Shakedown by Frank Kane

Author:Frank Kane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime Fiction Vigilante Justice, Mystery Series, Crime Fiction Kidnapping, Crime Fiction Heist, Thrillers Assassinations, Crime Fiction Organized Crime, Mystery Crime Series
Publisher: Golden Retro Publishing
Published: 2016-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

The telephone on the night table jangled jarringly.

Johnny Liddell grunted, turned over and tried to bury his head in the pillow. The phone continued to screech at him.

Finally he managed to get his eyes open. He glared at the instrument with no appreciable effect on its insistence. He reached a hand out, snagged the receiver. For a moment he debated the advisability of leaving the receiver off its hook and enjoying the blessed silence. He dropped the decision, relayed the instrument to his ear. "Yeah?"

"You sure took your time about answering," Pinky’s voice scolded him.

"I didn’t take long enough," Liddell grunted. "What could be on your mind at this hour?"

"At this hour?" Pinky sniffed. "You’re just lucky I decided to get in late today. Andrew Reeves’ secretary’s been bugging the answering service since eight this morning."

Liddell scowled at the ceiling. "Tell him I’ll get back to him later. I didn’t get to bed until—”

"I don’t care about your sex life," the redheaded secretary told him tartly. "And Andrew Reeves won’t mind waiting. He’s dead."

Liddell came awake with a start. "He’s what?"

"Dead. At least they’ve got him in the morgue and they were doing an autopsy at eight this morning. I don’t imagine that will lengthen his life any."

"Never mind the jokes. What happened to him?"

"He was killed in an auto accident early this morning out on Long Island. That’s the police version. His secretary thinks differently. She thinks he was murdered."

"I think she may be right," Liddell said. "Call her back and tell her I’ll be there in fifteen minutes." He dropped the receiver on its hook, headed for the bathroom and a shower.

In less than ten minutes, he was dressed and on his way to Andrew Reeves’ Radio City office.

Reeves’ secretary was sitting in the outer office, talking to a heavy-set girl with horn-rimmed glasses when Johnny Liddell walked in. Her eyes were red-rimmed; the heavy-set girl had obviously been trying to comfort her. She greeted Liddell’s arrival with poorly disguised relief. She regarded Liddell owlishly through her thick lenses, turned back to the secretary, "If there’s anything you want, Sally, don’t hesitate to call me." She smiled tentatively at Liddell, straightened up, circled around him to the door. "Excuse me." She hustled out the door, closed it after her.

Reeves’ secretary dabbed at her eyes with a frilly handkerchief. "Thank you for coming, Mr. Liddell." She stood up. "I think we can talk better in Mr.—" She broke off for a second. "In the inside office," she amended.

Liddell followed her into Reeves’ office, took the same chair he had occupied during the interview with the dead man. The girl’s eyes hopscotched around the office, lingered for a moment on the papers on his desk, filled up at the sight of his humidor and desk lighter. "I just can’t believe he’s gone." She walked over to the window, stood looking out over the panorama of lower Manhattan, struggled to get herself under control. When she turned around, she walked to the desk chair and sat down.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.