The Destroyer - 43 - The Destroyer 043 - Midnight Man by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

Author:Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir [Murphy, Warren & Sapir, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pulp Action
Publisher: PINNACLE BOOKS
Published: 2010-03-19T14:51:54+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The New York Tele­phone Com­pa­ny had built its rep­uta­tion on tak­ing six­ty days to in­stall a tele­phone and be­gin ser­vice, and on­ly six­ty sec­onds to dis­con­nect a phone. But in his hur­ried move from his Brook­lyn house, El­mo Wim­pler ob­vi­ous­ly had not no­ti­fied the com­pa­ny, be­cause the tele­phone in the bed­room was still turned on.

When he reached Smith, there was ag­ita­tion in the CURE di­rec­tor's voice.

“Where have you been?” Smith said. “I've been try­ing to reach you.”

“Easy. You'll live longer,” Re­mo said. “Be­sides, we've been out here solv­ing this case. Your killer is a lit­tle twerp named El­mo Wim­pler. He in­vent­ed the in­vis­ible paint. He al­so in­vent­ed some kind of skull-​crush­er ma­chine and a gad­get that blows out lights. He lived next door to that Curt who got it last night, and those three guys at the Friends of In­ven­tors had turned down his paint in­ven­tion.”

"Where is he now?” Smith said.

“I don't know. He split from his house in Brook­lyn,” Re­mo said. “Any­way,” he con­tin­ued. “That's the good news. Now the bad news.”

"Go ahead. I'm used to it from you,” Smith said.

"There's a mag­azine called Con­tract,” Re­mo said.

“I've heard of it.”

"We found some copies of it in Wim­pler's house. A lot of stuff in there in­volved killing the Emir, and he had them cir­cled. Sto­ries, ads and things.” Re­mo still had the copy of the mag­azine in his pock­et. He took it out and read some of the ads to Smith.

"Here's one called ‘Ice an Emir,'” Re­mo said.

"That one is mine,” Smith said.

“What?”

“I placed that one,” Smith said. “That's what I was call­ing about.”

"You're re­spon­si­ble for ‘Ice an Emir'? I didn't think you had it in you,” Re­mo said.

"I was sec­ond in my class at Dart­mouth in cre­ative writ­ing,” Smith said.

“Well, don't think I'm go­ing to be your agent, too,” Re­mo said. “I've al­ready got a client.”

"I placed that ad­ver­tise­ment to try to flush out any­body who might be think­ing about a con­tract killing on the Emir,” Smith said.

"I got my first group of an­swers to­day. Most of them are ob­vi­ous cranks, but one in par­tic­ular seemed re­al. I think it might be our friend, Wim­pler. I'm sup­posed to meet him tonight,” Smith said.

"Where?” asked Re­mo.

“In the Sheep Mead­ow at Cen­tral Park. At mid­night.”

"We'll take it for you, Smit­ty,” Re­mo said.

"I don't have to tell you how im­por­tant this is,” Smith said.

"Then don't,” Re­mo said. It was the same old thing, a side­wise slide by Smith in­to telling Re­mo that he was not to bring Wim­pler back alive. Smith's rock-​bound, New Eng­land moral­ity made it dif­fi­cult for him to or­der Re­mo to kill some­one, but over the years he had found enough ways to say it with­out say­ing it. What Smith want­ed was El­mo Wim­pler's body left ly­ing in Cen­tral Park. It wasn't a ques­tion of try­ing to evade re­spon­si­bil­ity. Re­mo had seen the pills that Smith al­ways car­ried and was pre­pared to use, pills that would kill Smith in sec­onds. Re­mo had seen the cof­fin in the base­ment

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