The Line Is Dead | Page 3

Carre--the "Old Square", that original French city once enclosed by parapets on three sides, and guarded by the river on the fourth.
He looked in at the Original Absinthe House, and the Old Absinthe House, both of which, appropriately, were on Bourbon Street.
Inquiry got him no word of Lowry or friends of Lowry. He had no better luck at several of the less historical spots. But at the Slave Exchange, operated by a solid citizen named Lamazou--who boasted that he never forgot a face nor the recipe for a drink, however complicated the latter or uninteresting the former--Carver got his break.
"I guarantee you, he was here!" the good man declared, happy to prove that the Slave Exchange offered services beyond the modest claim that here one got a better Sazerac than Old Man Sazerac himself ever mixed, and a better Ramos Fizz than the original Ramos had ever dreamed of. "He was here, and I tell you, he was sore."
"What about?" Carver wondered, innocently and cheerily.
Since the information had not been given in confidence, the proprietor saw no good cause for making more of it than Lowry himself had. "About the income tax," he answered. "The government is gypping him, like everybody. Or it is the expert. So he is going home to fix it."
"I'm an expert," Carver declared. "And I bet I can help him plenty."
Apparently, Lowry was going nonchalant, demonstrating to Alma that his tax problems were more important than women, she or any other. Carver, good and fed-up, regardless of how honest Alma's intentions undoubtedly were, found it more and more necessary to leave Lowry with sufficient souvenirs of the evening so that his social inclinations would lead him elsewhere. Carver's only mistake, as he saw it, had been to proclaim his intentions to Alma. It would have been much better to have said nothing, and let her guess, bit by bit, why Lowry no longer called.
If Alma really had to meet people who were the key to better employment, she could readily enough find a new face.
"A new face. . ." Carver savored the phrase, as, having overshot his mark by two numbers, he left his parked car and set out afoot to Lowry's place. "A nice new one for Lowry . . . just what that stinker needs."
The house was old fashioned, one of the several survivors of the day when Carrollton was a separate town. It was set well back, with magnolias shading the front. The broad leaves of plantain stalks made a secondary screen about the house.
There were lights. The front door was slightly ajar. This was strictly custom-built; give him a taste of visitors who barge in without knocking.
Carver went down the hall toward the light, which came from a doorway. The room into which he stepped was in more of a litter than his own, but the effect was entirely different.
The phone, yanked from its wall niche, lay in the midst of a scattering of ashes and butts spilled from a smoking stand. Bourbon, broken tumblers, a bottle of Seven-Up, and a cigarette container were blended into a mess of papers swept from the work table, on which a typewriter still sat. Blood splashed the plaster, as well as the floor, and the overturned chairs.
Lowry lay there, a sodden and soggy heap. Whether this was a blunt-instrument murder, or a knock-down fight in which the victor, running amuck, had booted and trampled an unconscious opponent to death, would require a closer inspection of the body than Carver wanted to give it. What upset his stomach was that this which was sprawled out before him was a horrible exaggeration of the decisive cold-caulking he had come to dish out. His wrath kicked back and sickened him. He would have run out--he had to fight the urge not to--had it not been for his loud-mouthed tour of bars. And there was even more: for, while this gruesome killing might not be connected with him, Alma would inevitably have her own doubts, her suspicions, so that human qualm would rise as a barrier between her and Carver.
He now had himself for a client. While this was a dish for the cops, Carver had too big a stake to let him stand by, without trying to make a clear cut and decisive case against the killer.
CHAPTER 2
CARVER latched the front door and went to the end of the hall to unlatch the back.
He drew a shade, so that light from the hall would not be visible from the street. Due to his unfamiliarity with the place, he had overshot his mark; a similar old-fashioned house had tricked him. He had parked in the shadows of tall trees. Finally, the avenue was wide, with a parkway and row of palms down the center. Thus his arrival had