Black Mask (Vol. 33, No. 3 — September 1949)

The wind blew in gusts, sending dust swirling across the parking lot; pieces of paper skittering and scraping noisely; then it would subside, leaving an unnatural stillness that heightened even a faint football. During one of these gusts I covered ground fast, running head down, dodging just in time as I came up to a line of parked cars. I leaned there, breathing swiftly. The first car was empty. I heard steps descending those wooden stairs, unhurried, sure. It was this that spurred me on more than anything else, filling me with a strange panic. Crouching, I went from car to car, thinking that at the end of the line I’d cut and run blindly off into the darkness. With a shock I saw a glowing cigarette arc out of the front seat of the last car, a long, heavy sedan. It lit on the ground near my feet and rolled. There was the outline of two people in that seat!

Creeping close, I put one hand gently on the handle of the rear door, gun ready, easing the handle down, little by little. When it clicked, I jerked the door open and leaped into the back seat, growling: “Don’t move!”

Blurred faces swung toward me, a woman’s frightened gasp. She sat behind the wheel, one hand gripping it tightly. She was beautiful, long, silvery hair falling free to her shoulders, clasped about the temple by a narrow, jeweled band — a band I had recently given her. Lyria!

The man with her was twisting, coming over the seat. He wasn’t wearing glasses now, and he didn’t act like a clerk. His mouth was a snarling gash. I hit him in the face with the side of the .38, a chopping motion, and he fell back, but rose again.

“You want a bullet in your teeth?” I gritted. “Get back!”

“Monty!” Lyria whispered. “You found me. You — I’ve tried to warn you all day, darling — tried to get to you— Why are you staring at me like that? Monty!”

Her voice was clawing the insides out of me. Her lying, snivelling voice. I felt sick. I went blind, trying to pull that trigger — blast her from my sight forever. Maybe I would have — but a hand reached from nowhere, twisted my wrist, and the gun fell. Pain shot up to my elbow. It was Mace, reaching through the window!

The psuedo-clerk came over the front seat then, stabbing viciously with a knife — a silent, horrible death-thrust that took part of my coat as I squirmed back. He kept coming toward me.

The car starter ground raggedly, gears meshed as Lyria spun the wheel and I heard Mace bellowing above the lurching of the car — but I was struggling desperately with scar-chin, one arm locked around his neck, my other hand gripping his knife wrist.

It was the longest moment I ever lived, feeling the strength of him, like live steel, slipping away from my clutching hands — the car moving, rocking, gaining tremendous speed — then a crash as we went into a brick wall instead of the street. Mace was still on the running board.

Everything seemed to cave in — sluggish, struggling figures like a movie on a blood-red film. The writhing form on top of me jerked. Mace brought a gun butt down on his head a second time, which was enough, hauling the limp body out on the dirt. A crowd started to gather.

The front of the car was pushed in, the front seat hideously compressed beneath a sheet of broken glass, gasoline and oil gurgling onto the ground. Lyria lay crumpled up there, barely stirring. I groped for the .38 on the floor, but Mace leaned in again.

“Cut it out, tough guy. Where you got the bullets for that gat I wouldn’t know, but the way you go for it makes me suspicious.” He picked it up, broke it open, and whistled. “I musta had a hunch when I saw you getting ready to blast your wife. I think the law has a better right to stop her crooked schemes, don’t you?”

I stared at him dazedly. “The law—? But you gave me an empty gun. You didn’t let on when you knew they were following us here!”

He was opening the front door, lifting Lyria up roughly. He shot me a glance. “I didn’t know whether you could handle a gun. But I thought it would help your morale. Then I thought you might go to pieces if you knew they were trailing us — like you almost did back there in the hotel room. As it is — you’re plenty okay, M. Harrison Sprague. By the way, is the guy on the ground your hotel clerk? He’s Tony Mendraza, a gentleman the Florida police have had occasion to chat with more than a few times.”

“The same, minus the glasses,” I nodded, staring out at that still heap on the ground.

Lyria came to life, slapping Mace, twisting and clawing, knocking his hat off; her voice shrilling, not the cultured voice I had known in our one short happy year of marriage. “You dirty copper—”

He would have slapped her back, hard, but I saw him look down, stiffen. He was holding her instead. Her eyes darted to me, filled with hate and loathing and — something almost like disappointment — then she was going limp, drawing a deep, shuddering breath. She lay quietly.