Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 2, April 1961

She nearly did, too. My only competition for the next two years was Jim. Always there, always forming the trio. Damn you! Couldn’t you see?

No, not even the night I proposed. That restaurant you dragged us to — tawdry, run-down, covering dirty wallpaper with a blanket of “atmosphere.” You knew, and you wanted to stop me.

Without realizing it, Frank worked the lever of the carbine. Then, hooking a strong thumb over the hammer, he pressed the trigger and gently, slowly released the hammer. The Special now had a cartridge in the chamber, and could be fired quickly. There’d been little noise: a click-snick of the assembly, barely audible, gave Frank godlike power. He moved on.

You lost, Jim; I won. And so we were married and I lived unhappily ever after. Pat is headstrong; domineering without ability to dominate; add her father’s money. It took me a long time to realize I was a kept patsy — pushed around at her whim, too puppy-dog grateful to know it.

As soon as I caught on, the marriage went sour. She didn’t want kids; actually, I was acting in that capacity, and she couldn’t stand it when I showed independence. Suddenly, she wanted out.

Conveniently enough, Jim, in all that time you never married. Why?

Divorce? The hell I’d give her one! Maybe it was time for her to grow up. I suggested it in that battle we had.

Well, you don’t argue with children, you tell them. The divorce was out. I’d matured. Finally had control of the business; next, I’d control my family... including the kids she’d bear me.

Pat said it was a fine curtain speech, but unfortunately I was too weak. Was I? The next few months would tell.

Then came the shock of the day when I accidentally discovered she’d been seeing Jim! My best friend! And my wife...

“I loved you both. But: It’s my: birthday.”

Frank aimed carefully.

Two almost-simultaneous shots echoed in the canyon, disturbed a circling hawk, frightened a doe, made no impression on the omnipresent manzanita, and very quickly dulled to nothing in the late-afternoon winds of the Coast Ranges.

A voice from a thousand miles away: “Run like hell?”

An answer, tremulous as though aged: “No, not from this one. We’ll tell them it was a hunting accident.”

Unconscious habit, born in days of fear that were never expected to return, with greater intensity drew them shoulder to shoulder. Pat, sprawled back over the fallen tree, lay unmoving where two tiny motes had pushed her. The bullet holes, like two bleeding close-spaced eyes, were an inch and one-half apart.

The Last Kill by Charles Runyon

The “Organization” had it’s big eye on Johnny Quill. Johnny knew he had to make this kill by the rule book... but he hadn’t counted on the woman.

* * *

Three hours out of New York International Airport, Johnny Quill rose from his seat to learn which of his fellow passengers he had to kill.

He walked down the aisle of the Viscount, carrying his shaving kit in his left rand. The empty space below his armpit made him itchy and nervous; he’d hated to leave his gun behind when he went through customs.

But he’d have to get used to the emptiness; this would be his last job.

At the spigot, he drew a cup of water and looked back through the cabin. The passengers seemed half-alive, sunk in midflight lethargy. In the nearest seat, a fat man in a flowered shirt cleaned his camera lens with a camel-hair brush. Johnny wondered, was he the man the Organization had sentenced to death? Or was it the black-haired girl with the purple eyelids, whose fingers made typing motions while she slept? Or one of sixty others...?

Johnny tightened his jaw and drew another cup of water. If he looked long enough, he’d begin to think of them as people. He had to think of them as machines, one of which he’d be assigned to turn off. It had helped before...

He crushed the cup in his bony fist and pushed open the door of the lavatory. It was empty; his contact hadn’t yet arrived.

Plugging in his electric shaver, he stooped to the mirror and began shaving his lean face. His light blond beard was not yet visible, but the shaver’s hum would cover the sound of conversation.

He wondered if he looked like the businessman he’d claimed to be in his passport. The gray suit was conservative enough; the maroon tie sufficiently bland. The white scars bunched along his jaw could have been trophies of college football; the thin nose could have been broken in a gentlemanly brawl. Yes, he’d pass...

The door opened and a bald, sticky man squeezed in. He looked like he’d just boarded a rush hour subway. His cheap suit was rumpled, his tie twisted.

“Quill?” he asked.

Johnny nodded, wrinkling his nose at the odor of sweat which had filled the cubicle. “Make it short, huh?”

The stocky man scowled at Johnny’s image. “I oughta see some identification.”