Free The Big Bite by Charles Williams Page A

on the left, the last house on the street. It was near the corner where Cherrywood terminated in an intersecting street going downhill. Beyond the intersecting street was a wooded area, still undeveloped. I liked the whole layout but I didn’t want to take too much time now in looking it over. If I goofed around out here until she got a look at me out the window she probably wouldn’t be “in” when I rang the buzzer.
    The other two houses were white Colonial types with columns and wide lawns and driveways. Directly across from the Cannon house was a vacant lot, grown up with pines, however, rather than weeds. I pulled the old Chevy to the curb on that side and walked across the street. The Cannon house was newer, a long, low ranch style built of light-colored brick with a sweeping, low-angled white roof covered with broken quartz. It looked very western and a little out of place among all these pines. It sat back from the street in a large expanse of well-tended lawn, but there was no circular drive. A flagstone walk bordered with some kind of low shrubs led to the front door, and beyond it a wide concrete driveway went straight back to the two-car garage adjoining the house on the far end. Both doors of the garage were closed. That should mean she was home.
    It was hot now and I could feel perspiration beginning to break out on my face. I went quickly up the walk. A colored man in a straw hat was digging in the flower bed under the big picture window in front. His shirt was plastered to his back with sweat. Drapes were drawn across the window and I couldn’t see in. Remember, I told myself, you’ve never seen her before in your life. Sell her on it.
    I rang the bell. The gardener straightened and brushed his wet face with a hand, looking up at me. “You know if Mrs. Cannon’s home?” I asked.
    “Yassuh, I think so,” he said. He went back to his work. I’d just started to reach for the bell again when the door opened. A young colored girl looked out at me indifferently. She was chewing gum and held a broom in her left hand.
    “Is Mrs. Cannon in?” I asked.
    “I’ll find out,” she said. “Who I say it is?”
    “Mr. Warren,” I said, mumbling a little.
    “Just a minute.”
    She disappeared, leaving the door ajar. It opened into a small entry hall. There was a door at the left of that, going into the living-room apparently, but I couldn’t see much of it. I waited. Maybe I shouldn’t have said Warren, I thought. It might still sound too much like Harlan. O’Toole or Schutzbank or something would have done better. But still it had to be within shooting distance; I didn’t want her to get the idea I was aware I might have to pitch her a phony name to get in. That would ruin it all. Oh, hell, I thought; it’s been five months and she doesn’t know I’m within two thousand miles.
    The girl came back. Mrs. Cannon was in. I could wait in the parlor. I followed her in through the entry hall and stood in the living-room. “She’ll be heah in a minute,” she said, and went on out through a door at the right rear, which seemed to lead into the dining-room. As soon as she was gone, I looked swiftly around, trying to get as good a picture of the layout as I could before Mrs. Cannon got here.
    Apparently there was no dog. That had been worrying me, but I didn’t see any signs of one. Certainly there wasn’t one in the house, or he’d have been around to investigate by this time, and I couldn’t see any kennel in the patio behind the house. There was another plate glass window at the rear of the living-room, fitted with a gauzy drape which was closed now but was fairly transparent with the bright sunlight behind it, The patio was enclosed with a white-painted cinder block wall about four feet high. Below it down the hillside was another wooded vacant lot. Approaching the house from the rear would be a cinch. Getting in, however, was going to be another matter.
    I’d noticed something when I first stepped