The McBain Brief by Ed McBain Page A

bedroom.
    She had taken a quick sponge bath, and her body gleamed like dull ivory in the gathering darkness.
    â€œAll right, Agnes,” I said. “It’s all over.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, Dud?”
    â€œThe whole mess, Agnes. Everything, from start to finish. A big hoax. A big plot to sucker Dudley Sledge. Well, no one suckers Sledge. No one.”
    â€œI don’t know what you mean, Dud.”
    â€œYou don’t know, huh? You don’t know what I mean? I mean the phony story about the bank job, and the ten million dollars your husband left you.”
    â€œHe did leave it to me, Dudley.”
    â€œNo, Agnes. That was all a lie. Every bit of it. I’m only sorry I had to kill twenty-six bird-watchers before I realized the truth.”
    â€œYou’re wrong, Dudley,” she said. “Dead wrong.”
    â€œNo, baby. I’m right, and that’s the pity of it because I love you, and I know what I have to do now.”
    â€œDudley . . .” she started.
    â€œNo, Agnes. Don’t try to sway me. I know you stole that ten million from the Washington Heights Bird Watchers Society. You invented that other story because you wanted someone with a gun, someone who would keep them away from you. Well, twenty-six people have paid . . . and now one more has to pay.”
    She clipped two earrings to her delicate ears, snapped a bracelet onto her wrist, dabbed some lipstick onto her wide mouth. She was fully dressed now, dressed the way she’d been the first time in my office, the first time I’d slugged her, the time I knew I was hopelessly in love with her.
    She took a step toward me, and I raised the .45.
    â€œKiss me, Dudley,” she said.
    I kissed her, all right. I shot her right in the stomach.
    She fell to the floor, a look of incredible ecstasy in her eyes, and when I turned around I realized she wasn’t reaching for the mortar shell on the table behind me. Nor was she reaching for thesubmachine gun that rested in the corner near the table. She was reaching for the ten million bucks.
    There were tears in my eyes. “I guess that’s the least I can do for you, Agnes,” I said. “It was what you wanted, even in death.”
    So I took the ten million bucks, and I bought a case of Irish whiskey.

Chinese Puzzle
    T he girl slumped at the desk just inside the entrance doorway of the small office. The phone lay uncradled, just the way she’d dropped it. An open pad of telephone numbers rested just beyond reach of her lifeless left hand.
    The legend on the frosted glass door read Gotham Lobster Company. The same legend was repeated on the long row of windows facing Columbus Avenue, and the sun glared hotly through those windows, casting the name of the company onto the wooden floor in shadowed black.
    Mr. Godrow, President of Gotham Lobster, stood before those windows now. He was a big man with rounded shoulders and a heavy paunch. He wore a gray linen jacket over his suit pants, and the pocket of the jacket was stitched with the word Gotham. He tried to keep his meaty hands from fluttering, but he wasn’t good at pretending. The hands wandered restlessly, and then exploded in a gesture of impatience.
    â€œWell, aren’t you going to do something?” he demanded.
    â€œWe just got here, Mr. Godrow,” I said. “Give us a little . . .”
    â€œThe police are supposed to be so good,” he said petulantly.“This girl drops dead in my office and all you do is stand around and look. Is this supposed to be a sightseeing tour?”
    I didn’t answer him. I looked at Donny, and Donny looked back at me, and then we turned our attention to the dead girl. Her left arm was stretched out across the top of the small desk, and her body was arched crookedly, with her head resting on the arm. Long black hair spilled over her face, but it could not hide the contorted, hideously locked grin on her mouth. She wore a tight silk dress,