names and the names of the characters they were to portray. The synopsis said that the first act was in the living room of an apartment on Riverside Drive, that the second was the same the following morning, and the third a week later. Thubway Tham could not construct a plot from that, and so he waited for the curtain and left it to the actors.

  It developed that “The Under Dog” had nothing to do with canines or bench shows. It dealt with the deadly and eternal triangle, a beautiful woman and two men, one wealthy and firm in the belief that he had power, and the other a sort of weakling. Tham settled himself in his seat and tried to get the worth of the money he had spent for his ticket.

  Tham liked the male star very well, but he took an instant aversion to another gentlemanly actor billed as Booth Mansfield Merton. The aversion came into being when Merton spoke his first lines. Tham could not explain it and did not attempt to try. The aversion was not because of Booth Mansfield Merton’s work. As an actor, Merton seemed to do very well. Thubway Tham’s dislike appeared to be for the man personally, and Tham never had seen him before.

  The role Mr. Booth Mansfield Merton played this night did not assist Tham to have a friendly feeling for him, either. Merton spoke certain lines that made Tham gnash his teeth. Thubway Tham took the drama seriously; he forgot that the actors were playing parts, and he formed his opinion of an artist from the lines he spoke. Thubway Tham could not think of a villain as being anything other than a villain, either on the stage or off.

  “A man of power should exert that power,” Booth Mansfield Merton shouted from the stage. “Every man for himself. Let the under dog fight his own bat
tle. It only weakens him the more to extend him a helping hand. Why should I refuse to declare myself superior when I know that I am?”

  Thubway Tham gasped. “Why, the thilly ath,” he whispered to himself. “The thwell-headed thimp! Thomebody thould butht him one in the nothe, tho they thould.”

  Booth Mansfield Merton had a lot of speeches similar to that one, and Thubway Tham’s dislike for him slowly but deliberately turned into deep hatred. And then, unknowingly, Booth Mansfield Merton struck home.

  “The reputed cleverness of the social parasite, the cunning of the man who lives by his wits, the skill of the pickpocket, for instance—all such things are mythical,” the actor vehemently declared. “A superior man can outwit any of them.”

  “The Thimp,” said Tham to himself. “Thuperior, ith he? Oh, the thilly ath! If he ever cometh thouth of Fourteenth Thtreet and I thee him, he wanth to look out. I’ll thow him thome cleverneth and thkill, all right!”

  Tham left the theater after the performance with the conviction that the ticket agent had robbed him by forcing him to pay good money to be insulted. He rode downtown in the subway, and though there was many a good chance to “lift a leather,” Tham did not make an attempt to work. His mind was full of the false philosophy that had come from the lips of Merton.

  “Tho a pickpocket ith not clever, hey?” Tham mused. “And thith Booth Manthfield Merton ith a thuperior man who could make the betht dip in the thity look like a deuthe card, ith he? He maketh me thick. I’ll teach him to inthult people.”

  * * * *

  The following day being Sunday, Thubway Tham arose a little late, spent plenty of time dressing, and walked briskly down the street to the restaurant he always favored for breakfast. It appeared that all the other customers were late for breakfast also. Tham managed to get his usual place at his usual table, but was forced to wait for some time until his order was filled. While waiting he picked up the dramatic section of one of the Sunday morning newspapers, and the first thing he saw was an interview with Booth Mansfield Merton.

  The interview was the work of an enterprising press agent, of course, but Thubway Tham knew little concerning the workings of a press agent’s mind. Tham did not know that Booth Mansfield Merton never had seen that interview and would be greatly surprised when he read it to find that he had expressed himself so on certain subjects. Tham curled his lips in scorn and read the interview.

  It said that Mr. Merton, now playing an important role in the current greatest success of the century, “The Under Dog,” was a conscientious artist, and expected, the following season, to appear in a drama that concerned the underworld and its men and women. The play would be something entirely new, Mr. Merton said, and would reveal the denizens of the underworld in a new light.

  To be sure that he expressed the proper atmosphere when the play was produced, Mr. Merton—who always was willing to sacrifice comfort to art—was living in the lower end of the city, the article said. He had given up his comfortable apartment on the Drive and had a room far downtown, ate there, walked the streets there when his presence was not demanded at the theater, and was making an exhaustive study of the men and women there, going down into the dark places for the purposes of analysis and comparison.

  A few quoted paragraphs from Booth Mansfield Merton followed. He said:

  “There has been expressed for some time a certain glamor concerning the so-called underworld that does not exist in reality. The criminals of today are neither courageous nor clever, cunning nor sagacious. Only ignorance is found in the underworld of today—a vicious ignorance that is remarkable.”

  Thubway Tham felt anger growing within him when he read that paragraph. Tham felt that he was a good “dip,” and was rated as such by the police. He was neither ignorant nor vicious. He was a human being, was Tham, and because he picked pockets and belonged to a nefarious profession, it did not follow that he was an unintelligent beast.

  “I’d jutht like to meet that thimp,” Thubway Tham told himself. “Thtudying the underworld, ith he? I’d thoon give him thomething to thtudy, the ath. He ith a thuperior man, ith he? Thacrifithin’ comfort for art, ith he? He’ll thacrifith hith bank roll if he cometh around me!”

  II.

  Without knowing it, the press agent had let Booth Mansfield Merton in for a lot of trouble. Thubway Tham was not the only gentleman of irregular business who read that interview, and there was an expressed intention on the part of many to seek out Booth Mansfield Merton and “get him good.”

  But Thubway Tham had a big advantage. He had seen the man at work on the stage and knew him at sight.

  “If he only hath a roll on him,” Tham mused. “I’ll thow the thilly ath a thing or two. Neither cunning nor thagaciouth, am I not? We’ll thee.”

  Determination controlling him, his mind centered upon one object; in a manner of speaking, Thubway Tham deserted his beloved subway for a time and paced the streets, always alert to catch sight of the despised Booth Mansfield Merton. He even watched at the theater one evening and attempted to follow the actor when he left after the performance, but some admirer of Merton’s took him to a roof garden for supper, and Tham missed them when they departed.

  However, he did not fail to run into Detective Craddock, the particular officer who had sworn to get him “with the goods” one day and send him up the river for a long term. Tham met him as he turned a corner, and stepped back quickly to curl his upper lip in a sneer.

  “Tham,” Craddock said, “you have been acting peculiarly lately. What seems to be the trouble? Indigestion, or something like that? Going to have a sick spell? Old age, maybe.”

  “Thay!” cried Tham. “My thtomach ith all right, and I am not goin’ to have a thick thpell! And where do you get that old age thtuff, you ath? Bethide you, Craddock, I am ath a thucklin’ babe.”

  “How is the wallet business?” Craddock asked.

  “Thay, now—”

  “Playing some deep, dark game, aren’t you, Thamb? Trying to make me think that you have reformed, to throw me off the track? Something is brewing, Tham. I’ve had my eye on you carefully the last three days, and you haven’t even known it, or cared. And you haven’t gone into the subway more than half a dozen times, and when you did you always acted as if there was something preying on your mind. Is your conscience bothering you, Tham?”

  “It ith not, but there ith thomething preyin’ on my mind, all right. I have been tryin’ to figure out,” Tham told him, “how it cometh that you thtill draw pay for bein’ a fly cop. And it ith thome puthle!”

  “Indeed?”

  “Quite tho,” Tham said. “I thaw in the paper the other day where thome ham actor thaid that crookth had neither courage nor cunnin’, cleverneth nor thagacithy. That thimp ought to thtudy offitherth, the tho-called detectiveth in particular. When it cometh down to cleverneth and thagacithy, Craddock, a mule hath nothin’ on you.”

  “Ah well, Tham, old boy, we must each of us have our little, merry jest,” Craddock said.

  “It ith no merry jetht,” Thubway Tham declared. “It ith the truth, only it ith not thurprithin’ that you don’t recognithe the truth when you thee it.”

  “All jokes aside, Tham, have you been feeling well lately? I’d hate to have you grow ill and be taken off before I get the chance to run you in and see you put away for a twenty-stretch in stir. That would be what they call the irony of fate, Tham, old-timer.”

  “Yeth? It ith probable that I thall die of old age before that,” Tham remarked. “It ith impothible for a man to hold on forever jutht to pleathe a fly cop.”

  “You’ll not be much older when it happens, Tham.”

  “No?”

  “No! You’ll make that little slip one of these days, and then it’ll be up the river for you.”

  “If I did make that little thlip, you wouldn’t be able to thee it,” Tham complained. “You couldn’t thee anything right under your long nothe.”

  Tham whirled around and deliberately left Craddock, g
oing toward Union Square. Thubway Tham was in a rare bad humor. He had failed so far to locate Booth Mansfield Merton, and Craddock’s pestering ways annoyed him exceedingly.

  And then he saw the actor!

  Booth Mansfield Merton was walking languidly along the street, his nose in the air and a far-away look in his eyes. He swung his stick as if to clear a path through the rabble. He was smoking a cigarette, in a holder.

  “The ath!” Tham said.

  And then he began to shadow and study Booth Mansfield Merton. Tham had a scheme in mind. He wanted to get Merton’s wallet when it was well filled. He wanted Merton to know that there was one crook who had cleverness and sagacity enough to “lift a leather” even from such a wise individual as Booth Mansfield Merton.

  Merton evidently was taking the air. Now and then he paused to look into a show window before a shop, but for the greater part he looked at the men and women who passed as if studying them. Tham trailed him faithfully.

  “Firtht, I mutht be thure that he hath a roll,” Tham told himself. “And then I mutht find out where he liveth and when he goeth uptown to the theater. And then I jutht want to catch the thimp in the thubway onthe. That ith all—jutht onthe!”

  For Tham did not think of robbing Booth Mansfield Merton any place except in the subway. Tham rarely worked in the open street; he had made the subway his specialty for years. And so he trailed Merton down one street and up another, to a restaurant where Merton ate cakes and drank coffee, to a cigar store where the actor purchased a pack of cigarettes.

  “The ath thmoketh cheap cigaretteth in an ecthpenthive holder,” Tham observed. “If he ith broke, it will be bad luck. But I gueth he ith not.”

  It was a matinee day, and, after a time, Merton turned and walked northward, and when he was far enough he crossed to the Avenue and caught a bus. Tham got on the same one, and they rode to the theatrical district, where Merton went in at the stage entrance of the theater where he worked.