Killing the Goose by Frances and Richard Lockridge Page A

Ann’s house as he had expected, and did not look at him. He turned and began to walk, not hurrying too much, toward Lexington Avenue. He crossed the street diagonally and began to walk along beside the park fence.
    He was not very far along beside the fence when there were sounds behind him and the door of Ann’s house was flung open and somebody yelled something angrily, presumably at the policeman on guard outside. Elliot did not hear clearly what was said, but he didn’t need to. He hoped he was only a vague figure in the snow—a vague figure of a delivery boy with an empty box on his shoulder. But he was too close to run. There ought to be a gate along here somewhere.
    He came to it almost as soon as he hoped. The key was going to be useful after all. But he couldn’t carry the box in. Delivery boys didn’t get into the only private park left in New York City; the only park owned by the property owners around it, kept sacred under lock to their moments of outdoor relaxation. Elliot put the box down and stood up straight and took his time unlocking the gate. But he took as little time as he could without hurrying. The gate was heavy and reluctant, but he pushed it open. He took the key out of the lock and closed the gate and locked it behind him. For a moment, anyway, they couldn’t get to him.
    But except for inadequate evergreens, the park was bare, offering little cover, leaving him visible from outside by anyone who wanted to look through the iron fence. And somebody would, probably, want to look through the iron fence. He moved unhurriedly along the path to the right and tried to look like a very respectable property owner taking a stroll in the open. But it was obviously an unlikely time to be taking a stroll.
    He heard, then, the sounds of a heavy man running along the public walk outside the fence and he forced himself not to look around. He sauntered along, but the nerves crept at the back of his neck. Nobody was going to think he was merely walking in the snow for—then he thought of it. You could improvise, all right, when you had to.
    An instant before the running feet outside were even with him, John Elliot stopped. He stopped near one of the evergreen bushes and held his right arm out toward it as if he were pointing. He held the right hand curved, as if it were lightly curved around something—a leash, perhaps. The feet stopped opposite him and Elliot turned to face the policeman, as a man in no fear of policemen might have done. The policeman stopped and looked in through the fence at John Elliot, staring through the curtain of falling snow.
    â€œHey, you!” the policeman said. Then he said, “Oh, sorry, mister.”
    â€œYes, officer?” John Elliot said. “Did you want something?”
    â€œDidja see a guy running up this way?” the policeman said. “A guy with a box, maybe?”
    â€œNo,” said Elliot. “I didn’t see anybody. Or hear anybody. Did somebody get away?”
    â€œWell,” the policeman said, “so you didn’t see anybody, mister? Any guy running?”
    â€œNo,” Elliot said. “I didn’t see anybody. Maybe he ran the other way.”
    â€œYeah,” the policeman said. “Hell of a night, ain’t it? But it don’t mean nothing to them.”
    â€œThem?” Elliot repeated. Then he caught himself. “Oh,” he said, and looked down in the direction of his pointing right hand. “Them. No, regardless of the weather, they—”
    The policeman wasn’t listening. He was turning away. He called back, “Thanks, mister,” and went toward Ann’s house through the snow. John Elliot figured it was all right, but he acted out the rest of it. He moved his right arm as if he were pulling something; he said, just audibly, “come on, you!” He walked away along the path, continuing to look as much as he could like a man walking a dog. He kept the