The Revengers by Donald Hamilton Read Free Book Online

her, that suburban Lorelei, and Bob Devine should certainly have remained faithful to his own wife and let other people’s wives alone, but a shotgun was carrying things just a little too far.
    The broken window was a help. When he stumbled over something, sneaking through the garage—probably the rock I’d thrown—and swore softly, I heard him clearly and knew where to expect him next. I was ready for him when he opened the side door and stepped outside, the long-barreled weapon he held gleaming faintly in the starlight. When, scrutinizing his property warily, he swung away from me, I stepped around the comer of the building.
    “Easy, friend,” I said. “There’s a thirty-eight looking right up your backside.” He stood quite still, frozen, and I went on, “If you’re thinking of trying to swing that cannon around, don’t. You’ll never make it. Lay it down gently, now.”
    “Who are you?”
    “Lay it on the ground, please,” I said. It always disconcerts them when you’re polite. “We can talk afterward. No hasty movements. . . . That’s fine, now you can straighten up, but don’t turn around. There’s nothing for you to see but a man you don’t know and don’t want to know.”
    “Who the hell are you?”
    I said, “Just a guy with a gun. What’s the matter, friend, are you stupid or something? You read the article, didn’t you? Hell, everybody in Casa Glorieta has read that article, I’m sure. ‘Hey, did you see the story about that new family over on Navajo Drive, the big guy with the nice young wife, did you read about him, hey?’ ” I paused and went on, full of menace now to see what I could shake loose. “Why’d you do it, amigo? Do you make a habit of feeling under rocks for rattlesnakes or skiing past avalanche-warning signs just for kicks? If you’ve got to shoot somebody, why pick on a man with friends and associates like that? Did it never occur to you that we might take care of our own even after they’re retired? I know, he probably had it coming in a way, but the unwritten law doesn’t work any longer, friend. Sorry. Up against the wall now, please.” I stepped forward and picked up the weapon he’d laid down. “So this is the gun.”
    It was exactly what I’d expected, exactly what it had to be from what it had done: a long-barreled autoloading shotgun eminently suitable for ducks and geese, not so hot for quail, and clumsy and unwieldy for homicide. I couldn’t read the barrel markings in the dark, but I would have bet a considerable sum that it was bored full-choke to throw tight patterns for long-range shooting—the spread of the shot can be controlled, like the stream of water from a hose, by the amount of constriction in the end of the gun barrel. It had to be fully choked if I had it figured right; besides they don’t usually make thirty-inch barrels in any other configuration.
    The man in front of me, call him Mister Lorelei for purposes of reference, stirred and said, “You’ll never prove. . . .” Then he stopped.
    “Sure,” I said. “A load of buckshot out of one shotgun —or birdshot for that matter—looks just like that out of another. Who can tell anything from a bunch of little round pellets? But you didn’t stop to pick up the fired case. That’s the trouble with these autoloaders from the criminal standpoint—they toss their empties from hell to breakfast. Yours is in the hands of the police; and a fired shotgun shell can be traced to the gun that fired it. The firing-pin indentation is unique, and there’ll be other markings for the ballistic geniuses to drool over. Of course, twelve-gauge shotguns are a dime a dozen out here in the Southwest. The police could hardly stage a house-to-house search of Casa Glorieta to locate the murder weapon, particularly since the crime occurred in town and it was thought to be a professional hit anyway, because of Bob Devine’s past history. But if somebody gives them the idea of checking up on local