The Next to Die by Richard Fliegel

Author:Richard Fliegel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media

12

There was that dry buzz of courtroom air. The middle rows of spectator seats were all empty—the sunlight on their polished pine hurt Lowenkopf’s eyes. From the last row he watched the coroner nod as an old man with waxed white hair harangued the bench from the witness box. In the first row, the deputy medical examiner waited to testify, unhooking his spectacles and cleaning them with a pocket handkerchief. An old woman directly in front of Lowenkopf snorted twice. Lowenkopf slunk lower into the wood, pressing his knees forward into a trapezoid of light that fell on the seat in front of him. He covered his face with a page of newspaper from the floor under the seat.

He could have dozed. Instead, he felt someone sit down hard on the bench beside him. Under the corner of the newspaper page he saw a thin yellow check on a brown pant leg next to his arm. He waited. After a moment of silence, he spoke through the newspaper.

“Hello, Homer.”

“Shhh!” Greeley leaned forward in the seat, his forearms resting on the back of the bench in front of them. “Why do you sit so far back? I can’t make out half of what they’re saying.”

“That’s my reason exactly.” Lowenkopf crossed his arms over the newspaper page, shaping it to his face. “I’m just waiting to be called. You can always hear your name.”

“You won’t hear yours.”

“Sure I will. Unless you’re warning me when they call it.”

“They’re not going to call it.”

Lowenkopf sat up. His newspaper fell in his lap. “Why not?”

“The captain doesn’t want you to testify. He thinks the jet lag might slow you down.”

“That’s a crock, Homer. How does the old Turk know from jet lag? It sounds Greeley to me.”

Greeley was unperturbed and tried again. “He wants you uptown with Billy Ringo.”

“I’ll see Billy later. As soon as this is over.”

“He said you should go now.”

“I’ll go when I’m damned ready to go. There are priorities, Homer. You know that. Billy’s in the best hotel he’s ever seen, in the best section of Riverdale. We’re going to have to throw him out of there when the party’s over. He’ll keep another few hours.”

Greeley looked doubtful. He picked up the newspaper on Lowenkopf's lap, folded it on his own, and handed it, neatly quartered, back to his partner. “Did you see this?”

“What?”

Greeley pointed to an item at the bottom of Cindy Adams’ column, on the front of the quartered page. It looks like Sheik Ibn Amo Znandi won’t be moving into the Franciscan Tower after all. The management of the chic co-op announced today their new tenant will be Robert Culpepper, that Hollywood moneyman with a taste for Apple. The top-three-floor living space went for a top price—two million before renovations. Renovations? That’s right. Culpepper, in town today, explained, “I just want to get some of the walls out of the way.”

“It’s out of my price range, Homer.”

“Isn’t that the alibi you wanted to check?”

Lowenkopf sat up and reread the item.

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.