The Specialists by Lawrence Block Read Free Book Online

husband agrees, I could call your Mr. Stedman tomorrow and——”
    “Ma’am, if you was to call Mr. Stedman, we’d be glad to come, but that limb, the sawing of it isn’t but a ten-dollar piece of work, and for us to come all the way clear up from Lambertville——”
    “Oh, my. Only ten dollars?”
    “What with us being here now, ma’am, she wouldn’t be any more than that. Oh, I see, you was recollecting that termite inspector and three hundred dollars. Now if you wanted to call the Better Business Bureau in Lambertville, or if——”
    “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Mrs. Tuthill was laughing now. “Oh, my, ten dollars, and here I thought . . . oh, for heaven’s sake, cut the silly thing off. Ten dollars!”
    “It seems wrong,” Simmons said. “Cutting a perfectly good limb off a perfectly good tree.”
    “Shucks,” Murdock said, “I reckon it would have had borers sooner or later.”
    “Telling her to look how the leaves are growing.” The road swung around to the left, and Simmons tapped the brake pedal lightly. The truck rolled into the curve. “That lawn, now, that’s something else. You see how patchy it was? That comes from cutting it too low, that and using the wrong seed mix.”
    “Soon as we’re all set up, you can go back and do Mrs. Tuthill’s lawn for her.”
    “Somebody should. Those burnt-out patches, that comes from using a fertilizer with too much phosphate. Of course, now, to do the right kind of work on a lawn that size——”
    “You suppose it’d cost as much as cleaning out her termites?”
    Simmons laughed.
    “Does seem like a waste,” Murdock went on. “Climbing her damn tree and sawing the damn limb off and daubing on the creosote and all just for a reference. And you damn well know Platt ain’t going to call her anyway.”
    “Colonel Cross says he might.”
    “Platt? Gangster like him, that kind of a bad old boy, nice old lady like Mrs. Tuthill wouldn’t give him the time of day.”
    Simmons shrugged. “Might try to call Mr. Stedman in Lambertville. Might have some trouble, since there’s no Mr. Stedman in Lambertville——”
    “There really a Lambertville?”
    “Must be. Colonel says we need a reference. Colonel has a habit of being right. That’s Platt’s place on the right.”
    “And who says crime don’t pay?”
    Simmons braked the truck and slowed to a crawl. While Murdock checked out the trees on the front lawn, Simmons clicked off mental pictures of the estate itself. Eighty yards of frontage rimmed by a ten-foot iron fence. A gate in the center opening onto a circular driveway. The main house, huge, white, fronted by massive columns. A garage off to the left, with living quarters over it. The grounds, Simmons noted, were very well kept.
    He said, “He just might already have a tree surgeon, Ben.”
    “He’s got a tree that’s dying.”
    “Really?”
    Murdock pointed at an aged silver maple. “Storm damage. See where the lightning caught it? Wonder what the hell you’d do with something like that.”
    “You’re the doctor.”
    Murdock grinned. Simmons pulled to a stop at the gate. Guards stood on either side, thick-bodied men wearing revolvers on their hips. The one on Murdock’s side also carried a carbine.
    Murdock drawled, “Stedman’s Tree Surgery, here to see Mr. Platt.”
    The guard with the carbine shook his head.
    “Not home?”
    “No.”
    Murdock grinned easily. “Think my boy and I’ll just have a look at that tree if we might.” He started to open the door. The guard leaned on it and Murdock let it swing shut.
    The guard said, “Nobody comes on the grounds without Mr. Platt says it’s okay.”
    Murdock hesitated, then heaved a sigh. “Well,” he said. “I’ll just phone him up tonight.”
    “You do that,” the guard said.
    Back on the road Murdock said, “Seemed worth a try.”
    “I didn’t think they’d go for it.”
    “Not the way those two take to playing soldier. Two guards, two of them, and that fat