This City of Lies (Kerrigan Book 1) by Barry Lees

Author:Barry Lees [Lees, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SEG Publishing
Published: 2021-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

10

At the Marvel Automobile Company, the only lights still on were at the gasoline pumps where an attendant swept the forecourt, and in the office where I found Abraham writing on a piece of paper pinned to the wall.

He looked at me with the same sad eyes I had seen earlier. “You been in a fight?”

“Nothing serious. I need a favor. No, make that two favors.”

“You need another car?”

“Yes, that’s the first one, what’ve you got?”

“Come with me.” He shuffled into the car lot behind the building. “Take your pick. Whatever ya’ need I’ll get Bob to fuel it up.”

I found a dark green Hudson which kind of chose itself. It was the type of car that a salesman or a family might use. It not only looked ordinary but having had one before, I knew it had a snappy turn of speed if I needed to get away in a hurry.

Back in the office, Abraham called the attendant Bob in from the pumps to hand him the keys. Thin and ghostly, Bob had to be the unhealthiest man I’d ever seen walking. His beige coverall suit engulfed him, and I half expected the weight of the car keys to pull him to the floor.

“You okay?” I asked him, genuinely concerned.

He looked at me through lifeless, gray-rimmed eyes. “Yep,” he uttered, before leaving the room.

Abraham must have noticed how I was looking at Bob. “Don’t pay him no mind. I know he don’t look like nothing but he’s just about the fittest guy I know.”

I doubted that.

As Bob trudged over to the Hudson, I explained the second favor to Abraham. “Someone is listening in on my office phone. Now, I can’t be sure yet, but I got a feeling it’s got something to do with Marvin’s murder. I’m going to make a call here tomorrow morning at exactly ten o’clock. What I say is for the guy who is listening in on my calls. When it rings it must be you who answers it.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Very little, don’t say what you normally do. Just say hello.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.”

“Let me do the talking. When I ask you if you understand, you just say ‘yes’ and hang up the phone.”

I looked out to see Bob half in and half out of the Hudson, pushing it over to the pumps without a hint of strain on his face. I guessed Abraham was right.

When Bob finished, I left the gray Ford behind and climbed into the green Hudson.

Driving it felt good, like moving above the ground in a huge wardrobe with an aircraft engine in the shoe locker. The door had that clunk sound of quality when I opened and closed it. When I pressed the pedal, the engine casually hummed high and low like a person who was enjoying a good meal.

I headed to the Police Department vehicle compound where my brown Plymouth had been towed from Marvin’s murder scene. The clerk called the Homicide Division who gave him the okay to let me get something from the trunk.

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