Blue City by Ross MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

disapproved of him for political reasons.”
    “You’re a cop!” He levered himself to his feet with a hoarse grunt. “I thought I knew all the dirty cops in thetown, but you’re a dirty cop I didn’t know.” His face was massive and calm, and he was breathing heavily through his nose.
    “Were you accused of killing him at first?”
    “I said my say long ago,” he growled. “A dirty cop coming to me, pretending to be interested in ideas. You can get out.”
    I stayed in my chair. “What I’ve seen of the cops here, I don’t like them any better than you do. I came to you for information.”
    “Who are you then?” His key ring clinked on his belt with the angry heaving of his belly.
    “John Weather is my name. We were talking about my father.”
    He sat down heavily in his chair and blinked his innocent old eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t talk that way to a son about his father.”
    “I guess I didn’t know my father very well,” I said. “I was only twelve when I saw him last, and, even then, I spent most of my time away at school. But I wanted information, and I got it. There’s some other information I want. The gun that killed him came out of your store.”
    For the first time a glaze of cautious insincerity came over his eyes. “That revolver was stolen from my store. It was in the window, and somebody stole it from there.”
    I said: “You talk a good fight, Kaufman. You rant about cleaning up this city. But when you have a chance to help catch a murderer, you back down. I didn’t think a man like you could be scared so badly.”
    “Scared, phooey!” he exploded. “Why should I talk to aCossack like Hanson? He put me in the clink one time for addressing a meeting. He drove some of my best friends out of town.”
    “You’ve never seen me before tonight. You can talk now.”
    “What are you doing in this town?”
    “I came here to look for a job, and I found one waiting for me—the job of finding out who killed my father.”
    “I can’t tell you that, boy. If you think it was me, you don’t know me. It’s the system I want to see destroyed.”
    “You’re helping to keep things the way they are by clamming up.”
    “Understand this, if I talked to you I’d be taking a chance. I’d be taking a chance on you. If you ran to the cops with your story, they’d have something on me, and they’ve been trying to get something on me all my life. I got too many ideas in my head. If you went to certain other people, maybe I wouldn’t live very long.”
    “Maybe you won’t live very long anyway. You’re nearly seventy, aren’t you?”
    “Seventy-five,” he said with a smile. “I’m old enough to take a chance.”
    “I’m twenty-two—young enough to make trouble. You might be able to help me make a lot of trouble.”
    “Joey Sault’s about your age. He used to spend a lot of time in this store before my granddaughter left.”
    “Joey Sault?”
    “He went to the reformatory for shoplifting when he was still a juvenile. I never thought he’d try it on me, though. He was going straight, and I thought Carla and him were going to get married.”
    “If this Joey Sault took the gun, why didn’t you tell the police?”
    “I already told you one reason. I don’t trust the police, and I don’t like them. There’s another reason. Joey could have got a long term in the pen for larceny. Maybe for accessory to murder.”
    “Or murder.”
    “Maybe so. But I happen to know he didn’t do it.”
    “You seem sure of yourself. How do you know?”
    “He told me he didn’t. I asked him.”
    “And you believed what he told you?”
    “He’s no good at lying,” the old man said. “If he had been lying, I would have known. He stole the gun and sold it. He refused to tell me where he sold it. What could I do?” He spread his thick hands.
    “So you held up a murder investigation because a small-time thief wanted to marry your granddaughter.”
    “You simplify too