Free The Big Bite by Charles Williams

bait. Who’s calling?”
    “You wouldn’t know me,” I said. “I just came up from Beaumont. A friend of mine down there said I could probably get a report on the lake at your place. George Tallant, I think he said. That’s you, isn’t it?”
    “Dan Tallant,” he corrected.
    “Oh, sure. That’s right. So it’s been pretty good, huh?” I was staring intently, very excited now. He was the one, all right. I was almost positive of it, in spite of the fact he was leaning over the showcase, foreshortened, as he talked, and it was hard to fit him into the pose as I’d seen him before, erect and facing the other way.
    He said something else, just as the idea hit me. “By the way,” I broke in, “you don’t happen to have a GBF torpedo-head flyline, do you? For a six-ounce rod—”
    “No-o, I don’t, think so,” he replied. “I don’t carry much of a selection, because nearly everybody around here uses spinning gear. But just a minute; I’ll look—”
    I saw him straighten and turn, looking at that section of stock right in back of the phone where I thought I had seen the flyline boxes. I got him dead to rights in the glasses, the same picture exactly as before, the height and the tremendous spread of shoulders, the small ears in close to the head, the short, crisp black hair, and that impression he was young and as strong as a fighting bull. There was no doubt of it at all. I was talking to the man who had killed Purvis.

6
    When he had hung up he moved back to the rear of the store again and I couldn’t see him any more. I lowered the glasses, dropped the phone back on its cradle, and sat for a moment staring at it. Right into the end zone on the first play; this was better than I’d even dared hope for. I’d proved I was right, located him, and identified him—all in the first two or three hours. Improbable, was it? A dream? Hell, it was turning into reality faster than I could keep up with it.
    All right, all right, I warned myself, don’t dislocate your shoulder patting yourself on the back. There was plenty to do yet, and the tricky and dangerous part was just beginning. Mrs. Cannon was next. I stood up and went into the bathroom to shave. Here I come, you brown-eyed Fort Knox.
    Nine-thirty was a little early to go calling on a woman, especially unannounced, but that’s the way it had to be. If I waited until later she might not be home, and if I phoned first I never would see her. I was the last person in the world she wanted to meet face to face. I grinned at my reflection in the mirror, a little coldly. That was all right. So maybe she wouldn’t like me. I was going to be a hell of a lot more unpopular with her in about twenty-four hours if things went off as scheduled.
    I dressed in a fresh pair of gray-slacks and a subdued sports shirt, combed my hair, and took a last gander at myself in the mirror. I’d do. I looked as scrubbed and wholesome as a freshly-laundered moose, and about half as subtle. She’d never suspect me of anything.
    I looked up her address in the telephone book. Three-twenty-four Cherrywood Drive, it said. Putting the binoculars in the bag with the gun, I locked it, and then checked the recorder to be sure its case was locked too. I went downstairs, did the how-you-feeling-now-much-better-thanks routine with the solicitous type at the desk, and on out the rear door to the car. Coming out of the alley, I turned north, avoiding the square. At the first filling station I pulled in and gassed up. The attendant told me how to find Cherrywood Drive.
    It was southwest of the square, near the crest of a sloping hill overlooking the town. Near the bottom the bungalows had a housing-development look about them, but further up they were bigger, on large, landscaped lots. Cherrywood Drive was only four blocks long and there were just three houses in the last block, two. of them on the left, or downhill side. I slowed, looking at the numbers. The Cannon place would be the second one