Death Sentence Read Online Free PDF

got no subtlety, you stupid mick, you don’t understand vital distinctions.”
    â€œHe’s a drunk,” O’Hara confided. “Don’t listen to him.”
    Ludlow swallowed most of the drink and closed his eyes. “Listen. Shoot their mouths off all night long until the beer runs out and nobody listens to a word of it.” Paul had to lean forward to catch his words; the crowd’s racket was intense.
    The bartender put a bill on the bar in front of Ludlow and Paul picked it up, doing it quietly but knowing O’Hara saw it. Paul turned it face down and put a five-dollar bill on it and waited for the change.
    O’Hara had a mild brogue. “All right, Mr. Mills, what can we do for you?” He said it amiably but he’d made the connection immediately.
    â€œI’m from New York, my company transferred me out here. I don’t know a damn thing about Chicago.”
    â€œAnd you’ve come to the fountainhead. Smart lad.”
    Ludlow drained his glass and put it down. “I’ll buy the next round. Thanks for the drink, sport. What line are you in?”
    â€œSecurity systems.” Paul had it pat on his tongue. “Burglar alarms for the home, electronic security—everything in the gadget line. We’re a new company, just breaking into the Midwest market.”
    â€œAnd you want to get to know your new turf.” O’Hara put his beer glass down beside Ludlow’s. “I’ll tell you what, Mike, why don’t we take Mr. Mills around the corner where we can hear ourselves think. Can’t give the man serious advice in this heathen bedlam.”
    Paul gathered his change and left a tip on the bar. Ludlow gave him a friendly touch on the shoulder and steered him toward the door in O’Hara’s broad wake.
    A few snowflakes undulated into Rush Street but it was nothing that would settle; the pavements were hardly moist. O’Hara turned up the sheepskin collar of his bulky cloth coat. “Another bleedin’ slush Christmas, I predict.”
    â€œAlways bitching about the rain.” Ludlow had a harsh laugh. “This bastard was born in a country where it rains twenty-four hours a day.”
    They turned a corner and went under the El tracks into a sandwich parlor with chrome-and-formica booths; the lighting was bright but there was a bar along the near wall and the place was nearly empty. Paul sat on a stool and found himself bracketed between O’Hara and Ludlow. O’Hara had inky fingernails: he held up a hand and beckoned the barmaid. “Dewar’s straight up, darlin’, and a Miller’s for my cheap friend. What’s for you, Mr. Mills?”
    â€œBeer’s fine.”
    Ludlow put his money on the bar. “Well now, where do we start?”
    O’Hara coughed. “Let’s find out what it is our friend wants to know.”
    â€œWe know what he wants to know. He wants to know what kind of place Chicago is.”
    â€œI’ll answer that in a sentence. When derelicts go slumming, they go to Chicago.”
    Ludlow said, “O’Hara don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. He writes think-pieces, he’s a political reporter. Every six months they fire him because somebody from the Cook County machine leans on his editor. Me, I stay on the news beat, I’ve been a crime reporter eight years in this town. I’m the one you want to pump. Forget this ignorant mick.”
    â€œWatch it now, Mike.”
    â€œI’ll give you some facts,” Ludlow said, more to O’Hara than to Paul. “Fact, O’Hara. There’s a robbery in this town every three minutes around the clock. Fact, we had eight hundred homicides last year and we’re way above that record this year. Crime’s up fifteen percent overall. Fact, O’Hara—less than one per cent of Chicago’s crimes are solved, in the sense that some joker gets tried and convicted and sent