The Revengers by Donald Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page B

one of the garage windows.”
    “And you couldn’t get a shot at him? How too, too bad!” There was a cold savage hatred in the voice that, for a moment, sounded almost sober. “You couldn’t drop him as he ran, like a rabbit? What the hell kind of a loushy . . . lousy hunter are you, anyway?”
    She stepped away from the door, turning to see her husband more clearly. The light caught her as she turned; revealing that her appearance had undergone a shocking transformation since I’d seen her watching us from across the street. I’d gotten a clear impression then, even at a distance, that Bob Devine’s partner in adultery was a handsome woman who dressed nicely and took good care of herself—but that had been this afternoon.
    She must have been drinking hard ever since. Now, at midnight, the sleek shining hairdo I’d admired from afar was falling apart into wisps and loops of lank blond hair. The crisp, pale green blouse hung limp and untidy and halfunbuttoned, one crumpled shirttail dangling. The expensive, smoothly tailored, pale green slacks had succumbed to careless wear and the soft warm pressures of her mature body, becoming almost embarrassingly creased and shapeless. It was hard to understand how, in just a few hours, she’d managed to get them looking as if she’d slept in them for a week. She swayed dangerously on her high heels, standing there; and liquor spilled down her clothes as she tried to drink from her unsteady glass. She did not seem a bit concerned about the state she was already in or the further mess she was making of herself; she actually seemed pleased by the effect she was creating, peering down to admire the dark, wet splotches as if she thought they added a final artistic touch to her ruined costume, as of course they did.
    I realized belatedly that, instead of fighting it as in the past—if her husband’s account was correct—tonight this woman had deliberately given herself over to the booze she knew she could not handle. She was quite aware of, even perversely proud of, what it was doing to her. She was taking malicious pleasure in showing her husband how little he’d gained by murdering her lover. All he’d gotten for his crime, she was saying, was this stumbling, slovenly and drink-stained creature, really quite worthless. After the ghastly unforgivable thing he had done, she would never again, could never again, be any more than this to him. It was her revenge on him, and on herself.
    “You see,” the man murmured without turning his head. “You see what he’s done to her? She was doing fine before he came!”
    It didn’t seem fair to blame it all on Bob Devine, the basic problem had obviously existed long before he arrived on the scene, but he certainly hadn’t been altogether blameless. There were too many confused and violent emotions here; and there was really nothing for me to do here, anyway. I’d learned what I’d come to learn. If punishment was needed, these two people seemed to be dispensing it quite adequately themselves, without my help.
    “Go on,” I whispered. “You’d better get her to bed if you can. Good luck.”
    The man’s voice was soft and bitter. “Good luck? What’s that?”
    Then he moved forward hastily as the glass dropped from his wife’s hand and shattered on the concrete walk. A startled look had come to the woman’s blurred but still-handsome face as she realized abruptly that in her anger she’d gulped down just a little too much too fast of the stuff that was poison to her. She had not intended to carry her self-destroying vengeance quite so far tonight; and now she was making a shaky effort to regain the shelter of the house and, no doubt, the bathroom. He reached her in time to catch her as she faltered; he steadied her and led her out of sight inside; but they didn’t make it all the way through the garage. I heard her become violently ill in there. The sound of her retching spasms followed me as I sneaked away.
    Martha was