Robert Bloch - Shooting Star Spiderweb

by Robert Bloch

A famous movie star found dead on the set of his latest picture...

Drugs hastily disposed of at the scene of the crime...

Its the stuff of Tinseltown scandaland could ruin the investment Harry Bannock made in the dead mans library of films.

For help, Bannock turns to Mark Clayburn, a one-eyed private eye with his own history of scandals. But can Clayburn uncover the truth about Dick Ryans murder before time runs out for Ryans co-stars...and for Clayburn himself?

Robert Bloch is one of the all-time masters.

Peter Straub

Robert Bloch was the legendary author of PSYCHO and a true Hollywood insider, writing scripts for numerous movies and TV shows including ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, Boris Karloffs THRILLER, and the original STAR TREK. You havent see Hollywoods dark side till youve seen it through Blochs eyes...

SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY:

GRAVE DESCEND by John Lange

THE PEDDLER by Richard S. Prather

LUCKY AT CARDS by Lawrence Block

ROBBIES WIFE by Russell Hill

THE VENGEFUL VIRGIN by Gil Brewer

THE WOUNDED AND THE SLAIN by David Goodis

BLACKMAILER by George Axelrod

SONGS OF INNOCENCE by Richard Aleas

FRIGHT by Cornell Woolrich

KILL NOW, PAY LATER by Robert Terrall

SLIDE by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

DEAD STREET by Mickey Spillane

DEADLY BELOVED by Max Allan Collins

A DIET OF TREACLE by Lawrence Block

MONEY SHOT by Christa Faust

ZERO COOL by John Lange

by Robert Bloch

A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

(HCC-042)

First Hard Case Crime edition: April 2008

Published by

Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street

London SE1 0UP

in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should know that it is stolen property. It was reported as unsold and destroyed to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this stripped book.

Shooting Star copyright 1958 by Ace Books, Inc.

Spiderweb copyright 1954 by Ace Books, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Shooting Star cover painting copyright 2008 by Arthur Suydam

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Print edition ISBN 978-0-85768-355-7

E-book ISBN 978-0-85768-393-9

Cover design by Cooley Design Lab

Design direction by Max Phillips

Typeset by Swordsmith Productions

The name Hard Case Crime and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

Printed in the United States of America

Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com

My private eye was a little bloodshot this morning.

I focused it on the mirror, then wished I hadnt. There was somebody in the mirror I didnt care to see: the tall, thin guy with the graying hair; the man with the bloodshot eye. He bothered me. I didnt like the way he looked today. Hed shaved and dressed too carelessly, and with that black eye-patch and the ridiculous little mustache, he bore a mocking resemblance to the man in those shirt ads of a few years back. Besides, his good eye was bloodshot.

We nodded at one another in the mirror though, just like old friends. Why not? I knew all about him and he knew all about me. Maybe I didnt approve of my own reflection but, who knows, perhaps my reflection didnt approve of me, either. We were even on that score.

Maybe my reflection remembered the days when I had two eyes. The days before the hair started to turn gray and the collars began to fray a little at the edges. The days when I was Mark Clayburn Literary Agency, with an office on the Strip.

Well, I remembered those days, too. Perhaps thats why my eye got bloodshotfrom too much remembering, from drinking too many toasts to the past. But it couldnt be helped. I was stuck with my reflection and my reflection was stuck with me. Me, Mark Clayburn, still a Literary Agency, but not on the Strip any more.

I thought about that for a moment, thought about the long road leading from the Strip to Olive Street in downtown L.A., and of the things Id lost along the way. The eye went in the accident, and most of my savings were gone by the time I got out of the hospital. Then I found my clients had disappeared, and my help, and the big office.

So here I was, starting all over again. Just a part-time tenpercenter, really, with a typewriter, a telephone, and a couple of small clients. Plus a license as a Notary Public and another one as a Private Investigator. Anything to make a buck. Not a very fast buck, either.

My bloodshot eye did a fast pirouette around the office. Nothing much to see there: a desk, files, a few chairs. No beautiful bra-breaking blonde secretary, no top-shelf rye in the bottom drawer. It was just a walkup office, the kind nobody ever comes to unless theyve been kicked out of all the better places first.

I went over to the desk and sat down. This was no time to feel sorry for myself. Save that for tonight. Right now I had work to do: a science-fiction yarn to send to Boucher, for a client; another to try on a confessions mag, and a true-detective job to revise.

That was still my meatthe true-detective yarn. I picked it up and started to read it over, wondering for the ten thousandth time why so many people are interested in crime and its solution. How many of them identify themselves with the detective and how many of them identify themselves with the criminal? Yes, and how many of them subconsciously identify themselves with the victim? Come to think of it, you could divide all society up into those three classes: the potential investigators, the potential criminals, and the potential victims. Might do an essay on it some time, stressing the fascination people have for reading about murder. Call it Five Little Peppers And How They Slew.

But right now, my job was to read the manuscript, read it and correct it, sitting in the dingy little office that nobody ever visited. I picked up the pages, bent my head, then jerked erect.

The door opened.

He stood there, big and bluff and blond, bulking in the narrow doorway so that his tweeded shoulders almost touched either side of the frame. His eyes and teeth and rings sparkled and he said, Hello, Mark. Long time no, si?

Harry Bannock! Come on in!

I am in. The big man walked over and pumped my hand. First he looked at me and then he looked down. They all do if they havent seen the eye-patch before. Great to see you! Youre looking great. Hows business?