Shadows Everywhere Read Free Page B

into the frenzied motion of panic from where he had stood behind the desk. There was a loud, split-second double roar as, leading him perfectly, Raymond Sanders brought him down in mid-flight.
    Thirty seconds later came the sound of another, single shot.

THE LEMON DRINK QUEEN
    Â 
    She almost begged to be kidnapped, so I intended to oblige. Thana Norden was her name, the wife of Norman Norden, the millionaire lemon drink king. Old man Norden–about seventy years old–kept to himself in their big house on Florida's ocean coast, while his young wife Thana kept the bartenders busy in the big hotels up and down Collins Avenue.
    Norman Norden worshipped his wife, and in the news releases concerning his civic activities, and in the society page write-ups, he never failed to mention the fact. "Worth all my money," he had said of her in one TV interview. That had stuck in my mind.
    Thana acted the part of something worshipped. She was a very well-built brunette, of medium height and weight, about thirty, with large, slightly tilted brown eyes, long legs and a flaunting elegance about her. Her specialty, the way I heard, was to lead men on and then not deliver. She might not have been rare that way, but she was rare in a lot of other ways, and she loved to bring it to everyone's attention. I sat and heard her hold court with her bought friends in a lounge one evening. "My jewels... my car... he'd do anything for me... flying to Paris next Tuesday...why, he'd give a fortune to kiss my hand. Those were the sort of remarks that dotted her conversation.
    After watching Thana for a few weeks, I found that her favorite pastime also fitted in with what I had in mind. She liked to take long, solitary walks on the beach. I'd sit concealed in my old car and watch her stroll in the moonlight, and I'd consider the possibilities. I was almost forty now; the big break had never come. Everything I'd ever done had always started sweet and ended sour. Was I considering something stupid out of some mounting desperation, or had I realized finally that I had to take a chance?
    I can't say I made up my mind all at once, or even consciously, but one day I realized that I had made up my mind.
    So that night I took one final draw on my cigarette, took one final look through the windshield at the small figure of Thana Norden below me on the beach. She was walking barefoot in an evening dress, about to disappear around a gentle rise of sand. A long swelling wave rose from the dark ocean and rolled toward her to sigh and splay gently about her feet. In the moonlight she glistened like pure gold.
    The kidnapping itself would be the easiest part; but where would I hide a package like Thana Norden?
    I figured the answer to that would have to come later. The thing for me to do now was to learn all I could about Norman Norden himself. That way I'd know better how to proceed, and how much to ask for ransom.
    It was easy to find out what I wanted to know about Norden–so easy it kind of scared me. He was more important than I'd thought, worth more than I'd thought. He'd inherited over a million dollars and the Norden Lemon Drink Company from his father, Milton Norden. Then, with the increasing popularity of concentrated frozen lemonade, he'd built his father's business to ten times its former size and branched out into manufacturing other food products. Alone, without an heir until Thana, Norman Norden had acquired a huge home in New England, a plush New York town house, two swank penthouse apartments in Miami and a vacation 'cottage' in the Bahamas. He spent ninety-nine percent of his time in the sprawling mansion in Miami Beach, and from his office there he conducted his vast business.
    On a particularly broiling, humid afternoon I lay on my back in bed and decided after some deliberation to ask $250,000 ransom for the precious Thana. With that figure in mind, I fell asleep listening to the rain begin to fall.
    That evening, before it began to get dark,