"Broussard, John A - Kay Yoshinobu - Saturday Night Special" - читать интересную книгу автора (Broussard John A)

= Saturday Night Special
A Kay Yoshinobu Mystery
by John A. Broussard


Three years of the new smoking regulations really hadn't had much impact on the ambience of the local police station's interrogation room. The previous twenty or more years had so saturated the walls and grubby furnishings with the stale odor of tens of thousands of cigarettes, smoked by bored attorneys, nervous clients and intimidating police, that even a complete remodeling would never remove the reek. Kay Yoshinobu sighed, consoled herself with the thought that she had already intended to wash her hair that night, and decided to concentrate on getting a coherent story out of Collin Taylor.

Collin wasn't the worst looking client she had ever worked for, but he wasn't the kind who would make the best impression on a jury, either. "And God knows he's going to have to impress the hell out of them if he's ever going to walk the streets of Hawaii again," Kay thought, putting her briefcase on the table opposite the orange-clad figure.

Collin was muscular, his tattooed arms showing under the short sleeves of the orange jump-suit; blond, with a close-cropped head of hair; and with a surly expression covering a face that had encountered more than one fist in its thirty or so years of existence. In other words, he looked exactly like what he was -- an ex-con.

Kay took out a fresh legal pad. "Start at the beginning," she said, and was surprised to find her new client verbal, even voluble and, most surprising, actually sounding truthful.

"This guy was out on the firing range at Denny's Shoot-Out, right next to me. Piss-poor shot. So I started to give him some pointers. We got to talking and afterwards went off to the Prince Kuhio for a round of beer. That's when he started asking me if I knew anyone who might do a little favor for him -- something more than just mowing his lawn. He hemmed and hawed for a while. Talked around the subject. Then finally got around to explaining what he wanted. What he was willing to pay kinda opened my eyes."

"How much was it?" The flow was so effusive, Kay decided that the interruption wouldn't stem it appreciably.

"Five thousand before, five thousand after. All I had to do was to show up at his house at eleven-thirty Saturday night, with a ski mask and a gun. He told me there was plenty of bushes for cover. He was going to come home with his wife about then. As soon as he opened the door, I was to hold them up, make them go in, lift the wife's pearl necklace and then take off."

"Insurance?"

"Yeah. He said his wife was the moneybags in the family and tight-fisted as all hell besides. He'd hocked her pearls and she was wearing fakes without knowing it. He figured she'd find out about it damn soon, since she wore them regularly, and someone who knows better might tip her off anytime. Besides, he needed the insurance money. So all I had to do was to take the fakes and get rid of them."

"That was it?"

"Yeah. It sounded like one hell of an easy way to pick up ten grand. I shoulda known there was a kicker."

"Before you get to that, how did he say he was going to pay you the rest of the money?"

"Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. To make it all look real, I was supposed to take his wallet, which would have the rest of the pay-off in it. And his watch. That was a great-looking piece. Worth plenty, I'll bet."

"And things went wrong."

Collin grinned. "Wrong for me. A hell of a lot wronger for him. We'd hardly gotten through the door when he pulled out an automatic. He caught me completely by surprise. Damned if he didn't aim it right at my head. If it hadn't jammed, I wouldn't a had a chance. Even he couldn't have missed. That's when I plugged him. By then, all hell was breaking loose. The old gal was screaming her head off. Blue lights were flashing. It was almost as though the cops were waiting for me. I didn't argue. Hell! There wasn't any point in trying to escape. I just threw my gun on the floor and waited for them to cuff me."

"So you think it was a set-up from the beginning."

"No question, and I was the patsy. He wanted to get rid of the old lady. He was going to bump me off and then do the same for her. The cops would have hardly questioned him. His story was going to be that he'd just been fighting off a burglar when the gun went off and killed his wife. The next shot just somehow happens to catch me between the eyes. Something like that."

"But he shot at you with his own gun."

"Aw, c'mon! Check it out. For sure, it's a Saturday night special and can't be traced to him. He'd have ditched my gun before the cops arrived, or just shoved it into my pocket. The cops woulda thought nothin' about an ex-con carrying two automatics. And, do you think they'd a had any doubts about what happened -- a dead wife, a dead burglar wearing a ski mask, and a husband in shock?" Collin guffawed.

Kay had been rapidly re-evaluating her client during the interrogation. He was obviously more intelligent than she'd anticipated, certainly much more articulate. He had just about convinced her, and could perhaps convince a jury. But then, even if true, his story couldn't help much. She would argue self-defense, but self-defense in the midst of perpetrating an armed felony was not the most attractive argument. Twenty years instead of forty or more -- maybe.

Back in her office she was leaning back in her chair chewing over the interview, her arms behind her head, eyes fixed on the ceiling, when her professional and personal partner, Sid Chu, wandered in.

"Ready to have him plead?" he asked, flopping down in one of the leather office chairs.

"What can he plead? He's wearing a ski mask, he's just killed a man in his own home, he's caught gun-handed by the police, and all he has to offer is what the prosecutor will stand up there and call a cock-and-bull story."