Read Online The Last Dance by Ed McBain - Free Book Online Page B

sensitive,” Parker said. “Everybody in the world ain’t out to shoot you a hundred and twelve times.”
    â€œHey!” Byrnes said. “Did you hear me, or what?”
    â€œI heard you. He’s too fuckin sensitive.”
    â€œOne more time, Andy,” Brown said.
    â€œHey!”
Byrnes shouted.
    â€œAll I’m sayin,” Parker said, “is if this was a black card game, then Danny’s friend Harpo,
and
the guy who hanged Hale, could
both
be black, is all I’m sayin.”
    â€œPoint taken,” Brown said.
    â€œBoy,” Parker said, and rolled his eyes.
    â€œWe finished here?” Byrnes asked.
    â€œIf we’re finished,” Parker said, “I’d like to talk about settin up a bust on a …”
    â€œI meant are
you
two finished with this
bullshit
here?”
    â€œWhat bullshit?” Parker asked.
    â€œLet it go, Pete,” Brown said.
    Byrnes glared at both of them. The room was silent for several moments. Hawes cleared his throat.
    â€œIt’s possible, you know,” he said, “that one of the two shooters in the pizzeria was the guy who also did Hale.”
    â€œHow do you mean?”
    â€œHe finds out Harpo told Danny about him, figures he’ll take Danny off the board before he spreads the word. That’s possible, too, you know.”
    â€œA hangman suddenly becomes a shooter?” Parker said.
    â€œIt’s possible.”
    â€œThere’s a twenty-five-grand policy, huh?” Willis said.
    â€œDaughter and son-in-law the sole beneficiaries,” Carella said.
    â€œThey know about it?”
    â€œOh yes.”
    â€œThey’re alibied to the hilt,” Meyer said.
    â€œSo you’re figuring a contract job.”
    â€œIs what Danny said it was. He said the killer got five grand to do the old man.”
    â€œWere those his exact words?” Byrnes asked.
    â€œNo, he said the old man had something somebody else wanted real bad and he wouldn’t part with it. Something worth a lot of money.”
    â€œWhat’d he say about having him killed?”
    â€œHe said somebody was willing to pay five grand to kill the old man and make it look like an accident.”
    â€œBut why?” Willis asked.
    â€œWhat do you mean why?”
    â€œYou said the old man had something somebody else wanted …”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œSo how’s this somebody gonna
get
it if he has the old man killed?”
    The detectives fell silent, thinking this over.
    â€œHad to be the insurance money,” Hawes said at last.
    â€œOnly thing anyone could get by having him killed.”
    â€œWhich leads right back to the daughter and son-in-law.”
    â€œUnless there’s something else,” Carella said.
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œWas the guy tortured?” Hawes asked.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œCause maybe the killer was
trying
to get whatever it was, and when he
couldn’t
…”
    â€œNo, he wasn’t tortured,” Meyer said. “The killer doped him and hanged him. Period.”
    â€œSmoked some pot with him, dropped roofers in his drink …”
    â€œWhich is what the guy in the card game offered Harpo.”
    â€œDid these two guys know each other?” Parker asked.
    â€œThey met in the card game.”
    â€œNot
them
two. I’m talking about the old man and the guy who killed him.”
    Again, the room went silent. They were all looking at Parker now. Sometimes a great notion.
    â€œI mean, were they buddies or something? Cause otherwise, how’d he get in the apartment? And how come they were smoking pot together and drinking together? They had to know each other, am I right?”
    â€œI don’t see how,” Carella said. “Danny told me the killer was a hit man from Houston. Going back there tomorrow.”
    â€œTold you everything but what you wanted to know, right?”
    â€œDid the old man ever go to