Crooked Read Online Free PDF Page B

to start. He opened the boot, extracted a tyre iron, and banged it about. But it wasn’t any good. He flung the tyre iron into the gutter and made his way into town on foot, plunging into the stream of slow prowling traffic, causing a red Austin Heeley to crank to a halt in a jangle of burned rubber and lengthy obscenities.
    He jogged down Orwell and Victoria Streets, down the crumbling Butler Stairs into Woolloomooloo. He stood there, transfixed by a halo of frosted pink lamplight, before stepping deftly out of the puddle of light that had trapped him and darting off down the road. He seemed to hear footsteps behind him. Cries of, ‘He’s here … he’s here.’ He turned into an alley with a brick wall at one end. He grappled, swung himself up. He could see the city in front of him, the way the light picked out the ledges and lintels of the shiny glass structures. He heaved a bit, gave a short sigh, jumped down off the wall, and scurried up the rise. Past the soft orange light burning in the crypt of St Mary’s Cathedral. Up through Hyde Park. He stank of sweat by the time he walked under the awning and through the rotating glass doors.

    Music wailed across the dance floor at the Latin Quarter and shivered inside him. Laughter trilled on all sides, blending with the clink, clink, clink of used glassware collected. Shadows thinned before his determined gaze until he could pick out the shape of the bar and, beyond it, a row of banquettes extending the length of the wall. McPherson was sitting at a table on the edge of the dance floor. The glow of the orchestra cast a deep violet shadow over the table, with its scattering of broiled lobsters, beer jugs and overflowing ashtrays. Ducky parted a cloud of blue smoke and wandered up to the table.
    â€˜How are you, cunt?’
    McPherson looked up. ‘I’m all right, cunt. How are you?’
    â€˜I’m fine, cunt.’
    Ducky grinned, baring his teeth. Then his eyes widened slightly through anxiety into fear.
    Somebody yelled, ‘This is for you, cunt …’ and blasted away.



Detective Constable Gus Finlay was sitting alone in the squad room, chair cocked back, feet on the desk, and the radio down low, when the call came blaring over the squawk box. He almost tripped over himself getting up. He ran down the staircase into the courtyard, clambered into an unmarked, and swung a left from the drive. He could see the lights churning from three blocks away. Several groups of uniforms were gathered outside the club entrance, throwing up barricades, running backwards and forwards under the light, or standing on the doorstep, fags cupped in hands, brown holsters dangling. Gus pulled in to the side of the road and badged his way through.
    â€˜Who was here first?’ he yelled, as he walked down the room.
    â€˜Me,’ said Tanner, and brought Gus up short.
    Pigeye was standing three feet away. He saluted Gus with a nod.
    Gus nodded back slowly and dropped his gaze to the floor. Ducky O’Connor, crumpled like a broken puppet, was lying a half-yard beyond the tip of his shoe. His right arm was extended, chin flung back, eyes round and blue, and fixed with a look of surprise. The entry wound was behind the right ear, surrounded by a mass of black stippling. The underside of the skull was totally blown away.
    â€˜Bugger,’ said Gus, and fell to his knees. ‘What happened?’
    Tanner grinned. ‘Well, we were sitting right here, having a few, when in hops O’Connor and gets himself shot.’
    â€˜You saw the whole thing?’
    â€˜Not a bit, but sure as hell we’ll be asking some questions.’
    Tanner took a step sideways as he spoke, so that Gus caught sight of Lennie McPherson, who was sitting at a table behind them, flamboyant in an open-necked shirt and wine-coloured blazer. Next to McPherson sat Ernie Chubb, looking downcast and discouraged, and on the table between them, two guns – a Colt