Аврам Дэвидсон - Ellery Queen’s Double Dozen

“I know, Uncle Eddie. I know. You been very, very—”

“I’ve been very, very kind,” the uncle snapped. “I know I have. I haven’t pressed you. Am I a bloodsucker? I’m no bloodsucker. You are in to me for plenty of money. Do you think I’m a millionaire? Well, I’m not, kiddo — get that idea out of your soft head right now. Long as I knew you didn’t have the money,” he said, “long as I knew you couldn’t get the money, I was willing to wait. But why in the hell should I wait now, when all you got to do is just pick up the phone and ask for the money?”

Charley said, “I can’t.”

“Oh, yes, you can,” snapped Uncle Eddie, quick and fierce. “Oh, yes, you can. And you will, too. You want to be a hero? Not on my money, sonny, you’re not going to be any hero. Listen. I wouldn’t put you out of the house. Couldn’t do it. But if I don’t get the money owing to me, the money that’s coming to me, I’m going to drop the whole thing. Sell out. Turn the mortgage over to a mortgage company. You think they will let you wait like I done? Ho ho. That dirty dog up there in the State pen, you think he’s going to be grateful to you for not picking up the check?” He snorted, sought Marie’s eyes.

She began to cry.

Charley threw back his head, spread his arms. He struck the table with his clenched fist. He seemed to be striking it into a pool of blood. Deeper and deeper his fist went into the blood. He sobbed. He sat and looked at his hands.

Then he walked over and picked up the telephone.

A fascinating story; how George Bostwick, high school senior, discovered the terrible dangers that lurk in our everyday lives... If you were George’s English teacher, what mark would you give him?

My name is George Bostwick and next June I’m going to graduate from Santa Monica High School. Maybe. The reason I’m only maybe going to graduate is Mr. Wurley. He teaches English IV and he’s a — you know, perfectionist?

He gave the class this practically impossible assignment that has to be handed in today. The assignment is that we have to write a paper on any subject that we’re interested in, and I sat up most of last night thinking about subjects I was interested in, and they were and still are football, cars, detective stories, and girls, not necessarily in that order.

But I have a feeling that Mr. Wurley would think that I should not be interested in these things to the exclusion of, say, Percy Bysshe Shelley or Lord Byron, and when I fell asleep I was still waiting for the inspiration that had not yet come.

“Just write it in your own words,” he said, “as though you were talking to a friend.”

Okay, friend:

So, on account of having stayed up most of last night, I slept late this morning and missed the school bus. My Mom and Dad are back east visiting, so I’m staying with my cousin Freddie who has a little house up Malibu Canyon. But right now Freddie is off on this fishing trip and he didn’t wake me up. It was nine o’clock when I got down to the Pacific Coast Highway and started thumbing rides and worrying about the paper that I hadn’t written and about what would happen to me when I didn’t hand it in.

Pretty soon this lady came along in an Austin-Healey Sprite. She stopped and I saw that she was a nice-looking blonde lady but kind of old. She wore a wedding ring and must have been around thirty.

“You got a driver’s license?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Okay,” she said, and started climbing out. “We’re headed the same way, so you can drive me home.” She got her knees jammed up against the steering wheel and had a hard time breaking free. “Like trying to get out of a sitz bath,” she said.

Well, a Sprite’s a sports car, and a little one at that, and it’s not too easy for people of a certain age to get in and out of one, but that wasn’t why she was finding it so tough. When she finally made it and walked around to climb into the other seat I saw what her trouble was. She was stoned! But stoned!

They got a thing in California called “Drunk in Auto.” You can go to jail for it. Well, it was just last week that Freddie gave me the loan of his car to take the driving tests. My license being new and all, I wasn’t sure I wanted to drive her anywhere.

“Maybe you’d like me to go over to the Mayfair Market and call a cab,” I said.

“Young man,” she said, “you leave me sitting on the highway, I’ll have your Good Samaritan card picked up. You won’t even be a Bad Samaritan. You’ll be a Lousy Philistine. I live just this side the Sea Lion. Hop in the car and drive.”

So I did what she told me to. And I’ll say this for her — that was a real sweet car she owned. A stick job with four forward shifts, a tachometer, a windshield washer — the works. She wasn’t any trouble, either. By the time we passed Malibu Pier she was asleep.

I looked in the side pocket and found her registration. Her name was Phyllis Bennett and she lived near the Sea Lion Café, like she’d said. A lot of picture people, actors and what-all live around there. I parked outside the gate in this thick wall and woke her up.

“You’re home, Mrs. Bennett,” I said. “Thanks for the lift.”

For a minute she looked as though she was wondering who I was and how I’d come into her life. Then she smiled. “Hello, kid. Give me a hand.”

I helped her out and through the gate and into a patio. Man, when I got inside was I surprised! It was real cool. Not fancy, you understand, but nice. You could hear the sound of waves down on the beach. There was a garden with flowers in it and a big white table with chairs around it and a red-and-white umbrella over it, and down at the other end of the patio there was a little swimming pool shaped like a kidney bean.

The house was nice, too. No tricked-up gingerbread — just a comfortable place to live. The beach stairs were on the right and there were three steps just ahead that led up to the door. Mrs. Bennett started for the door but, passing the table, she gave this sort of sigh and suddenly sat down.

“Got to rest a minute. Who are you, anyway?” she asked.

Well, I’m not what you might call gabby and I don’t much like talking about myself, but I answered her the best I could. I told her my name and where I lived and how I was first-string tackle on the team at Samohi. She listened politely but she couldn’t have been paying much attention because, while I was giving her a play-by-play rundown on last Saturday’s game, she got up in the middle of the second quarter.

“Think I can make it now,” she said.

I helped her up the steps. The door was open. She was starting to sag again when we went into the living room.

“Maxi Hey, Maxi” she called. Then she said, “Oh, I forgot. He’s in Las Vegas with his red-headed so-called secretary. I’m talking about my husband, Max.”

She went over to a sort of cabinet near the picture window and looked inside. “Well, what do you know!” she said. “Max went off and left me high and dry. Do me a little favor, George?”

“Well, I’d like to,” I said, “but I’m already a half hour late for school. Would it take long?”

“Ten minutes, give or take a little, and I’ll make it worth your while.” She opened her handbag and handed me a bill. “Run up to the Mayfair for me and you can drive my car to school. Bring it back this afternoon.”

I saw myself pulling up at Samohi in my little old Austin-Healey Sprite. “What should I get for you at the Mayfair, Mrs. Bennett?” I said.

“A fifth of scotch.”