Howdy, folks. Welcome back. If this is your first time reading the noir adventures of Matt Slade, Private Eye, you might like to start with Episode 1. Otherwise, enjoy!
Episode 15
The runt could hit, I’d have to give him that. Another right drove into my middle.
“What are you doin’ out here?”
Thud.
“Who are you?”
Thud.
The little heavy must’ve been a pug in his day. He was little even for a lightweight. What’d they call the real tiny guys? Flyweight? Didn’t seem to bother him, though. He’d handled that heavy Browning Automatic Rifle like it was a mere stick. The lead filled sap gloves made his punches dangerous things. I’d fought some myself. I thought I could take a hit, but I didn’t think I could take many more of those, not and be worth much. Not to myself, not to the lady.
“Enough, Shorty. I’ll talk. Nothin’ secret, anyway.”
He stayed close, not even breathing hard from his exercise. If he’d been just a little taller, he might have been “looming.”
“All right, who are you? What you doin’ pokin’ around Mister K’s estate, this time of the morning?”
“I’m Matt Slade. I’m a private license, from the city.”
“I didn’t think you was a copper. Didn’t smell right. The why?”
“I followed the lady, here.” I didn’t see I had to mention how I’d done that. These mugs might take it personal, another mug belonging to the same Kavanaugh having tried to rub me out before I could. I’d paid him back with interest, now I was here. He wasn’t.
“You followed Eddie and Lou?” He turned around to glare at the other men, presumably those named.
“I told ya, we wasn’t followed!”
He turned back to me, sap glove swinging. This time aimed at my face. I rocked back on the big overstuffed rich man’s sofa, which robbed the blow of much of its power. Not all, though.
“If they wasn’t followed, how’d you follow ‘em, buster?”
I looked at the one who’d spoken. I spat a wad of blood on the Persian carpet. It seemed a shame to desecrate the fine library, but then I wasn’t the one who’d decided to hold an interrogation here. “Maybe I’m just better at tailin’ than Lou is at spottin’ a tail. I’m not responsible if your men can’t do their jobs.” It didn’t seem like the time to mention I’d made the rub-out man’s driver bring me here at gunpoint.
It still earned me another bop on the jaw.
“I’m tellin’ you. The lady and I had dinner, then we were interrupted, earlier this evening. I’ve been trying to catch up with her since.”
“Why?”
At the time, I’d thought she might be responsible for poisoning her wealthy father, now dying slowly. He’d hired me to find his killer, and she’d told me frankly she studied poisons at Temple. But the more of this outfit I saw, with Kavanaugh and now these thugs involved, I didn’t think it was going to be as simple as a little murder for money scheme. Now, I just wanted to be a monkey wrench. If they wanted her, I’d make sure they didn’t get her.
“She promised me a nightcap. Didn’t you, doll?”
He looked at me. My suit had been reasonably sharp, bought with the old man’s money just that night, but it’d been a hard night. I wasn’t looking quite as fresh. Well, okay, maybe I looked like a slum clearance. Rolling in the gutter with various no-neck nasties will do that. He looked at the wealthy young heiress.
“You were going to give this mook a drink?” The disbelief was plain in his voice.
“I said no such thing. He was merely walking me to the door.”
“I don’t like liars, Slade.” He punctuated his remark with a backhand across the jaw. “And now one of you is lying.” He wound up a haymaker, a real money shot, real showily, probably hoping I’d spill rather than let him hit Claire Brazelton.
I didn’t. I’d thought I could let Shorty question Miss Brazelton. If she answered their questions, she might be answering mine in the process. Simple. Logical.
I found I couldn’t do the simple, logical thing. The spirit of chivalry apparently slumbers within us all. I made my quixotic play. The little man’s belt buckle was just about my eye level, as I sat there. I reached, fast as I could, about ten inches lower, grabbed and twisted hard as I came up off the couch.
The gun-toters behind him had a simple, logical move, too. They should have just opened up, blasted me through their pal, (those Army rifle caliber slugs in the BAR would do that and then some. Even the slow, fat .45s of the Thompson would probably punch through the little pug’s chest and into mine,) but they didn’t. They waited, trying to get a clear shot.