Charlie Martz and Other Stories Read Online Free

have it in the back of the head. But when he got even with the tree, he stopped. He was so close I could have touched him. His gun hung at his side. He glanced around and then took the decoration handkerchief from his breast pocket and began wiping his forehead and eyes.
    He was looking into plain white when the rock smashed into his face . . . with my hand around it. Before he went down I let go with three more. I don’t even know where it hit him, or if he was deadbefore he hit the ground; but when I knelt beside him to check, he was very dead.
    A GUY IN A gray flannel suit, a little on the long side, walked into the Avenue Hotel on Michigan about two hours later. He registered as Stan Conway. The clerk wasn’t surprised that he didn’t have a bag—very few did—but he did eye the suit with some curiosity. The clientele of this fleabag rarely owned a suit, much less one with the pants and coat matching. I wasn’t going to explain, so I left him to figure it out for himself and went up to my room.
    The room was dingy, old, and depressing. The only bright feature was the pint I had just placed on the dresser. I took one long one to get my feet on the ground, then went through the pockets of my new suit. I pulled out the wallet. The driver’s license described one Angelo Di Vico, born Oct. 11, 1925. Buddy was even younger than I thought. Still, he hadn’t done bad. If money’s the judge. He was carrying over two hundred bucks. Now I was.
    In the inside breast pocket I found a little black book. The little black book. And from the amount of names inside, Buddy Di Vico was no slouch with the ladies. Thumbed through, not looking for anything in particular. Then I stopped. Gloria Tatum, Jade’s. Imperial Hotel. Room 220. I looked at every name in the book, but Gloria’s was the only one with Jade’s under it. I thought of the blonde sitting with Carrito at the bar. She could have been working there that night. It was a hunch and maybe just the lead I was looking for.
    I went down the hall to the phone, looked up the Imperial, and dialed the number. The desk clerk, or whoever answered, had kind of a fruity voice.
    â€œMiss Tatum, please,” I said.
    â€œMiss Tatum isn’t in yet.” Sort of a singsongy voice. “Any message?”
    â€œMiss Tatum still work at Jade’s?”
    â€œYes, I believe so. May I ask who’s calling?”
    I told him that he may not, hung up, and went back to my room.
    It was two-fifteen then. The bars close at two. If Gloria wasn’t the type that frequented blind pigs, she should get home by two-thirty. I decided to give her an extra half hour, picked up the Times and looked for the crossword puzzle.
    I filled in a few but got too tangled up in female sandpipers, Egyptian sun gods, and Latin prepositions. I decided to wait for a brighter mood, tore the puzzle out of the paper, and put it in a side pocket. I had been ignoring the pint.
    At a quarter to three I checked Buddy’s gun, combed my hair and was ready to go.
    The corner to the left of the hotel entrance was pretty bright, so I waited there until I saw a cab and a cab saw me. At five to three I walked into an all-night drugstore next to the Imperial and ducked into a phone booth.
    â€œMiss Tatum, please.”
    The same singsongy voice, but this time: “One moment, I’ll connect you.”
    The phone rang exactly seven times. Finally she answered.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œSorry to disturb you, Miss Tatum. This is the night clerk,” I said. “There’s a fr—”
    â€œWhy, Donald, baby, you’re beginning to almost sound like a man.”
    I remembered the singsong, kicked myself, and boosted the pitch. “Er . . . thank you, Miss Tatum, but there’s a friend of Mr. Carrito’s here who insists he has an important message for him.” It was a long shot.
    â€œMarty isn’t here yet,” she answered. “Wait. Have