Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 5, April 1974

“See, Daddy?” Billy said. He held up a couple strings with a dirty piece of wood attached to the ends.

“Where’s Mommy?”

Billy grinned slyly. The kid was getting to be exactly like her. She probably gave him lessons. She’d be more likely to give Ginny lessons. But she would see that Billy kept his mouth shut. Billy was four and a half, and Ginny was six.

“Where is she?”

Billy pointed toward the living room, and began doddling the strings and the piece of wood up and down.

I went in there.

The radio was playing “Blue Moon,” with Sinatra singing the way he did.

“Hi!”

She leaped up from the couch like she’d been pricked. Her eyes were all round and muzzy. I wondered if she’d been out with him, maybe making the rounds. I wouldn’t put it past her. She had on pants and a long white jacket. That sweetheart of a face registered surprise.

“What’re you doing here?” she asked quickly.

I went over and turned off “Blue Moon.” It was our tune. An oldie, but loaded with nostalgia. I had loved her very much, and she had loved me. It had been something back then.

I said, “I took the day off. Didn’t feel so hot.”

“But, Richard. You’ll be docked. We need that money.”

“Yeah.”

I wanted to ask her where she was hiding him. You’ve got to understand, I wouldn’t put anything past her. She was always whacky. I’d used to think that whackiness was cute. And she looked so good.

I mean, you’d never guess she played it the way she did. Once I saw him waiting on the corner, right when I went to work. It was before I knew. After I caught on, they worked it like ghosts. He would appear and vanish fast.

Once I nearly caught her. He’d just left by the side door. I’d heard him running, and her face was all red, her eyes kind of wild and hot.

Right now she’d been working a jig-saw puzzle on the card table. She was a great one for jig-saw puzzles.

She moved around the table. Then she kind of glanced toward the bedroom door. Just a flick of those eyes. She looked a little guilty.

I started for the bedroom.

“Richard? I think you should go back to work. We can’t afford to have you take days off.”

I didn’t pay her any attention. I went on into the bedroom, and looked around. It was quiet, and smelled of sleep. The bed wasn’t made yet. The Venetian blinds were drawn, but a finger of yellow Florida sunlight touched the floor. It looked okay, and there was no sign of him.

I stepped around the big cedar chest, and went to the closet. Just clothes, that was all. But anger seeped through me. I knew he’d been here already this morning. It was nearly noon. I stared at the bed.

How could she? With the kids, and all.

Sure. She probably sent the kids out. Cripes. A kind of cold madness was all through me. I was sick with it. Because she would do this to me, after all I’d done for her, and everything. How I had loved her. Well, maybe that was gone.

I stood by the cedar chest and thought about it.

She came in the bedroom doorway, and stood there, looking at me, one hip shot out, the way she’d do it. Her eyes were all big and muzzy and baby-like. Innocent eyes. That was it. Innocent. Cripes.

“Why did you come home?”

“I was just beat. That laundry knocks me out, Beverly. You stand there sorting clothes all day, you’d know how it is. Cripes.”

“Don’t say that. I don’t like it. Ginny will start saying it again. She imitates, you know that. You’re her father.”

“Cripes, cripes, cripes!” I couldn’t even swear in my own home, if you called it swearing.

I wanted to ask her where he was. Then you could see she was satisfied about something. She was like a computer feeding statistics. She was content. He’d got away somehow, that was it. She was safe.

“What’re you going to do?” she asked.

“Nothing.” Then I caught on. She would be meeting him someplace, that was it. They had-a plan. I was in the way. And it went all through me, like knives, and dirty garbage. How could she do this? Well, she could, and did.

She could do anything, and stand right there and look clean and innocent. They were ghosts, that’s what. Nobody could catch them.

Last night she’d been nervous as hell, too. It told me something. It showed me she was waiting for today. They had something planned.

I went over to the bureau and opened the top left hand drawer, and looked in at it. It lay there so neat, with a dull sheen. A pre World War I German Luger, nine millimeter. It was loaded, and it waited with a kind of steely patience. My hand inadvertently moved toward it. I slammed the drawer.

The front doorbell rang. I heard one of the kids run like crazy, yelling, “I get it, Mommy!”

I went out there, making it fast. Of course, he wouldn’t come to the door like that.

Ginny had the door open. Two men stood there. A plumpish, red-faced one, in a blue suit, and a thin, lantern-jawed guy wearing a light tan jacket.

“Mr. Hudson?” They were cops, it was plain.

“Yeah.”

“Is Mrs. Hudson in?”

“Sure.”

“Could we see her a minute?”

I went back and motioned to Beverly. She came out of the bedroom and stood by the door.