Enough! (A Travesty and Ordo) by Donald E. Westlake Read Free Book Online Page A

faintest idea.”
    She studied me, as though trying to guess my
weight. “You were hanging around her a lot lately,” she said.
“Maybe you’re the one.”
    “If I am,” I said, “you’re in a
lot of trouble right now.”
    There was no way to tell from her expression
whether she was serious or joking. “You took her to that press screening
yesterday.”
    “Only because you
couldn’t go.”
    “What did you do after?”
    “We went to dinner, I took her home, I came back here.”
    “You weren’t here at ten o’clock.”
    “Of course I was.”
    “I called at ten and got your machine.”
    I put my drink on the bedside table and
half-turned to face her. “Are you serious?”
    “I called at ten,” she repeated,
“and I got your machine.” Yet she didn’t look or act as though she
thought of herself as being in bed with a murderer.
    I said, “I was running a film, for a
piece I’m doing. Top Hat . You know I turn the machine
on when I do that.”
    “I bet the police suspect you,” she
said.
    “Do you?”
    “What?” She stared at me, startled,
and said, “Hey! You’re really upset.”
    “Of course I am.”
    “I don’t really think it’s you,
silly,” she said, thumping me on the belly. “I think it’s Jay’s boy
friend Dave.”
    “So do I,”
I said. “But the big question is, who do you
think killed Julia Wolf?”
    “Who?”
    I nodded at the TV screen, where Asta was
finding another body. “In the movie we’re allegedly watching.”
    “Oh.” She shrugged, not very
interested. “I’ve seen it before,” she said. “It’s the
lawyer.”

THREE
    The Wicker Case
    In the morning Kit
called her office with some he, and then we went to the screening together;
some French ancien vague item called L’Abbé de Lancaster , full of reaction shots and shrugged shoulders. “They
smoke a lot in the provinces, don’t they?” Kit said after a while.
    Following a quick
lunch together, Kit went on to work and I returned to the apartment to put
together my review of L’Abbé de Lancaster for The Kips Bay Voice . But before
that I had telephone messages to run.
    Three
of them. The first, from Tim Kinywa, thanked me for the title and told
me there were no problems, while the third was from a “friend” of
mine, a fellow film critic, saying, “Nothing important, I’ll call
again.” I knew what that was; he had a collection of his magazine pieces
coming out, and he wanted a plug.
    But it was the second call that disturbed me.
“That recording sounds exactly like you, Mr. Thorpe,” said the cheery
voice of Detective Sergeant Fred Staples. “When you get home, would you
give Detective Staples a call? The number is seven seven five, five four nine
nine. Thanks a lot.”
    Now what? Kit’s casual unsuspicious
questioning last night had shaken my confidence, and I was no longer sure I
could keep ahead of the team of dour-methodical-Bray and
cheerful-intuitive-Staples. Why would he be calling me? What had I forgotten?
    So I swallowed a Valium and returned the call.
He was in, and he said, “Hi, Mr. Thorpe. You free for a while this
afternoon?”
    “I, well, yes, I suppose so. Why?”
    “I’d like to ask your help,” he
said.
    The recurring police line from British mystery
movies came into my head: “We’d like you to help us with our
inquiries .” That line was never spoken to anybody but the murderer. I
said, “I’ll be happy to help, if I can. I’ll be in all afternoon.”
    “I’ll come over in about, oh, half an
hour. Okay?”
    “Fine,” I said.
    I spent the half hour doing the film review,
and I’m afraid I gave the poor Abbé of Lancaster a heavier drubbing than he
deserved. I was still pounding away when the bell rang. Taking it for granted
this was Staples, I buzzed to let him in and popped
another Valium while he came upstairs.
    It was Staples; cheerful and bouncy as ever,
but puffing a bit from the climb. He shook my hand and greeted me merrily
enough, but was there a hint of