The Golden Creep by Bagby George & Stein Aaron Marc

Author:Bagby, George & Stein, Aaron Marc [Bagby, George & Stein, Aaron Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Pulp
Publisher: Doubleday & Company
Published: 1982-06-27T07:20:56+00:00

Chapter 7

He didn’t know who stole it. He didn’t know how it got to the roof that topped The Topless Towers. He had no ideas. He made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was happiest with not knowing and not having any ideas.

About the time that the inspector had had from Bartholomew just about everything he could have hoped to have, The Face came trotting down the stairs. He put on a look of astonishment so intense that you could have bottled it and sold it as a concentrate to be diluted with three containers of water. The man, after all, was an actor, but he was misjudging his effect. Projected across the footlights, it might have worked. At closer range it was too much. It was directed at Bartholomew.

“You still here?” he said. “You had an appointment. You were in a hurry.”

“I was detained,” Bartholomew said.

“Sorry.” Leaving it at just the one word, The Face turned from Bartholomew to speak to the inspector. “There’s no reason for you to be holding this man,” he said. “Anything you want to know from him, you can ask me. He doesn’t know anything I don’t know. We’ve been over the whole thing together.”

“Agreeing on your story?” Schmitty asked.

“No story,” The Face said. “Any story I had a part in would be funny. Don’t forget I’m a comic.”

“The story I’ve just been handed is funny.”

“Semantics, Inspector,” The Face said. “You’re talking about funny-peculiar. I make with the funny-haha. So, since nobody’s laughing…”

Engaged now with The Face, the inspector moved away from the alley door. Bartholomew edged past him and took hold of the doorknob. His movements were tentative. It seemed to me that he was trying to make them furtive. He would have liked to slip away unnoticed, but the four of us were too much at close quarters for anything like that. The inspector turned back to him.

“When I need you,” he said, “where will I find you?”

Bartholomew brought a business card out of his pocket and pushed it at the inspector.

“Mostly I’m not there,” he said.

“It’ll be handier if I can look for you where you will be. Where mostly you won’t be can’t be expected to do anyone much good.”

“I can be anywhere,” Bartholomew explained. “All the time, all over the city, buildings are coming down. Anyplace there’s a wrecking crew, that’s where I have to be. My answering service takes messages. Anytime you give me a call, I’ll call you back.”

“I’lI expect that,” Schmitty said.

“You can count on it and now I’ve got to run.”

“Okay,” the inspector said. “I’ll be calling you.”

“Anything I can do to help.”

With that Bartholomew took off. The Face waited until the door had shut behind him. When he spoke, it was in the manner of a man who is talking to himself. It was obvious, however, that he wanted to be overheard.

“Funny-peculiar,” he said. “A man who can’t lie any better than that ought to realize that he’s stuck with the truth. It’s no good his trying.

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