Free The Brink of Murder by Helen Nielsen Page A

I’ve got some property right below the new project—I mean, I’ve got it in mind to buy. It belongs to a crazy old lady who lives in a rest home. The house on this land is fifty years old and should be condemned. There it sits, an eyesore, on a piece of land one hundred by two hundred feet. The house she rents out to kids at one-fifty a month. Imagine! Land that valuable should be bringing one-fifty a month for every four-fifty square feet. At ten storeys high you figure out what it’s worth. But she won’t sell. The ecology nuts build a whole campaign around her and the senile old bat thinks she’s some kind of hero.”
    “Every business has its hardships,” Simon said.
    “That’s the truth! But these kids are the worst. They say they want to live close to nature—like Indians. Just let something go wrong with the garbage disposal and they scream for help.”
    Pucci snapped his fingers and Louis brought him a huge towel. He stood up and wrapped himself like a perspiring Nero in a terry-cloth toga.
    “Now I’m going to the sauna room,” he said. “Take your clothes off, Drake, and join me. It’s a pleasure to talk to you. Maybe I could use a smart lawyer like you on my staff.”
    “Sorry, I free-lance,” Simon said.
    “Okay, so we talk awhile.”
    “Some other time. Thanks,” Simon said.
    He left Louis and another shapely girl attendant to help Pucci into the sauna room and walked back to the entrance lobby. The card Louis had given him was a little damp from the steam, but he tucked it into his wallet anyway. At the public phone in the lobby he found a telephone book and looked up the address of Emilio’s restaurant.
    • • •
    It was tucked away on a side street where it had probably been for 30 years: a nondescript-looking building with a faded awning and a parking-lot that was always filled during business hours because any chef who can please the public doesn’t need a neon sign or press agent. Simon didn’t drive into the lot. All he really wanted was a picture of Barney Amling’s last day in circulation and an idea of the mileage he might have put on the Continental. He drove by slowly and then noticed the Chevron station on the corner with the operator’s name hung out in front: Lew Morely. He drove in and stopped beside the pumps. He gave the boy on duty the key to the tank and went into the office.
    Morely was seated behind a desk: a muscular young man of about Simon’s age with pale red hair and an unlit cigar in his mouth. Did he remember servicing Barney Amling’s car a week ago Friday? Morely chewed on the cigar and remembered.
    “Sure. About noon—a little after. He’s not a regular customer, I’m sorry to say, but I always remember when he comes in because I used to play football myself. Not pro’, understand. Collegiate. Junior college, in fact. Still, when you love football it really doesn’t matter.”
    “Did you talk football that day?”
    “I tried to. Amling was in a hurry. Business lunch with some big shot. What am I saying? Barney Amling’s a big shot himself these days. Know him?”
    “Since college,” Simon said.
    “Is that right? Hey, he’s some guy, isn’t he? I mean, getting crippled like that and going right on to make another career for himself. I always tell my kids when Amling comes in because I want them to know what a real ail-American is.”
    “Did he say anything about why he was getting the car serviced? Did he mention that he might be going on a trip?”
    Morely thought while he chewed on the cigar again. “No, not that I remember. What’s the matter? He didn’t have an accident, did he?”
    “No accident,” Simon said.
    “I’m glad to hear that. No, now that I think about it, all he wanted was to get the car lubricated and the oil changed while he had lunch. He said something about his wife forgetting to have it done. Something like that.”
    “And he picked it up after lunch?”
    “That’s right. It was about one-thirty, I think.