To Find Cora Like Mink Like Murder Body and Passion by Harry Whittington

Author:Harry Whittington [Whittington, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime Fiction
Publisher: Stark House Press
Published: 2016-02-29T00:00:00+00:00

Collie sat at breakfast in Elva’s apartment when I got there at a quarter of nine the next morning.

All the signs were he’d spent the night. I wondered what lies Elva had been able to make him believe. Things appeared quiet on the surface, at least.

Collie preened in a wine colored silk lounging robe with his monogram on the breast pocket, the sort of item he liked to leave in his mistress’s apartment, initialed cufflinks and a white silk scarf at his throat.

He nodded toward me over his breakfast of sunnyside eggs and crisp bacon. He ate delicately, taking small bits and masticating slowly like a health teacher demonstrating how it should be done. He even chewed his milk. The milk was for his ulcer.

“Good to see you, boy,” he said. When I told him I’d eaten breakfast about seven hours earlier, he laughed. He jerked his head toward a man lounging in an easy chair under a lamp. “You remember Scotty Pizzari? Say hi to Sammy Baynard, Scotty.”

Pizzari looked up, folding his newspaper. “Hi.”

I nodded, glancing at Pizzari, or as much of him as I could see around that newspaper. Pizzari had not changed or gained any weight. He looked like a jockey, a crooked one or a disbarred one.

His sleek suits were sharply cut, and I remember the tailor where he bought them and the way that tailor suffered every time Pizzari ordered another suit cut to the same pattern.

Collie had come from the same sordid neighborhoods as Pizzari, but Collie was ambitious, and Pizzari was happy with things as they were. Scotty loved to be left strictly alone. Once I’d wondered what Pizzari did with himself when he wasn’t playing shadow to Kohzak. Now I no longer cared.

Collie masticated elaborately, swallowed, dabbed at his lips with a linen napkin.

He stared at me from across the table with that rock hard friendly smile in his dark, narrow face.

“Elva says you’ve decided to go along.”

“You said I had no choice.”

He smiled. “I like my people happy, Sammy. You know that. A man cooperates better if he’s happy in his work.”

“You won’t get much out of me then.”

He laughed sharply. “If I didn’t think so, Sammy, I’d never have dealt you in. It’s a big deal. Don’t you know you’re going to be worth a lot to me?”

“What kind of job is it?”

“A payroll lift, boy. The nice leafy kind. All cash. Heard about this firm that likes to do its employees a favor. Pays them off in cash every second Friday.”

“Is a payroll big enough for you?”

“That depends on the gamble, Sammy. You know me. I consider the stakes, the risks, everything. This is a jackpot any way you look at it. No risk, good stakes. Two hundred sixty thousand plus, cut three ways. You had any pie that rich lately?”

“A payroll of that kind of dough means armed guards. Sounds dangerous.”

Collie dabbed at his mouth with that napkin. “Now boy, when did I ever let you take chances?” He pushed back from the table, let his knife clatter against his egg-stained plate.

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