The Line Is Dead

The Line Is Dead
By E. Hoffmann Price
Smashing Detective Stories, December 1951
CHAPTER 1
EVEN FOR the French Quarter of New Orleans, Jeff Carver's apartment was a conspicuous litter. A Smith & Wesson .38, a Crescent Agency badge, a blackjack, a fifth of Spanish brandy, and a file of patrol service reports competed for the space he had cleared to make room for working out his second installment of income tax. And what made him frown was not the figures on the paper, but the missing exemption, as he called Alma Foster.
Alma was Carver's neighbor. Her second floor apartment was across the patio from his; and because of the Rube Goldberg methods of remodeling buildings a century and a half old, converting a French or Spanish mansion into a dozen or more studios and apartments, the quickest way from Alma's door to the stairs leading down to the patio was a bridge across to the balcony on his side. But Alma was finding less and less time to cross over for coffee, or to straighten things out. Her last visit, a breathless three minutes, had been to leave her income tax tangle.
"After all, darling, you're a detective; you can figure out what's wrong with it!"
She would have stayed longer, except that she had a dinner and dancing date with an important-looking lug who drove a red and black convertible Cad. And that was not two- timing: first, she had been entirely frank about her capering around with Herb Lowry, and second, she had never made Carver any promises. Her story was that, through meeting Herb Lowry's friends, she would have a grand chance of switching to a better job. Positions and promotions went largely on the basis of friendship or kinship: perhaps not a great deal more so than in other parts of the country, though with the difference that in this colorful and fun-loving city, people blandly admitted the facts.
A clannish place, the French city, so proud of its Old World background, yet hearty in its welcome to outsiders.
All this left Carver in the unpleasant situation of wondering whether he was being tolerant and generous-minded, or merely a chump. His frown exaggerated the angles of his face. So did the dark brows, and taut cheeks, and the straight nose which was slightly off center. His hands were lean, wiry and restless. A mosquito buzzed near him.
Irritably, he looked up, reached--and nipped the nuisance right out of the air, neatly, between thumb and forefinger. He had not quite touched the stage of grabbing pistol or blackjack for such chores.
The jingle of the bell brought him to his feet, and he pounced for the door. Alma had crossed the bridge; she stood spotlighted against the wrought iron work of the gallery, and the further background of massive masonry and stucco which on all four sides enclosed the dusky patio. Her hair was dark, all alive and rippling as though windblown.
She had fine teeth, but the center of her smile was in her dark eyes, and in her voice.
Alma wore a zippered robe which covered her from dainty ankles to the smooth line of her chin: the snug fit made it delightfully clear that she had that rare combination of slenderness and a full-fashioned feminine shapeliness.
"Hi, darling! How much do those bandits owe me for refund?" she asked, in gay and breathless optimism. Without waiting for an answer, Alma glided in, pivoted, and laying her long, slender hands against his cheeks, gave him a blithe and breathless kiss. "Ooh, I've got just time for a drop of brandy; I love Pedro Domecq."
He looked at the hair-do, the makeup, now slightly smudged, and the golden sandals, open-toed and twinkling. He sniffed the billowing sweetness of Black Narcissus. "You smell like a date with somebody else," he grumbled, and not as whimsically as he had tried to make it sound. "All right, honey, meet Pedro Domecq."
He rinsed the coffee cups, which had been half full of inky black Creole brew, flushed the cigarette butts from the saucers, and poured a dollop of Three Vines.
"Jeff, you know who is really important. Don't be that way. I am meeting people, and things are clicking. You do believe me--you know you do! I'd feel awful if you didn't."
"Why not let Herb fix up your tax headaches?"
"Oh, he sends his to an expert. How's the patrol service?"
Eagerness lighted eyes and face: she had a knack of making present company seem the most important of all important persons.
CARVER WAFTED Alma to the Chesterfield with one hand, and with the other swept a clutter of newspapers and magazines to clear sitting space. "It's looking up, and better than being a private snoop. See here, you forget that better job; the patrol service is just about come to the point when it's enough for