A Dance at the Slaughterhouse by Lawrence Block Read Free Book Online

free, and his wife's unconscious and he thinks she's dead-"
    "But she's not dead, but it gives him an idea-"
    "- and her panty hose is right there on the bed next to her, and next thing you know it's around her neck and this time she really is dead."
    He thought about it. "Sure," he said. "Could be. The medical examiner set the time of death at around one o'clock, which squares with Thurman's story, but if he did her right after they left and then stalled a while, the time he was supposed to be unconscious and then struggling to free himself, well, that would all fit."
    "Right."
    "And nobody could implicate him. They could say she was alive when they left, but that's something they'd say anyway." He finished his coffee and threw the Styrofoam cup at the wastebasket. "Fuck this," he said. "You can go around and around. I think he did it. Whether he planned it or it fell in his lap, I think he did it. All that money."
    "She inherited better than half a million, according to the brother."
    He nodded. "Plus the insurance."
    "He didn't say anything about insurance."
    "It's possible nobody told him. They took out policies payable to each other shortly after they were married. Hundred-thousand-dollar straight life, double indemnity for accidental death."
    "Well, that sweetens it a little," I said. "Raises the ante by two hundred kay."
    He shook his head.
    "Am I figuring wrong?"
    "Uh-huh. She got pregnant in September. Soon as they found out, he got in touch with his insurance agent and raised the amount of their coverage. A baby coming, increased responsibilities. Makes sense, right?"
    "What did he raise it to?"
    "A million on his own life. After all, he's the breadwinner, his income's gonna be tough to replace. Still, her role's important, so he boosted her coverage to a half mil."
    "So her death-"
    "Meant an even million in insurance, because they still had the double-indemnity clause, plus all of her property that he'll inherit. Round it off, call it a total of a million and a half."
    "Jesus."
    "Yeah."
    "Jesus Christ."
    "Yeah, right. He's got means and motive and opportunity, and he's a heartless little fuck if I ever saw one, and I couldn't find a shred of evidence to show that he's guilty of a single fucking thing." He closed his eyes for a moment, then looked up at me. "Can I ask you something?"
    "Sure."
    "Do you use the dental floss?"
    "Huh?"
    "Aspirin and dental floss, you said that's all you've got in your medicine chest. Do you ever use it?"
    "Oh," I said. "When I remember. My dentist nagged me into buying it."
    "Same here, but I never use it."
    "Neither do I, really. The good news is we'll never run out."
    "That's it," he said. "We got a fucking lifetime supply."

Chapter 4
    That evening I met Elaine Mardell in front of a theater onForty-second Street west ofNinth Avenue. She was wearing tight jeans and square-toed boots and a black leather motorcycle jacket with zippered pockets. I told her she looked great.
    "I don't know," she said. "I was trying for off-Broadway, but I think I may have achieved off-off-Broadway."
    We had good seats down front, but the theater was too small to have any bad seats. I don't remember the title of the play, but it was about homelessness, and the playwright was against it. One of the actors, Harley Ziegler, was a regular at Keep It Simple, an AA group that meets evenings atSt. Paul the Apostle, just a couple of blocks from my hotel. In the play Harley was a wino who lived in a cardboard packing case. He gave a convincing performance, and why not? A few years ago he'd been playing the role in real life.
    We went backstage afterward to congratulate Harley and ran into half a dozen other people I knew from meetings. They invited us to join them for coffee. Instead we walked ten blocks up Ninth to Paris Green, a restaurant we both liked. I had the swordfish steak and Elaine ordered linguini al pesto.
    "I don't know about you," I said. "It seems to me you wear a lot of leather for a heterosexual