The Price of Murder by John D. MacDonald

met Danny and how he was so different from what she had thought. She had thought maybe he would be sort of like George Raft or maybe the other type like Ernest Borgnine, but actually you couldn’t have told about him, hardly. In one tiny little way he was a little like Van Johnson, but older and heavier and just a little bit beat-up looking.
    So when he came in, she told him Lee wasn’t home and he wouldn’t even be home to lunch on account of he didn’t have enough time on Fridays on account of his schedule to come home. But Danny kind of ignored thatand sat on one of the kitchen chairs and told her to go right ahead with her ironing.
    He was quiet and kind of funny-acting, and it made her feel funny to just keep right on ironing. She had felt conspicuous in that tight old pair of blue-jean shorts and the skimpy yellow halter and barefoot and all. She tried to make conversation with him, and went in and turned off the television and saw his car out there at the curb and came back and tried to talk some more, but he just sort of grunted and kept frowning and didn’t seem to pay much attention. He was wearing a wonderful looking pair of slacks, pale gray with sharp creases and black stitching down the sides and on the pockets, and a blue cotton shirt with a white horizontal stripe, and short sleeves. His arms were big and brown, and his hands made his cigarette look small and very white.
    She finished the skirt and put it on the hanger and she half expected him to jump up and try to help when she folded up the ironing board, but he just sat there, not watching her at all, but watching the pattern in the linoleum.
    “Would you like a beer?” she had asked. “Or some coffee maybe?” You certainly couldn’t tell he’d been in jail any three times, but you could tell he was worried about something.
    He seemed to make up his mind, and he didn’t even answer about the beer or the coffee. He snapped his cigarette all the way across into the kitchen sink and he looked right at her and he said, “I got a problem, Lucille, and maybe you’re the answer, but I don’t know. Anyway, you’re the only one I’ve been able to think of.”
    “Well, I …”
    “Don’t try to give me any answers until I tell you about it. But first I’ve got to ask some questions. Can you keep something from Lee?”
    She couldn’t understand what he was driving at. “I … I guess so.”
    He looked at her keenly. “Is there anything you do keep from him? Is there anything you’ve kept from him?”
    She felt her face get sort of hot and she said, “Yes.”
    He stood up. “I’ve cut myself a piece of something, andI’ve got to have some protection.” He took an envelope out of his hip pocket. It was a long envelope, sealed and folded double. He slapped it against the knuckles of his other hand. “I want this in a safe place. I can’t give it to Lee. I know him too damn well. He’d open it and tell himself it was for my own good and he might do something stupid. You think you can hide this where he won’t find it, and keep your mouth shut about it?”
    “Y-Yes, Danny.”
    “It’s insurance against anything happening to me. But suppose I’m dealing with somebody that gets too mad to be smart. Then something happens to me. As soon as you find out, then you take this to the cops. It will make good reading. You can open it and read it yourself before you take it. But don’t you open it unless I’m dead.”
    “All right.”
    “I mean that. I don’t think I’ll get hurt so long as I got this kind of insurance, though. If everything goes just like I want it to go, I’ll be back one of these days to pick it up. Will you do this for me?”
    “Yes. I’ll do it, Danny,” she said and held out her hand, but he didn’t give it to her.
    “I want to know where you’re going to put it, Lucille. Show me the place first.”
    She remembered the hiding place she used, the old brown shoulder bag that hung on one of the back hooks of