Read Online Nothing More than Murder by Jim Thompson - Free Book Online

I’ve got a sign on that phone saying No Personal Calls Please, and I’ve given her more than one hint about using it. But it don’t bother her any. I guess she thinks the rules don’t apply to auxiliary women.
    I guess they don’t, either.
    Several people had to wait around for tickets.
    My doorman is Harry Clinkscales, the captain of the high school football team. If I could buy him for what he’s worth and sell him for what he thinks he is I’d retire tomorrow. He’s not even honest like you’d ordinarily expect a big overgrown pie-faced dumbbell to be. I know he knocks down on the popcorn machine, and if I didn’t keep close watch on him he’d pass in a dozen females a day.
    I wouldn’t mind if it was just a few.
    The day went fast. It was five o’clock before I knew it. I ate supper at the Palace Restaurant, had some pie and coffee at Mike’s Barbecue, and bought some cigarettes at the City Drug.
    I suppose that sounds pretty narrow and scheming, that trade-spreading stunt and some of the others I’ve told you about. But when everyone else is the same what choice have you got?
    Bower—the guy that used to own the other house—couldn’t be bothered about stuff like that. But look what happened to him. Elizabeth couldn’t be bothered, either, and look at the shape she was in when I first met her.
    I didn’t tell you, I guess, but Elizabeth went into the show business in the first place because she knew she wasn’t a mixer and she thought it was one business where she wouldn’t have to be. People would just lay their money down quietly, and pass inside, and that would finish the transaction.
    She thought!
    At six o’clock I gave Jimmie Nedry a two-hour relief. After that, I went back outside.
    Sheriff Rufe Waters and his deputy, Randy Cobb, sauntered up and stood beside me at the curb.
    “Good show, Joe?” Rufe said.
    “Fair,” I said.
    “Ain’t got an empty seat or two you ain’t using?” said Randy.
    “Sure, I have,” I said, and I gave the doorman the nod. “You boys go on in.”
    It wasn’t more than fifteen minutes before Web Clay, our county attorney, showed up with his wife; and I had to pass them in, too. And before the evening was over I must have walked in a dozen.
    Hell, I don’t know how people get that way. I don’t know what they’re thinking about. Sure, I’ve got empty seats. That’s the only kind I can sell. What if I walked into a bank and asked ’em if they had some four-bit pieces they weren’t using.
    It’s the same proposition.
    The Literary Club brought an author here once, and I was sold a ticket so I went to hear him. He was a big gawky guy named Thomas or Thompson or something like that, and I guess he’d put a few under his belt because he sure pulled all the stops.
    He spent most of his time talking about people who asked him for free books and seemed to think he ought to be tickled to death to give ’em away. He said that sarcasm was wasted on such people and that the homicide laws ought to be amended to take care of them. Well, there wasn’t a person in the house that hadn’t hit me for an Annie Oakley at one time or another. But do you know what? Instead of getting mad or ashamed, they sat there and clapped their hands off. They didn’t seem to realize that they were the kind of people this author was talking about.
    Well…
    At ten-thirty, Mrs. Artie Fletcher closed her window so fast she almost took off a customer’s fingers; and Harry Clinkscales tore off without even pulling the switch on the popcorn machine.
    I took a look inside. Jimmie Nedry was just making one of his perfect change-overs, and his daughter Lottie, my usher, was brushing up the aisles. I went back outside again. I didn’t need to worry about those two. They’d be on the job as long as there was a customer in the house, and everything would be in good shape when they left.
    I went into the box office, checked the receipts, and locked them in the floor safe. Just before