Read Online The Cutie by Donald E. Westlake - Free Book Online

they’re liable to find a lot of other stuff first.”
    “Maybe not,” said Ed. “A lot of killings never get solved. If the law doesn’t find Billy-Billy, they’ll just forget the whole thing after a while.”
    Even though I knew the situation better than Clancy did, I had to admit that Clancy had a point. “Ed,” I said, “I don’t like to butt in here. But you know as well as I do the cops only forget a case when they can’t figure out who to put the grab on. This time, they’ve got a fine candidate for the grab. Billy-Billy. So they’ll keep hunting, as Clancy says, until they find him. I’m not saying we should turn him over to the law, alive or dead. But we’re going to have to do something to get the cops quiet.”
    “We’re going to,” he said. “We’re going to do two things. First, we’re going to get our hands on Billy-Billy Cantell, and we’re going to get him out of sight, somewhere the law can’t find him. Up in New England or somewhere. Second, we’re going to have to find the cutie who set Billy-Billy up in the first place, and turn him over to the cops.”
    I stared at him. “You serious, Ed?”
    “Do I look like I’m making a joke?”
    “You want us to play Homicide Squad?”
    “It doesn’t make sense, Ed,” said Clancy. “Cantell isn’t worth it.”
    “Finding killers is up to the law,” I said.
    “The law isn’t going to look any further than Cantell,” he told me. “The cutie who set him up knows that. The only way to get the heat off Cantell is to turn it on the cutie.”
    “Ed,” said Clancy. “Listen, Ed. How do we know Cantell didn’t murder her himself? He was all doped up, he doesn’t remember a thing. All this business about being framed and all the rest of it—that’s only a theory.”
    “Have you ever seen Cantell?” Ed asked him.
    Clancy shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably. The name’s familiar, I’ve probably bailed him out on user charges.”
    “Clay knows him. And he’ll back me up on this. Cantell doesn’t carry any armament of any kind, never did and never would.”
    “Besides which,” I added, “he couldn’t take a Central Park pigeon two falls out of three. No, Ed’s right. Cantell was framed.”
    “And I want to know who set him up,” finished Ed. He pointed at me. “That’s your job.” He looked back at Clancy again. “Your job,” he said, “is to play lawyer. Get with those contacts of yours in the D.A.’s office. I want to know what the situation is, every step of the way. I want to know why Homicide East is called in on a simple slashing. If the time comes when Billy-Billy needs a lawyer, you’re it. If they get him, you get him out. I don’t want him in jail for a minute, not for a minute.”
    “Ed,” I said. “About the guy who set Billy-Billy up.”
    “Find him.”
    “I don’t know, Ed. He killed a woman named Mavis St. Paul. You don’t know Mavis St. Paul, neither does Clancy, neither does Tony or Joe, neither do I. We don’t have any kind of a tie-in with this woman at all. The guy who killed her went out on the sidewalk, grabbed a bum at random, dragged him into the apartment and left him there. The bum was one of our bums, and that’s our only connection with the killing.”
    “You trying to say you couldn’t find him?” Ed asked me.
    “Hell, no, Ed, you know better than that. I can find him all right. But it’ll take time. And meanwhile the cops are going to be agitating.”
    “Ed,” said Clancy. “Listen, I don’t think it matters whether Cantell is guilty or not. The police think he’s guilty, and that’s the important thing. I don’t see why—”
    Ed cut him off before he could get any further. “We don’t turn him over to the law,” he said. “Subject closed. Don’t mention it any more.”
    “Okay, Ed,” said Clancy. “I don’t know why you’re so set on rescuing this little nobody—”
    “That’s right, you don’t.”
    All this time, Joe hadn’t been saying a word.