The Brave, Bad Girls by Thomas B. Dewey

Author:Thomas B. Dewey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery, detective, crime, sleuth, murder
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2015-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24

From somewhere in Evanston I checked in with my answering service. A man named Turner had been trying to reach me every ten minutes for an hour. I called Georgiana, gave her a description of Trudy and Esther Jarvis and asked her to start a hotel check and to locate Trudy’s birth information.

“Is Miss Smith in her room?” I asked.

“Yes. She was gone most of the day.”

“How does she seem?”

“Very young and pretty.”

“Lay off it.”

“What do you want me to do if I find this Jarvis woman?”

“Just sit tight.”

“You’re full of that, aren’t you?” she said. “Yesterday it was ‘sleep tight,’ now it’s ‘sit tight’—by the way, what does it mean?”

“If I didn’t know better,” I said, “I’d think you were trying to woo me in your womanly way.”

“God forbid.”

“That’s my girl. See you later.”

As I hung up, I wondered briefly whether Georgiana might become a problem. Then I decided probably not. More likely I was my own problem and aren’t we all?

* * * *

The Fish and Chips went well with Beaver Malone’s personality. It was noisy and crowded, but you could talk in there without attracting attention.

Beaver came in a few minutes after five, found me in a rear booth and squeezed his thick frame in across from me. He looked a little like the back of a catcher’s mitt with the guy’s hand in it.

“Things kind of slow?” I asked.

“I was working up to this morning. Good job.”

“You close it?”

He poured his beer expertly.

“I lost it. Shame, too. It was a cinch, a lead pipe.”

Another thing about Beaver, he was full of original expressions.

“That doesn’t sound like the old Beaver Malone,” I said. “How could you lose it?”

He made a bad face. “I don’t understand it. I don’t know how they got onto me.”

I decided not to tell him.

“What I’ve got,” I said, “won’t get you rich, but you might make a few bucks.”

“Sure, Mac, if I can help—”

“It involves some bugging.”

“It’s tricky. Big risk in it.”

“I know. This job is out in the suburbs. I’ll see you get portal to portal pay. I only want the bug in an out-building, a detached house behind the main house.”

He nodded and poured the rest of his beer.

“You want it for radio pickup? How close?”

“Not close. It would have to carry.”

All of a sudden he was staring into his beer. When he saw that I noticed, he went ahead and took a drink.

“You say a house in the rear? What is it, a mansion or something?”

“More or less. Fellow named Turner—Roscoe Turner.”

I was watching his knuckles. I thought for a minute he was going to break the glass in his fist.

“Once again, Mac, what was that name?”

“Roscoe Turner.”

He turned his head slowly and looked out into the joint. “I can’t take the job,” he said.

“But you need a job, Beaver, and I need you.”

“Can’t do it,” he said. “Thanks for the beer.”

He got on his feet and started away. I put my hand on his arm.

“Wait, don’t make me just sit here,” I said.

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