A Game of Authors Read Online Free PDF

someone paying him to sidetrack me and frighten me off? And if so—why?
    A familiar horn sounded from the other side of the garden plaza. The limousine came around the corner, stopped diagonally across from Garson beneath a sign that identified the telegraph office. The woman got out, entered the office.
    Garson saw no sign of Medina.
    He stood up, went to the corner, crossed in front of the limousine. The driver, a dried-up gnome of a man with a pinched face of undersized features, studied Garson with pale eyes that seemed to measure everything they saw.
    Anita Luac was inside the office, bent over a counter, writing on a telegraph blank.
    Garson slipped in the open door, glanced over the woman’s shoulder at what she was writing, caught his breath. Her left hand covered the name of the person to whom she was addressing the telegram, but the words beneath were in a neat block printing, easy to read:
    “H. Garson here. One attempt made and failed. Please advise where . . .”
    She sensed his presence, turned, folding back the telegraph blank to conceal it.
    Garson stared down into a face so beautiful that sight of it momentarily drove all other thoughts from his mind. Her wide brown eyes were like those of a trapped fawn, full of the awareness that he had seen the telegram. A soft flush stole across the pale cream skin. Her full red lips were slightly parted. A sharply indrawn breath pressed her breasts against her dark blouse.
    “You saw!” she said.
    Garson felt that her statement was the most terrible accusation. He said, “I, uh . . .” Then he recalled the words he’d read on her telegram, and a bitter anger filled him.
    One attempt made and failed!
    “I’m Hal Garson, Miss Luac. Would you like to make another attempt now?”
    “This is hardly the . . .” She broke off, stared at him. “What do you mean?”
    “Your assassins missed with that chunk of concrete the other night.” He looked up to the cracked plaster of the telegraph office ceiling. “Maybe there’s something around here you could have dropped on me.”
    She glanced at the telegram in her hand, back to Garson. “Oh, but . . .” She shook her head. “You don’t understand. This isn’t . . .” Again she blushed.
    “Maybe you’d better explain then,” said Garson.
    Her lips thinned. “I don’t have to explain anything, Mr. Garson!” She crumpled the telegram, turned to leave.
    “Miss Luac!” said Garson.
    She stopped, spoke without turning. “The name is Cual.”
    “I have a piece of manuscript that I believe was written recently by a man named Antone Luac,” said Garson. “Have you ever heard of him?”
    She kept her face averted, stared out at the street. Garson saw the gnome-like driver looking in at her, a question in his eyes. She shook her head at him, and he turned away.
    “Have you ever heard of him?” repeated Garson.
    “That was a mistake, Mr. Garson,” she said.
    “I think your father is Antone Luac,” said Garson. “I’d like to go out and talk to him.”
    “My father is old and tired, and desires nothing but peace,” she said. “He is not receiving visitors.”
    “Is your father Antone Luac?”
    “I must be going, Mr. Garson.”
    “But you haven’t sent your telegram.”
    “That, too, was a mistake.”
    “Tell your father that I’ll be out to see him this afternoon.”
    Her body shook with suppressed emotion. She turned, and her voice came out soft and pleading. “Please, Mr. Garson. This has all been a terrible mistake. Please go away and forget you ever heard of us or of that piece of manuscript.”
    Garson stared down at her, realizing that she was the most desirable woman he had ever seen.
    She held out her right hand. “Please give me that piece of manuscript.”
    With an odd twisting emotion, Garson knew that he would have been compelled to give her the piece of manuscript if he’d had it with him. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Miss Luac.”
    Her face contorted as though she were