David Alexander - Masters of Noir - Volume 2

I parked in the driveway beside the house, cut the lights, opened the glove compartment, and transferred the.38 revolver to the side pocket of my coat.

I found Sam and Doreen in the front parlor of the house. A pig about everything, Sam had partaken well of the brandy from the bottle on the sideboard.

His eyes were heavy-lidded, his face reddish purple with blood. He looked up at me and grinned. “You took long enough, Enos.”

“But I’m here now,” I said. “Everything all set, I suppose.” Doreen had risen to stand behind Sam. She nodded. Sam said everything was set. His words meant nothing. Her nod was what interested me.

Only minutes of life remained to Sam now. I tried to keep from thinking about it. My knees were weak, and my mouth was so dry I wondered if I could get the next words out.

“Okay,” I said. “Come on and we’ll get it over with.”

Doreen started from the room. Her eyes were glinting as if sheened with satin.

Sam sat a moment, shrugged, and got up.

We went down a corridor. Doreen opened a door on a dark room.

We entered and I heeled the door closed. I palmed the gun and pulled it out of my pocket.

Doreen switched on the light.

Sam started. “Hell, this isn’t an office or a den — it’s a bedroom!”

I heard Doreen breathing. “That’s right, Sam,” she said softly.

He turned to look at her, and I let him have it. Another five seconds and the last of my nerve would have been gone. I had to do it then.

The bullet hit him in the left temple, ranged upward, and left a hole the size of a half dollar when it came out of his skull.

And yet he didn’t die immediately. He lived for perhaps five seconds. He twitched, the breath rattled in his throat. He half-turned himself on the carpet where he lay. Then he was dead.

Doreen had watched every bit of it. She was half-kneeling, to watch the final flick of light fade from his face. She rose, and in her face and eyes was a rapt expression.

I felt like shaking at her, yelling at her.

She turned her face toward me, her eyes trying to focus through the fever in them. She didn’t seem to know where she was for a moment. Then she started laughing, low and soft.

“Cut it out!” I said. “Doreen — stop it!”

She brushed her glossy hair away from her temples with both hands. “Hello, Enos. Dear Enos. I feel higher than the proverbial Georgia pine right now. Did you see it, the way death came creeping over him? He fought, Enos. Every cell of him wanted to live. But we had that power over him, didn’t we? The power to smash the life out of him...”

This was the worst moment yet. I felt sweat running down the sides of my face.

I grabbed her by the shoulder and slapped her across the cheek. She didn’t seem to feel the blow, but her eyes cleared a little.

“There’s still a lot to be done,” I said. “We haven’t much time.”

I ripped her blouse across the shoulder and struck her again so that my finger marks were on her cheek. Doreen said nothing.

“I’ve got to make the phone call now,” I said. “Sure you’re okay?”

She nodded. “Give me a cigarette.”

I gave her a cigarette. “Come on,” I said.

She was still looking at Sam over her shoulder as I pulled her from the room.

In the front parlor, I steadied myself and dialed Dolph Crowder’s number.

The sheriff answered on the second ring.

“Dolph,” I said, “this is Enos Mavery. I think you better come out to The Willows right away.”

“What’s the trouble, Enos?”

“I’ve just shot and killed Sam Fickens.”

I heard him take an explosive breath. Then he said in a tight but quiet tone, “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

He was as good as his word. In five minutes he was pounding on the front door. I had used the time to burn and flush into non-existence the papers Sam had brought with him tonight, the papers giving him full control of the company.

I gave Doreen a glance. Her eyes were clear now, her face composed.

I opened the front door just as Dolph started to knock again. He was a thin, long-faced man. Ice blue eyes. Long, sharp nose, razor keen jaw.

“Where is he, Enos?”

“In my wife’s bedroom,” I said. “Here’s the gun.”

I handed him the revolver. He looked at it, sniffed at it, dropped it in his pocket and stepped into the hallway. He nodded a greeting to Doreen, not missing the finger marks on her face, the tear in her blouse.

“Which way?” he asked.

“I’ll show you,” I said. Doreen started with us. “You stay here,” I told her.

“Enos, I...”

“Stay here!” I didn’t know exactly why. But I didn’t want her to look at the dead man again. More precisely, I feared, for some reason, having Dolph see her if she should look at him.

Dolph and I went back to the bedroom.

Dolph stood looking down at Sam for several seconds. “You did one hell of a complete and messy job, Enos.”

“I meant to — at the time. When I came in here and saw what he was trying to do I didn’t think of but one thing, Dolph. The same thing you and any other man around here would think of.”

“I see,” he said softly. “Better tell me the rest of it.”

“There isn’t much to tell,” I said. “Sam knew I was going to Macon tonight. He came here in my absence on a pretext he wanted to talk to me about business. He was already pretty well boiled. My wife let him in — after all, he was my business partner. He had a brandy in the front parlor, she told me. Then he began to want to get cozy. When she ordered him out, he got pretty vile and coarse with his talk. To escape him, she came back here. She couldn’t get the door locked, he was too close behind her, telling her what a fool she was for marrying a homely mug like me, how much more he could do for her, how many nights he’d lain awake just thinking about her.”

I paused for breath. Dolph waited patiently.

“You ought to be able to piece the rest of it together,” I said. “I heard her scream. She was trying to get away from Sam when I came in the room. I tell you, Dolph, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I heard him laughing at her, telling her to be nice, to be sweet to him... that kind of stuff.”

“I went for him. To tell you the truth, I meant to strangle him. He shoved me to one side. I was off balance and stumbled against the bureau. I don’t remember getting the gun... it was in the bureau drawer. I don’t even remember shooting him, but I did. One minute he was there; then he was on the floor and I was standing over him cussing him for everything I could lay my tongue to. Then I saw he was dead and that knocked me back into kilter. I phoned you — and that’s it.”

“You have any trouble with Sam before this?” Dolph Crowder asked.

“No. I never liked him much as a person. But who did?”

Dolph nodded. “The town thought of him as a pig. A greedy one at that. A sort of smug, self-sufficient man who figured anything he wanted was his just because he was Sam Fickens.”

“I know all that, Dolph. But I never let him get under my skin before. We had a growing company. We were making money. I didn’t care too much what he was like.”

“He ever come around here before when you were gone?”

“Once or twice,” I said. “Doreen told me. She didn’t like him. Said he gave her the willies.”

“How about when you were here?”

“Come to think of it, he’s been a lot more sociable since I got married... But I don’t think he’d have pulled this act tonight if he hadn’t been drunk. I swear, Dolph, I’m sorry now I did it. I should have just beat him up and thrown him out. But for a few seconds there I didn’t know what I was doing... coming home... hearing her scream... walking in to see him...”