Catacombs of Terror! Read Online Free PDF Page A

wrong night. I was twenty-four hours early. “Why? Did you see, er, him?”
    “Not tonight. He was in last night though. Maybe you did get the wrong night. Friend of yours, is he?” His question was asked with a hint of distaste. An undertone of disgust.
    “Not strictly. A business acquaintance, perhaps.”
    “Rather you than me. Bye.” He moved through to the other bar where a small pack of off-duty rugby players were getting restive. I took a look at my watch. I left. It wasn’t warm outside, and it wasn’t dry.

Chapter 5
Low-Rent Philip Marlowe
    I needed to think. I walked the wet streets. And I realised that Friday night at closing time was not the kind of time to walk streets and think. The usual howling gangs of drunks weaved around, screaming like badly dressed baboons. I guess they were maybe on their way to refresh the puke slicks in the alleyway outside my office. Yeah, well. Someone had to do it, and I’d rather it didn’t have to be me.
    I pulled out my mobile and dialled a number. Colin Kafka was someone I knew from way back. We’d both become involved in some stuff, some stuff that wasn’t strictly legit . . . fuck, it was out-and-out criminal. Kafka got unlucky. He was looking at spending the rest of his life staring at the sky through small windows with bars on them, watching his back, and waiting for appeals that would never have come. But I’d managed to get him—and myself—off the hook. Connections. That was when I still had them. In the past. In the old days. I could say the good old days, but I’d be lying. I hadn’t seen or heard from Kafka for ten or fifteen years. Until recently.
    He’d called me—out of the blue—and suggested that we meet up. Things had certainly changed, all right. I was an investigator and he was now a reporter on the local paper, both in the same city. Interesting coincidence, I’d thought. And Colin Kafka, of all people. A reporter now. A journalist. Anyway. We’d exchanged greetings. What a coincidence, small world—you know the kind of thing. I’d reluctantly taken his mobile number. Maybe we could meet up, go for a beer, act like regular old pals, pretend the past had never happened. Yeah, well. I made my excuses, said I was pretty busy. Tell the truth, I hadn’t had much interest in seeing him. Or so I had thought. Now I thought differently.
    “Colin? Colin Kafka? It’s Martin Valpolicella. How about that drink?”
    Kafka was out already, spending his salary at one of the all-night places on the east side of town. Okay. I was pretty much wet through, but the rain wasn’t in any hurry to leave, so I hiked it back out of the city centre. My office was on the way, so I dropped by for something to warm me up. I flicked on the light, poured myself a whiskey, and sat behind my desk. I put my feet up. And I wondered, again, what the hell was going on. It seemed that someone—or some people—unknown wanted me to do a little dirt-digging for them. And for myself. I wondered why that woman had given me this ragbag of clues. They seemed like questions she already had the answers to. And if that was the case, why did I have to answer them all over again? Who was she? Had she sent the note and the e-mail? Or someone else? And what was the deal with the guy with the Stonehenge T-shirt? But the one thing that really bugged me was my fee. Or rather, the lack of it.
    Rather you than me,
the barman in the Old Green Tree had said. With that I agreed. Yeah, well. Wouldn’t you? If you were me? Questions whirled around my head like angry wasps. I drank my whiskey. And had another.
    I found Kafka in a late night joint off the London Road. It was about 1:30 A.M . by the time I got there. The place had a sign outside:
The Lud Club. Members only
. I mentioned Colin’s name and I was in. Open sesame. He was obviously a regular. I walked over to the bar and ordered whiskey. While the barman was pouring, I took in the scene. Dingy, smoky, filled with huddled figures