Build My Gallows High Read Free Page A

a bottle of Scotch and some glasses. ‘Want me to put a tombstone on his grave for you?’ he asked.
    ‘Mumsie should do that,’ Red said.
    Her voice found anger.’I didn’t kill him.’
    Guy brought the bottle and glasses back to the desk. He poured three slugs and held one out to Red. Red crossed and took the glass. Guy went over to Mumsie and gave her one.
    Red downed the drink. ‘When do you want me to leave?’
    ‘There’s a train at four.’ Guy sat down beside Mumsie.
    ‘I’ll catch some sleep then.’
    ‘Six is vacant. Upstairs to the right. How about breakfast?’
    ‘That can wait.’
    ‘Sleep well, Mr. Markham,’ Guy said.
    ‘I like Bailey better,’ Red said. He smiled at Mumsie and went out.

Three
    He lay there watching the sun come up, not able to sleep because there was too much to think about. There was Ann and there was Guy Parker, who had him where the hair was short. He tried to keep his mind on Ann. But she became misty, unreal. Out of his life now. Out of it for good. When Guy got his hooks into you, that was that. He thought about Mumsie and wondered if she had changed much inside. A strange dame Mumsie. His mind went back ten years:
       
    It started to snow when Red came up out of the subway. He turned the collar of his camels-hair coat up around his ears, shoved his hands deep in the pockets and headed for his office, wondering why in hell he bothered coming to work, why he didn’t turn the joint over to his partner and hop a train west or south—it didn’t matter where. Just so there was sun. Passing a line of shivering, shabby men in front of a soup kitchen, he stopped pitying himself. He hurried past, felt their dull glances following him and even when he pushed through the doors into the warm shelter of the dingy office building he felt the hopeless envy of those rheumy eyes.
    The blonde at the cigar counter tried with a smile to brighten his day.
    ‘Morning, Mr. Markham,’ the blonde said. He returned the smile, stopped long enough to buy a pack of Virginia Rounds and make a few unenthusiastic verbal passes. Then he stepped into the waiting elevator and let it carry him slowly and painfully up six floors.
    The elevator smelled of moth crystals. So did everything else in the place. When the windows of the building were open, the sharp scent of the crystals was almost overpowering. Even when the windows were closed, you could still taste the stuff. There was no escaping it short of moving out of the wholesale fur district. You talked about moving. You considered taking a suite in some modern office building farther uptown. But you kept putting it off, for some reason or another. Anyway, most of your clients were such crumbs that you rather welcomed the smell drifting up from the narrow street.
    ‘Cold out—ain’t it, Mr. Markham?’ the elevator operator said.
    Red admitted it was. He dusted powdery snow off his shoulders.
    ‘Kids like it,’ the elevator operator said. ’Kids can slide. Me, I ain’t got a sled.’
    ‘I’ll lend you mine,’ Red said. The doors opened. He stepped across the hall, fumbling for his keys. The gesture was unnecessary. The door, whose frosted glass informed the world that Peter Markham and Jack Fisher, Private Investigators, held forth inside, was unlocked.
    The small reception room was empty. From beyond,the door leading into the office he shared with Fisher came a girl’s silly giggle. Mr. Fisher was in, apparently. And Mr. Fisher was starting early. Red coughed as he crossed to the door then pushed it open.
    Fisher and the redhead grinned at him embarrassedly, moved a few inches farther apart.
    ‘Good way as any to keep warm,’ Red said. ‘Both of you fix your lipstick. It’s on crooked.’ He left the door open and went over to his desk.
    ‘You might at least say good morning,’ the redhead pouted. A green sweater was stretched tight across her big, high-pointed breasts. Red wondered if it was the chest that inspired his