Read Online McNally's Folly by Lawrence Sanders, Vincent Lardo - Free Book Online

Garcia been commiserating? “May I ask one question which you can charge against our next lunch date?”
    “One, and make it snappy, I work for the overburdened taxpayer.”
    “Of which I am one, Al.”
    “If we had to depend on your contribution I’d be out of business.”
    “Be that as it may, Sergeant, have you ever heard of one Serge Ouspenskaya?”
    “A foreigner?” Al asked.
    “He pretends to be. More to the point, he’s this season’s most promising psychic.”
    Al uttered a descriptive expletive before griping. “Don’t tell me you’re involved with one of them again, Archy.”
    “One of those, Al. Obviously you remember Hertha Gloriana.”
    “How could I forget? That one ended in a shootout at a sleazy motel. Goodbye, Archy.”
    “Not so fast, Al. I’m hoping this one doesn’t come to that. The guy is not the shootout type. Would you let me know if any complaints come your way citing Ouspenskaya as the perp?”
    “Okay, I’ll nosy around, Archy. Can I know your involvement with this Ouspenskaya guy? Are you working on a case?”
    “I’m on a case, but that’s all I can tell you right now.”
    “So what else is new?” he quipped, but his tone belied the words. I had piqued his interest and his cavalier attitude gave way to the business at hand. “I’ll check from my end and if you turn up anything on the guy let me in on it ASAP. I would hate to see you clobbered with a crystal ball.”
    “Ouspenskaya transmits via shortwave radio, Al.”
    “Is he selling air time?”
    “I believe he is, Sergeant.”
    “I’ll be in touch.”
    “Thanks, Al. I owe you.”
    “We’re here to serve, pal.”
    One of the advantages of having a firm like McNally & Son to lean on is its library which is supervised by our in-house paralegal, Sofia Richmond. Besides her legal expertise, Sofia is a qualified librarian, a computer whiz, and a researcher who doesn’t have to ask a pol if he wears briefs or boxers because, so she claims, she has X-ray vision. Sofia’s age I imagine to be somewhere between forty and terminal.
    I have long believed that if Sofia let down her hair—worn pulled back from her face and knotted in a ridiculous bun at the rear of her head—removed the horn-rimmed glasses, sturdy oxfords and shapeless hopsack suits, there would emerge if not a butterfly, certainly a dragonfly. Archy, the optimist.
    Sofia has never made a play for me, which means she has a lover who would make Charlie Atlas look like a sissy, or a girlfriend who looks like Charlie Atlas. Did I also mention that Sofia Richmond is the only one in the office who can read between the lines of Lolly Spindrift’s blind items? In a word, Sofia not only knows all but, if pressured, will reveal what she knows.
    “You look lovely, Archy,” Sofia welcomed me into her world of books, magazines, computers and yesterday’s half-filled cardboard coffee container. Neatness is not Sofia’s driving force, but then McNally & Son was not paying her to be a hausfrau.
    “You don’t look bad yourself, Sofia,” I said.
    “You lie like a rug, love. I know I need work, but then who doesn’t?”
    She wouldn’t get an argument with me on that score. “What’s the latest scuttlebutt, Sofia?”
    She lit a cigarette and tossed the used match into an ashtray that held enough unfiltered butts to span the Golden Gate Bridge if placed end to end. “Desdemona Darling is among us, love, fifty pounds overweight but as lovely as the days when she gave new meaning to the name Homo erectus. ”
    As you can see, Sofia knows how to turn a phrase.
    “What was her husband doing locked up with you and the old man yesterday?”
    Were the pater to hear that turn of phrase he would hit the ceiling but he wouldn’t fire Sofia. Father knew the value of a good and dedicated employee. “You are not supposed to know that Desdemona Darling’s husband paid us a visit,” I cautioned our librarian.
    Sofia took a deep drag on her cigarette, which had me