The Lonesome Badger

2

At Laurel Canyon Peel dropped off the bus and walked a short distance to the Hillside Towers, one of the tallest buildings on the boulevard, ten stories.

He entered the apartment building lobby and found a woman seated behind a combination switchboard and desk. She looked inquiringly at Peel.

“Miss Linda Meadows.”

“Who is calling?”

“Mr. Peel. She’s expecting me.”

The receptionist smiled, made a connection on the switchboard and after a moment, said into the mouthpiece: “A Mr. Peel is in the lobby... Thank you.” She broke the connection. “You may go up. Seven C.”

Peel stepped into an automatic elevator. A moment later he got off at the seventh floor. A quick glance about told him that there were four apartments to the floor, the doors of all within a few feet of the elevator. He moved to one marked Seven C and pushed the door buzzer.

The door was instantly opened and Peel let out an involuntary whistle. The girl who was looking at him was one of the most gorgeous brunettes he had ever seen. She was tall and slender yet needed no artificial padding where women use such padding. She had finely chiseled features and a skin that Peel would have loved to touch. In fact, he intended to.

“All this and fifty thousand,” Peel breathed.

“I’m Linda Meadows,” the girl said. “Come in.”

She stepped back and Peel entered the apartment, a luxuriously furnished place of apparently four rooms, a large living room, with a dining alcove opening off it, a kitchen beyond and, to the rear, a bedroom.

Peel could scarcely keep from drooling. “I’m willing,” he said.

“You’re willing to what?”

“Your ad, baby. It said: ‘Object matrimony’.”

“And?”

“You’re up to specifications. That is, you are physically. There’s only the fifty thousand. If you’ve really got it, Linda baby, you’ve got yourself a man.”

Linda regarded Peel with smoldering eyes. “Not so fast, Mr. Peel. The ad also said that the man must be exciting.”

“I’m exciting, baby.”

He took a quick step forward and grabbed Linda. He started to pull her toward him, then reeled back as her fist caught him squarely on the jaw.

“You’re a little too exciting, chum,” snapped Linda. “And a little too fast.”

Peel rubbed his jaw. “I was only trying to save time.” He exhaled heavily. “Oh, well, if you want to be old-fashioned, we’ll spar around awhile. But not too long, though. My bankroll won’t hold out and I hate to take money from a girl unless I’m married to her.”

The apartment door buzzer whirred. Peel looked at Linda.

“The switchboard didn’t announce anyone,” he said.

“It must be the maid,” Linda said, then frowned. “She was in here only an hour ago...” She got to her feet, started for the door.

Peel said, “Let ’er ring, she’ll go away.”

A key rattled in the door, the bolt clicked as it was sprung and the door was pushed open.

A man came into the room. A man holding a key in his right hand. A very large man in his middle thirties.

“Dave!” exclaimed Linda.

“Well,” said the man called Dave. “This is very nice.”

“Don’t tell me,” exclaimed Joe Peel, “the boy friend!”

“Worse,” said Dave. “The husband.”

Peel whirled on Linda. “You said Miss Meadows...”

“My maiden name. We... we were divorced.”

“That’s what you say,” Dave retorted. “Only I don’t know a thing about it. Remember? You forgot to tell me. There’s a law against that in this and quite a few other states. The sucker — I mean the husband — has to be told he’s being divorced.”

“By publication, if the plaintiff doesn’t know the whereabouts of the defendant,” said Linda.

“Why, Linda honey,” chided Dave, “I wasn’t lost, was I? Look” — he held up the door key — “I had this all the time, so I couldn’t have been so hard to find, could I?”

“Get out of here,” Linda cried. “Get out!”

“Excuse me,” Peel murmured, “but I think I’ve got to run along.”

He started for the door, but Dave moved a couple of paces to his left and blocked Peel’s passage. “What’s your hurry, laddie boy? We haven’t even introduced ourselves.”

“No point to it,” replied Peel. “I was just standing here, waiting for a streetcar.”

“It’s come. Me.” Dave held out a hand. “Dave Corey’s the name. And you?”

“If you don’t mind...”

“But I do mind, laddie boy. The least you can do is give me your name. It ain’t polite to knock off a stranger’s head.”

“Look, pal,” Peel said, swallowing hard. “There’s no call for the rough stuff. There’s been a mistake. I didn’t know the little lady was married—”

“You know it now.”

“Sure, so I’ll beat it.”

“Okay, laddie. Do that. No hard feelings, huh? You understand these things, don’t you?”

“Sure, sure. No hard feelings.”

Peel took a step forward. And then a trench mortar exploded on his chin. Peel cried out and dropped to his knees. A roaring filled his ears. He tried to look up, saw Dave Corey’s foot coming at his head — and couldn’t move his head aside.

How long he was out, Joe Peel didn’t know. He dreamed of comets and meteors and atomic explosions, and when he awakened there was a vast aching in his head. He groaned aloud and sat up. He shook his head to clear away the cosmic dust, and then his eyes focused on the bloody face of Dave Corey and he forgot all about his pain.

Corey was quite dead.

Peel shot one wild glance around the room. Linda Meadows was gone and...

...and the siren of a police car wailed up the street. Joe Peel waited for no more. He slammed out of the apartment and took the stairs three at a time. All the way down to the basement garage. He darted through the garage and out upon a street at the rear of the Hillcrest Towers. He circled the block and from across the street saw the police car parked in the circular drive in front of the apartment building.

Muttering under his breath, he walked down to Laurel Canyon.