Threepersons Hunt Read Online Free PDF Page A

if it had been two days since the captain had been near a razor. His uniform looked lived-in. You had to credit his industry. He would work an eager twenty-four-hour day and that was mostly the reason for his success in the department; certainly it wasn’t his brains.
    He uttered a grinding snort to clear his nasal passages and scraped a sleeve across his mustache.
    Watchman said, “You told me to report in for assignment.”
    â€œThat slot where you parked just now. I was watching. It’s for official cars only—can’t you read?”
    â€œI’m an official, Captain.”
    â€œYour car isn’t. I ought to send Dancey out there to put a summons on your windshield. Ought to have the damned foreign crate towed away.”
    â€œI’ll move it, Captain.” In a minute he was sure Custis would ask him sarcastically if he couldn’t afford a native American car.
    The desk was covered with green linoleum and the walls were illustrated with framed citations and news-photo clippings, crowded together like medical diplomas in a doctor’s office. Most of the pictures featured Custis with his pale-eyed, clenched-teeth public smile, holding a prisoner by the elbow or looming above a podium or shaking hands with celebrities.
    Captain Custis blew his nose. “How would you like a lateral promotion?”
    It pricked Watchman’s interest and he brought his eyes back to Custis.
    â€œSit down a minute.” It wasn’t a courtesy; Custis didn’t want to have to look up at him. Watchman sat.
    â€œLateral to where?”
    â€œInvestigations Division.”
    There had to be a catch and Watchman waited for it.
    â€œOf course it’s temporary until we see how you work out over there.”
    Ten years ago Custis had been on the line working a cruiser out of Phoenix and Watchman had been a rookie and circumstances had assigned him to Custis’ car. They hadn’t liked each other the first day and nothing had changed since then. Custis was a good cop from the old school but people like Watchman didn’t fit into his concept of Good Guys. Now Custis was offering Watchman not only an olive branch but a plum and it had an odd smell.
    Custis had the writing board pulled out from one side of his desk and there were papers and photographs on it. He stood up, singled out one of the photographs and tossed it spinning across the desk and began to spread the rest of the documents out on the desk.
    Watchman reached for the glossy. It was a print-out that showed a pair of mug shots, one profile and one full face.
    This one had a round face and looked a little soft around the cheeks—his body probably carried fifteen pounds more than it needed to. But a mug shot betrayed no more character than a death mask and there was no way to ascertain what the man’s face would look like when it was animated or how he moved or what his voice sounded like or how he used his hands.
    The face was somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five. It was the face of an Indian and the only real distinguishing mark was the cauliflowering of the left ear. A disfigurement like that would be a dead giveaway in a lineup, but first you had to find him.
    Within the photos the movable lettering of the chin rest identified the man: “J. Threepersons.”
    â€œHim,” Watchman said.
    Captain Custis screwed up his face and there was a moment of suspense and then he sneezed, not getting the handkerchief to his nose quite in time.
    Afterward he wiped his mustache. “As of eight o’clock this morning it’s your case.”
    Custis pushed two more papers across the desk—the fingerprint chart and the description sheet—and stood up. “You’re to get a make on him. Find, fix and apprehend.”
    â€œAll by myself?”
    â€œYou have all the mighty resources of the nation’s crime-busting institutions at your fingertips,” Custis said in his dry way of