Read The Poisoners for Free Online Page B

She didn’t answer immediately, and I said, “You mentioned somebody named Frankie out there. Would that be Frank Warfel?”
    “Y-yes. Do you know him?”
    “We’ve met,” I said. “Just barely. What’s your name?”
    She hesitated. “I’m Beverly Blaine,” she said, but after a moment she went on quickly. “Well, for Hollywood purposes I’m Beverly Blaine. Can you see Mary Sokolnicek on a movie marquee, Mr. Helm?”
    “What were you waiting to talk with me about, Mary-Beverly?”
    “It’s about… about the girl you went to see, the redhead, the one who got hurt. I… I wanted to find out… I mean, can you tell me how badly… Oh, hell, I mean how is she?”
    “She’s dead,” I said.
    Beverly Blaine stared at me for a moment without moving. Then she stepped back blindly and sank down on the bed, still looking wide-eyed at my face.
    “
Dead?
” She licked her lips. “But I thought, since she’d hung on so long, that she had a pretty good chance of…”
    “She’s dead,” I said. “She never had a chance, not really. Not with two .44 slugs in her. What’s it to you, Mary-Beverly? How well did you know her?”
    “I hardly knew her at all. I just…” The disheveled little girl on the bed licked her lips once more. “I just killed her,” she whispered.
    There was a long silence in the room—well, as much silence as you ever get in a big city like Los Angeles. The girl was probably so used to it she didn’t even hear it, but having just spent a couple of weeks in a relatively small town, I was aware of the unceasing roar of traffic outside.
    I said softly, “That’s a damn popular murder, sweetheart. Everybody seems to want a piece of it. I was just talking with a man called Arthur Brown who claims he killed Annette O’Leary.”
    “You know The Basher?”
    “Introductions courtesy of Frank Warfel,” I said. “It’s too complicated to explain, but Brown claims he shot Annette by mistake. How did you shoot her and what was your motive?”
    “Oh, I didn’t actually shoot her, Mr. Helm!” Beverly sounded shocked by the idea. “Heavens, I don’t know anything about guns! I just… just sent her to her death. Instead of me. That’s how The Basher came to make his mistake, don’t you understand?”
    “Not exactly,” I said. “Tell me.”
    She drew a long breath, sitting there. “Well,” she said, “well, as you’ve probably gathered, I’m in trouble in this town, bad trouble. I was trying to get away. I’d done something, something they couldn’t let me get away with. Like talking out of turn. Well, I hadn’t done it yet, but I’d threatened to do it. Me and my big mouth.”
    “They?”
    “Frank Warfel and the people behind him, who are even worse if it’s possible. And you’d better believe it’s possible.” She paused a moment, and went on: “When things didn’t go right for me in Hollywood—that fancy stage name never even made the screen credits, if you know what I mean—when things went bad, I got a job in a certain place… Well, never mind the gory details. Anyway, Frank saw me and liked me and took me out of there. For a while. A couple of years. Until he got tired of little girls and found himself a big girl for a change. He likes variety, Frankie does.” Beverly frowned at the nylon carpet between her green suede shoes. “It wasn’t… wasn’t easy work while it lasted, but it paid well, if you know what I mean, Mr. Helm.”
    “Sure,” I said. “You said you were trying to get out of town.”
    “That’s right.” The girl’s voice was dull. “When I got near home that day—my God, it was only yesterday!—after putting on my bigmouth act for Mister Frank Warfel and his current sweetie—and what a slinky blonde boa constrictor-type she is!—when I got near home I spotted The Basher waiting across the street from my apartment building. That’s when I realized that I’d, well, talked myself to death, getting mad and jealous like that. The word