Have Gat—Will Travel by Richard S. Prather Read Free Book Online Page B

clowns.

    C aptain amos wade was a lean, almost cadaverous cop assigned to Bunco, but also the Department's antisubversive expert and liaison between City Hall and the FBI. He leaned back in his chair and said, "Drink your java, Shell. It won't kill you."
    "Not this time, maybe." I was waiting until the chemist at Scientific Investigations reported on what was in that first cup of coffee, which I'd brought in. I'd told my story to the police, and looked at mugg shots in the "I" Room without seeing pictures of Donna or Mr. Gordon. I was here to kill time, but also because I enjoyed talking to Amos, to whom I'd been talking quite a bit lately. One of my closest friends, an ex-newspaperman and writer named Jim Brandon, was writing a book for which he'd got some factual material from Amos, and the three of us had often sat here jawing. Jim Brandon was tall and slim, brainy as hell, and looked a little like William Holden, which isn't bad. I not only liked Jim, but admired him because he was a good American who was working at it. In other words, he was actively anti-Communist. His book was anti-Communist, a nonfiction job.
    Amos Wade said, "This Donna was a luscious little gal, huh?"
    "On the outside. I met her at Pete's bar last night. She probably knew I usually drop in there when I leave the office. Hell, I thought I'd picked her up."
    "No idea why the funny business?"
    "How, but not why. She poured both cups of coffee from the thermos, then dumped hers into the fish tank. Wish that report would come in from SID. Like to know how I'd have died."
    He grinned. "In agony, no doubt, in payment for your sins."
    "No doubt, but I don't get it. This last year, I've handled twenty cases. Probably ten guys would like to knock me off."
    "You just did another job for Jim, didn't you?"
    "Yeah, flew to Boston. Got back night before last."
    "How's his new book coming along?"
    "Good. He's got to change something in it, he told me, but it's about wrapped up. He's coming over to my place this afternoon. Taking a whole half-day off, so he must be about finished." Jim had worked for three years, nights and weekends, on the thing and getting him away from the typewriter on Sunday was a rare occasion for celebration.
    Wade's phone rang. I'd left word that I'd be here, and he listened for a minute and then handed me the phone. Jackson, the police chemist, told me they hadn't yet identified whatever was in the coffee, but added, "Wouldn't have killed you, Shell. Some kind of drug. Might take days to pin it down. We squirted a bit in some mice and a guinea pig. Killed the mice, put the pig to sleep. Haven't found any evidence of organic damage."
    I thanked Jackson and hung up. This got stranger and stranger.

    M y apartment is in Hollywood's Spartan Apartment Hotel, and I'd just finished cleaning and oiling my .38 Colt Special, since it seemed possible that I'd be using it, when the buzzer sounded. It was nearly four p.m., when I expected Jim Brandon, but I loaded the revolver and snapped the cylinder shut before going to the door, gun dangling in my left hand.
    It couldn't have taken more than a couple of seconds, but we crowded a lot into it. A lifetime. I swung the door open and saw the young guy standing there, saw the odd-looking gun pointed at my head, and almost instantly automatic reflexes sent me slamming sideways against the door.
    There was a little popping sound and then my gun was jarring the palm of my left hand. I wasn't conscious of lifting my arm and pulling the trigger, but I saw the guy jerk, heard the meat-ax smack of bullets into his chest. I emptied the revolver into him.
    Doors slammed, people came into the hall, a woman screamed. I was standing over the man's body, breathing as if I'd run a mile. The gun lay beside him and I picked it up. A perforated metal tube stuffed with cottony material was screwed into threads on its barrel — a pistol with a silencer. My neck was stinging and my hand came away from it stained with