Scott Elliott 01 Kill Me Again by Terence Faherty

Author:Terence Faherty [Faherty, Terence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: hollywood, mystery, private eye, hardboiled detective
Publisher: The Mystery Company
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

24

There should have been a trace of Pidgin in the air inside my little house. There would have been a trace, if my return to the cabin had been a scene in a movie. The screenwriter would have had me find a long, almost-blond hair on my sofa and the émigré who composed the score would have had the orchestra play her theme as I looked around the empty rooms.

The schedule Mr. Beaumont had laid out for me didn’t include a lot of time for gazing around wistfully, but I gazed anyway. I was that indifferent about catching my flight. I’d made up my mind that the trip to New York was just an expensive way of getting rid of me, that Paddy and Beaumont wanted me safely filed away while they worked out how best to use or not use the information I’d brought them. If I’d really been the hero of my own movie instead of a bit player in Paddy’s, I would have quit my job and stuck with the case until I’d dragged Kramer’s killer into police headquarters bound and gagged. Paddy would then have given me back my job, and we all would have lived happily ever after.

A better ending would have had Jack Warner offering me the lead in a western. That fantasy reminded me of Carole Mediate’s vague promises from earlier in my long day. She’d said her husband would get me back into my old profession, and maybe cap my teeth while he was at it. Had the offer been Carole’s idea or had Mediate been speaking through his wife? That would have been on my list of questions, if I’d had time to make one. Paddy had given me a list of his own, a list of orders. Item number one involved packing my toothbrush.

I opened my old calfskin case and then pointedly ignored it. As a second meaningless act of rebellion, I took a long, increasingly tepid shower. Afterward I dressed in my suit with the least shiny pants, a conservative navy blue one that had an East Coast look to my West Coast eye. As I tightened the knot in a low-key necktie, the phone began to ring.

I had my ear tuned for Pidgin’s laughing soprano, which meant it was open far too wide for what I got. “You’re a hard man to reach,” Florence Hanks barked at me.

“The maid’s day at the beach,” I said.

“Lucky girl. Some of us have been running our tails off.”

I made an effort to block that mental picture. “You were whispering your name in producers’ ears when I last saw you.”

“Yes, and the campaign paid off. You’re talking with the new writer on Love Me Again.”

“Congratulations.”

“You could sound more celebratory.”

“Sorry. Events have been too alacritous for me today.”

“You’re not kidding, brother. If I had slept in this morning I would have missed the whole deal. By the way, you’re wrong about the script not needing rewrites. Requests are already piling up.”

“Did you call to rub that in?”

“In part.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.