Lawrence Block - Scudder 05 - Eight Million Ways to Die In memory of
BILLY DUGAN
CLIFF BOSTONJOHN
BAMBI
MARK THE DWARF
and
RED-HAIRED MAGGIE
Contents
Epigraph
1 I saw her entrance. It would have been hard to miss. She had blonde hair that was close to white,…
2 There was a problem. In order for me to talk to Chance I had to find him, and she couldn't…
3 I got up around ten-thirty, surprisingly well rested after six hours of skimming the surface of sleep.
4 He wasn't hard to recognize. His suit was a dove gray flannel and with it he wore a bright red…
5 I read the paper while I ate breakfast. The housing cop in Corona was still in critical condition…
6 Kim Dakkinen had died in a room on the seventeenth floor of the Galaxy Downtowner, one…
7 It was no big deal. I didn't even feel the drink at first, and then what I experienced was a…
8 I bought the News the next morning. A new atrocity had already driven Kim Dakkinen off…
9 I woke up suddenly, consciousness coming on abruptly and at top volume.
10 He said, 'You still think I killed her, don't you?' 'What does it matter what I think?'
11 The circular drive in Central Park is almost exactly six miles around.
12 'I didn't know her all that well. I met her a year or so ago at the beauty parlor…
13 When I left Elaine's the sky was growing dark and the streets were thick with rush-hour traffic.
14 He took me around the corner and a block and a half south on Tenth Avenue to a tavern…
15 I walked straight back to my hotel. The liquor stores were closed but the bars were still open.
16 Donna Campion's apartment was on the tenth floor of the white brick building on East…
17 I had taken a cab from Morton Street to Donna's place on East Seventeenth.
18 Saturday was a good day for knocking on doors. It usually is because more people are…
19 Just as I was leaving her building, a cab pulled up in front to discharge a passenger.
20 Danny Boy held his glass of Russian vodka aloft so that he could look at the light shine through it.
21 I didn't cross the street. The kid with the smashed face and broken legs was not the only…
22 She was dead, all right. She lay on her back, nude, one arm flung back over her head and…
23 It wasn't half the hassle it might have been. I didn't know either of the cops who came out…
24 Tuesday was largely devoted to a game of Follow the Fur.
25 I called Durkin from a Dunkin' Donuts on Woodside Avenue .
26 There was a message at the desk to call Danny Boy Bell.
27 'Jesus, I need a shave,' Durkin said. He'd just dropped what was left of his cigarette…
28 The body was still there, sprawled full-length on the king-size bed.
29 The telephone woke me. I fought my way out of sleep like an underwater swimmer coming…
30 Around mid-morning I went home to shower and shave and put on my best suit.
31 We left the converted firehouse with me in the back seat and Chance wearing a chauffeur's cap.
32 Around ten-thirty that night I walked in and out of Poogan's Pub on West Seventy-second Street .
33 The LL train starts at Eighth Avenue , crosses Manhattan along Fourteenth Street , and winds up…
34 In my room I put the two pounds of coffee on the dresser, then went and made sure nobody…
The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.
— EDGAR ALLAN POE
Chapter 1
I saw her entrance. It would have been hard to miss. She had blonde hair that was close to white, the sort
