Stone Cold Dead by James Ziskin (great novels of all time txt) 📕

“Bottoms up,” I said, raising my glass and taking a long pull. Would he take the bait? He did, but only sipped this time.

“Tastes a little better now,” he said. “The melting ice helps.”

I put the eggs on to fry, thinking he would only last a couple more minutes. But somehow he was resisting the effects of fatigue and alcohol. A few minutes later, he was wide awake and coherent as he wolfed down the eggs and bacon I served him. Then he patted his stomach, yawned, and downed the rest of his drink. He didn’t need to ask me for a refill.

“Let’s sit in there,” he said, grabbing his glass, and teetering a bit as he rose from the chair. “The couch looks comfortable.”

“Sure,” I said. “If you’re intent on spending the night, I should get you a blanket.”

Joey plopped himself down on the sofa, and I ducked into my bedroom for the blanket.

“Hey, where are you going?” he slurred. “Get back in here.”

“Coming,” I said and switched off the bedroom light. I tossed the blanket to him. “Here, in case you get cold.”

“I’m going to kill him, you know,” said Joey.

“I beg your pardon.”

“Mr. Russell. I’m going to get him eventually. I just needed a better weapon. I’ve got that now,” and he twitched the carving knife to show me.

“But why do you want to kill him?” I asked, willing him silently to take another gulp. I took one myself and shamelessly licked my lips to prompt him.

“He killed Darleen,” said Joey.

“I don’t believe he did. What reason would he have to do so? He barely knew her.”

“Didn’t Frankie give you that letter like I told him?”

“He did.”

“So, that proves Mr. Russell was in love with her. And when she told him no, that she loved me and was going to run off with me, he murdered her.”

“So you two were really planning on eloping?” I asked, marveling at how well this kid held his liquor.

“Of course. We were just trying to save up the money. Maybe a hundred dollars. Two hundred, and we’d have been all set. We were going to go to Florida.”

“And you’re sure she wanted to go with you?”

“What do you mean by that?” he said.

“Just that certain evidence has come to light. Darleen had a bus ticket for Arizona, you know.”

Joey’s doubt evaporated, and he smiled, showing his grayish teeth. “That was my idea,” he said. “That clown Wilbur Burch was in love with Darleen, so I told her to ask him for money and a bus ticket.”

“Your idea?” I asked.

“Yeah. He was going to send money and a bus ticket. She even got him to send the receipt with the ticket so we could exchange it for a refund. Then we were going to go to Florida.” He laughed and took a drink.

“And did he ever send the money?”

Joey leaned forward and snatched a handful of cigarettes from a wooden box on the coffee table. He lit one and stuffed the rest into his breast pocket.

“He sure did,” he said.

“And was she trying to get money elsewhere?” I asked.

Joey shrugged and took another sip of whiskey. “This is pretty good,” he said. “Makes you a little sleepy, though.”

I stood and offered to top off his drink. “More ice?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, holding out his glass.

I went to the kitchen, emptied the watery Scotch at the bottom of his glass, and refilled it to the top with only one ice cube.

“Did Darleen go to Mr. Russell for money?” I asked as I put his drink down on the table. He started. Damn, he’d been asleep and I’d roused him.

“Huh?” he asked.

“Did Darleen go to Mr. Russell for money?” I repeated.

He shook his head. “No. She wanted to after Wilbur was so easy to fool, but I told her I didn’t want her to talk to him.”

I kept quiet. It seemed Darleen made some decisions on her own. I still wasn’t convinced that Darleen had any intention of running off with Joey. She had amassed a hundred dollars without even cashing in the bus ticket. And there was twenty dollars from Ted Russell that Joey didn’t know about. And who knew if she’d stashed any other funds? I had my suspicions about how Carol Liswenski had managed to save enough money to buy a new sweater, a charm bracelet, and a new hairstyle. Could it be that she’d gotten the cash from Darleen? I’d tried to get that information out of her the previous evening at Fiorello’s, but she’d clammed up. And she had lied to me about Susan Dobbs and her boyfriend at the basketball game. Clearly Carol was on the outs with Susan and Linda, and I wondered if it didn’t have something to do with Darleen’s money. I wanted another chance to make her crack, but I had to get Joey Figlio to pass out before I could even think about that.

“Anyway,” I said, returning to the plan to elope, “two hundred dollars is a lot of money, but not so much that you could live on it for very long.”

“I was going to get a job,” he said. “We were going to be on Easy Street. Then Mr. Russell ruined everything.”

“I happen to know for sure that he didn’t write that letter, Joey,” I said. “They compared the handwriting to his, and they don’t match.”

Joey sat up in his seat and folded his black shoe beneath him on the cushion. Now I’d need to send it to the dry cleaners, as I have a horror of people putting their shoes on furniture.

“He signed his name,” said Joey, and he took another swig of whiskey.

“No. It was someone else,” reluctant to say more for fear of putting Ted Jurczyk in Joey’s sights. “Maybe someone wanted to cast doubt on Ted Russell, so they signed his name.”

Joey looked away in thought, searching through the wooly-headedness of fatigue and strong drink, swaying in his seat, at the point of falling over. Then