1945 - Blonde's Requiem Read Free Page A

said. “ She ’ s gone for her brother. ”
    I didn ’ t care if she ’ d gone for the Marines. “ Take it easy, ” I said, not moving.
    “ Why does she hate Wolf? What ’ s he done to get het that way? ”
    “ Most folks hate him. Leastways, those who ’ ve worked for him, ” McArthur said, looking anxiously at the door. “ You ’ ll find them all the same. ”
    The woman came back. With her was a thickset man of about forty. He was full of toughness and self-confidence.
    “ Is this the fella? ” he said to Mrs. McArthur.
    “ Yes. ” There was a triumphant note in her voice which annoyed me.
    He came over to me. “ Get out and stay out, ” he said, poking his finger at my chest. “ We don ’ t want a spying louse like you around here. ”
    I took his finger and gave it a little jerk. It was a trick I ’ d picked up from a guy who ’ d spent some time in China.
    The man fell on his knees with a howl of pain and I grinned at him. “ Don ’ t be a sissy, ” I said, helping him up. “ Can ’ t you take a joke? ”
    He toppled into a chair and held his hand, moaning.
    I went to the door. “ You ’ re all crazy, ” I said to them. “ Can ’ t you see you ’ re wasting time? I can find the girl if you ’ ll let me. It ’ s your business, of course, but she ’ s been missing for four weeks. No one ’ s turned up anything yet. If that gives you confidence, then I ’ m sorry for you. If I don ’ t find her, I ’ ll find the other two. By that time she won ’ t be worth finding. Think it over. I ’ m at the Eastern Hotel. If you want my help, come and see me. And don ’ t think I care one way or the other. ”
    I didn ’ t stop to see how they took it, but walked out of the room and closed the door quietly behind me.

    * * *
     
    The Cranville Gazette was on the fourth floor of a dilapidated building sandwiched between a large cut-rate emporium and a drugstore. The small, dark lobby was dirty and harboured the stale smell of bodies and tobacco smoke. The lift wasn ’ t working so I climbed the four flights of stairs.
    I wandered around the fourth floor until I came to a door lettered in flaked black paint on pebbled glass: Cranville Gazette.
    I turned the knob and went into a small, narrow room with two windows, a battered typewriter desk, a number of filing cases and a threadbare carpet.
    A woman turned from the window and looked at me without much interest.
    She was forty, thin, frowzy and full of vinegar.
    “ The editor in? ” I said, tipping my hat and trying to look more pleased to see her than she did to see me.
    “ Who is it? ” she asked in a way that told me the editor didn ’ t have many visitors.
    “ The name ’ s Spewack, ” I said. “ And I ’ m not here to sell him anything or to waste his time. ”
    She opened a door which I hadn ’ t noticed before at the far end of the room.
    She shut the door behind her.
    I leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette. I decided for an editorial office this was pretty punk. The newspaper, I thought, was a worthy representative of the town.
    The woman came back. “ Mr. Dixon will spare you a few minutes. ” I walked down the narrow room, smiled at her and entered the inner room.
    If anything, it was more dreary than the outer office. In a swivel chair at the desk sat an elderly number in a blue serge suit which looked like it had been nickel-plated. A pale-grey bald patch loomed high up in the middle of stringy white hair.
    He had sharp blue-green eyes and his beaky nose looked as if it had hung over a lot of quick ones in his time.
    “ Mr. Spewack? ” he said in a fruity baritone.
    I nodded.
    “ Take a chair, Mr. Spewack. ” He waved a fat hairy hand at the chair across the desk. “ I ’ m always glad to meet a visitor to our little town. ” He paused and stared at me with a calculating expression in his eyes. “ You are a visitor, I suppose? ”
    I sat down. “ More or less, ” I said, hitching the chair a little