"Gary Lovisi - Finders Keepers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lovisi Gary)

I looked at him then, not finding it so amusing.

"Griff, this is better than the movies, better even than them old pulp magazines I used to love to read when I was a kid. Them crime horror stories with far-out titles like СCaptive Sex Slaves of the Hideous Ghoul Killer.Т Now that was fun stuff, Griff."

I looked at him, "You used to read that stuff?"

"Sure, all the time. Great stuff. This is like them old stories, Griff. Totally weird. I think weТre in for some fun with this one too." Then Fats turned to Kroptic, said, "Of course, Mr. Kroptic you had no partner in this murder? You killed Strossen on your own? And you never saw who stole the corpse?"

Kroptic smiled and said almost proudly, "The killing of Strossen was entirely my own idea. I had no partner or help in it at all. And no, I did not see who took the body, not that I care, now that heТs dead."

"See, Griff, and I believe him," Fats bellowed now, adding, "I think we got a real doozy here!"

Of course Fats was just playing in that odd sick, twisted cop way of his. He didnТt like this kind of crap any more than I did, yet I had to admit that someone stealing that dead body out from under us had got my attention.

Besides that, Strossen was our only piece of hard evidence that a murder had actually been committed.

"Fats, I want that damn corpse!" I growled.

Fats nodded, laughed, "Yeah, Griff, it sure ainТt right. Even kinda insulting. How dare someone steal our stiff!"

The rest of that day Fats and I, with Smitty and RyanТs help turned Livonia Avenue and the environs upside down and every which way but loose. If there was a hidden stiff anywhere in that section of town, Fats and I would shake it loose but as the day came to an end Fats and I came to a kinda different conclusion.

Fats said, "He ainТt here, Griff. He just ainТt here. We woulda seen a sign, and I shook everyoneТs tree in this neighborhood and nothing fell out, because there was nothing there to fall out. You get it?"

"Yeah, nothing corpse-wise that is," I replied, but there was plenty of other crap, but all that was stuff we werenТt interested in at the moment. Truth of it was a pissed-off 290 pound Fatman could do an awful job of intimidation, so that when he decided to shake someoneТs tree, every damn thing that person was hiding was sure to fall out. Everything, except the stiff that had been stolen.

"ТCourse Captain Landis is kinda unhappy about this turn of events," Fats chortled in what was the understatement of 1962.

"Yeah," I said, "we all is unhappy."

"So, Griff, thereТs gotta be something else, something we ainТt figuring," Fats added. There he was, being obvious again. That meant he was starting to think, and that usually meant trouble.

I nodded, "You mean like the body wasnТt stolen to impede our murder investigation? Or with us not having any corpus delectiЕ. You mean it wasЕrandom?"

"Yeah, Griff, like random. Random Bay City resident drove by, maybe walked by for all I know, saw the corpse, put it in his car, maybe on his back andЕ You know? A real sicko. Took it homeЕor something."

"ThatТs a special kind of crazy, Fats."

"Yeah, Griff, real special," Fats was silent for a moment, thinking. He reached into his pocket and unpeeled a Hersey Bar, consumed it in two quick bites, burped, looked at me and said, "Now, what sick, twisted, piece of human garbage would do a thing like that, Griff?"

I looked at Fats, nodded, said; "Bay City is a big, bad place, Fats. I guess we gotta start making a list."

And thatТs just what we did the very next morning as we sat at JackieТs Diner on Dumont Avenue going over the list of names Fats and I had put together the night before.

Fats offered his usual biting comment on our suspects so far. "What an accumulation of human vermin, lowlifes, parasites, degenerates, loosersЕ Damn, Griff, we gotta lotta names here."

I nodded. Lotta freaks.

Fats put a pencil mark through one name, said, "Cosgrove hung himself last week in his cell."