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