Oddments by Bill Pronzini Read Free Book Online Page A

it was air-conditioned.
    The day had been another hundred-plus scorcher, and I was tired and soggy and I wanted a shower and a beer in the worst way. But I'd promised Mary Ellen I'd talk to Jerry—and it puzzled me about Verna sitting on the porch that way.
    So I went straight over there from the garage.
    Verna looked up when I said hello. Her round, plain face was red with prickly heat and her colorless hair hung limp and sweat-plastered to her skin. There was a funny look in her eyes and around her mouth, a look that made me feel un easy.
    "Frank," she said. "Lord, it's hot, isn't it?"
    "And no relief in sight. Where's Jerry?"
    "In the house."
    "Busy? I'd like to talk to him."
    "You can't."
    "No? How come?"
    "He's dead."
    "What?"
    "Dead," she said. "I killed him."
    I wasn't hot anymore; it was as if I'd been doused with ice water. "Killed him? Jesus, Verna—"
    "We had a fight and I went and got his service pistol and shot him in the back of the head while he was watching TV."
    "When?" It was all I could think of to say.
    "Little while ago."
    "The police . . . have you called the police?"
    "No.
    "Then I'd better—"
    The screen door popped open with a sudden creaking sound. I jerked my gaze that way, and Jerry was standing there big as life. "Hey, Frank," he said.
    I gaped at him with my mouth hanging open.
    "Look like you could use a cold one. You too, Verna."
    Neither of us said anything.
    Jerry said, "I'll get one for each of us," and the screen door banged shut.
    I looked at Verna again. She was still sitting in the same posture, head down, staring at the steps with that funny look on her face.
    "I know about him killing me all the time," she said. "Did you think I didn't know, didn't hear him saying it?"
    There were no words in my head. I closed my mouth.
    "I wanted to see how it felt to kill him the same way," Verna said. "And you know what? It felt good."
    I backed down the steps, started to turn away. But I was still looking at her and I saw her head come up, I saw the odd little smile that changed the shape of her mouth.
    "Good," she said, "but not good enough."
    I went home. Mary Ellen was upstairs, taking a shower. When she came out I told her what had just happened.
    "My God, Frank. The heat's made her as crazy as he is. They're two of a kind."
    "No," I said, "they're not. They're not the same at all."
    "What do you mean?"
    I didn't tell her what I meant. I didn't have to, because just then in the hot, dead stillness we both heard the crack of the pistol shot from next door.

Shade Work
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    J ohnny Shade blew into San Francisco on the first day of summer. He went there every year, when he had the finances; it was a good place to find action on account of the heavy convention business. Usually he went a little later in the summer, around mid-July, when there were fifteen or twenty thousand conventioneers wandering around, a high percentage of them with money in their pockets and a willingness to lay some of it down on a poker table. You could take your time then, weed out the deadheads and the short-money scratchers. Pick your vic.
    But this year was different. This year he couldn't afford to wait around or take his time. He had three thousand in his kick that he'd scored in Denver, and he needed to parlay that into ten grand—fast. Ten grand would buy him into a big con Elk Tracy and some other boys were setting up in Louisville. A classic big-store con, even more elaborate than the one Newman and Redford had pulled off in The Sting, Johnny's favorite flick. Elk needed a string of twenty and a nut of two hundred thousand to set it up right; that was the reason for the ten-grand buy-in. The guaranteed net was two million. Ten grand buys you a hundred, minimum. Johnny Shade had been a card mechanic and cheat for nearly two decades and he'd never held that much cash in his hands at one time. Not even close to that much.
    He was a small-time grifter and he knew it. A single-o, traveling around the