Never Say No To A Killer

advance job we're talking about. Now, before we go,” I said, “I want the answer to one question: Why did you take me out of the hotel and put me in this crummy apartment?”

She stood up, taking her lump gracefully enough about the advance payment. She said quietly, “Patricia Kelso lives just across the hall from you; she is Alex Burton's secretary.”

“Is that supposed to help get me within killing distance of the ex-governor?”

“Where his secretary is, Alex Burton is not far behind.”

I grinned. “Mrs. Venci,” I said, “you have simplified things considerably. I apologize for some of the things I've been thinking about you.”

CHAPTER SIX

“ELLEN,” DORRIS Venci said, “show Mr. O'Connor to the library, will you, please?” Then, to me, “I'll be back in a few minutes.”

“Sure,” I said, watching her walk stiffly to a large spiral stairway, then up the stairway, then out of sight.

Ellen, a grim, long-faced woman of about forty-five, said, “This way, Mr. O'Connor,” and I followed her over the wide expanse of reddish carpeting, down a few steps, around some corners, and finally she opened a heavy mahogany door and stepped to one side. “Thank you,” I said, walking into the library. The maid closed the door and vanished like yesterday's dreams.

It was a hell of a place, this place where the maestro had lived. Note it carefully, I thought, because this is the way you are going to live, Surratt. The king is dead—long live the king!

I stood there and tried to soak it up, the luxury of that room. The floor was of old oak, and a huge, thick carpet.

But there were other things on the wall, things to make a man's head swim, if he could even vaguely estimate their worth. For one thing there was a fantastically delicate Chinese tapestry, and there were paintings that I absolutely could not believe, would not believe to be originals, until I had inspected them closely. There was a large boating scene that I recognized as a Turner. On another wall there was an El Greco—an EL Greco, mind you!

That paintings so floored me that I forgot for a moment how fantastic it was finding them here in John Venci's library. But, when I did think about it, the answer was obvious. Paintings like that simply weren't for sale, not at any price. Possibly the Turner could have been bought—but not that El Greco, not in a hundred years! Those things were museum pieces, strictly!

The obvious implication just about bowled me over, By God, I thought, he stole those things! John Vend stole them! The pure audacity of the thing struck me as being hilariously funny. I sank into a chair and felt the laughter coming up from my bowels! I lay back and howled.

The door opened, Dorris came into the room carrying a small steel strongbox, and I was still laughing. “What's so funny?”

“Those pictures,” I said, trying to choke it down. “Pictures?” She glanced at the paintings. “They never struck me as amusing.”

I was off again. “How... How long,” I said, “have those paintings been here?”

“Why, for years.”

“Did your husband keep this room locked? He didn't receive visitors in here, did he?”

“Of course he did; this was his favorite room. Now will you tell me why you're laughing?”

I said, “No. It would be a shame to spoil a joke as priceless as this one.” In my mind I could see John Venci receiving governors, senators, bigshot politicians, all of them here in this room. I could see the cigar-chewing apes gaping about the room, seeing but uncomprehending, their brains as solid as concrete. I could appreciate the razor-sharp humor, the subtle, bitter hilarity that John Venci must have experienced as he watched their stupid faces. It was more than a wonderful, fantastic joke, it had been a source of fuel for the ego; it had been a day-by- day replenishment of confidence, for every time an oaf stared dumbly at those paintings, Venci's superiority was made brazenly obvious.

I stopped laughing and took the strongbox from Dorris. I could feel the transfer of power, John Venci's power becoming mine. It's more than a strongbox, I thought, it's the world, and I've got it right in my hands. It is power over others and strength for myself, and, I've got it right in my hands!

“Is everything here?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Then you won't mind if I look for myself; will you?”

She handed me the key and I opened the box. I was disappointed at first; there didn't seem to be much to it. The strongbox was arranged like a miniature filing cabinet and everything was very neat and orderly. The name on the first index card was Allen, George W.

I looked at Dorris. “Do you know a George W. Allen?”

“He is an insurance broker.”

I skipped the material on Mr. Allen and turned up the next index card. “Karl Johnson Applewhite,” I said.

“President of the First National Bank.”

That was more like it!

The next name was Alex Burton, and the next one was somebody named Colter, who Dorris said was merely a superintendent of one of the city schools. There were twenty index cards and I went through them quickly, having Dorris give me a quick rundown on each name. Some of the names I didn't have to ask about, they were known all over the state and even the nation. Some of the names meant absolutely nothing to me. A United States Senator or a down-at-the-heels school teacher, it had made no difference to John Venci. An enemy was an enemy, an old wound never healed. He had gone after the little ones just as relentlessly as he had the big ones.

And he had hooked them all. I didn't realize how completely he had hooked them until I started going through the material on a man named Kelton.

Kelton had been a pretty important boy. He had been a district attorney with one foot practically in the Governor's Mansion before John Venci had cut him down. It seems that the DA. had somehow failed to summon an important witness in an important murder trial. The day after the trial the D.A. made a deposit of five thousand dollars and traded his Chevrolet in on a new Cadillac. Mr. Kelton had lost a murder trial, but obviously he had gained in other ways, and the proof was in the strongbox. A signed affidavit by the spurned witness, cancelled checks, bills of sale, plus a detailed account of Kelton's financial condition ten years back from the trial. As if that wasn't enough, there was also an affair with a certain young lady of doubtful reputation, to say the least, and this was backed up with photostats of hotel registers, actual photographs, bills of sale from various jewelry stores, clothing emporiums and even a liquor store. All this together with another signed affidavit from the young lady herself. Every bit of evidence was strong almost to the point of ridiculousness, and any one bit would have brought him crashing from his political heights, and many of them would have landed him long prison terms.

Mr. Kelton was cooked. He had known that he was cooked. First his wife had divorced him, then there were rumors of grand jury investigations. The rest of it was spelled out in a newspaper clipping, also included in the material on Kelton. The headline was: D.A. KILLED IN FREAK AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT.

It didn't come right out and say that it had been suicide, but that wasn't important: John Venci had known.

All in all there were four names that I couldn't use at all because Venci had already finished them off. One was killed in another “freak' automobile accident, another took too many sleeping pills, and the third, who didn't have the guts to kill himself, was suddenly discovered to have played a leading role in a seven-year-old murder and drew life in the State penitentiary.

Quickly, I ran down some of the other material, especially the material that John Venci had gathered on Alex Burton. Most of the stuff on the ex-governor was in photostatic form, photostats of bills of sale, cancelled checks, deposit slips, and even photostats of Burton's income tax forms for five years back. The upshot of the evidence was that Burton had made himself a killing running well into six figures the four year stretch he had put in at the State Capitol. It was rock-hard, iron-bound evidence that could put Burton so far back in prison that they'd have to pump air to him.

It was incredible, it was almost more than I could believe, but it was there, it sure was!

Dorris Venci said, “Are you satisfied?”