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

“One night when she came in, I tried to get her to let me go up with her. She wouldn’t let me, and she got angry when I insisted. I got angry, too, and she ran away from me. I caught her in the park.

“It’s boring at night. I look outside a lot, and I see other girls like Miss Warren. Sometimes I get angry when I see them going with men like they do, and I know they won’t go with me. I go outside to stop them from acting like that.

“When it’s real late, no one is coming or going, and I don’t feel so bad about leaving the building. That building is my responsibility at night, you know.”

He looked smaller, huddled in a hospital bed without his cap and greatcoat. His right leg was in a cast, the bone shattered just above the knee by Macauley’s bullet.

Macauley, Joanne and Ed Carlisle went out into the hall, leaving the District Attorney’s men to continue the questioning. Carlisle said, “The doctors told me that girl will be all right. She’s pretty shook up, but the bruises will go away. I’ll bet she gives up hustling.”

Quietly, Joanne said, “I wish there was an easier way.”

Macauley gently put an arm around her. “Come on. I’ll take you home now. You need some rest.”

“So do you.”

“Don’t we all.” He waved at Carlisle as they went down the hall.

The snow had stopped falling. They crunched through it as they walked across the hospital parking lot to his car. It felt right to have his arm around her.

As he paused to brush snow off the windshield, she said, “Why did you take me to the park?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. Then, “I thought something. I was wrong, and I’m very damned glad that I was.”

He looked at her, put his hands on her shoulders, drew her closer to him. He said, “You told me two days ago that everyone needs to escape sometimes. I’ve been doing it for years in my work. I don’t think it’s enough any more. I think I need your help now.”

“I think I need your help, too. Please hold me, Will.”

He held her very tightly as they stood in the snow. They were warm despite the cold, and for a time, the entire city was their haven.

Partners by Hal Ellson

Every man has his price, and so does every woman. It comes out as forty thousand dollars.

* * *

She waited close to the phone and wondered if Max would call. Timid Max might come apart at the last moment and not go through with it. As for herself, Jill was ready for the biggest event of her life and had no qualms over what was about to unfold.

Unless Max falters in the stretch, she thought. But he wouldn’t, he couldn’t. He had sworn that he loved her and would never let her go.

Dear little Max, she hummed, and the phone rang. It was Max and his voice trembled.

“Are you ready and packed?” he asked.

“Everything is set with me,” Jill answered. “And you? You know, we can’t afford a mistake.”

He assured her that he had the plane tickets, had confirmed their flight and, once in Mexico, they’d be completely free. As for the money, he had drawn all of it from the bank.

“Forty thousand dollars?” she said.

“With interest, which should keep us going for a long spell and in proper style.” He chuckled, then grew alarmed when Jill didn’t reply. “Something wrong?” he asked.

“Well,” she said.

“Well, what? You’re not going to back out now, are you?”

“No, but I was thinking of what I am about to do. In a way, it’s a terrible thing, you know, just going off like this and leaving Bill without letting him know.”

“He doesn’t deserve to know. Let him suffer the way he’s made you suffer,” Max said.

“But I’m not like him. I don’t want him to suffer and I don’t want revenge. Besides, if I don’t let him know I’m leaving him, he’ll probably think I’ve been kidnapped or something like that and have the police searching for me.”

“Let him think and let the police search,” Max argued. “It’ll do Bill good to wonder what hit him and the police will never find you.”

“But what if they do?”

“If the impossible happens, there’s really nothing they can do — and Bill can do less,” Max insisted. “But Jill was still hesitant, thinking it wiser and safer to let Bill know the truth.

“All right, leave a brief note for him. ‘Goodbye, Animal’ should be appropriate,” Max said, laughing. “And now hurry, hurry, lover, the plane takes off in an hour and we don’t want to miss it.”

“I’ll be at your place in ten minutes,” Jill answered. She placed the phone down then and turned to the vanity mirror and surveyed herself. Blonde and shapely, she looked as young and innocent as a high school girl. None the less, she was a married woman, married to Bill who, as Max had put it, was certainly an animal. But, then, all men were animals, she believed, even poor little Max, except that he wasn’t vicious. He was as tame as a teddy bear, and worth forty thousand dollars.