The Golden Gizmo by Jim Thompson

am familiar with its possibilities. I wonder if you would still maintain it doesn't hurt if I should swing it vigorously against your crotch?"
    Shake turned a shade greener.
    Donald pointed an angrily indignant finger at Toddy. "He's the guy you ought to do it to, mister! He got us to come here!"
    "Did he, indeed?"
    "Just ask him if he didn't! Told us they was an old lady livin' here all by herself-an old crippled dame with a pile of jewelry!"
    "That's just what he done, sir," Shake chorused righteously. "Got us to give him two hundred dollars for tippin' us off."
    Alvarado glanced quizzically at Toddy. Toddy shrugged.
    "I see. You,"-nodding at Donald-"is that what you were discussing with him earlier this evening?"
    "It ain't all we was discussing." Donald eyed Toddy venomously. "What we was really discussing was murder. We-that's how we happened to make the deal with him. He killed his wife and he needed the money to blow town on."
    "Oh, now," Alvarado laughed. "Murder his wife? I find that hard to believe. Doubtless he only told you that as a means of obtaining your money."
    "I tell ya, he killed her! Anyways," Donald qualified reluctantly, "she got killed. She was layin' on the bed-right there in his hotel room!"
    Alvarado made a sound of disbelief. "He invited you up to pay your respects, I suppose? At what time was this?"
    "Right around six-thirty. An', no, he didn't invite me up there! I sneaked up while he was out, see? I was gonna cut him up when he came back."
    He babbled on eagerly, anxious to make the evidence against Toddy as damning as possible. Shake tried to interrupt him once; he seemed to sense that there was much more here than met the eye. A cold word from Alvarado, however, and Shake was reduced to flabby quaking silence.
    Donald concluded the recital with a vicious leer at Toddy.
    Slowly, the chinless man turned to the girl. "Well?"
    "I told you what I saw. There is nothing more I can say."
    "So," sighed Alvarado, "we are confronted with two contradictory truths. Apparently contradictory, I should say. I wonder… But we must not bother these gentlemen with out petty problems. They are obviously men of large affairs. We must speed them on their way- with, of course, some small memento of their visit."
    He moved, smiling, toward the two. "You would like to leave it that way, gentlemen? After all, breaking and entering is a very serious crime."
    They nodded vigorously.
    Alvarado's smile vanished. "I will do you a favor. Turn around!"
    "B-but-"
    "I withdraw the favor!" He swung the sock-once, twice. He dropped it and grabbed the dog by the collar. "The blood scent arouses him, gentlemen. I advise you to run very fast."
    They stared at him stupidly; dazed, not grasping his meaning. The blows had reddened their faces. There was no other sign of their impact.
    Then it came, the blood. It spurted out from ten thousand pinpoint fountains, formed into hideous red-threaded masks. The dog snarled and lunged.
    "Quickly!" snapped Alvarado, and there was no doubting the urgency of his voice.
    Shake and Donald came alive simultaneously. They hurled themselves at the door and wedged there. Clawing and cursing hysterically, they broke free. They stumbled and fell down the steps. The sound of their frantically pounding footsteps receded and vanished into the night.
    Alvarado closed the door and stood with his back to it. He smiled at Toddy as he delivered a firmly admonitory kick in the dog's ribs.
    "I seem to owe you an apology, Mr. Kent. I wonder if you will be generous enough to forgive and forget-if, in short, you are still of a mind to accept the offer I made you earlier."
    Toddy's brow wrinkled. "Maybe. But what about my wife? Regardless of what's happened to the body, my wife's absence is going to be noticed. It's just a matter of time until the police will be looking for me. I can't show myself. I don't see how you can afford to be tied up with me."
    "I am planning, Mr. Kent, to absolve you of the murder.