Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 6, May 1963

A Small Matter of Time by Shane Stephens

They were still somewhere in the room, he knew that even though they had stopped talking. He wasn’t sure how many there were, he thought at least three.

Only two of them had spoken, never to him, always to each other. One had a lisp, especially on words like three. He gave this man the name three-she, pictured him as tall, angular, with thin nervous movements and washed-out complexion. The other man spoke in ordinary tones, neither loud nor soft, no inflection, no dialect, nothing to give him away. He was no-face.

He tried to determine the man’s height. Three-she garbled his final words as if he were bringing his face down for someone shorter than he. Couple this with three-she’s height and the other man must be quite a bit shorter. A mutt-and-jeff pair.

Another thing was his walk. No-face walked with a heavy foot. People who walk with heavy feet are usually short and squat. He remembered an uncle he had as a boy. Whenever the uncle would visit, he would know him by the walk. His uncle was just over five feet, and he weighed at least two hundred pounds.

He had liked his uncle, sometimes they would play games like tap-tap, hide and go seek, blind man’s bluff. His uncle showed him how to Indian wrestle, used to tell him how strong he was getting. His uncle was a good man. Solid, short, squat. Like no-face.

There was someone else in the room. Little noises that didn’t belong to the two who spoke, a kind of breathing from somewhere on the side when he imagined mutt-and-jeff to be elsewhere.

He listened for a sound, a gasp for air or any sound that a human makes, but all he could hear was the breathing, very faint, with a rhythm of its own. He wasn’t even sure it was breathing, it was more like a humming noise. But very soft, very soothing.

He tried to think of other things. Time was very important, people always did everything on time. There was that old joke about the world coming to an end when they ran out of time. It was silly in a way, people run out of time but not the world. Maybe he ran out of time, maybe he’s dead. No, it couldn’t be that, he was alive a little while ago.

He had been busily going about his affairs like any ambitious young lawyer. Praise for his courtroom conduct had just come from a very important client, he knew that within five years he would be made a partner in the firm, and this before he was forty. It didn’t make any sense to be dragged away from the world and shut up in a room with strange men.

If only he could see. They didn’t have to put suction cups over his eyes. He had a feeling he wouldn’t see anything even if he were not blindfolded by the cups, that the room was in total darkness. Not that he could take them off, with his hands and feet tied so tightly.

That’s another thing they didn’t have to do, he couldn’t go anywhere. He didn’t know where he was, didn’t even know if it was a room at all. He couldn’t be sure he wasn’t in some kind of cave.

That didn’t sound right to him, there was no smell of a cave or anything underground. He thought of the time he had played in caves as a boy. He remembered the musty smell, the dank atmosphere, the hard time breathing as he penetrated deeper and deeper.

This wasn’t like that, this wasn’t a cave or a tunnel so it must be a room in a house somewhere, a house in a deserted area, there were no noises from outside.

And he was in that house, bound, gagged, blindfolded, and in the company of three people, two of whom speak. Or do they? He tried to remember if they actually spoke or if he just imagined it.

He thought of the voices, of what they had said. Something about fences. That’s right, three — she had said something about fences being repaired. No matter what some people do, fences had to be repaired all the time.

But what fences, and why do they always have to be repaired?

No-face agreed. He didn’t think it was right that people should go through so much trouble for nothing, but if that didn’t happen they’d be out of work. They had laughed when this was said, maybe it was some kind of joke between them.

He wondered if they said the same thing every time they had someone helpless. He had the idea they had done this before, that he wasn’t the first.

That was foolish, this was some kind of joke being played on him and he would go along with it until he was free. There was nothing else he could do.

Three-she had said something about waiting for people to go home. If there are people around it can’t be too deserted. This made him feel better, he thought of people coming to see him and he wanted to laugh because they wouldn’t be able to see anything, it would be like playing blind man’s bluff again. Only this didn’t seem like a game and he mustn’t get silly, maybe they wouldn’t like it if he got silly.

Never any mention of him, no notice that he was even there. Obviously they knew he was sitting there, they had brought him: Maybe. He wasn’t sure, he wasn’t sure of any thing.

The last thing he remembered was working in his office on the Vito case. He had been out with a client for most of the day and had returned to the office after eight, there was so much to do.

He unlocked the office door, snapped on the lights and settled down to looking over the Vito file. A woman had killed her husband with a gun he had left lying around. The district attorney was pressing for first degree murder.

The woman had lovers, so the story went, and she wanted to be free of her husband. There was also a sizable insurance policy. That was the state’s double motive but it was tenuous unless they could produce some of the alleged lovers; so far they had not been successful.

He knew the woman, he told them that when he asked to be removed from consideration as a defense attorney. His law firm had refused, said that made it all the better. He didn’t like it, didn’t like it at all, but there was nothing he could do.

So he worked hard on it, hoping to convince a jury of accidental death. The gun discharged while she was examining it, she was not familiar with guns and had just picked it up for a look when it went off, hitting her husband in the forehead and killing him instantly. He had just returned from a weekend hunting trip and should never have left the rifle loaded and lying openly on the table.

It was in reality his fault, that’s the way he was going to present it to the jury. He knew the state would claim that no man in his right mind would leave a loaded gun around like that, but he believed he had a good chance of selling the idea to the jury.

Especially if no lovers came forward. He doubted that any would.

He prepared his defense and told the woman exactly what she was to say. He was going to put her on the stand, she would make a good impression. He told her that if nothing went wrong she would soon be free. That’s why he was in the office at night, to check over everything, make sure nothing could go wrong. It was very important that he get her off, he had to get her free for both their sakes. Everything depended on it.

He was returning the folder to the file room, that’s the last thing he recalled. Now he was sitting in the dark. For a second he thought he was still in the file room but he knew that couldn’t be. He was too familiar with his office, he would be able to recognize it even in the dark. This was somewhere he had never been before, and he must have been brought by mutt-and-jeff.

They probably were waiting for him in the file room and knocked him unconscious as he went in. That’s the way it had to happen but he couldn’t figure out why, if they were going to harm him they could easily have done so without making him helpless.

This thought struck him suddenly and he was surprised that he wasn’t afraid. He supposed it was because he could not accept the idea that anyone wanted him dead, that was ridiculous. The more he thought about it, the more inexplicable it seemed. Only one thing was clear, he couldn’t stay like this much longer.

He caught the movement almost before it happened. Something was coming close to him, moving cautiously, stealthily, coming closer. His hairs bristled as he awaited whatever it was, he wanted to cry because he was so helpless.

He felt something tug at his hands and in a few seconds the tape that had bound his hands was off. As he worked his stiff fingers, slowly, stubbornly, he felt the tape being removed from his feet. He was tired, physically, mentally, he didn’t know what was happening but he was sick. He winced painfully as the suction cups were pulled from his eyes and the gag removed from his mouth.

Everything hurt, every bone in his body ached, every muscle felt torn and bruised and his eyes filled with tears from the pain. His throat was on fire and someone was going to have to pay dearly for this and then he stepped into the pit and it seemed to be deeper and deeper the more he fell. And then he got the idea that it was moving with him and this upset him because he could not keep up with it...

The local news in the afternoon paper was mostly routine. Probably the most dramatic item was a boxed column on page two. For the vast majority of the city’s populace the death of Matthew Fleming meant nothing. To his colleagues and acquaintances it brought, in varying degrees, shock, grief, consternation and joy. To a young widow, who heard of his death some hours later in her cell, it brought a sudden collapse that required immediate hospitalization.

For those who read the account with any degree of interest, the details were brief and, as is customary, quite coldly put down.

“Matthew Fleming, an associate of Bleeker, Stone and Merriman, local law firm, returned to his office in the Simpson Building last evening, ostensibly for some last minute work on the Vito trial which had been scheduled to begin the day after tomorrow before Judge Peter Cushman. Sometime later he apparently took the self-service elevator to the top floor of the nineteen story building, then climbed a metal ladder and crossed a false ceiling catwalk to get to the elevator machinery room located in a small windowless alcove directly underneath the main roof.

“This room houses the complete mechanism for the building’s four elevators, as well as the electric pulse system for the famed flashing beacon light atop the Simpson tower. Evidence indicates that he remained in the room for some appreciable time before casting himself into one of the open elevator shafts. As is the nightly practice, all elevators remain on ground level until called into service.

“The body was found at 7:40 A.M. Exact time of death is uncertain although it is known to have occurred after 11:00 P.M. since all building personnel leave for home at that hour.

“No note was found on the body or in the room. Police could establish no immediate reason for the suicide, but it was pointed out that the deceased had recently been consulting a psychiatrist.

“Mr. Fleming was unmarried.”

The day after the suicide of Matthew Fleming two men stood in the bedroom of a modest cabin on the outskirts of the city. It was still early afternoon but gray somber clouds hung overhead. Both table lamps in the room were turned on.

The taller of the two men was in his forties, heavyset, balding, accustomed to responsibility and not much given to idle talk, his name was George. His companion was of an indeterminate age, very short, thin, almost frail. He had a nervous disposition, fingers always moving, eyes constantly blinking. He spoke with a lisp.

Someone walked into the bedroom, behind him the bathroom flushing sent a shudder through the cabin. The man slowly withdrew some bills from his wallet. He gave these to the heavyset man, who accepted the money with a gracious ease, as though it were something he had done many times before.

He expertly counted the money, then folded it once and inserted it in a small leather pouch which he carefully placed in his topcoat pocket. He buttoned the coat, adjusted his hat in the dresser mirror, and walked out of the cabin onto the three-step porch.

His companion followed. With a last nervous gesture he looked back into the room at the one remaining occupant before he slammed the door shut. He stepped over a child’s rollerskate as he hurried down the steps to the car, where George was already gunning the motor.

Several minutes later the third man came out of room 49 of the Highcrest Motel, absently kicked aside a skate that someone had carelessly left on the porch, and walked over to his automobile. He was highly pleased with himself. His brother’s death had been avenged, or at least partially avenged.

He fingered the folded slip of paper that was in his overcoat pocket. It had two names on it, given to him by his brother on a hunting trip the day before he was murdered. He knew the names by heart, knew that both had been lovers of his brother’s wife. It didn’t matter which one of them had done the actual killing — that the woman hadn’t done it herself was clear in his mind, he knew she didn’t have the nerve.

It was one of the two men but he didn’t care which one, they were both equally guilty in his eyes. One down, one to go. It was as simple as that. If his sister-in-law were Sicilian, she would understand that a man needs to be avenged.

He stepped into his Buick and turned the engine over. He let it idle for a few minutes, thinking of the woman. He would let her live, let her think about what she did. Whatever happened to her didn’t matter to him, he had never liked her. She was not of their country, not of their blood. He shrugged. The only thing of importance was the piece of paper.

He took it carefully from his pocket and read the names for the thousandth time. Everything was arranged. Now it was just a small matter of time.

As he eased the big automobile down the sloping driveway, Joe Vito knew that very soon somewhere in the city a man would open his door and come face to face with death. He smiled.

There was nothing more anyone could do.