The Poisoners Read Online Free PDF Page B

them. Every time you hear the name, your nostrils flare like they’d caught a bad smell.”
    He said, “All right, so my name is Lionel McConnell. Can you see a Lionel McConnell in the ring, man? A black Lionel McConnell? Anyway, they told me I was Arthur Basher Brown, and if you know them, you know that who they tell you you are, that’s who you are.”
    “Sure.” After a while, I said, “Lionel McConnell. That’s pretty damn fancy. Almost as fancy as Annette O’Leary.” The man beside me didn’t speak. I went on: “That was a nice kid you shot. We had plans for that girl, McConnell. You ought to be more careful whom you go firing guns at…”
    “I told you, it was a mistake. A case of mistaken identity.”
    “Sure. The streets of L.A. are just lousy with good-looking little redheads, one exactly like the next. You’ve got to beat them off with a club. What do you think we’re going to do with you, McConnell?”
    “Hell, man,” he said, “it’s obvious. You’re either going to shoot me or talk me to death…”
    He stopped. A car had pulled up on our left as we rolled down a wide boulevard. A horn made a brief, beeping sound. Willy glanced over his shoulder.
    “Now?”
    “Now,” I said.
    When we came to a stop, I helped the bound man out onto the sidewalk and escorted him to the big tan sedan that had pulled to the curb ahead. The rear door was open and a young woman in a neat gray suit stood beside it, surprising me a bit. I hadn’t really been expecting a woman, although there are plenty in the business.
    She wasn’t one of ours, and neither was the driver or, for that matter, the car. We don’t have enough manpower or money to cover the world in depth, or even the country, like some agencies. But there is a certain amount of interdepartmental cooperation, meaning that Mac had apparently done a favor for somebody in the past and now he was collecting a favor in return.
    “Here he is,” I said to the girl. “Can you hold him for me, temporarily?”
    “It can be arranged. Temporarily.”
    Her voice was curt. I glanced at her and decided that for some reason she didn’t like men very much, particularly not a man named Helm, with errands to be run. She was another tall girl—the climate of California, difficult though it was to breathe, seemed to favor the long-stemmed variety—but in other respects there was little resemblance between this girl and the blonde in the shimmering blue pajamas.
    This one was wearing horn-rimmed glasses and had her hair cut shorter than that of a good many men these long-haired days. It was crisp, glossy, and light brown in color with a chestnut tinge—in other words, it was pretty nice hair that deserved a better deal. Her face was handsome rather than pretty or beautiful, with a high nose, strong cheekbones, and a big, contemptuous mouth. What she had to be contemptuous about, besides me, remained to be seen.
    The mannish flannel suit she was wearing was no shorter in the skirt than it had to be, considering the current vogue for mini-garments. Even so, it was mostly jacket, displaying a considerable length of fine leg encased in dark stocking. Her figure was also pretty good, if somewhat more substantial than the one to which I’d recently been introduced by Frank Warfel. This wasn’t an acrobatic dancer’s figure, but I thought it would probably swim pretty well and swing a mean tennis racket if required.
    A white silk shirt and low-heeled black shoes completed the picture, along with a black purse of practical size, the flap of which was open, leaving the contents ready to hand. I’d caught a gleam of blue steel as she turned to face us. All in all, she was the image of the efficient lady agent. At least she was right in there trying.
    I said, “Okay, he’s yours. Temporarily. What about a quiet place to fire a gun? A fairly big gun?”
    McConnell glanced at me briefly, his black face impassive. The girl frowned and didn’t answer at once, looking from