Do No Harm by Max Allan Collins

Author:Max Allan Collins [Collins, Max Allan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

11

For the first time in over a week, I was in my inner sanctum at the Chicago branch of the A-I Detective Agency, seated behind the old scarred desk dating back to the early ’30s and my one-room office over the Dill Pickle on Van Buren.

Those digs, which for several years (thanks to a Murphy bed) served as my apartment as well, lacked what success had brought the A-1 and me. This spacious office sported a leather couch, leather client chairs, wooden file cabinets, and walls where framed famous faces from my past and present—including Flo Kilgore—smiled at me, flaunting their personal inscriptions. My son Sam shared a double stand-up frame on my desk with my ex-wife, Peggy, who I hated and still loved.

My partner, Lou Sapperstein, who went back even further than my desk, had left a stack of reports for me to peruse while his wife, Gladys, our office manager and my former secretary, provided a pile of letters for me to approve and sign. These I encountered upon getting to the office at ten A.M., which was a prerogative of being the boss. In half an hour we’d have our weekly staff meeting. Beyond my door was a bullpen of modern desks with mostly modern young operatives, stolen away from various police forces and the occasional rival agency.

Such was the life of a successful private detective in June 1957.

I was finished with the letters and getting ready to dig into the reports when the phone rang. Our receptionist, Millie, was on the line with a call for me.

“It’s Erle Stanley Gardner!” she said.

Millie was new. Our previous girl had taken any number of calls from Gardner, relating to jobs I’ve done pro bono for the Court of Last Resort.

“Put him on,” I said.

“I watch Perry Mason every week!” she said.

“Tell him that, then put him on.”

“And I’ve read tons of his books.”

“Tell him that, too.”

She went off to do that, then Erle was on the line.

“If I fly to Chicago,” he said, skipping any greeting, “can you have supper with me this evening?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“Make a reservation. George Diamond’s?”

“George Diamond’s it is, Erle. Seven o’clock?”

“Six.”

“Sheppard case again?”

“Yes, goddamnit.”

He said goodbye and hung up.

This was probably not good news—he’d been scheduled today to go to the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus for the polygraph examination of Dr. Sam. With him were Alex Gregory, John E. Reid, C. B. Hanscom, and Dr. LeMoyne Snyder, the group that had made the lie tests with the Sheppard brothers and their wives. With Gardner himself present this time, I hadn’t been needed.

So a little before six, I was shown to a booth in back reserved for my guest and me in the legendary Chicago steakhouse on South Wabash. The place had a decidedly masculine feel with its dark paneling and rich red carpet, chairs and booths, although the framed paintings by Walter Keane of sad-eyed kids and sadder clowns seemed more inclined to please the fairer sex. Colored chefs were broiling steaks

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