Manhunt. Volume 5, Number 5, May 1957

George Novy’s voice penetrated my thoughts. Not noticing my preoccupation, he was still talking about his female neighbor.

“She’s probably all of forty-five,” he said. “But she still has the body of a teen-ager. She lives alone too.”

“No husband?” I asked idly.

“She’s a widow. I talked to the guy who lives below her, and he says she has a daughter, but the daughter’s married and lives with her husband.”

A vague suspicion tugged at my mind, one involving an impossible coincidence.

“You know this woman’s name?” I asked.

“Sure. I got that from her downstairs neighbor, too. It’s Mrs. Haliburton.”

I don’t think I changed expression, but internally I went through a series of emotional spasms. It is a terrible shock to suddenly have thrust upon you the knowledge that you’ve condemned an innocent man to half a lifetime in prison.

Instantly I thought of a pardon, and how I might go about obtaining the proof necessary to request one. After remaining quiet for five years, it seemed unlikely that merely asking the woman to undo her wrong by confessing she had invited seduction from Turner would get me anywhere.

Then I realized I had the means to force a confession right at hand. I could induce George Novy to accept the woman’s overt invitation, arrange for witnesses and catch her red-handed in a situation exactly like the one which had sent Charles Turner to prison.

Then a cautioning thought intruded. I couldn’t free Turner from prison without exposing my own grievous error. Ordinarily such a thing wouldn’t have any serious repercussions, probably would only merit bare mention in the news. But at the present moment it would be political suicide.

For, you see, my opponent in the coming senatorial race was Congressman Charles Turner Senior. And the opposition would make political capital of the fact that, five years previously, I had railroaded his son into prison. At the very least Congressman Turner would draw widespread sympathy.

Sympathy means votes. There was no doubt in my mind that obtaining a pardon for Charles Turner would mean handing the senate seat to my opponent.

It was a problem I would have to postpone until I could give it serious thought, I decided.

George Novy said, “Incidentally, what was the name of that woman in the Turner case?”

The question killed all opportunity to postpone my decision. I had to decide what to do right now.

I made my decision.

“That was five years ago,” I said. “I don’t recall her name.”

New Girl by De Forbes

She wanted him to follow her. He did. It went like clockiwork...

* * *

Sylvia walked the street. Haggerty, the cop, and Mr. Tambollio of the corner grocery watched her coming, turned to watch her go. Three of the Purple Pythons, on their way to a gang meeting, offered a suggestive remark; laughed as she passed them by, head high. Sylvia was an oddity in the neighborhood. The untouchable. The word had gotten around. “She’s new,” they said. “She’s young,” they said. “So maybe she’s a virgin. There are such things,” they said. They watched and waited... an easy thing to do.

Her full-skirted green dress accentuated her young pointed breasts, clung to her slender waist, swung in rhythm with her hips. Her high-heeled sandals, striking the dirty pavement, punctuated the evening sounds. Her long, gold-brown hair curled up to lie loosely on her shoulders. Haggerty sighed, shook his head. She was an open invitation — and someday somebody would take her up on it.

She passed the brick warehouse, wearing its chalked obscenities, and turned the corner. The neighborhood lost sight of her there, went on with its business. Love, hate, live, die. Routine matters.

Sylvia knew when he began to follow her. She hadn’t actually seen him, not this time, but she knew he was there and that he was coming after her.

She paused, as she always did, in front of the windows of Solly Klein’s Pawn Shop, looking out of habit for the watch. It was still there. Little bits of fading sunlight struck its beauty, reflected back in twinkling reds, whites, greens. It lay in eye-catching splendor in its black velvet bed. The most beautiful watch in the world, she thought, encrusted with rubies, diamonds, emeralds. He was still behind her.

She turned quickly, hair swinging free, skirt swirling, went on. The sky was darkening now, getting ready for the night. She stopped, studied a display of second-hand furniture through dingy panes. She couldn’t hear him, but something moved just briefly behind her in the shadows. Sylvia smiled a tight little smile. She didn’t know how to be afraid.

She went on and as the darkness obscured the streets, they grew deserted. He was closer, she thought, and she clutched her plastic shoulder bag with both hands. Soon, somewhere in the vacantness of the concrete while the buildings listened, he would show himself. She slowed down her pace, expected him.