Bill Crider: Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 1. Whole No. 797, January 2008

“Or else because we’d find out it wasn’t there.”

They stopped in the hotel bar for a late-night drink, talking over what had transpired that day. “All I know is that someone tried to kill us tonight,” she told him. “I’m heading back in the morning. You can do what you want.”

“Susan, I shouldn’t have involved you in all this.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.”

“I’m beginning to think that Lam Kow Loon was nothing but a clever con man. He took those newspaper clippings and a few sketches of the track and built them into a major swindle.”

She wasn’t about to argue with him. “In the future, choose your business acquaintances more carefully,” she advised.

They paid their tab and got up to go. “Who do you think was shooting at us?” he asked. “Who was Lam Kow’s partner in this?”

They were walking along the hall to their rooms when it began to come clear to Susan. “I think I know the answer to that, but it doesn’t explain—”

He’d slipped his key card into the slot and was opening the door as she spoke. As he started into the room, three quick shots lit up the darkness. He gasped and fell back, pulling Susan to the floor with him.

“Mike!” she screamed.

The gunman leaped over their fallen bodies and into the hall. She saw Corporal DeGeorgio appear from somewhere and bring him down with a quick chop to the neck. It was the track watchman, Fred Chatow, of course, but that didn’t matter just then. “Get an ambulance!” she cried out. “Mike’s still alive.”

She insisted on riding with him in the ambulance, holding off the intern with his needle. “Just a minute,” she pleaded. “I have to tell him something.”

Mike Brentnor opened his eyes and stared at her, perhaps unseeing. “Who was it?” he managed to whisper, his mouth filling with blood.

“Chatow, the watchman. He had to be in on it, or how could they ever have dug that trench and buried the device? It had to be after dark, before he went off duty at midnight. The troopers got him. DeGeorgio had been following us after a report of gunshots at the track.”

“It hurts, Susan,” he managed to say.

“I know. We’re almost to the hospital.”

“Chatow must have killed Lam Kow so he’d have the whole thing for himself.” More blood, and she knew she’d have to speak faster.

“No, Mike. Chatow couldn’t have killed Lam Kow this afternoon because he told us he worked from noon to midnight. It had to be you.”

His lids were starting to close. “What? What are you saying?” he asked, his words slurring.

“You said Lam Kow handcuffed you and took your cell phone as soon as you finished talking to me. If that were true, how could you have phoned the Big Bear and told Rita I was coming for the portfolio?”

“I—”

“You killed him, Mike. There was never anyone else at that house. You wanted this racetrack scheme for yourself, crazy as it was. You killed him, dragged his body to the basement, and dumped the gun in the rubbish barrel. You’d brought the handcuffs along yourself, and you planted the key in the dead man’s pocket, then went back upstairs and cuffed yourself to the radiator. You had to leave the front door unlocked for me, of course, something Lam Kow would never have done. You knew I’d come, relying on my reputation for never breaking my promises. But he did have a partner, the track watchman, Fred Chatow. When he heard Lam Kow was dead, he knew you’d done it to get the track plans for yourself. He shot at us at the track, then after midnight he got into your hotel room and waited to kill you.”

She realized his eyes were closed and he was no longer listening. “I’m afraid he’s gone, miss,” the intern told her.

They tried to revive him at the hospital but it was too late. She took the portfolio from the trunk of her car and gave it to Corporal DeGeorgio. He listened to her, shaking his head. “That’s the craziest thing I ever heard. This Chinese fellow must have been a supreme confidence man to convince anyone it was true.”

“Maybe not,” Susan said. “If Chatow was in on the scheme, it must have been more than a con game. Something must really be buried out there.” She remembered Mike Brentnor’s phrase. “Sort of a gateway to heaven. For the bettors and maybe for the horses.”

That was when she remembered the bet she’d made with Mike. If the mechanism was really there, she’d lost the bet. But Mike had lost more than that.

(c)2007 by Edward D. Hoch

An occasional reviewer for the Oregonian and a member of the National Book Critics Circle, Doug Levin is a relative newcomer to mystery writing, though a previous story of his, “Fire Lines,” was published alongside works by Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos, and James Crumley in the collection Measures of Poison . His non-fiction has appeared in newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune and The New York Times .

It seemed to Ben that his new telephone rang in sharp, intrusive bursts. At least that’s how he felt when Sidney Alstead called on Tuesday afternoon. He could tell from the caller ID that it was Sidney. For the first two rings, he dismissed the call outright, but on the fifth ring he answered hastily out of morbid compulsion. It was just as he had feared: Sidney had good news.

Sidney first materialized at an Advertising After Hours meeting at the Shiva, a trendy nightclub that specialized in world music. Any other business organization would have held its monthly networking meeting in the ballroom of an innocuous downtown hotel, but the Ad Federation preferred to waste its members’ dues on the expensive pretense of style. The Shiva was down among riverside warehouses, where Ben hated to park his car for any length of time. He didn’t much like navigating through the musty winos and panhandlers, either. Besides, the effect of the nightclub was lost on the advertising crowd: The house lights were up, and there was no music on at all.

Ben stood at a cocktail table by himself, surveying the crowd, casually looking to see if Wilson had dropped in. He turned his head in one direction and when he turned it back, a tall, broad man stepped abruptly — laterally — into his frame of vision.

“Sidney Alstead,” the big man said, holding out his hand.

Ben set his gin and tonic down and shook hands. He was embarrassed that his hand was wet and clammy from the condensation on his glass. “Ben Barrow.”

“Good to know you,” said Sidney.

Ben had the uncomfortable feeling that he had met Sidney before — perhaps at an agency years ago — but he would’ve remembered someone like Sidney. He had a high forehead and close-cropped black hair, and wore black horn-rimmed glasses — fashionable among the artistic set. But he didn’t really look artistic. He looked like an ex-football player.

“What’re you doing here?” asked Sidney bluntly. “Looking for work?”

Ben hesitated. “Not exactly...”

Sidney brightened and seemed to get a little wider. “Then you’re looking for a few good men, maybe,” he began his patter. “I’m a graphic designer, been at it—” He stopped when Ben shook his head and waved his hand in protest.

“No, no,” Ben said. “Sorry to mislead you. I’m a designer myself. Been out on my own for a few years now. I’m not looking for a job, just trying to stay in touch, meet a few people...” His voice trailed off. It was hardly an explanation.

Sidney smiled, leaned forward, and actually put a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “You’re hustling just like the rest of us,” he chuckled.

Ben supposed that it was true, though “hustle” didn’t seem like exactly the right word. He hoped to see Wilson and some others, buttonhole them a bit, but it was hardly hustling. His work spoke for itself. “If you say so,” he finally said.