The Case of the Russian Diplomat: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Three) by Howard Fast Page A

the way, we don’t give away our glasses.”
    â€œIt’s a memento,” Masuto said. He gave the waiter ten dollars. “Keep the change.”
    â€œKeep the memento,” the waiter said.
    Masuto walked into the lobby of the hotel, dropped into a chair, and looked at his watch. It was almost ten o’clock. A long, long day. He turned it over in his mind, trying to remember the events of the day and put them into proper sequence. It was Beckman who caught the piece in the paper about the Russian agronomists. No one else had mentioned them. Was it a three-day visit or a four-day visit that they were making to Southern California? According to Toda Masuto, three days were hardly enough to scratch the surface of the art of orange growing. The Russians could build spaceships, but they couldn’t grow oranges. Americans could grow oranges better than anyone in the world, but they couldn’t keep their cities from disintegrating. It occurred to him that he had told Beckman to find the agronomists, but then the thing happened to Jack Stillman and they were all there, Beckman and the others, and both he and Beckman forgot about the agronomists. It was a crowded, disorganized day, and that was his fault. He had gone off on a wild goose chase to San Fernando, because someone had stolen some lead azide. Why? What sense did it make? The whole country, no, the whole world was bomb crazy. It had been in his mind all the time. Why hadn’t he simply told Beckman to look in the papers for the makings of a bomb? Was it true, he asked himself, that he liked to be mysterious, or was there an undercurrent in his thoughts that he himself was hardly aware of?
    He looked up, and there, standing in front of him, was Binnie Vance. She had changed into a yellow pants suit.
    â€œHello, cop,” she said to him.
    â€œI thought you were tired.”
    â€œYou were the tired one.” She dropped into a chair next to him. “I was kind of pissy with you, wasn’t I?”
    Masuto shrugged.
    â€œI gave you the impression that I didn’t give one damn about Jack. That isn’t true.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œYou know anything about Vegas?”
    â€œA little.”
    â€œJack lived in Vegas fourteen years. He was an operator, and he spent a lot of time in the casinos. That’s why he never had a nickel. When you got a crush on the crap tables, you got an expensive habit.”
    â€œI suppose so.”
    â€œYou don’t spend all those years like that and not get mixed up with the Mob.”
    â€œAnd was Stillman mixed up with the Mob?” Masuto asked indifferently.
    â€œHe was.”
    â€œAnd you think the Mob put out a contract on him and had him shot?”
    â€œIt’s happened.”
    â€œIf that’s the case, that’s pretty much the end of it.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œThose kind of killings—well, for the most part, they’re never solved.”
    â€œYou mean you don’t care about solving them.”
    â€œNo, we care.” He stood up. “Why? Had he run up a score at the tables? Was he a big loser?”
    She shrugged. “That’s the last thing he’d talk to me about.”
    â€œBut you’d know. He was your husband.”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œDid you ever hear of the Jewish Defense League?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe J.D.L., they’re called.”
    â€œShould I?”
    â€œYour husband was Jewish. You knew that.”
    She stared at him without speaking.
    â€œYou’re not Jewish, are you?”
    â€œIf it’s any of your damn business, no!”
    â€œWell, good night,” Masuto said.

7

    THE
QUIET
WOMAN
    â€œIn one day,” Kati said, “you are everywhere. You see the whole world.”
    â€œNot really the whole world, dear Kati.” Masuto was steaming in the hot bath he had looked forward to all day, and Kati sat by the tub with two thick white