Борден Дил - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956

“You’re, bluffing.” Cain’s face had turned from pink to a violent red. His eyes snapped; his heavy jaws shook. “Joe and Varney cruised back eight and ten miles to be sure that you weren’t being followed. You didn’t have our address until Varney gave it to you in San Fernando. That was your last Stop. There was no chance to pass it along.”

“It has been passed.” She was cool now. Cool, and moving almost by habit, like a G.I. who feels fear until H-hour and then the sand is under his feet and it’s carry on the old routine come hell or high water. “Every turn,” she was saying now. “A small walkie-talkie passed the word. Two years ago you made it. You ran the counterfeit money down here and killed the stooge. But this time the tail was out in front. Out in front, Mr. Cain, directed and kept informed by the walkie-talkie, shifting a street this way and a street that as needed. It was simple.”

I caught a look of anxiety on her face. She expected help any second, undoubtedly thinking it should have been here by now. And she looked determined enough to hold out until they came. Fine, except the gun she held was completely useless and the word hadn’t been passed over the walkie-talkie since San Fernando. I’d pulled the tube; the set was dead. There just wasn’t going to be any help for her.

Tension showed in every face. I glanced at the .45 Varney had been forced to drop. Even as I looked, the corner of my eye picked up the movement across the room of Joe’s hand. I dived for the gun, just as Maggie’s automatic clicked on an empty chamber. She gasped. Varney piled on me, his hand reaching for the gun, but I’d already closed on it. A gun barked. I squeezed off a pair of fast ones, saw Joe pitch and double up. Before I could turn the automatic on Varney, he’d flopped on the floor, his arms outstretched, a cry for mercy in his throat. I struggled to my knees and looked around. Cain lay cringing on the floor. His silent wife had disappeared, but I wasn’t worried about her. The blonde knelt beside me, the useless automatic in her small hand. Somewhere a window crashed and a woman screamed. Then the glass behind me shattered and a gun poked in from the darkness. The voice was loud and clear, and loaded with authority:

“Hold it! Don’t move! This is an arrest!”

There must have been half a dozen of them streaming through the lush apartment. Cain and his wife were in custody of two business-like gents and Varney was shackled to Cain.

I turned to Maggie Blake. “Would it do any good to ask where the hell you fit into this picture? Could I depend on one honest answer — just for a change?”

“Every time, Matt. From now on, every time.” Her voice said she wanted me to believe it. The purse lay open on the carpet, a lipstick and compact had spilled out of it. She nodded toward the purse. “Pull out the lining, Matt.”

The leather was loose along the top. I worked it away. There was a card, a white card, and pretty big. It was folded down the middle. I’ve never seen one, but I can read. The words TREASURY DEPARTMENT were there, and SECRET SERVICE. Some signatures of people I’d never heard of, but I recognized the picture.

“Must be another gag,” I said.

“No gags, Matt. It’s level from here on in.”

A tall man was coming our way. His face was drawn and lean, and more than a little careworn — like a colonel whose regiment has just come through a nasty day’s work. He stopped in front of us.

“What went wrong, Maggie?”

“My gun,” she said ruefully. “I was doing all right, but when I pulled the trigger there was nothing—”

Her voice stopped as I held my hand over hers, opened my fingers and allowed the bullets to fall into her palm.

“I didn’t mean your gun,” the tall man said. “Why didn’t you keep tipping us off on streets? We didn’t hear a thing after San Fernando — had to get to a phone and put in an all-cars call on the L.A. police radio. If they hadn’t spotted the truck we’d never have found you. Damn set must have—”

I had something for him, too. I fumbled in my pocket and tossed the little tube across to him. He turned it over and over in his bony hand. “How long have you had this?” he asked finally.

“Since Bishop. That’s where I first noticed the car following us.” I grinned. “The rest I found out in San Fernando while the girl frittered away her time watching the back wheels on my—” I moved just in time to avoid a sharp kick.

The tall boy in the gray hat spoke again. “Over a year we’ve worked on this one, Brady. Wirth’s a cute one in more ways than making plates. He can plan, too, and he’s strictly an opportunist. Never lays it out way in advance so you can dig up a stoolie and set a trap. Not Wirth. He waits for something new and different to turn up, wheels into gear and ships the money out before you can get organized. Like you. He probably never thought about using you until—”

“He didn’t,” I cut in. “He’d already ordered the stuff taken off my truck, then changed his mind and kept me around town.”

“Probably. We planted Maggie on him, had her wiggle into the setup, but Wirth trusted no one. The last time he shipped something out he killed the patsy who did the carrying. We’ll fry him for it if we can prove it. Either way, they’ve taken him into custody up north tonight. I radioed right after we lost you in Sari Fernando. They’ll round up Akers too.”

I thought about them knocking off the last one who’d made the trip and Maggie knowing it and still going on. I thought about her cracking up for those few minutes just out of San Fernando. I understood now. My hand found hers.

Tall Boy put a set of bony knuckles on her shoulder. “You’ve been under quite a strain, young lady!” he said and smiled. “We’ve called for a couple of rooms for you at the Biltmore, a little space where you can rest up and sort of collect yourself for a few days while we get the prosecution end of this thing rolling. I’ll have one of the boys drive you over.”

Her fingers tightened on mine a time or two. She caught my eye and gave me that slow half-wink.

“Come to think of it,” I said, “I’ll be going that way myself.”

“Thanks, boss,” she told the tall fellow quickly. “I’ll just let Matt run me over. I’m getting so I like trucks. They’re so... so—”

Then he smiled and waved an arm as he turned away.

We stepped out into the cool evening and walked toward my rig. A shaft of moonlight caught us and cast a shadow on the walk.

One shadow. We were close enough to make it do for the two of us.

I hope to introduce in these pages each issue a brand-new writer — one who never before has been printed. This story I chose from a dozen manuscripts by new writers because of its unusualness. I trust you will find it as intriguing as I did.

He stood in the center of the thatched hut and surveyed the scene about him. The soft light of late afternoon drifted through a window-like aperture in another room and reflected on the dust particles that floated in a state of suspended animation. The door to another room was closed. He walked over to open it, his boots kicking up little clouds of dust as he went. The door creaked as it was opened. The oppressive silence was not broken by his footsteps. He wondered how long it had been since this place had heard a sound.

Sunlight streamed through another crude aperture in the thatch and in the distance the sun rested gently atop the main-mast of his frigate. He turned and started back into the room and thought how curious it was that his boots seemed to make no audible noise on the floor. There was something foreboding about this place. He wished now that the others who were waiting for him in the dory had accompanied him. “Too near night,” they had said. A superstitious pack. He strode across to the first room he had observed and stopped in his tracks midway. On two cots lay two human skeletons covered only by a blanket of dust.