Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 835 & 836, March/April 2011

“Why? Why couldn’t he jump out his own window?”

“Because there’s a setback two stories down on his side. He couldn’t have cleared it. He wanted a smooth drop to the sidewalk. Billy Calm could hardly have taken a running jump through the window. It was far off the floor for even a tall man, and Billy was short. And remember the slivers of glass at the bottom of the pane? When I remembered them, and remembered the height of the bottom sill from the floor, I knew that no one — especially a short man — could have gone through that window without knocking them out. No, Knox passed Margaret’s desk, muttered some sort of farewell, and then entered the room just as I came out of Calm’s office. He smashed the window with a chair so he wouldn’t have to try to dive through the thick glass, head first. And then he got ready to jump.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“Because he heard Margaret shout his name from the outer office. And with the shouted word Billy , a sudden plan came to him in that split second. He recrossed the small office quickly, and stood behind the door as we entered, knowing I would think it was Billy Calm who had jumped. As soon as we were in the room, he simply stepped out and stood there. I thought he had entered the room with Margaret and me. I never gave it a second thought, because I was looking for Calm. But Margaret fainted when she saw he was still alive.”

“But she said it was Billy Calm who entered the office,” Greene protested.

“Not until later. She was starting to deny it, in fact, when she saw Knox and fainted. Remember, he carried her into the next room, and he was alone with her when she came to. He told her his money would be safe only if people thought Calm dead for a few hours. So she went along with her lover; I needn’t remind you he was a handsome fellow, even though he was married. She went along with what we all thought happened, not realizing it would lead to murder.”

Sam Hamilton lit a cigar. “The stock did go down.”

“But not enough. And Knox knew Calm’s arrival would reactivate the merger and ruin everything. I don’t think he planned to kill Calm in the beginning, but as the morning wore on it became the only way out. He waited in the private elevator when he knew Billy was due to arrive, slugged him, carried his small body to that window while we were all out to lunch, and threw him out, replacing the cardboard afterwards.”

“And the stock went down some more,” Hamilton said.

“That’s right.”

“She called him Billy,” Shirley reminded them.

“It was his name. We all called him W.T., but he signed his memo to me William T. Knox . I suppose the two of them thought it was a great joke, her calling him Billy when they were together.”

“Where is she now?” someone asked.

“The police are still questioning her. I’m going down there now, to be with her. She’s been through a lot.” He thought probably this would be his final day at Jupiter Steel. Somehow he was tired of these faces and their questions.

But as he got to his feet, Sam Hamilton asked, “Why wasn’t Billy here for the meeting at ten? Where was he for those missing hours? And how did Knox know when he would really arrive?”

“Knox knew because Billy phoned him, as he had earlier in the morning.”

“Phoned him? From where?”

McLove turned to stare out the window, at the clear blue of the morning sky. “From his private plane. Billy Calm was circling the city for nearly three hours. He couldn’t land because of the fog.”

Copyright ©1965 by Edward D. Hoch

The last two short stories Dave Zeltserman contributed to EQMM featured the inimitable anthropomorphic computer who plays Archie to his detective, Julius Katz. The first of those stories, entitled “Julius Katz,” recently won both the PWa’s Shamus Award for Best Short Story and the SMFs’s Derringer for Best Novella. Mr. Zeltserman is also a much-lauded novelist, whose forthcoming novel, Outsourced (Serpent’s Tail) is already optioned for film. Also not to be missed, 2010’s The Caretaker of Lorne Field . The last two short stories Dave Zeltserman contributed to EQMM featured the inimitable anthropomorphic computer who plays Archie to his detective, Julius Katz. The first of those stories, entitled “Julius Katz,” recently won both the PWa’s Shamus Award for Best Short Story and the SMFs’s Derringer for Best Novella. Mr. Zeltserman is also a much-lauded novelist, whose forthcoming novel, Outsourced (Serpent’s Tail) is already optioned for film. Also not to bemissed, 2010’s The Caretaker of Lorne Field.

Patrick was fifteen when he got ahold of a dog-eared paperback copy of Charlie Valtrone’s 1960 hardboiled crime novel I, the Killer. The novel was Charlie Valtrone’s first and was considered a cult classic. It was also unlike anything Patrick had read before or even imagined that a book could be, both in its realistic depiction of violence and mob-related crime and the raw visceral energy within it, which hit Patrick as hard as if he’d been smacked in the face with a sledgehammer. After that book, Patrick greedily devoured everything else he could find of Charlie Valtrone’s, and would later buy every subsequent book as it was published.

It was because of Charlie Valtrone and the power of those books that Patrick wanted to become a writer. He majored in English Literature in college and supported himself now installing carpets while he worked on his unpublished manuscript. For a long time Charlie Valtrone had been his literary hero. Now the great man was not only his acknowledged mentor but his buddy. Hell, the two of them, at that moment, were drinking Buds and smoking Cohiba cigars as they lounged in the backyard of Charlie’s modest Paterson, New Jersey home, while porterhouse steaks sizzled on the gas grill.

A year ago Patrick had sent Charlie his manuscript. He fantasized that he might get a short note back from the man, but certainly didn’t expect anything. After all, Charlie Valtrone was a legend while Patrick was an unpublished twenty-six-year-old nobody. Even though he only lived a couple of towns over from Charlie, the last thing Patrick expected was Charlie calling him to tell him, “Kid, there’s some good stuff in this. But you need to fix a few things. Let’s get together.”

Patrick didn’t waste any time getting together with his idol. That first meeting was spent drinking whiskey and talking about everything except writing. More late evenings followed, and before long Patrick was coming over to Charlie’s home three or four times a week. It was more than Charlie becoming his mentor, it was as if Charlie and his wife, Eunice, had adopted him. They’d feed him when he’d come over, and after Eunice went to bed, he and Charlie would drink long into the night, with Charlie telling him about his younger days when he used to hang out with members of the mob.

“Now, remember,” Charlie would say, “I was just hanging around these guys. Doing a little bookmaking on the side, a few errands here and there, but nothing heavy. I wasn’t going around breaking legs or nothin’ like that, so don’t get any big ideas in your head.”

“Yeah, right,” Patrick would respond. “Someone late in paying up, and you telling me you wouldn’t lean on them?”

“Me?” Charlie would wink and show a thick-lipped grin from ear to ear. “I’m a regular pussycat. Who could I have scared into paying up?”

Not quite a pussycat. Even at seventy-four Charlie was an imposing figure. A big man, barrel-chested, thick heavy arms and large hands with knuckles as hard as concrete. Although his hair had turned from black to white over the years, he still had all of it, and it was still cut short in that trademark bristle cut of his. His jaw heavy and his face broad and square and with enough scars marking it to show that he’d seen his share of barroom brawls and back alley scraps in his younger days. You’d know this even if you didn’t notice his somewhat flattened nose. Patrick watched as Charlie blissfully blew smoke rings from his mouth. He tried to imagine what it would be like if he didn’t know Charlie and the guy came knocking on his door to collect on a late loan. Yeah, if that were to happen, even with Charlie Valtrone being a geezer in his seventies, the sight of the guy standing outside his front door would probably have caused Patrick to piss his pants.