Boys & Girls Together Read Online Free PDF Page B

Right away.”
    Across town, in the white room, Emily Kirkaby sighed. It was a soft sound, trivial; for just a moment her numb lips almost parted. The nurse, roused, stood up, looking down on the still, gray woman. The nurse nodded and shook her head, a silly gesture, but what else could she do because the woman was dying and that was a shame. Tiptoeing to the door, she opened it and gestured to the large Negro lady keeping watch outside the door. The Negro lady nodded and shook her head too, then went downstairs to spread the untidy news. The nurse crept back, still on tiptoe, and assumed her position of command by the bedpost. In a moment the door opened and P. T. Kirkaby entered, the P. T. Kirkaby, followed by his older son, Arnold.
    “How much time she got left?” from P.T.
    The nurse moved her hands. Not very much.
    “She say anything?” P.T. again.
    “No.”
    P.T. grunted. “Go outside if you want,” he said to Arnold.
    “I’m O.K.,” Arnold answered, readying his tears.
    Emily sighed a second time. This sound was so frail as to make the first seem like thunder. But they all heard it, and though they had no reason to be sure, they knew it was the last sound she was ever going to make.
    “Emily,” P. T. Kirkaby said.
    “I don’t think she can hear you.” The nurse.
    “Nobody asked you, did they?”
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Kirkaby.”
    “So are we all.” He turned his big body. “Arnold, where’s Walt?”
    Arnold let go with a few tears.
    “Stop that and answer me. Where’s Walt? Wherever he is, get him! Get him! That crazy Walt, where the hell is he?”
    “Sergeant Quinlan speaking.”
    “Sergeant Quinlan?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’ve got Big Nose Tim Connery for you.” Walt tried very hard not to hear Sergeant Quinlan’s tired sigh.
    “Is that you, Kirkaby?”
    “Yessir, it’s me.”
    “You again, Kirkaby?”
    “Yessir, me again.”
    “And you’ve got who this time?”
    “Tim Connery. Big Nose Tim Connery. Wanted for grand and petit larceny, arson, fraudulent use—”
    “Are you sure you’ve got Big Nose Tim Connery? Because I don’t believe you, Kirkaby. I’m not calling you a liar, understand; I just somehow do not—”
    “But, Sergeant—”
    “You remember last week, Kirkaby? Last week you had Willie ‘the Shiv’ Fusari. You called me and you swore up and down—”
    “Please, Sergeant Quinlan. Before he gets away.”
    “You swore up and down you had Willie ‘the Shiv’ Fusari, but when we checked it turned out you’d been trailing Rabbi Silverman of the St. Louis Synagogue. And two weeks before that you trapped Harry ‘the Weasel’ Trockman in the card room of the St. Louis Country Club. And—”
    “It’s going to look awful bad on your record, Sergeant Quinlan.”
    Another weary sigh. “What’s going to look bad on my record, Kirkaby?”
    Walt pushed his glasses up snug against the bridge of his nose with his left thumb. “Oh, just that you had a red-hot tip on Big Nose Tim Connery and you let him get away.”
    “Kirkaby, you are one smart boy.”
    “Thank you, Sergeant Quinlan.”
    The weariest sigh of all. “All right, Kirkaby, where’s Big Nose?”
    “He’s lurking in the house at 274 South Elm. I’m calling from right across the street, so if he tries a getaway, I’ll stay on his trail. Don’t worry about that.”
    “Hold on, Kirkaby.” The line went quiet. Walt stared out at the house across the street. “WHIZZER DOES IT AGAIN.” That would be how the Post Dispatch would put it. In big black type the size of the whole page. “OH THAT WHIZZER!” That would be the Globe-Democrat ’s headline. “Topping off his already unbelievably fantastically incredible career, Walt the Whizzer Kirkaby today brought to justice the worst criminal we’ve ever had around here ... the modest Whizzer ... the handsome Whizzer ... the absolutely superb but shy Whizzer ... the ever-popular Whizzer ... the ... the ... ooohh hhhhh that WHIZZZZZZZZZERRRRRRRR!”
    The