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

At thought of the money, she smiled at herself in the mirror, turned away, then remembered the note she was to leave for Bill. It wasn’t necessary, of course, but on second thought she decided it was certainly appropriate, as Max had suggested, so she scribbled it quickly on the vanity mirror with the reddest of lipstick. She picked up her bag then and left the apartment. Ten minutes later, a taxi dropped her off in front of the brownstone where Max lived. She left her bag in the cab, told the driver to wait and went up the high stoop of the brownstone to ring the bell.

Seconds later, as Max opened the door, heavy footsteps sounded on the stoop and Jill whirled about. “Oh, my god, it’s Bill!” she gasped.

It was Bill, with a gun in hand. “Get back in that taxi and wait for me,” he said. “And you, run.” He shoved the gun in little Max’s ribs. “Back in the house.” Stunned and speechless, Max obeyed.

In less than a minute, Bill stepped out the front door of the brownstone, calmly descended the stoop and got into the cab. Calmly, he lit a cigarette, blew a cloud of smoke and glanced over at Jill. “Well,” she said. “Well, what?” he snapped. “It’s all over, finished — kaput. What do you want me to do, write you a letter or count the money right here?”

“That might be a good idea,” Jill answered, “but did you get it all?”

“I’m a hungry guy. I made sure.”

“And the plane tickets?”

“Yeah.” Patting a pocket.

“What about Max?”

“What about him?”

“Did you hurt him?”

“A bit. He’s dead.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Poor little Max.”

“Yeah, you’re sorry for him now, but you wanted the money. You’re greedier than I am.”

“And smarter. I set the whole thing up.”

“Sure, you did, and you had your fun with Max while you were at it, while I was sucking my thumb and waiting six months until you talked him out of taking his money from the bank.”

“I couldn’t rush things and scare him off, you know.”

“Yeah, you couldn’t — but six months?” Bill snorted. “You must have liked his style.”

“Well, he was a gentleman.”

“Even in bed?”

“Yes, even in bed. Listen, for your information, no guy’s a gentleman in bed. We’re all animals.”

“You mean, like you?”

Bill’s hand came up, slapped her across the mouth and the taxi braked to a halt. “You wait here. I forgot something upstairs,” Bill said. He had the forty thousand dollars in a brown paper bag and was about to hand it to Jill, then stopped himself and said, “I better take this with me.”

“What’s the matter, you don’t trust me now?” Jill snapped.

“Baby, with forty thousand, I don’t even trust myself.”

Two minutes later, in their apartment, he picked up the phone in the bedroom, dialed a number and a woman answered.

“Hey, I got it,” he said. “We’re on the way. Meet me at the airport, at the spot. Jill? After we check in at the ticket counter, I’ll dump her and pick you up. No, she won’t go to the police. She can’t, or she’ll hang with me. See you at the airport, baby.”

With that, he hung up and had started to cross the room toward the bed where his topcoat lay when he noticed the lipstick message on the vanity mirror. Goodbye, Animal, hey? Well goodbye to you too, he thought.

A sound behind him alerted him, but too late. A blunt instrument dropped him in his tracks.

Jill turned when the cabbie came out the door of the apartment house and climbed behind the wheel of the taxi. As he started the motor, she leaned forward.

“Have you got the money, Jim?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s in the bag?”

“And the plane tickets?”

“In my pocket,” Jim answered and the he laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Jill asked.

“That message you wrote to Bill on the vanity.”

“Do you think he saw it?”

“He was looking at it when I hit him, so maybe he did, but let’s get to the airport before our plane takes off.”

The Questionable Cure by Lorraine Marise

David had to keep Marla from talking or he would lose his psychiatrist’s licence — and murder was his only out!

* * *

He worked the credit card between the door and the door jamb and thanked his lucky stars she hadn’t changed the worthless lock, as he had suggested. He turned the knob and the door slid open an inch. He squinted his eyes and peered through the crack.

The entry was dark. The living room was dark. There was a glimmer of light coming from the direction of the kitchen, but it was so faint he knew it could only be coming from the tiny bulb on the stove, which Marla used as a highlight.

He slipped the credit card back into his pocket and, with two gloved hands, pushed the door open, just wide enough for him to slide through. With one hand on the inside knob and one on the wood above it, he eased the door closed.

Click.