Blue Eyes Read Online Free Page A

with the younger chiefs of the office, always a step under Isaac, fumbling in Isaac’s shadow until Isaac disappeared, but there was no easy way to get rid of the Jew Chief. Isaac could haunt an office.
    Brodsky called for him at a quarter to seven. Brodsky had been Isaac’s chauffeur, and although this fact gave Pimloe immediate status in the eyes of other deputy inspectors, he was suspicious of the chauffeur; he didn’t enjoy being compared to Isaac. Moody, he wouldn’t go home to his wife. “Jane Street,” he said. “Find Odette for me.”
    The chauffeur laughed.
    Pimloe questioned him. “Do you think the glom is hooked?”
    â€œHe’s hooked. He’s hooked.”
    â€œAre you sure?”
    â€œHerbert, don’t I know Coen? He’ll take us to Zorro. You’ll see. We’ll throw the tribe on their ass.”
    The chauffeur couldn’t get another word out of him. He missed Isaac. Isaac never moped in a First Deputy car. Brodsky couldn’t get comfortable driving for a Harvard goy inspector. He landed Pimloe on Jane Street.
    â€œHerbert, Coen will produce. I swear.”
    Pimloe dismissed him with a feeble nod. His mind was thick with Odette. He swaggered in her hallway, ringing a whole line of bells. “Cunt,” he said, slipping into Isaac’s idiom. He couldn’t get into the building. Odette’s landlady peeked at him from the opposite side of the door. He showed her the points of his deputy inspector’s shield. “Official business,” he mouthed into the glass, his lips fogging the door. The landlady undid the latch, Pimloe squeezing in. He lacked Isaac’s sweet smile, but he could still steal the pants off a Jane Street landlady. “Madam,” he said, collecting his Harvard undertones, “is the actress in?”
    â€œShe’s upstairs.”
    â€œShy about answering her buzzer, isn’t she?”
    â€œThat’s the rules. Is this a breakfast call? I don’t allow strange men in my house before eleven.”
    â€œNothing to worry about, madam.” He handed her an old Detectives Endowment card. “My number’s on the back. You can ring my superior, the First Deputy Commissioner of New York.”
    The landlady scurried toward her basement apartment, clutching Pimloe’s card, and Pimloe went up the stairs. He wasn’t scrubbing indoors on the First Deputy’s account; he was considering the cleavage under Odette’s jersey, the dampness of her bellybutton, her manner of frowning at men. “I had to go and fall for a dike,” he muttered on the stairs. She wouldn’t come to the door until he shouted, “ Odette, Odette ,” into the peephole.
    â€œIt’s me, Herbert. It’s time for a conference. Let me in.”
    Pimloe smiled when the lock clicked, but she kept her chain guard on, and she stared at him through scraps of light in the door.
    â€œWe can have your conference right here,” she said.
    â€œOdile, are you crazy? This is Herbert Pimloe, not one of your uncle’s gloms. I carry a badge with a star on top. I don’t whisper to girls in a hall.”
    â€œThen talk loud,” she said.
    Pimloe could have snapped the chain off with his thumb, but he wanted to suffer for Odette. He saw the outline of her nose, slices of mouth, the startings of a chin.
    â€œOdile, give me a minute inside. I’ll hold both hands on the door.”
    â€œInspector, I’m only Odile to my friends.”
    Pimloe brushed the chain with a row of knuckles, playing the inspector for Odette.
    â€œWhere’s Zorro?”
    â€œHow dumb do you think he is? César wouldn’t come here. But I had another visitor.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe Chinaman. He stole all my garter belts while I was uptown.”
    Pimloe could feel the dwindle in his underpants; he’d shrunk with the first mention of Chino Reyes. There was no revolver in his