Posted by Rodney on October 07, 2000 at 06:50:10:
Cast of Characters:
Walter Neff..........Fred McMurray
Susan Cole...........Rita Hayworth
Bernard Cole.........Sidney Greenstreet
Sam Spade............Humphrey Bogart
The rain peppered the canvas top of the Studebaker, adding up to a cold, wet night in Los Angelos. I parked the car and carefully looked both ways along the street. There was only the rain and me.
And that light in the second floor room.
I walked over near the house, hugging the shadows.
I kept my collar turned up and my hat turned down. I wasted no time getting up the steps and into the entrance way.
I checked my watch and fingered the key in my pocket. Susan had bee specific about not coming in before Eleven PM. Her husband was usually in bed by Ten O'clock. Ten minutes to go. My thoughts turned back to a month ago, when I was a Detective for hire and not a hired killer.
Things hadn't been going very well for the firm of Neff and Spade, Private Investigators. Sam had gotten his draft notice and had gone off to the Army. Leaving me with a pile of unpaid bills and a belligerent landloard. Sam would proably become a hero in the war.
I admired Sam...he was the kind of guy who didn't know the meaning of the word fear, a guy who could laugh in the face of danger and spit in the eye of death. In short, a moron with suicidal tendencies. I was much more practical and 4F.
January 14, 1943, my 3PM appointment arrived. The voice on the phone had been husky and breathless...but it hadn't prepared me for Susan.
She was tall, with shoulder length coppery red hair, framing a heart shaped face. The figure decked out in a tight sweater and skirt, was absolutely staggering.
"Mr Neff?", she purred, her voice had that same breathless quality.
"What's left of him", I said, looking her up and down. She had what every man-killer had since the day they strapped on their first training bra. Sex Appeal.
Cleopatra had it. Harlow had it and Ava Gardner has it. Built in at birth.
We discussed her problem. At least she did. I just sat there and drooled. She was twenty-eight and her husband, Bernard Cole..was more than thirty years older than her. He was sure she was screwing around on the side and he had hired a detective to follow her.
This morning, she had overheard her husband talking to the guy on the telephone. She wanted me to locate the investigator and offer him money to send glowing reports to her husband. Susan could afford it. Her husband lavished her with jewlery, charge acounts and cash.
But this was just a temporary solution to her problem. I knew from the beginning what she was looking for. A man who could apply a more permanent solution. Greed made divorce not an option.
The fundamental things do apply, as time goes by.
Especially crime things. So help me...Casablanca.
And all those Bogart fans out there...somewhere.
A month of hotel room sex and making plans and I climbed aboard Susan's Murder Express, with a one way ticket.
Which leads me to where I am tonight. At Eleven, I open the front door and step inside. I left my shoes at the base of the stairs and went cautiously upwards.
I moved along the hallway, reached the bedroom door. It stood slightly ajar and faint light was spilling out. A radio played Dorsey or was it Miller? I held my breath and touched the door with my finger tips. The door swung back slowly on oiled hinges. Susan had thought of everything. The poor victim had no chance. No knowledge of what was going to happen.
Balding, Bernard Cole sat propped up in bed, reading glasses on, as he looked up from his paper. Susan jumped off the bed, in a flash of sheer silk, all bedroom pink and low cut. Susan Cole was so invory skinned and female-looking, she ought to have been against the law. Hardly anybody should ever look so good.
I pulled the .38 from my shoulder rig.
"Do it! Quick...Do it!", Susan panted, eyes wide with excitement.
"Throw me a pillow, sweetheart", I told her. I wrapped the pillow around the gun.
The pillow muffled the sound of the shot.
"W..Walter!", Susan wailed. The look of astonishment on her face was wonderous to behold. Susan looked down atthe red stain spreading on the front of her gown with great puzzlement. Her hand fingered the stain, parting the gown...the bleeding puncture below and to the left of her navel. She groped for where the bullet had penetrated. Only when her fingers covered the blood dribbling hole, did she
seem to understand what had happened.
"AHHhhhhhh!", Susan exclaimed, seemingly satisfied with discovering the source of her pain. Her breasts heaved with the agony of taking in breath.
"Do you have it ready?"
"Certainly, my good man", Cole grunted. "Fifty thousand, as agreed", he tossed the wrapped packet of money and I caught it with one hand.
"W..Walter!", Susan whimpered. "W...Why...y..you
....me...we c..could have...h..had everything".
"Rember my instructions, Mr. Neff", Cole said.
"yeah, I know...make her feel every slug", I nodded.
"W..Walter..d..darling...y..you...me", she pleaded.
"Sure, until you decided to get rid of me too,
sweetheart", I told her. Cold. Without emotion. Knowing it was true. Susan knowing it was true.
The gun in my hand jumped. The redhead's body spazmed, as the red crater appeared near the tip of her big, creamy right tit. Susan looked down at the bleeding hole, seemingly displeased at the way the red goo was runing her expensive negligee.
I shot her again through the navel.
The impact of the hot slug, reaming her navel, doubled Susan forwards violently. Long red hair tumbling over her face and hiding her pain contorted features. Her big tits swinging ut and down. Her hands now waving helplessly in front of her belly, as if she could fan out the fire in her guts! Her lovely mouth working and, a scream starting deep inside her tortured body, ripped through her writhing lips.
She abruptly jerked erect, body arching, head back...that long, coppery hair swirling.
The gun jumped in my hand...one, two...three times.
Susan's gorgeous body vibrating with each shot she took.
A second nipple appearing onher left breast...this one a much darker red. Then..the nipple disappearing, replaced by a blood gushing hole. Susan took three staggering steps...the crimson foutain erupting from between her mammories. Her right leg buckled. She danced for a moment like a crazy doll, her a mouth a sudden gaping hole from which blood spurted. She pitched forwards, sprawling face down on the bed.
The .38 clicked on empty. Susan had taken all six.
Cole consulted a large, gold pocket watch.
"Ten minutes before I inform the authorities of the mysterious intruder. That will give you time to clear the area. We wouldn't want you to be found fleagrante delicto, Sir", Cole grunted.
"Speak english".
"it means, to be caught red handed", He smirked.
"Yeah, right", I said, closing the door.
At the end of every crime story, there are always loose ends to tie up. Yeah...you guessed it. I was the gumshoe Cole hired to shadow his wife. I made money on both ends.
I hefted the bundle of money. As Sam would say, the stuff dreams are made of. Like I said, I'm practical. And 4F.
(THE END)