Shadow of a Broken Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

information."
    "You're not retired, and you're not a cop."
    "I'm a colleague, and I'm your brother ." I tried to put a little whine in my voice; that usually got to him.
    He wasn't moved. "I'm hungry, and it's my dinner hour."
    "You've grown callous, Garth. I'll buy you whiskey sours and a steak. Consider that an official bribe."
    "What the hell do you want, Mongo?" Garth asked wearily.
    "Well, now that you mention it, I would like to see the file on—"
    Garth shook his head determinedly. "Uh-uh. You know I can't actually let you look at any files."
    "Then you look for me. See what you've got on the murder of a Dr. Arthur Morton. It would be early August, about five years ago, so you may get your uniform a little dusty."
    "Morton ask you to find his killer?" The question was a typical way of his asking what my concern in the matter was.
    I filled him in on Victor Rafferty and Arthur Morton's relationship to him, emphasizing the fact that both had died violent deaths a few days apart.
    Garth frowned. "You think there may be some connection between the deaths?"
    "Can't say, but I do think it's worth a little digging. Somebody else apparently got hurt in connection with Rafferty, and it upset some important people." I showed him the Xeroxed copy of the photo taken outside Rafferty's home.
    Garth studied it. "They do look important."
    "And they had the juice to keep everybody away from whatever was happening. That's Rafferty's house. Quite a gathering, huh?"
    "Which one is Rafferty?"
    "He's not there," I said. "That picture was taken two days before his dive into the furnace. I'd like to find out where he was, and what those men were doing at his house."
    "Who's the creep in the winter coat?"
    "Beats me. I'm just playing a hunch that there could be a tie-in with Morton's death. Morton was killed in his office— at three-thirty in the morning. What the hell was he doing in his office at that hour? And who would bother to break into a neurosurgeon's office in the first place? No money, and damn little chance of finding any narcotics. Now, isn't that enough to make a cop's nose twitch?"
    "I'll pull the file," Garth said seriously.
    "When?"
    "First thing in the morning," he said, starting to rise. "Right now I'm going to take you up on that bribe offer."
    "Rain check, brother," I said. "I'm in a big hurry on this one. I plan to be in Acapulco on Thursday, and I want to earn as much of my client's money as I can before I leave."
    "You're going to roil the waters and then swim away? That doesn't sound like you."
    "I'm hoping there won't be a week's worth of mud. If there is—well, I need a rest and my colleagues need the work."
    "There goes the last of my illusions; I thought you were indestructible."
    "What time can I get to you tomorrow, Garth?"
    He considered it, then said: "Make it ten. And bring black coffee."
    Now I needed a phone directory. I stopped in a bar around the corner from the station house and ordered a corned beef on rye and a beer, which I took into one of the phone booths in the rear.
    Harold Q. Barnes was the name of the watchman who'd seen Rafferty fall off the catwalk. But there was only one Harold Q. Barnes listed, and his name was in large, black type in front of the words F ILM C OMPANY . The address was near Washington Square. I finished my corned beef sandwich in the cab.
    Harry Barnes's combination house-movie studio was a converted brownstone in a fashionable district where the remodeling costs alone started at around a hundred thousand dollars. The place was all glitter on the outside and blue funk on the inside; Harry Barnes made dirty movies.
    A young, very gay male let me in the door, examined me with an air of jaded disbelief, then motioned me over to where a crowd of actors and actresses were waiting, shuffling their feet. Nobody else paid any particular attention to me. These people had their own problems; the room smelled of sour hope and anxiety.
    I recognized a casting "cattle call" when I saw