Red Harvest - Chapter 20

XX: Laudanum

Dick Foley in his hired car was at the next corner. I had him drive me over to within a block of Dinah Brand’s house, and walked the rest of the way.

“You look tired,” she said when I had followed her into the living room. “Been working?”

“Attending a peace conference out of which at least a dozen killings ought to grow.”

The telephone rang. She answered it and called me.

Reno Starkey’s voice:

“I thought maybe you’d like to hear about Noonan being shot to hell and gone when he got out of his heap in front of his house. You never saw anybody that was deader. Must have had thirty pills pumped in him.”

“Thanks.”

Dinah’s big blue eyes asked questions.

“First fruits of the peace conference, plucked by Whisper Thaler,” I told her. “Where’s the gin?”

“Reno talking, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. He thought I’d like to hear about Poisonville being all out of police chiefs.”

“You mean⁠—?”

“Noonan went down tonight, according to Reno. Haven’t you got any gin? Or do you like making me ask for it?”

“You know where it is. Been up to some of your cute tricks?”

I went back into the kitchen, opened the top of the refrigerator, and attacked the ice with an ice pick that had a six-inch awl-sharp blade set in a round blue and white handle. The girl stood in the doorway and asked questions. I didn’t answer them while I put ice, gin, lemon juice and seltzer together in two glasses.

“What have you been doing?” she demanded as we carried our drinks into the dining room. “You look ghastly.”