To Catch a Spy Read Online Free PDF Page B

years ago. I kept thinking I would call the bar sometime and ask Ellie or Warren how Wayne was doing, but I could never bring myself to do it. I just kept the case open in my book.
    Then there were the Cherik brothers. They were bulky, almost twins who were arrested for nearly beating to death a hot dog vendor in Pershing Square. The vendor identified them. They had records, nothing big, and made what looked like an honest or semi-honest living taking small bets on everything. The hot dog guy was one of their customers. They hired me and swore they hadn’t done it. I believed them.
    For four days I looked for two guys who might resemble the Cheriks. I talked to the hot dog vendor. He was certain. He had no reason to lie. I talked to the Cheriks again and still believed them. They got sent behind bars for six months and dished out a fine that wiped them out.
    I still believe them. In my book, I had penciled in the last thing Tony Cherik had said to me, “Sometimes you pay for something you didn’t do to balance it out with stuff you did do, you know? So maybe we do some time and that wipes us clean for other stuff.”
    The Cheriks were not philosopher material, but I liked their attitude. They wouldn’t take back the money they had paid me up front. The Cherik case was still open.
    Then there’s the one I promised not to talk about. All I can say is that the client was Greta Garbo. That one had a conclusion. It just wasn’t one she wanted to talk about, and I had promised never to say anything about it. I can, however, say that I remember one thing she told me.
    “I don’t really like being alone,” she had said. “I’m just very particular about whom I am willing to spend my time with.”
    There were more such cases. Eleven altogether. But I had the feeling that I might be about to get the list down to ten because of the note Violet had given me.
    I looked at the entry in my book. There was a photograph tucked along the binding. It was a picture of a cat looking right at the camera. A fat cat. I had been told the cat was silver with black streaks. I had been told that his name was Granger. I didn’t have to be told by his owner, Louise Antolini, that Granger had a hunk of his left ear missing.
    “He went out one night and came back like that,” Mrs. Antolini had explained. “You have a pet?”
    “No,” I said.
    My brother and I had had the German shepherd, Kaiser Wilhelm, when I was a kid. I don’t remember much about him other than that he seemed to like me and not my brother, especially after Phil came back from the war they now called World War I. A cat named Dash had sort of started living with me about the time Louise Antolini lost track of Granger, but Dash wasn’t a pet. He had saved my life once. I owed him. I left my window open at Mrs. Plaut’s, and Dash came and went when he felt like it. I fed him. Sometimes he slept on the small couch in my room. I always slept on a thin mattress on the floor. Bad back. Long story.
    The note from Violet. I had failed to find Granger, and Louise Antolini, as regular as the seasons, sent me letters demanding to know what progress I was making. She had paid me a total of seventy-five dollars. I had used all of it and more to run small ads once a week in the Times. The ads read: “Missing one-eared cat. Reward.” I added my phone number. Once in a while I got a call. I never had to go out and look at the discovered cats or ask the finders to bring them to me for the reward. I had a series of questions about the cat for each caller. All had failed to answer the questions, but the one on Violet’s message held promise. It read:
    Call Samuel Stinovenov in the Acute Unit at County Hospital. He’s got a gray cat with black stripes and a missing left ear. Says you’d know.
    Violet had taken no phone number. None had been given. I checked the greater L.A. phone book. No Stinovenov.
    I called the hospital and asked for the Acute Unit.
    “Samuel Stinovenov,” I said