Black Is the Fashion for Dying by Jonathan Latimer

Author:Jonathan Latimer
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781480486140
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

Karl Fabro

The thing couldn’t see. It had no eyes. But it was watching. He could tell by the small of his back. Even while Gordon was there he’d felt it watching, felt the slow creep of flesh, a chill warning, no doubt, from some long-atrophied jungle sense between his shoulder blades. It was a queer feeling, as though a piece of ice had been grafted to his skin. Nerves, of course, but why this particular aberration? When the damn thing couldn’t see?

Abruptly, convulsively, he swung around.

As it had for two years now, the golden statuette stood on the shelf, poised under the jewel-encrusted dagger. A meaningless abstraction, it had no expression, watchful or otherwise. It had no eyes. Barely a face, actually.

It was just a piece of metal.

He stood up, feeling oddly relieved, so strong had been the sensation of being watched. He stared at the statuette and then, suddenly amused, he chuckled. Watched by an eyeless watcher. By the deity of Hollywood success. The Oscar god! He chuckled again. Let the thing watch, if it could. It was his. And in one more day he’d have another.

“One more day!”

The gleeful voice startled him. He grunted sardonically, dropped heavily into the chair, swung back to the desk. Ice along his spine, and now talking to himself. Or rather to that gilded chunk of bronze he’d somehow gotten a fixation about. If things kept on he’d be needing to see Dr. Abernathy again. But they wouldn’t keep on. It was almost over. Only a few moves left, as simple and inexorable as chess moves against an already beaten opponent

He thumbed down the intercom lever. “Find T. J. yet?”

Miss Earnshaw replied promptly. “No, Mr. Fabro. But there are a dozen people—”

“I can’t see them.”

“But—”

He cut her off, a brief rage at T.J. flaring. One move, an important move, maybe the most important move of all, depending on him, and the twirp had apparently taken the afternoon off. No, that was impossible. He’d never dare. He’d turn up eventually, as he always did, burbling some macaronic excuse or other. And that would be time enough. The chess game, actually, was ahead of schedule.

Tiger in the Night, for instance. A pawn, maybe, among knights and kings, but already in place. The prison set being built. A promise from the District Attorney that the girl, if not free on bail, would be allowed to finish her scenes at the studio. Gordon in line, as he knew he would be. One day’s shooting and the picture would be in the can. Let Benjy try to junk it then.

Lips curling contemptuously, he found a scratch pad, began to jot down the symbols he knew by heart now. Figures, really, representing common shares of Major Pictures stock, each worth $21 as of the close of yesterday’s market. But symbols, too, of votes in the annual election of directors. He placed them in two columns:

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