The Case of the One-Penny Orange: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Two) Read Online Free PDF Page B

administers smaller island dependencies: Rodrigues, 350 miles east, and scattered coral groups, 250 to 580 miles away’” She paused. “The next paragraph is about population. Shall I read that?”
    â€œNo. And after that?”
    â€œThe land. Then the economy.”
    â€œAre stamps mentioned?” Masuto asked.
    â€œNo, nothing about stamps. The next section is entitled ‘History.’ Shall I read it to you?”
    â€œOnly if it mentions stamps.”
    â€œNothing about stamps,” Kati said sadly. “But very interesting. Did you know that Mauritius was the home of the dodo bird?”
    â€œThe dodo bird is extinct.”
    â€œYou mean there are no dodo birds — anywhere?”
    â€œI am afraid not.”
    â€œHow sad! But why are you asking about stamps — if it is something you can speak of?”
    â€œBecause there is a postage stamp issued in 1848 in that place called Mauritius that is worth in the neighborhood of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
    â€œA single postage stamp?”
    â€œYes, Kati.”
    â€œBut why? How can a tiny postage stamp be worth so much money?”
    â€œI suppose because it is very rare. I would give a great deal to know whether one exists in Beverly Hills.”

4
    RONALD HABER
    The telephone burst in on Masuto’s sleep like a fire engine gone berserk. As he reached out to pick it up, he saw that the luminous dial of his clock said 4:20. In the background, Kati made small sounds of despair. She could never grow used to the telephone in the middle of the night.
    Wainwright was on the phone and he minced no words. “Masao, Haber is dead. Murdered.”
    â€œWhat? Where? When?” Masuto was still fuzzy with sleep.
    â€œIn his apartment on Lapeer. I’m there with the sheriff’s men, and I want you to get your ass over here.”
    â€œNow?”
    â€œNow.”
    â€œIt’s four-twenty in the morning.”
    â€œIf these lousy deputies could get me out of bed at four in the morning, I can damn well get you out at four-twenty, so get your ass over here and stop yammering.”
    While Masuto dressed, Kati put the tea-kettle on to boil, but he was in no mood to wait. He gulped down a glass of milk to settle his sour stomach and then climbed into his car and drove through the night — or morning — for the strange gray thickness of dawn was already beginning. Once again, as so often before, he pondered the geographical insanity that called itself Los Angeles. There was a city of Los Angeles and there was a county of Los Angeles. The city of Los Angeles had its own police force. The county of Los Angeles had a sheriff, with a vast force of deputies. Within the city of Los Angeles were other cities, such as Beverly Hills, which had their own police forces, and also within the city of Los Angeles were unincorporated areas, which were policed by the sheriff’s deputies — and while there was a courtesy interchange of the right of movement and information, it did not make for efficiency.
    Lapeer Street, where Masuto was bound, was in West Hollywood, an unincorporated area policed by the sheriff’s deputies. When he arrived, three sheriff’s cars were parked in front of the building, a small, unimpressive apartment house. He showed his credentials to the deputy at the street door. It was five o’clock now, a glint of dawn in the sky, but the stairway was dark, lit by a single weak bulb. The commotion had awakened other tenants, who, many of them half dressed or in robes, were standing curiously in their half-open doorways.
    Haber’s apartment was a one-bedroom, drably furnished flat. Always, on entering such a place, Masuto relied on his first impression — here a sense of bleakness, indifference, lack of imagination, and a degree of despair; the habitation revealed more than the man, even though the place was in disarray, furniture overturned, a lamp smashed,