Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (The Sam McCain Mysteries Book 6)

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Book: Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (The Sam McCain Mysteries Book 6) by Ed Gorman Read Free Book Online
Authors: Ed Gorman
taste in reading. Three western paperbacks by Luke Short. At least he had good taste in frontier stories.
    I found what I wanted in a manila envelope. I sat down in a chair and lighted a cigarette and started looking through all the clippings. In case he decided to burst through the door, I put my .38 in my lap.
    There was, it seemed, a magic act known as “The Majestic Magic-ans.” Judging by the clippings, they played every kind of venue there was, from the seamier lounges in Vegas to VFW halls in Beloit, Wisconsin. Most of the clippings weren’t reviews, just notices that “The Majestic Magic-ans” were about to or had appeared there.
    There were two reviews and both of them were moderately favorable as to the magic part of the show but almost lascivious when it came to the male reviewer discussing the “beautiful assistant Shandra.” She sure as hell was beautiful, especially half-naked in her Magic-ans costume. The only time I’d seen her she was dead back there in the bomb shelter.
    The magician was a plucky little guy in a cheap tux and a top hat. According to the reviews his name was Michael Reeves and Shandra was his sister. I knew him, of course, as Hastings the bounty hunter. Seeing them together in the newspaper photos I saw, for the first time, a family resemblance. General shape of head; the shape of the eyes. On her the physical details were beautiful; on him they were undefined, unfinished somehow, not long enough in the kiln perhaps, the way a little kid’s face is unfinished.
    In the back of the envelope were several glossies of various luminaries standing with the Magic-ans. They ran to TV stars who no longer had shows to sports stars who didn’t get in the game as much as they used to. The men always managed to have a possessive arm slung around Shandra’s neck. One of them—and this made me laugh out loud—was quite obviously peering down her very low-cut gown. All the glossies were scribbled with all the usual show-biz bullshit accolades. “Greatest magic act I’ve ever seen!” “To two dear friends!” I wished just one of them would have been honest and said, “I’d pay a million bucks to get into your knickers, Shandra!” You know, break the monotony of all the hype and get to the real subject at hand.
    I had to take a leak and so I did. And while I was standing there at the john I smelled it. There’s no other odor like it.
    I got done, zipped up, washed my hands in the rusty sink, turned around and faced the narrow closet door. He probably hadn’t taken to smelling too bad when the owner’s daughter made a quick sweep of the room earlier. And there would have been no reason for her to look in the closet.
    I took a deep breath and opened the closet door and damned if he didn’t fall straight out at me the way closeted corpses always did in “Abbott and Costello” movies.
    I pushed him back inside quickly. Propping up corpses is way down on my list of things that give me pleasure, right next to emptying bedpans and listening to Paul Harvey.
    But I still had to hold him up with one hand while I used my penlight to find the wound that had killed him. Didn’t take long. Somebody had used something heavy to smash in the back left side of his head. Wouldn’t take all that much.
    I had to slam the door shut quick so he wouldn’t fall out again. I heard his forehead bounce off the inside of the door. If he hadn’t been dead, he sure was now.
    Then I went to the phone and dialed the police station. The dispatcher, who was a good guy, told me all about the body in the bomb shelter and said that every cop on the shift was out there except for Lonesome Bob Tehearn who was, by any reckoning, in the fates-worse-than-death category when you wanted help with a murder investigation. But I needed somebody to come out here, listen to my story, and then take over.
    “Well, I’ll see if I can find him. You know, Lonesome Bob takes an awful lot of naps,” the dispatcher said, “and

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