Read Online Write me a Letter by David M Pierce - Free Book Online Page A

dismiss instantly from your mind—you were a felon. You had a trial coming up. A key witness exists whom you would very much like not to testify against you. A friendly cop appears on the witness’s doorstep, the one supposed to deliver to said witness his subpoena to appear in court. He bears the welcome news that the witness can forget the whole business, he won’t have to go through the hassle of a long trial and getting off work and, who knows, putting himself in danger of retaliation, it has happened; his testimony is no longer needed. Merry Christmas. The cop reports back that the witness skipped town, or went back east to his sister-in-law’s ordination as a Baptist minister, anyway he’s done gone. The cop gets a healthy hit, the felon gets off, and Fats takes his middleman’s slice.
    Or so the story goes; far be it from me to even suggest that such things really occur. I for one certainly hope not, and the fact that it is a board of police commissioners that has to yearly decide whether or not to renew my PI license has nothing to do with the matter.
    ”Vic?” Fats said. ”Fats.”
    ”Hey, Fats,” I said, perching on the corner of the desk. ”Still going to Weight Watchers?”
    ”Ha, ha,” said Fats. ”Listen, you want one?”
    ”One what?”
    ”A skip,” he said. ”Smart guy like you, should only take a couple of days at most.”
    ”Maybe,” I said. ”How much are we talking?”
    ”Five plus expenses up to another five?”
    ”How about a grand plus unlimited,” I said. ”That’s for three days max.”
    ”So come on down,” he said. ”We’ll talk it over.”
    ”Let me check what I got on,” I said. I held my hand over the mouthpiece for a minute, then said to him, ”I might be able to get to you about three, or a little after. How does that grab you?”
    He said it grabbed him OK, and we rang off.
    All right.
    Business was booming suddenly.
    I’d done a couple of skip traces for Fats before, and gotten paid, but you did have to watch your step with him, he was brighter than he looked, which wasn’t hard, and as crooked as a hummingbird’s flight path. And besides, Fatso had connections, good ones, on both sides of the law, but especially below it. But could a fatty like that be any match for V. Daniel?
    Unlikely, amigos.
    I gave Jasper Johnson a call at the Downtown Station and luckily found him in.
    ”Johnson, Robbery,” he barked.
    ”V. Daniel, likewise,” I said.
    ”Who?”
    ”V. Daniel. I’m a friend of Frank and Annie O’Brien, I’m in the same sort of line as Frank. I saw them last night, they put me on to you.”
    ”They OK?”
    I allowed they seemed to be in tolerable shape, considering. ”Frank making a buck?”
    ”Getting by,” I said.
    ”Good,” he said. ”Glad someone is. I should’ve gone in with him when I had the chance. So I made detective, big deal, I’m stuck at this goddamned desk and I’m gonna be stuck at this goddamned desk the rest of my goddamned miserable life.”
    ”Maybe I can put a little color into your cheeks,” I said. I explained briefly about the Lubinskis and D. Gresham the Third, who might just be acting as an inside man when he wasn’t riffing his way through ”O Mein Papa.” I mentioned I was aware that it was standard practice for the rich to be extremely wary about letting photographs of their mansion interiors appear in newspapers or glossy magazines as it was obviously asking for trouble, so some inside information could be very helpful to the criminal element among us. I said I had a list of names and addresses that, if checked out, might throw a little more light on the subject.
    ”Better come on down,” he said wearily. ”Let’s have a look. Anytime, I’ll be here. If I’m not here, I’ll either be in the canteen or the nearest nut house.”
    He hung up. So did I. Then, just for the fun of it, I called up the Lew Lewellens again and, adopting a thick Teutonic accent, asked if I could speak with