Death House Doll Read Online Free PDF Page B

and rights, any one of which would have knocked me out if they had landed where he was trying to put them.
    I went limp as in Judo, then tried to knee him. He caught my knee in his right hand and we went to the floor together and bumped across it back the way we had come, he riding me, then me riding him.
    Tommy and Hymie were on their feet. Together, with Norm and Gordon, they walked along beside me, taking swipes at my head whenever I showed on top.
    I couldn’t take much of that. I didn’t. There was a
whoosh,
as one of them landed a solid blow on the back of my head and I took off like a guided missile. As the flares began to die out, in the distance Hymie said, “I betcha. I betcha the guy is leveling. I betcha the dame didn’t talk.”
    Closer now, LaFanti grunted, “Don’t be a chump, Hymie. You’re thinking like a square. Of course, she talked. And unless we get rid of Duval, we won’t be safe until after they pull that switch.”
    I opened my eyes and Tommy swished, “Look out. He’s coming to.”
    LaFanti was standing over me. “Go back to sleep,” he said.
    To be sure I did, he drew back his foot and kicked me in the jaw.

Chapter Five
    T HE ROOM was dark with a cool breeze blowing through it. I could hear a faint purr of traffic and, even that high up, the swish of the lake against the rock breakwater.
    Moving was an effort. I was lying on a bed, untied. I lay figuring that one out for a long time. Then I decided LaFanti had been afraid a rope would mark me. Even a dumb park cop might wonder why a drowned swimmer had rope burns on his wrists.
    I lay feeling through my pockets. I still had my wallet and my keys. The envelope holding my rating, travel orders and re-enlistment papers was still in my breast pocket. From what I could tell by feeling, I still had all my teeth. I could feel a smear of clotted blood and a sore spot here and there, but with the exception of the boil on the back of my head, I didn’t feel too bad.
    I swung my feet over the side of the bed and sat up. The night was as black as the room. I walked to the open window and looked out. Outside of the white froth where it broke on the rock breakwater, the lake looked like a sheet of dark purple glass. A steady stream of cars, heading both north and south, jammed the Outer Drive from curb to curb. There were people on the walks and on the rock breakwater. All the help I needed was only a few hundred feet away. A few hundred feet straight down.
    I sat back on the bed and gradually my eyes began to pick out objects in the room. Besides the bed there was a dresser, a highboy, and some chairs. A thin oblong of indistinct light outlined a door on the south wall. I took a chance it might be a bathroom. It was.
    I used the facility, then ran cold water in the bowl as I looked at my face in the mirror over the wash stand. The several beatings I’d taken hadn’t improved it.
    “Funny face,”
Mona had called me.
    I swallowed the lump in my throat, wishing I was smarter than I was. Something was awful screwball somewhere for a hot shot like LaFanti to be as frightened as he was. Then there was what Captain Corson had said.
    “I don’t think Mona killed Stein.”
    I washed most of the blood from my face and hair and sat on the throne as I toweled them. If LaFanti had killed Stein he had reason to be afraid. On the other hand no girl, at least no girl in her right mind — and Mona hadn’t impressed me as being crazy — no matter how much she loved or was afraid of a man, was going to walk that last mile willingly. Not when all she had to do to get a pass was open her mouth and name the lad who should be walking it.
    I wished Johnny was still alive and in the bathroom with me. Even if he had been seven years younger he’d always been the quick one in the family. He’d never even had to crack a book at home to stay on the honor roll. I’d been lucky to get through high school. I’d studied my fool head off and probably wouldn’t have made