Anthony Boucher - Ed McBain’s Mystery Book, No. 1, 1960

And, as I moved toward Spade, a kind of hot sadness wallowed all over me. I’d missed her three masterpieces on the beach, and now I was going to miss the grandest one of all. But it was sure doing the trick. I pulled my eyes from Robbie and looked at Spade, stepped toward him. Spade didn’t know I was there. He didn’t know he was there. All he knew was that Robbie was there.

He was bent slightly forward, stretched taut like a bowstring and sort of tilted toward the stage, his eyes stretched wide and protruding just a little. His mouth flopped open completely and his gun wavered a full six inches. I planted my feet solidly, hauled back my right arm, wound my fingers into a fist like a gob of cement, and started to launch the blow.

I must have started to launch at the same split second as Robbie started to launch. The music had risen to its crashing crescendo as if the musicians were all busting their lungs. My fist whistled through the air, past my ear, on toward Spade’s chops. In that last grand, climactic moment he was transfixed in a kind of rapture. Timed to perfection, the music, Robbie’s masterpiece, my fist, and Spade’s transfixed expression all blended into a moment of explosive completeness — POW!

Spade had completely, entirely, absolutely forgotten about me. His concentration had been totally on Robbie’s masterpiece, it was his entire area of being, his all, and that sudden POW! must have been the most shocking thing that had ever, ever happened to him. He must have thought the impossible had happened and it had catapulted through space and smacked him. Maybe she was there, maybe she wasn’t there, but something had sure walloped him a good one.

He didn’t go out immediately, there was a delayed reaction of perhaps two or three seconds, as if he were by sheer force of will and Gargantuan desire hanging on in defiance of man and nature. He twirled around, slammed back against the edge of a seat, and there was for a moment on his chops the most stunned and perplexed expression imaginable, a kind of stupefied disbelief blending with petrified contentment.

Then his eyes suddenly looked artificial, his face went blank, and he flopped to the floor.

As he fell, his gun went off. Either he’d convulsively squeezed the trigger, or the impact had fired the gun, but it made a great crash.

I bent over and grabbed the revolver, straightened up as a door# slammed. Feet pounded, getting closer. On the stage Robbie looked toward the entrance of the theater and let out a squeal, hopped four inches up in the air, spun around, and grabbed her clothes, ran off stage. I got a glimpse. Again.

That’s all. Just a glimpse. It seemed as if that was all I ever got. Bodies falling, squinty-eyed doctors, safecrackers interrupting everything, doors slamming. I was beginning to get pretty sour about it.

A uniformed policeman ran up. I briefed him quickly, wound it up: “This is the character who did it,” and started backstage. Then I stopped, turned to the officer, and said: “Incidentally, when he comes to, don’t believe everything he tells you. Some of it may sound strange. We — I hit him pretty hard.”

He bent down by Spade. I trotted backstage. Robbie was practically dressed, just zipping up her skirt. As she slipped on her blouse I told her she was marvelous, she’d saved the day, but what in hell had ever possessed her to do it?

“First, I just got away,” she said rapidly, a throb of excitement in her voice, “went backstage and hid there. I was scared, that was all I could think of. But then I started worrying about you — then I heard you both talking. I looked, saw you both walking up the aisle, and he was pointing a gun at you. I almost died!”

She paused, eyes wide. “Yes,” I said, really interested now. “Go on, go on.”

“I knew I had to do something, but I thought: What can I do? What can I do? I’m only a woman, only a woman... And suddenly it came to me. I couldn’t help myself. Something moved me.”

“It sure moved you in the right directions,” I said.

“Actually, there wasn’t time to think about it.” She chuckled suddenly. “I always wanted to — to, you know — anyway. And all of a sudden I was doing it.” She sighed. “It was as if my cocoon dropped away, as if something told me.”

Her face was flushed, she looked ecstatic.

She sighed again. “I knew if I could get his attention, you’d do something clever.”

“Not so clever. All I did was sock him.”

“That was clever. Anyway, I knew you’d do something. And I thought I knew how to get his attention.”

“You sure did. You petrified it. And it was wonderful. Probably saved my life.”

“Oh, that,” she said, as if it were nothing. “But how was I? How was my dancing?”

“Tremendous,” I said a little sadly, thinking of how much of it I’d missed. As I thought about that, the sadness started getting a bitter edge to it. Would it always be like this? Would history keep repeating itself in a vicious circle? With me always brought to the brink but never shoved over the cliff? Always a bridesmaid and never a bride?

While I was trying to untangle# that, Robbie said: “Shell, how was that last one? The only real one. And I did it for an audience. It gave me goose bumps.”

“Yeah.”

All we ever seemed to do was talk about it. It was really starting to sort of burn hell out of me. Here it was all over, and she was buttoning up her blouse.

“Well, how did I look?” she asked.

I could feel the corners of my mouth turning down. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” I said. “How in hell would I know? I’d be the last person to know—”

“I mean there at the end, when I just got all zizzly and went around, and around, and then— Oh, there I go, almost did it again.”

“Yeah. Almost. Yeah. It’s always almost. Dammit. Yeah.”

“Shell, what’s the matter?”

“Matter? Nothing’s the matter. Dammit. Everything’s grand. Swell, dammit. Hunky-dory. Yeah, dammit, I swear—”

“Shell, what in the world is the matter?”

I told her. She put her arms round my neck, pressed close, and said: “Is that all?” and spoke in whispers.

“Let’s go!” I said.

“Let’s go!” she said.

We went.

Seldom had such astounding curves been so joyously uncensored. The day was a sparkling Tuesday in July, the place was a secluded halfmoon beach, the sun was bright, the air clear, the sand voluptuously warm...

And the girl was Robbie.

Well, friends, that was all months ago. And the spirit which moved Robbie that day continued to move her. Maybe that, too, was inevitable. There was an enormous amount of publicity, and Robbie was all fired up with hot goose bumps anyway. She went on to become the toast of Hollywood, then the toast of New Orleans, Miami, New York — everything but a command performance, which she may get yet. Maybe you saw her here on the coast, or back East — you’d know her name, if I told you. Robbie, of course, is not her real name.

Those next months led to several interesting escapades, some involving me...

But that’s another story.

HIS MAN FRIDAY

Investigating vandalism on a farm near Evansville, Indiana, where a tractor had been wrecked, Deputy Sheriff James Angus quickly surveyed the scene, then settled down to looking for clues. He found a perfect heelprint and made a cast. The print was compared with the shoes of several suspects, but it didn’t match.

Several days later Angus sat down in the sheriff’s office and crossed his legs. Fellow deputies looked at Angus’s heel and did a double take. Angus had found his own footprint!