The Smasher by Talmage Powell

Author:Talmage Powell [Powell, Talmage]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-4405-3690-8
Publisher: The Macmillan Company
Published: 1959-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

12

She looked at me, her face pale, her eyes haggard. “I must get a grip on myself,” she said at last.

“Yes.” I slipped my arm around her shoulders. “Why don’t you make some coffee? I’ve got to call Reynolds.”

She nodded, and we went out of the bedroom together.

Headquarters had to reach Reynolds at home, but he showed up in a hurry. The coffee and aspirin had taken the edge off my headache by the time I opened the door at his ring.

He looked at me quickly. “Headquarters said you’d been attacked, Griffin.”

“That’s right,” I said. I told him what had happened.

“Let’s go upstairs.”

We went up to the bedroom and he looked the place over. He found the razor blade near the bathroom doorway. He picked it up with tweezers that had belonged to Maureen. Light danced over the small oblong of blue steel.

“If he hadn’t got the jump on me so fast,” I said, “you wouldn’t have to be looking for the sonofabitch. I’m going to have to be more careful, Reynolds. But if he comes back, I’m going to kill him.”

“Cut out that kind of talk. You leave him to us. I’m going to have the house watched.”

“You think he’ll come back?”

“He didn’t get whatever it was he was after. You surprised him.”

“Maybe he was waiting for me.”

“You said downstairs you were out all evening. He could have caught you at some more convenient spot.”

“Maybe.”

“Anyhow, quit talking about killing him if you get the chance.”

“You’re not asking me not to kill him,” I said.

He wrapped the razor blade carefully in a handkerchief and put it in his side coat pocket. “You have to defend yourself.”

“Thanks.”

“Only, don’t talk about it. I’m a cop. I don’t want to hear any premeditations you might have.”

He crossed the bedroom to look out of the window. He could see the trellis in the light of the corner street lamp. He closed the window. “We’ll look for fingerprints and footprints, of course. Meanwhile, don’t say a word about this, not even to your best friend.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t want to upset people, do you?”

“That isn’t the reason,” I said. “You’re thinking that only he and I and Vicky and you know about it so far.”

“You’ve stated it,” he said. “Now I’d suggest you try to get a good night’s sleep.”

I was certain I wouldn’t sleep. But I did. With Vicky in the spare room in case Penny woke, and a cop outside watching the house, I fell headlong into a deep pit of exhaustion the minute my head hit the pillow.

A bright sun was smiling outside my window when I awoke, but I didn’t smile back.

I lay there with a bitter taste in my mouth and a sore head. I thought of how close I’d been to him last night, and I writhed inwardly. The whole thing came flooding back to me, and I forgot how afraid I’d been of dying, how helpless after he’d hit me without warning that first time. I burned with remorse that I’d done no better.

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