Warshawski 01 - Indemnity Only Read Online Free PDF Page B

lamps, installed when the place was built, provide a homey glow. Sal, the bartender, is a magnificent black woman, close to six feet tall. I’ve watched her break up a fight with just a word and a glance—no one messes with Sal. This afternoon she wore a silver pantsuit. Stunning.
    She greeted me with a nod and brought a shot of Black Label to the booth. Ralph ordered a gin-and-tonic. Four o’clock is a little early, even for the Golden Glow’s serious-drinking clientele, and the place was mostly deserted.
    Devereux placed a five-dollar bill on the table for Sal. “Now tell me why a gorgeous lady like yourself is interested in a young kid like Peter Thayer.”
    I gave him back his money. “Sal runs a tab for me,” I explained. I thumbed through the paper. The story hadn’t come in soon enough for the front page, but they’d given it two quarter columns on page seven. RADICAL BANKING HEIR SHOT , the headline read. Thayer’s father was briefly mentioned in the last paragraph; his four roommates and their radical activities were given the most play. The Ajax Insurance Company was not mentioned at all.
    I folded the paper back and showed the column to Devereux. He glanced at it briefly, then did a double take and snatched the paper from me. I watched him read the story. It was short and he must have gone through it several times. Then he looked up at me, bewildered.
    “Peter Thayer? Dead? What is this?”
    “I don’t know. I’d like to find out.”
    “You knew when you bought the paper?”
    I nodded. He glanced back down at the story, then at me. His mobile face looked angry.
    “How did you know?”
    “I found the body.”
    “Why the hell didn’t you tell me over at Ajax instead of putting me through this charade?” he demanded.
    “Well, anyone could have killed him. You, Yardley Masters, his girl friend … I wanted to get your reaction to the news.”
    “Who the hell
are you?”
    “My name’s V. I. Warshawski. I’m a private detectiveand I’m looking into Peter Thayer’s death.” I handed him a business card.
    “You? You’re no more a detective than I am a ballet dancer,” he exclaimed.
    “I’d like to see you in tights and a tutu,” I commented, pulling out the plastic-encased photostat of my private investigator’s license. He studied it, then shrugged without speaking. I put it back in my wallet.
    “Just to clear up the point, Mr. Devereux, did you kill Peter Thayer?”
    “No, I goddamn did not kill him.” His jaw worked angrily. He kept starting to talk, then stopping, unable to put his feelings into words.
    I nodded at Sal and she brought us a couple more drinks. The bar was beginning to fill up with precommute drinkers. Devereux drank his second gin and relaxed somewhat. “I’d like to have seen Yardley’s face when you asked him if he killed Peter,” he commented dryly.
    “I didn’t ask him. I couldn’t figure out why he wanted to talk to me, though. Was he really very protective of Thayer? That’s what he intimated.”
    “No.” He considered the question. “He didn’t pay much attention to him. But there was the family connection…. If Peter was in trouble, Yardley’d feel he owed it to John Thayer to look after him…. Dead … he was a hell of a nice boy, his radical ideas notwithstanding. Jesus, this is going to cut up Yardley. His old man, too. Thayer didn’t like the kid living where he did—and now, shot by some junkie …”
    “How do you know his father didn’t like it?”
    “Oh, it wasn’t any secret. Shortly after Pete started with us, Jack Thayer came storming in showing his muscle and bellowing around like a vice-president in heat—how the kid was betraying the family with his labor-union talk, and why couldn’t he live in a decent place—I guess they’d bought a condo for him down there, if you can believe that. I must say, the boy took it very well—didn’t blow up back or anything.”
    “Did he work with any—well, highly