Read Online Murder Among Children by Donald E. Westlake - Free Book Online Page B

you know. Except people like Abe and Hully, and they don’t count. Terry came from Oregon, some little town in Oregon.”
    “All right,” I said. “What about enemies?”
    Vicki shook her head. “Everybody liked Terry,” she started.
    She would have gone on, but I’ve heard that paragraph from survivors before, and I didn’t particularly want to hear it again, so I interrupted, saying, “No. Everybody has enemies, even the saints.”
    Vicki laughed, saying, “Ho-oh, nobody ever said Terry was a saint .” Then, belatedly, it occurred to her to worry about whether she should have said something like that about someone recently dead; she put a hand over her mouth and blinked solemnly at us all.
    Selkin distracted us from Vicki’s embarrassment, saying, “Jack Parker, there’s one.”
    I wrote the name down while Vicki, forgetting to be embarrassed, was saying to Selkin, “Oh, Abe, no! That was all over six months ago.”
    “They were never exactly buddies after that,” Selkin told her.
    I said, “After what?”
    Selkin turned to me. “Jack was going with a bird,” he said. “Terry took her away, then she went back with Jack.”
    I said, “What’s the girl’s name?”
    “Ann,” said Vicki. “But Jack Parker isn’t mad at Terry any more, Abe, he really isn’t. I mean, he wasn’t. Not for months .”
    Selkin shrugged.
    I said, “What’s Ann’s last name?”
    It turned out none of them knew; she was just a girl named Ann. I said, “Do you know any way I can get in touch with her?”
    “Sure,” said Selkin. “She’s living with Jack again. They’ve got a place on Sullivan Street, below Houston.”
    I took down the address and said, “Anybody else? Any more enemies?”
    They all thought for a while, and then Hulmer said, “Well, there’s always Bodkin.”
    Selkin frowned at him and said, “You’re reaching, Hully.”
    Vicki leaped on that, saying, “No more than you did with Jack.”
    Not wanting them to disintegrate into bickering, I broke in and said, “Tell me about Bodkin.”
    Hulmer said, “When Terry first came to the city he roomed with this guy Bodkin. They knew each other in college or something. And Bodkin was a mooch, you know? Borrow your clothes, your booze, your bread, everything. Hang around when you’re with a bird, all like that. Terry had a short once, some old Morris Minor, Bodkin took it out and racked it up on Seventh Avenue in the rain. Near that Esso station below Sheridan Square, you know? Left it there, stuck in the trunk of some parked Lincoln, some doctor’s Lincoln, made Terry all kinds of grief.”
    Vicki said, defensively, “Terry had every right to do what he did.”
    “Sure he did,” Hulmer said agreeably. “That isn’t the point, honey.”
    I said, “What did he do?”
    Hulmer told me, “Beat on Bodkin a little. Took Bodkin’s tape recorder and some other stuff to pay for the Morris, kicked him out on the street. Bodkin tried to get the fuzz on him, so Terry stopped covering for him about the Morris, and Bodkin didn’t have any license. He wound up with thirty days in the Tombs.”
    “What happened after that?”
    Hulmer shrugged. “Nothing. Bodkin never came around any more.”
    Selkin said, “This all happened a year and a half ago. If Bodkin was going to make trouble he’d have done it long ago.”
    I said, “What’s Bodkin’s first name?”
    “Something weird,” Hulmer said. “Vicki, what was it?”
    “I’m trying to think,” she said, frowning mightily, and abruptly snapped her fingers and cried, “Claude!”
    “Right! Claude Bodkin!” Hulmer turned to me, grinning, and said, “How’s that for a name?”
    “Good,” I said, writing it down.
    “You’re one to talk,” Vicki said to Hulmer.
    “Hulmer Fass? What’s wrong with Hulmer Fass?”
    “Cut it out,” Selkin told them. “This is serious.”
    They both sobered at once, and Hulmer almost managed to look contrite. Into their silence I said, “What about friends?