No Cure for Death by Max Allan Collins Read Free Book Online Page B

After all, there can’t be too many six-four, one-eyed blacks around these parts. But it surprises me to hear of this, for two reasons. First, I haven’t seen him around in maybe a year. And second, he was an okay guy, I’d almost say he was a gentleman.”
    “Take my word for it, he wasn’t gentle. How do you know him? You know his name?”
    “His name is Washington. I don’t know if it’s his first or last. I’ve heard him called Eyewash, by his close friends. I used to run into him up in the Quad Cities, Davenport mostly, in any of three or four bars, bars catering to blacks, or to blacks and whites who wish to mix.”
    “You still hit those clubs?”
    “Once in a while. Since they moved me up from Sociology prof to desk jockey, I’ve had more responsibility on my hands than free time. I still make the rounds of the bars once a month or so, and I haven’t run into Washington in a year at least.”
    “In spite of that, it does sound like the same guy.”
    “Probably is. But if he’s moved from the Cities to somewhere else, it isn’t Port City, or we’d both know about it. He isn’t the kind of guy you don’t notice.”
    “Anything else you can think of about him?”
    “Yeah, he’s got a sister. I’m not talking soul sister, either, an honest-to-God blood sister. Rita, her name is. Very nice.”
    “That so?”
    “Pretty thing. Younger than her brother. ’Round twenty-five or so. I’ve seen her around some.”
    “Lately?”
    “Yeah, last time I was up there. She’s still around.”
    “Maybe I can track her down and find Washington through her.”
    “Could be.”
    “How’d he lose the eye? He ever mention it?”
    “I hear he lost it in a gang fight, when he was a kid. He came from Chicago originally. South Side.”
    “Thought you said he was gentle.”
    “Far as I know, he is. Always nice to the ladies. Saw him back down from a few fights, too. Big guy like him always has challengers, you know, and he’d just ignore any flack.”
    “What does he do for a living?”
    “I got no idea. He dressed well, but most of the brothers—all but me, anyway—dress to the teeth.” He got out a piece of paper and scribbled down several lines. “Here’s the names and addresses of a couple clubs you can try, to run down his sister. But Mallory...”
    “Yes, Jack?”
    “Watch your lily-white ass.”
    I grinned. “At all times.”
    He leaned back again, stabbing out his cigarette in a tray. “You know, though... if I were you I’d try a safer approach.”
    “Such as?”
    “Explore that Norman character. Both the old man and the son. Check it out before you go any further and see if it’s just a coincidence, this Colorado Hill thing.”
    “I might just do that.”
    “It ought to be fun, researching the old man. Simon Harrison Norman. Hell of a character.”
    “Oh?”
    “Sure, hell, didn’t you ever hear about how he raised his fortune?”
    “Something to do with patent medicine, wasn’t it?”
    “I’ll say! It’s one of Port City’s few lasting claims to fame. Sy Norman, back in the thirties, was the country’s leading cancer quack. Sold mineral water in a bottle as a cancer cure. Made a pile. Rumor has it he’s a silent partner back of the five major industries in this town. Look it all up. It’ll be good reading, if nothing else.”

NINE
    I was hunched over, staring into the microfilm viewer at the city library, turning the crank that caused day after day of
Port City Journal
s to glide across my vision. I’d started with January three years past, had gone through the first roll, which took me to April, and was now on the second, just into May. I was half-hypnotized by the filmed pages as they swam across my path of sight, but was shaken awake by a screaming headline: SENATOR NORMAN DIES IN CRASH. A smaller, unintentionally ambiguous headline above said WIFE AND CHILD CRITICAL.
    A studio photograph of Norman, his wife and daughter, taken only a month before, was on one side of