Defender of the Innocent: The Casebook of Martin Ehrengraf by Lawrence Block

coming to my house. One after the other. And taxicabs, and I don’t know what else. These vehicles kept arriving from various sources and I kept having to send them away.”
    “I see.”
    “And he fills out coupons and orders things C.O.D. for me. I have to cancel the orders and return the products. He’s had me join book clubs and record clubs, he’s subscribed me to every sort of magazine, he’s put me on every sort of mailing list. Did you know, for example, that there’s an outfit called the International Society for the Preservation of Wild Mustangs and Burros?”
    “It so happens I’m a member.”
    “Well, I’m sure it’s a worthwhile organization,” Crowe said, “but the point is I’m not interested in wild mustangs and burros, or even tame ones, but Mayhew made me a member and pledged a hundred dollars on my behalf, or maybe it was a thousand dollars, I can’t remember.”
    “The exact amount isn’t important at the moment, Mr. Crowe.”
    “He’s driving me crazy!”
    “So it would seem. But to kill a man because of some practical jokes—”
    “There’s no end to them. He started doing this almost two years ago. At first it was completely maddening because I had no idea what was happening or who was doing this to me. From time to time he’ll slack off and I’ll think he’s had his fun and has decided to leave me alone. Then he’ll start up again.”
    “Have you spoken to him?”
    “I can’t. He laughs like the lunatic he is and hangs up on me.”
    “Have you confronted him?”
    “I can’t. He lives in an apartment downtown on Chippewa Street. He doesn’t let visitors in and never seems to leave the place.”
    “And you’ve tried the police?”
    “They can’t seem to do anything. He just lies to them, denies all responsibility, tells them it must be someone else. A very nice policeman told me the only sensible thing I can do is wait him out. He’ll get tired, he assured me, the man’s madness will run its course. He’ll decide he’s had his revenge.”
    “And you tried to do that?”
    “For a while. When it didn’t work, I engaged a private detective. He obtained evidence of activities, evidence that will stand up in court. But my attorney convinced me not to press charges.”
    “Why, for heaven’s sake?”
    “The man’s a cripple.”
    “Your attorney?”
    “Certainly not. Mayhew’s a cripple, he’s confined to a wheelchair. I suppose that’s why he never leaves his squalid little apartment. But my attorney said I could only charge him with malicious mischief, which is not the most serious crime in the book and which sounds rather less serious than it is because it has the connotation of a child’s impish prank—”
    “Yes.”
    “—and there we’d be in court, myself a large man in good physical condition and Mayhew a sniveling cripple in a wheelchair, and he’d get everyone’s sympathy and undoubtedly be exonerated of all charges while I’d come off as a bully and a laughingstock. I couldn’t make charges stand up in criminal court, and if I sued him I’d probably lose. And even if I won, what could I possibly collect? The man doesn’t have anything to start with.”
    Ehrengraf nodded thoughtfully. “He blames you for crippling him?”
    “I can’t imagine why. I had never even heard of him before he started tormenting me, but who knows what a madman might think? He doesn’t seem to want anything from me. I’ve called him up, asked him what he wanted, and he laughs and hangs up on me.”
    “And so you’ve decided to kill him.”
    “I haven’t said that.”
    Ehrengraf sighed. “We’re not in court, Mr. Crowe, so that sort of technicality’s not important between us. You’ve implied you intend to kill him.”
    “Perhaps.”
    “At any rate, that’s the inference I’ve drawn. I can certainly understand your feelings, but isn’t the remedy you propose an extreme one? The cure seems worse than the disease. To expose yourself to a murder