Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 29, No. 4, September 1971

Neary’s first reaction was to go for the loaded revolver he always carried in his glove compartment. The running man was halfway across the front yard when Neary jumped from the car and raised the pistol, his wife’s screams still echoing in his ears.

“Stop or I’ll shoot!” he shouted.

The fleeing man paused, hesitated uncertainly, and then went down on one knee, pulling a snub-nosed automatic from beneath his coat. Walt Neary fired twice and the man toppled over on the grass.

Ellen was at the door then, screaming and sobbing. Her nightgown had been half tom from her body.

“My God, Walt, you’ve killed him!”

“I hope so. What happened?”

Neighbors were beginning to come from their houses now, and already in the distance Neary could hear the rising shrillness of a police siren. He led Ellen back into the house, and saw at once the overturned lamp and shattered vase.

“I was in bed, reading, and I heard a noise at the door,” Ellen told him. “I thought it might be you, coming home a day early, so I got up and opened it to see. This man grabbed me and forced me inside. He said he wanted money. We struggled and overturned some things, and he ripped my nightgown. Just then you turned into the driveway. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t arrived just then!”

“It’s all right,” he said, comforting her. “I did arrive. That’s the important thing.”

A police car had pulled up in front of the house, and he went out to meet them.

“What happened here?” one of the officers asked, and Neary told him, handing over the gun.

The other officer bent over the body on the lawn.

“This one’s dead,” he announced. The circle of watching neighbors moved a bit closer at his words.

“I hope there won’t be any trouble over this,” Walt Neary said. “I fired in self-defense.”

“One of the detectives will be here soon to question you,” the first cop said. “Don’t worry about it.”

Ten minutes later, a detective named Bryant arrived with a photographer and an ambulance. He stood talking with the two cops by the body for a few moments, supervising the picture taking, and then went through the corpse’s pockets. He rose to his feet, talked some more, and then came into the house.

As the body was taken away, the neighbors began to drift back to their houses.

“Suppose you tell me about it, Mr. Neary,” Bryant began. “Do you always carry a gun in your car?”

Walt Neary cleared his throat. “I travel a lot. Sometimes I have valuable samples with me. The gun is registered. I have a license for it.”

“Samples of what?”

Neary looked blank, and then understood the question. “Men’s and women’s wrist watches. I’m a salesman for National Time. On some trips I might have a thousand dollars or more in samples.”

Bryant nodded absently, then listened while Ellen told her story.

“Well,” he said at last, “I don’t think there’ll be any trouble over it. The man you killed is Tony Ancona, a petty crook with a record a mile long. He testified in a narcotics case a few months back, and he’s been more or less in hiding since then. I’m sure nobody’s going to shed any tears over him.”

Walt Neary felt himself relax a little for the first time since he turned in the driveway. “That’s good to know.”

“In fact,” the detective told him with a smile, “the newspapers will probably make you out to be something of a hero.”

The next day, Walt Neary knew it was true. Reporters from both newspapers were at the house for interviews, and one local television station even sent a camera crew out for footage of Walt and Ellen Neary standing in the front yard at the spot where the shooting had occurred. For the next two days, he was something of a community celebrity.

Three nights later, as he was leaving work, a dark-haired young man walked up to him at his car.

“You’re Walt Neary,” the man said, making it a statement.

“Yes,” Neary admitted. “What—”

“I have something for you.” He reached into his coat and Neary froze in panic, imagining a silenced pistol that would gun him down right here in the company parking lot. But instead the young man produced a thick white envelope.

“What’s this?” Neary asked, accepting the envelope. He opened the flap and saw it was filled with twenty-dollar bills.

“Two thousand dollars, Mr. Neary. That was the price on Tony Ancona’s head. You did the job, so you get the money.”

“What? But I don’t—”

The dark-haired man turned and walked quickly away, not looking back. Walt Neary was left holding the envelope of money. He stood there for several minutes, pondering what to do with it. Finally he stuffed it into his pocket and drove downtown to police headquarters.

Detective Bryant was in the squad room, taking a burglary complaint over the telephone. When he had finished, he glanced up and seemed surprised to see Neary standing there. “Well. What brings you down here, Mr. Neary?”

“I... I was wondering about that man I killed. I don’t know, it’s been bothering me, I guess. I want to know some more about him.”