Part 10 (2/2)
The ex-detective-sergeant gave no ht it was you in the heap on Mount Royal this afternoon, but I couldn'tthe coupe, sitting beside the detective, closing the door ”Scuttle Zeipp's me I ain't as well known as Napoleon, so if you've never heard of s”
”Yeah”
”That's the stuff! When you once think up a good answer, stick to it” Scuttle Zeipp's face was a sudden bronze arette ”The same answer'll do for my next question You're interested in these here Landows? Yeah,” he added in hoarse mihted his face, and his words caht to want to knohat I'ht I'll tell you I've been slipped half a grand to buirl--twice How do you like that?”
”I hear you,” said Alec Rush ”But anybody can talk that knows the words”
”Talk? Sure it's talk,” Zeipp aded by the neck until dead and s are talk, but that don't always keep 'e real” ”Yeah?”
”Yeah, brother, yeah! Now listen to this: it's one for the cuff A certain party coo with a knock-down from a party that knows me See? This certain party asks rand would be right, and said so Too stiff We coet the rest when the Landoist is cold Not so bad for a soft trick - a slug through the side of a car - huh?”
”Well, what are you waiting for?” the detective asked ”You want to al holiday?”
Scuttle Zeipp ser in the dark
”Not any, brother! I' way ahead of you! Listen to this: I pocket ood casing, not vanting to la around, I run into another party that's poking around This second party givesyou know she's propositioning uess? She wants to knohat I want to bump off a broad! Is it the same one she wants stopped? I hope to tell you it is!
”I ain't so silly! I get my hands on another two hundred and fifty berries, with thatwhen I put over the fast one Now do you think I' to that Landow baby? You're dumb if you do She's my meal ticket If she lives till I pop her, she'll be older than either you or the bay I've got five hundred out of her so far What's thefor more customers that don't like her? If two of 'em want to buy her out of the world, why not more? The answer is, 'Yeah!' And on top of that, here you are snooping around her Now there it is, brother, for you to look at and taste and smell”
Silence held for several minutes, in the darkness of the coupe's interior, and then the detective's harsh voice put a skeptical question: ”And who are these certain parties that want her out of the way?”
”Be yourself!” Scuttle Zeipp adh, but I ain't feeding 'e me all this for then?”
”What for? Because you're in on the lay so each other, neither of us can make a thin dimmer If we don't hook up we'll just ruin the racket for each other I've already rand off this Landow That's mine, but there's more to be picked up by a couple of Jto throith you on a tay cut of whatever else we can get Buttheer on therunted and croaked another dubious inquiry
”How cohed knowingly
”Why not? You're a right guy You can see a profit when it's showed to you They didn't chuck you off the force for forgetting to hang up your stocking Besides, suppose you want to double-crossI told you I didn't un But all that's the bunk You're a wise head You knohat's what Me and you, Alec, we can get plenty!”
Silence again, until the detective spoke slowly, thoughtfully
”The first thing would be to get a line on the reasons your parties want the girl put out Got anything on that?”
”Not a whisper”
”Both of 'em women, I take it”
Scuttle Zeipp hesitated
”Yes,” he ad about 'e, and in the second, I wouldn't tip their mitts if I did”
”Yeah,” the detective croaked, as if he quite understood his companion's perverted idea of loyalty ”Now if they're wos on a man What do you think of Landow? He's a pretty lad”
Scuttle Zeipp leaned over to put his finger against the detective's chest again
”You've got it, Alec! That could be it, dareed, fuet away from here and stay away until I look into hi-house into which he had shadowed the young man that afternoon, the detective stopped his coupe
”You want to drop out here?” he asked
Scuttle Zeipp looked sidewise, speculatively, into the elderuesser, just the sao, is it, Alec? Fifty-fifty?”
”I wouldn't say so,” Alec Rush grinned at hiood-nature ”You're not a bad lad, Scuttle, and if there's any gravy you'll get yours, but don't count onup with you”
Zeipp's eyes jerked to slits, his lips snarled back froe
”You sell hed the threat out of being, his dark face young and careless again ”Have it your oay, Alec I didn't oes”
”Yeah,” the ugly reed ”Lay off that joint out there until I tell you Maybe you'd better drop in to see me to, kid”
”So long, Alec”
In theHubert Landow First he went to the City Hall, where he exae licenses are indexed Hubert Britman Landow and Sara Falsoner had been married six months before, he learned
The bride's maiden name thickened the red in the detective's bloodshot eyes Air hissed sharply from his flattened nostrils ”Yeah! Yeah!” he said to hi with other records at his elbow, looked frightenedly at hied a little away
From the City Hall, Alec Rush carried the bride's na the files, he bought an armful of six-months-old papers He took the papers to his office, spread them on his desk, and attacked them with a pair of shears When the last one had been cut and thrown aside, there re his clippings in chronological order, Alec Rush lighted a black cigar, put his elbows on the desk, his ugly head between his pal Baltied of irrelevancies and earlier digressions, the story was essentially this: Jeroed forty-five, was a bachelor who lived alone in a flat in Cathedral Street, on an income more than sufficient for his comfort He was a tall man, but of delicate physique, the result, it ence in pleasure on a constitution none too strong in the beginning He ell known, at least by sight, to all night-living Balti-house, and the furtive cockpits that now and then materialize for a few brief hours in the forty ton
One fanny Kidd, co to ”do” Jero-rooht spot that was reflected sunlight - reflected from the metal hilt of his paper-knife, which protruded froation established four facts: First, Jerome Falsoner had been dead for fourteen hours when fanny Kidd found hiht o'clock the previous evening
Second, the last persons known to have seen him alive were a woman named Madeline Boudin, hom he had been intimate, and three of her friends They had seen hiht o'clock, or less than half an hour before his death They had been driving down to a cottage on the Severn River, and Madeline Boudin had told the others she wanted to see Falsoner before she went The others had re the bell Jerome Falsoner opened the street door and she went in Ten minutes later she came out and rejoined her friends Jero a hand at one of the htly, and as connected with the district attor- ney's office To on the steps of a house across the street, had also seen Falsoner, and had seen Madeline Boudin and her friends drive away