Майкл Бретт - Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 36, No. 6, June, 1975

“It would give me a better chance,” I said.

He regarded me curiously. “You could lose ten grand as easy as a thousand, Warren, still you never can tell. You might be able to do it.”

“I haven’t got ten grand. I haven’t even got one grand.”

He laughed. “If you’re hinting that I loan it to you, forget it. I make\ it a policy never to lend money to gamblers.”

“Well,” I said. “I guess that’s it,” and started to rise.

He waved me down. “Take it easy, Warren. Maybe I can introduce you to a guy in Lake Tahoe. He’s in the money lending business. But you’ll have to come up with some kind of security for ten grand; house, car, stocks, bonds, things like that.”

“Nothing,” I said.

Varig shrugged and smiled. “So you take the next plane home and you forget about it. You pretend you never owned the forty grand.”

“That won’t be easy,” I said, and studied his face, and wondered what his reaction would be to what I was going to say. “There’s a life insurance policy on Martha for twenty thousand dollars. There’s a cash equity. Maybe your friend in Lake Tahoe..”

He nodded. “Yeah, he’d go for that. Have you got the policy with you?”

“Right here in my pocket,” I said, and produced it.

He read it. “Yeah, this is a little more like it. At least it is a sign of good faith. If he gives you ten grand against it, you’ll have to pay him fifteen grand for it.”

“Five thousand dollars interest? That’s a lot of money.”

He burst into laughter. “If he gives it to you that’s a lot of risk he’s taking to earn it. He’ll only give you the money on my say-so anyway. In other words I’m guaranteeing your loan. So there’s something you’ve got to tell me. Suppose you lose. How are you going to repay the money?”

“I’m not going to lose.”

“I’ve heard that before, more times than I can count. You still haven’t answered my question.”

I leaned forward and said quietly, “I’m the beneficiary named on the policy.”

He considered what I’d said. “I’ve been in this racket a long time. I thought I’d seen everything.”

I thought it wise to say nothing.

He finished his coffee before continuing. “All right Warren, now I’ll take you to my friend in Lake Tahoe, and let me tell you something. The only reason I’m doing it is because of what you just said about being the beneficiary on Martha’s life insurance policy.”

He spoke in a matter of fact voice. An outsider hearing him would never believe that he was discussing the possibility of my killing Martha to gain twenty thousand dollars in the event that I lost the money I was going to borrow.

But it wasn’t going to come to that. I was sure that I was going to win back the money I had lost. If I didn’t, I’d cross that bridge, getting rid of Martha, when I came to it.

“When can I see your friend?” I said.

“We’ll drive over there now,” Varig said.

So here we were, heading for Lake Tahoe. Varig drove. When we were about halfway to our destination, I couldn’t believe it when he stopped the car, drew a gun and walked me off the road into a thicket.

“What are you doing?” I said, and couldn’t believe what was happening. I found myself saying “why,” over and over again.

“Martha has a policy on you for twenty thousand dollars. She’s the beneficiary on that one.” He winked. “I’ve been paying the premiums on that one for the last six months.”

“You and Martha?” I asked incredulously.

He nodded. “Why not? That kid’s got class, only you’re not smart enough to see it. You’re not even in her league and you were ready to kill her for the policy money.”

“I would have won.”

“You had to lose. It was a sure thing. The trouble Warren, was that you were playing in a different game and you didn’t know it. There were only two players, you and me. Like that there’s only one winner and one loser.”

“But why did you keep telling me to go home when I was ahead forty thousand dollars?”

He shrugged. “Words. I knew you couldn’t do it.”

I said, “Now wait a minute!”

He said, “So long,” and raised the gun.

Some of the finest stories to pass over an editor’s desk are often rejected because they do not fit the magazine format. In bringing our readers the best in mystery fiction, as announced some months ago, we have decided to print from time to time stories of extraordinary excellence which do not exactly fit our format. We are pleased in this issue to bring you George C. Chesbro’s Mongo Frederickson novelet, “Book of Shadows”, in which the dwarf detective meets a grotesque foe; the spirit world itself! Neither the usual detective story nor a mere tale of exorcism, it is more in the tradition of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA or Mary Wolstonecraft Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN, for it pits man against the very evil which he himself creates. It is a very dark and very “different” story!

It had been a long day with absolutely nothing accomplished. I’d spent most of it grading a depressing set of midterm papers that led me to wonder what I’d been teaching all semester in my graduate criminology seminar. After that I’d needed a drink.

Instead of doing the perfectly sensible thing and repairing to the local pub, I’d made the mistake of calling my answering service, which informed me there was a real live client waiting for me in my downtown office. The Yellow Pages the man had picked my name out of didn’t mention the fact that this particular private detective was a dwarf: one look at me and the man decided he didn’t really need a private detective after all.

With my sensitive dwarf ego in psychic shreds, I headed home. I planned to quickly make up for my past sobriety and spend an electronically lobotomized evening in front of the television.

I perked up when I saw the little girl waiting for me outside my apartment. Kathy Marsten was a small friend of mine from 4D, down the hall. With her blond hair and blue eyes, dressed in a frilly white dress and holding a bright red patent leather purse, she looked positively beatific. I laughed to myself as I recalled that it had taken me two of her seven years to convince her that I wasn’t a potential playmate.

“Kathy, Kathy, Kathy!” I said, picking her up and setting her down in a manner usually guaranteed to produce Instant Giggle. “How’s my girl today?”

“Hello, Mr. Mongo,” she said very seriously.

“Why the good clothes? You look beautiful, but I’d think you’d be out playing with your friends by this time.”

“I came here right after school, Mr. Mongo. I’ve been waiting for you. I was getting afraid I wouldn’t see you before my daddy came home. I wanted to ask you something.”

Now the tears came. I reached down and brushed them away, suddenly realizing that this was no child’s game. “What did you want to ask me, Kathy?”

She sniffled, then regained control of herself in a manner that reminded me of someone much older. “My daddy says that you sometimes help people for money.”

“That’s right, Kathy. Can I help you?”

Her words came in a rush. “I want you to get my daddy’s book of shadows back from Daniel so Daddy will be happy again. But you mustn’t tell Daddy. He’d be awful mad at me if he knew I told anybody. But he just has to get it back or something terrible will happen. I just know it.”