Тэлмидж Пауэлл - The Third Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™ - 25 Classic Mysteries

“No,” Murphy said, thumping the table top softly with his palm.

“For us, Murph,” Ordway pleaded.

“No! In the first place, Darlene wouldn’t do it.”

“How do you know?” Byers asked reasonably. “You ain’t even asked her yet. Visitors’ day is tomorrow. You could ask her tomorrow.”

“No!” Murph stuck to his guns, although, feeling the strain of seven other overpowering presences, he was beginning to sweat.

“I know what’s eating Murph,” Jellison said.

“Yeah?” Murphy shot an angry look. “Like what?”

“Like you’re scared to expose Darlene to a lady killer like Kowalski,” Jellison shot back. “That’s right, Murph. You think you’re the end of all lover boys. But with his big, rough, kind of ugly good looks Kowalski might make you look kind of pale. You’re scared of the competition, boy, afraid of the contest.”

Murph was in an angered crouch, halfway out of his chair. “Punk, any dame who takes my brand wears it for keeps. They never get over old Murphy-boy. I got wives the courts have never even heard about!”

“Yeah,” Jellison needled, “you have to marry them.”

I reached and grabbed Murphy’s arm, my grip coaxing him back into his chair. “Easy, Murph. You want us all to draw solitary from brawling?”

“Well, okay,” he said, tight-lipped. “But tell the punk to keep his yap shut! Darlene would stay true blue to me if Cassanola himself came along.”

“Casanova,” I corrected, and Jellison put in, “You got talk, Murph. But talk is cheap. I ain’t seen you proving anything. If you got the guts, put up or shut up. Sick Darlene onto Kowalski and just see if her faithful appearances on visitors’ day don’t shortly stop.”

Murphy sat breathing thinly. He looked slowly from face to face. For him, it was a moment of being starkly alone, the pack waiting for his reaction.

“Okay,” he snarled, “I’ll show you. But just how is my girl supposed to jerk the parole out from under Kowalski?”

“Well,” Byers leered, “she could—”

“Oh, no!” Murph grated. “There are some measures to which I will not agree!”

“Sure, Murph,” I placated. “And your terms are acceptable.”

“So?” Murphy threw at me.

“So let me think a minute,” I said. “Being more or less your captain, boys, I need a moment to crack a gray cell.”

Everyone pretended to read, affording me more than a dozen moments. I found the factors conducive to clear thinking, the absolute quiet, the need to finger Kowalski, the urgency of the time element, and the prospect of a weapon on the outside in the form of a cute doll.

Unfortunately, I have not always thought so clearly in the past, such as the time I perjured myself before a judge who did seem slightly senile. On that occasion I was trying to help a friend who had helped himself to sizeable company funds and needed an alibi. It was a greater misfortune not to receive my promised share of the aforesaid company funds.

I raised my head slowly and felt the room taking in and holding a breath.

I gave a nod to their expectant gazes.

“I have the solution,” I announced. “Darlene is still working as a cocktail waitress in the same place?”

“Sure,” Murph said. “Working. Paying her taxes. Visiting me every chance. And just counting the days until we can get a Mexican marriage license.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Then she will have no trouble in ruining Kowalski’s parole. I predict that we shall see Kowalski within a week or two, if Darlene is as faithful as you say, Murph.”

“She will prove the most faithful of all my wives,” Murph said, now having built himself beyond fear of contradiction. “But just what is she to do?”

“Working in the nightclub, she will experience no trouble in making a connection,” I said. “She is simply to buy a deck or two of heroin, plaint it in Kowalski’s place of abode, and then simply place an anonymous phone call to his parole supervisor.”

The simplicity and absolute workability of the scheme brought their nods and generous remarks of admiration. In here, at least, the well-mannered, well-spoken Harrison Currance Abbott, otherwise known as Curly, the repetitive failure on the outside, was top of the roster.

Darlene was every bit as good as Murphy’s word, and my prediction as to Kowalski’s return missed by only a couple of days.

We were gathered in the prison library when Kowalski came barging in. He looked rather glum at first. No one even dared to think about the chain of little events that had returned him here. For the eight of us, it would be a secret for all time to come.

Kowalski had figured an explanation that satisfied his own mind. As we broke library rules and crowded around him, he said, “Yeah, it’s me. Lousy fuzz framed me. Planted some heroin in my room and nailed me for parole violation. That’s why I’m back here.”

Murph pounded Kowalski on the shoulder while I grabbed and pumped his hand.

“Tough break,” Murph said, “but it sure is good to see you, Kowalski!”

Everybody murmured approval of that sentiment, and as he looked from face to face, Kowalski began losing his glum.

“Come to think of it,” he said, his teeth glinting in the first stages of a smile, “it’s not so bad seeing you monkeys either!”

I let out an easy breath. His experience seemed not to have unduly upset Kowalski psychologically. And that was important. As team captain, I was certainly counting on Kowalski to pitch us to another inter-prison championship.

“You got back just in time,” I remarked. “Baseball season starts next week.”

For a second, the merest glint of suspicion flicked across Kowalski’s big face. But how could we have broken his parole? So now his smile came full blown and eager.

“I guess you bums were plenty worried by the thought of starting without me. You’d never get anywhere.”

Which was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, July 1974.

While Clara tidied the dinette and did the dinner dishes, Eddie passed the minutes restlessly in her small living room, pacing the carpet, fiddling with the TV set.

When he heard her closing cabinet doors in the kitchenette, he settled into the large orange-colored armchair, feigning an air of well-fed contentment that masked the out-of-sight idea churning in his mind.

With his superficial good looks, curly black hair styled long about his ears, slender body clothed in carefully coordinated brown-tan-gold, Eddie was a good imitation of a fashion advertisement depicting a young executive taking his ease. The fact is, he spent a lot of time studying the ads, then picking with ferret determination through the cut-rate and chain stores when he had to buy a shirt, tie, jacket, shoes, or suit.

Clara came in, palming a stray wisp of dull brown hair from her forehead. Eddie turned his head, looking up and hitting her with the Bailey special smile, glint of white teeth, a crinkling at the corners of sooty-lashed eyes.

It worked as always.

Clara pinked with pleasure as he took her hand and drew her down on his lap. She was plain, but not a real dog, Eddie reflected. The lack-luster hair set the tone for the rest of her. Ordinary face and figure. Dull brown personality. Sum total not unpleasant, just blah. A shy, lonely, affection-starved working girl.

But she was a cool cook, and her apartment was always open when there was no place else to spend an evening. Her eagerness to please him sometimes annoyed Eddie. Still, it was nice to receive golf clubs and Swedish sweaters for presents and to know she would always override his protests about accepting loans from her.