The Good Old Stuff by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

that’s what she is. Forget her head if it wasn’t fastened on.”
    “I am sorree!”
    “I think you better phone the police and tell them, Mr. Drynfells, just in case.”
    “Think I should?”
    “The man is still missing.”
    Drynfells sighed. “Okay, I better do that.”
    The Aqua Azul bar was open. Kathy and Darrigan took a corner table, ordered pre-lunch cocktails. “You’ve gone off somewhere, Gil.”
    He smiled at her. “I am sorree!”
    “What’s bothering you?”
    “I don’t exactly know. Not yet. Excuse me. I want to make a call.”
    He left her and phoned Hartford from the lobby. He got his assistant on the line. “Robby, I don’t know what source to use for this, but find me the names of any men who have sold chains of movie houses in Kansas during the past year.”
    Robby whistled softly. “Let me see. There ought to be a trade publication that would have that dope. Phone you?”
    “I’ll call back at five.”
    “How does it look?”
    “It begins to have the smell of murder.”
    “By the beneficiary, we hope?”
    “Nope. No such luck.”
    “So we’ll get a statistic for the actuarial boys. Luck, Gil. I’ll rush that dope.”
    “Thanks, Robby. ’Bye.”
    He had sandwiches in the bar with Kathy and then gave her her instructions for the afternoon. “Any kind of gossip, rumor, anything at all you can pick up on the Drynfellses. Financial condition. Emotional condition. Do they throw pots? Where did he find the cutie?”
    “Cute, like a derringer.”
    “I think I know what you mean.”
    “Of course you do, Gil. No woman is going to fool you long, or twice.”
    “That’s what I keep telling myself.”
    “I hope, wherever your lady fair might be, that she realizes by now what she missed.”
    “You get too close for comfort sometimes, Kathy.”
    “Just love to see people wince. All right. This afternoon I shall be the Jack Anderson of Madeira Beach and vicinity. When do I report?”
    “When I meet you for cocktails. Sixish?”
    On the way back to Clearwater Beach he looked in on Dinah Davisson. There were dark shadows under her eyes. Temple Davisson’s daughter had been reached. She was flying south. Mrs. Hoke had brought over a cake. Darrigan told her he had a hunch he’d have some real information by midnight. After he left he wondered why he had put himself out on a limb.

    At four thirty
he grew impatient and phoned Robby. A James C. Brock had sold a nine-unit chain in central Kansas in July.
    Darrigan thanked him. It seemed like a hopeless task to try to locate Brock in the limited time before he would have to leave for Redington Beach. He phoned Dinah Davisson and told her to see what she could do about finding James Brock. He told her to try all the places he might stop, starting at the most expensive and working her way down the list.
    He told her that once she had located Mr. Brock she should sit tight and wait for a phone call from him.
    Kathy was waiting at her cabaña. “Do I report right now, sir?”
    “Right now, Operative Seventy-three.”
    “Classification one: financial. Pooie. That Coral Tour thing ran way over estimates. It staggers under a mortgage. And he got a loan on his beach property to help out. The dollie is no help in the financial department. She’s of the gimme breed. A Cuban. Miami. Possibly nightclub training. Drynfells’s first wife died several centuries ago. The local pitch is that he put that plot of land on the market to get the dough to cover some postdated checks that are floating around waiting to fall on him.”
    “Nice work, Kathy.”
    “I’m not through yet. Classification two: Emotional. Pooie again. His little item has him twisted around her pinkie. She throws pots. She raises merry hell. She has tantrums. He does the housekeeping chores. She has a glittering eye for a pair of shoulders, broad shoulders. Myron is very jealous of his lady.”
    “Any more?”
    “Local opinion is that if he sells his land and lasts until the winter