Rough Cut by Ed Gorman

Author:Ed Gorman [Gorman, Ed]
Language: rus
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery & Crime
Published: 2012-02-05T11:27:46+00:00

THIRTEEN

I spent the next hour feeling a tad of respect for my much-maligned dead partner.

In advertising agencies, it seems, almost nobody gets along. Bosses and supervisors spend nearly as much time refereeing petty squabbles as they do trying to politic their way up the executive ladder. Rivalries are almost as commonplace as adultery. Almost.

For the next sixty minutes, a dozen people, some in couples, some individually, trooped through my office voicing complaints about co-workers. Usually the complaints had to do with turf. One art director didn't like copywriters who went directly to artists without consulting him first. One copywriter wanted to be taken off an account because it wasn't "creative" anymore what with the money-oriented new account exec running it-God forbid we make money. Then there was the paste-up person who wanted to know why he couldn't jog for two hours over his lunch hour-the extra time bound to make him a better worker. Right.

So it went-and that's why I felt some respect for my ex-partner.

Denny Harris had always relieved me of this pain-in-the-executive-butt part of the job. Denny was famous for listening to everybody's complaint, then promptly and forever doing nothing about it. Denny, out of laziness maybe, or maybe even out of real wisdom, believed that if you let things slide along enough they somehow took care of themselves.

I didn't have the stomach for that. My taint was to be combative, as several disappointed-looking people this morning would tell you.

During the last few complaints, my mind started to wander to the manila envelope I had in my car.

I was still in shock that the private detective I'd hired had turned out to be a blackmailer. Stokes made me feel naive- as if, for all my romantic disillusionment and bitterness, I were some kind of kid. Denny's murder had been shattering enough, but the idea that Stokes was going to feed on Denny vampire-like was even more mind-boggling than the murder.

Which, of course, turned the whole situation right back on me.

Despite the fact that I could tell the police that both the Traynors had been at the murder scene, I did nothing. I was going to save the account-run it up the flagpole and salute my ass off. Which is not the kind of self-image a guy-at least this guy-likes to have of himself. But it was the only way to keep on feeding my family.

The only hope I could see was the newspaper clipping I'd taken from Denny's desk. But I had no idea why he'd kept it-the chances were good that it had absolutely nothing to do with the murder.

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