didn’t say word number one about who—”
“Damn it—”
“And don’t hand me any fairy tale about somebody she went to see who followed her and took the money, don’t give me that either. Don’t give me anything. Just get yourself over here and make it fast. You get me? I don’t know what you’re trying to cover, or who—the girl’s reputation probably—but I don’t like to be suckered. I’ll trust you on it for the fifteen minutes it’ll take you to get across town and not four seconds longer. What the hell do you take me for anyhow?”
“Why, you old rummy. You old dim-witted country Irish jerk. Five years, huh? And just how many things have I handed you in that time? Every damned one of them crated up and slapped on your desk without a loose string anywhere. Which is a damned good thing because if there was a loose string you’d trip over it and fall on your fat face. And here I get one that I’m not even doing for money, see, no fee at all because sometimes I can get to be sentimental as hell, you know? And in three hours I’ve done half your legwork and found your motive and—”
“What motive, Fannin? What motive is that? You mean the forty-two thousand, three hundred and sixty-seven dollars and thirty-four cents?”
“You bet your tin badge I mean the—”
“Yeah? What’s the matter, Fannin, you get hoarse all of a sudden? You lose the voice from trying so hard to make yourself sound good? ”
“All right, all right, let’s have it. I thought the Troy heist wasn’t your department?”
“Never said it was.”
“Damn it, Brannigan, where’d you get the exact figure? Do I have to come over there and shake it out of you?”
“Why, hell, Harry, not at all. Like I say, its all among friends. You just trot on over and I’ll be more than happy to show you the cash. After all, we found it in your laundry bag, didn’t we?”
CHAPTER 9
Brannigan didn’t ask me how the money had gotten there. It was just as well. For the moment all I could think of was that I’d eaten my oatmeal every day that week without making a single naughty face, so maybe the Good Fairy had left it as a reward. I grunted something unsociable and said I’d be over fast. Brannigan said he’d bet on it.
Actually he would have lost. I had a stop to make first.
Estelle was still inside. I called so long through the door, took the eerie silent elevator down to the lobby and walked toward the MG. From across the street it looked as if some industrious member of the city’s overworked traffic force had ticketed it.
It was only a handbill. Men and women everywhere, it said, make sure today of the salvation of your souls. Are you living a spiritual life or a carnal life? Be saved now! I tossed it into the glove compartment. Let Adam Moss worry about such things, if and when he got the car back. For myself I was more interested in my dirty drawers.
Obviously the killer had been inside after I’d left. Framing me to cover himself would be his only possible out if he thought Cathy had talked before she died.
He. Four hours on it and I came up with a personal pronoun. I wasn’t even sure I had the right gender. Her, maybe. It.
I wondered if Moss was going to have any notions. I was going to find out just about then.
I went up Riverside Drive, cruising more slowly than Bran-nigan would have liked. My broken head would have liked it a lot slower than that. A morning haze was trying to overextend its visa along the Jersey shore across the Hudson, but the sun was cutting it quickly. It was going to be another scorcher.
Moss’s address would fall somewhere between the Drive and upper Broadway. A new Caddy was pulling away just short of his corner and I nosed the MG in. There would have been room for a fleet of us.
Across the street a junior-grade Eddie Bogardus of perhaps fourteen was hacking away at the seat of a park bench with a knife of the sort they outlawed about five years back. He saw me watching
“Damn it—”
“And don’t hand me any fairy tale about somebody she went to see who followed her and took the money, don’t give me that either. Don’t give me anything. Just get yourself over here and make it fast. You get me? I don’t know what you’re trying to cover, or who—the girl’s reputation probably—but I don’t like to be suckered. I’ll trust you on it for the fifteen minutes it’ll take you to get across town and not four seconds longer. What the hell do you take me for anyhow?”
“Why, you old rummy. You old dim-witted country Irish jerk. Five years, huh? And just how many things have I handed you in that time? Every damned one of them crated up and slapped on your desk without a loose string anywhere. Which is a damned good thing because if there was a loose string you’d trip over it and fall on your fat face. And here I get one that I’m not even doing for money, see, no fee at all because sometimes I can get to be sentimental as hell, you know? And in three hours I’ve done half your legwork and found your motive and—”
“What motive, Fannin? What motive is that? You mean the forty-two thousand, three hundred and sixty-seven dollars and thirty-four cents?”
“You bet your tin badge I mean the—”
“Yeah? What’s the matter, Fannin, you get hoarse all of a sudden? You lose the voice from trying so hard to make yourself sound good? ”
“All right, all right, let’s have it. I thought the Troy heist wasn’t your department?”
“Never said it was.”
“Damn it, Brannigan, where’d you get the exact figure? Do I have to come over there and shake it out of you?”
“Why, hell, Harry, not at all. Like I say, its all among friends. You just trot on over and I’ll be more than happy to show you the cash. After all, we found it in your laundry bag, didn’t we?”
CHAPTER 9
Brannigan didn’t ask me how the money had gotten there. It was just as well. For the moment all I could think of was that I’d eaten my oatmeal every day that week without making a single naughty face, so maybe the Good Fairy had left it as a reward. I grunted something unsociable and said I’d be over fast. Brannigan said he’d bet on it.
Actually he would have lost. I had a stop to make first.
Estelle was still inside. I called so long through the door, took the eerie silent elevator down to the lobby and walked toward the MG. From across the street it looked as if some industrious member of the city’s overworked traffic force had ticketed it.
It was only a handbill. Men and women everywhere, it said, make sure today of the salvation of your souls. Are you living a spiritual life or a carnal life? Be saved now! I tossed it into the glove compartment. Let Adam Moss worry about such things, if and when he got the car back. For myself I was more interested in my dirty drawers.
Obviously the killer had been inside after I’d left. Framing me to cover himself would be his only possible out if he thought Cathy had talked before she died.
He. Four hours on it and I came up with a personal pronoun. I wasn’t even sure I had the right gender. Her, maybe. It.
I wondered if Moss was going to have any notions. I was going to find out just about then.
I went up Riverside Drive, cruising more slowly than Bran-nigan would have liked. My broken head would have liked it a lot slower than that. A morning haze was trying to overextend its visa along the Jersey shore across the Hudson, but the sun was cutting it quickly. It was going to be another scorcher.
Moss’s address would fall somewhere between the Drive and upper Broadway. A new Caddy was pulling away just short of his corner and I nosed the MG in. There would have been room for a fleet of us.
Across the street a junior-grade Eddie Bogardus of perhaps fourteen was hacking away at the seat of a park bench with a knife of the sort they outlawed about five years back. He saw me watching
Similar Books
