5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

100 see much more, because she didn’t get out, but I knew she’d look good. “Where’s Mr. Ryan?” she asked, looking me over. “m the new pump twister. How about a grease and polish job?” I ran the tank over. It needed only three. She laughed, but the joke was on her, after all. “Later, maybe,” she said. “T’ll call for it,” I told her, “and deliver if. “Business must be good if Mr. Ryan needs a helper.” HAT was a razzberry, but the way her nose crinkled a little with her smile made it nice. “I’m buying Ryan out,” I explained shortly. “Oh.” That sobered her just a shade. She dug up some silver out of a red-and- white handbag that matched her dress. Then she waved a sweet little mitt, gave me a heart-stopping smile over her shoulder, and fed that straight-eight whirlwind a quarter of gas. The spatter- ing gravel nearly broke a window. She went helling toward the central island highway in a cloud of sand. Ryan came out and looked after her with soft, narrowed eyes. When the dust was settling back, he turned to me and smiled weakly. “You’ve met our neighbor, Valeria del Rio,” he said. She wasn’t too smart, tanking up for three gallons—not after I’d seen that funny flash from her window. But I didn’t tell Ryan. “She hasn’t got a Cuban accent,” I said. He sniffed. “Many of them come to the States for their schooling, those who can afford it.” I thought of the gravel kicking up from her wheels. She drove like a Cuban, all right, and she had a high-class Span- ish complexion, like Jersey cream and magnolia blossoms. That dame might be a lookout for smugging unsuccessful Cubans into Florida. She might also be turning a pair of field glasses on Ryan’s Last Stop Service Station. Pretty good name—the last place any customer would stop. FIVE DETECTIVE NOVELS MAGAZINE Chapter [i T WAS getting dark. Ryan gargled straight rye while I heated up a can of chili and made coffee on the electric range. The kitchen was in the center of the E, looking toward Valeria’s house. I was wondering whether she went for honest faces and whether she could cook. When the percolator started bubbling, Ryan didn’t look so worried any more. He even began to wipe the whisky from his chin. The kitchen had quite a bit of first- floor canopy reaching out in front of it. The whole building cast a long shadow, which lost itself in the shadows of the dunes and the brush. That didn’t mean much, and I didn’t bother to wonder why Ryan squatted in a corner. I snapped on a light and stirred the chili. “Come and get it,” I said. The second he got up, a window smashed to bits. I heard a chuckling sound. Something hit the door jamb. “Down!” I hollered; diving for the corner and snapping the wall switch. But Ryan had ducked. There hadn’t been any blast. The slug I picked out matched the one I had dug out of the office. From where Ryan and I had been standing, I couldn’t tell whether it was meant for me or for him. Then I felt foolish about not having risked a gander out over the drifted sand. Somebody had plenty of moxie, sniping before it was fairly dark. “He’s g-got a silencer, I t-told you,” Ryan stuttered. “Nuts!” I snapped. “Judging from how the slug went in, it’s an air gun. But it’d kill you deader’n hell if it hit. They make ’em powerful these days.” It began to look like I’d earn my first seventy-five bucks. But if I caught the shaggy man, I was fixing to shave him with a tire iron, the one on the desk in the downstairs office. It all smelled as if that del Rio gal had made a quick report to the gunner. Ryan got nicely plastered that night. He needed the relaxation after the few months of what he had gone through. He’d been there about a year and a half, he had told me. Judging from some odds and ends I found in one of the rooms, a dame must have been there. Anyway, comiclooolkks (C@)