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Book: The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six by Louis L’Amour
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Authors: Louis L’Amour
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stared, frozen.
Then the car door popped open and after a moment a figure moved, trying to get out of the car, trying to escape. The hand clutching the gun banged on the roof as Marmer tried to lever himself up. The dark form took one step and cried out, his left leg collapsed under him, and he fell to the ground. He rolled on his side, the gun moved in the darkness. There was a shot.
My hands were shaking and my lips trembled. I picked myself up off the road and staggered toward the car.
Richard Marmer’s head was back and there was blood on the gravel. He must have put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger a moment after he discovered that his leg was broken…a moment after he had finally realized he was trapped.
S LOWLY , MY LEGS SHAKING , I turned and started down the road toward the filling station.
I was alive…alive…
The fog drifted like a cool, caressing hand across my cheek. Somebody dropped a tire iron and people were moving toward me.
The Gravel Pit
M urder had been no part of his plan, yet a more speculative man would have realized that a crime is like a lie, and one inevitably begets another, for the commission of a first crime is like a girl’s acceptance of a first lover—the second always comes easier.
To steal the payroll had seemed absurdly simple, and Cruzon willingly accepted the risk involved. Had he even dreamed that his crime would lead to violence, he would never have taken the first step, for he’d never struck a man in anger in his life, and only one woman.
But once he accepted the idea of murder, it was natural that he should think of the gravel pit. In no other place was a body so likely to lie undiscovered. The pit had been abandoned long ago, used as a playground by neighborhood children until the families moved from the vicinity and left it to the oil wells. Brush had now grown up around the pit, screening it, hiding it.
Now that the moment of murder approached, Cruzon waited by the window of his unlighted room, staring into the rain-wet street, his mouth dry, and a queer, formless sort of dread running through him.
He had been pleased with the detached way in which he planned the theft. The moment of greatest danger would be that instant in which he substituted the envelope he was carrying for the one containing the payroll. Once the substitution was made, the rest was simple, and the very casualness of it made the chance of detection slight. Hence, he had directed every thought to that one action. The thought that he might be seen and not exposed never occurred to him.
Yet that was exactly what had happened, and because of it, he was about to commit a murder.
Eddie Cruzon had been eating lunch at Barnaby’s for over a year. On the day he overheard the conversation, nothing was further from his thoughts than crime.
“We’ve used the method for years,” a man beside him was saying. “The payroll will be in a manila envelope on George’s desk. George will have the receipt for you to sign and the guard will be waiting.”
“What about the route?”
“Your driver knows that. He was picked out and given the route not more than ten minutes ago. All you have to do is sit in the backseat and hold the fifteen thousand dollars in your lap.”
Fifteen thousand was a lot of money. Cruzon considered the precautions, and the flaw was immediately apparent: the time when the payroll lay on George’s desk in the busy office. For Eddie knew the office, having recognized the men talking. He worked for a parcel delivery service and had frequently visited the office on business. With that amount of money, a man could do…plenty. Yet, the idea of stealing it did not come until later.
Once his decision was made, the actual crime was as simple as he’d believed it would be. He merely walked into the office carrying a duplicate envelope, and seizing a moment when George was not at his desk, he put down his envelope and picked up the other. Walking out, his heart pounding, he
Then the car door popped open and after a moment a figure moved, trying to get out of the car, trying to escape. The hand clutching the gun banged on the roof as Marmer tried to lever himself up. The dark form took one step and cried out, his left leg collapsed under him, and he fell to the ground. He rolled on his side, the gun moved in the darkness. There was a shot.
My hands were shaking and my lips trembled. I picked myself up off the road and staggered toward the car.
Richard Marmer’s head was back and there was blood on the gravel. He must have put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger a moment after he discovered that his leg was broken…a moment after he had finally realized he was trapped.
S LOWLY , MY LEGS SHAKING , I turned and started down the road toward the filling station.
I was alive…alive…
The fog drifted like a cool, caressing hand across my cheek. Somebody dropped a tire iron and people were moving toward me.
The Gravel Pit
M urder had been no part of his plan, yet a more speculative man would have realized that a crime is like a lie, and one inevitably begets another, for the commission of a first crime is like a girl’s acceptance of a first lover—the second always comes easier.
To steal the payroll had seemed absurdly simple, and Cruzon willingly accepted the risk involved. Had he even dreamed that his crime would lead to violence, he would never have taken the first step, for he’d never struck a man in anger in his life, and only one woman.
But once he accepted the idea of murder, it was natural that he should think of the gravel pit. In no other place was a body so likely to lie undiscovered. The pit had been abandoned long ago, used as a playground by neighborhood children until the families moved from the vicinity and left it to the oil wells. Brush had now grown up around the pit, screening it, hiding it.
Now that the moment of murder approached, Cruzon waited by the window of his unlighted room, staring into the rain-wet street, his mouth dry, and a queer, formless sort of dread running through him.
He had been pleased with the detached way in which he planned the theft. The moment of greatest danger would be that instant in which he substituted the envelope he was carrying for the one containing the payroll. Once the substitution was made, the rest was simple, and the very casualness of it made the chance of detection slight. Hence, he had directed every thought to that one action. The thought that he might be seen and not exposed never occurred to him.
Yet that was exactly what had happened, and because of it, he was about to commit a murder.
Eddie Cruzon had been eating lunch at Barnaby’s for over a year. On the day he overheard the conversation, nothing was further from his thoughts than crime.
“We’ve used the method for years,” a man beside him was saying. “The payroll will be in a manila envelope on George’s desk. George will have the receipt for you to sign and the guard will be waiting.”
“What about the route?”
“Your driver knows that. He was picked out and given the route not more than ten minutes ago. All you have to do is sit in the backseat and hold the fifteen thousand dollars in your lap.”
Fifteen thousand was a lot of money. Cruzon considered the precautions, and the flaw was immediately apparent: the time when the payroll lay on George’s desk in the busy office. For Eddie knew the office, having recognized the men talking. He worked for a parcel delivery service and had frequently visited the office on business. With that amount of money, a man could do…plenty. Yet, the idea of stealing it did not come until later.
Once his decision was made, the actual crime was as simple as he’d believed it would be. He merely walked into the office carrying a duplicate envelope, and seizing a moment when George was not at his desk, he put down his envelope and picked up the other. Walking out, his heart pounding, he
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