Free Show Business Is Murder by Stuart M. Kaminsky

soon.”
    â€œWe were working it out,” he said. He was on the terrace again, walking around. He looked at the canvas-covered hot tub with its blanket of withered leaves and crusty pigeon droppings, the Adirondack chairs around the table. The empty mug someone had left under the table wore a moldy crust.
    He took off his glasses and placed them on the table.
    He looked at his Rolex. There was blood on the face. He raised it to his lips and licked the blood off. It was four o’clock. Patrick would be home soon.
    He listened to the sound of the elevator, the key in the lock.
    â€œMom? Dad? I’m home.”
    For a brief moment David stood on the low brick wall that enclosed the terrace, then he stepped off.

Arful
    JOHN LUTZ
    â€œ ARE YOU TRYING to tell me dogs can talk?”
    Braddock had been in Hollywood three long years now. He hadn’t been able to sell a screenplay, but he was sure he’d heard and seen just about everything, much of it right here in Savvie’s bar, within spitting distance of Wilshire Boulevard. But here was something he hadn’t expected, like an opening scene from an old Twilight Zone episode.
    The old man sitting across the table from him smiled, wrinkling his seamed face even more and giving him the look of one of those dolls with heads and faces made from dried apples.
    â€œNo,” he said, “not every dog. But some dogs sometimes, if a certain operation is performed on their palates and if they are properly trained.” He took a swig of blended Scotch and twinkled an eye at Braddock. “I know how to train ’em.”
    Braddock was barely in his twenties, but he knew he was no fool. “Who trained you? ” he asked.
    Mitty—that was the old man’s name—twisted his lips in an odd mobile line that changed his smile to a tight grin. He had small, even teeth that were yellowed and probably false. “Dr. Darius,” he said, “the veterinarian surgeon who discovered and perfected the operation.”
    â€œSure,” Braddock said. “I think I met him once.”
    â€œDoubt it,” Mitty said. “He’s been dead for over fifty years. But before he died he taught me not only how to develop the facility of speech in certain dogs of a particular combination of breeds, but the operation that makes it possible.”
    It was dim in Savvie’s. Outside the tinted windows only an occasional pedestrian trudged past in the ninety-degree heat. This time of the afternoon there were no other customers in Savvie’s. Braddock, Mitty, and Edgar the part-time bartender had the place to themselves. Braddock considered what Mitty had told him. How naive did the old joker think he was?
    â€œI suppose you’re a rich man,” Braddock said.
    Mitty raised bushy gray eyebrows high on his deeply furrowed forehead. “I wouldn’t be sitting here with you and Java sipping this cheap Scotch if I was rich, now, would I?”
    â€œJava?”
    Mitty nodded and glanced down and to the side, toward a dog that had been so still and quiet that Braddock hadn’t noticed it. Java was a small black and white pooch sitting patiently on its haunches near his chair.
    â€œI didn’t see it there,” Braddock said.
    â€œJava’s a he, ” Mitty corrected.
    â€œSorry, fella,” Braddock said to the dog. For only an instant, he half expected the dog to answer.
    Java resembled one of those miniature collies, only his hair was shorter. And he did have a funny look around the mouth, as if he were sort of smiling. As if he knew something.
    â€œWhy didn’t Java introduce himself?” Braddock asked.
    â€œIntroduce yourself, Java,” Mitty told the dog.
    At the mention of his name, Java woofed.
    â€œThat’s talking?” Braddock asked.
    â€œNot at all. You can’t expect a dog to know the Englishlanguage without learning it. And I didn’t give him the proper commands. What he is,