Dead Money by Grant McCrea Read Free Book Online

the wrong message.
    He looked at me without a trace of interest.
    Serge? I said.
    I got an almost imperceptible nod in reply.
    I’m Rick.
    Congratulations.
    I’m trying to help out a guy.
    A guy.
    Guy named Jules FitzGibbon. I’m his lawyer. You know Jules?
    Maybe.
    They think he might have killed somebody.
    No shit, said Serge, flat and uninterested.
    You knew that?
    No.
    Okay, well. Murder. Serious stuff.
    No shit, he said again, in the same flat voice.
    Yeah. They say he killed Larry Silver.
    No shit?
    This time he added the question mark. I was making progress. Pretty soon we’d be best friends.
    Yeah, I said. You knew Larry Silver?
    Maybe.
    What do you know about him?
    He’s a guy, he said. Guy who hung around.
    Serge and Jules must have gone to the same elocution school.
    He have any enemies? Anybody might want to kill him?
    I don’t know, man, said Serge.
    He was warming up a bit.
    Can you tell me anything else about him?
    He was just a guy. Hung around. I don’t know anybody liked him much. I don’t know anybody wanted to kill him, neither.
    He have any friends you know of?
    He had a girlfriend, for a while.
    You know her name?
    Nah.
    Sarah?
    Don’t know.
    Was he into drugs?
    Serge almost smiled. Didn’t say anything.
    Listen, man, I said. I’m a lawyer. I’m not a cop. I’m here right now. I got eyes. Don’t worry about it.
    Serge thought about it.
    Yeah, he said.
    What was he into?
    Whatever was around. You know. Tree. Meth. Whatever.
    Did he sell?
    When he had some money to buy, he’d sell. What he didn’t do hisself.
    I’m thinking that wasn’t too often.
    You got that right.
    Did he and Jules know each other?
    Sure. Everybody knows everybody.
    Anything special between them? They hate each other? Hang together?
    Nothing special I know about.
    You know anything about a poker game, a few days ago?
    Poker? Shit, no. I don’t play no poker.
    Not you. A game that Larry and Jules were at.
    Nah.
    Anything else you can tell me? I asked. About either of them?
    Serge sat and thought. And thought. I rolled my eyes. Pulled another twenty out of my pocket. I placed it neatly on the floor in front of him. He eyed it. He thought some more.
    I think they had some kind of a deal going, he said. One day. Once.
    What kind of a deal? Dope deal?
    I don’t know. Maybe.
    Anything you know about it at all?
    Nah. Not really. Larry saying something about how they had something going. He was going to get some money out of it.
    Some kind of poker scam? I persisted. They going to take somebody for some money?
    Could be. I don’t know.
    Anybody else you know might know something about it?
    Nah.
    I asked a few more questions. I didn’t learn anything more. He was a slug. A cipher. He couldn’t even make stuff up if he wanted to.
    I got out of there.
    The light and air of the outside world startled me. I squinted. My eyes slowly adjusted. I took a deep breath. A whole bunch of tension I hadn’t known was there slid out of me.
    Jesus H. Christ, I said to myself. I thought
I
had problems.

14.
    WHEN I GOT TO THE WHITE STALLION , Dorita was already there. We compared notes. I told her about Serge. She told me about Sarah.
    She’s quite a number, she said. Purple hair. Mouth on her like a rabid carp.
    A rabid carp? You’re outdoing yourself.
    I’m just getting started.
    I was afraid of that.
    She talked up a storm. But she didn’t say much.
    You must have got along famously.
    Have you noticed how pointy these shoes are?
    Sorry.
    You’d better be.
    I am. Truly. Abjectly. As sorry as those shoes are pointy.
    That sounds like just about the right amount of sorry.
    I like it when things work out like that. Can we get back to Sarah?
    I found her in a bar downtown. Ratty couches. Black light. Candles.
    Nice.
    She was smoking a clove cigarette.
    Ugh.
    Indeed. She was a little uptight at first. The cops had talked to her yesterday. Seems she wasn’t too happy about that. Not a big fan. Didn’t have anything to tell them. On the