"EB - Edward L. Ferman - The Best From Fantasy & Science Fiction 23rd EditionUC - SS" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine)

It took me a second to realize what he meant "You mean stamp collecting? Not much."
"Maurice was a philatelist. He specialized in postwar Germany-locals and zones, things like that. He'd gotten a kilo of buildings and wanted to sort them undisturbed."
I shook my head. "You've lost me. A kflo of buildings?"
He laughed. "It's a set of twenty-eight stamps issued in the American Zone in 1948 showing famous German buildings. Conditions in Germany were still pretty chaotic at the time, and the stamps were printed under fairly makeshift circumstances. Consequently, there's an enormous variety of different perforations, watermarks, and engravings. Hundreds as a matter of fact Maurice could spend hours and hours poring over them."
"Are they valuable?"
. "No. Very common. Some of the varieties are hard to find, but they're not valuable." He gave me a knowing look. "Nothing was missing from Maurice's apartment."
I shrugged. "It had occurred to me to wonder where Detweiler got his money."
"I don't know. The subject never came up." He wasn't being defensive.
"You liked him, didn't your*
There was a weary sadness in his eyes. "Yes," he said.
That afternoon I picked up Birdie Pawlowicz at the Brewster
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Hotel and took her to Harry Spinner's funeral. I told her about Maurice Milian and Andrew Detweiler. We talked it around and around. Hie Detweiler boy obviously couldn't have kilted Harry or Milian, but it was stretching coincidence a little bit far.
After the funeral I went to the Los Angeles Public Library and started checking back issues of the Times. I'd only made it back three weeks when the library closed. The LA. Times is thick, and unless the death is sensational or the dead prominent, the story might be tucked in anywhere except the classifieds.
Last Tuesday, the 26th, a girl had cut her wrists with a razor blade In North Hollywood.
The day before, Monday, the 25th, a girl had miscarried and hem-orrhaged. She had bled to death because she and her boy friend were stoned out of their heads. They lived a block off Western—very near the Brewster-and Detweiler was at the Brewster Monday.
Sunday, the 24th, a wino had been knifed in MacArthur Park.
Saturday, the 23rd, I had three. A knifing in a bar on Pico, a shooting in a rooming house on Irolo, and a rape and knifing in an alley off La Brea. Only the gunshot victim had bled to death, but there had been a lot of blood in all three.
Friday, the 22nd, the same day Detweiler checked in the Brewster, a two-year-old boy had fallen on an upturned rake in his backyard on Larchemont—only eight or ten blocks from where I lived on Beachwood. And a couple of Chicano kids had had a knife fight behind Hollywood High. One was dead and the other was in jail. Ah, machismo!
The list went on and on, afl the way back to Thursday, the 7th. On that day was another slashed-wrist suicide near Western and Wilshire,
The next morning, Tuesday, the 3rd, I called Miss Tremaine and told her Fd be late getting in but would check in every couple of hours to find out if the slinky blonde looking for her kid sister had shown up. She humphed.
Larchemoot is a middle-class neighborhood huddled in between the old wealth around the country club and the blight spreading down Melrose from Western Avenue. It tries to give the impression of suburbia—and does a pretty good job of it-father than just another nearly downtown shopping center. The area isn't big on apartments or rooming houses, but there are a few. I found the Detweiler
The Detweiler Boy
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boy at the third one I checked. It was a block and a half from where die little kid fell on the rake.
According to the landlord, at the time of the kid's death Detwefler was playing bridge with him and a couple of elderly old-maid sisters in number twelve. He hadn't been feeling well and had moved out later that evening—to catch a bus to San Diego, to visit his ailing mother. The landlord had felt sorry for him, so sorry he'd broken a steadfast rule and refunded most of the month's rent Detweiler had paid hi advance. After all, he'd only been there three days. So sad about his back. Such a nice, gentle boy—a writer, you know.
No, I didn't know, but it explained how he could move around so much without seeming to work.
I called David Fowler: "Yes, Andy had a portable typewriter, but he-hadn't mentioned being a writer."
And Birdie Pawlowicz: "Yeah, he typed a lot in his room."
I found the Detweiler boy again on the 16th and the 19th. He'd moved into a rooming house near Silver Lake Park on the night of the 13th and moved out again on the 19th. The landlady hadn't refunded his money, but she gave him an alibi for the knifing of an old man in the park on the 16th and the suicide of a girl in the same rooming house on the 19th. He'd been in the pink of health when he moved in, sick on the 16th, healthy the 17th, and sick again the 19th.
It was like a rerun. He lived a block away from where a man was mugged, knifed, and robbed in an alley on the 13th—though the details of the murder didn't seem to fit the pattern. But he was sick, bad an alibi, and moved to Silver Lake.
Rerun it on the 10th: a woman slipped in the bathtub and fell through the glass shower doors, cutting herself to ribbons. Sick, alibi, moved.
It may be because I was always rotten in math, but it wasn't until right then that I figured out Detweiler's timetable. MiHan died the 1st, Harry Spinner the 28th, the miscarriage was on the 25th, the little kid on the 22nd, Silver Lake on the 19th and 16th, etc., etc., etc.
A bloody death occurred in Detweiler's general vicinity every thud day.
But I couldn't figure out a pattern for the victims: male, female, little kids, old aunties, married, unmarried, rich, poor, young, old. No pattern of any kind, and there's always a pattern. I even checked to see if the names were in alphabetical order.
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I got back to my office at six. Miss Tremaine sat primly at her desk, cleared of everything but her purse and a notepad. She reminded me quite a lot of Desmond. "What are you still doing here, Miss Tremaine? You should've left an hour ago." I sat at my desk, leaned back until the swivel chair groaned twice, and propped my feet up.
She picked up the pad. "I wanted to give you your calls."
"Can't they wait? Tve been sleuthing all day and I'm bushed."
"No one is paying you to find this Detweiler person, are they?"
"No."
"Your bank statement came today."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. A good secretary keeps her employer informed. I was informing you."
"Okay. Who called?"
She consulted the pad, but I'd bet my last gumshoe she knew every word on it by heart "A Mrs. Carmichael called. Her French poodle has been kidnaped. She wants you to find her."
"Ye Gods! Why doesn't she go to the police?"
"Because she's positive her ex-husband is the kidnaper. She doesn't want to get him in any trouble; she just wants Gwendolyn back.*1