Night of the Toads by Dennis Lynds Read Free Book Online

bad, what she had to do?
    ‘You better fade out, Gunner.’
    ‘Maybe I’d better fade out. Me, another loser for her? Probably. If I found her, what? Nothing. For my needs there had to be trouble for Ricardo Vega and that meant there had to be trouble for Anne Terry. Another scavenger.
    From the telephone booth I called Marty at her theatre uptown. She was busy; maybe an hour, they said. I left a message—the back booth at Black’s Tavern. I needed that friend now, and a drink. Because what did I do next?
    I got the first free Irish whisky at Black’s, but not the friend. Joe Harris was busy, the long bar packed with the office refugees staving off tomorrow with the perpetual present of booze. With my second good Irish, I carried a hamburger to the back booth. All right, what did I do next?
    I’d spent the afternoon establishing that Anne Terry did look missing, and learning that she was a free bird who flew over the whole city, who moved quickly among strangers, who drank and played in the big, anonymous places where no one was going to remember her too well. My informers would do me no good with her. I couldn’t track her through familiar haunts. There was her job, but I didn’t think she would have let those she worked with into her private life. Anyway, the police would have checked there; they would have done all the routine. No, all I could do was go around the track again, and add Sean McBride—was he working for Ricardo Vega, or on his own?
    The prospects didn’t inspire me, and I was turning them over glumly, when I saw Marty come in. Her face drove all prospects from my mind. It was tight and angry, with the hunted, violent eyes I knew too well on her bad days. She had ‘bad day’ written all over her. When she sat down in the booth, she didn’t say hello. She ordered a martini, and her small body trembled. I waited until she’d had her first gulp.
    ‘Want to talk about it?’
    ‘No!’ She drank. ‘Yes, all right. We did my scene today, twice. When we finished, Kurt took me aside. Kurt Reston, the director—when Vega lets him direct. He told me how good I was. He wanted me to know how good he thought I was, what a future I had!’ She drained her glass.
    ‘The ease-out? Preparing you?’
    ‘What the hell else? Get me another martini.’
    I waved to Joe. ‘Maybe no. It sounds like this Kurt Reston will fight for you.’
    ‘And lose! Unless he wants to be looking for a new job, too.’ Joe brought the martini, winked, patted Marty, and went back to his post. She drank, suddenly smiled. ‘Ah, what the hell. Kurt said I’m good.’
    ‘That’s my girl.’ I took her hand. ‘Vega doing anything?’
    ‘Looking muscular. Dazzling me with distant smiles.’
    ‘No new direct passes?’
    ‘Just George Lehman’s leering hints, and that new toad hanging around. You know, that Sean McBride. He’s weird.’
    ‘Weird? How?’
    ‘He seems to think that what he did to you ought to make me pant for him. He’s proud of it. I’m too much for a one-arm.’
    ‘McBride’s after you? For himself?’
    ‘That’s what I mean, Dan. First he comes after me for Rey Vega. He knows about you and me, too, and what I think of his beating you. Yet the next I know he’s after me like a bull. He’s got to be a little insane. Vega’s his big chance, but Rey hates competition, and McBride could be out on his saddle.’
    ‘He likes risky games, maybe? For the kicks?’
    ‘And he’s violent, Dan. He went all tight when I called him Vega’s boy. He said he was no one’s boy.’
    ‘Vega could have a tiger in his fist,’ I said. I told her about McBride today, and what I’d been doing. ‘You did say earlier that you didn’t really know Anne Terry?’
    ‘She’s just in Vega’s acting class with me. Don’t you think the police can find her?’
    ‘They get a hundred a day like her, Marty. They can’t move fast or deep on such a small thing. Routine.’
    She drank. ‘You think Vega’s mixed up with