Murder Applied For. Lloyd Biggle, jr.

you’re right, perhaps—do you know the Crow Bar?”

      “By its reputation—which isn’t good.”

      “I’ll meet you there. In half an hour.”

      “All right.”

      * * * *

      It was a dive. A juke box pounded out a rhythmic blare, a slatternly waitress with a soiled white apron gave Webber a sly wink, and at least two of the arguments along the long bar threatened to end in violence. The hefty bartender was keeping an eye on both, but he managed to give Webber a long stare.

      She was seated in a booth at the back of the room. He had dreaded this meeting as only a man can dread any kind of a reunion with the false partner of his first love affair. He was mildly surprised to find that he could face her with irritation, rather than regret; and with fatigue, rather than instant ardor.

      She was wearing sun glasses, which seemed a ridiculous gesture. Her hair was as blond as he remembered it, which meant that she’d dyed it—again. The last time he’d seen her, from afar, she’d been a brunette. The lovely curve of her cheek, the tiny mole on her chin, the quaintly turned-up nose that gave her always the aspect of a whimsical little girl, the urgent thrust of her breasts—all that was hauntingly familiar. And yet she had changed. She had gained weight. Her eyebrows were painted at a more rakish angle. Her mouth—but surely that couldn’t have changed!

      Gazing at her blankly, he realized the he was really seeing her for the first time. A vampire, Frank Milford had called her. “Drop her, Ron, while you still have some blood left.” And when Webber ignored him Milford cut him out with such deft ease that the humiliation still burned in spite of the close friendship they developed later.

      And she was a vampire. Milford brought him her diary to read, which cured him effectively and permanently. Neither of them ever mentioned her again. Webber had not even been certain that Milford was still seeing her.

      “What are you drinking?” he asked.

      “Beer,” she said.

      “Will you have another?”

      She shook her head. He ordered beer for himself, and as the waitress flounced away she leaned forward and asked urgently, “Did you do it, Ron?”

      He stared at her. “Do what?”

      “Kill Frank?”

      He was too flabbergasted to answer. They regarded each other silently until the waitress brought Webber’s beer.

      “You can tell me,” she purred.

      “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “Why on earth would I want to kill Frank?”

      “I understand perfectly. Why should you deny it?”

      Webber took a deep breath. She actually thought he’d murdered Frank for her! “I haven’t any doubt that Frank was murdered,” he said. He’d accepted that she was a vampire, but that measure of colossal conceit was new to him. “But if there was a girl involved her name was Betty Parnet—not Gloria Lardie. And he was killed because of an insurance investigation, not a love affair. I spent a good part of this evening with the police.”

      “Then they suspect you. It doesn’t surprise me.”

      “It would surprise me if they suspected me. I was helping them. I’m an insurance investigator, too—or had you forgotten?”

      “They turned you loose. I’m glad. But you can’t fool me!”

      He stared at her again. “This is a ridiculous waste of time for both of us,” he said. “But I’m glad I came. You can think anything you like—and I don’t care what it is. Its worth something to know that. When did you see Frank last?”

      She did not answer. He was searching his own memory. He’d paid very little attention to Milford’s comings and goings, but when he thought about it, it seemed a long time since Frank had made an enigmatic telephone call—or had a late date.

      “He’d dropped you, didn’t he?” he asked.

      She lurched forward, upsetting her glass, and slapped his face resoundingly. He mopped the table with paper napkins, and did not even look up as she stalked away.

      Almost before the sharp click of her spike heels had receded someone slid into the booth in her place. Webber glanced up in surprise, and met the saddest pair of eyes he had ever seen. It was a man, weirdly tall and slender, wearing a black suit with white shirt and black bow tie. He looked even more out of place in the Crow Bar than Webber felt.

      He said softly, “Good evening, Mr. Webber.”

      “Have we met before?” Webber asked.

      “To my intense regret, no.”

      “Then how’d you happen to know my name?”

      He gave Webber a smile. “I make it my business to know things—and people. There’s really only one name that interests me tonight, and a short time ago you used it—Betty Parnet.”

      “You were eavesdropping,” Webber said.

      “That is a manifestly improper accusation. My hearing is excellent, and your syllabifications were clearly audible at least four booths away. Your young lady is, I fear, a pronounced schizophrenic with paranoid tendencies, and I prognosticate an unhappy future for her.”

      “She isn’t so young anymore,” Webber said. “That may be part of her trouble.”

      “Indubitably. But though I do not hesitate to frankly delineate a female’s mental condition, I rarely feel at ease in discussing her age. There is a difference between objective reasoning and sheer speculation. You mentioned Betty Parnet.”

      “Did I?”

      The man leaned forward, and his voice lost its lightness and became as cold and hard as burnished metal. “I have a compelling certitude, Master Webber that you know far more than I do about today’s tragic events. You may even know more than I’ll be able to find out. But I can see that this is the wrong time to ask for confidences, Master Webber. Do you wish to congratulate me on my patience?”

      Webber shook his head. “I’m too busy being amazed at mine.”

      A fleeting smile touched the gaunt face. “I’ll be seeing you, Master Webber!”

      He walked away slowly, leaving Webber twiddling his thumbs in perplexity. He drained his glass and decided to have another beer, but before he could summon the waitress another man slid easily into the booth opposite him. That face, at least, was familiar—a detective Webber had known since he was a child.

      “What’d Pronk want?” he asked softly.

      “Who’s Pronk?” Webber asked

      “He was.”

      “Nick Falcone’s right-hand man?”

      “Or his brains, or his number-one stooge. Have it any way you like it.”

      “He sounded like a professor from a girls’ seminary.”

      “That he is not,” the detective said fervently. “I love him for his own sake. He’s unique. He never got through high school, so he’s making up for it by memorizing the Encyclopedia Britannica. He knows everything there is to know through the letter M, but he only talks like a professor when he has time to think what he’s going to say. I can think of a thousand better things to do than tailing him, but orders are orders. Your dad won’t sleep nights until he’s rid the town of both him and Falcone—which must mean he’s had insomnia for twenty years, and as far as I can see it’s due to last for another twenty. We thought we had Pronk cold a week ago, but it was the old story of the disappearing numbers slips. What’d he want?”

      Webber looked at him levelly. If Carter City’s vice lord and his henchman were interested in Betty Parnet, the case was developing angles far beyond the ken of an ordinary