The Black Series: Vol.1 by Cornell Woolrich

Author:Cornell Woolrich [Woolrich, Cornell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense, Noir, Pulp, mystery, race against the clock, escape, Crime, Murder, Cornell Woolrich, William Irish
Publisher: The Estate of Cornell Woolrich in collaboration with Renaissance Literary & Talent
Published: 2018-12-19T11:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

butterfield......9-8019......mason

ELLO. Who is this?”

The voice was vivid, tingling; it rushed at you. It was in a hurry. Not in the sense of “I’m busy; what do you want? Don’t bother me,” but eager, zestful, anxious to be on its way from the last interesting thing that had happened to it to the next interesting thing that was to happen to it. The sort of voice that only interesting things happened to. And if they weren’t already, it made them that way just by taking part. That kind of voice.

The first sip of a cocktail in it. The wind up at the prow of a motorboat in it. A walloping good dance tune in it, the kind that takes your feet and lifts them. The spanking bliss of the first gushing cascade when you turn on an ice-cold shower on a melting August day. The turn on a breakneck toboggan run in it. All those things in it. Everything that makes life swell in it. Everything that is life. What a voice.

I said, “I’m a friend of someone you know. I just got into town, and I’m giving you a ring, the way I promised I’d do.”

The voice was open, friendly, trustful; it took me at my word. It didn’t know how to be suspicious, that voice. “Who’s the somebody?”

That was it; who was the somebody?

“Somebody you haven’t seen in quite some time. Now, think.”

The voice fell in with me, helping to work its own undoing, so to speak. “Let’s see, whom haven’t I seen in quite some time?” There was a quickly mumbled name or two, discarded before I could quite make them out. Then, “It wouldn’t be Ed Lowrie, would it?”

I gave a little rill of laughter down the scale, meant to convey admission, capitulation. I let that stand by itself. I hadn’t said it was; if something went wrong I could still get out of it.

He said, “Well, what d’ye know?” as if marveling at this mark of attention on the part of a long-unseen friend. Then he said, “Where is he, still out there?”

I said, “He was the last I saw him. I came sort of a roundabout way myself.” But I laughed a little with it again. Not too much, just enough so I could still leave the way open, back out and say, “It wasn’t he, it was somebody else,” if I had to. This mustn’t go wrong. These opening stages were always the most important part of the whole thing until I could make contact and fasten myself onto them.

“You from out there yourself?” he asked.

“Certainly am.” Then, as if preparing to end the exchange, which was simply a trick in reverse to make him wish to prolong it, I said, “Well, now that I’ve done my duty I guess I may as well —” And I nicked the lip of the telephone mouthpiece with my nail to make the sound carry.

His voice quickened. “Hey, wait; you haven’t even given me your own name yet.

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