The Remake by Stephen Humphrey Bogart Read Free Book Online

funny?”
    “No, Don, Tennyson is very serious stuff. I think it’s poetry. You want to come in and I’ll read it to you?”
    Boggs pushed past him and into the apartment. “You’ll have plenty of time to read poetry where you’re going. It’ll make you real popular.”
    Annoyed, R.J. closed the door. “Where am I going, Don? And what couch cover did you make that suit out of?”
    Boggs turned and glared at him, then shook his head and looked righteous again. “I’ve waited a long time for this, Brooks. Get dressed. You’re coming with me.”
    “Didn’t I hear a rumor about a law somewhere that said you need a warrant or due cause or something?”
    “This time I can get the warrant, Brooks. I can have it here in half an hour. But it might go easier on you if you cooperate. Maybe we can get your sentence reduced.”
    “That would be swell, Don, I appreciate it. By the way, what did I do this time?”
    Boggs smiled like it was his favorite crime. “Murder One, Brooks. And this time we got you dead to rights.”
    R.J. sat on the arm of his sofa. On top of that dream, this was just a little bit too much. He knew it was serious, but if he wasn’t careful he was going to bust out laughing. “Who’d I kill? I forget.”
    “Murray Belcher, smart-ass. Like you didn’t know. Now get dressed or I’ll take you in your goddamn robe.”
    Murray Belcher. Murray Belcher. Who the hell was Murray Belcher? Whoever he was, he was dead now, and the cops had to have a pretty good reason to think R.J. killed him. Otherwise they would have waited until morning and sent Angelo to get him.
    R J. got dressed, with Boggs hovering nearby to make sure he didn’t slip a howitzer into his shoe. They left the apartment a few minutes later and R.J. still didn’t have a clue who Murray Belcher was.
    He still didn’t know when they got down to Lieutenant Kates’s office.
    If there was one guy on the NYPD that R.J. got along with less than Boggs, it was Lieutenant Kates. They’d never actually swung at each other, but R.J. figured that was just a matter of time.
    “Sit down, Fontaine,” Kates greeted him. The lieutenant liked to needle him by calling him Fontaine, after R.J.’s famous mother. He thought it showed wit, and R.J. figured he was half right.
    “Thanks, Freddy,” R.J. said. “Say, the office looks real classy. Who’s your decorator?”
    Kates came around the battered desk and perched on the front of it so he was only a few inches away from R.J. “You’re going to answer some questions, Fontaine, and your smart mouth is not going to get you anywhere this time. Except maybe Attica.” He crossed his arms and sneered at R.J. “Your high-priced show-biz lawyers aren’t getting you off the hook, either, Fontaine.”
    R.J. was getting annoyed enough to wish that he had really killed this Murray Belcher, whoever he was. “Sure, Freddy, that’s a beautiful speech. I know how hard you must have practiced it. You didn’t even stutter once. But I got some bad news for you.”
    “I’ll bet you do,” Kates sneered. “But not as bad as what I got for you.”
    “Number one,” said R.J., ignoring Kates’s interruption, “as a matter of fact, unless you’re going to file charges or suspend the Bill of Rights, I’m afraid my high-priced show-biz lawyer will get me off the hook. There’s a bunch of stuff like unlawful confinement, habeas corpus, all of that. I can explain it when you’re done trampling on it. Number two—” He held up two fingers and wiggled them for Kates so he wouldn’t lose count. “I don’t have a clue who this guy Belcher is, and I make it a rule never to kill strangers.”
    R.J. stood up and leaned into Kates’s face. “And number three, lieutenant, you can cut the crap right now and tell me what I’m supposed to know about this, and what gives you the right to drag me down here in the middle of the night and keep me here without arrest and without a lawyer, or I’ll sit in a cell and