Dark Maze

solved, all by yourself. After all, here you sit drinking my whiskey and pumping me for God-only-knows-what on the pretext that I’m somehow on line to be the next tabloid murder sensation.”
    “Oh, that’s no pretext,” I said. “Murder and real estate have a way of finding each other in New York.”
    “Would you take another drink?” Prescott asked me. “Never mind, I know about the Pope.”
    He got up and fixed us two more. And when he sat down again, he looked ten years older. He shook his head and drank half his whiskey.
    “Hockaday, don’t confuse me with my brother, Dan. You and I have got no quarrel at all about him, ethically or aesthetically. I know that flashy operation of his over there in Manhattan never got started up by virgin birth, all right? But like I told you, we’re different men. I run a clean shop here. Just look around, man. Do I look like the kind of a guy they call The Wendell?”
    “You’ve got me on that, sir.” I tipped my glass to him and then sipped.
    Prescott shook his head sadly again. “There’s no way I’m winding up like The Dan. No way. First, you see, there’s no bimbo in my life like he’s got and my wife isn’t hiring any press agents or divorce lawyers. Second, you can see for yourself I’m not in any danger of going bankrupt like my brother from carrying too much expensive overhead. I do indulge myself in the very best whiskey, however.“
    “Indulgences must never be hesitant,” I said.
    Prescott now tipped his glass to me. Then said, “You know, Dan’s not actually a bad guy. At least he never was when we were growing up together, here in Brooklyn. He’s just stupid. You’d be surprised how many rich people are stupid. The world listens to them, though. Why, I don’t know.”
    I thought about that a minute and said, “In many cases, that’s how the rich get richer. Take that wife of your brother’s. How smart is she?”
    “Dumb as a hydrant.”
    “I read in the paper just the other day how some publisher is forking over a million dollars to put her name on a ghost-written novel all about the glamorous world of the rich and foolish.”
    “Well, there you are, and I expect the peasants will lap it up,” Prescott said. “Here’s to business in a rich and foolish country, long may her banner wave.”
    “I’ll drink to that.”
    “Maybe you understand why I want to invest in gambling casinos,” Prescott said. “It’s one of the first places fools go to part with their money.”
    There was a knock at the door, and Eileen Cream stepped in. “If you don’t need anything else today, I’m going home now, Mr. P.” Then she looked at me and asked, “So, the boss going to get hacked to death tonight, or what?” Prescott answered, “For heaven’s sake, Eileen, I’m going to be just fine. Detective Hockaday had his fun. Now run along home and try to save some of the gossip for the newspapers.”
    When she left, Prescott looked a little whiter in the face than usual. He asked me, “Well, what about it?”
    “Have you heard the news about the homeless artist the police are looking for in connection with all the murders lately?”
    “Of course I have. They call him Picasso.”
    “There’s a painting of his at Astroland.”
    Prescott cut me off. “I know all about that. When my office was out recruiting people in Coney Island to pass out handbills for casino gambling, this dwarf you’re talking about…”
    “Big Stuff.”
    “That’s him. Anyway, he came by here one day asking a lot of questions. And telling us all about Coney Island and what a great artist this guy called Picasso was. And I mean was, as in has-been.”
    “What kind of questions did he ask?”
    This put a little color into Prescott’s potato face. He said, “Oh, just a lot of things that weren’t any of his damn business. Which is exactly what I told him.”
    “Have you ever been out there to see Picasso’s painting? It’s on the front of a spook house called Fire and Brimstone.”
    “Sounds real scary, Hockaday. But the answer is no, I haven’t been out to see the great has-been artist’s handi
    work. Why should I? I don’t own the Fire and Brimstone, or anything else in Astroland.” Then Prescott grinned like the president and added, “Not yet, anyway.”
    “I guess not. I hear you’ve got a competitor out there in Coney for the carnival property along the boardwalk. A guy called Johnny Halo.”
    Prescott laughed at that. Then he got up, poured