Death House Doll Read Online Free PDF Page A

blond lad by the name of Hymie, chuckled, “He’s okay, huh, Joe?”
    LaFanti told him to shut up. Another one of his boys, a gun punk whom LaFanti called Gordon, opened the doors of a portable bar and LaFanti asked me if I wanted a drink.
    “Make mine light,” I told him, “I just had three big hookers with First Assistant State’s Attorney Olson.”
    LaFanti laughed, “A name dropper, eh?”
    Hymie laughed, too, and asked me if I liked the Army. I said I liked it fine and he said, “I tried to get in in ‘42 and then when this thing in Korea broke out.” He sounded a little sad about it. “But they wouldn’t let me in on account of my record.”
    I finished my drink and set the glass on the portable bar.
    LaFanti motioned to a leather chair. “Now sit down, Duval, and tell me all about it.”
    I sat well forward on the chair. “All about what?”
    “About your visit with Mona.”
    “Why should I tell you?”
    He told me, “Because if you don’t, I’ll have the boys beat on that saddle-leather puss of yours until it’s even more unattractive than it is now.”
    I looked around the room. Outside of LaFanti there were four hoods in it. All of them with the exception of Tommy were big men. All of them looked like they knew their business.
    “What do you want to know?” I asked LaFanti.
    “She shot off her mouth, of course?”
    I said, “Outside of giving me her lawyer’s name and address, so I could make some arrangements to support my brother’s kid, she didn’t say a dozen words.”
    “You expect me to believe that?”
    “It’s so. I wasn’t even alone with her. There was also a matron, Warden Kane and a prissy little guy with nose glasses who said he used to be a colonel of M.P.’s. You can tell me one thing, though.”
    “What?”
    “The kid is my brother’s?”
    “So Mona says.” LaFanti seemed amused. “You red-haired guys. Mona was all chumped off over your kid brother. She was all for going straight and keeping the home fires burning for him until he got back from Korea.” He flexed and unflexed one of his big hands. “Until I talked some sense into her.”
    I felt better than I had before. Mona loved Johnny. It was his kid.
    LaFanti said, “To get back to what we were talking about. Mona did shoot off her mouth?”
    “All she said was to think of her once in a while.”
    His smile continued oily. “Why try to lie to me? I know dames. I’ve been lied to by experts.” He took a wallet from the breast pocket of his coat and began to count out fifty-dollar bills. “I could get the information for nothing. But because you didn’t crack wise to either Olson or Corson, I’m willing to do right by you. Say when, Sergeant.”
    I told him what I’d told Corson. “You’re over my head, fly-boy. Come in for a landing.”
    “What did I tell you?” Gordon asked. “All small-town punks are would-be sharpers. He’s going to stick you for plenty, Joe. Then I wouldn’t trust him twenty feet.”
    Hymie said, “Maybe the guy is leveling.”
    They all laughed at that. “The guy,” Tommy said, “is
smart.
He’s making the mountain come to Mohammed.”
    LaFanti stacked the bills he’d counted out on the arm of his chair. “I’ll tell you what, Duval. I’ll set you up in whatever kind of business you were in before you went into the Army. What did you do?”
    I grinned at him. “I went to high school, but I don’t think I’d care to own one.”
    Only Hymie laughed.
    LaFanti put the money back in his wallet. The corners of his mouth turned down. “You’re asking for it.”
    The fourth hood slipped a sap from his pocket. I hadn’t heard his name called but he was wearing a baby-blue tie with the letter N hand painted on the wide part. He stood tapping the sap in the palm of his hand, looking at me.
    “You’d better just keep on looking,” I warned him.
    LaFanti got to his feet. He licked at his thick lips and looked from me to the lad with the sap.
    “Think it over,