A Century of Great Suspense Stories

So Young, So Fair, So Dead John Lutz

The old-fashioned private eye just plumb wore out back in the seventies. The trench coat was frayed, the constant boozing had become a serious medical problem, and there were so many dollies a guy needed Viagra, which, alas, hadn’t been invented yet. It was at this time that a few gifted writers, such as John Lutz, took a look at the genre and said,“This has got to change.” Alo Nudger was Lutz’s first entry in the neo-private-eye sweepstakes, and boy, was he a good one. Alo doesn’t try to conquer life’s vicissitudes with swill and swagger; he simply hopes to survive them — with a lot of help from his endless supply of Turns. Fred Carver came along after that. Fred is a kind of James Joycean P.I., a Portrait of a Middle-Aged Shamus. He is all the things a private eye isn’t supposed to be: generally confused; frequently unnerved; and unfailingly in need of donuts, sympathy, and various kinds of medication for his various physical ailments. All this is rendered in very nice prose, and with a worldview that occasionally reads like St. Francis of Assisi with a hangover. Lutz is also a true short-story master. He has an Edgar to prove it, and even if he didn’t, this story, like dozens of others, would say it just as clearly.

You can live your life through and try hard to be a decent sort, but trouble might still come to you. That’s the way it seems to have been with me. My trouble was never the direct result of what I did, but the product of others. Neighbours especially. My advice is, don’t ever get too friendly with your neighbors. I had to learn that the hard way.

Adelaide and I finished moving into our new house on a Sunday. That Monday I managed to stay away from the office and helped her sort the contents of cardboard boxes and move furniture about. We were both very happy that day, for we’d worked and saved for a long time to be able to afford our own home built here in the beautiful rolling hills south of the smoke-palled city. Here the air was clear as crystal and the view was the best nature had to offer.

And the house itself was what we’d always wanted. Though not large, it was well built with excellent materials and designed with a tasteful touch of miniature elegance. Adelaide and I took a walk around our green property before dark that evening and admired the way the wood-shingled house seemed to blend so well with the forest-like setting.

Of course the best thing about the house and the property was that it was ours. I’d worked hard to build up my own mail order business, Smathers Enterprises, and Mr. and Mrs. Will Smathers were comparatively well heeled for a couple in their early thirties who’d started married life on practically nothing.

Adelaide stopped strolling and gazed down the narrow blacktop road that fronted our property. I stood off and admired her delicate features and shining blonde hair, the weight of her lithe, graceful body resting on one slender leg. Adelaide, too, blended well with the natural surroundings. She was a natural beauty, the type makeup couldn’t improve.

“I wonder about our neighbor,” she said.

I moved next to her, slipping my arm about her waist. From where we stood we could see the nearest home through a break in the heavy green of the trees. A large brick home with a swimming pool behind it, it was the only house within a mile of us in either direction. I could just see the top of a small beach house near the pool. Within plain view near the attached two-car garage was a long, expensive blue convertible.

“Whoever our neighbor is,” I said, “he has money.”

“It certainly looks that way.”

“On the other hand, he may be mortgaged up to his neck.”

We stood for a moment longer looking down at the big house before going back inside. I say looking down because our home was situated high on one of the hills, and the blacktop road snaked sharply downward for the next two or three miles as it meandered like a still tributary to the Red Fox River.

I suppose I had no business saying anything about how our neighbor might have his property mortgaged. We’d gone into debt heavily to buy our own home. But the business was going well, and promised to continue to do so, and there was no reason we shouldn’t be happy now and pay as we went along.

And in a way owing on the house could be a good thing. Once we were in it I knew we’d never give it up unless we absolutely had to, and it might serve as a spur to help make me work even harder.

But all the house motivated me to do that day was leave the office early so I could get home to enjoy living there with Adelaide. As I drove up the winding driveway I wondered when I’d get over the feeling that this was someone else’s charming home I was approaching and not my own.

Adelaide knew I was coming home early and had dinner in the oven. She fixed us each a drink while we were waiting and we sat in the disarranged living room.

“I don’t know when we’ll ever get things the way we want them,” Adelaide said, glancing around at the mess.

I grinned at her and took a sip of my Scotch and water, admiring her fresh good looks in the plain housedress she did so much for. “There’s plenty of time.”

“I suppose so.” She sighed with contentment and settled back in her chair. “I saw our neighbor today,” she said.

“Did he drop by to introduce himself?”

“No, but you can see the house from our bedroom window upstairs. When I looked out this afternoon I noticed a man swimming in the pool. He had a guest, a girl in a purple bikini who stayed there most of the day, then drove away in a little sports car.”

I had to laugh. If Adelaide had any faults at all, one of them would be that she was a trifle nosy. “Are you going to stare a dossier on them?” I asked jokingly.

“Not yet,” she said with a smile. “And it’s not ‘them’, it’s ‘him’. The man seems to live there alone.”

“Big house for a single man,” I remarked, “though it sounds like he has his fun there.”

A timer bell sounded in the kitchen and Adelaide put down her drink and stood. I walked behind her as she hurried into the kitchen to check on the dinner.

“You keep an eye on him and keep me posted,” I said, rubbing the back of my hand playfully up the nape of her neck. She didn’t answer and I kept quiet. Experience had taught me to joke only so far about Adelaide’s feminine curiosity.

Though without any prompting she had another tidbit of information for me the next evening when I returned home.

“Our neighbor seems to be something of a swinger,” she said. “There was a girl in a red bikini there today.”

“Same girl, different bikini,” I speculated.

Adelaide shook her head. “The first one was a tall brunette. Today it was a short blonde.”

I smiled and shrugged. “His sister?”

“I doubt it,” Adelaide said, and drew a miniature bronze rooster from the carton.

“I’m sure we’ll find out more about him,” I said. “He’ll probably turn up at our door one of these days soon to introduce himself. Could be he doesn’t even realize there’s anybody living here yet.” Silently I wondered if he’d plant a shade tree between us and his pool when he did find out. Then for the next few hours I was busy helping Adelaide finish the job of unpacking and thought about little else.

But that night my own curiosity about our neighbor was aroused when I walked across the bedroom to close the drapes.

As my hand reached for the pull cord my eye caught the flash of a revolving red light in the distance. I leaned forward and squinted into the darkness, and I saw that a police car was parked in our neighbor’s driveway beside his long blue convertible.

As I watched another car pulled up behind that one. In the reflection of its headlights I could see that it was a plain gray sedan. Two men got out of it and went into the house without knocking.

A hand touched my shoulder and Adelaide was standing beside me.

“Now who’s nosy?” she asked.

I didn’t answer, and we stood there for a while and watched shadows cross the distant draped windows. Then the two men and a uniformed policeman came out of the house. They got into their respective cars, the red light on the patrol car was turned off, and both cars left together. A few minutes later the windows of the house went black and Adelaide and I were staring at nothing.

“What do you think?” Adelaide asked as we turned away from the window.

“It could have been a lot of things,” I said. “Maybe the police were called because somebody was sick. Maybe the two men in the plain car were doctors. Maybe our neighbor thought he saw a prowler. I guess if we really wanted to find out the thing to do would be to ask him.”

The next evening I got in the car and drove down the road to do just that.

“It’s because I’m a burglar,” our neighbor answered me amiably.

I stood there and blinked, twice. I’d introduced myself when he’d answered the door, and he’d introduced himself as Jack Hogan and invited me inside and offered me a drink. After a few minutes’ exploratory conversation with the tanned and handsome man, I’d gotten around to asking him about the commotion at his house we’d witnessed last night, offering our help if anything was wrong.

“The police were here to harass me,” Jack Hogan went on. “Lieutenant Faber and his friends. I humor the lieutenant because I understand he acts out of frustration.”

“But if you’re innocent—” I said in a rather dumbfounded way.

“But I’m not innocent,” Hogan said freely, his gray eyes as sincere as his voice. “Though if you tell anyone I said so I’ll deny it. Lieutenant Faber knows I’m guilty, but he can’t do anything about it because I’m too smart for him. That’s the fun of it.”

I didn’t know if Hogan was joking or not. When I took a sip of my drink some of it spilled on my hand.

“A burglary was committed a few nights ago,” Hogan said, offering me his neatly folded handkerchief to dry my fingers. “They know I did it but they don’t know how, or what I did with the loot. Oh, they come and search here every now and then, but we both know they won’t find anything. And if a young lady is prepared to testify that I spent the time of the robbery in her presence, where does it all leave poor Lieutenant Faber?”

“Where I am, I suppose,” I said. “Confused.”

“Well, no need to be confused. I say what’s the sense of getting away with something if nobody knows about it? Surely you can understand that. Then too, there’s the profit. Burglary is a thriving business. How else could I afford all this, living alone in a ten-room house with a pool, nights on the town, flashy women, flashy cars? A wonderful life. I admit to you, I need all that.”

“Then, in a way, it’s all a game,” I said slowly.

“Of course it’s a game. Everybody plays his own game. I just admit mine because I’m good enough to get by with it even though it is illegal.”

“But it’s wrong,” I said, trying to bat down his clearly stated logic.

“Sure, it’s wrong,” Hogan said, “but so’s cheating on your income tax, overcharging the public if you’re a big corporation, leaving a penny for a paper when you don’t have a dime. To tell you the truth, I don’t worry about right or wrong.”

“I guess you don’t.”

“You see,” Hogan explained earnestly, “it’s the challenge, I like nice things; I indulge myself. When I see something of value I take it. I guess I have to take it.”

“Kleptomania on a grand scale, huh?”

“Hey, you might say that!” He raised his glass and grinned.

I finished my drink and got up to leave, Hogan walked with me to the door. On the porch I noticed that the long blue, convertible was gone, replaced by an even longer and more expensive tan convertible. Hogan saw me looking at the car.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s not stolen and it doesn’t belong to a girl I have hidden in the house. You didn’t interrupt anything and I can afford to trade cars any time I feel like it. Say,” he said, pointing at the long car, “how do you like it?”

“Beautiful,” I said.

“Sure, and it cost a hunk of cash. Well, drop by again, why don’t you? Bring the wife and we’ll take a dip in the pool.”

I walked down the driveway to where my car was parked. I didn’t know what to think of our new neighbor. I was sure he wasn’t joking, and I must admit I reacted as a lot of people would react. There was a sense of resentment in me that the things I worked so hard for, this man simply went out and took. And yet I found that I couldn’t really dislike Jack Hogan. I waved to him as I started the engine and drove away.

When I told Adelaide about the visit she didn’t believe me. I didn’t blame her.

“You’d have to talk to him to understand how he thinks,” I told her. “You might describe him as an honest crook.”

“An honest crook?”

“Well, honest about being crooked, anyway.”

That confused Adelaide almost as much as I was confused, so I had a snack, went over some work I’d brought home, then went to bed.

Neither Adelaide or myself mentioned our neighbor for a while as we busied ourselves about our new home. Though I noticed that Adelaide kept a pair of binoculars in the bedroom now, and she often left the house to drive past the Hogan residence and look more closely at it, I suppose to check for bikini-clad guests and sports cars. Still, I don’t think she really completely believed what I’d told her about Jack Hogan until Lieutenant Faber called on us one Saturday afternoon.

Adelaide and I were working in the garden she’d planted when the lieutenant drove up in his gray sedan. I stood leaning on my hoe and watched him approach. He was a harried-looking man who appeared to be in his mid-forties. His straight graying hair was combed to the side over his forehead and the breeze mussed it as his lined face broke into its emotionless, professional smile. Even before he introduced himself I knew who he was.

“I hope we haven’t done anything wrong,” Adelaide said, returning the bland smile with one that shone.

“Wrong? No,” Lieutenant Faber said. “Actually I’m a city detective and have no authority out here in the county anyway.”

“And yet you drove out here to talk to us,” I said thoughtfully.

“I don’t speak officially, Mr. Smathers,” Faber said in his tired, hoarse voice. “Anything I say to you folks is off the record.” He got out a cigar and lit it expertly against the breeze. “How you getting along with your neighbor down the road?”

“You mean the burglar?” I’d decided it was time to stop circling.

“You said it, not me,” Lieutenant Faber said.

“Actually Mr. Hogan said it. He didn’t seem to mind admitting that fact to me at all.”

“Oh, he admits it, all right,” the lieutenant said in a voice suddenly filled with frustration, “but not to anybody who can do anything about it or prove he even said it. I could tell you some things about your neighbor that would really surprise you.”

“You mean he really is a burglar?” Adelaide asked suddenly.

“Ask him,” Lieutenant Faber said. “He’ll tell you. Not that we can get anything on him. We know but we can’t prove.”

“He told me he was clever,” I said.

Lieutenant Faber nodded bitterly. “He’s been clever enough so far. We know exactly how he operates — in fact, he always seems to go to some trouble to let us know he’s the one who pulled his jobs, but pinning him down’s another thing. He gets rid of the loot so fast and secretly we can’t get him there, and usually he knows where to find big sums of cash that can’t be traced. As far as alibis are concerned, there’s always some girl who’s willing to testify that he was with her at his house or her apartment or some motel. We can’t watch him twenty-four hours a day.” The lieutenant added with an undeniable touch of envy, “He seems to have an endless supply of girls.”

“He is rather handsome,” Adelaide said, and when we looked at her she blushed slightly. “I mean, he would be to a certain type of woman.”

“The type he’s handsome to will lie for him,” Faber said, “that’s for sure. He must have something working for him.”

“Money,” I said. “If used properly money will buy almost anything, and Hogan strikes me as the kind who knows how to use his wealth.”

“That’d be okay,” Lieutenant Faber said, “only it’s other people’s wealth. Just last week we know — off the record, of course — that he burglarized over three thousand in cash and five thousand in loot from the home of J. Grestom, president of Grestom Chemical.”

“Isn’t that the plant about four miles from here?” Adelaide asked. “The one that dumps all that sludge into the Red Fox River?”

“The same,” Lieutenant Faber said, “one of the biggest operations of its kind in the state.”

“Sounds like Robin Hood,” I remarked.

“Yeah,” the lieutenant said without amusement, “Hogan steals from the rich, only he doesn’t give to anybody.”

“From talking to him,” I said, “my impression is that it’s all a big game to him.”

“A game where other people get hurt, and a game I’m tired of playing. Hogan’s a crook like all crooks. He’s one of the world’s takers. He’s a kid and the world’s one big candy shop with a dumb proprietor.”

I thought good manners dictated me not pointing out who that dumb proprieter must be in Hogan’s mind.

“Do you think you ever will catch him?” Adelaide asked.

Lieutenant Faber nodded. “We always do in the end. He’ll make a mistake, and we’ll be there to notice when he does.”

“He seemed awfully confident,” I said.

“Confident?” Faber snorted with disgust. “Confident’s not the word. Brass is more like it! About six months ago he burglarized the payroll office of a company downtown when their safe was full—”

“You mean he’s a safe-cracker too?” I interrupted.

“No, he stole the whole blasted safe. It was one of those little boxes that should have been bolted to the floor from the inside but wasn’t. The worst thing is that two nights later the safe turned up empty in the middle of a place that manufactures burglar alarms — bolted to the floor!”

“It really is a game with him, isn’t it?” I said.

Adelaide was laughing quietly. “You must admit he’s good at his game.”

“And we’re good at ours!” The lieutenant’s face was flushed.

“I’m sure you didn’t drive up here just to inform us that we’re living next to a police character,” I said. By that time I was certain I’d figured out the reason for Lieutenant Faber’s visit. I was right.

“What I’d like,” he said, “is for you to sort of keep an eye on Hogan’s house. Not spy, mind you, just keep an eye on.” He drew on his cigar and awaited an answer.

I took a lazy swat at the earth with the edge of the hoe blade. “I don’t see anything wrong with us telling you if anything odd goes on there,” I said, “under the circumstances.”

Faber exhaled smoke and handed me a white card with his name and telephone extension number. “Hogan’s not used to having neighbors,” he said. “That’s why he bought the house he’s in. He might forget about you and make a slip. Do you have a pair of binoculars or a telescope?”

I looked at Adelaide and winked so the lieutenant couldn’t see me. “I think I have an old pair somewhere.” That somewhere was on the edge of Adelaide’s dresser, where the powerful field glasses could be used by her at a moment’s notice.

“Well, it’s been nice to meet you folks,” Lieutenant Faber said, “and it’s good of you to help. Your police department thanks you.” Again he shot us his mechanical smile, then turned and walked toward his car.

Adelaide and I stood and watched until he’d turned from the driveway and was gone from sight.

“Now you can really play Mata Hari,” I said, going back to my hoeing.

Adelaide didn’t answer as she bent down and applied the spade to the broken ground.

I left the spying — as I’d come to think of it — pretty much up to Adelaide. She spent a lot of time sitting at the bedroom window, her elbows resting on the sill as she peered intently through the field glasses. But at the end of two weeks she hadn’t noticed anything really noteworthy, just the comings and goings of a high-living young bachelor of wealth.

She was sitting concentrating through the glasses one afternoon when the doorbell chimed. I rose from where I was lying on the bed reading and went downstairs to answer it.

When the door swung open there was Jack Hogan, dressed in swimming trunks and smiling, with a brightly colored striped towel slung about his neck.

“How about taking me up on that swimming invitation now?” he asked. “The temperature’s over ninety, so I thought it’d be a good time.”

I was a little surprised to see him, a little off balance. “Uh, sure, if it’s okay with Adelaide,” I stepped back. “Come on in and I’ll ask her.”

When I went upstairs Adelaide was still at the window with her eyes pressed to the binoculars.

“Jack Hogan’s downstairs,” I said. “He wants to know if we’ll go swimming with him in his pool.”

Adelaide turned abruptly and looked up at me, her eyes wide and appearing even wider due to the red circles about them left by the binoculars. “But I thought he was in his beach house! I’ve been waiting for him to come out!”

“You’ll wait a long time, darling. He’s in our living room. Do you want to go?”

“Swimming? Do you?”

“I don’t see why we shouldn’t. It is a hot day.” I changed quickly into my swimming trunks and went downstairs to tell Jack Hogan we’d be ready to go as soon as Adelaide had changed.

Adelaide had on her skimpiest black bikini when she came downstairs. I saw Hogan look with something like momentary shock at her tanned and shapely body.

This was the first time they’d met, at least close up. After introductions we drove to Hogan’s house in his long tan convertible. Seated beside him was an amply proportioned blonde who looked as if she might have been used to model the car on TV. He introduced her as Prudence, which I didn’t think fitted, and we were on our way.

As we splashed around, drank highballs and got better acquainted, I found that I liked Jack Hogan, thought I must still admit to some jealousy and distaste that he could come by all he had so easily while I worked so hard for less. What surprised me was that Adelaide seemed to like Hogan too. Adelaide had had a father who’d deserted her, who’d been much like Hogan, free spending and dishonest. She had hated him until the day he died, perhaps still hated his memory. And yet from time to time I could see some of her father in Adelaide, under the surface of the careful, thrifty and loving woman she really was. I saw some of that wildness and daring now as she stood on Hogan’s tanned shoulders and let him flip her out and into the deep water.

When we got out of the pool and went inside for snacks I noticed an expensive-looking, lewd silver statuette of Bacchus on a low table in the entrance hall. It could hardly escape my attention because Jack Hogan flicked it with his finger as we walked past.

“I stole that earlier this year,” he said, “or rather one just like it. The stolen one had the owner’s name engraved on the bottom, so I sold it and used the proceeds to buy this exact duplicate. Lieutenant Faber really thought he had me when he discovered that statue sitting there, but when we checked for the owner’s engraving it wasn’t there, and I could hardly have removed it without any trace. It drove the lieutenant almost wild.” Hogan chuckled as he led us into the large kitchen with an attached dining area.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you,” Adelaide said to Hogan with a bewildered little laugh.

Prudence, the busty blonde, popped a potato chip with cheese dip into her mouth. “Oh, there isn’t anyone else like Jackie!”

I could only agree as I mixed myself another highball.

From the time of the little impromptu swimming party on, I began to notice things. It seemed to me that Adelaide spent more and more time spying from the window for Lieutenant Faber. And she found excuses to drive into the city more and more often. And on occasions when I came home from work I noticed that her hair near the base of her skull appeared damp. Did I only imagine the faint scent of chlorine those evenings as she served dinner?

It seemed, too, that Adelaide and I were caught up in more and more domestic quarrels, and we’d seldom quarreled before. She accused me of having ignored her through the years, spending all my free time and weekends working.

It didn’t take long for me to be ninety percent sure that Adelaide and Jack Hogan were conducting an affair behind my back. But would I ever be more than ninety percent sure? Hogan managed his love life as he did his burglaries, with such practiced skill that the victims of his callousness could only suspect but never prove, maybe not even to themselves. For a long time I deliberated before taking any action.

There was never any doubt in my mind that I would take some sort of action. I couldn’t allow things to go on as they were, and I felt confident that I could do something about them. A man who’s hard to best in business is hard to best in any other phase of life.

What I finally did was go to see Lieutenant Faber.

The lieutenant’s office was small, littered and dirty. There were no windows, and dented gray file-cabinets stood behind the cluttered desk where Lieutenant Faber sat. As I entered he glanced up with his uneasy, weary look — then managed to smile at me.

“Have a seat, Mr. Smathers,” he said, motioning toward a chair with a tooth-marked yellow pencil. “I take it you’ve come here because you know something about Jack Hogan.” I couldn’t help but notice the hope in his voice.

“In a way that’s why I’m here,” I said, and watched the wariness creep into the lieutenant’s narrow eyes as he settled back in his desk chair.

“What is it that you observed?” he asked.

“Nothing that really pertains to his burglaries, Lieutenant. In fact, nothing of use to you at all.”

Faber let the pencil drop onto the desk top with a resonant little clatter. “Why don’t we talk straight to each other, Mr. Smathers? Save time, yours as well as mine.”

“All right, I came here to ask you for a favor.”

“Favor?” His gray eyebrows rose slowly.

“Yes,” I said, “I wonder if you could arrange for me to have some infrared binoculars. I think most of what goes on at Hogan’s house happens after dark, and it would help if I could see through that darkness.”

Lieutenant Faber rolled his tongue to one side of his mouth and looked thoughtful. “Seems like a good idea,” he said. “I can get you the field glasses within a few days.”

“Fine. Should I pick them up here?”

“If you’d like.” Lieutenant Faber looked even more thoughtful. “What is it you think you’re going to see at night?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Who knows? That’s why I want the infrared binoculars.” I stood to leave.

“I’ll give you a telephone call when you can pick them up,” the lieutenant said, standing behind his desk.

“Call me at my office,” I told him, “anytime during the day.”

“Why not your home?”

“Because my office would be more convenient.”

He came from around the desk and walked with me to the door. “Mr. Smathers,” he said in a confidential voice, “I want Jack Hogan any way I can get him. Do you understand?”

“I thought you wanted him that badly,” I said as I went out.

That very evening, when I awoke after dozing off while watching television, I found a gold cigarette lighter beneath the sofa cushions. During my sleep my hand had gotten itself wedged between the cushions, and when I freed it my fingertips had just brushed the hard, smooth surface.

When I rolled back the cushion I saw the lighter, with the initials J. H. engraved on it. I knew it would also have J. H.’s fingerprints on it, so I lifted it gently by the corners and slipped it into my breast pocket before Adelaide came into the room.

Lieutenant Faber telephoned my office in the middle of the week to say I could drop by headquarters and pick up the infrared binoculars. So I wouldn’t waste any valuable working time, I drove to see him on my lunch hour.

The binoculars were in a small case sitting on the edge of his desk. I sat down and examined them and he shoved a receipt across the desk top for me to sign.

“You suspect Jack Hogan is seeing your wife, don’t you?” he said in a testing voice.

I didn’t look at him as I hastily scrawled my signature on the pink receipt. “Yes, and I want to know for sure.”

“And what happens if you do find out they’re seeing each other?”

I handed the receipt back to him and rested the binoculars in my lap. “What would happen if a burglary was committed and evidence pointing to Hogan was found at the scene?”

“Then all we’d have to worry about would be breaking down his customary alibi.”

“And if he had no alibi? If he was actually home alone at the time of the burglary but couldn’t prove it because of a witness’s testimony that he saw him leave then return?”

Lieutenant Faber ran his tongue over his dry lips. “That’s what I’ve been waiting for, only Hogan has never dropped a clue in his life.”

Gingerly I reached into my pocket and dropped the gold cigarette lighter with Jack Hogan’s initials onto Faber’s desk. As he reached for it I grabbed his hand.

“I think you’ll find it has Hogan’s fingerprints on it.”

Lieutenant Faber leaned back away from the cigarette lighter as if it were something that might explode. I saw his glance dart to his office door to make sure it was closed, and at that moment I was very sure of him.

“Where did you get it?” he asked.

“Under the sofa cushions in my home.”

“And you’re giving it to me?”

I nodded. “And I don’t require a receipt.”

Lieutenant Faber slowly unwrapped the cellophane wrapper from one of his cigars. As he held a match to the cigar he looked at me over the rising and falling flame. Then he flattened the cellophane wrapper, slid it deftly beneath the gold lighter and placed both lighter and cellophane in his desk drawer.

“For the next three weekends,” I said, “I plan to tell my wife I have to leave town on business from Thursday evening until Monday morning. Instead I’ll stay at a motel outside of town, and I’ll spend my nights on a hillside watching Hogan’s house.”

“From Thursday night to Monday morning,” Lieutenant Faber repeated slowly.

“When you find the right burglary case, call me at the motel, and I’ll tell you if Hogan was home alone that night. Then you ‘discover’ the lighter at the scene of the crime and I testify that I saw Hogan drive away and that he was gone during the time the robbery was committed.”

“One thing,” Lieutenant Faber said. “What if...?”

“That’s possible,” I told him, “but Adelaide will hardly be in a position to say she was at Hogan’s house all night, will she? Especially considering the fact that she knows he’s a burglar anyway and deserve to be caught. She can’t afford to be like his swinging single alibis.”

Lieutenant Faber nodded and I stood and carefully tucked the binocular case beneath my arm.

“I’ll let you know what motel I’ll be staying at,” I said to him as I started to leave.

“Smathers.” He stopped me. “I want you to know I’m doing this because of what I think of Hogan. He’s a—”

And the lieutenant told me in the purplest language I’d ever heard just what he thought of Jack Hogan.

I will say Adelaide put on a good act. When I told her about my upcoming business trips she acted convincingly upset by the idea of being left alone. She even stood in the doorway and waved wistfully after me as I got into a cab for the drive to the airport.

Only I didn’t go to the airport. I had the cabbie drive me to a car rental agency where I rented a compact sedan. Then I drove to Sleepy Dan’s Motel and checked in. If I worked it right, I could write all this off as business expenses. And I was smart enough to have set up a plan that would require me to miss only three days, Fridays, in three weeks at the office. I could even sneak in and do some work on Sunday when no one was there if need be. I congratulated myself on my cleverness as I lay down to get a little sleep before sunset.

The spot I’d picked was perfect, a small clearing on the side of a hill from where I could look directly down at Hogan’s large house and grounds. The powerful binoculars brought everything near to me, and the infrared lenses eliminated the darkness as a problem. The night was warm, and I unbuttoned my shirt and settled back to watch until morning.

There were no results that first week. Lieutenant Faber sounded disappointed when I told him on the phone of Jack Hogan’s activities. A burglary had been committed that would have been perfect for our purposes, but I had to tell him that at the time Hogan wasn’t home and I didn’t know where he’d gone. Lieutenant Faber suggested hopefully that he might have gone to my house, but I quickly told him he could rule that out. My house was in view from where I watched also. We decided to wait for an opportunity we could be absolutely sure of.

The second week that I stationed myself on the hillside something did happen. My wife’s affair with Jack Hogan was confirmed beyond even the slightest doubt.

It was about midnight when I saw the headlights turn from the road into Hogan’s driveway. As I pressed the binoculars to my eyes and adjusted the focus dial, I saw that it was Adelaide’s car that had pulled into Hogan’s big double garage to park alongside his convertible. He stepped out onto the porch and met her, and they kissed for an embarrassingly long time before going inside. A few hours later I saw them emerge from the house and go for a late night swim. I didn’t want to watch that, so I lowered the binoculars and sat feeling the numbness in me give way to a smoldering rage.

The next night nothing happened. Hogan spent the entire night alone, going to bed about ten o’clock. I suppose he was tired.

That afternoon Lieutenant Faber called me at the motel. A residence in the west end had been burglarized the night before, smoothly and professionally. There were no clues of any kind.

I told him that Hogan had spent the night home alone. The burglary had to have taken place during the early morning hours, so we agreed that I would say I saw Hogan leave in his convertible at two-thirty a.m. and return at five. Tomorrow morning, when Lieutenant Faber returned to question the victim and re-examine the scene of the crime, he would “find” the gold lighter, and the frame around Jack Hogan would be complete.

There was really no reason to go back that third night, but the silent rage had grown in me along with my curiosity. And I suppose it gave me some small sense of power, to be able to watch them without them knowing. It kept me from being a complete fool, and while Hogan didn’t know it, he had only one more night of freedom.

All that dark, hot night Adelaide didn’t arrive at Hogan’s home. The windows of the big ranch house were dark, the grounds silent. Around me the crickets chirped madly as if protesting the heat as I sat staring intently through the binoculars.

Then a light came on in one of the windows, the window I knew to be Jack Hogan’s bedroom. After a while a downstairs light came on too, and both lights stayed on. I looked at my watch. Four-thirty.

He must have telephoned her. At twenty to five Adelaide turned her car into Hogan’s driveway. This time after she pulled her car into the garage Hogan came out and lowered the door, for the sun would soon rise. I watched as he put his arm around her and they went into the house.

The sun came up amid orange streaks on the horizon, turning the heat of night into an even more intense heat.

Then I heard a door slam off in the distance, and I scanned, then focused the binoculars on Adelaide in her skimpy black bikini. Hogan was beside her with a towel draped over his shoulder. He flicked her playfully with the towel and she laughed and dived into the pool, and he laughed and jumped in after her.

I watched them for about twenty minutes before I came to my decision.

Jack Hogan had always freely admitted being a burglar. Now I intended to play his game, to tell him openly what was going to happen to him, so that he’d know he’d been outsmarted. Let the knowledge that he couldn’t prove his innocence torment him. Let him suffer as he’d made Lieutenant Faber suffer, as he’d made his burglary victims suffer. As he’d made me suffer. I placed the binoculars in their case, stood and clambered down the hillside to where the car was parked.

Then it occurred to me that Hogan might give me a rough time once he realized he was cornered, so I drove by my house first and got my forty-five caliber revolver from my dresser drawer.

They were sitting in lounge chairs alongside the pool when I approached, Adelaide leaning forward and Hogan rubbing suntan lotion onto her back.

“How’s the water?” I asked calmly.

They whirled, surprised, then Hogan smiled. “It’s great,” he said jauntily. “I’ve invited Adelaide over here before for an early morning swim, but this is the first time she’s come.”

“I know better,” I said, watching Adelaide trying to control the fear and guilt that marked her features. At last she managed a facsimile of a poker face.

“Know better?” Hogan was still playing innocent.

“Yes, and now there are a few things I want you to know. There was a burglary committed night before last in the west end. No clues yet.”

Hogan appeared puzzled. “So what? I was home in bed all that night.”

“For the last several weekends I’ve been spying on you from that hillside,” I said. “Lieutenant Faber gave me infrared binoculars to use at night. I’m going to swear that I saw you leave and return at the time that burglary took place.”

“You can’t!” Adelaide said in a high voice.

“Quiet, dear.” I looked again at Hogan. He was grinning.

“Your word against mine, old pal. I’ve beat that one before.”

“I believe you lost your initialed gold cigarette lighter,” I said. “It has your fingerprints on it and it’s going to be found at the scene of the crime.”

Now anger showed on Hogan’s handsome face. “By Lieutenant Faber, would be my guess.”

“Your guess is correct. We’re framing you and sending you to prison, to put it plainly.”

“As I’ve always put it, huh?”

I nodded and couldn’t help a faint, gloating smile. Hogan’s game and he was getting beat at it. “Lieutenant Faber told me you were one of the world’s takers,” I said. “Well, I’m one of the world’s keepers. I don’t give up what I have easily.”

“Faber was right about that,” Hogan said frankly. “I’m a taker. I can’t see something of value without taking it.”

“Something like Adelaide?”

“Exactly.”

“Your mistake,” I said tauntingly, “was in trying to take something from me. I’ll think of you from time to time when you’re in prison.” I turned to go home, leaving Adelaide to return when she felt like it.

“It won’t work,” her voice said behind me.

I turned around and saw that the fear and surprise had left Adelaide’s face completely to be replaced by a look of determination.

“And why won’t it work?” I asked.

“Because I’ll swear in court that I spent that entire night with Jack.”

I started to laugh incredulously at her, but the laugh wouldn’t come out. “But you were at home.”

“Alone,” Adelaide said. “You could never prove it. I’ll swear I was here instead.”

“You’d swear to that in a courtroom, under oath?” I stared at her, feeling the sun on the back of my moist shirt. “But why?”

“I don’t think you’d understand.”

“Now listen!”

“Nothing more to listen to, or say,” Adelaide said, and as a pretense for getting away from me she turned and walked toward the diving board.

Hogan lowered himself into the shallow water with an infuriating smile. “Nothing more to say, old pal. Sorry.” And he actually looked as if he might be sorry, the gracious winner.

The sun seemed to grow hotter, unbearably hot, sending beads of sweat darting down my flesh inside my shirt. I looked up and saw Adelaide poised gracefully on the end of the diving board, tanned and beautiful in her tiny swimming suit as she carefully avoided a glance in my direction.

How the revolver got from my pocket into my hand I honestly don’t know. I have no recollection of it, a magician’s trick. And I don’t remember pulling the trigger.

Adelaide was raising her arms, preparing to dive, when the gun roared in my hand as if of its own will. I saw Adelaide’s body jerk, saw the spray of blood, heard the scream as she half fell — half jumped awkwardly from the diving board, arms and legs thrashing as she struck the water. Then there was a choking sound and she stopped thrashing and floated motionless face up.

Hogan stroked toward the ladder, a look not of shock or horror on his face, but an expression that suggested he might be very sick. “Oh, God, Smathers!” he said as he started to climb the chrome ladder. I let him get to the second step before blasting him back into the pool.

I stood there then, pulling the trigger automatically, emptying the revolver into their bodies.

Considering how large the pool was, it was amazing how quickly all the water turned red.

So now I’m sitting here awaiting trial, writing this to kill time, though I’m sure the hour will come when I’ll pray I had this time back. There isn’t any doubt in my mind that I’ll be convicted. They have my full confession, and now they’ll have this.

What concerns me is that all my life I’ve tried to be a decent sort of man, hard-working, industrious. I’m not very religious, but I have tried to live by the ten commandments, breaking them every now and then, of course, like everybody else. And yet if you went back and read over this again you could put your finger on spot after spot until you’d realize that between the four of us, me, Adelaide, Jack Hogan and Lieutenant Faber, in one way or another we’ve broken every single commandment.

Evil spreads, I suppose, like the red through the water in Hogan’s swimming pool.