A Scourge of Vipers Read Online Free PDF

who was Lucan Alfano, and why are you intrigued?” I asked. “Other than the fact that he’s dead, of course.”
    â€œOfficially, he was the silent owner of a string of New Jersey pawnshops and an Atlantic City payday loan company.”
    â€œAnd unofficially?”
    â€œThe state cops down here say he was a fixer for local gambling interests.”
    â€œThat right?”
    â€œThat’s what they tell me.”
    â€œWhat did he fix, exactly?”
    â€œWhatever needed fixing,” she said. “Zoning variances, wetlands exceptions, building permits, liquor licenses. That sort of thing. My sources say he was also the man to see in South Jersey if you wanted someone to disappear.”
    â€œHe was a hitter?”
    â€œNo. They say he was to contract killers what Scott Boras is to Bryce Harper and Jacoby Ellsbury.”
    â€œExcept that when ballplayers and their agents get paid,” I said, “the only thing that gets hit is a baseball.”
    â€œYeah. Except for that.”
    â€œDid Alfano have a record?”
    â€œUh-uh. The feds and staties dogged him for years, but they never came up with anything solid.”
    â€œHow come The Press never published anything about him?”
    â€œHow do you know we didn’t?”
    â€œThere’s this new thing called the Internet,” I said.
    â€œWe didn’t because we could never prove anything. Whenever we started asking questions, his lawyers made noises about a libel suit. Maybe we could have found something if we’d put a couple of people on it for six months, but we don’t have the resources for that kind of thing anymore.”
    â€œAny idea what was bringing Alfano to Rhode Island?”
    â€œI was hoping you could tell me,” she said.
    â€œNo idea.”
    I didn’t tell her about the briefcase full of cash. No point in turning over my hole card until she had something more valuable to trade.
    â€œYou going to poke into this?” I asked.
    â€œGot my best man on it, but I can only spare him part-time. Just a couple of hours a day.”
    â€œLet’s stay in touch,” I said. “If you learn anything, give me a call.”
    â€œAnd you’ll do the same?”
    â€œYou bet.”
    After we signed off, I tidied up the kitchen and mulled over what I’d just heard. Then I called Chief Hernandez and asked if he could spare a few minutes.
    *   *   *
    The first thing that grabbed my attention when I entered his office was his bulletin board. The pocked, ten-by-twelve-inch color photo of Joe Arpaio, the jowly Arizona sheriff notorious for harassing Mexican immigrants, had been taken down. In its place was a photo of Ted Cruz, the lunatic-fringe freshman senator from the great state of Texas. The darts that had once riddled Arpaio’s image with holes rested beside the blotter on Hernandez’s big mahogany desk. I snatched one up and flicked it, nailing an FBI poster of James T. Hammes, a Kentucky accountant wanted for liberating nearly nine million dollars from his corporate masters.
    â€œHit what you were aiming at?”
    â€œNot even close.”
    Hernandez swept the remaining darts from the desk, leaned back in his chair, and fired them off in rapid succession, nailing Cruz twice in each eye.
    â€œImpressive,” I said.
    â€œIt’s like everything else. You get better with practice.”
    â€œNot like everything,” I said. “Some things, like losing your virginity or dying in a plane crash, you have to get right the first time. So, tell me. Did you count the dead guy’s money yet?”
    â€œClose the door and sit down.”
    So I did.
    â€œAre we off the record?” he asked.
    â€œFor now.”
    â€œThe briefcase contained exactly two hundred grand, all in hundreds.”
    â€œGood bills?”
    â€œYeah. No funny money. At the prevailing rate, it could buy you two hundred liquor licenses, forty