Black Evening by David Morrell

stalled trucks, accidents, and detours. Finally, the limousine double-parked on Thirty-Second Street, and Eric stumbled with his burden toward a store with Olivettis in the window.
    "I can't fix this," the young serviceman informed him.
    Eric moaned. "You've got to."
    "See this brace inside. It's cracked. I don't have any parts for something strange like this." The serviceman looked horrified by the sheer ugliness of the machine. "I'd have to weld the brace. But buddy, look, a piece of junk this old, it's like a worn-out shirt. You patch an elbow, and the shirt tears at the patch. You patch the new hole, and the shirt tears at the new patch. When you're through, you haven't got a shirt. You've just got patches. If I weld this brace, the heat'll weaken this old metal, and the brace'll crack in other places. You'll keep coming back till you've got more welds than metal. Anyway, a weird design like this, I wouldn't want to fool with it. Believe me, buddy, I don't understand this thing. You'd better find the guy who built it. Maybe
he
can fix it. Maybe he's got extra parts. Say, don't I know you?"
    Eric frowned. "I beg your pardon?"
    "Aren't you famous? Weren't you on the Carson show?"
    "No, you're mistaken," Eric told him furtively. He glanced at his gold Rolex and saw that it was almost noon. Good God, he'd lost the morning. "I've got to hurry."
    Eric grabbed the broken typewriter and tottered from the building toward the limousine. The traffic's blare unnerved him.
    "Greenwich Village," Eric blurted to the bored chauffeur. "As fast as you can get there."
    "In this traffic? Sir, it's noon. This is midtown."
    Eric's stomach soured. He trembled, sweating. When the driver reached the Village, Eric gave directions in a frenzy. He kept glancing at his watch. At almost twenty after one, he had a sudden fearful thought. Oh, God, suppose the place is closed. Suppose the old guy's dead or out of business.
    Eric cringed. But then he squinted through the windshield, seeing the dusty windows of the junk shop down the street. He scrambled from the limousine before it stopped. He grabbed the massive typewriter, and although adrenaline spurred him, his knees wobbled as he fumbled at the creaky junk shop door and lurched inside the musty narrow shadowed room.
    The old guy stood exactly where he'd been the last time Eric walked in: hunched across a battered desk, a half-inch of cigarette between his yellowed fingers, scowling at a race-track form. He even wore the same frayed sweater with the buttons missing. Cobweb hair. Sallow face.
    The old guy peered up from the racing form. "All sales are final. Can't you read the sign?"
    Off balance from his burden, Eric cocked his head in disbelief. "You still remember me?"
    "You bet I do. I can't forget that piece of trash. I told you I don't take returns."
    "But that's not why I'm here."
    "Then why'd you bring that damn thing back? Good God, it's ugly. I can't stand to look at it."
    "It's broken."
    "Yeah, it figures."
    "I can't get it fixed. The serviceman won't touch it. He's afraid he'll break it even more."
    "So throw it in the garbage. Sell it as scrap metal. It weighs enough. You'll maybe get a couple dollars."
    "But I like it!"
    "Have you always had bad taste?"
    "The serviceman suggested the guy who built it might know how to fix it."
    "And if cows had wings — "
    "Look, tell me where you got it!"
    "How much is the information worth to you?"
    "A hundred bucks!"
    The old man looked suspicious. "I won't take a check."
    "In cash! For God's sake, hurry!"
    "Where's the money?"
    The old man took several hours. Eric paced and smoked and sweated. Finally the old man came groaning up from his basement with some scribbles on a scrap of paper.
    "An estate. Out on Long Island. Some guy died. He drowned, I think. Let's see." The old man struggled to decipher what he'd scrawled on the scrap of paper. "Yeah, his name was Winston Davis."
    Eric clutched the battered desk; his stomach fluttered; his heart