The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories
- Автор: Деминг Ричард
- Год: 2016
- Язык: английский
- Год: Wildside Press
- ISBN: 9781479423507
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
“Totally.”
He had to look around again before saying, “Fifty-fifty?”
“Right down the middle. If you don’t quit gazing around as though you just picked a pocket, somebody’s going to wonder what’s eating you. Cut it out and just act natural, huh? Nobody’s close enough to hear us.”
“Sorry,” he said with a gulp. “This kind of takes the wind out of me. I mean I’ve dreamed about it, but I never expected—” His voice trailed off again.
I said, “Let’s get on with the discussion. I’m no safe cracker, so burglary is out. Hitting him in here is out too, if what you say is true. I’ve no more desire than you have to be torn apart by a bunch of crazy miners. That leaves hitting him between here and the bank. How far is the bank?”
“Right next door. And at five p.m. on a Friday there are as many miners wandering up and down the sidewalk as there are in here. We’d be up against the same thing.”
The problem was beginning to compare with knocking over Fort Knox. I was contemplating forgetting the whole thing and driving on when there was a rending crash of metal from outside.
Instantly customers began streaming out the door. Andy Carr jumped up too and joined the exodus. As the only windows in the place were small, barred squares too high to see out of, the only way to learn what all the excitement was about was to trail along.
I was the last customer out of the place, leaving only the bartender behind. And even he came as far as the doorway to peer out.
On the far side of the square a couple of cars had collided. All traffic had stopped and a couple of hundred people were converging on the scene from all directions.
By the time I reached the edge of the crowd, a solid mass of humanity covered that whole side of the square. The low wall which boxed in the courthouse lawn was crammed with spectators on that side, gaping above the heads of the crowd. Others stood on the lawn and courthouse steps.
I couldn’t see anything, but I did locate Andy Carr.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Just a couple of smashed fenders, I guess,” he said, disgusted that it wasn’t more serious. “See what I mean about this dead town?”
“How’s that?”
“Everybody rushes to see anything at all that happens. It’s because there’s so little else to get excited about.”
His words popped an idea into my head. If the accident had occurred ten minutes earlier, just as Fat Sam Cooney carried his money bag from the office, only the proprietor and the bartender would have been left in the place.
I turned to look back toward the tavern. On that side of the square some people were staring from the windows of the bank next door to the tavern, and a number of businessmen and clerks were peering from the doorways and through the show windows of stores, but there wasn’t a soul on the sidewalk. Everyone who wasn’t working seemed to have rushed to see the accident.
If a similar distraction could be arranged the following Friday, just as Fat Sam emerged from his office—
I said to Andy, “How do I get in touch with you?”
“You going?” he asked.
“I want to check into a motel. Can we get together tonight to resume our conversation?”
“Sure. At Fat Sam’s?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think we ought to get too thick in public. Got a phone?”
“Yeah. It’s listed under my dad’s name. Joseph Carr on Bodie Street. It’s in the book.”
“I’ll phone at exactly nine p.m.,” I said. “Make a point of answering personally.”
“Okay. The best motel is the Shady Lane, about a mile from the square out North Main.” He pointed to the street bisecting the north side of the square.
I gave him a nod of thanks and walked off.
If the Shady Lane Motel was the best in Rover, I pitied the guests at the others. It consisted of a row of paintless square cabins with flat, tarpaper roofs which absorbed sunlight, converted it into heat, and poured the heat into the rooms below. The rugless floor of my cabin creaked, and the shower dripped.
It was clean, though, and it was certainly reasonable. I paid twenty-five dollars for a full week.
There was no phone in my cabin, so I lingered at the restaurant where I had dinner until nine o’clock, then phoned Andy Carr from the restaurant booth. He must have been waiting at the phone, because he answered in the middle of the first ring.
“Andy?”
“Yeah.”
“George Snyder. Do you have a car?”
“No.”
“Hmm. How far are you from the Shady Lane Motel?”
“Only about a half-mile. I can walk it.”
“Good. I’m in cabin five. Don’t check for me at the office. Just come straight there.”
“Right,” he said. “See you in about twenty minutes.”
By the time I got back to my cabin, it had cooled sufficiently for it to be quite comfortable. A knock sounded at nine-twenty-five. I opened the door, to find Carr standing there.
Letting him in, I closed and locked the door. I had already drawn the shades.
Glancing around, he said nervously. “This thing has already got me jumping out of my skin.”
“Want to drop it?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” he said quickly. “I’ll be all right.”
“Then sit down and we’ll talk it over. Want a drink?” I indicated a bottle of whiskey on the dresser.
He said he did, and I poured shots in both water glasses with which the cabin was furnished. “There’s no ice and no mix. Want water in it?”
“That’s okay.”
Carrying both glasses into the bathroom, I added water to each. When I came out again, he was seated in the only chair with his head cocked to one side, listening. I paused to listen too. All I could hear was a siren in the distance.
“Fire engines,” he said, grinning at me. “Probably kids again.”
“Oh,” I said. “I thought you heard someone coming.”
I handed him a drink and sat on the bed.
After we had sampled our drinks, I asked, “You’re sure you’re in this all the way? I don’t want to waste a lot of time planning this score, then have you chicken out at the last minute.”
“I’m in,” he said sincerely. “I’d do anything for enough money to blow this burg. I need a break.”
“Okay. Then I’ve got a tentative plan. Did you notice how fast Fat Sam’s place cleared today when that accident happened?”
“Sure. They even run out like that when a jet goes over. I told you there was nothing to do here.”
“Well, suppose we staged a similar diversion about one minute to five next Friday, so the place would empty just as Sam came from his office?”
His eyes grew round. “Why didn’t I ever think of that?” he breathed. “What kind of diversion?”
“I haven’t thought that far. It’s just a tentative idea. But we have a week to work on it. Now, the next question is, do you care if, after the event, everybody in town knows you were involved?”
This apparently hadn’t occurred to him, because he looked startled. His brow creased in a frown.
“It doesn’t make any difference to me,” I said. “I’m a stranger here, nobody knows my real name, and I don’t care if I ever come back again. But this is your home town. Fifteen minutes after the heist there will be radiograms about us going all over the state. All they’ll have on me is a description, and I’m a pretty average-looking guy. But your real name will go out, your known habits — everything. What about that?”
He asked uncertainly, “Couldn’t we wear masks?”
I gave him an amused smile. “You mean sit around in the joint wearing them, waiting for the diversion? Even if we did, if you disappear from town, everybody’s going to know why.”
It began to register on him that I was working up to something. “So what’s your suggestion?” he asked.