The Pink Pony by Charles Cutter

Author:Charles Cutter [Cutter, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781950659630
Published: 2020-06-18T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“This is lunacy and you know it.”

“Jacob, it’s not lunacy. It’s a calculated risk.”

“It’s reckless.”

Burr sliced off a piece of the strip steak. He dipped it in the sauce and chewed it slowly. It’s good, but it’s not as good as mine.

“We have all to gain and nothing to lose.”

“I am an attorney, a researcher, and a writer of appellant briefs. I know nothing of fingerprints.”

Burr washed the aged Black Angus down with a swallow of a fairly pedestrian Meritage, the California wannabe of Bordeaux. “No one will suspect a thing.”

“Your wretched fingerprint expert should do it. If he could stay sober and straight long enough.”

“He has good-looking plants. You might want to get to know him.”

“I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that you can buy me this steak and I’ll do your bidding.” Jacob took another bite “It won’t work, not this time.” Jacob took a bite of his Caesar salad. “The dressing is spectacular.”

“It’s the anchovies.” Burr had brought Jacob to the Machus Red Fox on Telegraph in Bloomfield Township. A one-story squarish building with mud brown timbers and ivory stucco. It was so dark inside that Burr wished he’d brought a flashlight. He’d held the candle-in-the-glass centerpiece up against the menu, and even then, he had to ask the waiter for help. But the Red Fox did lend itself to assignations. Assignations of all kinds, romantic and otherwise.

“It’s much more cost effective if you do it,” Burr said.

“You mean cheaper.” Jacob turned his attention back to his steak.

Burr took a plastic box the size of a cigarette pack from his navy-blue blazer and handed it to Jacob.

“What is this?”

“Try it out on me.”

“Try what.”

“Take my fingerprints.”

“In here? It’s much too dark.”

“If you can do it here, you can do it anywhere.”

Jacob studied the package. He poked his salad. “This is a silly place to experiment.”

Burr sipped his wine, much smoother now.

I guess it just takes a little longer to open up.

He smiled at Jacob. “Silly isn’t a word I would use for the Machus Red Fox. Especially at this table.”

“Why not?”

“This was the last place Jimmy Hoffa was seen alive.”

Jacob stopped chewing.

“For all I know, Jimmy Hoffa is part of the anchovy paste in the dressing.”

* * *

They spent the night at the Townsend in downtown Birmingham, far and away the best hotel in metro Detroit. It occurred to Burr that the money he saved substituting Jacob for Mueller, he’d just spent on the Townsend.

I love a good hotel.

Just before eleven the next morning, Burr and Jacob walked into the shop of R. Benjamin Fishman, Importer, Clothier and Haberdasher. He’d been the cook on Fujimo. Burr thought it highly unlikely that the cook was the killer, so this would be a virtually risk-free place to experiment.

Only two doors down from the Townsend, Fishman’s was a small shop with a plate glass window that drowned a well-dressed mannequin in sunlight. Burr looked at a label on a sport coat. Pricey indeed.

“May I help you?”

“Burr Lafayette.” He extended a hand.

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