5 Detective Novels Magazine — page 102: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

102 under his hat, he nodded. “Reeder?” he said. .“Nope, he hasn’t changed much. Still putters; still hasn’t hit anything world-beating. Understand he turned out a couple of little gadgets that the signal eorps is using.” “Know what he’s working on now?” “Monkeying with hydroponics last time I talked to him,” Hank said. was in here a few days ago and beught some chemicals for them. Little out of his usual line. Jeff Pogue’s working for him again.” “Jeff Pogue? Oh, Karl Pogue’s brother. He was helping Reeder with some radio stuff while I was around town. You say ‘again.’ What has he been doing meanwhile?” “Jail,” Hank said. “Funny situation. Five-six years ago— yeah, that’d be after you left—Reeder hired him as a full-time assistant. He swiped an in- vention of Reeder’s—I never did find out what it was, but he sold it for five hundred bucks. Reeder found out .and hit the ceiling. You know that temper of his. He prosecuted and got Jeff sent up for two years. “Then he cooled off and started work- ing to get Jeff out of jail. Spent more money getting him out than in. Ambers made five or six trips to Springfield to see the governor and the pardon board. Got him out eight months ago, after fourteen months in. And hired him back. Tie that?” | Paes I couldn’t see that it had anything to do with messages from Mars, but I filed it away for future reference, along with the more pertinent information that Reeder wasn’t talking around Haverton about those messages. If he’d been here in Hank Foy’s drug store only a few days ago, then that was since he’d written the letter to Emil Wingerman which I had in my pocket. [ looked up at the clock and said I’d better beat it, and that I’d drop in again. It was getting dark when I left the drug store, but there was going to be a bright moon. I went a little out of my way, heading for the edge of town. I didn’t want to pass the house I’d lived in. My mother had died in that house eight years ago, my father seven years ago. Not that I didn’t want to think “He FIVE DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE about them, but I didn’t want to see hghts on in that house. I didn’t want to think of other people living there now. The cemetery, just outside of town— that was different. I wanted to stop, but in there, under all the trees, it would be too dark to find my way. Tomorrow I’d go there; for the first time, and maybe the last. There were only two places in Haver- ten I wanted ‘to avoid. They hadn’t been places I’d hated; they’d been the places I’d loved. My own house and Mary Ambers’ house. My own because my parents didn’t live there now. Mary’s—well, Mary wouldn’t be there any more, either. She’d have married Nick Eklund years aoe Probably have kids by now. Prob- ably— “Quit thinking, you fool,” I told my- self. “Or think about Walter Reeder and messages from Mars.” il Wuere Beech Street quits being a street at the edge of town and turns into a road, I stopped to light a cigarette. My hand was shaking so I had to brace, my wrists, one against the other, to hold cigarette and match steady. Jitters again; worse than they’d been for sev- eral weeks now. I walked past the cemetery, with the low wall in front of it. I passed Karl Pogue’s farm. There was a light in the kitchen. Funny guy, Karl Pogue. As near to a hermit aS a man can be, in times like these, hating and avoiding the whole world except his brother Jeff, who worked for Reeder. Past Hetterman’s farm, with Win- throp’s coming up. The moon was bright now. The corn was more than head- high and waving and swaying in the evening breeze, gray-green in the moon- light. I was looking at the tall corn when just for an instant I saw a dark shadow, man-high, between the rows. A lighter oval, head-high, that might have been a face. There was the sound of a growl and for just a fraction of a second my eyes supplied details for that face. De- tails that weren’t there at all, for it was the face of a devil. GoIMmniGcsoo O) S (C(O)