Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 50, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2005

This time the giggle escaped Melanie. Any poor soul drawing suspicious glances by talking to himself in the street could achieve instant normality by pressing a matchbox, cigarette pack, or whatever to their ear.

Four minutes before the killing, Melanie Skeets smiled at her whimsy and returned to the game. Several talkers were easily pigeonholed, but a youngish man baffled her despite being in range for longer than average.

She could not see much of his face, though it left an impression. An El Greco face, she thought vaguely, dark pits for eyes and an aura of intensity as he prowled the same few square yards near the main street. The phone rode at his temple but his lips seldom moved. Melanie surmised that he was being passed from department to department with increasingly unwelcome results — no basis for her hunch, merely empathy. That morning had been spent trying to get sense out of her bank and cursing the robot voices shunting her around.

Melanie heard an automatic door sigh open behind her. The gym was next to the wine bar, and the man who’d just emerged was drenched in aftershave. Not the cheap stuff, either, but too much was too much, and she took against him on the spot. A large brute, hair damp from the shower, radiating arrogance and power. Moneyed, they usually were, with gold winking on a thick wrist and fingers. No class, hits first and asks afterwards, she accused.

Over there on the main street a stretch limo pulled up. Bet it has come for him. Just his style, the jerk. Avoiding eye contact while the object of disapproval paused at her elbow, Melanie caught a sidelong flash of designer-stubbled chin jerking at the limo. Doors opened and three men obeyed the summons, one waiting by the car, the others marching forward.

Villains, Mrs. Skeets diagnosed with weary distaste. Running an East End pub had taught her to pick out professional criminals and most varieties of policemen on sight.

Refusing to take any more notice of the crew, she saw that Bad News Man was making for the archway. The phone was still at his ear; evidently he had got through at last because he was talking hard and his free hand was chopping the air for emphasis.

The noise was sharp and a freak of acoustics in the arena brought out its special quality — not particularly loud, but indefinably out of place. It was an ugly rip in the everyday fabric of traffic sounds, voices, and occasional snatches of trills and tunes from those pervasive phones.

Pigeons erupted from the gym’s roof. Mrs. Skeets started violently and spilled wine on her dress. People halted or missed a stride, staring around for the source. The large man reeking of cologne was halfway to the limo, and Melanie had the confused impression that he’d flinched an instant before anybody else reacted, which made no sense.

Suddenly he was falling like a tree, the bodyguards, one kneeling beside the casualty, were shouting and pointing wildly.

Only the unhappy young phonetalker whom Melanie Skeets had pitied was immune to the disturbance. By the set of dark-suited shoulders, misery made him oblivious to anything short of a crack of thunder.

His head turned toward the limo, where his cronies were dancing in indecision, the kneeling thug shouted, “They shot him!” That started a panicked rush for cover.

Melanie Skeets stayed right where she was. Courage didn’t come into it; she was stunned by a revelation. She understood that she had not observed events but interpreted what she was seeing. Conned myself, me and my empathy. What a daft article I can be.

She hoped the police would show up soon. There was urgent need to speak to them. More to the point, she hoped that one of them would listen to her.

The dead man was Ernest “Tasty Ernie” Balch, an abrasive and highly successful dealer in drugs, pornography, and prostitutes. He hadn’t set out to diversify, but one thing had led to another.

Success, as ever, brought personal and professional enemies, both groups noted for vengefulness and contempt for law and human life alike. Two years before working out and then using too much aftershave, Tasty Ernie survived an assassination attempt, but chance favored him. No way should he have got out alive, but the gunman’s revolver snagged on its journey from the shoulder holster, and his target’s reflexes were excellent. Balch ducked the bullet, and ran for his life, literally — those gym sessions had not been in vain.

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. The fiasco (in the hit man’s jaundiced view) spurred Mr. Balch to review and tighten up security. In vain, admittedly, but at least he’d tried.

Meanwhile, the police reacted with unusual rapidity and verve. The chief investigating officer took the shotgun option and hauled in dozens of Tasty Ernie Balch’s rivals, associates, and even a few ambiguous friends.