The Line Is Dead

The Line Is Dead
By E. Hoffmann Price
Smashing Detective Stories, December 1951
CHAPTER 1
EVEN FOR the French Quarter of New Orleans, Jeff Carver's
apartment was a conspicuous litter. A Smith & Wesson .38, a Crescent
Agency badge, a blackjack, a fifth of Spanish brandy, and a file of
patrol service reports competed for the space he had cleared to make
room for working out his second installment of income tax. And what
made him frown was not the figures on the paper, but the missing
exemption, as he called Alma Foster.
Alma was Carver's neighbor. Her second floor apartment was across
the patio from his; and because of the Rube Goldberg methods of
remodeling buildings a century and a half old, converting a French or
Spanish mansion into a dozen or more studios and apartments, the
quickest way from Alma's door to the stairs leading down to the patio
was a bridge across to the balcony on his side. But Alma was finding
less and less time to cross over for coffee, or to straighten things out.
Her last visit, a breathless three minutes, had been to leave her income
tax tangle.
"After all, darling, you're a detective; you can figure out what's wrong
with it!"
She would have stayed longer, except that she had a dinner and dancing
date with an important-looking lug who drove a red and black
convertible Cad. And that was not two- timing: first, she had been
entirely frank about her capering around with Herb Lowry, and second,
she had never made Carver any promises. Her story was that, through
meeting Herb Lowry's friends, she would have a grand chance of

switching to a better job. Positions and promotions went largely on the
basis of friendship or kinship: perhaps not a great deal more so than in
other parts of the country, though with the difference that in this
colorful and fun-loving city, people blandly admitted the facts.
A clannish place, the French city, so proud of its Old World
background, yet hearty in its welcome to outsiders.
All this left Carver in the unpleasant situation of wondering whether he
was being tolerant and generous-minded, or merely a chump. His frown
exaggerated the angles of his face. So did the dark brows, and taut
cheeks, and the straight nose which was slightly off center. His hands
were lean, wiry and restless. A mosquito buzzed near him.
Irritably, he looked up, reached--and nipped the nuisance right out of
the air, neatly, between thumb and forefinger. He had not quite touched
the stage of grabbing pistol or blackjack for such chores.
The jingle of the bell brought him to his feet, and he pounced for the
door. Alma had crossed the bridge; she stood spotlighted against the
wrought iron work of the gallery, and the further background of
massive masonry and stucco which on all four sides enclosed the dusky
patio. Her hair was dark, all alive and rippling as though windblown.
She had fine teeth, but the center of her smile was in her dark eyes, and
in her voice.
Alma wore a zippered robe which covered her from dainty ankles to the
smooth line of her chin: the snug fit made it delightfully clear that she
had that rare combination of slenderness and a full-fashioned feminine
shapeliness.
"Hi, darling! How much do those bandits owe me for refund?" she
asked, in gay and breathless optimism. Without waiting for an answer,
Alma glided in, pivoted, and laying her long, slender hands against his
cheeks, gave him a blithe and breathless kiss. "Ooh, I've got just time
for a drop of brandy; I love Pedro Domecq."

He looked at the hair-do, the makeup, now slightly smudged, and the
golden sandals, open-toed and twinkling. He sniffed the billowing
sweetness of Black Narcissus. "You smell like a date with somebody
else," he grumbled, and not as whimsically as he had tried to make it
sound. "All right, honey, meet Pedro Domecq."
He rinsed the coffee cups, which had been half full of inky black
Creole brew, flushed the cigarette butts from the saucers, and poured a
dollop of Three Vines.
"Jeff, you know who is really important. Don't be that way. I am
meeting people, and things are clicking. You do believe me--you know
you do! I'd feel awful if you didn't."
"Why not let Herb fix up your tax headaches?"
"Oh, he sends his to an expert. How's the patrol service?"
Eagerness lighted eyes and face: she had a knack of making present
company seem the most important of all important persons.
CARVER WAFTED Alma to the Chesterfield with one hand, and with
the other swept a clutter of newspapers and magazines to clear sitting
space. "It's looking up, and better than being a private snoop. See here,