The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories Vol 5 by Ed Gorman Martin H Greenberg

Author:Ed Gorman, Martin H Greenberg [Ed Gorman, Martin H Greenberg]
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Ashley had a body to die for, and I should know. I’m on death row because of her.

You want to know the funny thing?

My wife bought me Ashley. For a birthday present.

I was turning sixty that July, and I could feel the cold wind at my neck. I wasn’t bad-looking for my age. I still had all my hair. But that semipermanent twenty pounds of lard around my gut had turned into thirty. I had chicken skin on the insides of my elbows, like an old geezer. And women didn’t give me appraising looks anymore.

Not that I need to look at other women. My Francie had kept her figure just fine. She was ten years younger than me, and worked out with a personal trainer. Recently, people had started asking if Francie was my daughter. I’d laughed it off, but it bothered me. I told Francie maybe she should dye her hair gray so she’d look her age. She said, “Maybe you should lose thirty pounds, Jake, so you’d look your age.”

I’d thought about going to the gym. We had a good one, right here on Sunnysea Beach, Florida, owned by a former pro linebacker. I’d see Jamal Wellington out running on the sand. You know those fake-heroic chests guys strap on so they look like gladiators? Jamal had a real chest like that, and arms and legs to match.

Francie and I had a beachfront condo about a mile from. Jamal’s Jym, but beach life makes you lazy. I never got around to walking down there. I’d think about joining the gym, but I’d always lie back down until the fitness fit passed. Instead, I’d pop another brew and watch another movie. I had a state-of-the-art entertainment system with five clickers (Francie put the clickers in a basket so I wouldn’t leave them lying around).

Now that I was retired, I had time to catch up on my movies. I’d been comparing the classic Bond films starring Sean Connery to the later ones with Roger Moore. In my opinion, Connery was the one true Bond. Moore looked like a Sears shirt model.

When Francie came home from work that night, I said, “You can’t trust movie critics. This so-called critic says For Your Eyes Only is a superior piece of escapism.”

“I don’t know what you need to escape,” snapped Francie, slamming her briefcase down on the kitchen table.

I could tell Francie was peeved, so I put down my beer and took her to the Beachside Bar for dinner. I thought she’d be happy she didn’t have to cook. Instead she glared at me when I mopped up my steak gravy with my butter bread. She got testy when I downed my third martini. By the time I ordered key lime pie with extra whipped cream, Francie was steaming. She didn’t say anything, but the air around her got dense and crackly, like she was generating her own personal thunderstorm.

Francie’s bad mood was gone by my sixtieth birthday, two days later. She smiled and slipped on her silky leopard-print robe I like so much.

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