Death Smells of Cordite. Gordon Landsborough

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СКАЧАТЬ Especially the stillness of Joe.

      So he went cautiously a couple of paces into the room and saw then that Joe would never make another noise this side of wherever good Joes go.

      A blue-rimmed hole made a startlingly vivid mark on Joe’s right temple, just where the hair was thinning back. A hole that could have been made by a spinning .38 bullet. A hole that was big enough, in that place, to spill the life out of anyone.

      Anyway, it had spilled the life out of big Joe McMee, private investigator.

      CHAPTER TWO

      Farran felt himself go as stiff as a tomcat scenting danger. And it felt, too, as though his hackles were risen on end. He looked at Joe, and looked and looked and went on looking. And back of his eyes his brain was spinning madly, trying to cope with a situation foreign to it.

      Murder!

      Because there was no gun in the dead man’s hand, no gun anywhere near it. And men can’t shoot holes in their temples like that without guns. Someone had done it for him.

      Farran looked at the wastepaper basket on Joe’s foot. It looked comical, made the dead Joe look funny. For the first moment, that is. Afterwards it looked somehow obscene, certainly indecent.

      And Farran saw how it was. Those two paces into the room had brought him in view of a part-opened drawer—the top left drawer of, presumably, the late Joe McMee’s desk. Inside Farran saw a gun—it looked like a Colt, probably a .45 service weapon.

      Could be Joe had made a dive for that drawer, got it part-opened before the death bullet tore through his skull. And in making that dive, it looked as though Joe had stuck his foot into the basket—could be that basket had hindered him in going for his own gun, had delayed him just that vital fraction of time which had resulted in this. This—a scene over which only bells could toll.

      Farran looked at a telephone on the desk. His blood was beginning to thaw out. He knew that a wise guy in a movie or the crime book of the month would walk out and solve the mystery; but he also knew that a wise guy in real life picked up the nearest telephone and bawled “Police” until the place was stiff with blue uniforms.

      He was a wise guy in real life, Farran, so he went over to use that phone.

      Then he felt—it was really too soft to hear—a movement and he jerked his head round so quickly he heard his neck crick.

      There was a girl huddled against the wall not a yard to his left. He just hadn’t seen her because a corpse—especially the corpse of a man who had shared a blanket with you on a football bench—compels a whole lot of attention.

      She was blonde and soft and young and probably pretty. But right now her face was whiter than the snows of Alaska, and her straining eyes were so big they looked as if something was shoving hard up behind them. There was an expression of dazed agony on that small, uptilted face.

      Farran looked and realised that though those eyes were fixed roughly in his direction, they weren’t focusing. The girl was looking, but she wasn’t seeing much.

      He forgot the phone for a minute. Afterwards he thought; “The heck, that’s just how it happens in a movie!” And then, of course, a big lug like Sydney Greenstreet smiles in at the doorway, beans you, and rings for the police. They find you with a gun in your hand and everyone says, “You done it, pal. Quit arguing, can’t yer?” All except the heroine. There’s always a heroine to believe—the heck, didn’t Hollywood build itself up on glamour?

      But just at that moment Farran didn’t think any of that. He quite naturally went and bent over the girl. His voice demanded, “What’s happened? Who are you? Who killed Joe?” Like that. He was good at firing questions, even if unions no longer made it possible for the boss to fire employees.

      And the girl just said nothing.

      She couldn’t. Farran took a look behind her blonde head and decided the lump could have come from a bang against a wall. He was still so unprepared for criminal answers to problems that he didn’t think someone might have bent a rod over the head instead.

      He took hold of her under her arms. She was wearing a thin, attractive summer dress. He lifted, and the head at first lolled back and he saw the bloodless lips part as a moan came through, and then pain brought the swift movement of life and her head came forward and erect again. He held her, though she was all weight in his arms, and her face went tight with the agony of returning consciousness, and she looked to be fighting a rising tide of sickness.

      Farran stuck her on the desk, still holding her. His eyes were on that phone again. He rapped, “Sit up, can you? I’ve got some phoning to do.” Terse. There were a lot of women out at his plant on the edge of the desert; he was used to them about.

      His words got through. The blonde made an effort, and sat swaying feebly holding the edge of the desk with hands that, unusual for L.A., didn’t have points to their fingers and colour on the nails. Her eyes were looking at Farran now, focusing.

      Farran got the phone; put a call through to police. The girl listened. “Someone’s been killed.… Yeah, I know his name—Joe McMee, ex-F.B.I.” That’d bring ’em up in their chairs. Cops didn’t like death in the family, and G-men were cops. “I’ll wait,” he told them, and gave the address.

      One minute later a prowl car must have got the radio and came screaming along the street outside. The L.A. cops weren’t slouches.

      The blonde was recovering fast. The eyes weren’t out so much now. She was slim, her face was almost thin. A nice face. Nothing special about it, just—nice. And there weren’t many nice faces so near Hollywood; they were all too special for that.

      She said, “It is real?” and there were tears rolling down her cheeks faster than rain at a barbeque.

      He said, “About Joe? Getting shot?” He looked at the silent Joe, lying on his back with his foot inside the WPB. “Yeah, I guess it’s real.” And then he added, “The G-man got his. Poor Joe.” He didn’t get sentimental; he hadn’t been brought up to be that way. But he didn’t like to see a man who had been his friend lying like that. Killed. Murdered.

      She went on weeping silently, her blue eyes caught on Farran’s, as if she felt she was anchoring on to a strength she badly needed at that moment. When she spoke it was through lips that were nearly without movement, so that Farran could hardly hear her.

      “You knew Joe? Not many people knew he’d been a G-man.”

      “Yeah. I knew Joe. We played football at college together.” He nearly added, “I played; he sat most of the time on the benches.” Not quite as good. But he refrained; it wasn’t necessary, and he had a vague idea it was even a bit irreverent.

      The girl began to sway, and her eyes started to go a bit ga-ga. He caught her, steadied her, demanded, “Who’re you? Did you see it happen?”

      She started to shake her head, then winced at a stab of pain. Her head began to droop forward as she spoke, so he kept hold of her. “I came in.” That slow, tired whisper. She’d had enough, that girl. Too much. “He was—just like that. Dead.” She was becoming heavier in his arms, her tired head almost touching his chest.

      He asked again, “Who are you? Come on, who are you?” Demanding, because he had asked the question three times now, and he wasn’t used to asking a question more than СКАЧАТЬ