The Last Hand by Eric Wight Read Free Book Online

You were trying to impress me. Let’s take that for granted. I’m impressed by you. Have been for twenty years. And even more lately, ever since that stage carpenter who killed the actor got off with two years for manslaughter, thanks to you. You impress me, always have. No need to keep it up. Now, what are we here for? What’s this new development?”
    â€œGavin Chapel, the tribune.”
    â€œThought you said he worked for the The Dominion. ”
    â€œI meant the tribune, the herald of the people, not the paper he works for.”
    â€œAh.” Mackenzie wrote it down on a pad. “My daughter gave me a big dictionary for Christmas, on a wooden stand. I’ll look it up. So what’s he up to?”
    â€œFirst of all, he’s after your ass.”
    â€œTell him to get in line,” Mackenzie said, while he considered whether he had allowed Gregson too much familiarity for all his million-dollar-a-year income. He didn’t want to show any kind of concern, not to Gregson, and he mulled how to let the lawyer tell his story without appearing to be too interested. He had recently discovered the difference between “uninterested” and “disinterested,” and he tried now to speak out of a disinterested curiosity, the curiosity of a man whose ass was totally protected. “Going a goddamn strange way about it, isn’t he? Does he think he can get Flora Lucas to help him raise a stink? That’s not her way, you say.”
    â€œYou know her?”
    â€œI’ve read about her. And seen her picture. About fifty? Tall, kind of plump, quite well-featured?”
    â€œShe’s forty-eight … .
    â€œKeeps herself in shape, too. How come she never married?”
    â€œShe was once. He died.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œYes. I’ve known her for many years. I went to Jarvis with one of her old boyfriends. Her last …” Gregson either searched for the
word or paused to let Mackenzie know it was coming. “ … lover was a doctor who worked for Doctors Without Borders. He worked with a group in Africa, trying to keep kids alive. He is or was Greek. He disappeared. Flora met him when she went to Bosnia in the early days to find out what had happened to the money she had raised to assist child refugees.”
    â€œYou’ve answered that one, then. Can we move on? This reporter?”
    â€œI called Flora a couple of days ago. There haven’t been too many sex murders lately, so he was casting around, looking for something to write about, and he stumbled over Lucas’s case. One thing led to another, and he dug and came up with one or two things he thought she should know. Things no one else knew, except you, of course.”
    â€œLike?”
    â€œYou know what I’m talking about?
    â€œNot yet.”
    Gregson sighed. “Okay, then. Chapel spoke of what you are keeping close to your chest. About Lucas’s visitor that night.”
    Mackenzie shrugged and waited.
    â€œTo start with the facts, then–you’re going to make me spell it out, aren’t you, you bastard?–okay, the night Jerry was stabbed, he had a visitor, a woman who looked to the neighbors like a hooker. Someone the police have so far not mentioned.”
    â€œNot to you or to the media, no.”
    â€œPoint is, Flora is afraid of what Chapel will find out about this woman. She’s concerned, though not in the way you think. She doesn’t care about Jerry’s sex life. They were so close she probably knew all about it.”
    â€œLet’s go back over it. She doesn’t care, his sister, that maybe he was killed by a prostitute?”
    â€œIt wouldn’t bother her. He just got unlucky, or made a bad choice, that’s all. But she doesn’t want it turned into a sex scandal saga, which Chapel will do. Two or three weeks of newspaper speculation, which will eventually involve her and–this is for your ears only,