9781479418398

By Talmage Powell

They planned to kidnap a little boy, hold him for ransom, and collect a big payoff. Nothing would happen to the kid—Garvin promised. What could possible go wrong with their big score? A classic crime novella ripped from the pages of the Sept. 1960 issue of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: May 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781479418398

Book preview

Table of Contents

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. Sept. 1960. Copyright © 1960, renewed 1987 (renewal # RE0000424529) by Talmage Powell. All rights reserved.

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Published by Wildside Press LLC.

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CHAPTER I

The man and woman were lodged in a cheap hotel, their second floor window overlooking a drab street in Ybor City, Tam­pa’s Cuban quarter. The night was very hot and a fan, set on the bureau, whirred softly in the dark­ness. From the street drifted the muffled sound of Latin music in a nightclub against the blurred counterpoint of traffic.

The man and woman lay beside each other on the brass bedstead, the man in his shorts, the woman in a white slip. The bedsprings complained as the man reached toward the bureau. He had to stretch to get cigarettes and matches.

He lighted a cigarette and handed it to the woman; then he lighted another for himself. They lay on their backs smoking, now taking no outward interest in each other.

In the half-light filtering in from the street the man was lean, wiry; his face was narrow, intense, intelligent and cruel. He lay very still, his features partly shadowed.

The woman was a blonde, for the third, fourth, or twentieth time in her life. The heat had caused her slip to cling to her. Her figure was slender, and in that sense good. She had succeeded in starv­ing herself down to the poundage she wanted, but there was very little youth left in her body.

She drew on her cigarette, and the glow was kind to her face. She had small features, shadowed by a lurking tautness. Before the shad­ows ever came, when she was young, the small features had complemented each other in a way to make her look live­ly and very pretty.

I’m quite sure it will work, the man said casually.

The woman sat up and dropped her bare feet off the side of the bed. The man glanced at her back.

You’ve got to think about it, he said, until it loses its shock. Until you can live with it. Until it becomes nothing more than a bus­iness deal.

She sat with her shoulders slumped and said nothing. The man noted that her hair was like yellow straw where it was matted against the back of her head.

That couple in Kansas City would have made it when they snatched the Greenlease kid, the man said, if they’d had the neces­sary self-control.

Is there that much self-control Garvin? the woman said.

I have it, the man said, not boastfully. You’re forgetting that I had nearly five years in which to learn it.

The woman turned and lay down, her lips close to his cheek. She put her arm across the lean muscles and