1963 - One Bright Summer Morning Read Online Free PDF Page A

but put him on his own, let him plan his own modus operandi and he was hopelessly lost.
    He discovered this depressing fact when Kramer retired. Moe attempted a fairly simple job on his own, based on his own planning. He was immediately picked up and he spent six heartbreaking years in San Quentin penitentiary, and because the police were certain that he had been responsible for so many brilliant bank robberies, the word went out to the warders and Moe had a very rough time.
    He came out of the penitentiary a broken man. By now he was forty-eight, running to fat and with an inflamed kidney, acquired from one of the brutal beatings he had taken in prison. He was now only the shadow of the man known as the smartest technician in the rackets.
    Although he had made an impressive sum of money during his career as a criminal, he had always been a soft touch and a reckless gambler. He came out of prison without a nickel, but at least he had a refuge to go to . . . his mother.
    Doll Zegetti, aged seventy-two, ran two de luxe brothels in San Francisco. She was a massive, handsome woman who adored her son as he adored her. She was shocked at the change in him when he came to her ornate apartment on the day of his release from San Quentin. She realized his spirit and his nerve had been shattered, and if he was to get back onto his feet again, he would need very careful nursing.
    She set him up in a three-room apartment and told him to rest. This Moe was glad to do. He spent long hours, sitting in a chair at the window, watching the shipping in the harbour and doing nothing. The very thought of turning his hand to crime again made his blood run cold.
    This state of affairs continued for eighteen months. Often Moe thought of Kramer who he worshipped, admiring him for being so smart as to get out of the rackets with four million dollars before the chopper fell. It never crossed his mind to put the bite on Kramer. The idea that his late boss might help him some way or other did not occur to him.
    Then things began to go wrong for Doll. Captain O'Hardy of the Vice-Squad retired and a new man climbed into the saddle. He was Captain Capshaw, a lean, hard-eyed Quaker who hated prostitution and was no man to be offered a bribe. Within three weeks of his appointment, he had slammed both Doll's houses shut and had arrested most of her girls. Doll was suddenly without an income and heavily in debt. The blow seemed to paralyse her. She fell ill and was now in hospital undergoing certain tests: their mystery terrified Moe.
    With his weekly income from Doll cut off, Moe was in trouble. He moved from the three-room apartment and took a room in a sordid tenement block close to the Frisco docks. Before looking for a job, he pawned his clothes and the various possessions he had collected, then faced with the prospects of starving, he reluctantly looked for work.
    Eventually he became a waiter in a small Italian restaurant.
    The one smart thing Moe did was to inform the Frisco telephone exchange of his changing telephone numbers. It was because of this foresight that Kramer found him. It took several minutes before Moe could realize that it was really Kramer at the other end of the line. He had to control his excitement as he said, “Big Jim! I never thought to hear your voice again!”
    Kramer's familiar rumbling laugh came over the line.
    “How are you, Moe? How are you doing . . . pretty good?”
    Moe looked down the narrow restaurant with its close-packed greasy-topped tables, at the steamed-up windows and the ruins of many meals waiting for him to Clear. He caught sight of himself in the big flyblown mirror behind the bar: a short, fat man with a mop of greying thick hair, heavy eyebrows, a white sweating face and dark, scared eyes.
    “I'm doing all right,” he lied. It would never do to let Big Jim know the mess he was in. He knew Big Jim: he had no use for failures. He glanced at Fransioli, his boss, who was counting the cash, then lowering his