Charles Ardai - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 102, No. 4 & 5. Whole No. 618 & 619, October 1993

I nodded, though I did not know, really.

“We are heartbroken to lose him, you must know that. He was all we had. But do you know, we sometimes wonder if it is better that God took him, even if we had to lose him. Do you know?”

She looked down at me as if to complete her thought through her golden piercing gaze. When she saw the look of horror on my face, she caught her breath. Conventional, like all children, I was amazed that anyone should be glad of death, if that meant not seeing someone ever again.

“Oh, Richard, don’t judge us yet for feeling that way. When you grow up and see more of what life does to those who cannot meet it, you will understand.” She was obsessed. Without naming it, she must speak of the weight on her heart, even if only to me, a first-grader in school. In my ignorance, perhaps I might be the only safe one in whom to confide. “Garsh, when you see cripples trying to get along, and sick people who can never get well, you wonder why they can’t be spared and just die.”

The appalling truth was gathering in me. I stared at her while she continued,

“John was always frail, and when those horrid boys turned on him and he caught that chill and it went into pneumonia, his father and I did everything to save him, but it was not enough. We had to see him go.”

Clutching John’s beautiful power boat in both arms, I cowered a little away from her and said,

“You never sent for a doctor, though.”

A sharp silence cut its way between us. She put one hand on her breast and held herself. At last she said in a dry, bitter voice,

“Is that what is being said, then?”

“Dr. Grauer always comes when I am sick.”

She put her hand to her mouth. Her eyes were afire like those of a trapped cat.

“Richard,” she whispered against her fingers, “what are you thinking? Don’t you believe we loved John?”

I said, inevitably,

“Did you have him die?”

At this she flew into a golden, speckled fury. She reached for me to chastise me, but I eluded her. I was excited by her and also frightened. Her eyes blazed with shafted light. I managed to dance away beyond her reach, but I was encumbered by the beautiful power cruiser in my arms. I let it crash to the floor. I heard its glass break. Escape and safety meant more to me just then than possession of the wonderful boat. I knew the house. I ran down the hall to the kitchen and out the back door to my own yard and home, out of breath, frightened by what I had exposed.

The Burleys never again spoke to my parents or to me. My parents wondered why, and even asked, but received no explanation. All of John’s toys went to Father Raker’s. In a few weeks the Burleys put up their house for sale; in a few months Howard retired from business and they went to live in Florida for the rest of their lives.

© 1993 by Stephen Wasylyk

Stephen Wasylyk belongs to that rare breed of writers who devote their time exclusively to the short story. He attributes this partly to having grown up “with a volume of 0. Henry’s works in one hand,” but also to the fact that with a novel one must live with the characters one creates for a much greater length of time. Mr. Wasylyk prefers to move on to entirely new creations, as he has done in most of the more than six dozen short stories he has had published, including this new entry for EQMM...

Deep in her lower back, persistent pain gnawed away, bringing the mental image of a TV commercial with twisting ropes and lightning bolts. Her job, the doctor said. Not so. The pain had been there ever since Allan had run off with that malnourished sex object with the big eyes. Sitting behind this teller’s window had nothing to do with it. Not being able to get her life into gear did.

Funny. Still thinking like Allan, who had always said cars came with automatic transmissions, but life came with a gear shift. You had to select the proper gear at the right time and do it smoothly. Great gear shifter, Allan. All she’d managed so far was loud grinding noises.

She squirmed, braced one foot against the partition under the counter to ease the pain, and smiled as she passed the deposit slip to the woman. The next patron stepped into view: elderly, gray hair curling from beneath a battered cap pulled low over his eyes. New. Never seen him before.

She glanced at the slip he slid toward her.

Oh Lord.

DON’T LOOK AROUND OR MAKE A SOUND. PUT THE MONEY IN THE BAG WITH THIS SLIP.

Oh, Lordy, Lord, Lord. The way she was sitting, she couldn’t reach the silent alarm with her toe. Wait until she tried to explain that.

Tellers must he alert at all times.

Practiced fingers slid a wad of bills into the small paper sack along with the note and pushed it toward him. She looked up in time to see the thick tubular muzzle appear over the edge of the counter, the eyes below the bill of the cap fired with a deep, unholy glee.

“Goodbye, Helga,” he whispered.

She jammed her foot against the partition and went over backward just as the gun coughed, the bullet a hot whisper passing over her face; rolling under the protection of the counter as the pistol coughed again.

Her mind was numb. Ice filling her stomach. Noises penetrated: Grace shrieking her name from the booth beside her, a man in the lobby shouting indignantly as he was knocked from his feet, a woman screaming, That man!

Her eyes focused slowly on the dun-colored carpet, the stains and wear magnified, the ice in her stomach now working up toward her heart.

He called me by name. How did he know? Just the initial on the nameplate. Not just a holdup. No. He came to kill me.

Why?

They didn’t believe her, of course. Not uncommon for someone who had just escaped death to believe she’d been singled out. Called her by name? He must have been in before, heard a customer say something like, “See you tomorrow, Helga.” She must have done something to provoke him. She hadn’t? Oh well, these people weren’t wired very tightly, you know. He must have thought she did. No question he was short in the mental department. Most of these people knew that bank robbery was a federal crime and generally avoided adding to the charge.

That silencer. Intriguing detail. They’d have to hit their computer to see if it showed up elsewhere.

She was seated behind the manager’s desk in the small office. Cowper, the senior federal agent, perched on the desk and looked down at her. Dark hair gray at the temples, a face no one would ever pick out of a crowd, gray business suit. Marlowe, his junior partner, leaned against the wall, her hands behind her. Long brown hair with the hint of a wave, thin face with a wide mouth, white blouse and the feminine version of Cowper’s suit. The tape recorder on the desk hummed.

Harry Roth duplicated Marlowe’s pose against the opposite wall, noting the pale face of the woman behind the desk and the hands so tightly clasped in her lap that the knuckles were white. Remarkable woman. No hysterics. He’d seen men who needed a tranquilizer shot. It was there, though, in the face and hands, and couldn’t be controlled forever. Cowper didn’t see it. He was going down one road and she was going down another.

He glanced at Marlowe, caught her looking at him with an appeal in her eyes. As junior member of the team, she could do nothing.

He grunted as he pushed himself erect. “I think that’s enough for today. I’m taking this woman home. She can sign her statement and answer any further questions tomorrow.”