The Case of the Poisoned Eclairs: A Masao Masuto Mystery by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online Page B

keeping anything back?”
    â€œWould I?”
    â€œYou damn well would. All right, it’s yours.”
    Polly intercepted Masuto on his way out. She was small and blonde and blue-eyed. “What do I have to do,” she asked him, “to get a reaction from Detective Sergeant Masuto?”
    â€œYou get it all the time. I hide it behind Oriental inscrutability.”
    â€œWhich means?”
    â€œThat I adore you but don’t dare show it.”
    â€œBull. You are married. Every decent man is married. Try a singles bar some night and you’ll see what I mean. Don’t you want to know what downtown has to say about your Tony Cooper?”
    â€œThat’s what I asked.”
    â€œWell, here it is.” She read from a slip of paper. “Three arrests, homosexual practice, no convictions, all of it ten years ago. You know, it should be the women who do the resenting, not the cops. We suffer when the men leave the market place, and as far as I’m concerned the cops have got better things to do than to pull people in for being gay. You know how they do it?”
    â€œI have heard,” Masuto said.
    â€œThey entice them into porno movie houses and then arrest them. I think it stinks. Our boys wouldn’t do that, would they, Masao?”
    â€œNo, we’re too short on cops. Thanks, Polly.”
    It was almost six o’clock when Masuto parked on Camden Drive across the street from the beauty parlor, but the shop was still open. Only a single customer remained, a brown head being trimmed by a slender, dark man in a white jacket with pink stripes. Masuto crossed the street and entered the shop.
    â€œWe don’t do men and we’re closed,” the man in the striped blazer told him.
    â€œTony Cooper?” Masuto stood just inside the door.
    â€œThat’s right.” He stared at Masuto thoughtfully, and then said to the woman in the chair, “Don’t move, baby. I’ll be with you in a minute.” Then he walked over to Masuto and whispered, “Fuzz?”
    Masuto nodded.
    â€œOriental fuzz. I’ll be damned.” Still in a whisper, “Can you come back? She’s the end of the line.”
    â€œI’ll wait.”
    Masuto sat down and picked up a copy of
Architectural Digest
and leafed through the pages. You could gauge the prices at a hairdressing establishment by the kind of magazines they left around.
Architectural Digest
probably indicated a twenty-five or thirty dollar haircut. It was part of the trivia that went into Masuto’s store of facts. A policeman living very simply in a small house in Culver City—which is to Beverly Hills what Brooklyn is to Fifth Avenue—he did his daily work in one of the wealthiest communities on the face of the earth. It called for a certain kind of balance and a special kind of perspective, and he thought of this as he leafed through the magazine, looking at photographs of the homes of millionaires. He had never envied wealth, although often enough he pitied those who possessed it; but then, he was a Zen Buddhist, and that gave him his own unique handle on things. Sy Beckman handled it by ignoring it; it just happened to be the shop where he worked.
    Cooper finished with the lady whose hair he had been cutting and saw her to the door. Then he turned to Masuto and shook his head. “You guys never give up, do you?”
    â€œI try not to, but if you’re thinking about your record, I couldn’t care less.” He showed his badge. “Masuto, Beverly Hills police.”
    â€œOkay, but what can I do for you? Is it a violation or tickets to the annual ball?”
    â€œNeither. I want to pick your brains, and I want whatever I pick to stay with you, because if any of it gets out, I will come back and lean on you very heavily.”
    â€œNow?” he demanded indignantly. “It’s a quarter after six. I’m closing. I’ve had a hard, lousy day. The help goes