Evan Hunter - A Horse’s Head

“Yes?”

“Where’d all that money come from?”

Kruger was silent for quite a few minutes. Then he put the binoculars back to his eyes.

“Mr. Kruger,” Mullaney said, “where’d all that money...”

“I think our business is concluded,” Kruger said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I think you will have to leave the track now in the company of Henry and George.”

“What?” Mullaney said.

“Yes,” Kruger said.

“But you said you trusted me!”

“No, I said I was going to level with you.”

“That’s the same thing!”

“Not quite,” Kruger said. “Several men were killed in that highway accident yesterday, as I’m sure you know.”

“Yes, but what’s that got to...”

“Three men, to be exact. The police know only that a red pickup truck entered the Van Wyck Expressway, cut off the hearse, and shot three men to death. The fourth man unfortunately escaped through the bushes and brambles lining the parkway.”

“That would be K,” Mullaney said.

“Yes, that would be K. So you see, we do not wish the police to learn anything more about the accident than they already know.”

“I see.”

“We do not wish them to know, for example, that I or any of my fellows had anything to do with it.”

“I see,” Mullaney said again.

Kruger put down the glasses, turned to Mullaney, and smiled. Mullaney knew he was about to make a joke.

“Loose lips sink ships,” Kruger said.

“I think I get your meaning,” Mullaney said.

“I hope so.”

“But you have nothing to worry about. I’m in trouble with the police myself, you see.”

“Oh, are you really?” Kruger said drily, and put the glasses to his eyes again.

“Yes. So I would hardly go to them with information, you see, being in trouble with them myself, you see.”

“I see,” Kruger said.

“Yes.”

“Yes, but in any event I think you will have to leave us now.”

“You don’t understand,” Mullaney said.

“I think I understand,” Kruger said.

“I’m telling you the truth,” Mullaney said. “I really am in trouble with the police.”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“I was arrested for burglary , in fact!”

“Take him away,” Kruger said.

“The hors- es are on the track!” the announcer said.

“Do you see anything you like?” Kruger asked Merilee, lowering the binoculars.

“Mr. Kruger, look...” Mullaney said.

“Up!” George said behind him.

“I thought the seven-horse,” Merilee said.

“Mr. Kruger, I assure you.. ”

“Let’s go,” Henry said, and prodded him with something that felt very much like a gun in a jacket pocket. Mullaney picked up his shopping bag.

“The terrible tiling though,” Merilee said, “is that I lost all my money on the last race.”

“Do you really like the seven-horse?”

“Oh yes indeed, I think he’s a cunning horse.”

“Mr. Kruger, I wish...”

“Get him out of here!” Kruger said sharply, and Henry poked him again.

“All right, don’t get tough,” Mullaney said.

“Move!” Henry said.

“All right, all right,” Mullaney said. Clutching the shopping bag to his chest, he began moving sideways out of the aisle, then stopped and turned to Kruger, who had the binoculars to his eyes again. “You haven’t heard the last of me, Mr. Kruger,” he said.

“I think I have,” Kruger answered. “Which horse did you say?”

“The seven-horse,” Merilee answered.

“Looks like a good horse,” Kruger said.

“Looks like a dog to me,” Mullaney said petulantly.

“No one asked you.”

“And as for you.. .” Mullaney said, turning to Merilee.

“Yes?” she answered, looking up at him.

“I am not a loser.”

“If you lose, honey,” she said, “why then you’re a loser, yes indeed.”

“Move!” Henry said again.

Mullaney moved out of the aisle without looking back at either Merilee or Kruger, feeling the hard snout of Henry’s gun against his back, and thinking how remarkable it was that you could always tell a gun by its feel, even when it was in somebody’s pocket. He could not for a minute believe they were really going to kill him, and yet they all seemed so terribly serious about this, especially Henry and George, who solemnly led him to the escalator and then down to the exit and across the wide concrete path leading to the elevated train station.

“Shouldn’t we take the car?” Henry asked.

“Kruger will want it,” George said.

But that was all either of them said, leading him silently up the steps to the change booth, and buying three tokens (very nice of them), and passing him through the turnstile, and then taking him out onto the platform where they silently and ominously waited for the train going back to Manhattan.

“Where are you taking me?” Mullaney asked.

“Someplace nice,” Henry said.

“Very nice,” George said.

“You’ll remember it always,” Henry said.

“You’ll take the memory to your grave,” George said, which Mullaney did not think was funny.

When the train pulled in, they waited silently for the doors to open, and then got into the nearest car and silently took seats, Mullaney in the middle, George and Henry on either side of him. The shopping bag with the damn inscrutable jacket rested on the floor of the car, between Mullaney’s feet.

“How should we do it?” Henry asked.

“I don’t know,” George said. “What do you think?”

“The river?”

“Always the river,” George said disdainfully.

Mullaney, sitting between them, realized they were talking about him, which he considered impolite.

“You got any better ideas?”

“We could throw him on the tracks.”

“Where?”

“In the subway. When we get back to the city. It’ll look like an accident. What do you think?”

Henry thought it over for a moment. “No,” he said, “I don’t like it.”

“Well, what do you feel like doing?” George said.

“I don’t know,” Henry said, “what do you feel like doing?”

“I saw a movie once where they were getting this guy with a laser beam,” George said.

“Yeah, but we don’t have a laser beam.”

“I know. I was just saying.”

“We could throw him off the Empire State Building,” Henry suggested. “They’ll think he jumped.”

“I never been up the Empire State Building,” George said.

“Me either.”

“I hate to go someplace I ain’t never been,” George said.

“Me too.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

“We could just plug him,” George said.

“Yeah, I guess,” Henry said.

“That’s such a drag though.”

“Yeah.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I read a book once, they had it fixed so it looked like the guy took an overdose of heroin.”

“Yeah, but then we got to look up Garafolo, and maybe he won’t even be holding, and then we get all kinds of heat from the narcotics dicks, it ain’t worth it.”

“Yeah.”

They had passed perhaps three station stops by now, and were pulling into another one — Grant Avenue, Mullaney noticed. He thought he had better get the hell out of here quick because whereas it had not occurred to either Henry or George as yet, a very neat way of dispatching him would be merely to stomp him to death right here on the train. The way things were these days in New York, no one would pay the slightest bit of attention. He wondered when they would hit upon this best of all possible solutions, and saw the train doors opening, and calculated how long it would take him to reach those doors, and realized they could shoot him in the back before he’d run more than two feet from where they were sitting. The doors closed again, the train was once again in motion.