The Mike Murphy Files and Other Stories Read Free

secretary, and taking me out for dinner every night of the week.”
    “Maybe you should be doing my job,” I grumbled.
    “Maybe I should.”
    And that’s how I found myself walking down the sidewalk with Maura. It was close on five o’clock, and the city was overflowing with life, thronged and crowded with bumper-to-bumper taxicabs hollering and cursing in sixty-three different languages. We passed Finnegan and Sons. A “Closed” sign hung in the window.
    “Bought a pair of shoes here today,” I said.
    “With what money?” scowled Maura. I could see her mind at work: The jerk has money to spend on shoes, but not a dime to take me out to dinner.
    “Don’t even think it,” I said. “Wait.”
    “I’m not going to wait,” she grumbled. “You’ve got a lot of nerve. I think what I want. And I’m definitely thinking something now.”
    “Not that. Look. Look through the window.”
    The lights were off inside, but there was still enough illumination to see the jumble of shoes scattered across the floor. Shoes everywhere, swept off the shelves.
    “Something’s wrong,” I said. It felt wrong. Wrong like discovering a Russian dance troupe hiding in your closet. Or waking at 3 a.m. and finding the Mayor shaking your hand, asking for a campaign contribution. Or even as wrong as my Great Aunt Marge. It was that wrong and then some.
    “Yeah,” said Maura. “Almost feels like finding a Russian dance troupe hiding in your closet.”
    “Stop reading my mind.”
    I stepped to the door and looked around. Pedestrians hurried by in every direction but no one spared us a glance. I whipped a lock pick out of my pocket—I keep it to clean my fingernails, of course—and jiggered the lock. No dice.
    “Troubles?”
    I didn’t say anything, just glared and stepped back. Maura did something with her hands. Something too quick for me to see, and the door opened.
    “How’d you do that?”
    “What did you say?” She smiled at me, showing all her teeth. “Was that a proposal of marriage?”
    But she went silent once we were inside. I gotta say that for Maura. She can be a beautiful pain in the neck, but she knows when to shut her trap. The place was a mess. Shoes everywhere. Shelving knocked off the walls. I pulled my gun. The place was as silent as my Uncle Melvin that one Christmas when he fell into a coma after his third helping of pork chops. Maura pointed to the back of the store. A dim light shone underneath a door. I put my ear to it, heard a faint sound of voices. I eased the door open. No one was there with a gun pointed at my head or a crowbar ready to cave in my skull. That was good.
    The light came from another door. A door half open revealing stairs going down. I sidled over and peered around the frame. I couldn’t see anything down there other than a basement full of boxes and crates. Whoever was talking was out of sight. But I could hear plenty.
    “Spill the beans, little man,” rumbled a voice. “Spill ‘em or I’ll string my fiddle with yer guts.”
    “I told you already,” snapped a second voice, “I don’t deal in beans. I’m not a farmer or a chef, and my name isn’t Jack! I’m a poor shoemaker, and I doubt you can play fiddle with those ham hands of yours. Have you ever had any musical education? Bah! I thought not.”
    There was a moment of silence while the first voice, who I suspected was a bit short on brains, considered the implications of all this.
    “Well, look here,” continued the first voice, “cough it up. Cough it up, see, or I’ll paste you in the kisser, see? Knock you into next week.”
    “No, I don’t see. And I’m not sure what I could possibly cough up, unless you’re interested in a lung or a bit of phlegm or some of my lunch. Corned beef with cabbage.”
    “Talk, you Irish cockroach, or yer lung’s mine!”
    This was followed by a mysterious noise. A sort of damp, gurgling, rattling thg-thg-thg noise.
    “What on earth is that?” hissed Maura in my ear.
    “I