Murderers' Row by Donald Hamilton

deadly weapon provided in the hour of need by, so they thought, a benevolent fortune.
    Rosten still hadn’t spoken. I said, “Okay, so it’s settled. Where’s a good place for us to meet?”
    He licked his lips. “Well,” he said, “well, there’s a place down on the Bay, a little cove called Mason’s Cove—”
    â€œShow me on the map, if you’ve got a map.” He had one. He showed me. I asked, “When can you be there with the money?”
    â€œI—we’re going out this evening. A cocktail party at the Sandemans’. I don’t know if I can get away afterwards.”
    â€œYou’d better get away, mister. I don’t work for nothing. What about before the party? We’ll take a chance on daylight.”
    â€œAll right.” His tongue came out again and discovered that his lips were still there. “All right. Four-thirty at the cove. Don’t drive too far down that side road or you’ll get stuck in the sand—Petroni?”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œIt will—” He did the tongue bit once more. “It will look like an accident, won’t it?”
    I said, “One day I’m going to have somebody ask me to do a murder that looks like a murder—”
    He drove me back into town and dropped me a couple of blocks from the hotel. I watched the big car drive away. Then I found a phone booth in a drugstore, looked up a number in the book, and dialed it. A maid answered.
    â€œI’d like to speak with Mrs. Rosten,” I said. “Mrs. Louis Rosten. This is Jim Peters. She’ll remember me.”
    â€œMrs. Rosten’s asleep, sir.”
    â€œWake her up,” I said. “It’s important.”
    I waited. Presently I heard the maid return and pick up the phone. “Mr. Peters?”
    â€œYes,” I said.
    Her voice sounded a little breathless. “Miz Rosten say she sure do remember you, Mr. Peters, and she can’t think of a thing she have to say to you this hour of the morning or any hour. She say, if you bother her again, she call the police!”
    â€œI see,” I said. “Thank you.”
    I hung up. Well, I wouldn’t really have known how to handle it if the woman had come to the phone, but I’d had to make at least a gesture towards playing it straight, like a conscientious government agent who’d stumbled on a dark conspiracy against a citizen’s life—two dark conspiracies, to be exact.

12
    I spent the rest of the morning catching up on my sleep. After lunch, I called Teddy Michaelis at the motel and arranged to meet her at a town called St. Alice. It was twenty miles from Annapolis, according to the map, but only ten from the cove where I was supposed to meet Rosten, later. I didn’t give that as a reason for selecting it as a rendezvous, however.
    I’d picked the town, but she, knowing the area a little better, had picked the meeting place: a bar and seafood joint built on a long pier sticking out over the water. The ceilings were low, the light was poor, the floor linoleum was cracked, and the tables had gingham tablecloths that could have been cleaner, but the bar was quite handsome: a great, massive, old-fashioned hunk of mahogany.
    I was nursing a beer, taking it easy, when Teddy came in, carrying a folded newspaper under her arm. She was wearing snug white pants and a blue sweater with a hood, thrown back casually from her blonde head. Her mouth was as grim as such a small mouth could be, and her blue eyes were bright and angry. She came right over to the bar.
    â€œWhat’ll you have?” I asked.
    â€œIt isn’t true!” she said fiercely.
    â€œSimmer down, small stuff,” I said. “I asked you a question. What’ll you have?”
    â€œIt isn’t true! Papa would never dream of—”
    â€œI’ll ask you once more. If I don’t get a straight answer, I’ll walk out on you.