Fletcher Flora - The Second Fletcher Flora Mystery MEGAPACK™ - 20 Classic Mystery & Crime Stories!

“Okay. I’ll pull it together with tape. That way, it’ll leave a cute little scar. Make you look experienced.”

She did things with gauze and tape, and after a while, I began to feel much better, the fire diminishing in my face. With the tips of my fingers, I explored tenderly a swelling along the line of my jaw, the bloat of my lips. Kitty held a small mirror in front of me, and I was surprised to see that the reflected face wasn’t nearly so misshapen to the sight as it was to the touch. It had its purple patches and its distortions, to be sure, but the damage was minor to a face like mine.

“Nothing much I can do for the lips,” Kitty said.

“You might try kissing them.”

“No, thanks.”

“All right. I wouldn’t let you kiss me, anyhow, because you’re vulgar. You’d have to wash your mouth out with soap and water first, By the way, where’d you get all the first aid stuff?”

“I keep it in the drawer with my novel. I’ve been holding it for the day you get tired of watching your lousy spider and start looking around for more basic entertainment.”

“I’m not the rough type, honey.”

She gave me another grin, a little firmer around the edges this time, and perched on a corner of the desk. The nylon, even with runners, was very alluring.

“I was keeping it for you, lover, not me. Any guy who can’t handle a couple of gorillas wouldn’t get far with Kitty.”

I eased my head back wearily against the chair, and her hand came out suddenly, her fingers trailing lightly down my bruised cheek.

“It isn’t funny, Sol.”

“No,” I said, “it really isn’t.”

“What’s it all mean? Why do you rate a treatment by professional gorillas?”

I sat there with my head back, looking up at the ceiling. It was still the same old ceiling. Kitty sat on my desk, and she was still lovely, desirable, and unpaid. Everything was the same and in order. Yet nothing was the same, and nothing was in order.

“It means, honey,” I said quietly, “that a very deadly character wants Hal Decker to burn for a murder he didn’t commit. It means that anyone who gets in the way will get to be considered strictly expendable.”

“Who is he, Sol?”

“That’s something I’ve been thinking about real hard, and I keep getting an answer that scares the hell out of me. On the evidence, it’s really a pretty simple problem. Wanda Henderson is Hal Decker’s only alibi. Hal hasn’t told anyone about her, because he’s afraid of what might happen to her. On her own, Wanda went to Austin Stark, the district attorney, and told him Hal had spent the night of Danny Devore’s murder with her.

“What did Stark do? He laughed politely and sent her home under threat of a perjury rap. But Wanda didn’t go home. She came here instead, because Hal had mentioned to her that I’m a lawyer and that we used to be pretty good friends. She leaves here, and five minutes later a trio of gorillas make an appearance. One of them tries to buy me off the case. When I won’t buy, he gives me a sample of available consequences. Here’s the point, honey. How do they know Wanda Henderson is an alibi for Hal Decker? What’s the only way they could know?”

Kitty was perfectly still, her eyes shining. After a while, she said, “The district attorney, Sol? Don’t be silly.”

“It figures.”

“The way you look at it, it figures. Look at it another way, it doesn’t figure at all. In the first place, Stark isn’t part of the old crowd at City Hall. Danny Devore’s crowd, that is. He’s a crusader, a clean-up guy. As a matter of fact, Danny was one of his principal targets. He’s the white knight of the righteous.”

“He wouldn’t be the first saint with a brass halo. Maybe he feels appointed, and anointed. Maybe he looks upon the death of Danny Devore as a kind of holy assassination. I sort of see it that way myself.”

“What about the frame of Hal Decker? Is that holy, too?”

“It could be. A holy sacrifice on the altar of pure politics. Saving the great man for the great work.”

“You’re making him a maniac, Sol. You don’t believe it, yourself.”

“You’re right as usual. I don’t really believe it. I was just talking.”

She scooted over on the desk and put her feet in my lap. “Look, Sol. You sure you aren’t off on the wrong scent? Austin Stark is an ambitious guy. He’s got a long way to go in politics. His first step up was going to be on the dead carcass of Danny Devore. Dead politically, I mean. Danny’s death was the worst thing that could have happened to him. Because of the old martyr angle, Danny’s gang is playing it for all it’s worth. Already people are forgetting what a louse Danny was beginning to look, and one of his boys is sitting in Danny’s chair. He’ll be there a long time now. Danny’s murder has set Stark’s career back five years. Can’t you see that?”

“Sure. I can see it, all right. I can also see Stark’s connection with the gorillas. I can see that he has made a blunt effort to intimidate Hal Decker’s only witness. I can see that his own key witness is one of his own key men. I can see it all, and I can smell it. It stinks!”

I sat up in my chair, removing her feet from my lap, and putting my hands flat on the desk. Slowly, with labor and sweat, I pushed myself erect and stood quietly, leaning on the desk, until the room quit revolving and everything settled in its place. Kitty put an arm around me, contributing to my equilibrium, and that part was fun.

“Go get the city directory, honey,” I said. “Look up the address of Wash Richert.”

“Stark’s witness?”

“He’s the guy.”

“You going to see him?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Why?”

“When something smells, you sniff around.”

Her arm dropped away from me, and she went out into the reception office. While she was gone, I tried on my hat for size. Except for a tender spot above one ear, my skull seemed to have escaped abuse. I took a turn around the room, checking my motor reactions and finding them adequate. Kitty came back and stood watching my test run with critical eyes.

“It’s nine twelve South Twentieth,” she said. “You want me to go along to put you together again, just in case?”

I walked past her. “Don’t be facetious, honey. Remember, I’m your boss.”

She snorted. “A hell of a boss, you are. Working the help without pay... brawling in your office... getting involved with politicians. How the hell can you ever expect to amount to a damn?”

I ignored her, opening the outer door, and putting one foot into the hall.

She said, “Sol.”

I paused and looked back over a shoulder, my eyebrows making interrogation points.

“Be careful, Sol.”

I went on out and down the single flight to the street. I leaned against a lamp post. As I stood there, the yellow light came on above me, casting my abbreviated shadow to the pavement at my feet. Getting into my car, I drove away.

Out on South Twentieth, I found nine twelve to be a three-story brick walkup, with a narrow front and a high stoop. I went up the steps and into a short hall with a weak bulb burning at the ceiling under a dirty globe. Along the wall on my right, as I entered, were six mail boxes. Examining the names on the boxes, I discovered that Wash Richert lived on the third floor. Cursing my luck and my condition, I made the long climb up the worn, dark flights.

Outside Richert’s door, I knocked and waited, hearing within the sound of approaching footsteps. A woman, I thought, and when the door opened, it was. For a woman, she was tall, almost as tall as I, dressed in a navy blue sheer that gave her arms and shoulders, where there was nothing, under a soft, smoky look. Her platinum hair was phony, but the dye job and the style were good enough to make the phoniness unimportant. Her eyes were warm and her mouth was soft, almost pouting in repose, but you got a quick impression that the eyes could freeze fast, the lips thin and harden.