Read Online The Man Who Shot Lewis Vance by Stuart M. Kaminsky - Free Book Online Page A

Cawelti and a couple of citizens and citizens who prey on citizens. Cawelti was sitting at his desk off to the right, just a little removed from his fellow officers. He was one-finger typing a report, and his red face and poor complexion and his reddish straight hair parted down the middle like a comic bartender’s stood out across the room. A thin guy of about sixty in a suit was sitting on the chair within easy reach of Cawelti. I couldn’t tell if the graying wisp was a good citizen or a bad guy. I could see he was scared, as if someone were about to hit him. I took two steps toward Cawelti’s desk and Cawelti reached over and slapped the man in the head.
    “Don’t hit me in the head like that,” the man said, recoiling and holding his slapped head with an open palm.
    Cawelti didn’t apologize or promise better things for the future. He went back to his report. When I was a foot or two from the desk, the wispy man looked up at me ready to protect himself from an attack on a new front.
    “Cawelti,” I said, but he didn’t grunt, just pondered over the spelling of some troublesome word. He made a decision and went on. In the corner a couple of fat cops thought of something funny. One of them thought it was so funny he spilled half his coffee on an unoccupied desk. He didn’t bother to clean it up.
    “Sergeant,” I tried. The wispy man in the chair shivered.
    “Peters,” he said without looking back at me, “go away.”
    “I’m here about the Beason case,” I said.
    “There is no Beason case,” Cawelti said, getting in two more letters on his typewriter. “Hotel dick gets shot by hash-headed hotel clerk. Clerk grabs ten grand from the safe and runs. What do you think we’re going to do, send out an all-states on Teddy Spaghetti? Maybe we should call back the troops from Europe, go house to house. I’ve got to work here.”
    “A man’s been shot,” I said. “I’ve always been able to rely on your compassion.”
    “Go tell your jokes to your brother,” he said. “I’ve got a murder case I’m wrapping up. Beason will get better. Long-retti will turn up on a garbage heap some morning. Case closed.”
    “But—” I began, and he turned to face me. As he turned, his eyes met those of the thin man with the white hair and the neat suit. Before the man knew what was coming, Cawelti reached out and hit him again with an open palm, this time on the other side of the man’s head.
    “I told you, don’t hit me,” the man said. Then he looked at me for help. “You heard me tell him. It hurts to be hit like that.”
    Cawelti shrugged and gave me his attention. “I’ve got paperwork on this weed,” he said, nodding at the slapped man. “Mr. Patterson of the firm of Patterson and Walker owns the New Hollywood apartment building on La Cienega. You know it?”
    “New building, about fourteen stories, went up just before the war started,” I said.
    Cawelti nodded yes and went on.
    “Mr. Patterson here made a mistake. He gave the tenants long leases and reasonable rents. Times were still a little hard. Then the war comes and rents fly and everyone’s moving to Los Angeles to make war money building boats and airplanes and Mr. Patterson starts feeling sorry for himself for all the money he could be making so he tries to get his tenants to move. Mr. Patterson here is ingenious at making his tenants move and breaking their leases, aren’t you, Mr. Patterson.”
    Patterson cringed, expecting another blow, but didn’t answer.
    “Threats from hired hands, mysterious break-ins, plumbing problems,” Cawelti went on. “Then Mr. Patterson makes a mistake. Up on the tenth floor lives an old guy with a heart problem.”
    “Ninth floor,” Patterson corrected.
    “Mr. Patterson fixed the light on the elevator so that when the old guy gets on, the lights go bam-bam-bam. The old guy looks up and thinks maybe the elevator is falling and he’s only going to be fit for burial in a Mason jar when it hits bottom.