After Midnight by Richard Laymon Read Free Book Online

the magazine back up the handle until it clicked into place, then worked the slide, watching through the port to make sure it fed in a round. Then I thumbed the safety on.
    After that, I just kept sitting there.
    I didn’t have the energy to get up.
    Besides, get up and do what?
    Deal is, I didn’t know what to do next. So I just sat there, staring.
    I’ve gotta do something, I kept telling myself.
    What’s the best course of action if you’ve just butchered an innocent man?
    The answer probably seems obvious to you: call the cops and tell them the whole truth about everything.
    Or fudge a little, maybe. Claim that he was holding the pistol when I opened the door. To make that version work, I would only have to take the gun outside and put it into his hand.
    Which hand? That always trips up the criminals on TV. They stick the gun into the right hand of a lefty.
    I’m a tad smarter than that.
    Tony’d been carrying the weapon in his right rear pocket. Also, he’d reached for me with his right hand.
    Reached for me ? Maybe he’d been reaching for the doorbell button.
    In either case, the evidence seemed to prove him a righty.
    Not that it mattered. I had no intention of planting the pistol on him.
    I had no intention of calling the cops, either.
    Right now, you’re probably thinking, Oh, you stupid idiot! A guy you’ve never seen before in your life showed up in the middle of the night with a gun! It’s a clear case of self-defense! Call the cops right now! Fess up! They probably won’t even charge you with anything!
    Wrong.
    Calling the police might be smart for you to do, but you’re probably one of those people who’s never gotten in trouble. A good, upstanding citizen.
    If I were you, I probably would call the cops and admit everything. And I’m sure it’d turn out hunky-dory.
    But I’m not you.
    I’m me, alias Alice.
    I could’ve gotten away with calling about the prowler. I might have actually done it, too, if the phone had been handy. It would’ve been safe. My troubles were several years earlier and in a different state. Cops coming over to save me from a prowler wouldn’t even know about me or what I’d done.
    But if they came to investigate Tony’s death, they’d investigate me.
    They’d run my prints.
    Find out who I am.
    After that, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
    So Tony had to go.
    Tony and his car, if he’d driven one here.
    Obviously, I had a long night ahead of me. But I stayed sitting on the marble floor for a while longer, wondering what to do first, where to start.
    Finally, I decided to start by changing my clothes.
    No matter what I might end up doing, I didn’t want to do it wearing Charlie’s robe. I liked the robe too much. It was bound to get bloody if I kept it on.
    Whatever got bloody would have to be destroyed.
    For that reason, I couldn’t wear clothes belonging to Serena or Charlie. I wasn’t eager to sacrifice any of my own clothes, either, but figured it had to be done.
    Which meant a trip to my place above the garage.
    Now that my mind was made up, I stuffed Tony’s hanky and comb and everything else into the pockets of my robe. Everything except the pistol. I held on to that.
    Then I went out the front door again.
    I didn’t plan to go back inside the house until everything was taken care of, so I locked the door and shut it after me.
    Just for the hell of it, I went over to the porch light, reached up and gave the bulb a twist.
    It turned easily.
    The light came on, almost blinded me.
    “Very interesting,” I muttered.
    Had Tony loosened it? Had someone else? Or had the bulb simply worked its way loose all on its own, with nobody’s help? (Light bulbs do that, you know. Almost as if they’re living creatures unscrewing themselves for sport or for reasons we’ll never guess.)
    I left it screwed in.
    All the better to see by.
    Here’s the deal: I wasn’t worried about anyone noticing Tony’s body on the lawn. That could only happen if a person came down the