A Stone's Throw by James Ziskin (best story books to read .txt) 📗

and stood. I reached for the bottle of Scotch, managed to wrap my fingers around the neck, and swung it at him, clipping his nose. He staggered backward, holding his wounded shoulder and broken nose, all the while treating me to a catalogue of unflattering names. Then he turned and darted down the stairs.

I heard a grunt, a rustling, and some swearing; then Fadge appeared in the doorway, holding Johnny Dornan aloft by the collar. Johnny kicked and flailed in vain, scratching and swinging at the big guy. In return, the jockey got a thorough shaking for his trouble.

Fadge dragged him like a rag doll into my parlor and threw him onto the sofa. Then, as I live and breathe, he sat on him, thus putting an end to the struggle. Johnny wasn’t about to move the mountain of a man who outweighed him by more than two hundred pounds.

I phoned the city police and then Frank Olney at his home number. Then I called an ambulance. If Johnny didn’t need a doctor for his injuries, I was sure Mrs. Giannetti would for the stroke she must have suffered. Last, I dialed Charlie Reese’s number and, of course, got his wife on the line. She read me the riot act until Charlie wrenched the phone out of her hands.

“Where the hell have you been?” I demanded of Fadge when I hung up.

“I was watching the late show at the store when I heard Mrs. Giannetti screaming.”

I glared at him, huffing for breath.

“Hey, would you mind getting me a beer from the fridge?” he asked. “I’m a little dry after my exertions.”

I complied gladly, ignoring Johnny’s muffled cries from beneath Fadge’s rear end.

When the police arrived, they relieved Fadge of his duties and took the suspect down to a squad car in the street. At first they refused to accept my explanation that it was Johnny Dornan whom my large friend in the parlor had squashed to within an inch of his life.

“Johnny Dornan’s dead,” insisted Sergeant Philbin, an officer I’d had the displeasure of meeting on a previous occasion a year and a half earlier. He’d kicked out one of my brake lights and given me a ticket for it.

Frank Olney showed up and shoved the cop aside. “I spoke to Chief Finn on the phone ten minutes ago,” he told Philbin. “This is connected to the Charbonneau murder out on Route Sixty-Seven. I’m taking over here.”

Philbin tucked his chin into his collar and let Frank assume control, standing off to the side and listening, but asking no more questions.

I told Frank I could use a drink, and he ordered Deputy Halvey to pour me some whiskey from the bottle rolling around on the kitchen floor.

“Not that one,” I said. “It’s evidence. That’s the bottle I used to bash his head in. There’s a fresh one in the hutch in the parlor.”

I explained the events of the past hour to the sheriff, who was as surprised as I’d been that Johnny Dornan was alive. He complimented me, nevertheless, on my fine work.

“What do you mean, fine work?” I asked. “I thought Dan Ledoux was the murderer. I was sure Johnny Dornan was dead.”

“Look,” said Frank. “You painted him into a corner. Made him think you were onto him. That’s why he showed up here.”

I wasn’t convinced.

“Each case is different,” he continued. “Some are obvious. The husband. The lover. The gangster. Others take more time to figure out. Some you never do. And every now and then, you get a little lucky. And this time, you made your own luck.”

I felt like a fraud.

With all the commotion of police and deputies tramping around my apartment, along with Mrs. Giannetti’s panic and my own nerves, I accepted Fadge’s generous offer to put me up for the night at his place. He had a spare room that used to belong to his late brother, Robert. It was now filled from floor to ceiling with records. Robert, who’d contracted polio as a small boy, had been a collector. He’d died of some kind of congenital heart disease before his eighteenth birthday. Fadge often played his older brother’s music, which was mostly jazz and big band, with some classical mixed in.

But that night, I was too agitated to listen to music. I just wanted to calm down and spend some time with my pal and a quiet drink. We sat in his parlor, talking about my close call until four.

“What did you want to tell me that was so important?” I asked.

“Remember that car that followed us Friday night? Benny Arnold from the DMV got me the name and address of the owner.”

“Let me guess. John Dornan.”

“Close. John Sprague, of Yonkers, New York.”

“I wished you’d written it in the note you shoved through my door. I never would have gone upstairs.”

Fadge refilled our drinks.

“What I don’t get is why he killed that Canadian girl,” he said, handing me my glass.

“We may never know. Mrs. Giannetti showed up before I could ask him. Who knows if he’ll talk to the police?”

“He’ll probably make a deal to avoid the chair.”

I sipped my drink. “My God, I could have killed him with that bottle.”

“Yeah, but it didn’t even break. You owe your life to your drinking habit.”

That provoked a soft chuckle from me. “And to Mrs. Giannetti. I don’t know what would have happened to me if she hadn’t heard Johnny stomping around the kitchen in those boots of his. She’s warned me so many times to have my guests remove their shoes. But she actually had the nerve to open the door with her key. What if I’d been standing there in the nude?”

Fadge’s eyes glazed over for a moment, seemingly conjuring a mental image. Then he took a sip of beer and noted that Mrs. Giannetti was a nosy old broad. “And if it makes you feel any better, you can take off your clothes and stand in my kitchen in the