Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 41, No. 4, October 1977

“The important thing is, your average, bagman is trusted by the organization to do his job and deliver the goods and not get dishonest. That’s a big no-no, Rudell. Say you’re a boss, and one of your people swings with a lot of cash. No way in hell you can let him get away with that because the minute you show weakness, somebody else is going to move in and retire you. But there’s a law against what you’re doing, so you can’t report it to the cops, even though some of them might be on your payroll.

“But you still have to nail this guy. Now you’ve got some heavies working for you, but your bagman knows ’em and that’s no good. So you call in a freelance man. He ain’t on your payroll, but you know that he’s pulled the trigger before, so you have one of your lieutenants set up a meeting and offer the going rate, and the guy can take it or leave it.”

“And you took it, huh?” Rudell had exposed almost the entire lid of the casket they’d taken from the mortuary.

“Well, I hadn’t worked in a while.”

Rudell tried a dry-sounding chuckle. “How long you been doin’ this, anyway?” He placed the shovel carefully on the mound of new dirt and bent to brush loose soil off the lid.

“I’m forty-five years old. I got my first contract when I was eighteen.”

“Sounds like you got a corner on the business.” Rudell worked on, not lifting his head. “Don’t it make you have real bad dreams?”

“Everyone I ever killed deserved it, Rudell. I have never hit an honest man. I never hit a man in front of his wife or his children. I never go into his home for any reason or involve his family in any way.”

“You talk like there’s rules.”

“That’s right. This money, now. I’ve already been paid, so I won’t touch this dough except to take it back to its owner. Every penny of it’s gonna be accounted for. And that’s why you’re digging up Danny Micchiche right now. I got to see him and make sure he’s dead. If you’re thinking of asking me to take all the money for myself and split, you can forget it. I got more brains than Micchiche had.”

Rudell was finished now. He straightened, eased his back, climbed out of the grave. “Why’d you kill ’em all?”

“You got to be kidding. You guys hit Micchiche in the head for that dough. I’m supposed to just walk up and ask you for it? You get into this game, Rudell, you better know some rules.”

“Listen.” Rudell was sweating now and the wind was cold on his damp skin. “I could tell ’em that we was havin’ a poker game when one of ’em — Joe Morgan, say — went crazy and started shootin’. I ran out and Joe chased me and shot Warren when he tried to stop him. I ran home and got my gun and killed Joe in self-defense. I could drag his body out in the street to make it look real.”

The wind gusted and moaned and died. Black just stood there, thinking. At last he said, “No. They’d never believe you anyway, and besides, what about the wires ripped out of Warren’s radio? It’d be better just to bury ’em all like you did Micchiche. Yeah. Yeah, I could do that. Sure. That’d work. You bet. Yeah.” He bent down, got hold of the lid, and heaved. Little funnels of dirt went sifting down on the body. “Well, there he is.”

Black walked closer and looked down. “Yeah, that’s him. Not that it matters, Rudell, but which one of you jokers shot him?”

Rudell drew in a deep breath. “It was me.”

Black nodded.

Rudell drew assurance from that and said, “My share was twenty thousand. That about right for a killin’?

“It’s the going rate.” Rudell laughed. “Well, that ain’t bad for no amateur, is it? Did pretty good my first time out, didn’t I?”

His laughter choked, because now he saw Black’s gun for the first time. It was a revolver, short-barreled, with a big bore.

“No way, sucker,” Black said, his smile mirthless. “No way.”

Rudell started to say, “But you never killed an honest man.” The words ended in his throat.

Haven by James M. Reasoner

The park was designed to be a haven for people trapped in the steel-and-glass jungle that surrounded it, and oasis of peace and safety. It was not designed as a place within which four beautiful young women would be brutally slain.

* * *

The park was meant to be a haven. The men who designed it as a peaceful escape into nature, with its trees and flowers a counterpoint to the glass and steel of the metropolis that surrounded it. Perhaps at one time it served its intended purpose, but over the years it has become a haven for a different breed. At night, the only ones who venture into it are the sadistic, the perverse and the very unwise.

This cold winter night, flashing red and blue lights meant that someone else was there, too. The police had followed death into the park.