City of Dark Corners by Jon Talton (novels to read .txt) 📗

more. I’ll leave these with you.” She set the letters and diary on the coffee table.

I gave more of a rundown about my day, showing her the numbers and names I had copied from the answering service for Carrie’s mysterious business.

Finally, I had to tell her about Jack Hunter, Zoogie Boogie, Frenchy Navarre, and Marley. She closed her eyes and gripped my hand. Each piece of information felt as if I was delivering a kidney punch.

Finishing her drink, she stood. “I’ve got another McCulloch Brothers job early tomorrow. It’s not hanging out from the top of the Chrysler Building, but it pays the bills.”

“I’m needy,” I said, touching her skirt.

“You’ll have to wait, young man.” She paused. “I can’t get that Margaret Bourke-White photo out of my head. There’s got to be more to life than photographing crime scenes and quinceañeras. If she can get on the staff of a major magazine…wow.”

“I said you could do it. Maybe you’d let me tag along. I’m sure New York needs another shamus.”

“I need to build a better portfolio than I have, or nobody will take me seriously. In the meantime, please be careful, Eugene.”

I walked her to her car, where we enjoyed a long kiss. Then she drove around the parkway and headed east toward Central Avenue. I stepped into the shadows of the porch to watch her go. That was when I saw a dark car sitting across the slim linear park come to life, headlights on, pulling out and driving in the same direction.

I ran to my Ford and swung around, headlights off, and followed him. It might be a coincidence, but I wasn’t taking chances.

Out on Central, I marked his taillights going south, the same direction as Victoria. He caught the green light at Roosevelt Street, then it turned amber and red. I ran it and kept my headlights off until there was enough traffic that I could turn them on and blend in. A quarter mile farther south, with neon decorating the business district ahead, he turned right on Van Buren Street. This was the same route Victoria would take to reach her bungalow, which doubled as her photo studio.

I hung back, watching his taillights as we crossed Seventh Avenue. When he turned left on Tenth Avenue by Woodland Park, my gut tightened. Victoria’s house was close. I turned off my lights again and cruised slowly down the darkened residential street.

In quick succession, I saw Victoria park, unload her equipment, and walk past the trunks of palm trees to her bungalow. The dark car waited for her to go in, shut off his lights, then crept past. I parked at the curb fifty feet behind them.

Then he pulled a U-turn at Adams Street and came back. He pulled into a spot south of Victoria’s house far from a streetlight. And sat there.

I gave it fifteen minutes, then climbed out on the passenger side of my Ford, gently closing the door and walking south, mostly concealed by palm, olive, and pepper trees on the narrow parking lawn between the sidewalk and the curb. I left my apartment without my regular pistol, as well as a coat, and the cold penetrated uncomfortably. But I had the .38 Detective Special from the glove box. Now I held it in my right hand, keeping it down against my leg.

The street was quiet except for train noises from the tracks a few blocks south, locomotive whistles and cars coupling, then silence. He stayed in the car, a dark four-door Chevy, so I took my time. With the temperature around freezing, fog wafted from his tailpipe. His engine was on.

Then I was parallel to him, concealed by the lazy fronds of a lush, low Canary Island date palm. Ideally, I would have liked to keep walking, then approach him from a blind spot to his rear. But the tree cover didn’t extend down the street. A nail glowed through the driver’s window but not enough to show a face. The four-door Chevy looked similar to Frenchy’s, to Don’s, to a thousand cars in Phoenix.

I walked fast, stepping off the curb, coming straight at him. But it wasn’t fast enough. He saw me and pulled out. I grabbed the driver’s door handle with my left hand, but he gunned it. The door was locked. For a second, I thought about hanging on and trying to make it up to the running board. But I couldn’t get my foot up in time, had only the barest grip on the door handle, and would have been dragged down the street. The next thing I knew, I was spun around and deposited on the cold pavement. When I looked up, he was a block away and moving fast, lights off, no chance to catch a license plate.

Then he was gone. Who knew the trick of camouflage by driving with your lights off? Cops and criminals. In my mind, the two were rapidly blending together.

Another thing about that Chevy sedan: It had the spare tire outside on the running board. Jimmy Darrow, the railroad bull, said the car he saw pulling away from where Carrie’s body parts were dumped had the same feature. He said it might be a Packard. But what if he were wrong? Hell, even my two-door ragtop had the spare placed that way.

I walked to Victoria’s house to tell her what happened. She tended to the bloody scrape on my left hand.

After I left, I stayed in my car for an hour, watching. Her light went out. I walked through her alley. Sat in the car again. Nothing stirred.

This was familiar terrain beyond the fact that Victoria lived here. North of Van Buren was the University Park neighborhood. At one time, the Methodist Church planned to build a university there. It never happened, but the name stuck as it became a residential subdivision. It had been the center of the murders that became my most famous case. They happened on quiet nights.

Now, no one else