The Golden Gizmo (16 page)

"Now," he panted, "we will just…" He gestured with the gun. Elaine spoke apologetically.

"Milt, baby, are you sure, really sure that…?"

"I have said so! It is all finished. Now we have only to-"

He saw, then, heard the childishly delighted laugh- mischievous, filled with the viciousness it could not recognize, signaling triumph in a game without rules. It seemed to paralyze him. The gun hung loose in his fingers.

"
Liebling!"
he gasped. "Darling! There is so much. Why-?"

There was a brief, stuttering blast. "W-why?" Milt said, and crumpled to the sand. And he said no more and heard no more.

Elaine snatched up his gun, and leveled it quickly.

"Huh-uh, prince. You gave me an idea, but I get ideas, too. L'il Elaine's dead. L'il Elaine's in the clear. This is your gun and you shot him, and he shot you and her. And-"

"Elaine!" Toddy's voice shook. "For your own sake, don't! The government men are bound to be near here. They probably missed us in the rain, but those shots are sure to-"

"D-don't make me laugh, prince. D-don't make me laugh..

She began to rock with laughter; it pealed out, shrill, delighted, infectious. And suddenly Toddy was laughing with her. Laughing and ridding himself of something, the last, fragile, frazzled tie. "L-like"-she was shrieking-"like Milt said, prince, you d-don't fit the part!"

That was the way he would always remember her-the monkey face twisted with merriment, the scrawny, rain-drenched figure rocking in the abrupt pitiless glow of floodlights, laughing as the guns of the T-men began to chatter.

So he would always remember her, but it was like remembering another person. Someone he had never known.

The gizmo, the golden, deceptive, brass-filled gizmo, was gone at last.

This file was created with BookDesigner program

[email protected]

20/10/2007

LRS to LRF parser v.0.9; Mikhail Sharonov, 2006; msh-tools.com/ebook/