The Paperback Show Murders by Robert Reginald Page B

me he’s got something valuable that he wants to sell, and then when I meet him at the Tiger, he says he hasn’t got it now. So yeah, I was angry. Wasted my time, didn’t he?”
    â€œWhat was that about a threat?”
    He laughed, long and loud, a giant wheeze of a breeze that sounded like a dying vacuum cleaner.
    â€œHe accused me of unethical business practices,” Freddie said. “Yeah, right, like he was so above-board about everything he’s ever done. I mean, who really wrote The O-Man ? Brody may have had a hand in it, but it doesn’t read like anything else he ever produced.”
    â€œYou saying he had a ghost writer?” I asked.
    â€œI know he had one,” the bookdealer said. “And when I mentioned that little fact to him, he got real holier-than-thou, and started telling me that he’d file a formal complaint about the way I’d handled some of his manuscripts. Well, they were pure crap, and yeah, they didn’t bring much, but Dameen’s not exactly a well-known name any longer, is he? He wouldn’t let me handle the real hot potato, the original typescript of his one bestseller—because that would reveal him to be a fraud.”
    â€œThen who did write The O-Man ?”
    â€œThat’s my secret,” Freddie said. “And then he turns around and says he has the book after all. I don’t even think he knew what he was saying by then.”
    â€œ Which book?” I asked.
    â€œYou know which book: I don’t have to tell you anything—you know it all. Now, let me finish my drink in peace.”
    * * * * * * *
    When I got back to my room, I was surprised to find Margie waiting for me. “You’re free!” I said, not being able to think of anything witty or even appropriate. I invited her in, and I sat on the bed while she took the only chair.
    â€œLuvitti got me arraigned in Night Court, I pleaded ‘Not Guilty,’ and the judge set a bond I was able to meet. Thank the stars! I wouldn’t have wanted to spend the rest of the night in that god-awful place.
    â€œOh, what were you able to find out—anything?”
    I gave her a brief rundown on my activities after she was arrested. “The problem is,” I said, “I haven’t gotten anywhere, not really, except that every question I ask seems to make the situation worse. I have no doubt that Freddie would kill for the right property, if he thought he could get away with it, I distrust Gully Foyle, and I don’t know what to think about Brody Dameen. He’s drunk half the time, but how much of that is fake?”
    â€œYou think they were talking about Castle Dred ?” she asked.
    â€œI don’t know, not for sure. Probably, but every so often, I wonder.”
    â€œDo you think the cops have actually found anything to incriminate me—or anyone else?”
    â€œDon’t know that, either. Pfisch is sure as hell not going to confide in someone like me. And while he may have arrested you, I wonder how much he’s actually got on you other than circumstantial evidence. I mean, did they find anything in your room?”
    â€œNot that they told me about. They grilled me for an hour, that’s all, and said they had my fingerprints in Lissa’s room, on her furniture, on the door, and a few other places—but I’d already admitted being there. My attorney seems to think they’ve got nothing, really; I’m just convenient. He doubts that the case will actually go to trial unless they turn up something really awful.”
    â€œLike the book.”
    â€œLike the book,” she said. “But nobody actually seems to have the book, despite what everybody is saying. If they have it, why haven’t ‘they’ produced it?—and by they , I mean the cops, and Brody, and Gully, and Freddie—the lot of them. Where is it? Lissa apparently had the signed copy that first day, when she read out