To Catch a Spy by Stuart M. Kaminsky Read Free Book Online

pictures of me and Scotty in our bathing suits, arms around each other’s shoulders. He had a picture of me in a woman’s robe with fluffy sleeves. I told him I’d get back to him.”
    Grant took a sip of his drink, his eyes on me.
    “Want to know what I did?”
    “Ordered copies of the pictures?” I asked.
    “The picture of me in the woman’s robe was a still from Bringing up Baby. ”
    “The one where you have to put on Katharine Hepburn’s robe when you get wet and when someone sees you and asks what you’re doing, you say, ‘I’ve suddenly gone gay.’”
    “A fan,” Grant said with a laugh and shook his head. “I told the police,” he said. “They asked me if I wanted to press charges. I told them I’d be happy if the man with the pictures just went away. That was the last I heard from him.”
    “No blackmail,” I said.
    “No blackmail,” he repeated. “No dark personal secrets. I’m now simply paying a man for some information I need.”
    I could have asked why the guy with the information didn’t just come to Wally’s, pick up his pouch, and give Grant his information, but I had already parted with a good chunk of the actor’s money to return a cat to a purgatory of smothering love.
    “You give him the bag,” he said. “He gives you an envelope.”
    “That’s why you said I should bring a gun?”
    Grant pursed his lips and tapped the tips of the fingers of both hands against each other for a few seconds.
    “I don’t know the man. Never met him. That’s the way he wants to keep it. I think I did recognize his voice when he called. I’m not sure from where. He gave me enough information to convince me that what he was selling was genuine and worth the price.”
    Drugs, I thought.
    “Not drugs,” Grant said, reading my easily readable face. “But something that could get him in serious trouble if certain people knew he was selling it to me.”
    “Now I understand,” I said.
    “No, you don’t. And I don’t think you want to. There shouldn’t be any trouble. He wants the money. I want the envelope. Questions?”
    “Where do I deliver?” I asked as Wally finally returned with my Pepsi.
    He looked at Grant to see if he wanted a refill on his drink. Grant shook his head “no.” When Wally had gone, Grant said, “I don’t know. He’s going to phone here and tell me where he wants it delivered.”
    “And he doesn’t want you to deliver it?”
    “No. I think he’s afraid I’ll recognize him even if he’s wearing something to cover his face.”
    “So we wait, have a few drinks.”
    “And Wally’s famous chicken sandwich.”
    “I can live with that,” I said.
    The radio at the bar played dance band music I didn’t recognize and Grant kept looking at his watch. At one point he wrote a phone number on a napkin and handed it to me. I put it in my pocket. Then the pay phone rang. Grant looked at his watch, got up, and moved to the phone.
    I took the small notebook from my pocket, along with one of two sharpened pencils. I got up and moved to Grant’s side. He covered his left ear with his hand to block out the noise of the dance band and the customers at the bar.
    “Yes,” Grant said. “His name is … all right, you don’t need his name. Describe him? He’s about five-nine.…”
    I nodded in agreement. It was close enough.
    “Slightly stocky, dark hair with some gray,” Grant went on. “Face like a boxer. Flat nose. He’s wearing dark slacks, a white shirt, and a blue zipper jacket … I don’t know.”
    Grant turned to me, covered the receiver with his hand and looked at me.
    “He wants to know if you’re carrying a gun.”
    I reached into the pocket of my jacket and pulled the handle of my .38 high enough for Grant to see.
    “He is carrying a gun,” Grant said. “And he’s going to have it on him. He’s a former policeman, an expert shot.”
    Grant listened and nodded and then said aloud looking at me, “Madman Dumar’s on San Vicente just south of