The Newell Murder serialization 2

“You can’t be serious, Dave,” he heard Edwin Waters snap (a sure sign that vehemence was coming) behind him.

“Just what did we say? Short legs, wasn’t it? You believe us now?” a voice he felt was Jay Fox’s said in the joy of victory.

He was at the door with one foot out when someone called his name after him. He turned and saw Al Burdett, art critic, gesturing to him to wait as he came fast toward him.

He leaned on the wall and waited for Al to catch up.

And when he had: “What’s it, pal?”

“I need you, Dave,” Al answered. “You got a story you wanna go catch?”

Lauren resumed walking. “Nope. Just wanted to drop in at the precinct to see if anything’s cropped up.”

Al lit a cigarette. Camel Light. He offered Lauren one but it was declined with “you know I don’t smoke in the morning, Al.”

Al looked at him pitifully. “You don’t know what you’re missing, man.”

Lauren just shrugged. He wondered what one could miss by not smoking in the A.M period.

“Well, Dave, my car has a fault and it’s in the garage and I got this important story to catch. Could you drop me off?”

Lauren couldn’t refuse, even if he had wanted to, because he knew when Al was calling in a favour and Al had done plenty of that for him. “No problem,” he had to say. “Where do you want to go to?”

Al kept pace with him. “The Bolognese Gallery. Know the place?”

“Yeah. Who wouldn’t know a place where the stars frequent?”

“Sure. On Sunset.” Al dragged heavily on his cigarette and then blew out a plume of smoke that soon faded from his vision into the atmosphere.

They reached Lauren’s car then, a two-door Vauxhall Nova GTE 1.6i, red, bucket seats, blue leather upholstery. They settled in its two front seats, Lauren behind the wheel.

He kicked the car alive and eased it into the traffic. They were halfway to the gallery when Al said, “There’s this honey from out of town coming to spend the weekend with me and I got to drive her around, show her the famous studios, Bel Air, Beverly Hills, the J. Paul Getty Museum and all those other tourist attractions that we really don’t see as a big deal anymore but the out-of-towners do.”

Lauren could sense what was coming. “Oh! Good for you … and her of course.”

“So I know you, and I know you know what I’m driving at.”

Note: This is the second page of the Oseyiza Oogbodo book, The Newell Murder. The first page was published last week on this blog and more pages will follow still on this blog. But it’s also available on Amazon through the link: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/bookshelf