Nine Toes in the Grave by Eric Beetner

Author:Eric Beetner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Down & Out Books

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NEWSFLASH!

Manhattan, 1954

I hate to wish anyone ill, but Varrick calling out sick was my ticket to the big show.

“If I know Varrick, he’s hungover to beat the band,” McKinsey, the editor-in-chief, said.

If I knew Varrick, he’d have to drink all the whiskey in Manhattan to get a hangover. More like cirrhosis of the liver if that old salt was cashing in a sick day. Either way, I had my break.

I’d learned all I could from a twenty-year veteran like Varrick. My time in the photographer’s pool at the New York Observer had been eye-opening to say the least. Mostly about how much newspaper men could drink and lie to your face. My break had been coming for months, according to Varrick, and yet I hadn’t snapped a single frame.

“Ashby, get in here!” McKinsey hollered. I scooped up my Speed Graphic, threw a fistful of flashbulbs in my pocket, and scurried into the chief’s office.

He didn’t so much sit behind his desk as lurk. He never left the confines of his rolling chair, yet somehow managed to pace the floor with it, rolling from one stack of unruly files to another, his filing system obvious to no one but himself. A fat man, permanently sweat-stained, he chewed the stub of a cheap cigar more because he thought he was supposed to than for any enjoyment he got out of it. The top man at any newspaper was a grouch, a gut full of ulcers, and a man who would have had a full head of hair if not for the business he chose.

“You know Albert Gaglioni?”

“Yeah. Mob guy. Big time. Always wears the fur coat.” I showed him I knew my stuff. Night shift will do that for you. Gives you time to study up on the creepy crawlies who move about on the nighttime streets.

“Fur collars.”

“What?”

“He’s got fur collars on his coat, not a whole fur coat.”

McKinsey couldn’t resist correcting me. Smug bastard. At least I still had my hair.

“Word is he’s been making time with a senator’s wife. He goes to see her at her apartment while our good and honorable senator is down in Washington sitting on a committee tasked with breaking the back of organized crime.” He laughed at the weird world we lived in. “Need you to get a shot of him leaving that apartment. Needs to have him and the broad in the same frame. I want no doubt what sort of hanky panky is going on there.”

“Yes, boss.”

“You get her slip showing or a bra strap peeking out, I’ll give you a bonus.” He rolled the cigar to the other side of his mouth with his tongue as he eyed me. “You ready for this, kid?”

“Yes, boss.” Ready? Ha. I’d get twice the shot Varrick ever could.

“Zazz me, kid.” McKinsey’s stock pep talk for anyone headed out the door. He always said his paper needed more zazz, whatever that meant. But zazz he wants, zazz he’ll get.

“I’m on it,” I said. I turned quick, the flashbulbs rattling in my pocket.

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