The Lime Pit by Jonathan Valin Read Free Book Online Page A

little mouth.
    It's a shameless business-blackmail. But, like a
football coach, you go with what works. And with Morris Rich what
worked was whatever could bring the roof down on his household of
boys.
    "Ah, it's worse than that." I said. "The
guy's got a lot of friends. Listen, if I told you his name you'd
understand. He's going to blow a gasket when he learns that I
couldn't turn anything up." I shook my head. "What the hell
do I care? I did my job. I'll show him the pictures and tell him you
just couldn't help me out. I mean business is business, right?"
    Morris Rich nodded his head, but his eyes didn't move
from my face.
    "I hate to take up any more of your time,"
I said. "But I guess I'd better get a deposition, just in case
this thing goes to court. As far as I'm concerned, he'd be be better
off letting the Feds handle it anyway. They can get court orders,
wire taps. You know. Their hands aren't tied. Let them take care of
it. Would you mind calling your secretary in for a minute. She can
take your statement down. Then we can get it notarized at a bank."
    Morris Rich leaned back in his Eames chair and put a
finger beside his nose. "You ain't exactly the man you pretend
to be, are you, boy-chik?"
    I threw out my hands. "Hell, Mr. Rich. I'm just
a guy trying to make an honest dollar."
    "Uh-huh," he said.
    Rich held out his hand. "Maybe I should take
another look at the photographs."
    "Sure," I said politely. "It sometimes
pays to take a second look. Just like with people, sometimes a first
impression ... you don't see clearly."
    I handed him the photos and he looked them over
quickly.
    "What the hell was I thinking of?" he said,
slapping his bald head roundly. "I know where these come from.
Look, it's"-he glanced at his watch--"almost
one-thirty. I'm going to shut down for lunch anyway. What say we go
back up to Gem and take a look at the manifests, just to be sure?"
    "I already saw the manifests, Mr. Rich."
    He got a pained look in his eyes. "You ain't
supposed to look at those books, Mr. Stoner. I don't know what Pete
was thinking of to show them to you."
    "Well, I guess he just got carried away by the
pictures."
    "Uh-huh." Rich tapped nervously at the
picture frames on his desk and I dragged one foot across the floor
and made swirls in the plush carpet. And that's the way we would have
remained--me making swirls and Rich playing those picture frames like
a brassy xylophone--if I hadn't gotten to my feet with a mild groan
and told him what he would never know was the absolute truth.
    "I'm getting tired of this game, Mr. Rich. If
you've got some information about the whereabouts of this girl, it
would be in your best interest to tell me now, before this thing gets
out of hand."
    "Are you threatening me?" he said with
alarm. "I got lawyers who can handle this, if you're threatening
me."
    "We both know it would be cleaner to keep this
thing out of court, Mr. Rich. You don't want cops crawling around
your warehouse and your bookstore, do you?"
    "What bookstore?" he said. "I don't
know nothing about no bookstore."
    I looked at him ruefully. "All right, Mr. Rich.
I guess you know better than I do how much heat you can take."
    I was almost to the door, past those walls of smiling
Rich boys, when he called me back.
 
 
    6
    THE WHITE frame house was on River Road, along the
stretch of bottomland that is flooded yearly when the Ohio crests in
the spring. I could smell the rot from where I'd parked the car on a
clay embankment--that fecal smell of decay that troubles the river
where it goes shallow and dead. It made me think of the war and of
the jungle heat and of the bodies that puffed up like drowned men in
the steamy rain forests.
    A beat-up white Falcon was parked next to the house,
and there was an old tire lying on its side in the grassless front
yard. It looked a likely enough spot for a pornographer to hole up,
although an hour before Morris Rich had tried to convince me that the
man who was holed up there would be