Checkpoint Charlie (25 page)

Authors: Brian Garfield

BOOK: Checkpoint Charlie

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Grebe said, “We'll take it under advisement, Charlie. Stick close to the shop until we let you know what's next, all right?”

*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *

I
N
M
YERSON
'
S
office Joe Cutter and I shared out a brown-bagged lunch of liverwurst-on-ryes. Joe's teeth crunched a pickle. “You didn't prove the case for the defense,” he said, “but at least you cast a reasonable doubt on the prosecution's case. But they're going to put you out to pasture all the same, you know. Gold watch and a pension. I wouldn't call it a triumph.”

He looked up then, suddenly angry. “You deserve better, Charlie. I hate to see it end this way.”

I gave him a smile. “It won't. This is not Charlie's last caper.”

“Say again?”

“We'll never know whether I was right or wrong, will we. Not until we get the truth out of Mikhail Yaskov.”

He went completely still, fingers poised on the pickle. “What?”

I said, “Yaskov's the only one who
knows,
Joe.”

“Come on. You're not going after Yaskov. On your own? Behind the Iron Curtain? At your age? Charlie, you can't be serious.”

I grinned, though. “I guess I can.”

*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Davis Publications for permission to reprint the stories listed from the following publication:

Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
: “Joe Cutter's Game” (which served as the basis for “Charlie's Game” in this volume), July 1976

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
: “Charlie's Shell Game,” February 1978; “Checkpoint Charlie,” May 1978; “Trust Charlie,” June 1978; “Charlie's Vigorish,” August 1978; “Challenge for Charlie,” October 1978; “Charlie in Moscow,” November 1978; “Charlie in the Tundra,” January 1979; “Charlie's Dodge,” March 1979; “Passport for Charlie,” July 1979; “Charlie's Chase,” October 1979.

cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

This edition published in 2011 by
MysteriousPress.com
/Open Road Integrated Media

180 Varick Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com