'What do you mean?' Hope was in the fugitive's voice now.
'Well, if we fight, I'll be taking a risk too. I'm not anxious to take that risk just for its own sake. So I might be willing to make a trade. My safety for your escape. Your empty-handed escape, I might add.'
Rick Masden wasn't as confident or as truculent as he had been previously. 'I'm listening to you, dad,' he said.
'Well, it's like this. I feel in danger as long as you're holding that knife. You jump up suddenly, how do I know whether you intend to attack me or run away. So whatever you intend, if you do jump up, I have to defend myself. Then the battle's joined, whether we intended it that way or not. See what I mean?'
Masden nodded. 'I think so.'
'The key to the whole situation then is in your knife. You want to escape from here. I don't want to have to fight you if I don't have to help you and co-operate with you. But as long as you have that knife in your hand, you can't move in any direction without starting a fight. So the only way out I can see is for you to toss your knife to the center of the table.'
'What!'
'That's right. Then neither of us will be armed.'
'Then what happens to me? You're a football player. I suppose you…'
'The table is between us. You have that much of a head start. You ought to be able to get out of here before I can catch you.'
'But you'll telephone the cops.'
Duquay smiled. 'You're a smart boy, Masden. I hadn't thought about it, but as a public-spirited citizen, I probably would have. All right, I'll make a deal with you. My phone for your knife.'
'How do you mean?'
'My phone's right here within arm's reach on my desk. If you'll allow me, I'll reach around and rip it out of its connection. I'll go first, of course. I'll rip out the phone first, and then you throw your knife to the center of the table and start running. What dp you say?'
The young man's brows contracted. He was thinking furiously. Now and then he looked at Duquay, measuring his man, his width of shoulder, his tenacity of purpose.
'Okay,' he said after a moment. 'You jerk out the phone. But first. I'll keep my knife while you do. And if you go for that dagger of yours instead of the phone…'
'You just keep an eye on me, Masden.'
Slowly, not making any sudden movements, and managing to keep his eyes on his adversary all the while, Duquay half turned in his chair, extended his left arm to the side and behind him, reached the phone, got a good grip on it. Then he pulled firmly and steadily. Finally there was a snapping sound, and the cord dangled loose.
'Satisfied that it's out?' Duquay asked. He dropped the phone and it landed on the thick rug with a soft thud. 'Now your knife, please. In the center of the table where neither of us can reach it too easily.'
They eyed each other again, neither still quite believing in the other's word, still not trusting each other. There was a long pause while neither moved.
'Come on, Masden. As long as you're holding the knife, you can't leave that chair.'
Silently, with obvious reluctance and regret, the young man conceded the point. With a flick of his wrist, he sent the shiny object spinning toward the center of the table. It pirouetted through two revolutions, then lay still.
'Now keep your seat, dad,' Masden said, 'because I'm taking off.'
'I'm sorry I can't wish you good luck, Masden,' Duquay replied.
They said their farewells silently. And then both the farewells and the silence were interrupted by a small noise. Both men at the table heard it.
Masden didn't hesitate in reacting to it. His chair flew back behind him as he left the table on the run. Duquay didn't move, but instead gripped both arms of his chair and shouted at the top of his voice, 'Sam, stop that man, he's a criminal!'
There was yelling and scuffling and cursing out in the other room. Byron Duquay didn't go to join it or watch it. He sat where he was, content with listening. The scuffling sounds reached a crescendo, till finally one tremendous single sound ended it all — the solid crash of fist on bone.
Duquay sat back and relaxed. The bright light over the card table revealed sweat on his upturned face…
…Captain Sam Williams put in his second appearance at Byron Duquay's poker game about two hours later. It had taken about that long to dispose of Rick Masden, to put him back behind bars, and to fill out a complete report giving all details of the capture.
'Byron,' he said, shaking his grizzled head, 'I don't know whether I dare sit down at a poker table with you any more. Man, I never realized you had such a capacity for bluffing.'
'You flatter me, Sam,' Duquay said. 'I was lucky, that's all. Before Virginia left this evening, I insisted she help me out of the wheelchair and put me here. Sometimes I prefer receiving you gentlemen in a regular chair, you see. Makes me feel less like an invalid. If I'd been in my wheelchair, I could never have bluffed Masden, not for one single moment.'
Sam nodded in agreement. His gaze wandered through the open bedroom door, to where a pair of silvery wheels gleamed in the semi-darkness. Rick Masden had missed seeing those. Or if he had seen them, he just hadn't connected them with the man at the table.
Death Of Another Salesman
by DONALD HONIG
In addition to what they're selling, salesmen, as you know, must sell themselves. Their smile must be turned on wide. And the shine on their shoes must be impressively blinding. Such perfect individuals, naturally, make perfect victims.
There was no view from his tenth-floor hotel window, only the blank wall of the building next door. He didn't mind though. He had decided not to check into the best hotel, as the other salesmen always did (and as he had always done before, before he had begun to lose his accounts and feel the insecurity of lukewarm handshakes), nor did he ask for the best room in this one. He knew he was going to have to improve his work and create a better impression on the home office and he felt that cutting expenses would be one way.
He had been sitting reading all evening. Then he had dozed off, he didn't know for how long. It was quite late when his sleep was broken by sounds coming from an adjoining room. At first he thought it was a fragment from a vanishing dream, but then realized he was awake. He sat up with the stunned, puzzled fascination of one abruptly awakened, his eyes squinting, trying to become accustomed both to wakefulness and to the alien noises.
He heard voices, a man's and a woman's. They were conducting a harsh, bitter argument behind the thin wall. They brought him fully and alertly awake. He came forward in his chair, then pushed to his feet. He stole to the wall and tilted his head, his eyes wide-staring.
'You can't pull this on me,' the man's voice said.
The woman's voice retorted, her words indistinguishable, but their quality was unmistakably coarse.
Then the man's again: 'You will, will you? Well, maybe you won't!'
The woman's shrill and its words clear this time: 'You can't stop me. All I have to do is walk out that door. Then try and explain it.'
'And I'm telling you right now that you'd better not try!' the man's voice snarled.
'Well, let's see you try and — ' The woman's voice, her threat, was broken off abruptly. There was a sharp cry of surprise and something fell to the floor. A sound of scuffling followed. It sounded as though the woman
