Джеймс Чейз - Safer Dead [= Dead Ringer]

‘You’ll get it,’ I said, smiling at him. ‘You’ll get it all right.’

‘Sit down and keep out of my way.’ He reached for the telephone again. ‘I’ve got to get the Captain down here.’

While he was telephoning I sat down and helped myself to another drink. I hadn’t forgotten how he had booted me when we had first met. I didn’t think it would be difficult to prove he had been collecting money from Cornelia. Maybe he had shot her, but I wasn’t kidding myself he had shot her to save my life. She had said I’d be safer dead, and he knew she would also be safer dead. He knew she’d talk if he was ever brought to trial. He had seen his way out and had taken the opportunity. All I would have to do was to drop a hint in Captain Mathis’s ear. An investigation of Lassiter’s bank account would fix him. No one kicks a Sladen in the pants without paying for it.

Lassiter got through telephoning. He went over to where Dillon’s body was hidden and began getting up the floor boards.

‘I’ll take the credit for finding the stiff, pally,’ he said. ‘Your job is to collaborate with me. I’ll tell the story. You sit still and keep quiet. Just say amen when I tell you to.’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Anything you say, sergeant.’

His pig eyes went over me.

‘Don’t try anything funny or I’ll make you sorry.’

‘That’s okay, sergeant.’

I lit a cigarette. Maybe it would be safer to tip Mathis off after I was back in New York. I decided I would do that.

While I waited for Mathis to arrive I began to straighten out in my mind the story as I would dictate it to Bernie.

If anyone were going to have his face on the front cover of Crime Facts in the issue that carried my story I saw no reason why it shouldn’t be mine.

But I was kidding myself. If there was one thing Fayette hated more than another, it was giving any of his staff writers publicity.