Mink Is for a Minx

by editor Leo Margulies

  Choosing Shore Drive had been a mistake, Marian decided. There was not another car in sight. At the right was a ledge, a slope of trees, a stretch of beach and then the lake, all greyed out by the fog. At the left was open park land, then a steep wooded cliff. On top of it, but invisible now, were perched grey stone mansions whose slit-windowed turrets peered down to the lake. They were inaccessible from this side. There was a long stretch of drive with no possibility of turning off except into the deserted park.

  Now that Marian had let herself recognize her fear, it spread along her nerves like ice. She felt wetness inside her gloves, and fear pricked up along her spine like the fur of a frightened cat.

  She speeded up to fifty, hoping desperately to hear the siren of a lurking prowl car. But there were curves ahead and she dared not maintain the speed. She braked, belatedly seeing the first curve. The bag beside her toppled and fell to the floor of the car. There was the sound of glass cracking and the sharp smell of whiskey began to fill the car. The truck’s tires screeched behind her, barely slowing in time.

  “So if a cop should materialize he’d probably book me for drunkenness or something,” she said aloud. “That would be lovely. But there aren’t any cops. They all took off for Mars an hour ago. Stop talking, Marian O’Meara. You’re scared to death. You’re a gibbering mess of fright. Put yourself together.”

  She gripped the wheel unnecessarily hard, slowing for the next curve.

  “I never believed much in things that go boomp in the night and things that say boo. I do now, though.”

  She tried not to imagine the face of the insane murderer in the truck—at last she had let herself admit that it probably was the psycho—which she had not even glimpsed in reality. A huge man with loose lips and little, mad red eyes?

  But no, judging from the hell-fire messages he had left with his victims. More likely he was tall and gaunt, with thin lips and cavernous eyes, a self-tormented ascetic except when his hatred of evil turned into a wilder hatred of attractive women, because to him they were instruments of evil.

  But I’m not, Rod. I’m not, Teddy and Midge. I don’t deserve this for anything, do I?

  Silly. People don’t get chased by homicidal nuts because they do or don’t deserve it. They get pursued because something—color of hair, a way of walking, or being gaily dressed, reminds some split-off part of the psycho’s mind of what he hates or fears.

  Marian was in the suburbs now, nearing the end of Shore Drive. There would be houses with driveways, with lights over front doors and people in lighted rooms who could be called. True, the business part of Brookdale would be closed and dark, but—

  The filling station. That big lovely service station, filling a corner lot with its batteries of gas pumps, its white garage and its cheerful attendants! Only last Saturday night she and Rod had stopped there close to midnight. It had been open. A pleasant young negro had filled their tank, and he and a brisk red-haired young man had wiped the car windows.

  With longing, with rising hope, Marian held up the two faces before the eyes of her mind. “Check your oil and water, Ma’am?” Strong young men, wholesome-looking young men, please be there.

  She turned right into the station, seeing a gleam of light inside the garage, refusing to believe the pumps were unlighted. The filling station was closed. There was only a night light inside.

  She swung out again, still wearing the truck like an appendage to her car. Its lights blazed back from her mirror and she dabbed with her glove at a trickle of tears on her cheeks.

  As she swung back into the road she glanced at the gas gauge and froze. The needle was perilously close to “E.”

  “Dear God, forgive me my carelessness, my rattling brains that don’t remember such things as keeping a full gas tank. Forgive me this one more time and make the gas last until I find help.”

  The business street of Brookdale was deserted as she had known it would be. Damn those village fathers who vote every year not to allow a tavern in the town. It would be open now, with a juke box playing corn and a lot of beautiful, sloppy, jolly people at the bar. Would that offend the stuffy suburbanites more than the notoriety of a messy murder on their streets? But perhaps it wouldn’t come to that. They’d simply move her body, leave it somewhere in the city, and keep embarrassment out of Brookdale.

  And where was the village police station? Marian had never thought to find out. Off on a side street somewhere, but she did not dare to leave the highway and search the dark cross streets.

  She recalled a glimpse of the station, a genteel white phony colonial house complete with elms and marked with an unobtrusive sign—POLICE. She wouldn’t see the small sign in this darkness, nor would she recognize the building.

  She drove on, between large houses set far back on landscaped lawns. Where was everyone? Lights gleamed dimly from some of the windows, but you could not be sure which houses actually had people—living, moving, waking people—inside. If she guessed wrong, there probably would be no second chance.

  Headlights appeared suddenly as a car rounded a bend ahead, then a second pair. Two cars driving rather fast toward her. She slowed, sounded her horn, and gestured in frantic signals as the first car came near. It met hers and passed on. She braked to a full stop, hoping to attract attention in the second car. It slowed a little, then went on.

  Marian allowed herself, briefly, to weep. In this over-populated world, was it impossible to contact a human being?

  She swerved into a driveway that circled before a big square-built house with lights somewhere inside. The truck circled with her, keeping the distance unchanged. She stopped opposite the front door and leaned on her horn, sending blast after blast of sound into the stillness, quieting her own breath to listen for a response. A dog barked somewhere in the house.

  Marian thought she saw movement, but the door remained closed. She rested her throbbing head on the steering wheel a moment, then straightened it, wiped her eyes with the back of her gloved hand and drove into the road again.

  She was lost, she realized dully. She was still on Highway 31, but in her panic she had missed the turnoff that would take her home. Now, she thought with desolation, even if Rod should become worried and start out to look for her, he would never find her. Naturally, he would turn toward the city.

  Time had stopped. Marian felt as if she had been driving on this road forever, through terrain that was ghostly and unfamiliar in the fog. There was no hope, and she hardly noticed a dim red gleam ahead. It went into focus as she approached and turned into Neon letters—BECK’S MOTEL. Vacancy. She turned into driveway edged with white wagon wheels. The truck followed.

  She flung open the car door and ran toward a lighted entrance, her heels catching in ice-clotted gravel. In the office a woman with grey-streaked brown hair looked up from her magazine. “May I telephone?” Marian asked.

  The woman gestured. “There’s a phone booth outside.”

  “Please, I’m in trouble. A man in a truck is following me. He’s out there now, waiting behind my car. Can’t I call from in here?”

  The woman got up and went to the door. For a moment Marian thought she was about to be sent out again into the nightmare. But the woman set the night latch instead.

  “Use the phone on the desk.”

  Marian dialed with frantic fingers. Rod’s “Hello?” sounded near, but it was a voice remembered with longing from a distant past. She realized she had not expected ever to hear it again.

  “Rod—Rod—”

  “Hold it, Baby. What’s wrong?”

  “Come and get me, Rod. Beck’s Motel, Highway Thirty-one.”

  “I know where it is. What’s the matter?”

  “Quickly, please, please. Hurry.”

  His voice sobered and sharpened. “Hang on. I’m coming.”

  Marian swayed as she got up from the chair. The woman guided her to another one, went back to the desk and dialed.

  “Highway patrol? This is Mrs. Beck. Better send some men to B
eck’s Motel. There’s a man outside, tried to molest a girl. All right. Thanks.”

  She crossed to Marian’s chair, put a hand under the shaking elbow and drew her up.

  “It’s all right. Now go into the powder room and fix your face. Dash on some cold water and comb your hair. I’ll make you a cup of coffee while you’re gone.”

  The powder room mirror showed a white face streaked with mascara and tears. Marian scrubbed, replaced the bitten-off lipstick and dusted powder onto the reddened nose. She found the comb in her purse but she had to steady her arm against the wall to control her shaking enough to use it.

  She came out and the woman poured from an electric percolator on a stand beside the desk. Marian sipped gratefully. Then there was a shriek of brakes as Rod’s sports car swerved into the drive.

  “Is that your husband?” Mrs. Beck asked, her hand on the latch.

  “Yes—Oh, yes!”

  Marian flung herself into Rod’s arms.

  “The truck—Oh Rod, I think that maniac is driving it. He followed me all the way from the store, crowding up close. Finally I panicked and missed the turn—”

  There was a scream of sirens, nearing.

  “Wait, Rod—” she clung but he ran out, jerked open the door of the truck, reached inside. Two patrolmen on motorcycles screeched up as Rod dragged the truck driver out, stood him up, and towered over him.

  He was a little man, elderly and frail. Perspiration stood in drops on his forehead, below a faded blue cap.

  “All right, Pop, tell your story. Fast.” Holding the man by the scruff of his collar, Rod shook him a little. The other fist seemed itching to strike.

  “Look quick—on the floor in the back of her car.”

  The patrolmen stepped over to Marian’s car, and one of them opened the door. Their revolvers whipped out. Rod joined them, still holding the little truck driver by his neck.

  “Come out of there,” a patrolman said.

  A giant of a man, tall and heavily built, unfolded himself and came out. He stood rigid, expressionless, unresisting as one officer held him by the arm while the other searched him thoroughly.

  “Let go of my neck, will you,” the truck driver said to Rod. The hand relaxed its hold and the little man straightened himself with dignity. “Your girl didn’t know she had a passenger, but I did.”

  The patrolman’s hand went in and out of the big man’s pockets. A club like those carried by policemen, but smaller, came out of one pocket. From another came a half sheet of paper, torn diagonally. The officer’s flashlight beam picked up black pencilled scrawls that were almost, but not quite, words.

  A station wagon with whirling red light on top rolled in the driveway, to a diminishing moan of siren. Two more highway patrolmen got out.

  Suddenly the big man jerked free of the officer’s hand and ran. One of the revolvers coughed, and the man fell.

  “You got him in the leg,” the lieutenant who seemed to be in charge said. “Load him in the wagon.”

  There was no sound from the prisoner as he was lifted and put into the station wagon. The two officers got in, the siren howled again and the wagon drove away.

  One of the troopers had his notebook out and the truck driver was telling his story.

  “Name’s Fred Buxton. I make short hauls—it’s my own truck. I was parked in front of the store, meaning to go in and buy a sandwich to take along. The lady parked in front of me and ran into the liquor store. I saw this man get out of another car that was parked across the street, without lights. The lady came out again and went into the delicatessen.

  “Instead of getting out of my truck and going on in the store I just sat there, because there was something I didn’t like about the way he watched her. When she went into the food store he opened her car door and crawled into the back. She came out and got in without looking, and drove off.

  “What could I do? I’d be no match for him. But I figured if I kept close with my bright lights on, he’d stay down. I thought any minute we’d see a cop, but we didn’t. So I just kept on following. I was scared she’d panic and wreck herself, but she’s a pretty cool girl. A real good driver, too.”

  Marian, safe in the tight circle of Rod’s arm, had stopped trembling. She told her story firmly, they gave names and ages and addresses. Then she walked over to the truck driver, put her arms around his neck, and kissed his cheek.

  “That,” she said, “was for saving my life.”

  She kissed him again, this time on the mouth.

  “And that was for saying I’m a good driver.”

  He returned the kiss with more fervor than his appearance would have caused a lady to predict

  “You are, Miss,” he said. “And you’re pretty, too.”

  He strutted a little, going back to his truck.

  Rod parked his sports car in the motel lot, handed Marian ceremoniously into the right front door of her car, went around and got behind the wheel.

  Steering expertly with one arm, he drove his wife back to their party. She had been away from it for an hour and ten minutes.

  MURDER SLICK AS A WHISTLE

  by Arthur Porges

  MARTIN CALDER SAID CHEERFULLY, “Goering, you are going to kill your master for me.” The big, gentle Doberman, one hundred sixty pounds of loyalty and affection, whined. Whether this was because he objected to “Goering,” when his real name was Siegfried, or actually understood the implications of the threat against Tracy Benton, was known only to himself. Calder patted the sleek head, and the dog licked his hand.

  “You may say ‘no,’” Calder murmured, “but Pavlov says ‘yes’—and my money’s on the famous Muscovite. The fact is, Hermann, he knew more about your species than you do about his. Goering, my boy,” he added wryly, “you’re living proof that dumb animals have no better intuition than people. If they did I’d be chewed to bits by now.”

  Actually Calder had nothing against the dog, which belonged to his brother-in-law. If he called him by so obnoxious a name, it was merely to annoy Tracy Benton, who hated the idea. As an excuse, Calder had drawn Tracy’s attention to the Doberman’s excess poundage, for certainly the animal was overfed.

  “Siegfried, my eye,” Calder had jibed some months earlier. “That hound looks more like Hermann Goering. He has the same fat-jowled, piglike face. All he needs is a gaudy uniform and eight pounds of medals.”

  This was a fair return, Calder felt, for having to endure Tracy’s choice of music on the hi-fi. It was the kind of music, he complained sourly to Elsie, his sister, that made Sir Adrian Boult. Elsie didn’t get it, but the joke relieved Calder’s feelings.

  Considering that Calder consistently sponged off her, his patronizing, thinly-veiled contempt for her slow-wittedness was hardly courteous; but until Tracy entered the picture, things had been perfect. Here was Calder’s sister, a pretty but brainless woman, recently widowed, and the owner of a quarter of a million dollars in income property, inherited from her first husband. It was not surprising that she had turned to her brother for help in managing this bonanza, and he had lived high on the hog for two years, pocketing a very unfair share of the profits. Since Elsie experienced difficulty in comprehending the economics of a one-cent sale, it had been ridiculously easy.

  But then along had come Tracy Benton, a pleasant, charming bachelor, an accountant by profession, and Elsie had leaped into his eager arms as if jet-propelled. Before Calder realized that they were past the hand-shaking stage he was on the outside looking in, and the gravy train had been derailed.

  No longer manager, he was merely an object of charity, permitted to live with the newlyweds, but on no better terms than Siegfried himself. He should have been grateful that Benton had refrained from exposing his criminal juggling of the books, but Martin Calder was not the grateful type.

  But all that was about to change now, because Calder had an ingenious mind and few scruples. He intended to make Elsie a widow again. It was almost poetic justice. The dog, which both of them seemed
to prefer to him, would bring about the death of Benton.

  All Calder needed was a week or two alone with the animal, and that was in the offing right now. Tracy and his wife were leaving for New York on what Elsie liked to refer to as a “second honeymoon” and Calder would be left with Siegfried for at least a fortnight, which should give him plenty of time to complete the task he had in mind.

  The isolated house, high in the new Laguna Hills development, would be a perfect spot. Few of the new, plush homes there had been sold yet, and the Bentons had nearly five acres to themselves, the nearest neighbor being several streets away. There was the cleaning woman, of course, but she came only twice a week for a few hours, and would find nothing amiss.

  Once the couple were safely on a jet for New York, Calder hastened to implement his murder plan. The first item was a silent whistle, the kind pitched too high for human ears, but readily heard by a dog. That was the easy part. He bought it a number of miles away. Not that such a purchase was inherently grounds for suspicion; hundreds were bought yearly. But he was careful not to purchase it at a local store.

  Calder then proceeded to work on the dog’s collar, a stiff leather affair with heavy brass studs. Since it was well suited to his purpose, he saw no point in purchasing a collar of a different type, which he could easily have done. Using a long extension cord of tough rubber, he modified the collar just enough so that the studs could be electrified from any outlet. Now he was ready.

  Calder put the dog into an inner room of the big house, chaining him to a heavy steel fixture that protruded from the brick fireplace. The chain was so short that no matter how violently Siegfried struggled, he could put no strain on the rubber extension cord itself.

  Since Calder did not want the dog to associate him with its discomfort, he loosened the fuse controlling the room’s three outlets before plugging in the cord. Then he went down to the basement, blew a hard but noiseless blast on the whistle, and tightened the fuse.

  There was a yelp of agony above him as the big dog, in severe pain from the current at his throat, tore madly at the chain. Calder could hear him barking, whining, and thrashing about. He inflicted ten seconds of torment on the animal, then loosened the fuse again. Allowing Siegfried a few moments in which to calm down, Calder went upstairs.