Until You Are Dead (31 page)

I stared at him. "What's that?"

"An order blank," he answered.

"Since you've been hesitant to order from our catalog," Martin said, "we thought you might be more enthusiastic if we showed you the actual merchandise." From the suitcase on the floor he drew a flat red plaster plaque and set it on the table.

"What is it?" I asked, looking at the black sticklike symbols on the plaque.

"Why, it's your name, Mr. Crane. Your name in Japanese. A real conversation piece."

"Perhaps you missed it in our catalog," Walter said. "Only nine ninety-nine."

"No, thanks," I said, and I didn't even see Walter's hand until the backs of the knuckles struck me on the jaw. I rose half out of my chair in rage only to be forced back down by the unbelievable pain of Martin digging his fingers skillfully into jangling nerve endings in the side of my neck.

"Of course you don't
have
to order the plaque," Walter said, smiling and laying a ball-point pen before me.

I picked up the pen and checked the tiny box alongside the plaque's description on the order form. Martin's paralyzing grip on my neck was immediately loosened.

Martin bent again over the large suitcase and came up with a coiled red wire with tiny brass clips on each end. "Everyone needs one of these," he said.

"I bought the plaque with my name in Japanese," I pleaded.

Walter smiled at me and began to pound his right fist into the palm of his left hand.

"I'll take it," I said, "whatever it is."

"It's a Recepto-booster," Martin explained. "You hook one clamp onto the aerial of your transistor radio, the other end you clamp onto your ear. Your entire body becomes a huge antenna for your portable radio."

"Only five ninety-nine," Walter said. "Two for ten dollars."

"I'll take two," I said, checking the appropriate box on the order form — but not any too happily.

"I thought you'd be receptive to that." Walter smiled.

A gigantic red-handled scissors with one saw-toothed blade was placed on the table next. "Our Jumbo Magi-coated Lifetime All Purpose Garden Shears," Martin said. "The deluxe chrome-plated model. You can cut or saw, trim grass or hedges, snip through inch-thick branches. Never needs sharpening. Twenty-nine ninety-nine."

"Twenty-nine ninety-nine!"

Walter appeared hurt. "It's made of quality steel, Mr. Crane." The back of his hand lashed across my cheek, and I was the one who was hurt. This time I did not try to rise. I checked the order form.

The gigantic scissors was followed by inflatable rubber shoes over three feet long for walking on lake surfaces, an electric sinus mask, a urinal-shaped stein bearing the words "For The World's Biggest Beer Drinker," tiny battery-operated windshield wipers for eyeglasses, fingertip hot pads for eating toast . . . I decided I needed them all.

"Excellent," Walter said, smiling beneath his black uniform cap. "This will make the organization happy, and since we're part of the organization we'll be happy. And you, Mr. Crane, as one of our regular customers back in the fold, you'll be happier too."

I didn't feel happy at all, and indignation again began to seep through my fear.

"He doesn't look happy," Martin said, but Walter ignored him.

"Mr. Crane, I'm sure you'll feel better after you sign to make the order legal and binding," Walter said, motioning with a curt nod toward the ball-point pen.

"Better than if he doesn't sign," Martin remarked.

"But he will sign," Walter said firmly.

The sureness in his voice brought up the anger in me. "I won't sign anything," I said. "This is preposterous!"

"What about this?" Walter said, and with the flash of a silver blade severed the tip of the little finger of my left hand.

I stared down with disbelief and remoteness, as if it were someone else's hand on the table.

"This is our imported Hunter's Hatcha-knife," Walter was saying, holding up the broad-bladed gleaming instrument. "It can be used for anything from scaling fish to cutting firewood." He wiped the blade with a white handkerchief, slipped the Hatcha-knife back beneath his jacket and tossed the handkerchief over my finger. Martin picked up the fingertip itself and dropped it into a small plastic bag as if it were something precious to him. He poked it into a zippered jacket pocket.

I held the wadded handkerchief about my left hand, feeling the dull throb that surprisingly took the place of pain. There was also surprisingly little blood.

"I'm sure Mr. Crane will sign the order form now," Walter said, picking up the pen and holding it toward me. I signed.

"Now, how much money do you propose to put down?" Walter asked, and I felt Martin remove my wallet from my hip pocket. I only sat staring at Walter, trying to believe what had happened.

"Twenty-seven dollars," Martin said, returning my empty wallet to my pocket.

Walter turned the signed order form toward him and entered the twenty-seven dollars against the $210.90 that I owed.

Martin gathered all the merchandise I'd purchased and dumped it back into the suitcase.

"So you can carry everything, we'll throw in as a bonus our Traveler's Pal crushproof suitcase," Walter said.

As I stared at him blankly I heard myself thank him — I actually thanked him!

"I'm sure Mr. Crane will be a satisfied, regular customer we can count on," Walter said. "I'm sure we can expect an order from him . . . oh, let's say at least three times a year."

"At the very least," Martin agreed, helping me to my feet.

The ride home in the van was a replay of the first ride, and it seemed like only seconds had passed when I was left standing before my house with my heavily laden Traveler's Pal suitcase. Gripping the wadded handkerchief in place tightly with the fingers of my left hand, I watched the twin
taillights of the van draw together and disappear as they turned a distant dark corner.

As I walked up the sidewalk past the trimmed hedges toward my front door I tried to absorb what had happened, to turn it some way in my mind so I could understand it. Had it really happened? Had it been a dream, or somebody's idea of a bloody, macabre joke? Or had it been just what it seemed — the improvable, ultimate hard sell?

I knew I'd never find out for sure, and that whether or not Walter and Martin had really been from Happy House, the mail-order company could expect my regular orders for the rest of my life.

The Traveler's Pal suitcase heavy in my right hand, I entered the house and trudged into the bedroom, a deep ache beginning to throb up my left arm.

There was Angela, still sleeping in blissful unawareness with her eyeshades and sleep-aid earplugs. The Happy House catalog was lying on her chest where I'd left it, the pages riffling gently in the soft breeze from the air-conditioning vent.

Angela didn't stir as I dropped the suitcase on the floor and the latches sprang open to reveal the assortment of inane merchandise I'd bought. The loud sob that broke from my throat startled me as I stared down at the contents of the suitcase. It was all so useless — all of it!

Except for the Jumbo Magi-coated Lifetime All Purpose Garden Shears. Oh, I had a use for them!

"Y
ou'll have to make it fast, whatever it is," Dwayne Darby said, seating himself behind his imposing desk. "I'm a busy man; I don't have much time."

"Maybe even less than you think," Bennet said, taking the uncomfortable hard chair before the desk. With a quick, practiced motion, he reached to his breast pocket and laid a white business card on Darby's polished desk top.

Darby picked up the card and read it in an I'm-a-busyman glance. "Removals," he said. "What kind of removals?"

"People," Bennet said.

"How and why?" Darby asked.

"A number of 'whys'," Bennet replied, "but there's really only one 'how'."

Darby placed an expensive black-green cigar in his mouth and gave Bennet an appraising look. What he saw was a rather dumpy, going-to-bald middle-aged man with a round, almost doughy face and faded, friendly blue eyes. The gray, off-the-rack suit fitted badly, and the tie was the wrong color for any suit. Bennet couldn't mean what he might mean.

"I'd like to tell you a little story," Bennet said amiably.

"I told you when you came in," Darby snapped, "I don't have much time."

"Oh, it will only take a few minutes," Bennet said with a smile and a gun.

Darby's eyes widened and he pressed back into his chair. The gun influenced him more than the smile. "Take five
minutes," he said in a croaking voice.

"I just showed you this so you'd take what I have to say seriously," Bennet said, still smiling and putting the gun back into its small belt holster. "My story starts a long time ago, when, like yourself, I had about my neck an albatross of a wife. No need to tell
you
how miserable she made me. I went to a private detective to have her followed in order to gather evidence for a divorce, but my wife was far too smart to allow that to happen. A divorce on my wife's terms was out of the question so, to put it simply, I had her removed. My not-so-reputable private detective recommended a man for the job."

Now that the gun had been put away, Darby was regaining some of his natural arrogance, but only some. "If you'd please get to the point, Mr. Bennet . . ."

Bennet ignored him. "I was instructed to meet a man at the intersection of Tenth and Market Streets, give him an agreed upon amount of money in an envelope, answer a few questions concerning my wife's habits, then simply go on with my daily life and wait. I was to recognize this man, a tall blond man, by the fact that he had only one arm. After obeying instructions I had only to wait four days before my wife was found slain after apparently interrupting burglars."

Bennet looked at Darby across the desk as if waiting for the vice president of Argoth Industries to understand. Darby only stared at him, waiting for him to continue.

"Do you see?" Bennet said. "It was so easy, so simple . . ."

"I don't intend to hire you to murder my wife," Darby said.

"Nothing so mundane as that," Bennet told him. "To go on with my story, every now and then, for the next four years, I'd see the blond one-armed man seated on the park bench, his 'office', at Tenth and Market, and it gradually dawned on me that crime actually
paid.
Being an enterprising sort, and a businessman by calling, I decided to go into business for myself, bring to the profession a fresh, businesslike approach."

"Killing is hardly a business," Darby said distastefully, "though it might well be profitable. And I thought you told me you didn't want me to hire you for murder."

"That is correct," Bennet said politely. "What I came here for is a bid."

Darby stared at him, the incredulity growing on his stern face. "Bid? . . . For what? . . . Against whom? . . ."

"For my services. And against Mrs. Darby, of course. It's no secret that you despise each other. And it's no secret that you're both very rich. I will accept the highest bid for my services to remove someone's spouse, either yours or hers."

"My wife and I might not be overly fond of each other," Darby said, recovering the old bluster, "but neither of us would stoop to paying to have the other murdered. My bid is zero." He stood to signify the end of the interview. "I'll do you a favor and not call the police."

Bennet smiled patiently. "I'd only deny the conversation."

"We'll both pretend it never took place," Darby said, remembering the gun. "Now please leave my office. And I strongly suggest you don't annoy my wife."

"No need," Bennet said, standing and moving toward the door. "I've already been to see her."

He was almost completely out the door before Darby spoke. "Wait, Mr. Bennet. Come back and sit down."

"M
r. Darby upped your bid by five thousand," Bennet said to Mrs. Darby.

Agnes Darby sat fashionably dressed on a fashionable antique sofa in her fashionably furnished French provincial living room. She might have been an attractive woman for her forty-five years had she not been lean and chic to the point of emaciation. On her gaunt, harsh face was a look of pure wrath. "That's just like him!" she said.

Bennet smiled and shrugged. "I told you it was a mistake to start the bidding so low. Not that it matters except that it wastes valuable time, and for one of you time is an increasingly scarce commodity."

Agnes Darby took a sip of tea from a very expensive cup. "Suppose I raise his bid five thousand dollars?"

"Then I'll see if Mr. Darby is inclined to bid higher."