Ed McBain - The Last Brief

‘The neighbours were too snoopy,’ I said. ‘This is better. Out in the country like this.’

‘But it’s so lonely. I’ve been here a week already, and I don’t know a soul yet.’ She giggled. ‘There’s hardly a soul to know.’

‘Good,’ I said.

‘Good?’ Her face grew puzzled. ‘What do you mean, Ben?’

‘Adele,’ I told her, ‘you talk too much.’

I pulled her face to mine and clamped my mouth onto hers, just to shut her up. She brought her arms up around my neck immediately, tightening them there, bringing her body close to mine. I tried to move her away from me gently, but my arms were full of her, and her lips were moist and eager. Her eyes closed tightly, and I sighed inwardly and listened to the lonely chirp of the crickets outside the window.

‘Do you love me?’ she asked later.

‘Yes.’

‘Really, Ben? Really and truly?’

‘Really and truly.’

‘How much do you love me?’

‘A whole lot, Adele.’

‘But do you... where are you going, Ben?’

‘Something I want to get from my jacket.’

‘Oh, all right.’ She stopped talking, thinking for a moment. ‘Ben, if you had to do it all over again, would you marry me? Would you still choose me as your wife?’

‘Of course.’ I walked to the closet and opened the door. I knew just where I’d left it. In the righthand jacket pocket.

‘What is it you’re getting, Ben? A present?’ She sat up against the pillows again. ‘Is it a present for me?’

‘In a way,’ I said. I closed my fist around it and turned abruptly. Her eyes opened wide.

‘Ben! A gun. What... what are you doing with a gun?’

I didn’t answer. I grinned, and saw something in my eyes, and her mouth went slack.

‘Ben, no!’ she said.

‘Yes, Adele.’

‘Ben, I’m your wife. Ben, you’re joking. Tell me you’re joking.’

‘No, Adele, I’m quite serious.’

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, the covers snatching at the thin material of her gown, pulling it over her thighs.

‘Ben, why? Why are you... Ben, please. Please!’

She was cringing against the wall now, her eyes saucered with fear.

I raised the gun.

‘Ben!’

I fired twice, and both bullets caught her over her heart, I watched the blood appear on the front of her gown, like red mud slung at a clean, white wall. She toppled forward suddenly, her eyes blank. I put the gun away, dressed, and packed my suitcase.

It took me two days to get there. I opened the screen door and walked into the kitchen. There was the smell of meat and potatoes frying, a smell I had come to dislike intensely. The radio was blaring, the way it always was when I arrived. I grimaced.

‘Anybody home?’ I called.

‘Ben?’ Her voice was surprised, anxious. ‘Is that you, Ben?’

‘Hello, Betty,’ I said tonelessly. She rushed to the front door and threw herself into my arms. Her hair was in curlers, and she smelled of frying fat.

‘Ben, Ben darling, you’re back. Oh Ben, how I missed you.’

‘Did you?’

‘Ben, let me look at you.’ She held me away from her and then lifted her face and took my mouth hungrily. I could still smell the frying fat aroma.

I pushed her away from me gently. ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘cut it out. Way you’re behaving, people would never guess we’ve been married for three years already.’

She sighed deeply. ‘You know, Ben,’ she said, ‘I hate your job.’

She was cleaning fish by the kitchen sink when I climbed through the window, my .45 in my hand. She wore a low-cut apron, shadowed near the frilly top. When she saw me, her eyes went wide, and her lips parted, moist and full. I walked to the sink, and I picked up the fish by the tail, and I batted her over the eye with it.

‘Darling,’ she murmured.

I gave her another shot with the fish, this time right over her nose. She came into my arms, and there was ecstasy in her eyes, and her breath rushed against my throat. I shoved her away, and I swatted her full on the mouth. She shivered and came to me again. I held her close, and there was the odor of fish and seaweed about her. I inhaled deeply, savoring the taste. My father had been a sea captain.

‘They’re outside,’ I said, ‘all of them. And they’re all after me. The whole stinking, dirty, rotten, crawling, filthy, obscene, disgusting mess of them. Me. Dudley Sledge. They’ve all got guns in their maggoty fists, and murder in their grimy eyes.’

‘They’re rats,’ she said.

‘And all because of you. They want me because I’m helping you.’

‘There’s the money, too,’ she reminded me.

‘Money?’ I asked. ‘You think money means anything to them? You think they came all the way from Washington Heights for a lousy ten million bucks? Don’t make me laugh.’ I laughed.

‘What are we going to do, Dudley?’

‘Do? Do? I’m going to go out there and cut them down like the unholy rats they are. When I get done, there’ll be twenty-six less rats in the world, and the streets will be a cleaner place for our kids to play in.’

‘Oh, Dudley,’ she said.

‘But first...’

The pulse in her throat began beating wildly. There was a hungry animal look in her eyes. She sucked in a deep breath and ran her hands over her hips, smoothing the apron. I went to her, and I cupped her chin in the palm of my left hand.

‘Baby,’ I said.

Then I drew back my right fist and hit her on the mouth. She fell back against the sink, and I followed with a quick chop to the gut, and a fast uppercut to the jaw. She went down on the floor and she rolled around in the fish scales, and I thought of my sea captain father, and my mother who was a nice little lass from New England. And then I didn’t think of anything but the blonde in my arms, and the .45 in my fist, and the twenty-six men outside, and the four shares of Consolidated I’d bought that afternoon, and the bet I’d made on the fight with One-Lamp Louie, and the defective brake lining on my Olds, and the bottle of rye in the bottom drawer of my file cabinet back at Dudley Sledge, Investigations.

I enjoyed it.

She had come to me less than a week ago.

Giselle, my pretty red-headed secretary, had swivelled into the office and said, ‘Dud, there’s a woman to see you.’

‘Another one?’ I asked.

‘She looks distraught.’

‘Show her in.’

She walked into the office then, and my whole life changed. I took one look at the blonde hair piled high on her head. My eyes dropped to the clean sweep of her throat, to the figure filling out the green silk dress. When she lifted her green eyes to meet mine, I almost drowned in their fathomless depths. I gripped the desk top and asked, ‘Yes?’

‘Mr. Sledge?’

‘Yes.’

‘My name is Melinda Jones,’ she said.

‘Yes, Miss Jones.’

‘Oh, please call me Agnes.’

‘Agnes?’

‘Yes. All my friends call me Agnes. I... I was hoping we could be friends.’

‘What’s your problem, Agnes?’ I asked.

‘My husband.’

‘He’s giving you trouble?’

“Well, yes, in a way.’

‘Stepping out on you?’

‘Well, no.’

‘What then?’

‘Well, he’s dead.’

I sighed in relief. ‘Good,’ I said. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘He left me ten million dollars. Some of his friends think the money belongs to them. It’s not fair, really. Just because they were in on the bank job Percy...’

‘Percy?’

‘My husband. Percy did kill the bank guards, and it was he who crashed through the road block, injuring twelve policemen. The money was rightfully his.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘No doubt about it. And these scum want it?’