Free Doom Weapon by Ed Gorman Page B

legend.
    “So go ahead and ask me another question so I can get back to work. And quit staring at me because it makes me nervous. For one thing, you’re too old for me.”
    I blushed. That’s the true sign of manliness—to blush when an attractive lady digs at you a little.
    Then she said: “Damn. I’m sorry. It’s just I hate men so much—”
    “You’re right. I am too old for you.”
    “Yeah, but you’re sayin’ it nice and I meant it mean.”
    “I’ll probably survive.”
    She touched my hand, which I had resting on the counter. I liked the feel of her much more than I cared to at the moment.
    “Maybe we’d better just stick to business.”
    “Good idea. I want to know about a federal agent named Grieves.”
    “You mean the ‘heartbreaker’?”
    “As in ladies’ man?”
    She shrugged. “I suppose to some women he was. Not to me.”
    “You ever talk to him?”
    She thought a moment. “Just that one time, I guess. He wanted to borrow a couple of back issues.”
    “Do you happen to remember what they were?”
    “No. But I can find out. We charge a penny to takeout a back issue and you have to sign for it the way you do at the library. The issues he took’ll be listed on the checkout card. I can’t do it right now, though.”
    “Durn right, she can’t,” said the stubby little man with the oily apron. He worked the press with a certain passion that bordered on violence. “Right now I need her to set some lines of type for me.”
    “You going to let me say goodbye at least to the gentleman, Tom?”
    He grinned. “Depends on how long it takes.”
    “Tom,” she said in a perfectly droll voice, “is under the impression that he’s boss of this newspaper. And you know something? He may just be right.”
     
    He’d probably been the joke of his schoolhouse. Skinny, sort of bug-eyed, and already balding, even though he couldn’t have been much more than twenty-two or -three. He wore a cheap brown suit that looked too big for him and carried a briefcase that was so swollen it looked to be half his weight.
    He came right at me. He put his hand out to shake when he was still five feet away.
    Before he reached me, a woman in a bonnet and shawl hurried up to him. They had a conference right then and there. Five, six, seven minutes or so. Very intense. I couldn’t hear the words. The wind whipped them away. Finally, she waggled a finger at him and said, “And I don’t expect to get no bill from you till you get this settled in my favor. Some lawyer you are.”
    She stalked off.
    “Friend of yours?” I said.
    He smiled. “Just one of the local lunatics. If we had a day or two, I could explain what she wants me todo. Since I don’t have any important connections here, they think they can walk right up to me and I’ll help them. The ones who really need help, I don’t mind. But a lot of them are like jailhouse lawyers. They get in an argument with somebody about property rights or something like that and want me to sue them for a lot of money.” Then: “You’re the federal man and I’m David Longsworth. I heard about Molly Kincaid. She needs legal advice.”
    We stood about ten yards from the sheriff’s office. The late afternoon traffic was getting heavy. People heading home, some probably with mighty long journeys.
    “I met that agent of yours one day. Didn’t like him.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “Way he treated me. I know I sort of look like a short version of Ichabod Crane but he kept rubbing it in. Calling me ‘sonny.’”
    “What’d you talk about?”
    He snorted. “Wanted to know how much money the widow Coltrane was worth.”
    “Ella Coltrane?”
    “One and the same. I told him I didn’t have any idea. Everything she and Swarthout have is in the mine.”
    “Wonder why he wanted to know.”
    “Same thing I wondered.” He lifted his briefcase. A faint expression of strain played across his face. “Well, wish me luck with Molly Kincaid. I don’t see how Terhurne can