Slam the Big Door by John D. MacDonald

Author:John D. MacDonald [MacDonald, John D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: suspense
Publisher: Fawcett Gold Medal
Published: 2012-02-14T08:05:15+00:00

He placed a call to Purdy Elmarr from a drugstore booth. An hour later he was seated on Purdy’s front porch, with a bourbon in his hand. The old man gave an impression of ageless strength that did not match the frailness of his voice over the phone. There was no cordiality in him. He looked out toward the highway, his face still.

“My basic deduction, the reason I came to see you, may be entirely wrong, Mr. Elmarr. So I can save both of us time by starting with a question. Are you interested in any way in Horseshoe Pass Estates?”

There was a long silence. The old man spat over the railing. “Keep talking.”

“As I told you, I’m a newspaperman. Ex-newspaperman, at least for a while. I’ve done a lot of interviewing. I listen to what people say and how they say it. And I remember. I want to give you as near a verbatim conversation as I had today with Corey Haas as I can manage. There’s no point in telling you why I came to go to him. But I did. Here is what was said.”

Except for the infrequent lift of the glass to the lips for a measured sip, the old man was motionless as a lizard. Mike wondered if he was really hearing any of it, or if he was far off in one of the misty reveries of senility.

“That’s all. I said, ‘We can try.’ I left and phoned you within the next five minutes.”

Purdy Elmarr stood up and went to the table and fixed himself a fresh drink, slowly, carefully. He went back to the chair, sat down and said, “He’p yourself any time you feel like.”

“Thanks.”

“One thing. That Raines boy bring up my name?”

“No. It was just a guess.”

“Never liked newspaper people. Spent my life keeping my name out of the papers. Every time you open a paper, there’s the same damn fools grinning out at you. So I never got to know one. Why’d you bring this to me?”

“It seemed like a good idea. And somebody told me you aren’t… merciless.”

“Have been. Can be again if I have to. One third to him, one third to you, and one third to Mary Kail and her husband. Pretty. But you didn’t like that. I know you’re telling me exactly how it was, because you got the figures right, and that’s just how Corey would say things. What are you after?”

“I like Mary. I don’t like Raines and I don’t like Haas.”

“I don’t have to like the people make money for me. So you’re just going around doing good?”

“Call it that.”

“You could come out with a nice profit. They’ll want to cut you in. Mary will anyhow. Nice girl. Haven’t seen her in years. Is that the only money you got?”

“Yes sir.”

“Funny you want to risk it all in something you don’t know anything about.”

“It isn’t very important to me. When it could have been, I didn’t have it. And got along fine.”

“I got stacks of money, son.

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