The Big Bite by Charles Williams(9)

The telephone stopped ringing just as I picked them up.
Now whoever it was would call the cops. Maybe
somebody already had. I was sweating, and my hands
shook. She hadn’t stirred. I juggled the keys frantically in
my hand and slid out from under the bed. The first one was
right. The handcuffs clicked open and I came erect, lunging
toward her. She lay on her back behind the footboard of the
bed, her eyes closed and one arm stretched out beyond her
head. Her face was dead white and the long lashes made
shadows on her cheek. I fell to the floor beside her and
grabbed her bare shoulder, shaking it furiously. There was
no response.
I sprang up and ran through the hallway to the bath.

The Big Bite by Charles Williams(8)

He stepped back, took out a handkerchief, and wiped the
sweat from his face. He’d been under a strain too, in spite
of the calm way he looked outside. Suddenly he caught her
in his arms. “Julia—!”
She broke it up after the first wild clinch. “Please, Dan.
Not in front of this vermin.”
He turned his face and looked at me for an instant, his
eyes savage. They went out and closed the door. It was an
act out there at the cabin, I thought, but it wasn’t quite all
an act.
They didn’t come back; there was dead silence in the
house. They were probably in her bedroom. I thought about
it, trying to keep from getting panicky. It couldn’t happen,
not here in the quiet upper-middle-class residential district
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of a small town where a dented fender in the Cadillac was a
big deal. Next door they’d be playing bridge; up the street
they were watching television or waiting for a daughter to
get home from a date. Murder? Here? That was a pipe
dream. Murder never happened in a place like this.

The Big Bite by Charles Williams(7)

“Yes,” I said. “What is it?”
“You brute,” she protested above the noise of the shower,
“you’re not even listening to me. I said, aren’t we having a
good time?”
“Sure, sure,” I said. “A wonderful time.”
She went on chattering. I reached out for the telephone,
lifting it carefully off the cradle. When the operator
answered, I said quietly, “I want to make another longdistance
call.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “Just one moment.”
The yakking went on from the shower. It paused
momentarily on a questioning note.
“Sure, sure,” I answered, holding my hand over the
mouthpiece.
“Well, that’s better. I think you’re sweet, too.”
“Aren’t we both,” I said. That’ll hold you for a minute, you
sweet, deadly bitch. It did. She started humming in the
shower.

The Big Bite by Charles Williams(6)

“Just a few minutes.”
I couldn’t see anyone else, either here on the pier or up by
her car in front of the cabin. “Where’s the moose?”
“Moose?”
“Tallant.”
“I don’t know,” she said.
It was late afternoon, and shadows were reaching out
across the clearing. She wore a dark pleated skirt and a
soft, white, long-sleeved blouse with French cuffs. I turned
my head slightly and completed the survey. She had on
nylons in that area, and sling pumps.
“Nice,” I said.
She made no reply.
“Don’t mind me,” I said. “I always wake up this way.”
She was carrying a pack of cigarettes in her hand, and a
paper book of matches, because women never have pockets
in anything. She fumbled with them now, lighting one.
I reached up a hand for it. “Thanks,” I said. She lit
another for herself.
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“Quite neat,” she said. “An entire philosophy in one
gesture.”
I propped myself on an elbow. “Don’t be an egghead,
honey. You’re stac

The Big Bite by Charles Williams(5)

“Never mind,” I said. “You’ve already answered your own
question. Come on in and sit down. I’ve got something I
want you to read.”
I stepped aside and let them come through the doorway. I
was careful not to let him get too near, and he was just as
careful not to turn his back, though it was all too well
covered to be obvious. Nobody said anything for a moment,
but tension was like smoke in the room.
I’d left the letter on the coffee table intentionally. He’d
have to go there to pick it up, so the logical place to sit
down would be the handiest—the sofa or one of the chairs
facing it. I nodded in that direction. “Mrs. Cannon’s already
read the good news,” I said. “I think she missed one angle
of it, but you’ll probably catch on. If you’ll notice, it’s a
carbon copy.”
“Say, what the hell is this?” he asked roughly. “Who are
you? And what do you want?”
I waved a hand. “The letter, Tallant. Why don’t you just
pick it up and read it? It’ll explain everything.”
The Big Bite — 84

The Big Bite by Charles Williams(4)

”Are you going to be here very long, Mr. Harlan?” ‘she
asked. “Two weeks,” I replied. “Maybe a little less.”
“And you’re out at that same cabin where you were
before?”
“I will be,” I said. “Right now I’m at the Enders Hotel. The
friend of mine that owns the shack is mailing me a key. It’ll
probably be here today.”
“Well, I do hope I’ll see you again while you’re here,” she
said.
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I stood up on cue. “It’s been nice meeting you,” I said
earnestly. “I probably won’t come to town much, but if
you’re out that way drop in and go fishing with me. Heh,
heh.”
She smiled, the way you would at a meat-head who wasn’t
too bright, and came to the door with me. She held out her
hand very graciously. I took it. The brown eyes looked up at
me from about the level of my shoulder. Brother! I thought.
I simpered like a clown and said good-by three times,
standing on one foot; then the other, gave her another poorbut-
honest pitch about how nice it was of her to let me call,
and finally backed out the door like a high school kid
escaping from the stage after winning a scholarship in the
essay contest. She’d call Tallant all right the minute the
door was closed, but they’d just have a good laugh. was
utterly harmless.

The Big Bite by Charles Williams(3)

‘’Private Investigator Slain,” the second page story led off.
“The body of Winton L. Purvis, 38, private detective and
former insurance investigator, was discovered early this
afternoon in his apartment at 10325 Can line Street. He
was apparently struck on the head with terrific force by
some heavy object, though no trace of the murder weapon
was found at the scene. Police are as yet without clue as to
the identity of the assailant, but are convinced he is a large
man of great physical strength.”
There wasn’t much more. Apparently it had broken just in
time to get the bare essential facts in the last edition;
there’d be more tomorrow. But there was enough here to
start it rolling—the address and the fact they were looking
for a big man. I hoped that cabby wasn’t sitting behind his
wheel somewhere in the city as I was, leafing through the
paper.
Well, the ball had to bounce—one way or the other. But I
couldn’t sit here and waste time. I switched on the ignition
and rolled out into the river of traffic. Mrs. Cannon, here I
come.
The Big Bite — 41
5
Wayles . . .

The Big Bite by Charles Williams(2)

It was a walk-up. I went up two steps at a time, meeting
no one in the halls or on the stairs, but hearing snatches of
what sounded like the same television program on all three
floors. Number 303 was the first one on the right at the
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head of the stairs. I touched the bell and Purvis opened the
door almost immediately. He nodded, but said nothing until
I had come inside and the door was closed.
It was a small living-room. Directly across from the door
was a window which presumably looked out on the street,
but the blind was drawn all the way down. At the left was an
open door going into the bedroom, while on the right, just
opposite it, another opened into a small dinette. The livingroom
was fitted with the usual landlord-tan wallpaper and
the beat-up odds and ends of shabby furniture that would
come with a furnished deadfall in this neighborhood, so
dreary and like a thousand others that Purvis’s things stood
out and hit you right in the eye the moment you walked in.
There were five or six framed copies of paintings of girls in
ballet costumes, the same pictures you sometimes see in the
anterooms of doctors’ offices. Some arty, horse-faced girl I
got stuck with once at a party told me who the painter was
that did them, but I couldn’t remember now. Dago was all I
could think of, but that wasn’t it. There were some more
pictures in one big frame over a desk at the right, beside
the doorway going into the dinette, but these were
photographs. They were all signed, and they were, all of
ballet dancers. There must have been a dozen of them. An
aficionado, I thought, remembering that way he had of
describing things with his hands and what he had said

The Big Bite by Charles Williams(1)

1
They said it was going to be as good as ever, but it wasn’t.
You could see that by the end of the first week of practice.
They’d stuck it back on, all right, and it looked like a leg,
but something was gone. McGilvray, who’s probably the
best T-formation quarterback that ever lived, was handing
the ball off a half stride ahead of me. We’d played together
two years in college and five in the pros, so he knew where I
was supposed to be. I did too, but I wasn’t getting there.
About the tenth time they unpiled the beef off us after the
fumble he spat out some topsoil and said, “We’re just a little
rusty yet, Harlan. Maybe I’m leading you too much.”
“It could be, dear,” I said. I knew better.
The next time he handed the ball off to me where I was,
instead of where I was supposed to be, and two rookies
smeared me back of the line. Not the Cleveland Browns;
just rookies trying out. It went on that way. When they ran
off the pictures looking for the missed blocking