Hard Case Crime: Shooting Star & Spiderweb Read Free Page B

film capital. Up in the editorial department they decided to lay off Russia for a day and consider the matter of Hollywood hi-jinks, from Arbuckle to Zukor (though what they had on Zukor nobody could possibly imagine).
    And the authorities, chasing down lead after lead, let a few hints slip about a narcotics ring. That was enough. The press took up the “Ryan murder scandal” all over the nation.
    Took it up, and then dropped it with a dull thud.
    Seven full columns in three papers on April 24th. Not a line on April 25th. Or thereafter. Three full weeks of sound and fury, and then the nothingness. Dig that crazy, mixed-up case! Yes, dig! And I dug, but there was nothing more to read. Ryan was cool. Ryan was gone.
    And, a few minutes after I satisfied myself about the newspapers, so was I. I stopped in at Clifton’s for a bite to eat and a chance to chew over what I’d learned. There was no time at present to digest it.
    Still indulging in mental mastication, I stopped back at the office long enough to check the mail. Two letters. Tilden took a story and Browne bounced one. I made a note to call my clients later. Right now I had a thousand dollars’ retainer on a case and ten thousand riding. Right now I’d better go to the bank and make a deposit before two o’clock closing. Right now—
    The phone rang.
    I picked it up. “Hello?”
    “Clayburn?” I didn’t recognize the voice, but it recognized me.
    “Yes. What can I do for you?”
    “You can lay off.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Lay off, Clayburn. Lay off the Ryan case.”
    “Who is this?”
    “A friend, Clayburn. But you’d better lay off if you want to keep me friendly.”
    “But—”
    He hung up.
    I held the phone in my hand for a moment, then dropped it in its cradle.
    There it was. This morning I’d been feeling sorry for myself. I thought I didn’t have a friend in the world. But I’d been wrong.
    I had a friend, after all. A friend who seemed to have my best interests at heart. Somebody who would rather see me dead than get into trouble.
    It was something to think about. I thought about it all the way downtown. And by the time I walked into Al Thompson’s office, my mind was made up.

Chapter Three
    Al Thompson used to be on the Vice Squad until he lost his hair. In his younger days he looked a good deal like Stewart Granger and specialized in jobs around Pershing Square. When he started to get bald, they transferred him to Homicide, and he’s been there ever since.
    I once asked him how he liked the change. “Just fine,” he told me. “You meet a much better class of people in Homicide.”
    If I remember rightly, I quoted the remark in one of the true-detective articles I worked on with a client. That’s how I met Thompson originally: I went to him for material. Since that time I’d got into the habit of calling on him whenever I needed help along the article line.
    And now...
    Thompson was sitting at his desk, going over some post office pinups when I came in. He looked up and nodded, thus acknowledging my presence and indicating that I should sit down. I took a chair and waited. After a minute or so he pushed the stack of pictures aside.
    “Hi, Clayburn. What can I do for you? Another yarn?”
    I smiled. I didn’t really want to smile. I didn’t really want him to think it was another yarn. But that was the way to play it.
    “That’s right. I was thinking of doing a piece on the Ryan murder.”
    “Dick Ryan?”
    “Seems like a good idea,” I told him. “Unsolved mystery angle.”
    “But we’re still working on it.” Thompson hesitated. “A story like that doesn’t do the Department any good.”
    “Don’t worry, I’m not going to use the police-are-baffled approach,” I assured him. “That’s why I came to you. I wanted to check my facts and clear them, seeing as you were on the case.”
    Thompson sat back. “You know the regulations. I’m not supposed to talk. And I haven’t got the authority to okay anything.