The Cutthroats and Criminals Megapack by Vincent McConnor & James Holding

Author:Vincent McConnor & James Holding
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: mystery
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2019-12-03T05:00:00+00:00

THERE’S SOMETHING FUNNY HERE, by James Michael Ullman

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, January 1974.

As soon as he pulled into the busy downtown street from the parking garage, Herb Crain knew something was wrong. The car seemed unaccountably sluggish. Moreover, the ride was springier than it should be, the engine was too noisy, and at the first red light his foot went down too far on the brake pedal.

“What the hell,” he said.

Beside him, his wife Rose, a short, dumpy woman, scowled. “What’s the trouble now?” she asked. “You’ve been complaining all night. At the restaurant, the meat was cold. At the theater, we were in a draft. And when we had the after-dinner drink, the service was too slow. I don t mind telling you, I’m fed up. After all this is our 34th wedding anniversary. Why are you spoiling it for me? I think—”

“Yeah, sure,” Herb said in an abstracted way. He was a trim, white haired, bantam-sized man in his late fifties, with an affectation for the bow ties he’d worn in his young manhood. Over the years, he had grown so accustomed to Rose’s constant critiques of his behavior that they now made virtually no impression on him.

“But there’s something funny about this car,” he went on. “It doesn’t act right.”

“Ridiculous. You’re so finicky—all those tune-ups, the time you waste poking around under the hood. If you’d spend just half that time thinking about what lies ahead for us...”

The light changed. Herb pressed hard on the gas pedal, but again the response was sluggish.

“...we’d be better off,” Rose continued. “You’re retiring soon. Your pension and Social Security won’t add up to much. You never did start that investment program you’ve always been talking about, so we’ll have to—”

“I,” Herb announced, “am going to stop for a minute.”

“That’s crazy. This is a no-parking boulevard.”

“I don’t care. I want a better look at this car because all of a sudden I’m not sure it is our car.”

Rose was incredulous. “What are you talking about? Five hours ago we drove this car into that garage and they gave us a claim check. Five minutes ago we gave them the claim check and they gave us back the car. The same make, model, year, color, everything. Here...” She opened the glove compartment. “Here’s all our things, just as we left them. Road maps, the first-aid kit, the flashlight, pennies for the parking meters...” She closed the compartment and looked into the back seat. “And there’s the old blanket, so the dog won’t muddy the upholstery.”

Grim-faced. Herb parked under an arc light and cut the engine.

Rose shook her head in exasperation as Herb flipped on the dome light and examined the car’s interior. Yes, it looked the same. Still, one smudge on the ceiling seemed unfamiliar...

He got out. The license plates were his all right, and the dent in the left front fender, where someone had banged it in a parking lot, was still there...but was that the exact spot? He recalled it as being a little higher.

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