The Cutie (24 page)
Authors: Donald E. Westlake
While I waited, I thought again about the killing, and about the impossibility of describing the necessity of it to Ella. That a business necessity is—
Then I stopped in my tracks, and took a good close look at the killing I’d just done. Business? We didn’t make a penny when we killed Clancy Marshall. We didn’t save a penny. We didn’t remove any legal heat; that was removed when Billy-Billy’s body was found by the cops.
There was no business reason to kill Clancy Marshall.
But
I
had been emotionless.
But Ed had beaten him up. Ed had been emotional.
Ed
had been emotional. Ed had been
emotional.
Clancy Marshall. Not Billy-Billy Cantell, not some two-bit hood the cops would be glad to see dead. Clancy Marshall, a lawyer, a man with a wife and two kids, a man with a respectable front. The cops would investigate, they would have to investigate. They would dig and dig, and it wouldn’t take them long—
I ran to the phone. Ed was home. “His office, Ed,” I said. “We’ve got to clean out the office.”
“Good thinking, boy,” he said. He didn’t seem bothered about that at all. “It’s being taken care of, I already thought of it. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
“What about the wife, his wife?”
“She stayed out of the business, Clay, you know that. Don’t worry.”
“Sure,” I said, and hung up.
But I kept thinking about the wife. She’d seen me, she’d seen me last night at one o’clock. The cops would talk to her and she’d say yes, there was a strange man here last night, at one o’clock. And they would show her pictures.
We had to set somebody up. We couldn’t leave it unexplained, they’d dig and dig and they’d find
me.
We had to set it up for them, give them a fall guy.
I reached for the phone again, but my hand stopped before touching it. I remembered Ed’s last words about Clancy Marshall. “Now I got to get me a new goddam lawyer.” As easy as that.
He had the gun!
But he couldn’t throw me away, I was his boy, his good right hand. Damn it, I knew too much for him to throw me away.
The thoughts streamed this way, that way, flowing and flooding, and the doorbell sounded.
It would be the girl Archie was supposed to send over. Of course. Who else would be coming here? It would be the girl Archie was supposed to send over.
It rang again.
DON’T LET THE MYSTERY END HERE...
Try These Other Hard Case Crime Books
By the Author of THE CUTIE
by
DONALD E. WESTLAKE
The men in the tan-and-cream Chrysler came with guns blazing. When Ray Kelly woke up in the hospital, it was a month later, he was missing an eye, and his father was dead.
Then things started to get bad.
From the mind of the incomparable Donald E. Westlake—Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster and Academy Award nominee for the screenplay of
The Grifters
—comes a shocking story of betrayal and revenge, an exploration of the limits of family loyalty, and how far a man will go when everything he loves is taken from him.
P
RAISE
F
OR
‘361’:
“My personal favorite of [Westlake’s] hard-boiled period
and, to my mind, the first book in which
he found a voice that was uniquely his.”
— Lawrence Block in
M
YSTERY AND
S
USPENSE
W
RITERS
“Classic hard-boiled style...prose so clean it’s like Hemingway threw away his thesaurus.”
— Booklist
“Neat and tight, like a well-delivered right cross.”
— Steve Vernon
Available now at your favorite bookstore.
For more information, visit
More Great Suspense From
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NEVER LIE
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When he’s not pulling heists with his friend Parker, Alan Grofield runs a small theater in Indiana. But putting on shows is expensive and jobs have been thin, which is why Grofield agrees to listen to Andrew Myers’ plan to knock over a brewery in upstate New York.
Unfortunately, Myers’ plan is insane—so Grofield walks out on him.
But Myers isn’t a man you walk out on...
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“This first-rate hard-boiled mystery... reads like
Raymond Chandler with a dark literary
whisper... of Cormac McCarthy.”
— Time
“The prose is clean, the dialogue laced with dry humor,
the action comes hard and fast.”
— George Pelecanos
“Lemons Never Lie
is a delight–
a crime story that leaves you smiling.”
— Washington Post
“The best Richard Stark ever.”
— Paul Kavanagh
Available now at your favorite bookstore.
For more information, visit
A Brilliant Hard-Boiled Comedy
From the Author of THE CUTIE
OWES ME MONEY
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Cab driver Chet Conway was hoping for a good tip from his latest fare, the sort he could spend. But what he got was a tip on a horse race. Which might have turned out okay, except that when he went to collect his winnings Chet found his bookie lying dead on the living room floor.
Chet knows he had nothing to do with it—but just try explaining that to the cops, to the two rival criminal gangs who each think Chet’s working for the other, and to the dead man’s beautiful sister, who has flown in from Las Vegas to avenge her brother’s murder...
A
CCLAIM FOR
DONALD E. WESTLAKE:
“Priceless... Westlake has a genius for comic
strategy... a lunatic brilliance”
— The New York Times
“If there is any funnier mystery novelist around,
I can’t imagine who it might be.”
— USA Today
“One of the great writers of the 20th Century.”
— Newsweek
Available now at your favorite bookstore. For more information, visit
Sexy Suspense From an MWA Grandmaster!
LONG GREEN HEART
by
LAWRENCE BLOCK
SHE WAS EVERY MAN’S DREAM —AND ONE MAN’S NIGHTMARE
Johnny Hayden and Doug Rance had a scheme to take real estate entrepreneur Wallace Gunderman for all he was worth. But they needed a girl on the inside to make it work.
Enter Evelyn Stone: Gunderman’s secretary, his lover—and his worst enemy. Gunderman promised to marry her, but never came through. Now she’s ready to make him pay...
A
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F
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“The narrative is layered with detail, the action is
handled with Block’s distinctive clarity of style and
the ending is a stunning tour de force.”
— New York Times
“Block is awfully good, with an ear for dialogue, an eye for lowlife types and a gift for fast and effortless storytelling that bear comparison to Elmore Leonard.”
— Los Angeles Times
“Wonderful.”
— USA Today
“Lawrence Block is a master of entertainment.”
— Washington Post Book World
Available now at your favorite bookstore.
For more information, visit
Shamus Award Winner for
Best Original Paperback Novel of the Year
INNOCENCE
by
RICHARD ALEAS
Three years ago, detective John Blake solved a mystery that changed his life forever—and left a woman he loved dead. Now Blake is back, to investigate the apparent suicide of Dorothy Louise Burke, a beautiful college student with a double life. The secrets Blake uncovers could blow the lid off New York City’s sex trade...if they don’t kill him first.
Richard Aleas’ first novel, LITTLE GIRL LOST, was among the most celebrated crime novels of the year, nominated for both the Edgar and Shamus Awards.
But nothing in John Blake’s first case could prepare you for the shocking conclusion of his second...
R
AVES FOR
SONGS OF INNOCENCE:
“An instant classic.”
— The Washington Post
“The best thing Hard Case is publishing right now.”
— The San Francisco Chronicle
“His powerful conclusion will drop jaws.”
— Publishers Weekly
“So sharp [it’ll] slice your finger as you flip the pages.”
— Playboy
Available now at your favorite bookstore.
For more information, visit
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ED MCBAIN
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ACCLAIMED JOURNALIST
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