The Scarlet Ruse Read Online Free PDF

tonight."
    "Wish I could, Kay. I really do. But this one is priority."
    The desk tried to brush me off. I told the cold-eyed old man to check with Mr. Nucci before he made it final. He went over and murmured into the phone, studying me as he talked. He hung up and came over and told me that if I would go to the Winner's Circle Bar, Mr. Nucci would join me there in a few minutes.
    It was more like twenty minutes before he slipped onto the stool beside mine. He wore a brown denim suit with lots of pockets and ropes and zippers, and a yellow velvet shirt, open to the umbilicus. His face was bland-brown, hairless as his brown smooth chest. Sleepy eyes, languid manner, a thin little mouth, like a newborn shark.
    Willy Nucci started as a bus boy and now owns more points in the Contessa than anyone else. This is an unlikely Horatio Alger story along the oceanfront. He managed it by making various pressure groups believe he was fronting for other, just as deadly, pressure groups. He did it by expert intelligence work, brass, guile, persistence, and hard work. Nearly everyone thinks he is a front for New Jersey money, money that comes down to be dry-cleaned and flown back or flown abroad. I am one of the very few people who know Willy is clean and that he owns the biggest piece of the hotel. Maybe the IRS knows.
    The motif of the bar is horse. Everything except saddle horns on the bar stools. In season it is a good place for the winners to spend and the losers to cry.
    "I kept you waiting," Willie said in a flat voice. Statement of fact. I nodded. Silence is the best gambit with Willy Nucci, because it is one of his useful weapons. He makes people edgy by saying nothing. It's always handy to use the other man's tricks, because he never knows if he is being mocked.
    I outwaited him, and finally he said, "It's your dime, McGee."
    "Look at the edge of my glass."
    He leaned toward it, tilting his head, and saw the little pale pink smear of stale lipstick. He called the barman over and chewed him in a small terrible voice. The man swayed and looked sweaty. He brought me a new drink, delivering it with a flourish and a look of splendid hatred.
    "What else is bothering you?" Willy asked.
    "I have a name, an address, a description, and I want a fill-in."
    "I don't know many people anymore. The Beach keeps changing."
    "You have to know, Willy."
    "All I have to do is run this place and turn a dime on it for the owners."
    "Willy?"
    He gave me a quick, sidelong glance. Silence. A barely audible sigh.
    "Willy, there is a young lady with a lot of energy on the paper in Lauderdale, and she keeps after me, saying she wants human interest stories about playtown, USA. She digs pretty good. She knows how to use courthouse records."
    He got up slowly, looking tired. "Come on, damn you."
    We went out past the guard and the empty pool and up the stairs to the roof of the cabana row of the Contessa Hotel. These are the days of exotic bugs, induction mikes, shotgun mikes. People like Willy Nucci talk in the open, at night, near surf roar or traffic roar. Or they rent cars and turn the radio volume high and drive around and talk. They never say anything useful over the phone, and they put in writing the bare minimum information required by the various laws and regulatory agencies.
    We crossed the recreation roof to the ocean side and stood side by side, leaning on the railing. Freighters were working south, inside the stream. The sleepy ocean whacked listlessly at the little bit of remaining beach, with a little green-white glow of phosphorescence where it tumbled.
    In my Frank McGee voice instead of my Travis McGee voice, I said, "When Willy Nucci quietly acquired his first small percentage of the Contessa Hotel, it was laboring under the crushing burden of a sixth and a seventh mortgage. Today, hiding behind a bewildering maze of legal stratagems, Mr. Nucci is not only the principal owner, but he has managed to pay off most of the indebtedness-"
    He