Read Death Was in the Picture for Free Online Page B

like you’d be willing to see how much it
would
take.”
    Dex went all quiet again for a while. I could see him working things out in his head. I felt a little sorry for him. I do when he’s like that; when the drink is close on him but not quite there. He can still see the shape of things then, still see how things are. But the checks and balances are injured. He can put the pieces together, but they don’t always add up.
    “Well, time to face the music, I guess,” he said finally. “Get Xander Dean on the phone for me, will you?”
    Back at my desk, I dialed the number the big man had left the day before. I let it ring a dozen or more times before I decided to try later. Determined to let Dex ripen in whatever juices he was brewing, I busied myself with various housekeeping chores in the outer office. At three that afternoon I went out for the late edition of the newspaper from the vendor who always sold his papers just a few steps from the front door of our building.
    S TARLET S LAIN, the headline of the
Los Angeles Courier
blared, and then, beneath it in slightly smaller letters: LAIRD WYNDHAM’S LATEST ROLE: MURDERER?
    “Sad business, huh Miss Pangborn?” the elevator operator shook his head when he noticed the paper in my hand. “I just saw him in
Lake Country Cowboy
a month or so ago. I would never have suspected anything. He seemed like such a nice guy.” I just looked at the young man, but didn’t say anything. What was there to say?
    Back at the office I brought the paper straight in to Dex. “Is this her?” I said pointing to a studio photograph of a young woman on the cover of the
Courier.
The paper said her name was Fleur MacKenzie. She looked breathtaking. And now she was dead.
    “Yeah, that’s her all right,” Dex said, taking the paper. “But you wouldn’t have known it if she was standing here next to this photo when she was alive. I’m guessin’ this was taken a few years ago.”
    I took the paper from Dex and, uninvited, plopped myself back in the chair opposite his desk. He didn’t stop me. We both knew he wasn’t in reading condition and he trusted me to hit the highlights.
    As I settled in I realized that there were lots of highlights here Dex probably wouldn’t even want to hear about—not just now, anyway. In his current state he was likely to rush out andhurt something. He’s a man who loves many things, and not all of them stuff you and I would agree with. But, at heart, he’s a man who loves the truth.
    From the first, I suspected I’d find no truth in the
Los Angeles Courier.
Even so, my heart sank as I read. I’d been completely in the thrall of Laird Wyndham, motion picture star. Over the years I’d spent so many hours with him in darkened theaters. I’d seen him ride into a sunset on the back of a noble steed, the virtue of the girl he loved intact due his own diligence. I’d seen him conquer corporate iniquity and overcome human greed and outdistance human hatred. I’d seen him die, gloriously and with honor. In over a dozen films I’d seen him spit in the face of all that is dark in the human heart and stand up for all that is good and gallant. I loved him for it. I loved him for what he’d helped me to believe.
    And I wasn’t alone, hadn’t thought I was alone. So many others—millions of others—loved him for that golden light he helped shine on humanity. I would never have thought it could be different.
    Yet here I was, curled into the big chair in Dex’s office, not even at first aware of the tears that rolled down my cheeks as I read.
    “It’s like it’s not about him at all,” I said at length.
    “How so?” Dex asked. I tried not to notice when he poured another couple of fingers of bourbon into his glass. The hard liquor slid over the ice and glinted with a mean promise.
    “The man in this article,” I said slowly, considering my words, “the man they describe here. He’s a monster.”
    Dex didn’t answer right away, just heaved a big