Джордж Хиггинс - The New Black Mask (No 4)

Anyways, after the big fire at the Rheinholds, Maybry counted up the bodies, and when he seen Henry’s wasn’t none of ’em it didn’t take a genius to figure out what must’ve happened. He scouted around till he found the boy camped out in the sugar bush back of where the barn used to be. Buck naked and baying at the moon, Maybry said. He wrapped him in a blanket and brung him in and booked him for murder, five counts’ worth. Judge Walker got on the horn to the state institution and warned the docs he’d be sending over a live one soon as the legal formalities was out of the way. Keeping him out of the penitentiary was the least he could do, after all.

The Lincoln County bureau was a one-man show back then, and when Pris Johnson, the new gal, heard they’d been an arrest, she couldn’t get to the jailhouse quick enough to see what’s in it for her. Maybry lived in fear of the Tattler , so he give her the run of the place, and Pris had a field day with Henry. The crazy dished out all the poop on how the cherubs and archangels was asking to see the folks and that’s why he’d sent them on up ahead, and then he wanted to know what that old Speed Graphic of Pris’s was for. Pris showed him all right. She went down low with her flash and shot straight up on him, so’s his puss caught the light like he was the devil incarnate. Solly hung the pix over the masthead and circulation topped out for weeks.

When Judge Walker got a look at the Tattler , he like to throw a fit. Had Pris Johnson hauled into court and told her she’d good as got Henry killed. What with all the ink, there’s no way he could sneak the boy off to the laughing academy, where he belonged. The DA’d jump-start the chair before he picked a jury. Pris shrugged and said she was sorry, but she was just doing her job. Walker done the same and give her thirty days for contempt.

Now, it’s no big secret how Solly’d made state editor, and it wasn’t his sunny disposition or that pug-ugly kisser he’s wearing today that done it. What he had going for him was even features and Sue McDonough, the publisher’s old lady, who he was doing weekends and holiday nights on the foreign desk. Sue was real upset over what happened to Pris. Solly told her not to worry; no hick judge was going to clap one of his top legmen in the slammer.

Soon’s he put the Friday p.m. edition to bed, Solly hustled himself up to Lincoln. He moved pretty good before his hips was busted, and by suppertime he was banging on Judge Walker’s door saying, “We gotta talk.”

His Honor’d been looking forward to chatting with Solly, so his answer is, “You bet. Only thing,” he says, “I wasn’t expecting company, let’s do it at the courthouse.” When Solly comes in his chambers, Walker’s got on his robes and he ain’t interested in a lecture about the First Amendment. All he knows is Pris Johnson has just about got Henry Rheinhold legally lynched by the state and someone’s gotta pay.

“I could care less,” Solly tells him right off. “This ain’t Russia; they got freedom of the press in this country in case you ain’t heard. Gimme back my reporter.”

Walker turns up his hearing aid ’cause he don’t believe he’s getting this straight. Only he is, of course, and while Solly’s still warming up Walker tells him he’s holding him in contempt of court, just like Pris. Solly’s trying to top that one when Maybry brings him down to the lockup and takes away his Swiss army knife and his shoelaces.

Solly’s pinching hard to a dime, but Maybry tells him it’s too late to make bond so forget about trying and ain’t it a shame he has to spend the whole weekend in jail, is there anything he’d like besides a cake with a file for the filling. It suddenly hits Solly where he’s stuck at, and he’s feeling so low he just dives on the cot and shuts his eyes. And he don’t open ’em again till he feels a poke in his ribs.

Solly thinks it’s the Tattler’s lawyer come to spring him, but when he rolls over he’s looking at the most wild-eyed creature he’s ever had the misfortune to see. It’s a fella, he finally decides, and sort of familiar looking at that, but it’s hard to say who ’cause his face is streaked with dirt, and his cheeks are running with blood where he’s dug them open with fingernails like daggers, and his hair is matted down over his eyes. Top of everything else, he’s babbling in a whole bunch of tongues, none of which Solly is acquainted with.

Seeing as how they’re bunking together, Solly figures it ain’t a bad idea to make friends. “What’s a nice fella like you doin’ in a place like this?” he tries for openers.

“What’m I doing here? I’m out of my mind, can’t you see?” To prove it he cracks his head against the bars so hard Solly’s begins to throb. “I’m nuts, and if Maybry’d notice he’d take me out of this miserable dungeon and put me in a nice clean hospital where I can play knock rummy and watch ‘General Hospital’ to my heart’s content.”

“Is that all?” Solly says. “Well then, what’s the problem?”

“The problem’s that I brung my folks to their heavenly reward and now the goddamn Tattler ’s on my case and I can’t get justice nohow. They’re fixing to give me the hot squat. But I’m cuckoo, ain’t I? If I can only find a way to show ’em.”

Then he cools off just like that and hunkers down on the cot and wraps a paw around Solly’s shoulders. Solly don’t care for the smell, but he don’t push him away either ’cause Henry Rheinhold, I forgot to mention, is one very large boy. And then Henry says in a voice as smooth as a shrink’s, “But enough about my troubles... What brings you here?”

You can put your feet down now.

Mark Coggins is a computer programmer who studied international relations at Stanford and hopes to be a full-time professional writer. “There’s No Such Thing as Private Eyes” is his first published story, and he plans to expand it into a novel. He is twenty-seven.

Delbert Evans was cheap: cheap with his time, cheap with his money. Cheap with everything. It didn’t do you any good to tell him, though, because he liked being that way. I was sitting at a table of the cheap bar we had agreed upon when he came up — thirty minutes late.

Delbert sold insurance. I don’t know how, but he did. I guess people bought it because they felt sorry for Delbert when they got their first look at him. His head was wedge-shaped, almost all profiles. His nose was a full-scale copy of Edison’s first light bulb, and his eyes were close set and slightly crossed. The rest of him wasn’t much better. He had a stick body that his Sears suits never fit and feet so long a cow gave up its life every time he went to buy shoes. Delbert made a nervous gesture I took for a wave, bumped the table sitting down, and said:

“Excuse me for being late, August I got caught on the phone with a very important call, and I didn’t leave my office until just a few minutes ago.”

I laughed like I didn’t believe him. “Okay, Del, why did you call me down here?”

Delbert smiled and capped teeth shone behind his thick lips. “You private investigators are always in a hurry,” he complained. “Couldn’t you allow me to order a drink before we get down to business?”

I said that I could.

Delbert signaled a waitress and ordered one of those sweet, candied drinks people are always inventing nowadays. I asked for another Scotch.

“Here’s the proposition,” Delbert said after the waitress had gone. “We want you to investigate the theft of an expensive diamond pendant that was insured by our company. We are prepared to offer you 10 percent of its insured value if you recover it. Otherwise, we will pay you at the rate of $100 a day plus expenses for the time you spend on the investigation.”