"Shadow - 360215 - Back Pages - Grace Culver - Hit The Baby" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Roswell)

the jinx popularly attributed to Dictator's Long Island plant at the time of its
closing in 1929. Folks who are afraid of black cats are asking if Ik-la-Duk still
haunts the Maysville stages.
It will be remembered that salary difficulties with the Haitian witch doctor
imported to lend authentic zombie atmosphere to "The Voodoo Vow," the
company's last Eastern production-- resulted in a complete break between
executives and magician. A series of strange and tragic mishaps following the
rumpus gave rise to a then-popular superstition that Ik-la-Duk's demons were
holding his curse over the studio.
"The Voodoo Vow" was Dictator's most expensive and drastic box office
failure.
"So what?" Jerry Riker demanded, as the redhead stopped reading. Zombies
and voodoo were so much banana grease to Jerry. But Grace Culver was the kind
of girl any young man likes to have hanging on his arm of a Saturday night.
"How about our stepping out?"
Big Tim's secretary folded the newspaper slowly.
"Well, it won't be as much fun as tracking down a witch doctor. But it's better
than catching up on my back mending. Suppose we--"
What she had been going to say then, was something Jerry Riker never knew.
The shrill whine of the telephone on her desk sliced imperiously across the
redhead's idle banter. She uncradled the little black instrument and clipped into
its mouthpiece the traditional, "Good afternoon. The Noonan Agency."
The voice at the other end was shrill and excited, making the earpiece click so
fast that Jerry could catch nothing of what was being said. But he could see
Grace's keen sherry-brown eyes going wider and wider.
It was three full minutes before the voice stopped, waiting for an answer Then
all Grace said was, "Right away Mr, Eisman"--and she hung up.
"Eisman?" Jerry blurted. "That couldn't be--"
"The great Moe Eisman of Dictator. In person. And a pretty excited person,
too!"
"What-"
"Tim's visiting at his sister's over the weekend. He said not to bother him
unless something hot came up. What's her number?"
Jerry tossed her the Brooklyn telephone directory. "What's Eisman want?
Another of his hot-shot movie stars being blackmailed?"
The redhead was spinning her dial with fingers that trembled visibly.
"Blackmail could wait. Murder can't!"
Jerry's jaw dropped.
"Mur- Say, somebody hasn't gone and gotten bumped off over at that jinxed
studio?"
"Somebody's gone and done just that!" She jerked her bright head back to the
telephone. "Hello? Tim? . . . Listen, it's Grace. There's a voodoo curse running
wild out at Moe Eisman's studio. A guy named Dinty Boyd was killed this
morning. Shall we stop by for you?"
There was significant rust on the open gates of the old Dictator lot. Seven
years is a long time in the movie game, but according to the papers those grilles
had been shut since the last "take" on Eisman's ill-fated production of "The
Voodoo Vow."
Just outside them, a little caretaker's bungalow looked newer than the rest of
the plant. Grace had only a glimpse of its white clapboards and green shutters, as