Стюарт Стерлинг - Collection of Stories

He cabbed to Jane Street. Two twenty-five was a new four-story walkup apartment house.

Ralph Eddrop’s name was on the 2-A bell. But the door in the little lobby was open on the latch. Marko went up without ringing.

There was another bell beside the door on the second floor landing. He thumbed it.

After a while a tense male voice, Eddrop’s voice, inquired, “Yes?”

“Janitor.” Don disguised his voice as well as he could. “We got to get in there. They’s a gas leak.”

The door opened. Eddrop gawked at him.

Over the credit man’s shoulder Don could see into the living room, where a pair of girl’s shoes stood beside a footstool.

Eddrop stammered, “You — you can’t — come in — here!”

Don put a hand on the credit man’s chest. “I am in, Ralph.” He walked in, shoving Eddrop before him.

A door slammed. The bathroom door.

Don said, “Tell Miss Wrenn to come on out, Ralph. I can’t very well bust down the door while she’s in the john.”

Eddrop began to protest, “There’s no one here!” Then he saw the shoes, stopped.

Don tried the bathroom door. She’d locked it. He called, “Never mind whether you’re dressed or not, Miss Wrenn. Come on out.”

Eddrop put trembling fingers to his still swollen lips: “Really, Don! This seems so unnecessarily high-handed!”

The store protection chief regarded him with disgust. “What’d you call what she did in the corridor outside my office this morning? Half killed Mary Bayard! Slugged you in the mouth when you tried to prevent her from beating Mary’s brains out while she lay there on the floor! And you didn’t even have the guts to put the finger on her, after that! Don’t talk to me about being high-handed after the way you’ve let her hook you into cheating the store all these months. Get over there on that phone. Call my office. Ask for Cora. Tell her where I am. Say that anyone who wants to see me will find me here! Jump!”

The man obeyed meekly.

Don held the gun at his hip, kept the muzzle on the bathroom door.

Eddrop gave Nimbletts’s number to the operator.

The bathroom door flew open. The Wrenn girl, in nothing much beneath a Japanese-embroidered kimona, crouched by the washbowl. A snub-nosed, nickeled automatic was clenched in her right fist.

Don looked at her steadily. “You want to trade? This one of mine’ll make a hole you could put a crowbar through.”

She lowered the nickel-plated weapon.

Don said, “Throw it out here on the rug.”

She did. He picked it up.

Eddrop was talking to Cora. “—that’s what he said — anyone who wants him can find him here. Yes.”

Don gestured at the girl with his gun. “That’s so your blood-thirsty playmate will find a reception committee if he calls here this evening — which I guess was what you had in mind when you told Ralph to meet you here at your cuddle-up, hah?”

She cursed him out in colorful language.

He laughed unhumorously. “You’ll completely disillusion Ralph, if you haven’t done it already. How long since you seduced the poor old dodo?”

She snarled, “That’s a good one! He got me into this with his nice, quiet, gentlemanly bushwah! He engineered the whole thing. I’ve been sick of him for weeks but I didn’t know how to break off with him and not lose my job.”

Eddrop, from across the room, said dully, “I don’t suppose I cut a very good figure as a sugar-daddy, Benny, but I don’t think you ought to lie about me and mislead Mr. Marko. I didn’t put you up to anything, you know, except this apartment.”

Don said, “Benny. That’s what the watchman said some of the girls called you. On our cards you’re listed as Ruth A. Wrenn. What is that — your middle name?”

She told him to go to hell.

Eddrop continued mildly, “You might as well tell Mr. Marko. They’re bound to find out, just as I knew sooner or later they’d find out about those duplicate coins you made me order.” He looked at Don. “Her middle name is Abenita. Benny for short.”

Don raised his eyebrows. “Oh? Well! I have a message for you, Benny. From a friend of yours.”

Benny told him that she wasn’t interested in any messages.

“From Suzanne Collinson,” he said. “She gave the message to me just before she died.” He hadn’t expected her to show any surprise at the news of the blondes death, and she didn’t. “She said to tell you that Clem had shot her and I was to let you know and you’d square things up with him.”

Benny cried frantically, “It’s a lousy, rotten lie! Clem wouldn’t have hurt Sue for anything. You killed her yourself. And he’ll get you for it, too!” She flung out an arm accusingIy.

Don squinted at her, puzzled. She wasn’t making that defense for his benefit, or Eddrop’s, either. Behind her, in the mirror of the medicine cabinet he saw a growing panel of light. The hall door, opening.

He dived for the corner of the room behind the chair where Benny had taken off her shoes. Shots thundered in the small living room. Glass shattered. Metal whined.

On his knees he pivoted, peeking over the arm of the chair. Clem Ayerell sauntered jauntily in from the hall, a .45 automatic held in front of him like a torch, with smoke trailing from the uptilted muzzle instead of flame. There was no red bandanna covering his face this time, and Don saw why the mask had been so necessary. A black patch covered the man’s left eye. It was fastened around his head with a black cord. Even with the disfiguring patch, the fellow was remarkably good-looking. His big even teeth showed in a grin of delight.

He fired again at Don. The bullet hit the arm of the chair. Dust spurted in Marko’s eyes, blinded him. He shot aimlessly, cursing, heard Clem’s laugh in answer.

He rolled behind the chair, blinking desperately to get back partial vision.

Benny screamed, “Clem! Look out! Ralph!”

Clem’s voice came calmly. “Wait’ll I fix the man. I’ll attend to the mouse later.”

Don could see a little, through stinging tears. He lifted his gun, raised his head. Anything was better than getting blasted without putting up a fight.

But he didn’t shoot. Eddrop stood between him and Clem. Kept moving to stay between them as Clem circled, trying to get a clear aim at Don.

“You can finish me, Ayerell,” the credit man was saying grimly. “I’m ready for it. You’ve corrupted me, and Benny has debauched me until I’m done for, anyway. I want to go. I couldn’t face them at the store any more.”

Clem put the automatic to Eddrop’s stomach, pulled the trigger.

Don saw Ralph double over like a jackknife, then straighten slowly and take a few tottering steps toward his attacker. He flung his arms out, grabbed Clem as the gunman poked the muzzle at his chest and fired again.

Eddrop’s body jerked like a toy on a string, but he clung to Ayerell’s arms until his grip slid to the man’s waist, his legs.

Benny screeched, “Clem! Clem! Get out! The cops are on their way!”

Clem aimed painstakingly at the top of Eddrop’s head. Don shot with his hand braced against the side of the chair. Clem’s smile vanished. He closed his mouth, opened it again. Don shot once more.

Clem and Eddrop crumpled to the floor like brawlers in a street fight.

Benny ran shrieking to the hall.

A bulky figure in blue grabbed her at the door, calling,

“All right, you in there! Heave ya guns out here! Before we have to come in and blow ya t’ pieces.”

Don got up shakily. “Officer, come in and get ’em yourself. They’re both dead ducks.”

Now the apartment was crowded with humans and full of the smell of death. Ambulances had taken along the bodies of the two men. The patrol wagon had swallowed a wildcat Abenita. Don Marko lounged on the chair that had saved his life or nearly cost him his life, he couldn’t make up his mind which.