Masters of Noir-Volume One by Anthology

Author:Anthology
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: mystery, detective, noir, anthology
Publisher: Wonder Audiobooks, LLC
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

FRAME by FRANK KANE

The phone on the night table started to ring shrilly, discordantly. Johnny Liddell groaned, cursed softly, dug his head into the pillow, but the noise refused to go away. He opened one eye experimentally, peered at the half lowered shade and noted that it was still dark.

He tried to wipe the sleep from his eyes, but it wouldn't wipe away. The phone kept ringing. Finally, he reached out and lifted the receiver off its hook.

"Yeah?” he growled sleepily.

"This is Laury Lane. Come out here right away. That man of yours is going crazy and—” The voice was drowned out by the flat, ugly bark of a shot. The line went dead.

Liddell was suddenly wide awake. And ice cold. He started to jiggle the cross bar on the phone. “Hello. Hello.” The only answer was the soft click of a phone being hung up at the other end.

Liddell continued to jiggle the cross bar. The metallic voice of the operator cut in: “What number are you calling?"

"I'm not calling a number. Somebody was calling me. We've been cut off. Can you get them back?"

"I must have the number."

Liddell growled deep in his chest. “Never mind, thanks. They'll probably call back.” He tossed the receiver back on its hook, started stuffing his legs into his trousers. He headed for the bathroom, completed the waking-up process by splashing ice cold water into his face, then finished dressing. He shrugged into a shoulder harness, clipped his .45 into place, covering it with a jacket. He was headed for his garage less than ten minutes after the phone had started to ring.

2.

Laury Lane lived in a small colony of two-acre plot estates just outside of Sands Point on Long Island's North Shore. Johnny Liddell headed out Northern Boulevard, making the forty-minute ride in something short of a half hour.

The house itself was set back from the highway and shielded from the road by a row of evergreens. Liddell swung through the stone pillars that supported a rarely-closed iron gate, followed the short winding driveway to the house. There were two other cars parked in front of the garage, on the concrete apron. Liddell left his in front of the house, walked up the two steps to the door.

There were no lights in the hall, but he could see a triangle of yellow light toward the back of the house were it spilled from an open door. He debated the advisibility of walking around back, decided to knock.

Almost immediately the door opened and he could make out the bulky figure of a man silhouetted in the opening.

"I'm Johnny Liddell. I want to see Miss Lane."

The door opened wider. “Come on in.” The man stepped aside, waited until Liddell had entered, fell in behind him. “Straight ahead to the study."

Liddell followed the darkened hallway to the open door. He stopped at the entrance to the room and looked around. Two men looked at him incuriously. One of them, a tall man in a rumpled blue suit and a battered fedora, grunted, “Who's this, Allen?"

"Name's Liddell.

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