Jay Carroll - Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 4, August 1957 (British Edition)

“Beat up,” he managed to say.

“I’ll get Rusty — I just left him. We’ll get you home.”

He ran a tongue over dry, cracked lips. “No — Don’t get Rusty. I can’t go home, either.”

“Come to my place, then.”

He tried to draw away. But she took his arm. He went meekly then, not knowing what else to do. She helped him up the stairs, into a room that smelled of some heavy, sweet perfume. The smell almost gagged him. He sat on the edge of the bed, while Liz went over and pulled down the window shade. Hammers were pounding inside his skull. He felt as though he might be sick again. She came over and kissed him, lips slack and moist.

He let himself fall back on the bed — away from her. “You better leave me alone, Liz,” he said. “I’m in bad shape.”

She looked down at him a moment, contemptuously. She said, “You’re so right. I should of known.”

In the morning, he left before Liz woke up...

He stood on the sidewalk in front of Jerry’s Hot Dog Stand. It was almost six o’clock, and Lois had said she would be there before six. But he couldn’t be sure — women were late, lots of times. Or, maybe, she wouldn’t come at all. She had hesitated when he phoned her — as if it was hard for her to make up her mind.

He glanced impatiently up the street. There weren’t so many cars, and he would have seen the blue convertible right away. Johnny set the paper bag he was carrying between his feet and took out a cigarette. He cupped his hands against the wind that was blowing in from the ocean. Dark clouds banked against the horizon, and there were whitecaps on the dark water. Not many swimmers were out there.

The cigarette didn’t taste good, and he tossed it away and picked up the paper bag again. He wished, suddenly, that she wouldn’t come. It was all worked out with Rusty, but, if she didn’t come, he wouldn’t have to go through with it. Yet there was a part of him that had to see her again. He felt mixed-up, not knowing which part of him was real. He knew, desperately, that it wasn’t good to be mixed-up this way.

He heard the roar of the roller coaster up the street, and he smelled the hotdogs from the grill of Jerry’s Hot Dog Stand , and he tried hard to figure things out straight. Figure out just what he wanted — because you had to know that. The time had come when he couldn’t kid himself any longer.

But it made his hangover stand up inside when he tried to figure it out, and then there wasn’t time anyway, because he caught sight of the convertible coming along behind a 1941 Chewy. Suddenly, he felt every nerve in him snap tight and brittle.

The convertible pulled over to where he was standing and stopped. He reached to open the door and tossed the paper bag on to the seat. He looked into Lois’s face and felt his guts knot. The mechanical organ at the Merry - Go-Round began to blare You Can’t Be True, Dear.

“Well?” Her lips pursed delightfully. The wind blew a lock of yellow hair across her forehead. He got into the blue convertible, and Lois pulled out into the street.

They drove for a few moments in silence — past the pitch games, the Fun House , the stands selling frozen custard. She turned off, away from the waterfront.

He found his voice then. “I bought some sandwiches and a couple of cans of beer. For a picnic.”

“I don’t have much time, Johnny.”

“It won’t take much time. After all, I came all the way out to bring back your wallet.”

“You could have sent it to me.”

“Yeah, I could have.”

But he could tell that she really wanted to be here, with him. He didn’t know how, but he could tell. “There’s a place up the road,” he suggested.

She followed his directions, turned off the highway, down a dirt road that led into a pine grove at the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. The dark clouds were closer now, edging in toward the land.

“Oh, Johnny,” Lois said as he gave her a sandwich, “what is there about you?”

He looked at her sharply. “What do you mean?”

Her forehead wrinkled. “I don’t know. Something restless — disturbed. It’s hard to tell.”

“Don’t try then.”

He kissed her lightly, almost as if it didn’t matter. Then he looked at his watch. It was later than he had supposed. _

“I really can’t stay,” she said. She hadn’t even unwrapped her sandwich. “I promised I’d get back.”

“And us?” Johnny asked. “You’re not giving us a chance.”

Lois looked at him searchingly, as if she was trying to see what really lay inside him. He felt strangely uncomfortable under her gaze, as if she could actually look inside him. He knew it didn’t matter just then that his face was a good-looking face, or that his body was slim and hard and well proportioned. He could see that for himself in the old mirror in his room, and it was only the outer part of him.

She was trying to probe deeper, and he didn’t want her to find his secret self. Yet he knew that, before very long, she would know. Because he would have to show her himself.

She said, very slowly, “You know, Johnny, we don’t have a chance — because I’m afraid of you.”

He tried to laugh. It didn’t sound right. And then she took out the car key. “So we’d better go,” she added.

He knew this was the time. The wind from the ocean felt very cold. Even the blood, beating in his temples, couldn’t drive the numbness out of him. Like Rusty said, he was chicken. This was the time, and he couldn’t do anything.

He heard the starter begin to purr, and then something broke inside him. He reached for the switch and cut the motor. He tried to block off any emotion — any sense that this was Lois. This was a car and a woman, and he had to do a job.

She looked at him a moment, straight into his face, her eyes going wide, her nostrils flaring, the blood draining from her cheeks. It almost got him — but then he said tightly, “It’s just the car I want. If you don’t make any trouble, I won’t hurt you.”

But she did make trouble. She tried to struggle. He had to clamp his hand over her mouth and almost choke her to keep her from screaming. As he was getting her out of the car, one of her arms came free and her nails scratched the side of his face. He had to slam her to the ground before she grew quiet.

He worked fast then, ripping off her blouse, tearing strips to tie her arms behind her back, and her ankles together. He stuffed some material in her mouth, having to pry open her teeth, and then he tied a gag around her head. He left her lying on the ground and gunned the big car down the dirt road, cutting into the highway and heading toward Lynn, where he was to meet Rusty and turn over the car.

He glanced at his watch. He was late — but Rusty would wait. Better not drive too fast, because that might call attention to himself.

Darkness was closing in. He switched on the headlights. The highway was almost deserted, and he drove faster than he should. But he was different, now — not the Johnny Martin he had known. He had given up everything — work, family, a girl he loved — to be a new Johnny Martin. A guy without any good in him, even though he looked all right outside.

The air, rushing against his burning face, stung his eyeballs. His grip on the wheel was tense, as if his fingers had grown rigid. His jaw was set so tight it sent an ache up into his forehead.

Headlights rushed toward him. He swerved just in time. Steady, Johnny , he thought. Get hold of yourself , or you’ll have an accident. Maybe kill yourself.

But Johnny was already dead. Funny, he could see that now, hurling along the road, with the headlights spraying out before him. He had been dying for a long time — ever since he had stuck up that store and gone to reform school. That ten dollars he had lifted from his old man’s till and a lot of things in between — little things at first, but growing bigger each time. Only never so big as this. Tyres sang under him, as he swung around a bend in the road.