The Case of the Kidnapped Angel: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Six) by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online Page A

accent.”
    â€œShe’s French. She claims to have learned her English dealing at Collingwood’s in London.”
    â€œWhich you don’t believe?”
    â€œJoe’s been to Collingwood’s. He says they don’t have lady dealers.”
    â€œIf the marriage is so bad,” Masuto asked her, “why do they stay together?”
    â€œYou never met Mikey?”
    â€œThis morning. I talked with him at his house.”
    â€œAll right. He paid a million dollars for her. He adores her, pays his price, and gets nothing, absolutely nothing, in return. If you want reasons, talk to a psychiatrist. It’s nothing I understand, nothing Joe understands. If she told Mikey to lay down at the front door so she could use him as a doormat, he’d do it. The one real fight Joe ever had with Mikey was when Mikey wanted him to put Angel into a picture.”
    â€œWhy?” Beckman asked. “She’s beautiful.”
    â€œBeautiful, Mr. Beckman,” she said patiently, “is a salable commodity in Grand Rapids or St. Louis. In Hollywood you can’t give it away. On any street in West Hollywood, you’ll see ten girls as beautiful as Angel, and if you walk through one of the studios, you’ll see a hundred. Of course, they don’t have her press, which comes from being married to Mikey.”
    â€œStill, if Mike Barton wanted it—”
    â€œWhen you have ten million dollars riding on a picture, you don’t make gifts of starring roles. Anyway, Joe agrees with me. She can work her charm in a living room, but she’s not enough of a woman to make it on the screen.”
    â€œWhat exactly do you mean?”
    â€œI don’t really know what I mean. I’m Jewish. I look at Detective Beckman here and decide that he’s Jewish. Maybe if I wasn’t Jewish I wouldn’t know. I’m a woman, and when I look at Angel and talk to her—well, something’s missing. It’s just a feeling. I can be very nasty when I put my mind to it.”
    â€œOne more thing, if you can still put up with our questions. At the party last night, who left first, Angel or Congressman Hennesy?”
    â€œThey left together.”
    â€œYou’re sure?”
    â€œQuite sure. But if you think Hennesy’s involved in the kidnapping—no. It’s not his style. He’s a white-collar crook—payoffs, bribes, influence peddling.”
    â€œYou seem to know him.”
    â€œAh, Detective Masuto, you live here in the Colony, and you know a great many people, some nice, some not nice at all.”
    â€œWhere does Hennesy live?”
    â€œA few miles from here.”
    â€œIs he wealthy?”
    â€œThat’s hard to say. You see, a public servant is always so ready to sell at almost any price that it’s difficult to say whether poverty or larceny is the motivating factor.”
    Masuto nodded, repressing a smile. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful and informative.”
    â€œHow often do we get two good-looking city detectives out here in Malibu?”
    â€œEven if you do look Jewish,” Masuto said to Beckman when they were outside in the car.
    â€œShe’s a tough little lady. I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her.”
    â€œStill, it’s puzzling,” Masuto said. “One loves Angel, one hates Angel. Nobody gives any reason why.”
    â€œYou’re going to look for reasons why a dumbbell falls in love, you got to be crazy.”
    â€œYou think he’s a dumbbell?”
    â€œShe does. She may love him like a son, but she don’t give him even passing marks. Anyway, Masao, I think that as far as we’re concerned, the case is closed. The feds will step in, and they want all the cards where a kidnapping is involved. Anyway, the break-in part of it and the snatch itself was in Malibu, so it drops into the lap of the Malibu cops. We might as well head back to Beverly Hills to