Robert Terrall - Kill Now Pay Later

A succession of explosive amusements, breathless, harassed, handsomely diverting.

New York Herald Tribune

Ben Gates proves himself a much better than average private eye...refreshingly unhackneyed, and the telling is crisp and well paced.

The New York Times

Best...thriller since Cains Double Indemnity. Dont miss it!

King Features Syndicate

A riotous flurry of extortion [and] impersonations.

Publishers Weekly

Fast-moving adventure...filled with slick skullduggery.

New York Post

Ingenious...Blue-chip humor...Cheerful chicanery.

Kirkus Reviews

Imaginative...Hair-raising...A great deal of fun.

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Come on in, a girls voice called. Its not locked. I went in. She was up on a stepladder painting a wall yellow.

Why, Mr. Gates, she said. This is an honor.

She came down the ladder. Her hair was two shades of light brown. She was in her early twenties, and if she wasnt married already I didnt think she would stay unmarried long.

Painting, she said unnecessarily. Hows the private detective business?

About the same. How did you know my name was Gates?

The girls were talking about you last night. Most of us hadnt ever seen a real live private detective, and we thought you were pretty stimulating. You know how girls are?

Within limits. I took out a cigar and began peeling off the cellophane. What I wanted to ask you

Come on in and sit down, she said.

I followed her through an open arch and sat on a couch. She settled on a sort of hassock, tucking one foot under her. She had fewer buttons on her shirt than I had thought at first. Even with close scrutiny, and this is a matter which I like to give close scrutiny, I could only count one.

I bit the end off the cigar. Do you always put on makeup this early, even when youre not expecting anybody?

She gave a little laugh. All right, I knew you were coming. They want me to watch out, because youre supposed to be pretty shifty.

She got up for a cigarette. The cigarettes were on a low table in front of the couch. She had to bend over, and the shirt responded to the pull of gravity. The final button was hanging by a thread. She shifted position, and the crucial button came off with a pop.

Just as I suspected, I said. Youre a girl.

She was smiling. Dont you like girls?

That was when a police car came to a noisy halt in front of the house and two uniformed troopers jumped out...

SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY:

THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART by Lawrence Block

THE GUTTER AND THE GRAVE by Ed McBain

NIGHT WALKER by Donald Hamilton

A TOUCH OF DEATH by Charles Williams

SAY IT WITH BULLETS by Richard Powell

WITNESS TO MYSELF by Seymour Shubin

BUST by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

STRAIGHT CUT by Madison Smartt Bell

LEMONS NEVER LIE by Richard Stark

THE LAST QUARRY by Max Allan Collins

THE GUNS OF HEAVEN by Pete Hamill

THE LAST MATCH by David Dodge

GRAVE DESCEND by John Lange

THE PEDDLER by Richard S. Prather

LUCKY AT CARDS by Lawrence Block

ROBBIES WIFE by Russell Hill

THE VENGEFUL VIRGIN by Gil Brewer

THE WOUNDED AND THE SLAIN by David Goodis

BLACKMAILER by George Axelrod

SONGS OF INNOCENCE by Richard Aleas

FRIGHT by Cornell Woolrich

by Robert Terrall

A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

(HCC-035)

First Hard Case Crime edition: September 2007

Published by

Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street

London

SE1 0UP

in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should know that it is stolen property. It was reported as unsold and destroyed to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this stripped book.

Copyright 1960 by Robert Kyle

Cover painting copyright 2007 by Robert McGinnis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Print edition ISBN 978-0-85768-330-4

E-book ISBN 978-0-85768-390-8

Cover design by Cooley Design Lab

Design direction by Max Phillips

www.maxphillips.net

Typeset by Swordsmith Productions

The name Hard Case Crime and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

Printed in the United States of America

Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com

The bride wore a bouffant gown of off-white silk taffeta with a fitted bodice of Alenon lace. The groom wore striped pants, a carnation and a look of bitter regret. As for me, Ben Gates, I was wearing my .38 in a shoulder rig inside my best dacron and worsted. But I wasnt a guest. Most of the wedding receptions I go to socially take place in bar-and-grills. An insurance company had hired me to come to this one and make sure that nobody went home with any of the wedding presents.

A striped marquee had been pitched on the lawn. The brides father, the president of a big pharmaceutical company and obviously loaded, had supplied thirty cases of imported champagne and another fifty of domestic, to be broached when the guests were too far along to care about the difference. From the library, where I was stationed, the popping of corks sounded like target practice on a 4.2 mortar range. At dusk the Japanese lanterns hanging from the edge of the marquee were turned on. The cars thinned out, the State Trooper went off duty, only a hard core of serious drinkers remained. I continued to get visitors from time to time, but most of them were trying to find a bathroom. One of the maids, a small fair-haired girl who looked pleasantly warm inside her black uniform, brought me a pot of coffee and a platter of sandwiches from the buffet. I considered this thoughtful of somebody. She put her tray down in a space I cleared for her on the coffee table. Her uniform was perhaps a half size too large, and she was doing a certain amount of moving around inside it. We exchanged some boy-girl conversation, as one non-guest to another, and I asked her when she was due to go off. Eleven-thirty, she said, which I considered an interesting coincidence. I was due to go off at eleven-thirty myself.

The sandwiches were small, oddly shaped and a little soggy. I ate them all, down to the last anchovy and the last globule of caviar. The coffee was hot and strong. I poured a second cup and lighted a cigar. A piano was playing somewhere in the house, and a pickup vocal group was singing dirty limericks. The steady popping of corks outside had made me edgy, but I was finally beginning to think that it might turn out to be an uneventful evening. I try not to have that kind of thoughts, because I always have them just before the trouble starts.