maybe looking in a window now. I had to get rid of the truck before somebody saw it out front. A hundred things were suddenly riding me.
Her whisper came from behind me.
“What will we do, Jack?”
Victor Spondell was sliding down the wall, slowly. He watched me, trying to speak, unable to. He slid down the wall and sprawled on the floor, eyebrows bristling.
“He heard you,” I said. “Over the intercom. He heard everything. Why in Christ didn’t we think of the telephone? A party line. An obvious, tired old business like that?”
I looked at her. She raised one hand. It smeared on her chin. Then she saw the hand and reacted violently. It was a sight I would never forget.
“Wash your hand—hurry up!”
“What’ll we do, Jack?”
“Wash the hand.”
I turned and looked at Victor Spondell. She gave a little gasp and started for the kitchen. She stopped in the dinette, then turned and went into her room. I heard the water running in her bathroom.
Victor was crawling along the rug, toward the front of the house. He was saying things. I couldn’t make out what the words were. I went over and stood in front of him. His hands clawed at my shoes. He stopped and lay there, panting. He looked up at me, craning his neck. His mouth was a black panting hole, the eyes all gone to hell with fear. He collapsed on the floor. You could see the back of his pajamas, up between his shoulder blades, moving in and out like a bellows, with the way he tried to breathe.
“Mask,” he gasped. “Get—air. Oxygen—mask.”
I didn’t move. I looked down at him, hearing him, but I couldn’t move.
Shirley came back. She stood off across the room staring at Victor with a curious expression on her face. It was as if she couldn’t bear what she saw—but you could tell she was going to bear it, anyway.
“We’ve got to get him in the bedroom,” I said.
She didn’t speak. I looked at her again. She had both hands clenched in front of her, holding her thumbs like a little girl. She looked like a little girl, standing there.
Anxious and confused.
I leaned down, grabbed Victor under the shoulders, and started dragging him toward the bedroom. “Shirley,” I said. “Find something that won’t be missed around the house. An extra blanket would be best. Go in the kitchen and mop up every last speck of blood, and get Mayda wrapped in the blanket.”
I kept on dragging Victor. Shirley didn’t move.
“Get going!” I said.
“I can’t go in there.”
“You’ve got to. We’ll have to move fast.”
She clutched at her face with one hand. “I can’t.”
“All right. Help me with him.”
She moved slowly after me as I hauled Victor into the bedroom. He was moaning and gasping. I caught him by the arms, and slung him half up on the bed, then flung his legs up. He lay there writhing and twisting, his hands like claws, the tendons sticking out. His eyes glared toward the rack where the oxygen tanks stood. I went over to Shirley. “Stay with him,” I told her. “Don’t leave him for a second.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Get rid of her.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
She kind of leaped in against me, her arms around me. I could feel how tense she was. “Say you love me.”
I kissed her.
“Say you love me, Jack!”
“I love you. You know I love you. Would I be doing any of this if I didn’t love you?”
She looked up at me. Her eyes were very wide.
“Shirley,” I said. “We’ve got to move fast. I think I’ll get her car—take her someplace, and fake a wreck. I don’t know yet.”
“If they find her—they’ll see the knife wound.”
“Yeah. I’ve got to fix that.”
“Jack, I didn’t want anything like this to happen.”
I pushed her away. “Get in there with him.”
“What should I do?”
“Keep him there till I get back. If the phone rings, answer it. You’ll know what to say to whoever calls.”
She stood there staring at Victor’s bedroom doorway. You could hear him in there. Dying.
Somehow, I did what I had to do.
I carried a casting rod and a couple of plugs in the truck. Sometimes, driving around town on calls, I stopped by different lakes, and had a few tries for bass. It would have to be my alibi now. I drove the truck six blocks from the Spondell house. There was a lake I knew of. I parked the truck, shielding it as best I could in a copse of cedar. It was one of the chances I’d have to take. My explanation, if it ever came to that, would be that Miss Angela had called for TV service. After I left her place, I drove to the lake and made a few casts for fish along the shore. Because the truck might be spotted. It could easily have been seen at Shirley’s. Grace had seen it. It was weak business, but maybe it was weak enough to be believable.
I dogged it back to Shirley’s. She was in the bedroom with Victor. She got me a blanket. I cleaned the kitchen floor, and the carving knife. I scrubbed the knife with a brush and kitchen cleanser, and did the same with the floor after I had wrapped the body in the blanket.
I was so worried I couldn’t see straight, and I knew I had to keep calm.
Mayda Lamphier was still warm. I knew pretty well what I would do.
“She’ll be found,” Shirley said. “They’ll suspect something.”
“Nobody’s going to suspect anything. They may never find her.”
“Victor’s dying.”
I didn’t say anything. I hardly knew what I was doing. “Go back in there with him. Do whatever you feel you should do.” I looked at her. “Only don’t give him any air. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
She avoided looking at the blanket-wrapped body.
“I’m scared, Jack.”
“I know.”
I waited till she went in there with him. I could hear him again. I hoisted what was left of Mayda Lamphier on my shoulder and went out back. The yard was dark. I took her across the lawn, and through the hedge into her driveway where her convertible was parked, and laid her across the seat. Lights were on in her living room.
I got under the wheel, backed the convertible out of the drive, and left that place.
Somebody had to see her car; somebody who knew the car. I drove around the blocks nearby, trying to think.
I recalled a gas station on the corner of the main highway leading south, not far from this residential section. In all probability, Mayda Lamphier had used it at some time or other. Possibly regularly. It was close enough to her home.
I went that way. Neons glowed brightly over the station. An attendant was out front under the marquee, taking care of a customer.
With the gas pedal to the floor, I swerved the car wildly in toward the station, then back onto the highway, and wailed the horn. The attendant couldn’t possibly make out who was driving the car. He turned sharply, then waved and shouted something. I figured he did know the car, and it was what I wanted. Even if he didn’t know the car, he would remember it. I went on, driving like that, swerving from one side of the road to the other. A truck approached from the opposite direction. I cut directly in front of it. The driver slammed the brakes, and rode the horn. I brought the convertible back at the last minute, knowing he would remember, and that it had been seen by
