High Midnight: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Six) Read Online Free PDF Page B

truck that had me doubled over in the street. “Cooper does the picture or I’ll turn you into hamburger.”
    In spite of the pain I managed a laugh, but it must have sounded like a mad gasp. The brick backed away. If Cooper didn’t do the picture, Lombardi would turn my hand into hot dogs and my mugger would turn the rest of me into hamburger. I wondered what my cost per pound was on the open market.
    “You nuts bastard,” he spat, leaning over me, “you keep your nose out or you disappear, you got it?” He gave me a little kick in the kidney to be sure he had my attention. “You got it?”
    “Got it,” I said, and he vanished.
    I got to my feet and staggered back, almost falling into a passing car. My clothes were dirty and my shirt torn. I managed to find some smog-filled air and enough pride to stand reasonably straight. I made my way back to Mrs. Plaut’s porch and up the stairs, fighting back nausea.
    Mrs. Plaut met me in the hall. “Exterminating again?” she said sweetly.
    I nodded, unable to speak, as I grasped the railing and started upstairs. I wondered what Mrs. Plaut thought I was exterminating, giant rats in hand-to-hand combat? I was determined to make the date with Carmen, but my body said no, the idiocy you could pull off at twenty-five is off limits at forty-five. This time Mr. Hill wouldn’t let me in the toilet, so I sat in my room hyperventilating for five minutes before I called Carmen and told her I had to work. She said it was okay if I’d promise to take her to the fights Thursday at the Hollywood Legion Stadium. Red Green the “Waterfront Kid” and Mexican George Morelia were the main event. I said sure and hung up.
    There are days like this in my business. They come maybe once a year, but they certainly make life interesting. I managed to pry open a 37-cent can of Spam and a dietetically nonfattening bottle of Acme Beer, the beer with the high I.Q. (It Quenches). And then I slept like a baby—a baby cutting new teeth.

CHAPTER THREE
     
    T he tenants of the Farraday Building included bookies, alcoholic doctors, baby photographers with astigmatism, con artists who were long on con and short on artistry and third-rate dentists. Actually there was only one dentist in the Farraday at the present time. He had moved down from second-rate to third-rate as a result of filthy fingernails, poor eyesight and an indifference to his victims that would have put the Inquisition to shame. I sublet my office from Sheldon Minck, D.D.S. We were on the fourth floor of the Farraday, which involved a scenic trip up the stairs in order to avoid the decrepit elevator which our landlord, Jeremy Butler, was constantly trying to repair. In fact, Jeremy’s principal goal in life was to keep mildew, bums, tenants and time from wearing down the Farraday. Jeremy, former pro wrestler and part-time poet, was barely holding his own.
    It was a Tuesday morning, and I felt pretty good, I mean if you discount the sore stomach and kidney; and in my business you either discounted such things or you paid the full price. My three weeks at the Ocean Palms made me welcome the smell of Lysol when I walked up the fake marble stairs.
    On the third floor I heard someone singing or moaning deep in the darkness of the corridor near the doorway of Artistic Books, Inc. Artistic Books was run by a gentlewoman named Alice Palice. It was an economical operation, consisting of one small printing press which weighed only 250 pounds. Alice, who looked something like a printing press herself, could easily hoist the press on her shoulder and move it to another office when the going got rough.
    Clients almost never came to my office. I discouraged it. When someone called, I usually went to him or arranged a meeting at the drugstore on the corner or Manny’s taco stand, depending on how much class the potential client had.
    During the three weeks I had been away. Shelly had changed the lettering on our outer door. He was under the delusion