The Golden Gizmo

'Tonight?' said Milt. 'You were to meet them there tonight, or tomorrow night? Or perhaps even the next? You are transparent, Toddy. Your government men would have given you two days without surveillance as quickly as they would give you two hours. Never would they have agreed to such an arrangement.'

'They didn't agree to it, but they had to take it. I'd already ducked out on 'em. It was either play it my way or-'

'Nonsense. You insult my intelligence.'

'Now, wait a minute,' said Elaine, worriedly. 'Let me-'

'It is not necessary,' said Milt. 'I have already thought. Of everything… You were to meet them here, eh? Bah! Where are they, then?'

Toddy licked dry lips, helplessly. It was no use. The evidence was all against him. He couldn't make them believe something that was incredible to himself.

'I don't know,' he said, almost indifferently. 'It's a big beach. Maybe they don't recognize the car. I don't know where they are, but-'

Milt's curt, bored laugh cut him off. 'They would not recognize the car, certainly. You would see to that. And we both know where they are-anywhere but here. Now, enough!'

'But Milt, honey…' Elaine began.

'Enough!' snapped Milt. 'Must I explain everything twice? Why do you think I played with him there in the shop, found out exactly where he wished to go? Because it would be safe. It would be the last place his whilom friends would expect to find him.'

'All right, honey. I was just-'

'We will proceed! And-please!- the bottle will remain here!'

Dolores was shoved over in the seat, squeezed against Toddy. Elaine pushed past her, and got out. She stood back in the sand a few feet, covering the door as Toddy and the girl emerged.

Milt came out last, grunting from the exertion, blinking his eyes against the rain.

'Now,' he panted, 'we will just…' He gestured with the gun. Elaine spoke apologetically.

'Milt, baby, are you sure, really sure that…?'

'I have said so! It is all finished. Now we have only to-'

He saw, then, heard the childishly delighted laugh- mischievous, filled with the viciousness it could not recognize, signaling triumph in a game without rules. It seemed to paralyze him. The gun hung loose in his fingers.

'Liebling!' he gasped. 'Darling! There is so much. Why-?'

There was a brief, stuttering blast. 'W-why?' Milt said, and crumpled to the sand. And he said no more and heard no more.

Elaine snatched up his gun, and leveled it quickly.

'Huh-uh, prince. You gave me an idea, but I get ideas, too. L'il Elaine's dead. L'il Elaine's in the clear. This is your gun and you shot him, and he shot you and her. And-'

'Elaine!' Toddy's voice shook. 'For your own sake, don't! The government men are bound to be near here. They probably missed us in the rain, but those shots are sure to-'

'D-don't make me laugh, prince. D-don't make me laugh..

She began to rock with laughter; it pealed out, shrill, delighted, infectious. And suddenly Toddy was laughing with her. Laughing and ridding himself of something, the last, fragile, frazzled tie. 'L-like'-she was shrieking-'like Milt said, prince, you d-don't fit the part!'

That was the way he would always remember her-the monkey face twisted with merriment, the scrawny, rain-drenched figure rocking in the abrupt pitiless glow of floodlights, laughing as the guns of the T-men began to chatter.

So he would always remember her, but it was like remembering another person. Someone he had never known.

The gizmo, the golden, deceptive, brass-filled gizmo, was gone at last.

THE END