Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, December 1956 — page 126: what you’re looking at

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

said more than a big, long speech could ‘have. She’d learned to live with it. She could talk about it. But I didn’t ask her to. I brought the conversation around to black- jack, how she’d learned about it. She smiled a warm, bright smile and I was glad to see things back on a lighter level. “Just picked it up, Matt. It wasn’t a bad job. Prob- ably not too different from dealing soup plates in somebody’s greasy spoon. In fact, I know it isn’t; I’ve done that too.” She leaned back. “I do run on, don’t I? What about you, Matt? Your lessons didn’t start in the Silver King.” “Had four years practice,” I grinned, “with Uncle Sam to feed me if I happened to go broke.” “What branch?” | “Army. Signal corps. After basic I latched onto an outfit working communications for beachheads. Tough a couple of times a year, but in between there were long stretches where we didn’t do much besides tune up equipment, replace tubes and batteries, and play cards, We overdid it; I seldom care for cards now.’ Tt went on like that for quite a spell, batting it back and forth from past to present and the like. We pushed along steadily and crossed into California just out of Topaz Lake. Being a truck, we had to roll in for a check-up. I swung the doors on the empty van; they took a quick ‘peek and we were on our way again. We made Bishop 124 and Maggie read the city-limits sign on the way in. -We: stopped for chow and once again she was very much concerned that we be able to watch the truck as we ate. “You got gold in those suit- cases?” I kidded. “The Blake bankroll isn’t enor- mous but I’d hate to lose the few things I have.” I didn’t think any more eink it, but when we pulled out onto the highway and left Bishop the blonde mentioned the name again. She said it real clear, like an adult teaching a child to pronounce it. “Bishop. Nice town, Bishop.” “Sure,” I agreed, and shot a quick glance her way, “but it gets awful hot here and—” She pointed at a kid off in the distance, galloping bareback on an old red horse, and changed the subject. We picked up a little speed and I checked the side mir- ror like a trucker will, just seeing how things stand. It was Sunday and some of the weekend ‘tourists were headed home. There’d be a lot more of them as we closed in on L.A. I didn’t notice anything special —not at first, I didn’t. Then I picked up a car quite a way back, one that seemed to hang on back there. The gleam on its chrome grill was pretty bright and it made a pattern. Only it didn’t get big- ger and bigger in the rearview mirror and then flash past like they usually do. Just flashed in and-out ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE COLMICLOOKS.€©