Scenarios - A Collection of Nameless Detective Stories Read Online Free

inside the door, and I allowed myself the luxury of its warmth for a few seconds. Then I crossed to the counter.
    A young guy wearing a white shirt and a Hitler mustache got up from a stool near the cash register and walked over to me. He smiled, letting me see crooked teeth that weren't very clean. "Wet enough for you?" he said.
    No, I thought, I want it to get a lot wetter so I can drown. Dumb question, dumb answer. But all I said was, "Maybe you can help me."
    "Sure," he said. "Name your poison."
    He was brimming with originality. I took the snapshot of Colly Babcock from my pocket, extended it across the counter and asked, "Did you see this man two nights ago, sometime around eleven o'clock?" It was the same thing I had done and the same question I had asked at least twenty times already. I had been driving and walking the streets of Glen Park for four hours now, and I had been to four liquor stores, five corner groceries, two large chain markets, a delicatessen and half a dozen bars that sold off-sale liquor. So far I had come up with nothing except possibly a head cold.
    The young guy gave me a slanted look. "Cop?" he asked, but his voice was still cheerful.
    I showed him the photostat of my investigator's license. He shrugged, then studied the photograph. "Yeah," he said finally, "I did see this fellow a couple of nights ago. Nice old duck. We talked a little about the Forty-niners."
    I stopped feeling cold and I stopped feeling frustrated. I said, "About what time did he come in?"
    "Let's see. Eleven-thirty or so, I think."
    Fifteen minutes before Colly had been shot in an alley three and a half blocks away. "Do you remember what he bought?"
    "Bourbon — a pint. Medium price."
    " Kesslers "
    "Yeah, I think it was."
    "Okay, good. What's your name?"
    "My name? Hey, wait a minute, I don't want to get involved in anything . . ."
    "Don't worry, it's not what you're thinking."
    It took a little more convincing, but he gave me his name finally and I wrote it down in my notebook. And thanked him and hurried out of there.
     
    I had something more than an idea now.
    Eberhardt said, "I ought to knock you flat on your ass."
    He had just come out of his bedroom, eyes foggy with sleep, hair standing straight up, wearing a wine-colored bathrobe. Dana stood beside him looking fretful.
    "I'm sorry I woke you up, Eb ," I said. "But I didn't think you'd be in bed this early. It's only six o'clock."
    He said something I didn't hear, but that Dana heard. She cracked him on the arm to show her disapproval, then turned and left us alone.
    Eberhardt went over and sat on the couch and glared at me. "I've had about six hours' sleep in the past forty-eight," he said. "I got called out last night after you left, I didn't get home until three A.M., I was up at seven, I worked all goddamn day and knocked off early so I could get some sleep, and what happens? I'm in bed ten minutes and you show up."
    " Eb , it's important."
    "What is?"
    "Colly Babcock."
    "Ah, Christ, you don't give up, do you?"
    "Sometimes I do, but not this time. Not now." I told him what I had learned from the guy at Tay's Liquors.
    "So Babcock bought a bottle there," Eberhardt said. "So what?"
    "If he was planning to burglarize a liquor store, do you think he'd have bothered to buy a bottle fifteen minutes before?"
    "Hell, the job might have been spur-of-the-moment."
    "Colly didn't work that way. When he was pulling them, they were all carefully planned well in advance. Always."
    "He was getting old," Eberhardt said. "People change."
    "You didn't know Colly. Besides, there are a few other things."
    "Such as?"
    "The burglaries themselves. They were all done the same way — back door jimmied, marks on the jamb and lock made with a hand bar or something." I paused. "They didn't find any tool like that on Colly. Or inside the store either."
    "Maybe he got rid of it."
    "When did he have time? They caught him coming out the door,"
    Eberhardt scowled. I had his interest now. "Go