Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

“He took their assignation to be the reason for Sylvia’s canceling her second performance. He sat in the lobby watching Maud leave and then Faustino, in a hurry to get to the Blackstone. The play could start without Hoague. He had decided to settle old scores with Sylvia.” The priest moved the spread fingers of his right hand through the blond thicket of his hair. “The poor man was riddled with resentment, years of reversal, near-misses, failures swam before his mind. He saw Sylvia as the great betrayer.”

She left him for other men, she had replaced him as her agent, she had permitted him to count on her performances as warrant for staging a production of Antigone.

“Had you any idea of how he felt toward Sylvia?” Father Estrella asked Maud.

“No, but I understand it. He had helped make her a star, getting her her first roles, but he was part of the past. She had not wanted to play Antigone, to do it once was an enormous favor. But it was a favor to Nick Faustino, not to Larry Hoague. In her own mind, she had already become a nun.”

There was a moment of silence when they all seemed to be thinking of that oddly costumed corpse sitting in a chair on the mezzanine of the Elysian Hotel.

“May she rest in peace,” Emtee Dempsey said with emotion. “I for one shall always remember her as a college student doing The Lady’s Not For Burning.”

“Suggest to Raoul that he get that as a vehicle for you,” Father Estrella suggested to Maud.

“Uh uh. I don’t like the precedent.”

“I’m ready when you are,” Joyce announced and they all went into the dining room to eat.

Breaking and Exiting by William G. Tapply

William Tapply is a regular contributor to a number of sporting and gardening magazines, including Outdoor Life and Sports Illustrated. In 1984 his first crime novel appeared, featuring lawyer sleuth Brady Coyne, the protagonist of eleven subsequent books. The legal profession plays a key role not only in Mr. Tap-ply’s novels but in this new short story for EQMM...

* * *

I was sitting on my usual bench on the Boston Common, the one that faced up the hill to the golden dome of the State House, thumbing through the paper and tossing popcorn at the pigeons and enjoying the warmth of the April afternoon, when a guy in a three-piece suit sat down beside me. “Filthy creatures,” he said, kicking a pigeon away from his leg.

“I like ’em,” I said. I threw a handful of popcorn near the guy’s feet. “Better than people. Pigeons’re honest, at least. You always know where you stand with a pigeon.”

“They just want something for nothing.”

“Who doesn’t?” I said.

“Not me,” he said. “I pay.”

“Who’re you?”

He turned and held out his hand. “Call me John. And you’re Manny, right?”

I ignored his hand and touched the lapel of his suit jacket. “Nice,” I said. “You a lawyer?”

“Actually, I am. Why? Does it matter?”

I shrugged. “A man can always use a good lawyer. Are you good?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. I’m very good.” He smiled. “And I heard you were too.”

“You heard right. I’m pretty good.”

“Two hundred up front, the rest on delivery, I understand.”

“Two hundred now,” I said. “Nonrefundable. Then we can talk.”

He smiled and reached into his jacket pocket. He was fiftyish, with iron-gray hair worn longish on the sides and thinning on top. A good-looking, trim guy. The suit was expensive and the shoes were shiny. He fished four fifties out of his thin wallet, folded them together, and pressed them into my hand.

I jammed them into my pants pocket. “Okay,” I said. “We can talk.”

“It’s a house in Harlow—”

“Suburbs cost more,” I said.

He waved his hand. “Sure. Anyhow, you’ll find three leather-bound albums in an upstairs bedroom.”

“Stamps?”

He shook his head. “Baseball cards, actually. The place will be empty between seven and eleven in the evening. There’s a backdoor key behind the shutter to the left of the kitchen window.”

“You’re sure of all this?”

He smiled and nodded.

“Between seven and eleven every evening?”

“For the foreseeable future, anyway.”

“What about an alarm?”

“No. It’s just a development house. Nothing fancy.”

“Dogs?”

He shook his head.

“What about delivery?”

“How about here, same time tomorrow?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t make deliveries in my own office.”

“Not a problem,” he said. “There’s a coffee shop on Charles Street. Vincent’s.”

“I’ll find it,” I said. “Bring twenty fifties. Or fifty twenties. Or some combination thereof.”

He pressed a piece of paper into my hand. “We got a deal?” he said.

I glanced at the paper. “James Bascomb, 29 Harrington St., Harlow,” was scrawled on it. I stuck it into the pocket with the fifties. “Okay,” I said. “A deal. I’ll see you tomorrow at Vincent’s.”