"Edward L. Ferman - Best From F&SF, 23rd Edition" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ferman Edward L)

dead, and decided to disappear. Can't say as I blame him. The police might've gotten some funny ideas.
We didn't mention him."
"Why not?"
"There was no point in getting him involved. It was just an accident."
"He couldn't have killed Maurice after he left here?"
"No. They said he'd been dead over an hour. What did Desmond tell you?"
"Desmond?"
"Across the hall. The one who looks like he smells something bad."
"How did you know I talked to him and not the side of beef?"
He laughed and almost dropped his coffee cup. "I don't think Roy can talk."
"He didn't know nothin' about nothin'." I found myself laughing also. I got up and walked to the glass
doors. I slid them open and then shut again. "Did you ever think one of these was open when it was really
shut?"
"No. But I've heard of it happening."
I sighed. "So have I." I turned and looked at what he was working on at the drafting table. It was a
small painting of a boy and girl, she in a soft white dress, and he in jeans and tee shirt. They looked about
fifteen. They were embracing, about to kiss. It was quite obviously the first time for both of them. It was
good. I told him so.
He grinned with pleasure. "Thanks. It's for a paperback cover.тАЭ
"Whose idea was it that Detweiler have dinner and spend the evening with you?"
He thought for a moment. "Maurice." He looked up at me and grinned. "Do you know stamps?"
It took me a second to realize what he meant "You mean stamp collecting? Not much."
"Maurice was a philatelist. He specialized in postwar Germany-locals and zones, things like that.
He'd gotten a kilo of buildings and wanted to sort them undisturbed."
I shook my head. "You've lost me. A kilo of buildings?"
He laughed. "It's a set of twenty-eight stamps issued in the American Zone in 1948 showing famous
German buildings. Conditions in Germany were still pretty chaotic at the time, and the stamps were
printed under fairly makeshift circumstances. Consequently, there's an enormous variety of different
perforations, watermarks, and engravings. Hundreds as a matter of fact Maurice could spend hours and
hours poring over them."
"Are they valuable?"
"No. Very common. Some of the varieties are hard to find, but they're not valuable." He gave me a
knowing look. "Nothing was missing from Maurice's apartment."
I shrugged. "It had occurred to me to wonder where Detweiler got his money."
"I don't know. The subject never came up." He wasn't being defensive.
"You liked him, didn't you?тАЭ
There was a weary sadness in his eyes. "Yes," he said.
That afternoon I picked up Birdie Pawlowicz at the Brewster Hotel and took her to Harry Spinner's
funeral. I told her about Maurice Milian and Andrew Detweiler. We talked it around and around. The
Detweiler boy obviously couldn't have kilted Harry or Milian, but it was stretching coincidence a little bit
far.
After the funeral I went to the Los Angeles Public Library and started checking back issues of the
Times. I'd only made it back three weeks when the library closed. The LA. Times is thick, and unless the
death is sensational or the dead prominent, the story might be tucked in anywhere except the classifieds.
Last Tuesday, the 26th, a girl had cut her wrists with a razor blade In North Hollywood.
The day before, Monday, the 25th, a girl had miscarried and hemorrhaged. She had bled to death
because she and her boy friend were stoned out of their heads. They lived a block off WesternтАФvery
near the Brewster-and Detweiler was at the Brewster Monday.
Sunday, the 24th, a wino had been knifed in MacArthur Park.
Saturday, the 23rd, I had three. A knifing in a bar on Pico, a shooting in a rooming house on Irolo,