Free A Killer is Loose by Gil Brewer Page A

“We’ll wait for your husband. Then we can take it easy and I’ll go over the plans with Steve, here.”
    We went back into the living room and all this time the gun had been on the television set. But Angers was smart. He wasn’t a blank about things that went on around him. He watched everybody—a little too closely.
    He had been watching Betty a lot.
    He dropped into his chair, and as Betty passed in front of him, he reached out and caught her hand. She froze.
    Sitting there, he looked her over. She had a roundly built body, the skin of her legs below the shorts smooth and full. She was large-breasted and round-hipped.
    “You’re nice, Mrs. Graham,” Angers said.
    She stood rigid. He leaned forward, still holding her, and with his other hand reached out and palmed her thigh. He ran his hand all the way down the back of her leg. She didn’t move. He ran his hand back up and patted her behind. He looked up at her.
    “You’ve got a lot of what I like, Mrs. Graham. Lillian here is a regular snake. Aren’t you, Lil?”
    “Get off it, Ralph.”
    Angers was not smiling. There was nothing in his eyes.
    “I’ll bet you make your husband very happy. Is that right, Mrs. Graham?”
    She didn’t say anything, just stood there. She was looking at a point over my head on the wall. I didn’t know what to do about this, either. There wasn’t anything you could do.
    “I’m not sure about Lillian, over there,” Angers said.
    Lillian rose from her chair and came across the room. Her teeth were sunk in her lower lip. Betty still didn’t move and Angers held to her hand.
    “I like your body,” Angers said. “It’s an exciting body, Mrs. Graham.” His voice was as flat, as inflectionless as ever.
    Lillian was moving toward the side of Angers’ chair by the television set. I tightened all over.
    “Ralph,” Lillian said, “don’t you like me any more?”
    “Go back and sit down, Lil.”
    She stopped moving and eyed him. He looked up at her. She smiled and again came toward him.
    He spoke quietly. “Go back to your chair.”
    She turned and went back to the chair.
    Betty was standing there and he still held her hand, and then he reached out and put his arm up around her hips. She was like a board and then she looked at me and I saw something in her eyes. Abruptly she turned toward Angers and moved in close.
    “If you like me,” she said, “why don’t you do something about it? You’re a big boy now.”
    She was standing in close to him. He took his arm down and she swayed her hips, just a little. “Or maybe you’re just kidding me. Maybe it’s all talk. Maybe you’re just passing the time.” The look she gave him would have melted butter.
    “You’re just right,” Angers said. “You interest me.”
    She moved her hips just a little again, then nodded toward the hall. “My bedroom’s right over there, honey.” She leaned away from him, pulling at his hand, staring at him with all the lecherous longing she could summon. “Come on, honey. Maybe I could show you something, at that.”
    My heart yammered right on up into my throat. If she could get him into that bedroom … What a chance! But you couldn’t tell a thing from his eyes, his face. You didn’t know what he was thinking.
    “We could be nice and private,” Betty said to him. “I—I like you, too. Come on, honey. Let’s go into the bedroom. I can’t do what I want to with all these people watching.”
    I glanced at Lillian. Her hands were gripped on the seat of her chair, the knuckles white with straining. Every muscle in my body was tense.
    Betty put her right leg out and rubbed it against Angers’ leg. “Don’t make me wait,” she said softly.
    He laughed. He threw his head back and erupted with wild, crazy, high laughter. It was insane. It was the same laughter I’d heard in the alley earlier that day.
    “Whore,” he said flatly. He released her hand, gave her a brutal shove. She backed across the room, lost balance, and sat