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:
He left his perch and walked to the door. “It’s your decision, Jerry. I think you’re making a mistake.”
When he was gone, Lynch gave a little shrug, smiling wryly. “Vic’s a worrier,” he said, motioning me to a chair. He went to a cabinet and produced a bottle of Irish whisky. “How about somethin’ to cut the dust while we talk?”
Half an hour later I sat drumming my fingers against the steering wheel. Now what was I going to do? If I didn’t write a story about Emerald Laundry, I could be in trouble with the Lynch mob. If I did, the Times-Press business writer, Ted Leipsic, would have fits because I had crossed his beat. Worse than that, Goldsmith might think I didn’t have enough to do and find some additional duties for me.
“I didn’t figure you for pulling a dumb stunt like that, buddy,” said Jack Eddy after a supper of knockwurst and baked beans at the boardinghouse. “What did you hope to gain by talking to Jerry Lynch?”
“Stir things up a little, maybe. If it turns out you’re right, I want to be familiar with his operation.”
“Well, it’s your funeral.” He went to the rack in the hallway and took down his hat and overcoat. “C’mon, we’ve got a date with Stefan Damokura.”
“We do?”
“He’s waiting at the agency right now.”
“You’re kidding.”
“When do I kid about business? Austin and Andres brought him in half an hour ago.”
“Brought him in? My God, Jack, you didn’t strong-arm a lawyer, did you?”
He grinned while tossing my coat to me. “Persuaded, friend.”
Damokura was in Jack’s private office. Cal Andres, leaning back casually in his chair, was keeping him company. The fat lawyer was irate on the surface, shaky beneath the skin. “This’ll cost you, Eddy,” he blustered. “Kidnapping a man off the street’ll put you behind bars.”
Jack draped his suitcoat over the back of a chair, loosened his necktie, and rolled up his sleeves. “Maybe we can share a cell, Steve. A kidnapper and a killer.”
“If you’re talking about DeRidder, I’m alibied.”
“Setting it up for somebody else makes you as guilty as the trigger man, pal. A shyster like you knows that.”
“Look, Eddy—”
“No, chief, you look. You couldn’t wait to get to Vic Reiner after I talked to you the other day. Then the kid did some digging like I told you he would. He confronted you, you yelled for Reiner again, and we all know the rest of the story. What you didn’t know was we had men shagging you every step of the way.”
Jack went to his desk and sat down. After lighting a cigarette he leaned toward Damokura and in a friendlier tone said, “Here’s the setup, Steve. All I’m interested in is getting my client off the hook. You tell the prosecutor it was a mistake on your part, Beverly Keeler had nothing to do with that missing twenty grand, and then you’re on your own.”
Damokura wiped his face with a dirty handkerchief. “And if I don’t?”
“I turn our file over to Plato Largis.” Jack laid his hand on the phone. “As you know, Plato has his little ways of getting people to come across with the truth.”
Damokura waved his hand at the phone. “Hold on a minute. Look, maybe I’ve made some mistakes in my life, but I’m not a killer. Vic Reiner’s a hard man, I knew that, but I swear to God I didn’t think he’d kill the kid. Scare him, sure, after he nosed around and found out what we were doing, but I didn’t figure on anything more than that.”
“Tell me about it, Steve. What exactly did DeRidder find out you and Reiner were doing?”
“Getting ready to take Jerry Lynch’s operation for a ride. I thought you said you knew.”
“I do, but I want to hear it in your own words.” Jack looked at me and winked. It was all bluff, he didn’t know beans.
Damokura wiped his face again. “It wasn’t my idea, it was Vic’s all the way. When I got in too deep, he made me set the Keeler dame up as the patsy, then I turned the money over to Lynch to cover my losses. The next day Reiner came around with this scheme to clean up on the numbers. He didn’t give me any choice but to go along. I mean he had me over a barrel.”
“Keep going, Steve. Explain this scheme to me.”
“Look, Eddy, you know what Vic’ll do if I open my mouth.”
“You’ve already opened it, sport, but have it your own way.” Jack reached for the phone, and again Damokura waved him off.
“Okay, okay. Vic has a hold over someone in the printing business, and he had duplicate rolls of tickets made up. I had some people I know, real down-and-outers, make one- and two-buck plays, then Vic wrote the winning number on the duplicate tickets and turned them in to himself after destroying the originals. Nothing big, just greasing the wheels to break Lynch with a big score. Then he’d take over the operation without getting Lynch’s Irish buddies up in the air. The way he had it figured, Lynch would never be the wiser.”
“Lynch isn’t that big a dummy. You were being set up to take the fall all by yourself. When was this supposed to take place?”
“Next week. Look, Eddy, are you satisfied now?”
“I’ve been satisfied from the start, providing you make that call to the prosecutor and put Beverly Keeler in the clear.” Jack pushed the phone toward Damokura.
“Now? Look, I gotta think this over.”
“Fine. You’ve got thirty seconds, then I call Largis.”
Beverly Keeler joined us at the same table in the New Deal Lunch. I held a chair for her, but she only had eyes for Jack Eddy. She was tied in knots, five feet of anxiety. “What is it?” she asked. “Has something more gone wrong?”
Jack was grinning. “Relax, kiddo. Damokura phoned the prosecutor half an hour ago saying it was all a mistake on his part and you’re in the clear. He’s at headquarters right now making a written statement to that effect.”
Beverly leaned back, exhaling as the color returned to her cheeks.
“That’s wonderful. It’s going to take me a while to realize it’s really over. I can’t thank you enough.”
She turned to me, laying her hand on mine and squeezing a little.
“And you too, Bram. I’ll never forget it.”
I hadn’t done a thing, of course. There was no way I would have said that even if I hadn’t been so choked up I was afraid to trust my voice. Later, as she was leaving, she gave Jack a peck on the cheek. Then she did the same with me, but lightly on the lips.
When she was gone, Jack burst out laughing. “You big lug, pop your eyeballs back in your head and take a gander at the expression on your face. If only Sue Baney could see you now.”
“You’re not funny, Jack.”
“I was never more serious in my life, buddy.”
After beckoning to the waiter for more coffee he said, “Be careful what you write this time, friend.”
Never before had he told me to keep anything under my hat. “I have to write the story, Jack. The whole story.”
“You have to write that Damokura cleared Keeler. He’s not telling the cops anything about Reiner, so what will you hang the rest of it on? If you say you heard about the numbers scam or DeRidder’s murder at the Wellington Agency, I’ll have to deny it, you know that.”
“But—”
“No huts about it, buddy.”
“You mean you’re going to let Victor Reiner get away with murder just because it’s not your case any more?”
“I didn’t say that. We’ll sit back a couple of days and see what develops. If nothing does, I’ll put a bug in Plato Largis’s ear. I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”
Once again Jack Eddy was right. An hour after the Times-Press was on the street the following afternoon a client visiting Damokura’s office found the shady lawyer slumped over his desk just as DeRidder had been slumped over the table at his apartment.