The Emerald Cat Killer by Richard A. Lupoff Read Free Book Online Page B

jeans, what the kids wear nowadays. Made me wish I was twenty years younger.”
    Forty would be more like it, Lindsey thought. He stood up. “All right. Thank you, ah, Jack. I’ll be in touch. Thanks for the book.”
    â€œAny time. Any time. Say hello to my girl on the way out.”
    Lindsey said hello to Burnside’s receptionist on the way out. Shortly, in the building lobby, he studied the address Burnside had given him for Rachael Gottlieb. Dana Street. He remembered that from past years.
    He was about to retrieve his rented Avenger from the parking garage and head for the Gottlieb Literary Agency, but standing in the bright sunlight of Shattuck Avenue he realized that he wasn’t ready to meet Damon’s agent. Not quite yet. Instead, he walked the short distance to the Berkeley Public Library, settled himself in the airy, high-ceilinged reading room, and opened the copy of The Emerald Cat that Jack Burnside had tossed at him.
    It was a short novel, less than two hundred pages, and Lindsey felt no need to study every paragraph of Steve Damon’s deathless prose. He could get a reasonable take on the book by skimming, and in fact an hour’s attention proved sufficient.
    The Emerald Cat seemed to be a standard hard-boiled murder mystery. The title referred to a sleazy bar on San Pablo Avenue in El Cerrito, a town just north of Berkeley. It had obviously been written in the recent past, as the author wrote at length about the Emerald Cat’s Dutch doors. Smokers could stand inside the tavern while leaning over the half-door and getting their nicotine fix outside the establishment.
    Damon’s tough-as-nails private eye was one Troy Percheron. Percheron had an equally tough girlfriend. Damon referred to her as a frail, bringing a grin to Lindsey’s face. Her name was Helena Cairo. She was obviously the sexy woman featured on the cover of the book.
    There was a fairly brutal murder, motive not quite clear to Lindsey. The victim was one Henry Blank. It wasn’t altogether clear to Lindsey why Blank had been garroted, either, but after a series of chases, beatings, drunken interludes, and sexual encounters described in almost as much detail as Percheron’s battles with fists, brass knuckles, and tire chains, Percheron subdued the killer, a gigantic brute known as Frank “Frankenstein” Farmer, and turned him over to the local gendarmerie.
    Lindsey wasn’t exactly an authority on hard-boiled dick novels. He knew the genre more from film noirs, but he’d read a couple of Chandlers and a sampling of Spillanes, enough to know what they were like. As far as he could tell, Steve Damon was an average practitioner of the craft.
    He breathed a sigh of relief, slipped the paperback into his jacket pocket, and headed for the garage. Traffic wasn’t too heavy and he reached his destination in a matter of minutes.
    He’d expected the Gottlieb Literary Agency to be located in an office building like the one that housed Gordian House but in fact he found himself standing in front of a well-maintained Victorian. He looked at the address in his organizer again, then at the house number. He climbed the steps and found a row of doorbells.
    There was a handwritten card marked simply, GOTTLIEB, next to the buzzer for 4A. Maybe this was the agent’s home. Why would Burnside give him her home address rather than that of her office?
    He rang the bell and was answered with a loud buzzing. He pressed the latch and the door opened. He made his way to apartment 4A. A young woman greeted him at the door.
    Jack Burnside’s vulgar description of Rachael Gottlieb might have been fairly accurate for a twenty-something female with an olive complexion, reasonably attractive features, and dark hair drawn back in a ponytail. She was attired in blue jeans and a sweatshirt with a picture of a woman Lindsey did not recognize on the chest.
    She looked questioningly at Lindsey. He introduced