Free The Good Old Stuff by John D. MacDonald

through her open mouth. Each night they stayed home it was the same. She would expect him to awaken her when he was ready to go to bed. Now there was no need to discipline his expression. While she slept he could look at her with all the naked, helpless fury at his command.
    In that moment he made up his mind, finally and completely, with no possibility of changing it. Peter Kallon decided to make himself a widower and put into effect the plan he had worked out.
    Friday he made her write the note.
    He sat at the small desk, scribbling. He made frequent grunts of disgust, crumpling what he had written. She asked him what the trouble was.
    “Nothing, nothing,” he said impatiently.
    He wrote for a long time, then said irritably, “The hell with it,” crumpling what he had written.
    “What is the trouble, darling?” she asked.
    “Maybe you could help me. You see, I’ve got one account, a garage, that’s giving me a bad time. The man won’t keep the books the way I tell him to. We’ve quarreled about it. I’m trying to write a letter to him, but I can’t seem to get it right. If I could dictate it to you and you wrote it down … I always think better on my feet somehow.”
    “Of course, darling,” she said.
    He laid out a fresh sheet of her notepaper and put his fountain pen beside it. She took his place at the small desk.
    “What’s his name?”
    “Don’t bother with that, Myra. I’ll copy it over. Let me see now. First paragraph. ‘You know how hard I’ve tried to make everything work out. But there is no use trying any more.’ New paragraph. ‘Please don’t condemn me too much for taking this step. I am certain that you will be happier in the future because of it.’ There! That ought to do it.”
    He leaned over her shoulder and read the words she had written in her childish scrawl. The words, as usual, slanted uphill to the right edge of the paper.
    “Like that pen?” he asked casually. There was the coldness of sweat against his ribs.
    “I like a heavier point,” she said. “You know that.”
    “Just a habit. A fine point makes better-looking writing. Here, sign your name on that sheet. For my file.”
    She obediently wrote “Myra.” He took the pen from her hand before she could write the last name. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Let me look at this. I think you were bearing down too hard on it.” He examined the point, holding it under the lamplight. “Get up a minute, dear. I want to try it.”
    He sat down and wrote on another sheet.
    “No, I guess it’s okay. Thanks, dear. I’ll recopy this letter and send it to the man. I think it’ll be all right.”
    “You’re welcome,” she said. For a long time he did not risk looking at her. When he did he saw that she was engrossed in the novel again, without suspicion. Just to be certain, he copied the letter, using the actual name of one of his clients, making the contents a bit more businesslike. He showed it to her. She said that she guessed it sounded all right.
    After she had fallen asleep he read the note over. Finger-prints on it were quite all right. He would just make certain that he found the note first.
    You know how hard I’ve tried to make everything work out. But there is no use trying any more.
    Please don’t condemn me too much for taking this step. But I am certain that you will be happier in the future because of it.
    Myra
    A bit stilted, perhaps, but the intent was unmistakable. It was on her gray monogrammed notepaper. He put it with his business papers, knowing that she never looked at them. He wanted to take a long walk to get the tension out of him. But that might look a bit odd, and his plan didn’t call for it.
    Instead he took out the manila folder containing the contest puzzles he was currently working on. Within fifteen minutes he was so deeply engrossed in the puzzle that he had actually forgotten his plan. The deadline of this one was near. It was a puzzle that assigned numerical values to letters of