COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1955 by Edward Ronns.
Published by Wildside Press LLC.
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1
BARNEY FORBES had been dreaming of Lily when he awoke knowing that someone had quietly entered his room. He did not move. He did not open his eyes. He heard the sound of the mountain wind in the screens, and he smelled the pines beyond the hotel window.
Someone breathed with heavy, laborious regularity, not too far from his bed.
His dream of Lily faded, like the diminishing echoes of a sorrowful song. Even while he listened to the other’s breathing, he thought, It’s getting better. It’s over a year now, and at last it’s getting better. There was a time when he had awakened in a cold sweat, shouting her name. There were other times when he had reached out for her, had felt the emptiness of the bed beside him and known she would never be there again, and those were the worst times.
He let her fade out of his mind, and listened.
He heard the snap of the catches being opened on his luggage, the rustle of his shirts being turned over, the muted rattle of paper, the creak of a leather belt. And the heavy breathing.
Barney opened his eyes to darkness.
A dim shape loomed over the luggage rack to his right, a pencil torch an island of glowing light in an invisible hand.
He had made no secret of his arrival in Omega, here in the far Adirondacks. No secret about his intentions, either. To hell with the old man’s timid warnings. If you know there’s a snake somewhere under the rocks, you start kicking the rocks around. If all the doors are closed against you, you have to start hammering on them. If you’re looking for a dead man, you have to cry murder.
The only train available from New York had dropped him in Omega at eleven o’clock at night. His reservation at the resort hotel overlooking the lake was honored, somewhat to his surprise. But when he went to the police station at midnight, the sergeant’s face froze; Barney all but heard that first door slam against him. At the Hunter estate, the big iron gates were not even opened. It did not bother him. He called it quits and turned in.
Now he judged by moonlight coming through the tall windows that it was about two o’clock in the morning. The man searching his luggage had his back to him. Quietly, silently, Barney moved his hand up from his side and under the pillow, seeking his gun.
His fingers touched the butt of the .38 Special—and then he froze as the intruder straightened up with a soft grunt. He was a big man, with slightly bowed shoulders, gray hair that looked silvery in the moonlight. The wind whined in the screens. There was a faint lapping sound of water from the lake shore. The pine trees thrashed. It was August, but here in the mountains the air was cold.
He closed his hand around the gun.
The intruder had ears like a cat—and a calm voice.
“Take it easy, Mr. Forbes.”
Barney sat up, the gun in his hand. “Don’t mind me. Just tell me what you’re looking for.”
“Nothing special,” the man said easily. “I’d know it if I found it.”
“Who are you?” Barney asked.
“Cops.”
“The hell you say. Sit down over there. Fold your hands on the back of your neck. Don’t move too fast.”
Barney heard the sound of heavy breathing. The pencil flash snicked out. The intruder didn’t like his orders. In the dim moonlight, his face was a graven mask, blank, the eyes darkly studying him. The moonlight ran a liquid finger along the barrel of the gun in Barney’s hand. The wind rattled the screens again. A lone cricket began to chirp out on the hotel lawn, making a cold and forlorn sound.
“You’re mighty touchy,” the big man said.
“And you’re wide open,” Barney said. “Cop or no cop. You picked the lock or used a key, it doesn’t matter. It adds up to breaking and entering. How would you like a slug in your belly?”
“I wouldn’t like that at all.”
“Then sit down.”
The man sat.
Barney reached out with his left hand and turned on a lamp. The Omega Hotel had no use for modern decor or streamlined frills. Its rooms were barren caverns furnished with the original heavy walnut of the General Grant era. The rocking-chair brigade that habitually took possession of the veranda facing the lake never objected. Some of them, from Barney’s brief glimpse in the lobby, probably had started summering here along with General Grant.
“All right,” Barney said. “Talk about it.”
“You’re Barney Forbes?”
“That’s why you were rifling my bag, wasn’t it?”
“I reckon.”
“You said you’re a cop.”
“Chief Jacobus Hendrycks. You’ll find a lot of Hudson Valley Dutch around here. Put down the gun. I got a wife and eight kids.”
Barney sat on the edge of the big bed. He was a tall man, not quite thirty. He had thick dark hair, dark blue eyes that seemed black when he was angry, a competent nose and mouth. He was quietly and completely his own man. It was expressed in the way he carried himself, in everything he did.
Chief Hendrycks was also a tall man, but he had gone to fat around the edges, and not even the piney mountain air could help his asthma. His face was long, sad, and a little frightened. The fear showed in the slow flicker of his pale eyes, in the tight corners of his mouth, in the way he breathed. But Barney knew that this man was not afraid of him. The chiefs fear was a general thing, perhaps habitual, something that was much bigger than any one man or the town itself.
“What’s so important about me that you break into my room and check my luggage?” Barney asked.
“You’re looking for Malcolm Hunter, aren’t you?”
“I’m here to find him.”
Hendrycks spread his hands, as if no further answer was necessary. “Well, then.”
Barney was annoyed. “You don’t think I’ll find him?”
“Better pray you don’t, son.” The chief smiled sadly. “You wouldn’t want to tangle with Malcolm Hunter, right or wrong, working for him or against him.”
“He’s as mean as that?”
“He runs things.”
“Does he run you?” Barney asked quietly.
Hendrycks thought about it. He was in no hurry. He wore an old Army surplus canvas jacket against the cold bite of the mountain wind. Under that was a faded flannel
