Death of a Sunday Writer by Eric Wright Read Free Book Online

painter, Kurelek perhaps, a scene of Chinese greengrocers, dollar stores, cafés, andclothing shops. On the second floors, she could read advertisements painted on the windows for a travel agency, a firm of lawyers, and an optician. A block away, the pedestrian crosswalk held up traffic so efficiently that the street-cars and automobiles moved more slowly than the cyclists and not much faster than a briskly-walking pedestrian. It wasn’t New York or Los Angeles; Queen Street did not look very mean. In fact, it reminded her of a sentimental Hollywood depiction of New York’s lower east side in 1910 — but it was a lot more alive and interesting than the view from the basement window of Longborough library.
    â€œAll right,” she said.
    â€œWill you do it yourself?”
    All my other operatives are busy,
Lucy wanted to say, as she recovered her humour. “I’ll do it myself, yes.”
    â€œHow much do you charge?”
    â€œFifty dollars an hour, minimum four hours,” she replied. She had been working on remembering Trimble’s hourly rate for several minutes. “Plus expenses.” The man looked prosperous enough. It would be a relief if he said no, anyway.
    â€œWhat expenses will there be?”
    â€œIf she goes to a restaurant I’ll have to buy a meal to keep her under surveillance. And there’s movie tickets. Eight dollars except on Tuesdays. The first two hundred is payable in advance.”
    â€œI thought it might be. I doubt she’ll go to a movie, not at first.” The stranger took out his wallet and counted out ten twenties.
    Lucy saw that most of Trimble’s income was probably tax-free. She dropped the money into a drawer, the way she had seen it done in movies.
    â€œI’ll give you an accounting weekly, with my report.”
    â€œWhy don’t I just come in each week and you can tell me where she was and what she did?”
    â€œIf that’s what you want.”
    â€œThat’s what we’ll do, then. Now here are the details...”
    Before he left, he agreed to telephone her the next day to confirm that he wanted to go ahead. “We always give clients a chance to change their minds,” Lucy said, hoping Tse wasn’t in the corridor, listening. “If you do, you’ll get the money back. Now you’d better give me your name.”
    â€œLindberg,” he said. “James Lindberg.”
    She made a note on the cover of a file folder. “Right, Mr. Lindberg. We’ll look after you.”
    She was over her dismay now, and left breathless by the success of her impersonation, and perspiring, still wondering when she ought to stop. As a student of the genre, she had had no trouble with the initial interview. The scene formed the first chapter of dozens of the books she had read. It was in the next chapter that anything could happen, even though Chapter One was bland enough, and when the stranger phoned tomorrow she should tell him to get another detective. She was too busy. Another little anecdote to entertain The Trog and the librarians. But she knew quite well that her interview with Mr. Lindberg was no impersonation; it was her first day at her new job.

Chapter Eight
    Back in Trimble’s apartment to dispose of the clothes and furniture, Lucy was saddened by the paucity of her cousin’s worldly goods. A couple of cartons of clothes would go to the janitor, a Salvation Army truck would call, and David would disappear. As far as she knew, there hadn’t even been an obituary notice in the paper. She recalled her silly lie of finishing the novel on the computer, and knew that Tse was right. What she had seen could not be turned into anything publishable.
    And then she had an impulse, born of the memoir on the computer and of the bits of writing she had done in Longborough, an impulse to commemorate David in some way, to write a little account of his life and what he meant to his friends so that he