Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 39, No. 6, June, 1994
- Автор: Bashover Albert, Crawford Dan
- Год: 1994
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: ISSN: 0002-5224
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 39, No. 6, June, 1994». Краткое содержание книги:
I said, “Okay,” and dropped the earpiece on its hook. Goldsmith pulled the copy paper from my typewriter and I inserted a fresh sheet. He took hold of the top corner of that one and said, “Four minutes, Geary.”
While easing down onto the stool next to Jack at Ptomaine Tommie’s I said, “You think that because of Damokura Jerry Lynch had a hand in DeRidder’s murder?”
“You can bank on it, buddy. Lynch wouldn’t have pulled it off himself. It’s stuff like that he’s got Victor Reiner around for. Along with running Lynch’s policy bank, Reiner handles most of the strong-arm stuff.”
“I can’t figure the angle.”
“The kid had to have come up with something solid that would have cleared Beverly Keeler and dumped the theft back in Damokura’s lap. What else could it have been?”
“Then it was talking to you that got him killed.”
“Don’t bray like a jackass, friend. Stand back and let the hoods have their way, is that what you’re saying?”
“I guess not, but none of it’s clear to me, Jack.”
“Damokura’s all mouth, you saw that. Nothing behind it. Give Plato Largis and his boys an hour to work him over and you’d hear him singing all the way to Youngstown. Lynch was making sure Largis doesn’t get that hour.”
“Why not silence Damokura instead of DeRidder if he knows something that could hurt Lynch’s operation?”
“Dead men don’t pay debts, buddy. That twenty grand was probably just a down payment. Damokura’s a compulsive gambler, so he’s a long-term client in Lynch’s eyes, a steady source of income. Along with that, he probably makes a good mouthpiece when one of Lynch’s boys needs one.”
“All this is supposition on your part, right?”
“At the moment, maybe. I’ll have the pieces put together in a day or two.”
“Aren’t you the guy who told me always to approach a story with an open mind?”
“This is a case, buddy, not a story. It must have been Goldsmith who said it. Either way it’s good advice, but that doesn’t mean you don’t use the little gray cells.”
“Been reading Agatha Christie again, haven’t you?”
“Only when I run out of Cain and Gardner. Why?”
“No reason, Jack. Just forget it.”
My wallet being somewhat on the thin side, I checked to see what was playing at the second-run theaters. Sue Baney was fussing with a saucy little hat she felt wasn’t fixed at the most becoming angle. I looked up from the paper and said, “Forty Naughty Girls at the Rialto sounds pretty good.”
“You can forget that one, Bram.”
“Okay, how about Marihuana at the State? It says ‘a lovely girl made hard and brittle by a weed with roots in hell.’ Whaddya think?”
“I think you’re trying to make me mad. I told you the other night I want to see the Ted Lewis band, remember?”
I did, but was hoping she wouldn’t. The stage production plus movie at the Keith-Albee Palace was the most expensive show in town. “Aw, Sue,” I said, “Ted Lewis has the corniest act going. He makes Lombardo and Sammy Kaye sound like real swingers. Besides, the movie sounds lousy.”
Sue’s hat was finally right, but the ends of her mouth had turned down. “Oh, Bram, I really want to.”
I felt like shouting, “No!” when Ted Lewis strolled out on stage, the old top hat that was his trademark cocked over one eye, and cried, “Is everybody happy?” But the show turned out to be great, and there were a few good jazz men in the band, which came as a pleasant surprise. I had forgotten what the evening was costing me by the time we got to the capper, Lewis climbing a stairway with a lone spotlight on him, top hat in hand while he half sang, half talked his way through “Me and My Shadow.”
For me, though, the high point had come earlier in the show. As Ted Lewis sang “When My Baby Smiles at Me,” Sue Baney squeezed my hand and gave me one of her pixieish smiles.
Enough silver remained in my pocket for hamburgers at the Kewpee Hotel, which was a lunchroom, not a place to spend the night. As we passed the Metropolitan Building I glanced up and saw a light in Jack Eddy’s office. He was burning the midnight oil.
Jack was on my mind as we ate. Sue snapped me out of my reverie by using a red-painted fingernail to beat a rhythmic tattoo on the tabletop. She was frowning when I looked up. “You know, Bram, it would be nice if when we’re together you didn’t completely forget I’m around.”
“Sorry, Sue. I was thinking about Jack Eddy’s case.”
“I might have known. Maybe the two of you should go steady. What’s he working on that’s so intriguing?”
“It’s all very complicated. You’d never understand.”
“No, of course not. A mere female, what chance would I have?”
“I didn’t mean it that way. What I’m trying to say is — aw, let’s talk about something else.”
Her smile lacked its usual warmth. “What you’re trying to say is that you haven’t the foggiest idea what’s going on but you don’t want to come right out and admit it. So tell me the story. Maybe I’ll fool you and understand perfectly.”
“If you’re really interested. What happened is a man Jack’s been trying to nail for years comes to Akron and sets up a jewel robbery. While he’s in town he meets a girl and gets swept off his feet. It turns out she’s charged with stealing funds from an escrow account the lawyer she used to work for was supposed to have set up for a real estate deal. The money disappeared before it got to the bank. The key witness against her is a young guy just out of law school working at the firm. Are you with me so far?”
“Bram, there’s nothing even remotely complicated about it up to this point.”
“Well, keep your pants... uh, what I mean is just wait a minute and it will be. This jewel thief Spangler is so head-over-heels about the girl that he turns to the best man around to help her out, his old antagonist Jack Eddy. Jack agrees to take the case as long as Spangler stays completely out of it. That’s because he’s trying to hang the jewel robbery on Spangler, see?”
“Of course I see. Get on with the story, just be more careful about the expressions you use.”
“Okay, now here’s where it gets wild. Somebody knocks off DeRidder, the young lawyer, so there goes the key witness against the girl. That—”
“Does this girl have a name? Or, as Jack Eddy would put it, is she just ‘that broad’?”
“Sure she has a name, Beverly Keeler.”
“Is she pretty?”
“She’s okay, I guess, but kind of skinny. Anyway, she’s the chief suspect in the murder, being the only one to gain by it. Now Jack has that to worry about.”
“Then he thinks she’s innocent?”
“He’s sure of it.”
Sue frowned a little. “Bram, you’ve taken a simple set of circumstances and played around with them in your mind until you have no idea what’s going on.”
“Look, smarty pants, how’d you like to be in Jack’s position? On one hand he’s trying to slap a man in jail and on the other he’s trying to keep the guy’s girl out of jail. You can see he’s in a real dilemma, can’t you?”
“Yes, and I love it. And I wish you’d get your mind off what I may or may not be wearing.”
I knew my cheeks were fiery, but Sue was smiling so my heart began beating too fast. I pretended not to have heard her last sentence and said, “Sue, have you forgotten how Jack got you out of a real jam last summer?”
“No, and I haven’t forgotten how many of them he’s gotten you into since then. That’s your fault, really, except that Jack knows how gullible you are and takes advantage of it, which makes him responsible.”
“Gullible? I have a job to do, you know. Thanks to Jack Eddy, I’ve come up with some great stories. That’s all that counts, isn’t it?”