1971 - Want to Stay Alive Read Online Free PDF

crash.
    “Tell him Danvaz is yelling for him and I’m handling it,” and he was gone.
    Hartley Danvaz, tall, pushing fifty-five, thin with a stoop, had the assurance and arrogance of a man worth a million.
    “Who the hell are you?” he demanded as Lepski was shown into his palatial office. “Where’s Beigler?”
    Lepski was in no mood to be pushed around. Maybe this jerk was a top shot, but Lepski was now 1st Grade.
    “I’m Lepski,” he said in his cop voice. “What’s this about a break in?”
    Danvaz squinted at him.
    “Ah, yes, I’ve heard about you. Is Terrell coming?”
    “He’s been alerted. If it’s only a break in, I can handle it. The Chief’s busy.”
    Danvaz suddenly smiled.
    “Yes. . . of course.” He got to his feet. “Come with me.”
    He led the way through the big store, down some stairs to the stock room.
    “They broke in here.”
    Lepski looked at the small window that had been covered by a steel grille.
    The grille had been torn out and was hanging from its cement foundation.
    “A steel cable, a hook and a car,” Lepski said. He looked through the window into a narrow alley, leading to a parking lot. “An easy job. What did they take?”
    “Was that how it was done?” Danvaz regarded Lepski with more respect.
    “They took one of my best target rifles: a hand built job, complete with a telescopic sight and a silencer, worth five hundred and sixty dollars.”
    “Anything else missing?”
    “A box of one hundred cartridges for the gun.”
    “Where was the gun kept?”
    “I’ll show you.”
    Danvaz led the way back to the store.
    “The gun was in this showcase,” he said, coming to rest beside a narrow glass box, resting on the counter. “It was easy to get at. You just lift the glass cover. I haven’t touched it. There could be finger prints.”
    “Yeah. I’ll get the boys down here, Mr. Danvaz and we’ll cover the whole place for prints,” Lepski said, but looking at the highly polished glass case he knew this would be merely routine. The gun had been taken by someone wearing gloves.
    A couple of hours later, Chief of Police Terrell, Beigler and Lepski sat around Terrell’s desk, sipping coffee.
    “No clues, no fingerprints . . . a very professional job,” Beigler said after reading Lepski’s report. “Looks like the guy knew what he was after. There were plenty of other guns he could have taken more expensive than the one he took.”
    Terrell, a heavily built man with iron grey hair, stroked his square jaw.
    “The bulk of Danvaz’s stock covers sporting guns: this is a target rifle. Why pick that?”
    Lepski moved impatiently.
    “A gun with gimmicks: the telescopic sight and the silencer. Maybe some young punk saw it in the window and got itchy fingers. Danvaz said the gun was on display a month ago in the window.”
    Terrell nodded.
    “Could be, but it’s a killer’s gun.”
    “I still think it’s some kid.”
    “If it is, he uses professional methods,” Beigler said.
    “So what? Every goddam kid who watches TV knows to use gloves, knows how to hook a grille off a window,” Lepski snorted.
    “Alert the press. I don’t think it will do any good, but alert them. Get them a photo of the gun . . . Danvaz will certainly have one,” Terrell said.
    As Lepski went to his desk and began using his telephone, Beigler said, “Tom could be right . . . could be some kid who couldn’t resist stealing a gun like that.”
    Terrell thought about this. He remembered when he was a teenager going every Saturday afternoon to the Danvaz store — at that time Hartley Danvaz’s father had been the boss — and staring at a target rifle he yearned to own. He had yearned for it for three weeks, then suddenly the rifle had meant nothing to him. Maybe it could be some kid who had had this kind of yearning and hadn’t waited.
    “I hope he’s right, but I don’t like it. It’s a killer’s weapon.”
     
    ***
     
    Dean K. McCuen was the President of the Florida Canning