Twice as dead, p.33
Twice as Dead,
p.33
As long as I was there, I stopped in at Al Harris’s dirty-book den. Al hears things. By now, he knows that if he tells me some of what he hears, it won’t get traced back to him. He needs to be sure of that. He’s too fat to run fast.
Nobody prints dirty books or dirty magazines. Nobody poses for dirty pictures. Nobody takes them, either. And nobody ever buys any of that stuff. Nobody ever goes into the stores that sell it. Somehow, Al keeps eating. Eating pretty well, in fact.
I went in. I ignored the other guys and looked at this and that. After a while, I was the only one in there besides Al. His chins bounced when he nodded to me as I went up to the counter. “Saw a friend o’ yours yesterday,” he rasped. Those damn cigars of his have smoked his voice for real.
“Who?” I asked. Nobody goes into those stores, so anybody might.
He made a disgusted face. “Everybody’s hero, Sergeant Elmer V.”
That disgusted me, too. “What did he want?”
“The usual Vice Squad rake-off, natch. Nobody came to collect it for a while, ’cause all o’ their guys was in hot water. But I paid him no sweat, on account of I set it aside, like. I figured somebody’d show up sooner or later. Those scumbags, they’re like cockroaches. They always come back.”
“Business as usual in the big city,” I said.
“Business as usual, yeah. That’s just what he told me.” Al made as if to spit. “At least he was only after the regular dough. He didn’t ask me nothin’ about the stuff.” Dirty-book dealer or not, no flies on Al. He wasn’t going to come out with vepratoga, either.
“You paid him, but you still fargin him the money, huh?” I trotted out the word I’d picked up from Doc Berkowitz.
Al kinda looked at me. “Another wise guy. This stinkin’ town’s full o’ wise guys.”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t very well tell him he was wrong.
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Harry Turtledove, Twice as Dead
