Read Online Find a Victim by Ross MacDonald - Free Book Online Page B

since the big shock. A lot of leading citizens went on the wagon. I guess they thought it was a judgment on ’em. Some of them even started laying off of other people’s wives. It took an earthquake to do it. But oh what it did to this business. I must of been off my rocker when I bought it.”
    “You own this place?”
    He didn’t answer. He was glaring past me at the boys in the back booth. “Look at the class of customer I’m getting. I lose the spending trade and inherit the goof-ball set. They nurse one piddling beer all night, just so they’ll have a place to park their drooping tails.”
    There was a lull in the music while the jukebox changed its tune. One of the platinum forelocks was telling the others how he had made a booboo with a pig. She had howitzers like your grandma, he said, only it turned out she was Quentin quail, a fugitive from the sixth grade. Their laughter sounded like a distant little battery of machineguns.
    “Will Jo be here soon?” I asked the bartender.
    He shook his head, slowly and carefully as though it hurt him. “If it’s Jo you’re looking for, no dice. She ain’t coming.”
    “Isn’t she working tonight?”
    “Not tonight or any night. She quit. Which suited me fine. I was going to fire her anyway.”
    “I thought Don Kerrigan ran the Slipper.”
    “He did. Not any more. I bought it from him this morning. For which I ought to have my head examined. You a friend of Kerrigan’s?”
    “I’ve seen him around.”
    “Friend of Jo’s?”
    “I had hopes.”
    “You’re wasting your time. She isn’t coming back and even if she was you wouldn’t have a chance. That mouse is all fixed up.”
    “With anybody in particular?”
    He regarded me pawkily. “I’m a married man with four income-tax deductions. Would she confide in me?”
    “If she was desperate. Does the name Tony Aquista mean anything?”
    His bulging eyes seemed to retract, like a frog’s eyes when it swallows. “I know Tony. He comes in, off and on.”
    “He won’t be coming in any more. He’s dead.”
    His face went dull and sleepy with surprise. “What happened to him?”
    “Shot. On the highway south of town. He was hauling a truckload of bonded bourbon. The load was highjacked. It was billed to Kerrigan.”
    “How much bourbon did you say?”
    “Seventy thousand dollars’ worth.”
    “One of you is crazy. He’s got no outlet for it.”
    “The order must have gone in several days ago. Didn’t he tell you about it?”
    “Maybe he did at that,” he answered cautiously. “I got a very poor memory.” He leaned across the bar, peering at my face from under ponderous lids. “Who are you, mister? Law?”
    “A private detective. I’m investigating the job for the Meyer truck line.”
    “Hell, you don’t think Jo had nothing to do with it?”
    “That’s what I want to ask her. She knew Aquista, didn’t she?”
    “Maybe she did. I don’t know.”
    “You know damn well she did.”
    His mouth closed, and the broad planes of his face assumed a massive dignity. “Have it your way. I’m not saying nothing. The kid was no great nightingale, but she was always cheerful around the place. Why should I talk her into trouble?”
    “Where can I find her?”
    “She don’t check back with me,
paisan
. And you’re getting a lot of conversation out of a thirty-cent beer.”
    “I’ll have another.”
    “I won’t sell you another. Go back to old man Meyer and tell him to bury his head. Then you can bury yours.”
    I thanked him for his hospitality and slid off the barstool. The jukebox had a female organ now, yearning for lovers. Two of the girls from the front of the bar, the brunette and one of the blondes, were dancing on the edge of the floor. The brunette was doing the leading. I cut in on them and took the blonde.
    She was pretty enough, and young, in spite of the professional glaze in her eyes. She danced expertly and eagerly, her syncopated bosom bobbing against my chest. We whirled