I'll Be Glad When You're Dead*

By Robert Silverberg

EXAMPLE: This picture shows how Robert Silverberg's "I'll Be Glad When You're Dead" was presented in Trapped Detective Story Magazine for October 1958.

When Harshman left his office that day, his watch said ten minutes to five. He rode down in the elevator with a couple of the other men, mumbled goodnights to them, and ducked off to the left, heading for the big drug store across the street. He kept looking impatiently at his watch. Lois was expecting him at her place about quarter after five, for dinner. But first he had to phone his wife and make some sort of excuse for coming home late.

He had to wait a couple of minutes for a phone booth, and that annoyed him. Harshman was an impatient man. It was a windy autumn day, bleakly hinting at a long cold winter to come.

A fat woman squeezed her bulk out of one of the phone booths and Harshman pushed past her into the booth, quickly shutting the door. He held his dime all ready in his hand. Dropping it in, he dialed his own number, the Cleveland Heights number he had had so long. Married twenty-two years, he thought as he dialed. And all to the same stupid woman!

The phone rang a couple of times and then Beth picked up.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Beth," Harshman nibbled his lower lip uneasily. "I'm - not going to be home for dinner tonight. Thought I'd let you know about it now, before the girl prepared anything."

A pause. Then: "Oh, I see. Working late tonight, dear?" There was an unmistakable ironic edge in Beth's voice. Harshman was sure she knew about Lois. That gave him another good reason for hating her!

He said, "Yes. Something came up in the Wainwright case late this afternoon - a new plea, you see, I have to stick around and interview a couple of people, and there's a statement to notarize, and a lot of stuff like that. So I'm afraid I won't be home until late. Say about eleven."

"So late?" Beth asked.

"I'm afraid so. By the time I wrap everything up and catch a bite, it'll be late, you see. Well, I'd better get off the phone and back to work, now. See you later, Beth."

"See you later."

He hung up. The time was nearly five, now. He was in a cold sweat, and a tight band of fear constricted his stomach. Another minute on the phone and the operator would have cut in, asking for more money. Beth would have discovered that he was at a pay phone, not in his office, and there would have been all sorts of questions for him to answer.

But that problem was behind him now. He was free, free till eleven o'clock. Six hours, he thought. Six hours!

With Lois. Some day he was going to spend a whole night with Lois. After Beth was out of the way. He had known Lois nearly a year, and in all that time he had never spent a whole night with her, never been able to fake a business trip, never found some excuse to pack Beth off to the country. Beth kept a close watch on him. Beth didn't want to lose him-not him, Randall Harshman, middle-aged and wealthy lawyer. Beth knew how much Harshman was worth, and she knew his heart wasn't in such good shape.

Beth wasn't letting go of him. Oh, no. Not Beth.

Harshman left the drug store, crossed Euclid Avenue, and hailed a cab. Lois had a small apartment in downtown Cleveland, on Payne Avenue. The cab pulled up outside her place at five-fourteen on the nose, and Harshman handed the cabbie a bill, telling him to keep the change. Money didn't matter to him-not when Lois was waiting upstairs.

He let himself into the apartment with his key, the key that he kept tucked away in his wallet where Beth wouldn't find it. The smell of cooking steak reached his nostrils - and a moment later Lois was in his arms, and he was holding her tightly.

She was wearing a filmy dressing-gown and nothing else, and the fragrance of her perfume obscured the odors of the cooking food. He held her tight against him, lifted her head, kissed her.

"You look wonderful," he said.

"I love you," she said.

Lois was twenty-three, and worked for one of the local radio stations. She was a tall girl, only a couple of inches short of Harshman's five-feet-eight, and with brown hair cut in bangs over her forehead. She was beautiful. If only I met her a quarter of a century ago, he thought. No, cancel that. If I had met her then, she'd look the way Beth does today.

She led him to the easy chair in the living room and lit his pipe for him while he slipped out of his tight shoes and into the slippers he kept here for the purpose. She had a tray of Martinis ready - ultra-dry, the way he liked them, with a twist of lemon peel in them instead of an olive. He sipped the cocktail and feasted his eyes on the girl.

"We'll eat in ten or fifteen minutes," she said. "How late can you stay tonight, darling?"

"Beth is expecting me at eleven," he said. "That means I have to leave here at ten."

Her face brightened. "Almost five whole hours with you!"

He smiled and drew at the pipe. Her eyes were alive and sparkling, the look of a girl in love. The thirty-year difference in their ages didn't seem to matter to her at all. She loved him the way he had always wanted to be loved. If only Beth were out of the way --

Music welled up around him - Beethoven, coming from the hi-fi speaker in the corner. The hi-fi setup had cost him fifteen hundred dollars, but he hadn't begrudged it. Anything Lois wanted, Lois got from him. He had furnished this whole apartment for her.

He finished the drink, and she tugged him up from the chair and led him into the dinette. The meal consisted of steak, French fries, peas, all the things he lied best. Lois poured some wine to go with the meal, and, coming so soon after the Martini, it made him a little dizzy. Delightfully dizzy.

#

Later, when the dishes were stowed away in the electric dishwasher and they were together on the couch, Lois said, "Darling, how long does it have to go on this way?"

"What way?"

"You know. Meeting me on the sly, sneaking up here when your wife isn't looking?"

He shrugged. "I wish it didn't have to be that way."

"Why does it?"

"Because Beth sticks to me like glue. I'm sure she wouldn't give me a divorce."

"But if she would we could get married. You want to marry me, don't you, darling?"

"Of course."

"Then why don't you tell her about us? Tell her that you've been cheating on her for a year. Maybe then she won't be so anxious to keep you."

"You don't know Beth," Harshman said gloomily.

"Try it," Lois urged. "Stay overnight tonight. I want you to stay here so badly, darling! And then when Beth asks where you were - tell her!"

He toyed with the idea. He had long dreamed of staying out overnight. Well, why not? What better way of proving to Beth that he didn't want her any more? But Beth might be stubborn.

He looked at the girl. "I'll do it. I'll stay here tonight! But - what if Beth still won't divorce me, even after that?"

Lois returned his gaze squarely. "Why - why, then you'll have to kill her, I suppose," she said calmly.

#

Lois had to wake him the next morning, about half past seven. Normally he woke by himself, but he had trouble getting out of bed this day. I'm not as young as I used to be, he admitted sadly to himself. A night like that takes a lot out of a man.

While Lois prepared breakfast he shaved with her razor and dressed. He wondered about Beth, whether she had worried about him, when he had failed to come home on time. Some wives might have called the police at half past eleven, but he was pretty sure Beth hadn't. Beth didn't give a damn about him. Beth was just sitting by patiently, waiting for him to kick over so she could inherit the Harshman money.

And there was plenty of that. Between what his father had left him and what he had built up through his own shrewd investments, he was worth more than three quarters of a million, altogether. The interest alone could keep Beth living in high style the rest of her life. Damn

Beth, he thought.

#

He reached the office on time and almost immediately sent out for coffee. He was really worn out - there at the beginning of the day, too. But somehow he got through the day all right. Lois called once, in the middle of the afternoon, to find out whether Beth had contacted him. But Beth hadn't. Either Beth had given him up for dead or she just didn't care where he had spent the night.

He finished up work at four-thirty, cleaned his desk, told his secretary he was leaving, and left. He caught the bus on the corner of Euclid and Fifteenth Street and rode out to his suburban home with growing uneasiness. He was wondering how to go about saying to Beth what had to be said.

He turned up the walk to their attractive modern home, with the picture-window in front and the lamp burning behind it. Harshman had had this home built four years ago, at a cost of better than $40,000. Someday, he hoped, Lois would be living in it with him.

Hanging up his coat in the front closet and dropping his briefcase off in the downstairs study, he heard Beth behind him and turned. She stood there, a dowdy little woman of fifty, once plumply pretty but now just plump.

He moistened his lips. "Hello, Beth."

"Hello, Randall. Did you have a good day at the office today?" Her voice was steady and calm.

"Pretty good," he said, forcing himself to share her calmness. "Lot of routine business. Dull." He eased out of his shoes, into his old battered slippers. "Will dinner be ready soon?"

"Half past six, as usual," Beth said.

He glanced up at her. "Everything okay here?"

"Everything okay."

There was a moment of silence between them. Harshman felt his stomach churning, and wondered if it meant a recurrence of the ulcer trouble of ten years ago. She seemed so icy calm, damn her! He wished he knew what was going on in her mind now.

She said, "There's a letter from the Book-of-the-Month Club on the mantel. You forgot to pay them for your last book and they're a little annoyed about it. It's a matter of $4.67. Otherwise there wasn't any mail for you this morning."

"Is that all you can talk about? The Book-of-the-Month Club's bill and the mail?"

"Why, what else should I talk about?" she asked with mock innocence.

"You know damned well."

"I don't understand, Randall."

"I said you know damned well!"

"Please keep your voice under control. You wouldn't want Esther to think we're quarreling."

"She's in the kitchen and well out of earshot. Besides, I don't give a damn what Esther thinks about us."

Beth shook her head reprovingly. "I wish I knew what you were so excited about. You really mustn't shout at me that way."

With an effort he forced his voice to level off. He said, "Beth, what's your game?"

"Pardon me, Randall?"

"What are you trying to do?"

She shrugged hopelessly. "Maybe we'd better begin this conversation over, dear. I'm utterly lost."

"I'll be very blunt, then. Last night, Beth, I stayed out late. Very late. As a matter of fact, I didn't come home at all. Didn't you notice that? Weren't you aware of the fact that I didn't come home, that I slept somewhere else last night?"

She said idly, "Obviously you were working very late at the office. You told me so yourself, when you called at five."

"Don't be deliberately na?ve. It doesn't look good on you. I didn't work at the office all night."

"Perhaps you slept at some client's, then."

He scowled. In quiet tones he said, "I didn't stay at the office at all, last night. I went straight to the apartment of a girl downtown. I had dinner there and then I slept over."

Her blank expression didn't flicker. "Don't you think I knew that, Randall?"

"And you don't care?"

"No."

"I was unfaithful to you, Beth. I committed adultery. I keep a mistress. Don't these things matter to you at all?"

"I'm surprised that you can manage all these activities at your age," she said.

"Damn you, why don't you get angry?"

"Because I'm your wife, Randall. For better and for worse. Right now it happens to be for worse."

"You'll stick by me through thick and thin, eh?"

"Yes."

"You won't fly off the handle. You won't call a lawyer and sue for divorce."

She laughed harshly. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? A divorce, that is." She shook her head. "Sorry, no. I like things the way they are. I'm not interested in collecting alimony. I've been Mrs. Randall Harshman for a long time now, and I intend to stay that way."

"No matter what?"

"No matter what."

Everything was plain now. He felt fierce grippings in his stomach, and a fiery surge of hatred toward this woman he had once loved and married. She had known about Lois all along. She hadn't been fooled by his tales of after-hours conferences and late work. And she didn't intend to budge. She was going to sit tight, and needle him now and then, and wait for him to die. His heart wasn't so good. He was no youngster.

Damn her, he thought!

#

That night he ate hurriedly and in silence, and the food tasted like rat poison in his mouth. After dinner he went to the upstairs study, locked himself in, and spent the evening brooding.

Talk about ball and chain, he thought. There was no way he could get rid of Beth. And time was running out for him. Maybe he had only a few months left, maybe five or six years. Maybe he would fool everyone and live to be eighty. It didn't matter. He wanted to spend those months or years with Lois, not with Beth.

And Beth wouldn't budge. Well, there was one way he could get rid of her. Maybe Lois had been joking, maybe dead serious. She had said, "Why, then you'll have to kill her, I suppose."

Yes. That is the only way, he thought. And as he formed his decision fully, his mood of depression lifted. Kill Beth. He and Lois could elope to Mexico the minute Beth's body was in the ground. Yes. Yes. Freedom at last, he thought. At last!

#

It took Harshman three days to make contact with Larry Bose. He was taking a chance, contacting Bose, but he knew Bose would deliver the goods. Harshman contacted him through channels. Being a criminal lawyer had its advantages, he decided, when you decided to step over the other side of the law. You knew where to go when there was a job you wanted done.

So Harshman phoned somebody who phoned somebody else, who phoned somebody else, who phoned Harshman. And three days later Harshman was having lunch with Larry Bose.

Bose was a small man, five-four or so, well built, and stocky, with handsome, intelligent features and eager eyes. He had killed, so far as Harshman knew, seven or eight people. He had never been tagged with any indictment. Harshman had helped him out once, three years before, when it had looked as if Bose might at last be getting in dutch for one of his hired kills.

They dined well - it was a twelve dollar check, and Harshman paid it without wincing. Then Bose said, "It was swell of you to take me out to lunch like this, Mr. Harshman. You say you have a proposition for me--"

Harshman nodded quickly, "That's right. Let's go someplace where we can talk without being disturbed, shall we?"

"Someplace" meant Lois' apartment on Payne Avenue. Lois was away at work, and they could talk in privacy there. Harshman didn't want to negotiate for his wife's murder in his own office, or in a public restaurant.

#

Bose looked around the apartment admiringly. Harshman beckoned him to a seat and offered him a cigarette. He took it.

"Nice place," the little killer said.

"Yes. It belongs to a girl I know."

"Oh," Bose said thoughtfully.

Harshman leaned forward, moistening his lips. He knotted his hands together. It was a gesture he often used when questioning a witness.

He said, "Larry, I got in touch with you because there was a job I wanted you to do for me."

"I figured that."

"Have you figured what sort of job it's going to be?"

Bose shrugged. "It's not my business to make guesses about anything, Mr. Harshman. You tell me."

"Okay," Harshman said. "I want you to kill my wife, Larry."

For an instant Bose looked startled. Then he flicked a nervous glance around the room. "Look here, Mr. Harshman - I don't know what the gag is. You got me out of trouble once. You trying to get me into it again?"

"I'm not trying to do anything of the sort."

"Then why are you asking me to commit a murder? You think I'm a criminal, Mr. Harshman?"

"Yes. I know you are, Larry. You murder for money. You've killed at least seven people that way."

Bose blinked. "You got me off the hook once. If you thought I was guilty, why did you defend me?"

"Larry, I'm not baiting a trap for you. Believe me. I want my wife disposed of. I want to know your price for the job."

Bose looked around. "How can I trust you?"

"I helped you once, didn't I?"

"Yeah."

"This apartment belongs to my mistress. I want to marry her. My wife won't divorce me. You see the picture now, Larry?"

A slow smile appeared on the killer's lean face. "Yeah. Yeah, I start to see it. You're serious, then. You weren't just trying to hook me for the police."

"Will you do the job?"

"Will you meet my price?" Bose asked softly.

"How much?"

"Ten thousand. Half in advance, half on completion of the job."

Harshman closed his eyes for a moment. Ten thousand was a lot of money. But he had a lot of money. He'd never miss ten thousand out of all that. And to be rid of Beth forever!

Bose said, "I met your wife once, when I had that trouble three years ago. I'd recognize her. But I'll need a photo anyway, just to make sure. Is it a deal?"

Harshman nodded slowly. "It's a deal. Ten thousand, Bose. And I'll give you a photo of Beth."

"Fair enough."

"How will you do it? And when?"

Bose said, "You leave those things to me, Mr. Harshman. In case there's an inquest you don't want to have too many facts in your mind. I'll get rid of her and I'll do it in the next ten days. You give me five grand and it's a deal, okay?"

"Okay," Harshman said heavily. "I don't want to give you my personal check, of course. I'll draw the cash from the bank and pay you tomorrow."

#

That night he visited Lois again and told her that it was all fixed up. Some time in the next couple of weeks, Bose was going to kill Beth. Lois took the news steadily enough. She didn't

seem frightened at all. She was just happy that the last obstacle between them was at last going to be removed.

Harshman said, "Right after Beth's funeral I'll apply for a leave of absence. I'm sure my partners won't mind taking over my pending cases while I go away to recover from the shocking tragedy. I'll go to Mexico - Acapulco, I guess. And you arrange to take your vacation the same time. You travel down there separately and meet me there, and we'll get married. A honeymoon in Mexico for a month, then back here. I'll tell everybody I met you down there and it was love at first sight. They'll believe me. It's not unusual for a middle-aged man whose wife dies suddenly to marry a much younger woman immediately. I have no children, and I need a companion. Nobody will whisper. It isn't as if Beth had been dying for a long time of some disease, and I jumped into another marriage as soon as she was out of the way."

Lois ruffled his thinning hair affectionately and said, "Who's middle-aged, darling?"

"Me."

"You don't act it.'

He drew her to him passionately. She didn't seem to care that he was murdering his wife to have her. In fact, she seemed to approve. Which showed how much she loved him, he thought.

#

He left her place early, about nine, and rode home feeling a pleasant glow of warm content. She had wanted him to stay the night again, but he had refused; there was plenty of time for that later, he told her. After Beth was out of the way. Besides, he didn't want Beth to get too suspicious in these final days. The final days of her life, he thought, savoring the delightful thought that he would be rid of Beth soon, and forever, without the lingering nuisance of a messy divorce.

The next day he drew out the five thousand and paid it over to Bose. The thin-lipped little killer smiled pleasantly as he pocketed the money.

"I hope I'll have occasion to pay you the other half before long," Harshman said.

"You will. Just be patient and let me time this thing right, Mr. Harshman."

#

Harshman was patient, every night he came home hoping to find Beth dead, but there she was, smug and self-contained and still alive. It was almost as if she were trying to irritate him by deliberately staying alive. By the fourth day, he found his patience beginning to fray. He wished Bose would get on with the job. He began to wonder if Bose planned some kind of swindle. Somehow, he doubted it. Bose had a certain kind of killer's honor.

But Harshman lived in a state of constant anxiety. He slept poorly and ate poorly and could not see Lois for fear of arousing suspicion. He had to keep away from her, these days. And, of course, he couldn't make reservations for the Mexico trip until after Beth was dead. If some eager D.A.'s man found out he had bought a single ticket to Mexico before her death, he was as good as in the death house.

He sat tight. The first week passed without anything happening. Bose had said ten days.

On the ninth day after he had hired the killer, Harshman's office phone rang. His secretary picked it up and said, "It's for you, Mr. Harshman."

He switched on his extension and heard a deep voice say, "Mr. Randall Harshman?"

"That's right."

"This is Captain Doggett of the Cleveland Heights police station, Mr. Harshman," Doggett sounded grim. Easy, Harshman said. This is it!

"What can I do for you, Captain?"

"Aaah - this will come as a shock, I'm afraid--"

"Is something wrong?"

"Your wife," Doggett said.

"Beth?" He forced alarm into his voice. "What's happened? Tell me, what's happened?"

"I'm afraid she was run over by a hit-and-run driver a little while ago, Mr. Harshman?"

"Good Lord? What hospital is she in?'

"You don't understand," Doggett said sympathetically. "She was killed in the accident. I called to ask you if you'd identify the body for us."

#

Bose had done it very neatly, very neatly indeed, Harshman thought. Probably he had spent all these days hiding out in the neighborhood, watching the Harshman house, seeing what time of day Beth went out for her morning walk. It was always about eleven-thirty. Careful observation must have told Bose that.

Harshman managed to put on a fairly convincing act of grief. He explained to his secretary what had happened, told her to let his partners know, and staggered out of the office. He took a cab to the police station, and they let him look at the body in the morgue.

Yes, it was Beth all right. Struck amidships by a car doing at least sixty on the quiet suburban street, and killed instantly.

"Did anyone see the license plate?" Harshman demanded. "You must find that driver!"

Doggett soothed him and said, "Afraid no one thought of looking at the car. A couple of people in the neighborhood claimed to have seen the accident, but one said the car was a maroon sedan and the other thought it was a black-and-gray hardtop convertible."

"You mean there's no chance of finding the killer?"

"Guess not, Mr. Harshman. It certainly is a terrible tragedy."

Yes, a terrible tragedy, Harshman thought!

He went home and made arrangements for the funeral - a small affair, just a couple of close friends. He placed an announcement of her death in the paper. He told Esther, their maid, that he was going away for a while, and gave her four week's pay in advance.

#

There was a flood of condolence notes and a few visitors, and to the callers Harshman gave the appearance of a man greatly bereaved. After two or three days of this kind of mourning, he decided the time had come to break away. He phoned the senior partner of his law firm and told him he was going to Mexico for a month.

"Glad to hear it, Randall. It's just the thing to help you snap out."

"I thought so too," Harshman said. "I have to get away from our house, from all of our memories."

"We'll take care of your work. Don't feel you have to rush back. I know how it must be for you at a terrible time like this."

That afternoon, he phoned a travel agent he knew, and made arrangements for an immediate flight to Acapulco, and a month's stay at a flossy tourist hotel down there. He notified Lois that he was leaving, and instructed her to travel down by train two days later. He would be waiting for her at the hotel.

The last thing he did before leaving was to draw five thousand dollars out of his personal expenses fund, and to hand it over to Larry Bose. It had been a perfect job. And now Mexico waited - and Lois!

#

The four weeks were fabulous.

He settled in at the hotel, a plush place with a plush price, and sure enough later in the week Lois checked in - into a different room. He had made sure of that. The first evening he met her in the hotel bar; the second day they spent together, and in the afternoon they applied for a marriage license. They were married by a Mexican justice of the peace and with the hotel's blessing Lois moved out of her room and into the suite Harshman had been occupying.

After that, it was four weeks of Utopia. Sightseeing and swimming in the daytime, cocktails and dancing at night, then bedtime. Harshman hardly ever thought of Beth. He did manage to send a postcard to his friends at the law office. He said, "Having wonderful time and am slowly recovering from my loss. I have met a young lady here who has been very kind and sympathetic."

That would prepare them for the day when fifty-five-year-old Randall Harshman came home with his new twenty-three-year-old wife.

The days slipped by. Harshman had never remembered a more wonderful month. It cost him plenty, of course - close to five thousand for all expenses during the month. And ten thousand more for disposing of Beth. But the cost didn't trouble him. Fifteen thousand wasn't much out of three quarters of a million, and he didn't have any plans for taking it with him. Might as well enjoy life while he still could. And this, he thought, is really living!

They reluctantly returned to Cleveland in November. Cleveland was cold and drizzly, and Mexico had been sunny and pleasant. They weren't anxious to go back, but the honeymoon couldn't go on forever.

Besides, Harshman admitted, Lois' ardor was rapidly wearing him out. The girl had a seemingly insatiable appetite for love. Perhaps when they had returned to the less tempting climate of mid-November Cleveland, he hoped, she'd go easier on him. After all, he wasn't a young man. But he didn't dare hint any of this to Lois.

When he returned he saw to it that Lois moved from her apartment to his house, and he phoned a couple of friends who were sure to spread the word. He told them he had met a girl in Mexico, young, lovely, eager to comfort him in this time of sorrow. He said he had married her. No one questioned the propriety of his action. A man who finds himself suddenly alone in the world has every right to seek help and comfort.

Nobody suspected a thing. Beth was dead and he had married Lois.

Everything was perfect.

It looked that way, anyhow.

#

It was the third week since their return from Mexico. Lois had quit her job, and devoted all her time to making the house more attractive. She tore down a lot of Beth's curtains and fixtures and replaced them with newer, cheerful ones. Harshman found himself loving her more and more every day. Beth was just a memory now, a memory receding rapidly down the corridors of his mind.

Perfection abruptly shattered on a snowy Thursday in December. Lois was downstairs, fixing up the basement recreation room. Harshman was reading the newspapers in the front sitting room.

The doorbell rang.

It was the maid's night off, and Harshman knew Lois was downstairs.

"Just a second," he grunted. "I'm coming." He wondered who might be calling at this hour, unexpected, in this kind of weather.

He opened the front door.

He found himself looking at a young man, about thirty, neat, well dressed. Snow was settling on the brim of his hat. He smiled cordially at Harshman and said, "Good evening. I'm Mike Parker - a friend of your wife's. May I come in?"

Hiding a frown of puzzlement, Harshman smiled pleasantly and said, "Of course, Mr. Parker. Come right in."

"Thanks. Thanks very much."

Harshman took the stranger's coat and hung it up while the other peeled out of his galoshes and rubbed his hands together to warm them.

Harshman escorted him into the sitting room and said, "Won't you make yourself comfortable, Mr. Parker? I'll go downstairs and tell Lois we have company."

"That'll be all right, thanks. I'd rather speak to you alone, without Mrs. Harshman present."

Harshman blinked and said suspiciously, "You are a friend of Lois', aren't you?"

"Oh, no. Not at all. I suppose I should have said your late wife. I was a friend of Beth's, you see."

Now Harshman felt one kind of anxiety vanish and a new kind take its place. He was pleased that this handsome young man was no friend of Lois'; he knew little enough of her former suitors, and certainly was not interested in having them call socially on him or on her.

But a friend of Beth's? How could Beth have known anyone so much younger than she?

And what did he want, anyway?

Harshman sat down facing the stranger.

"Cold night, isn't it?" Parker asked.

"Pretty bad."

"It's warmer in Mexico."

"I'll say," Harshman agreed. He stared curiously at the other. "Might I ask if you had any specific purpose in visiting me?"

"I did. Could we go somewhere where we're sure not to be interrupted?"

"My study," Harshman said.

He felt the streak of uneasiness widening within him.

He conducted the man who called himself Mike Parker into the study and drew out a chair for him. Parker made himself comfortable immediately. He leaned forward, faced Harshman squarely.

He said. "Beth warned me you were going to have her killed."

The jolt of the flat, confident statement rocked him to his foundations. The words were like fists pummeling his tired heart. He gasped, then reasserted control over himself.

"What are you talking about, Mr. Parker?"

"It's very simple. Beth told me the whole story. You had another woman, and she refused to give you a divorce - and she was sure you would arrange to have her murdered."

"Suppose I order you out of my house? I won't be spoken to in such a way, young man!"

Parker chuckled amiably. "Order me out, if you want to. But I won't let a little snow bother me. I'll go straight to the police with what I know."

"And what do you know?" Harshman asked, feeling a cold chill seizing his limbs.

"That you hired someone to run your late wife over and make it seem like an accident. That this girl you say you met in Mexico has been your mistress for over a year before you ever set foot in Acapulco."

"How can you prove any such ridiculous charge?"

"I have a registered letter from Beth, still unopened, dated ten days before her death. She also sent me a copy of what was in the letter. In it she says you repeatedly asked her for a divorce and admitted to her you were keeping another woman in downtown Cleveland."

"That's not enough evidence to prove anything. She could have made the whole thing up."

"Perhaps. But certainly it's enough to arouse the interest of the D.A. enough to make an investigation. He might check on your present wife's salary, and compare it with the rent on the apartment she was living in. He might ask you to explain a lot of expenditures - including the no doubt large sum you paid to have Beth murdered. You wouldn't stand up to questioning very long. Not even a skilled lawyer like you."

Harshman was quiet, listening to the irregular sound of his own breath. Cold sweat dribbled down his body as he watched this cocky young man sitting with his legs crossed five feet away.

He said, "You're a very shrewd devil, Parker."

"Not very. Just opportunistic."

"May I ask how you came to know Beth?"

Parker puffed coolly at his cigarette and blew a smoke ring. He said, "You weren't the only member of the Harshman family who was engaged in extracurricular activities, friend."

It was like a slap in the face. Beth - with a lover? A man twenty years younger than she was? It was beyond belief. It was incredible.

"You?"

"That's right. I first met her on a sales route, and she asked me in. That was the beginning. I used to stop by every afternoon for a couple of hours. She used to tell me she wished you would come home suddenly and surprise us. The shock would probably make you drop dead!"

"And," Harshman said thinly, "you could then marry her and live happily ever after on my money."

"That was pretty much the idea."

"But how long would you live with Beth?" Harshman asked. "I see the whole picture now. You were waiting for Beth to become a widow. A rich widow. Then Beth would die - accidentally - and you'd inherit. And off you'd go. Very clever, Parker. Probably you would have gotten tired of waiting for me to die and killed me first if I hadn't--"

He stopped. Parker said, "Go on. If you hadn't what? If you hadn't killed Beth?"

Harshman felt his heart pounding fiercely. He didn't know whether it would hold out against this kind of strain. "Why did you come here? To torment me?"

"Only partly. Mostly to ask for money."

"I thought so. How much?"

"Fifty thousand."

"Fifty thou--"

"You heard it. Fifty thousand or I go to the police with what I know. They'll make trouble for you. Big trouble. You've cheated the D.A. out of too many defendants, Mr. Lawyer Harshman. You can bet they'll do all they can to see that the book gets thrown at you."

"Fifty thousand is a lot of money."

"I'll take it in five ten-thousand dollar installments," Parker said cheerfully. "Have the first one ready for me on Monday. Then one a week for four weeks. I think I've said all I need to, Harshman. Can I have my hat and coat, please?"

Numb, Harshman showed Parker to the door and off into the snowy night. He stood by the door a long time, letting the tension drain out of him. He went back inside, poured himself a drink, took a pill. His heart was going like a trip-hammer.

#

Lois came up from below, smeared with paint, "Did I just hear the door close, dear?"

He shook his head. "I dropped a book, that's all."

"Oh. I thought we might have had company." She looked at him closely. "Are you feeling all right, dear? You look so strange!"

"I'm - a little tired, Lois. I think I'll go upstairs and lie down for a while."

#

He spent a dreadful weekend, consumed with fear. If Parker exposed him, he'd be finished, through, kaput. Utopia had lasted only a few weeks. Now it was over. He was up against the hard realities of life.

So many times he had defended murderers and wondered what had impelled them to take another life. Now he was on their side of the fence - and feeling all the agonies of the condemned man already. He wondered how long his heart could take it. This episode had probably cost him several years of his life already.

He made the payment to Parker on Monday - $10,000. The money made a dent, but he had no choice. The idea of killing Parker didn't occur till later in the week.

The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. For one thing, Parker had been his wife's lover, and he wanted to get even for that. For another, he'd save $30,000 if he paid Bose to kill Parker before the next installment was due. And it would rid him of one prying fear; that Parker would not settle for the $50,000, but would go on bleeding him forever.

So that Thursday he contacted Bose again. He went to see the lean little killer at his waterfront apartment.

Bose didn't seem happy to see him. He said, "I wish you hadn't come here."

"I had to."

"Why? Everything's okay on the job, isn't it?"

"Not quite. Someone knows. Not about you, but that it was arranged. I'm being blackmailed."

"That's too bad. Keep me out of it," Bose said.

"I want you to kill the blackmailer for me."

To his surprise Bose shook his head. "Sorry. No."

"No?"

"I'm under hire," Bose said. "Another client. And I never work for two people at once."

"But every week I wait costs me $10,000! Look, Bose, I'll double the price. I'll give you twenty gees to do this for me!"

Bose looked pained, but he stuck to his guns. No amount of persuading would change his mind. He would not take on the job under any circumstances. After fifteen minutes of pleading, he pointedly asked Harshman to leave and not to contact him again.

Brooding, Harshman returned to his office. He hadn't expected the flat refusal from Bose.

I have to get rid of Parker some way, he thought. Maybe even kill him myself! But how? When?

His heart pounded frantically. He felt tired, sick, discouraged. Lois' passion was wearing him out - and the threat introduced by Parker kept him in a state of constant terror that was hell on his weak heart.

At three that afternoon he decided he couldn't remain in the office any longer. He had to go home, lie down, relax. Maybe I ought to tell Lois about Parker, he thought. Let her share my troubles.

Yes. He made up his mind to tell her everything about the blackmailer. Maybe she would have some ideas.

He reached Cleveland Heights at about ten minutes to four that afternoon. Thursday; the maid's day off. Only a week ago, Harshman thought bitterly, Mike Parker had stepped into his life and ended all happiness for him. Only a week.

He unlocked the front door, thinking that Lois would be surprised to see him home so early But he was the one who got the surprise.

He walked into the bedroom. Lois was there. She wasn't alone.

"Hello," Mike Parker said.

#

The sight of him was like a piledriver smashing into Harshman's ribs. He looked at Parker, who was smiling smugly. Then at Lois, clad in her filmy housecoat. Then at the rumpled bed.

Fingers of pain clawed at his heart. He caught his breath and said, "What are you doing here, Parker?"

"Guess."

It was all too easy to guess, Harshman's breath came thickly. "Lois--"

She looked away. Parker said, "We weren't quite expecting you home this early. We might have tidied up a little if we knew."

"How - how long has this been going on?" Harshman asked in a quivering voice.

Parker shrugged. "Since the day after I visited you. Last Friday, I guess. I had heard your new wife was kind of pretty, and I figured I'd drop around to socialize. So I did. And I've been coming back every day since."

"The way you did with Beth," Harshman said.

"Yeah. The way I did with Beth."

Each of the words seemed to stab at his heart. Harshman looked at Lois. He understood now why she had paid so much attention to him, why she had treated him so well, why she had married him.

Money.

Everyone wanted his money. Lois knew if she married him she'd soon be a rich, young, pretty widow. A person like that had the world at her feet.

And now she had Parker. Parker still had his eyes on the Harshman bank account. If he couldn't marry Beth, he would marry Lois.

Lois said, "How's your heart, dear? Acting up again?" Her voice held no sympathy, only hardness and hatred.

"Lois--"

"I figured you couldn't last long, Randall dear. And I'd inherit your money. How's your heart?"

He could hardly speak. Arrows of flame shot through his chest. The shock of finding the two of them together demolished what was left of his world.

"I'll marry Mike after you've gone," she went on. "And we'll live happily ever after."

"Damn you!" Harshman grated. He started forward, wanting to hurt, to tear, to beat. Suddenly an invisible hand squeezed his heart and he staggered, nearly fell. The long-awaited attack had started.

"My medicine," he whispered. "Lois, where's my medicine?"

"Upstairs, dear."

"Go get it. Get it!"

She shook her head. "Sorry, Randall. I'd rather not."

"You'll let me die?"

"It would be a pity, wouldn't it?"

Hot tears streamed from his eyes. He struggled to stay on his feet despite the pain. The real force of the attack had not hit him yet; if he could get to the medicine in time--

But he couldn't climb the stairs now. And they weren't going to get the bottle for him.

He turned away suddenly, heading out to the hall. He snatched up the phone, thinking to call the police, or even just the doctor across the street. Doctor Robinson would help him. He'd live to see these two vultures in jail yet.

But Parker was there, snatching the phone out of his numb hands.

"Give me that," Harshman muttered.

Parker shook his head. "You could make trouble with the phone."

They weren't going to let him get help. Without laying a hand on him, they would murder him! He thought bitterly of the new will he had made only the week before, leaving virtually everything to Lois.

To Lois - and to her lover, Parker.

He had only one hope left. To escape, to get across the street to the doctor's office. He lurched down the foyer toward the front door. To his surprise no one followed him. They let him go.

He threw open the door. A cold wintry wind whipped back at him. He didn't have much time left. But it was only forty feet to the other side of the street. And they weren't following him--

He staggered out into the sidewalk and then toward the street. A blue car was parked across the street, half a block away. Harshman hardly noticed as the parked car began to pull out.

Then suddenly it was speeding toward him - right at him! A horn was screeching, but he was frozen, unable to move, shock seizing him and making him paralyzed.

He dropped to his knees in the path of the oncoming car. The screech of brakes was heard; the car came to a halt inches away from him.

Inches.

But the shock was too much. He felt consciousness leaving him. He looked up, saw the driver of the car looking down at him and smiling.

The driver was Larry Bose.

Numbly Harshman lay there as the blue car started up again and drove around him and away. Somebody was coming out of the doctor's house now, running toward him, but he seemed to be running in slow motion, and Harshman knew it was too late.

Larry Bose, he thought. A craftsman at murder. Why run down a man with a heart condition when scaring him to death is enough?

Voices above him. A soft feminine voice saying, "Yes, that's my husband. I don't know what got into him! He simply ran out of the house into the path of that car. And his heart--"

Dying, Harshman understood. He knew who Bose's client had been now, and why Bose had not wanted to kill Parker. Lois and Parker had hired Bose to kill him. They couldn't wait for him to die naturally. They were impatient, the way he had been impatient.

He opened his eyes and saw five or six people standing over him.

"Give him air," someone said.

He could hear what they were saying. He wanted to speak out, to say, "I murdered my wife to marry that woman, but she killed me for my money." He wanted to say lots of things. He wanted to point to Parker and say, "He blackmailed me and hired a man to kill me."

But no words came out. Only wordless hysterical moaning.

He felt Dr. Robinson kneeling over him. Too late, he thought, too late for everything. He was paying the price for killing Beth.

"They - they--" he started to say, and the words died away.

"Randall! Randall!" Lois screamed.

Harshman managed to smile. As he blanked out for good, it occurred to him that murder begets murder. Parker and Lois were greedy. Neither would want to settle for half his estate. Before long they'd be scheming for ways to get rid of each other. He wondered which one of them would kill the other, and how.

One thing the dying Harshman was sure of: Lois and Parker were going to be very happy together.

But not for long.