Blind Moon Alley Read Online Free PDF

dies to prove he was ever here at all. My teeth are clenched and I’m ready for the pop of Reeger’s pistol. Instead, all I hear is the click of an empty chamber.
    Reeger chuckles. “You’ve got more luck than brains,” he tells Homer.
    Then he kicks Homer in the rib cage and walks to the door, leaving the poor guy curled up on the floor, clutching his side. When Reeger grabs the doorknob, he stops and turns to me.
    â€œSend Garvey my love,” he says. “Snowball.” He walks out, leaving the door open behind him.
    Homer hobbles through the front room, shuts the door, and slides the deadbolt.
    Blood is leaking into the back of my mouth; I’m trying to stem the flow by pressing my nose with the bottom of my apron. Homer stumbles behind the bar, throws a dishrag around a couple of fistfuls of ice and gives it to me. The look in his eyes tells me I’m in bad shape.
    I hold the rag to my face as I tilt my head back and stare at the water pipe that runs the length of the tin ceiling. The music on the radio cuts out and an announcer reports that death-row inmate Aaron Garvey escaped as he was being driven to the electric chair at Rockview Penitentiary. According to the newsflash, Garvey made it past two armed guards. One, James Milmo, is in the hospital.
    Under the dishrag, as blood tickles my throat, my lips stretch into a smile.

CHAPTER 3
    Angela comes out of my kitchen with two tall glasses of fresh iced tea.
    â€œWhere’s the sugar?” she asks, her voice soft as the hum of the small table fan on top of my radio.
    â€œThere isn’t any,” I say. “I’m running low on everything. I’ll stock the kitchen tomorrow.”
    She looks at me like I’m kidding, but I mean it. I’m not bad with a skillet in my hands; I used to do a lot of cooking for the kids at the Hy-Hat. I’m about to ask her to come back for dinner next week, but my eyes start shimmying. I block her view by pressing the bag of ice to the bridge of my nose.
    I’ve spent most of the last two days in the same position: stretched out on the couch with my head on a pillow and my nose on ice. I know the risk that comes with hospital paperwork, so I asked Doolie to track down a Philadelphia doctor willing to do a house call at a juice joint. The best he could come up with was a trainer from a boxing gym in South Philly. The guy knocked on the back door of the Ink Well right after I locked up last night. He was no doctor, but that didn’t slow him down. He tilted my head back, pinched my nose between his fingers, and popped the bone back into place. He said it was a clean break and that I’d be as good as new once I heal. That doesn’t help me as I sit here, in front of Angela, with a pair of purple half-moons hanging under my eyes and two sticks of cotton plugging up my nostrils. Every time I sneeze, I feel like I’ve been shot through the temples.
    Angela waits as I sit up. I put the bag of ice on the floor and try not to stare at the green cotton skirt clinging to her hips. It’s the same skirt she wore the day she convinced Doolie to hire me, showing him the
Inquirer
, telling him how I’d rescued that kid from Port Richmond, and warning him about a couple of roughnecks who’d been at the bar the previous week looking for trouble. She thought the joint needed some protection and convinced Doolie that I was the man for the job. I hope she doesn’t think less of me now. She believed in me, and when you’re missing a chromosome or two, that feels more special than it should.
    â€œYour sugarless tea, sir,” she says and hands me my glass.
    I take a swig, and even though I can’t taste much, the chilled liquid feels good rolling down my throat.
    â€œMmm, good,” I tell her.
    â€œYou’re going to need some food,” she says before taking a seat across from me in my armchair. She crosses her ankles and cradles her glass between her