Death of a Sunday Writer Read Online Free Page A

didn’t say that because of that. I don’t mind fifty dollars. I just said that because you asked what they got. You think David might have had some money? He never had money. These toughs just broke in to look for things to steal. I don’t mind fifty dollars. I liked David. So I lent him fifty dollars. Okay?” He turned towards the door.
    â€œI’m sorry. But what about the rent?”
    â€œIt’s all paid up until the end of the month. He paid the first and last month’s rent and he is one payment behind, so at the end of the month it’s finished.”
    â€œI have two weeks to clear this out, then?”
    â€œAll the time you want.” He walked out, leaving the door open.
    Lucy righted a second chair, sat down and pressed her hands between her knees. She had been rude to that Chinese man, because she was nervous. He was just trying to be helpful. The man from the hardware store appeared and screwed on the hasp for a padlock. She paid him and added the keys to her ring, then looked around for a point to start cleaning up. She had justrefolded the computer paper when Peter Tse appeared in the doorway, which she had carefully left ajar.
    â€œI’m sorry, Mr. Tse,” she said immediately. “I didn’t mean to sound rude.”
    Tse looked at her through the top of his bifocals, his head down. Satisfied, he smiled. “Yes, you did. And now you’re sorry. Okay. You look hungry. You want to come and eat with me?”
    This was sudden. She had no Chinese friends in Longborough, but there was a mythology about the men, she remembered reading somewhere. They found middle-aged Caucasian women irresistible. No, they found them disgusting, smelling of milk products. Either way it didn’t matter at noon on Queen Street, west of Spadina, surely. “I wouldn’t mind a bowl of soup,” she said.
    â€œLet’s go. He put on your lock? Let’s go.”
    He shepherded her along the corridor and down the stairs outon to the street, and into a Portuguese coffee shop. While she drank her soup and he ate some dark grey fish, Tse talked. First he established that she did not know her cousin or anything about him. Then he explained.
    â€œDavid was,” he paused searching for a word, “bad,” he concluded.
    A scamp, she remembered. “Why?”
    â€œHe knew some bad people. They came to his office. Betting people.”
    â€œHe was a private detective. He was bound to have bad people among his clients.” It was something she probably knew more about than he did, in theory at any rate.
    Tse laughed. “He didn’t do much detective stuff. Mostly betting.”
    â€œBut he did have some clients.”
    â€œA few. Not too many. He didn’t work very hard on the detective stuff.” Tse continued to grin at the idea of Trimble, the detective.
    â€œIf he borrowed the rent from you, he wasn’t a very good bettor, either, was he?”
    â€œSometimes. Sometimes he won. Sometimes he paid me two or three months rent. Other times I lent him a few dollars.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI liked him. He was a bad bugger, but a nice man.”
    â€œHow was he — bad? Was he swindling people?”
    â€œOh, sure. I don’t know who, though. He was a swindling type of man. I think he worked for bookies, too.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œHe helped them find people.”
    â€œWhat kind...”
    â€œPeople who don’t pay. When he found them the bookies made them pay.” Tse nodded several times to emphasise the words.
    â€œYou mean he was an enforcer?”
    Tse roared. “David couldn’t enforce a duck. No, he found the people, then the enforcer came.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    Tse showed his teeth. “People have told me they’ve recognised some of the ones who come to David’s office.”
    â€œDo you think the bookies or the enforcers could have been the ones who broke into