Chinaman’s Chance
- Автор: Томас Росс
- Серия: Arthur Case Wu #1
- Год: 1978
- Язык: английский
- Год: Simon & Schuster
- ISBN: 978-0-671-24070-7
- Жанр: Политические детективы
Электронная книга - «Chinaman’s Chance». Краткое содержание книги:
Salimei leaned across the bar and lowered his voice. “The word’s out on a guy.”
Crites nodded and made his tanned, thirty-three-year-old face look interested.
“A guy name of McBride. Eddie McBride. Ever hear of him?”
Crites shook his head. “How much?”
Salimei looked around and made his voice grow even more conspiratorial. “A grand. Just for his address.”
“Who’s putting it up?”
“Solly Gesini. You know Solly?”
Crites nodded. “I know who he is. What’d you say this guy’s name is?”
“McBride,” Salimei said. “Eddie McBride.”
Five bars, two ginger ales, and three draft beers later, Joe Crites found himself on the outskirts of Pelican Bay. Because he had grown bored with bars, Crites decided to go calling on a former business associate. He decided that he would drop in on Brenda Birdsong, whose pimp he had once been back in the old days in North Hollywood. The old days to Crites were eighteen months ago. Brenda was one of the reasons that Crites had failed as a pimp. She was pretty enough, but she was lazy and had a smart mouth and didn’t like to take baths. Dirty ankles, he remembered. Brenda always went around barefoot and had dirty ankles, and that sort of turned guys off unless they were some kind of freaks.
Crites had no trouble getting past the old man with the white ponytail who held down the reception desk at the Catalina Towers. A few minutes later he was knocking on the door of 521, which was just across the hall from 522, where, until recently, Otherguy Overby had lived.
“Who is it?” Brenda asked through the door,
“Joey.”
“Joey who?”
“Come on, Brenda.”
She opened the door, and Crites saw that she hadn’t changed any since the old days. She had on an unbuttoned man’s white shirt and blue nylon panties and that was all, except for too much mascara around her wise-ass eyes and a pretty good coat of grime around her ankles.
Inside the apartment, Brenda turned to Crites and said, “No freebies, Joey.”
“Aw, hell, Brenda. I just dropped by for a drink and a few laughs.”
“What’ve we got to laugh about?”
“We’ll think of something. Here.” He took a pint of White Horse Scotch out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her. “Make us a drink.”
Brenda shrugged, took the bottle, and went into the kitchen. She came out a minute or two later with two glasses. “No soda,” she said. “So I used water.”
Crites accepted his glass. “Water’s okay.” He took a taste of his drink and looked around the shabby apartment. “So how’s hustling?”
“How’s car stealing?”
He shrugged. “I get by.” Crites sat down in an upholstered chair and poked at a cigarette burn in the fabric of its left arm. “I was just talking to a guy over in Venice.”
“Don’t poke at it,” Brenda said. “It’ll just make it worse.”
Crites stopped poking at the burn. “This guy over in Venice I was just talking to is thinking of letting a few ladies hustle out of his bar.”
Brenda made a face. “In Venice?”
“What’s wrong with Venice?”
“Fifteen- and sixteen-year-old dopers, that’s what’s wrong with Venice. They give it away over there for the price of a joint. You talk about turning a trick in Venice for fifty bucks and you get laughed out of town. You wanta know what Venice is? It’s the pits.”
“Well, maybe you’re right,” Crites said, “except I think probably you oughta move back to Hollywood.”
“I’m doing all right here.”
“Yeah, I can see,” Crites said, looking around the room.
“I got some regulars,” Brenda said. “I turn five or six, maybe seven tricks a week and I can get by. The cops don’t bother me, not in this town, and I don’t have to keep some fucking pimp in nine-hundred-dollar suits.”
Crites made a small deprecatory gesture with his drink. “Hell, it was just an idea. I mean, about Venice. I was over there and this guy happened to mention it so right away I thought about you. He also told me something else kinda interesting.”
“What?”
“The word’s out on some guy.”
“Anybody we know?”
“I never heard of him. Some nobody called Eddie McBride.”
Brenda’s face changed. Her eyes lost their wise-ass look and turned cunning instead. A small, tight smile appeared on her face. “Who’s Eddie McBride?” she said.
“I don’t know. Some guy that Solly Gesini’s looking for.”
“Is that the Gesini who runs the muscle factory over on Lincoln Boulevard?”
“You know him?”
“I just heard of him.”
“Well, Solly’ll pay a little money to find out where this here Eddie McBride is keeping himself.”
“What’s he offering?”
Crites looked at her carefully. “You sure you don’t know him?”
“Who?”
“McBride.”
“Nah, I don’t know him. How should I know him?”
“Well, I just thought in case you did we might split the two hundred bucks that Gesini’s offering — just for his address.”
“Well, if I hear anything, I’ll let you know. I could sure as shit use the money.” She finished her drink, put it down, then turned to Crites. “You wanta ball — just for old times’ sake?”
“I don’t mind,” Crites said.
After Crites had gone it took a while for Brenda to get someone to give her Solly Gesini’s unlisted home phone number. But finally she got it from Gobie Salimei at the Sneaky Pete. Gesini answered his phone with a hello on the third ring.
“Mr. Gesini?” Brenda said.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t know me, but I hear you’re looking for a certain party whose last name begins with an M.”
“Yeah, I might be looking for somebody like that.”
“How much is it worth to you?”
“You got the address, it’s worth one grand.”
“A thousand?”
“That’s what I said.”
“How do I know I’m gonna get the thousand if you get the address?”
“You got a name?”
“Brenda.”
“Well, let me tell you something, Brenda. I’m a businessman and I got a reputation to keep up. I say I’ll do something, I’ll do it. You can ask anybody.”
“How soon can I get it — the money, I mean?”
“You give me the address, you can get it tonight. You know a place called the Sneaky Pete in Venice?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you give me the address and then give me an hour to do a little checking, and if everything works out, then there’ll be an envelope for you at the Sneaky Pete. An hour from now.”
“Well, he’s living in another guy’s apartment.”
“Where?”
“In Pelican Bay.”
“What’s the name of the apartment?”
“The Sandpiper Apartments. It’s on Third and Seashore Drive.”
“Yeah, I know where it is. What’s the name of the party he’s living with?”
“Overby. Maurice Overby — although nearly everybody calls him Otherguy.”
“Otherguy?”
“That’s what they call him.”
“Okay, Brenda, if this checks out, you just made yourself a thousand bucks.”
“And I can pick it up in an hour?”
“That’s right. In an hour at the Sneaky Pete.”
After she hung up the phone, the excitement of what she had just done hit her. She looked around the apartment trying to think how she might kill half an hour before she started for the bar in Venice. She didn’t want another drink — not just then. But she wanted to do something, though, something that would help keep the excitement and anticipation under control, but still not spoil it. So Brenda Birdsong decided to do something that she hadn’t done in quite some time. She decided to take a bath.