Manhunt. Volume 6, Number 4, June, 1958

“My wife told me what you did,” Colby informed his partner. “Sit down and write out a suicide note...”

1

Colby tuned the record player down and went over and sat on the edge of the sofa where Lucy lay on her back, listening. Only a filter of dusk light came through the draped picture window, but she drew light to her like a jewel and her round, pert face was cleanly defined as he bent to kiss her forehead. When he sat up away from her he was aware of leaving the delicately scented cloud of warmth hovering over her body, and the air seemed chilly, flavorless. She blinked, waited, her dark, glossy eyes watching him. He mustn’t nag; she’d told him repeatedly she felt fine; she wasn’t sad, just serious.

“I... uh... just came to tell you I’m going to shower.”

“All right.”

He was reluctant to break the contact of his hip against the curve of her waist.

“You’re not ready to come in and start dressing for the dinner?”

“There’s time. Will you make it a little louder again?”

He returned gloomily to the bedroom. She usually frisked her delicious body around in scanties, tantalizing him beyond endurance, just for the pure hell of turning his logical theory into a shambles. Colby reasoned that because he was homely and dull and bound to be outshone socially by the other junior partners, he needed a certain edge of discontent, a crackle of excess energy. Therefore it would be unwise to make love, for he would feel too good afterward, and look stupidly smug. He had explained it once and Lucy had said: “If you’re all done talking you can start loving me, lover.” Which he had done. Since then there had been no discussion, and she simply went about the business of making herself irresistible. Colby stood feeling aimless and listened hopefully for the dance sound of her step. Maybe she was just teasing.

But there was nothing teasy about the big, pretty bedroom... no stray shoes, no disarray on her dressing table, no clutter on the chairs. In fact, for a week, the whole house had been tidy and subdued. He went in and turned on the shower and kicked off his slippers angrily. Her chaos exasperated him; but he was secretly proud of it, it gave him a sort of pleasantly wicked feel. Hell, he didn’t want her changed. He plodded, she flew. He only resisted her flightier impulses and emotionalism for her own protection. When he took her out he felt like the toad with the precious jewel on its head; she was the magic touch to his life. What hideous irony if instead of Lucy enlivening him he had ground her down to his own dismal, orderly level!

He tested the shower spray without getting in, then dried his hand, frowning. What kind of a man sulked around waiting to be seduced?

He shut off the music and knelt by the sofa. His hand felt coarse, thick, as he groped and found her softly graceful little hand.

“Baby... are you sure you’re all right...?”

“Vin, you promised to stop worrying about me. I’d tell you if anything was wrong, you know that.”

He suddenly yearned for the easy fluency he scorned in some of his colleagues. He was masterful at building solid cases but totally unable to present them in court.

“Lucy,” he began huskily, praying that the depth and sincerity of his feeling would force the words out. “I want you to know, Lucy...” Words, phrases, teemed profusely in his mind... but his tongue failed him, as always, as always... and this was why he was condemned to drone in the library and stay shunted into the background. “Lucy... I respect... adore... love...” he said, feeling an agony of unworthiness. “You’re everything worth anything... I’m nothing...”

She freed her hand, pressed her fingers to his lips. “I don’t like your forever criticizing yourself when you’re a million times better than you think.”

Something in her tone... not anger but impatience... made him cringe. How long before his contemptible unassertiveness turned a high-spirited girl’s sympathy to disgust? Maybe it had already happened. Abruptly, he stood on his knees and thrust his hands under her robed thighs and back. She pushed against him as he started to lift her on his arms, and he felt a run of tension through her slim, exciting body.

“What are you doing?... No... Please...”

His pulse quickened with the feel of her precious softness against the taut muscles of his arms and chest. He held her tight and got to his feet with her, an exultance of male strength flooding through him like a drug. She began to writhe and struggle and cry out in a sharp little voice.

“You’re hurting me... please...”

2

Entering the bedroom there was a bright glaze over his eyes. He neither knew nor cared if her struggle was genuine, the unaccustomed feel of it keened him wildly. She was holding her robe shut at the throat with one hand and pushing at him with the other, and she began to kick violently, exposing her legs to the knee, and one slipper flew off.

He lowered her to the bed. She clutched her robe and rolled frenziedly away from him. Colby moved with jungle-swift reflexes, pouncing as on a prey. He seized the arm nearest him and she gasped and lay as though felled, unresisting. He started across the bed toward her, releasing his hold on her arm. Abruptly she rolled herself clear off the bed, and scrambled to her feet.

“The light,” she said and started for the wall switch. He caught a flying corner of her robe, and felt it come off. He twisted his head, trying to glimpse her, but the light went off. He heard her returning to the bed, panting a little. “Darling,” she whispered, seating herself. “Darling...”

“Just a second...” He reached cautiously across and suddenly snapped on the bedlamp. Surprised, she tried to pull the overhang of the satin spread over her, while she stared at him.

He looked at her naked body in silent horror. Her upper arms were purpled with bruises; one soft breast was discolored with ugly marks as though crushed by the vicious grip of a hand; there were heavy slotches on her thighs and on the gentle round of her hip.

He felt suddenly paralyzed and so weak he could barely draw breath. Tenderness and revulsion gripped him alternately. He looked at her face without seeing her and then at the stamp of violence on her, saying nothing, his jaw dropped weakly open. He felt a little dizzy. His face had become very pale, his mouth chalk dry. He couldn’t say anything. She lay totally inert now, staring up at the ceiling. There was no sound in the room except the remote sizz of the forgotten shower. Her eyes welled and he saw the tears glide down her temple into the massed dark ringlets of hair, but she didn’t lift her hands. She just lay there, abused and shamed, crying silently, hopelessly and he wanted to cry with her and caress her and whisper his love, but there was a coldness in his breast, and he just waited, watching her.

She said nothing, nothing.

“Well?” he said finally. “Well?”

She didn’t even seem to hear. He got up, rammed into his robe and went to the kitchen where he poured some whisky. He brought it to her. She shook her head weakly, but he lifted her, made her drink. She coughed and pushed at the glass, then sat up crosslegged on the bed, her head down.

“It was last Thursday night. You were working on that brief. He came and got in...”

Colby blasted. “And you didn’t tell me, didn’t report it to the police. Did you get a good look? Lucy, Damn it... why did you try to hide this from me...” His guts clawed him and he stomped away from the bed, blindly, came back, his fists clenched as he stared grimly down at her crushed figure.

“The publicity... the scandal... what it would do to us, to your career, to have me dragged... dragged naked through the headlines...” She turned an anguished, pleading face up to him. “I thought I could bear it... save you from it... honest to God, Vin...” She caught his hand, tried to draw it to her face. He yanked away, then regretted it.

He petted her face, kissed it. “Sorry, baby. I know what you meant to do, and I love you for it. How did he get in?”

“I let him in. It wasn’t a stranger...” Her voice dropped so low he had to bend near and ask her to repeat. “It wasn’t... wasn’t a stranger?”

“Wasn’t a stranger?” he repeated stupidly.

“No. So of course I let him in. He’d been drinking, but I didn’t know how much. He made a pass. I slapped him. That made him worse, and I hit him harder and ran for the phone to call you, and he knocked it away, and I ran to the door and yelled at him to get out and he got mean... mean...”

“Who?” Colby said. “Who? He... He... He you say. WHO!”

“I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you,” she cried desperately. “But first let me tell you how and what happened, so you’ll believe me, and know that I did fight, that I didn’t want it to happen. He tortured and overpowered me...”

“That’s obvious to me. Why are you stalling... why have you been hiding it if there’s nothing guilty about it? Who?”

“He was scared afterward. He threatened. He stood over me for I don’t know how long, driving it into me what would happen if I let you know. He’d say it was an affair.”

“Affair!” Colby said contemptuously. “Bluff. I want Dr. Keech to look at you so he’ll be prepared to swear...”

“Wait. Listen to me. I did go to Dr. Keech, but he said he’d claim I required abuse from a lover...”

“It wasn’t the doctor who said that.”

“No, of course. You know who I mean...”

“That’s just what I don’t know.”

“Well... it was Windy. Windy Tearle. That’s who it was. I swear that’s who it was. I swear!”

“I believe you. Why overemphasize? Go on. Keep talking,” he said, turning away. He began to dress rapidly.

“If I let you know and you took him to court he would hire a psychiatrist to explain masochism, and Windy would swear that’s what I was. He’d bring friends in to claim they too had... had made love to me... or that I’d tried to get them. Windy said it was common knowledge that men flocked to me at parties, dinners, the country club... and for a better reason than my public charm. Vin, that’s a lie...”

“I know. Go on,” he said tightly, continued dressing.

“He said any jury would take one look at me and see a high-stepper, and one look at you and see... well, a not high-stepper... and they’d look at him and snort at the idea he would have to rape any woman...”

Colby nodded involuntarily. Windy was handsome, and the easy charm and magnetism that made him an effective trial lawyer made him damned attractive to women. Unwillingly Colby remembered Windy and Lucy dancing together... a very attractive team. Others had seen it; Colby himself had realized it.

“His defense would hammer on that point,” Lucy went on. “That I was a thrill-seeker... and he was the thrill, and that I had pestered him for months on end. He had resisted because he was your colleague, a junior partner in the same firm... he and you worked closely together on many cases, and he esteemed you and considered you friend, and I was, however desirable, off-limits. Then he’d say he just hadn’t been strong enough... he had been weak, weak, weak and human. He had had a rendezvous, then another, and my shocking passion had begun to scare him and he had wanted to break, but I had become venomous, threatening to blow both my husband’s and his career sky high, get us kicked out of the firm. He had lost his head and slapped me. It had... that slap, inflamed me and I had begged him to hit me harder... Then gradually I increased my requirements for pain, and he had been trapped in all that morbid ugliness, and scared that he himself might become perverted and begin to enjoy inflicting pain...”

3

Colby had seen Windy in Court often enough. He had an actor’s flair; he could shift from earnest, boyish tactics to deep solemnity with wholly convincing ease. He could seem as incapable of guile as an infant. Colby finished dressing with an air of deadly calm, but there was a cold sickness in his gut, and the insidious, unwelcome thought crept into his mind. He couldn’t stand it... he had to have it denied.

“Lucy...” He didn’t look at her. “If... I say if there was... were any truth to it... that a dull low-key bum like me was too slow, un-alive for a lovely, vital girl like you and the marriage left your hungers unsatisfied... if, I mean... and even though you loved me and pitied me and fought to remain loyal, but couldn’t... and if this wrongness in your life drove you somehow into wild cravings... cravings to punish yourself or to be punished, and consequently...” He stopped. She was silent. He turned, half expecting to see that she had thrown herself face down to weep. She sat there staring at him coldly.

“I only meant,” he flustered. “Don’t look that way, baby.” He went near and tried to touch her. She leaned away. “Lucy, I only wanted to say even if every lie of his was true I’d love you... I’d help you... get a psychiatrist... stand by you...”

“If you’re so close to believing him, imagine it all in a court. I see I was right in hiding it from you. He would smear me, make us so ugly and contemptible, drag me naked through the headlines so successfully we’d have to skulk out of town... even if he went to jail. Furthermore, if you’ll look in my vanity case on the closet shelf you’ll see a copy of the little document he prepared just in case you murdered him.”

There were three typewritten pages. Colby finished reading and sat looking drained. It was a sort of last testament, and it would be effective in court... maybe even effective enough to send Colby up for life. Even if he should be acquitted, Lucy would emerge smeared.

Lucy had got up and put on a slip. “Now you understand that we can do nothing, and why I concealed it.”

Colby nodded weakly, then heaved himself to his feet. He went to the closet, got his overcoat.

She sat on the edge of the bed and began to put on her nylons. “The best thing for us both is to forget it. I can.”

“I can’t,” he said, almost to himself.

“You must. It was worse for me, and if I can, you can. I did my best, Vin, to protect you from knowing... where are you going in your overcoat?”

“Out.”

She stood up. “I want to go to that dinner. I have a new gown... high at the throat, long-sleeved. Nobody need know.”

“He’d be there. He knows.”

“This dinner is part of our normal lives... part of our future. I need a future, Vin. I need it desperately now. Now please change your clothes. It’s important for us to be there tonight. You’ve worked too hard, succeeded too well in that firm to let anything... ANYTHING... stop you. We’ll go and I’ll face him down. He can’t make me skulk.”

Colby walked blindly to her dressing table. The blood was throbbing so hard in his head that his vision blurred with every beat of pulse. Abruptly, his hands spread, gathered jars, bottles. He hurled them smashing into the wall. He let out a harsh sound and swept the table top clean, then looked at the damage on the floor, clenching his fists.

His voice was gritty, low. “Work in the same firm with him? My God... My GOD... DAMN IT!...” He thrust his head at her, glaring and red-faced. “If he can intimidate us this way, what’s to stop him from doing it again... and again... and...”

She winced; clearly she hadn’t thought of that.

“I’m going for a walk. To think.”

He was quivering when the cold air hit him. He began to walk at a furious pace, thinking he might think of something. Some legal angle... some way of striking... but all he could think was kill kill kill...

He reached a through street, turned and strode swiftly along beside the speeding lanes of traffic. He came to a filling station, saw a cab company phone. He went to the phone, called a cab.

4

He entered the apartment building, pressed the buzzer beside the card of John Windham Tearle, picked up the lobby phone.

“Hel-lo...” Windy’s voice had a gay, half-tight lilt.

“Hi, Windy,” Colby said, surprised at the easy, untroubled sound he managed. “Listen, you know that Hastings business... I dug up a gem for you... a precedent our esteemed opponents never heard up... I’ll bring it up, now, if that’s o.k. It got me all excited. I’m late getting home to dress for the dinner, but I can spare a minute more.”

“You’re a pal, pally. Come right up. I dunno what I’d do without you, Vin, and that’s no crap. Furthermore, I let Mr. Mac know that I’m just a fancy mouth, and you’re the brains... just in case Vin, you ever think I want to hog the spotlight...”

“Ah, forget it, Windy... push the button...”

He crossed the small, silent lobby, pressed the button of the self-service elevator, feeling a cold calm. A click of sound from the shutting foyer door made him start and snap his head around. He frowned, realizing he was far, far from calm. The elevator door opened — he stepped inside — and closed. He jabbed at the “6” button, hit it clumsily at the edge. Yes, he was very far from calm... right over at the edge of fear. There was a heavy pulsing there in his upper stomach, a crowding of his diaphragm... he drew in a long breath of air. The elevator was coming to a stop he had a sick moment of pure objectivity. A mindless rage had driven him here. He’d eased the hell in him with raw images of himself beating Windy bloody and insensate, making him feel a little of the meaning of the pain and degradation and shame he’d subjected Lucy to, making him whimper cravenly for mercy, for the chance to tuck his tail and leave town.

But in fact Windy was more athletic; he outweighed and out-reached him. And a lifetime of easy successes had armored him with confidence so powerful that he had trouble even imagining defeat. How trite and true that nothing succeeded like success... no dark knowledge of many failures lay leaden in his guts to cripple his drive.

The elevator door opened. Colby moved out fast toward Windy’s door. If he hadn’t moved fast, he thought, loathing himself, he wouldn’t have moved at all. Then he saw Windy open his door and stand there with that big, winning smile of his, as confident as the gods. He owned the earth! What he wanted he used... whether it was another man’s brain to do his drudging for him... or the other man’s woman. And if a smile wasn’t enough he took by rape!

Then he saw the big smile shift subtly; the blue-gray eyes alerted. Colby knew he had signalled his own rage, putting Windy on guard, losing the little advantage of surprise. He’d planned to palsy along at least until he could get free of his overcoat. Windy, in slacks and T-shirt, had his arms free. His first came up and he danced back, feinting rapidly with his left as Colby came into the apartment in a slugging rush.

The smash of Colby’s first blow to the body was drained to a thump because Windy was going away, but his second hooked solidly into Windy’s ribs with force enough to drain the last of the arrogant bastard’s smile off his face. Colby crowded him, giving and taking gut blows, then Colby pistoned one up at his head, but Windy bobbed and took it in a graze along his cheek. Then Windy was away, to the side, and he landed a blow on Colby’s temple before he could turn. Colby swung a roundhouse, and knew at once it was wrong. He found himself offbalance, and wide open.

A blow caught him in the jaw, and another, another, and for a moment his vision swirled, and he had to grab and hold on in close quarters till his head cleared, then agony burst like fire in his guts as he felt the knee smash up into his groin. It came again, harder and an involuntary dry, puking sound came out of his throat. He turned, bent, holding himself, trying to get a second’s respite, then Windy was at his back, jerking his overcoat down, effectively binding his arms. Then Windy came around and slammed him full in the face, with left, right, left, following him around as he tried to turn, following him down as he backed and stumbled over an ottoman and crashed to the floor.

Windy’s lips were drawn back tight against his teeth in an ugly deadly expression as he leaned down. He kicked his head, then struck his face again with his fist. Colby felt the blood, knew his face was cut open, and one eyelid was twitching uncontrollably, and he could taste the saltiness and sliminess of blood and saliva in his mouth, and he knew his lip was open, but he barely felt the pain in his face under the overwhelming intensity of the pain in his groin.

He rolled and pawed out toward Windy’s legs to bring him down. But there was a slow-motion night-marishness about his action, a hopeless celerity to Windy who evaded him with ease.

Windy moved in at will to strike and kick viciously wherever he chose. Colby found all his force used up in protecting his groin, his head, stomach. He tried to get up three, four... he didn’t know how many times... and each time he was kicked sprawling, or battered down or flattened by the smash of Windy’s body on his back. Then he was slugged at the base of the skull and his face mashed to the floor and his senses bleared, darkened, and all the fight in him was turned against losing consciousness. He got his head up and his forearms under him and sucked air dizzingly into his lungs, and prepared himself for the mighty heave that would bring him miraculously storming to his feet... and then he saw Windy ahead and out of reach, watching him. Windy wasn’t angry or alert now. He looked almost playful, as if it wasn’t a fight any longer, just a victor and a vanquished... and that was the worst horror of all. Colby heard his own enraged roar come out of his throat sounding more like a sob as he willed himself up... and he was making it! making it!... he was halfway up... but then his leg was yanked from behind and he was being flopped helpless onto his back by a toe-hold. His free leg drove up at Windy’s head, but Windy was no longer there. Windy’s heel crushed down into the muscle of his bicep, then the barrage of blows started on his head...

“You had enough?”

Yes... no... never... never... never... The question came again, again, eternally, and Colby tried to remember the reason for this... Lucy... the thing that had happened to her... the reason he must never, never, never, NEVER submit... but she faded under the mounting pain, faded and vanished, and then there was only the pain and the craving in him to stop it at any cost...

He hadn’t spoken, he told himself, he hadn’t begged for mercy, he hadn’t broken... but the blows had stopped, and he knew he had said the words to stop them, and he could feel tears crawl down his face, cutting like fire as they touched the raw open injuries. He was sitting and Windy was standing looking down on him and Colby couldn’t raise his head. Then, Windy was helping him to his feet and for a sickening instant Colby was aware of a feeling of gratitude toward the son of a bitch and he wished he could die. Then Windy was standing in front of him, saying with a taunting pretense of sporty good-fellowship.

“Up and at ’em again, huh, Vin? Ready for round two! Throw one.” He cocked his fists, waited and grinned.

Colby just stood, dreading the thought of more pain, unable to lift his arms... or his head. He worked up some bloody saliva and forced himself to lift his head and stare at Windy. He was beaten, he told himself, but not intimidated, and he was still man enough to spit in his face... and then he knew he didn’t dare.

“O.K., then, pal. No more stomach for the sport...” Windy thrust out his hand, clasped Colby’s. “So we shake, and no hard feelings. And I’m always open for a return match. But, meantime, let’s get your face cleaned up and have a smoke and a drink. Now we’re calmed down, Vin, fercrissakes, maybe you can tell me why you come charging in here at me like a mad bull when I thought we were friends.”

Before his groggy senses could absorb what he’d said Windy moved away and returned with a double shot of whisky in a water glass.

“This is what you need, Vin,” Windy said with an air of concern.

It hurt his cut mouth but Colby drank it off, and after a few seconds it began to help. Windy was offering him a lighted cigarette and saying:

5

“Pal, you’re about the toughest customer I ever tangled with...”

Colby knew he was being patronized, but it felt better to accept it as a compliment.

“The only hell of it is, Vin, you’re a little rusty, and I’ve kept half-way in training ever since I used to box for Alma Mammy. Look, I want you to see Casey down at the City Club... you know the athletic director, and take some private boxing lessons. The main thing he’ll help you with is to stay cool... never go into a fight mad, Vin... and by the way, what the hell was it that got you riled at me? Hell, I thought you and me hit it off.”

Colby just stared. This son-of-a-gun was positively incredible. Not only was he carefully diminishing the sense of Colby’s humiliation, he was giving an entirely plausible picture of innocence.

“Lucy. She’s why... and you know it damned well!”

Windy’s eyes widened. “Lucy? What did I ever do to make her sic you on me...” He paused, narrowed his eyes. “Vin, you don’t mean you think I... I made a pass... at Lucy? At your wife... at the wife of my closest colleague and friend. No, you can’t mean that.”

Colby stared at him, feeling some of his certainty ebb.

“I do mean it. You raped her...” The simple word drove him like a fool and he smashed out at Windy’s arrogant face. He missed, stumbled... and Windy’s hands helped him regain balance.

“Please, Vin... don’t hate me, don’t be my enemy. This is a dreadful misunderstanding, if she thinks that... Lucy’s a wonderful girl, Vin, we all know that, but so romantic, and dramatic... and, don’t get sore again... and foolish. She goes farther than she realizes sometimes... I poked a guy’s mouth shut for him not two weeks ago, Vin, because she claimed... Well, it was a lie... that girl adores you, and she’d never let you down...”

“She’s bruised, hurt... she was raped...”

“We’re not going to be enemies, Vin. A woman is not going to come between us.” Windy clenched his fist. “I say she’s lying to you if she accuses me.” This fist, he was saying, says that she is the liar. “I want to be your friend, not your enemy, Vin.”

And I, Colby told himself, prefer to believe him. Because he is stronger. Colby turned brokenly and walked into Windy’s bedroom, thinking that he had found the way out. He had only to obey Windy and he wouldn’t get hurt any more. If he didn’t quite fully believe him now, he would convince himself in time. If Lucy had lied and betrayed him he could forgive her, and he would, in addition to winning Windy’s goodwill, managed also to keep his precious jewel. He wandered as though dazed, purposeless. Windy watched from a distance, his eyes wary. When Colby neared the bureau Windy moved swiftly toward him, and Colby knew he was right. Windy still kept his gun in that top bureau drawer.

Windy came flying and his hand dove into the opening drawer with Colby’s.

Colby got the gun. He rammed it into Windy’s gut and turned his bloodied face to Windy.

“You’re done!” he said. “You’re done!”

“Wait... use your head, Vin...”

“I know. If I kill you there’s a dead man’s statement waiting to smear Lucy and convict me. I read it. But I don’t give a damn, a damn, not now...”

“Please. Think! You can’t, you can’t shoot me down in cold blood... Vin, I had you beat; I could have come and got this gun and murdered you. You can’t murder either. Think! I’ll resign... leave town... Vin, are you hearing me?”

“You raped her. You smeared her. You called her a liar. You wanted to cow me into hating her, into living like a whipped cur... I’d rather die... but not before you do... Ask your God for mercy, not me!”

“I was drunk! I didn’t mean to, didn’t want to... so help me God I’d give my arm to wipe it out... Give me a chance to go, to run, run like the whipped cur, out of town... give me a chance... That paper I wrote. I’ll give you the original. Let me get it. We’ll burn it. As a sign of my intentions, the truth of them...”

He wavered. “Don’t stall...”

“It frees you to kill me. It puts me helpless at your mercy. It shows what I think of your integrity, your honor. Vin, for God’s sake...”

“Where is it...”

“Lockbox. Closet shelf.”

“Get it down. Move very carefully, Windy.”

“Yes, yes... I’m no fool...”

Minutes later the lockbox was down and open. Colby scanned the statement after Windy took it from its sealed envelope. It was the one Lucy had a copy of. Colby stared silently into Windy’s eyes, and asked:

“No other copies.”

“None.”

They went to the bathroom, wadded each sheet of paper and set it afire. Watching the fire and the shaky anxiety on Windy’s face Colby began to chill at the thought of killing in cold blood. Windy’s stall for time had worked. Something of his rage and hate had weakened under the look of Windy’s terror. It was not impossible to believe he did feel remorse... Gah! He began to despise himself for weakness. Windy was being either very clever or intensely sincere at the moment... too wise to say a word. He was letting Colby work it out in his own mind, letting him too realize the awesomeness of death.

“We’ll go into the phone. Dial my number. Then let me talk to Lucy.”

Windy nodded gravely, moved to comply. When Lucy answered Colby continued to cover Windy with the gun. “Sweetheart? I’m at Windy’s. Dress and come here as fast as you can, and bring my gun... don’t ARGUE with me... I’ve got his gun and I’ll kill him this instant if you... Windy, you tell her!” He pushed the handset at him.

“He means it! He’s got me covered. Do as he says.”

Colby replaced the handset, pointed to the small desk.

“Sit down. Get paper and pen. We’re both going to write suicide notes. Then we’re going to Tarleton Park. A gun for each of us. I don’t want you on my conscience the rest of my life. I haven’t the guts to just blow your brains out. You’ll have an equal chance to blow mine out.”

“A duel? You mean a duel?”

“Something like that?”

He saw the flicker of hope... and slyness... in Windy’s expression. “I knew you were a gentleman, Vin. This is the gentleman’s way. I know just the place, secluded. We stand back to back, walk ten paces, turn and fire.”

Colby nodded. “The only thing lacking will be seconds. We’ll be alone. Not even Lucy will be there.”

Windy sat at the desk and wrote the suicide note. Colby read it, nodded.

“Now you stand there, back to me, your hands up on the wall, while I write my note. Remember, I’ve still got the only gun.”

“Of course.”

Windy could scarcely conceal the lifting of his spirits. No fear of death in him now, Colby noted. Windy imagined that Colby was going to be the proper gentleman and march ten paces with his back turned, and Windy was counting on that turned back. If he hadn’t counted on it he would never have written the suicide note.

Colby finished his own note, let Windy read it. Then they sat across from each other, waiting for Lucy.

When she arrived he got rid of her as quickly as possibly.

Forty minutes later he and Windy got out of Windy’s car, and headed on foot to the isolated little green. Reaching it Colby emptied each gun of all but one cartridge.

“What’re you doing?”

“There’ll be a slight change in procedure. I wouldn’t want you to worry, Windy, that when you walked ten paces with your back turned I might turn and shoot you in the back.”

“You’re a cute son-of-a-gun, aren’t you?” Windy raged.

“Very. Now, you take my gun, I’ll take yours. I’ll put your gun to your temple, you’ll put my gun to mine. Then we’ll pull triggers... until one of the bullets comes under one of the hammers.”

Colby spun the chambers several times on each gun. He solemnly handed Windy his gun. Windy seized it and began to pull the trigger wildly as fast as he could, before Colby got the gun in his own hand up to Windy’s head. Windy ducked away from the feel of the muzzle the instant Colby placed the gun at his temple, and he struck out, trying to throw Colby off balance. There was an explosion that almost deafened him... Windy’s one bullet had gone wild. Windy yelled and fell, scrambling to get away, and Colby, with infinite patience, followed him down, holding the gun near his head, and pulling the trigger one, two, three, four... the revolver tugged at his arm as the bullet fired...

He crouched after awhile to make certain Windy was dead. Then he wiped Windy’s gun, tossed it down, pried his own gun free of Windy’s death grip and walked away.