143- The Follower

You, finding life, rather dull, dreaming again of exotic places, wishing you were somewhere else. We offer you escape. Escape with us now to Mexico City and the story of a man caught up in a terrifying web of murderous intrigue.

As Patrick Quentin tells it in his exciting story, the follower. My name is Litten, Mark Litten. I'm a petroleum engineer just back from three months in Venezuela. I hadn't cabled my wife that I was coming home to New York because I wanted to surprise her.

We'd only been married two weeks, Ellie and I, before I went on the trip and I was crazy to get back to. Be long empty months and now in a matter of seconds we'll be together again.

Ellie! Ellie, it's me, Mark. Ellie? Ellie, are you here? Oh, let's cut out the comedy that...

Hey, who are you? What's the matter? What's wrong with you anyway? Cory? Good Lord. It was the guy Ellie had thrown over to marry me, Cory Lathrop. And he was dead. I saw the two bullet holes in his chest.

Turn sick. He'd been dead quite a while, maybe a day or two, and... He didn't look much like the socialite man about the club's member of the State Parole Board Society. lawyer. He just looked dead. I recognized that torn piece of negligible in Corey's hand. I ought to. I'd seen it often enough. On Ellie. First thing I'd do was locate her

fast. No. No, not the police. Not yet. Not without knowing what it's all about. Who I was an outsider, big prospects, but no money the dark horse who'd rushed Ellie off her feet. No, no chance there.