Dead Seed Read Online Free PDF

thank you for your courtesy.”
    The flaxen-haired girl in the outer office smiled at me as I went through. “Peace,” I said. “Love.”
    “Why not?” she said. She winked and held up a circled thumb and forefinger.
    Vartan had better put that one back in the incubator. Unless she was in on the take.
    The man at the gate was still reading The Racing Form when I pulled up there. He opened the gate and let me through.
    I leaned out the window to tell him, “If you get rain and a wet track, and you spot a horse named Galloping Ghost running at Hollywood Park, lay on him heavy.”
    “A mudder, huh?” he said. “You been charting him?”
    “I own him,” I said, and started down the rocky road.
    Below me, the city glittered in the morning sun. Around me, the grass and shrubs were gray and lifeless. And dry. We needed rain!
    I didn’t go home. I went down to the station. In Bernie’s office the room was blue with cigarette smoke, his desk piled high with papers.
    “Now what?” he asked.
    “I came in to report, sir. The cult you mentioned yesterday is called The New Awareness. It is run by a man named Vartan Sarkissian. The Lacrosse kid claims he is not related to Carl.”
    “You talked with him?”
    “Nope. He is in seclusion at the moment, in his incubation period.”
    “What is he, an egg?”
    “More or less. In two weeks, his shell will crack open and we will have a reborn chick, ripe and ready for the new awareness.”
    “Oh, God—!”
    “And one other item,” I added. “Mrs. Lacrosse’s van was still parked on Dwight Kelly’s driveway this morning. It was probably there all night. Either she’s richer than we thought or Dwight Kelly has a lust for big mamas.”
    He shook his head. “What a busy little bee you have been. And what is your interest in all this?”
    “I have none. I hereby turn it over to you. Want to go to lunch?”
    “I brought my lunch. I’ll be eating while I work.”
    “Okay, see you around,” I said and started for the door.
    “Don’t rush off,” he said. “Go get us a couple of Cokes or coffee, if you’d rather have that, from the machine in the hall. I’ve got extra sandwiches.”
    “How nice!” I said. “A picnic! Could I open a window?”
    “You get the drinks. I’ll open the window.”
    When I came back with one paper cup full of coffee and a bottle of Coke for him, he handed me a tuna-fish sandwich and said, “Start at the beginning and tell it in detail.”
    I gave it to him almost verbatim from our trip to Charley’s Chowder House to my tip on Galloping Ghost.
    He shook his head when I’d finished. “Oy! If we honest cops could work like you, our jobs would be a breeze.”
    “Huh!” I said.
    “Huh what?”
    “Does your vice squad work in uniform, or undercover? Don’t any of you practice entrapment?”
    Nothing from him but a scowl.
    The only creature Bernie hated more than a murderer was a crooked cop. Not that Bernie wouldn’t cut a corner here and there in building a case. But he figured his allegiance was to the taxpayer, not the crook. He would have made a lousy welfare worker.
    I took a less intransigent view of the boys on the seamy side of our society. I’d had to work with them in Los Angeles. And I didn’t share Bernie’s devout belief that ninety-nine percent of all cops were honest. He had never worked in a big-city department; San Valdesto had been his only bailiwick.
    “May I go now?” I finally asked.
    He started to light a cigarette and then threw it angrily out the open window. “Those damned things!”
    I stood up.
    He stood up, too, and stretched. When he looked at me again he seemed less tense. “You were right about what you said this morning. I’d love to nail Kelly. But I’ll need an okay from the Chief if you’re going to get involved. I’ll do some discreet questioning this afternoon and drop in for some free booze on the way home. Okay?”
    “Okay, buddy. And stop sulking about that captaincy. You don’t need