Book 11 - Whispering Nickel Idols Read Online Free PDF Page B

doesn’t become you, sir. Considering you’re one of the main
people in my life. And definitely one of the strangest.”
    “I’m the standard against which everyone else is measured.”
    “You hang in there. I’ll go for help.” I eyed the front door, inches
away. My chances of making it looked better than they had. “How’s your
love life?” I cackled evilly, then fled.
    Why
is another story, already told.

    9
    “Hey!”
    A rock whizzed past my ear. It hit Morley’s door so hard it bashed a
hole in a panel.
    Dotes bounced out beside me, looking ferocious. “What happened?” he
asked.
    “Somebody took a whack at me with a sling.” I assumed. How else
throw a rock that hard?
    “Primitive.”
    “But effective if you aren’t ready for it.”
    “Who was it? Where did he go?”
    “I’m pretty sure it was that chunky guy over there. Wearing the
stupid green pants. The one so busy looking nonchalant.” This one
looked like the runt of the Ugly Pants litter. He was hard at work
pretending to be interested in the gaps between buildings and the
shadows under stoops.
    “Stay here. He might want you to follow him. I’ll round up a crowd.
He owes me a door.” Dotes went back inside.
    I collected the stone that, but for an instant of luck, might have
knocked another hole in my noggin. You need a couple extra to get into
my racket, but I wasn’t prospecting for more.
    The stone had a slight egg shape, being an inch and a quarter in one
dimension and just under an inch in the other. It was heavy. It was
green, like serpentine or low-grade jade. And it was polished. It
didn’t look like something a guy would pick up strolling down a creek
bed.
    Morley returned with some of his troops. I said, “This might be a
trick to get you away from The Palms.”
    “I warned Sarge and Puddle. Where did he go?”
    “Turned south into Ironstar Lane.”
    “Let’s go spring the trap,” Morley said. Very direct, my friend.
    “You’re too eager. You make me nervous when you’re eager.”
    “I ever mention that you worry too much?”
    “Only on those occasions when I’m close enough to hear you talk.”
    We jogged off with half a dozen guys who pretend to be servers at
Morley’s place, none the sort who wait tables because they love the
work.
    Dotes insists that he’s out of the life now, yet persists in
surrounding himself with men like these.
    I worry, what with the dedication shown by the secret police lately.
Deal Relway doesn’t worry about due process. In his own mind, he
is
the law. Too often, those left behind will agree that you had it coming.
    Nevertheless, the underworld goes on. As strong and committed and
obsessed as Relway is, he isn’t able to do much but nibble at the
Outfit’s peripheries.
    We turned into Ironstar Lane. And came to a many-legged, confused
halt.
    The character who’d tried to trepan me with a stone wasn’t a block
ahead. He ambled along, searching shadows, like he had no idea somebody
might chase him down.
    “What’s the game here, Garrett? That moron is toddling along like he
doesn’t have a care.”
    “You can’t hold me responsible because somebody else is an idiot.”
    “It’s arguable. Sins of the blood and all that stuff.” He came close
to using bad language.
    I asked, “Instead of standing around debating, why don’t we take
advantage?”
    Morley signaled his boys. We moved out.
    Traffic was light, but that’s normal in Ironstar Lane. There aren’t
any shops.
    We surrounded the squat man before he realized someone was after
him. His response was bewilderment. For an instant I thought I’d
fingered the wrong guy. Like all of a sudden everybody in TunFaire had
taken to wearing hideous green pants, and bad fashion sense wasn’t a
sure sign of innate villainy.
    Then he charged, went right through one of Morley’s boys.
    “Wow!” I said.
    “Yes. Be careful.”
    The squat man didn’t run. He did make it unpleasant to get too
close. At intimate range he was quicker