Dell Shannon - Case Pending

"Well, that's fine," said Gunn. "We're glad to know where he is, and in the morning-"

"Wait a minute, this is just the start. When I got your form letter asking about him, well, there wasn't any doubt it was him, name and description and all. But I tell you, it staggered me. I couldn't help feeling there must be something on his side, you know, because of the kind of guy he is. And I didn't want to go and haul him off the job in front of the other men, make a big thing of it. What I did, I met him at the job half an hour ago when he'd be through for the day, and tackled him about it. No trouble at all, he broke right down, said he was glad it'd come out and he'd thought it would before this, and anyway he'd been feeling so bad about it he couldn't have gone on much longer-"

"That's fine," said Gunn, yawning. "Glad to hear it. He's decided to go back to his family? So that's that." Surreptitiously he swallowed, testing that soreness at the back of his throat.

"Well, not quite," said King. "Now the dam's broken, he's been telling me a lot of things, but more to the point he insists on seeing you-you're the one's after him, so to speak, and he's in such a state-well, he's one of those terribly honest fellows, you know, can't sleep if they forget to pay for a cup of coffee at a drugstore counter-you know what I mean. He's got to get it all off his chest right away, to you."

"In the morning," said Gunn, remembering that Mendoza would also be interested and want to see Lindstrom, "if he'll come-"

"I can't talk him into that, Mr. Gunn. He's in such a state-not wild, you know, don't mean that, but- Look, I can't help feeling so damned sorry for the guy, he's sort of desperate-keeps saying he can't rest till he explains how he came to-you see how it is. Look, if you'll agree to see him tonight, I've said I'll drive him over there. I know it's an imposition, but-there's one thing about it, too, I don't know but what it'd be just as well for- Well, I think you'll be interested, and if-"

"Oh, hell," said Gunn. But this was, in a way, a funny sort of job, and you ran into these things sometimes. Strictly speaking it was Morgan's case and he ought to be the one to handle this, but let it go. At least it didn't mean going out again, and an hour should take care of It.

"All right, bring him here if it's like that. Have you got the address?"

"Just a minute, I'll take it down… That's quite a little drive, don't expect us much before seven, O.K.? Thanks very much, Mr. Gunn, I hope this isn't interfering with any plans-I appreciate it. He's really a nice fellow, I can't help feeling he- Well, we'll see you about seven then, thanks again."

Gunn hung up and said "Hell!" again. Christy wasn't very pleased either, said she thought he'd given up being on twenty-four-hour call when he retired. But she got dinner a little early, and they'd eaten and Gunn was sitting in the front room in his robe and slippers when the doorbell sounded, while she cleaned up in the kitchen. He'd left the porch light on; he went and let them in, brought them into the living Room.

King, fortyish, nice-looking, responsible-looking fellow. And Lindstrom, a big man, tag and also broad, still in his work clothes, and yes, the very look of him making you think, The last man. A steady type, you'd say-mild blue eyes behind steel-framed glasses, square honest-looking face, big blunt workman's hands twisting his white work cap.

"Come in, sit down, won't you?"

Lindstrom burst out, nervous apologetic, "It's awful good of you, see me this way, and Mr. King too, drive all this far over-I got to thank you-I just got to tell, explain to you, sir, I-I don't mind whatever you got to do to me for it, it was a terrible wrong thing, I knew that all the while, I felt so bad after-but I-"

"No one's going to do anything to you, Mr. Lindstrom. It's just that when a family is deserted, you understand, the county has to support them, and we try to find the husband to save ourselves a little money." Gunn smiled, to put the man more at ease. "It costs the county quite a bit, you know. Even in a case like your wife's, where there's only one child'

Lindstrom looked down at his cap; for a minute it seemed as if his big bands would tear it apart, straining and twisting. "That's what I-you don't understand-I-" He raised desperate, suddenly teartaled eyes to Gunn. "I-we-got two boys," he said. "Two. The-the other one, Eddy, our oldest one, he's-not right. Not noways. She wouldn't ever hear to-even when that doctor said- But she allus kep' him hid away from ever'body too, account of being-ashamed. Secret, like."

Morgan stepped inside the dark, smelly front hallway of the apartment building and shut the door after him. This was it, here and now. And it was the damnedest thing, he'd expected it to feel like going into action, but instead-a little ludicrously-he felt exactly the way he had when he'd been in that senior play in high school. Walking out on the stage, all the lights, painfully conscious of every breath he drew, every slightest gesture, and yet somehow divorced from himself so that he moved with a stranger's body, spoke with a stranger's voice.

This was it, this was it. Start now. Remember-and as he went up the first half-dozen steps, sudden sharp panic stabbing at the back of his mind (the way it had been that time on the high-school auditorium stage, oh, God, suppose I forget-) that he'd forget just the one detail of his plan that would bring the whole thing down like a house of cards on top of him.

Think about what you're doing. You'll be all right, you're getting keyed up to it now, you know what you've got to do, you've decided, and now time's run out, you're on-move!

Quick, because you've been watched in, every second counts now, the timing is the important factor here. You'll be all right-you can do it.

He went fast up the stairs. There were sixteen steps, and a tiny square landing, uncarpeted, and then you turned up six more steps to the left, to the second-floor hall. The door to the Lindstroms' apartment was just across there, and the next flight right around from the top of those stairs, left again. He got to the landing, and his breath was coming too short- God, he'd never do it, out of condition, another flight and he wouldn't have strength to aim the damn gun- But he had to hurry, he had to A woman screamed ten feet away in the dark hall. And screamed.

And the third scream shut off sharp and final, cut off as with a knife. After that it was mostly reflex action for Morgan. The only conscious complete thought he remembered having was, Not destiny I should kill Smith: every time something happens to stop it. That in his mind while the screaming sounded, and then he was across the landing and plunging up the six additional steps, and in the hallway-behind that door there, no noise now, no screams, and then other sounds, and a boy's frantic voice, " No, don't, Eddy, don't, please -"

He expected the door to be locked, he pounded on it to let them know someone was here, coming. Afterward he remembered it wasn't until then he realized it was the Lindstroms' door-and now, no voices inside but a queer grunting, thrashing-around noise that raised the hair on his neck, and he put his shoulder to the door, shouting warning.

It was not locked, it swung in under him, almost threw him head foremost. Feet on the stairs below: a voice calling something.

He didn't see the woman, not then. Only one lamp on in the dingy room, a body on the floor, a big dark figure crouched over it, with hands reaching- "What's going on here, what-" He was halfway across the room; he stopped, seeing the woman then, twisted limp figure sprawled across the threshold of the bedroom; he looked away from her, dry-throated, saw the big figure had straightened to come at him, lumbering. In the full light then, coming with guttural mouthings, and Morgan saw what it was, saw Blind, instinctive, he clawed for the gun in his pocket. The butt caught in the pocket lining; hands took hold of him and slammed him back against the wall and he thought all the breath was knocked out of him, he couldn't- Animal gruntings, a fetid breath hot on his face. He tugged desperately at the gun and it came free, the pocket tearing loose, as he went down full length on his back, and hands lifting, holding, smashed his head down against a chair leg.