Laurel and Hardy Murders Read Online Free PDF

craned.
    I walked over to see what was happening. Al and his pool partner, Toby, had been playing, but now a pair of newcomers had joined to make it a team competition. One of the two was our tardy member, Dutchy Hovis, a big, floppy, secretive ex-pugilist with high forehead, nose squashed from too many prizefights, and loose, smiling lips. Dutchy made a pretense of being jolly-fellow-slap-on-the-back, but it was a technique for holding the rest of us off at arm’s-length from the inner man, whoever that was.
    The other new pool player was short, fat, semibald. At that moment, he sprawled across the pool table with his cue-stick in hand. When he saw me, he popped up for a second and waved jauntily.
    “Hey, boy, how’s your ass?” he asked in a voice as rock-shattering as Kilgore’s.
    Frank Butler was evidently very much inebriated.
    I asked Toby what Kilgore was sore about.
    “These two just came in and challenged us to a partnership game of 8-Ball.”
    “So?”
    “So,” Kilgore snapped, “I drew this cat as a partner.” He jerked his finger at Butler. “I mean, what the hell is this ?”
    The this to which he referred was the fact that Butler was aiming his shot directly at the 8-ball. Since both sides still had several other numbers to sink, it was the wrong target; if it dropped into a pocket prematurely, the game would be immediately forfeit for the Butler/Kilgore side.
    “Butler,” I murmured, “just what the hell are you trying to do?”
    “Oh, boy, don’t you see the strategy?” Butler asked, aggrieved. “Look at that now!” He pointed to a 4-ball far on the other side of the black 8. “That’s their next target. Now there’s no way I can drop our side’s ball this shot, so all I’m gonna do is maybe nudge the 8-ball a little closer to the side pocket and make their turn that much tougher.” He spread his hands wide and grinned at the ingenious logic, the pure poetry of his decision.
    “I don’t believe this bugger!” Kilgore groaned. “I mean, what is this?”
    I suggested to Butler that if he misjudged, he’d put the 8-ball in the pocket and lose the game for him and his partner.
    “Haw!” he snorted, hunching over the table for his shot. “You gotta trust the Old Man!” He drew back the tip of the cue-stick and almost flopped onto the cloth. I caught him and planted his feet on the wooden flooring so he wouldn’t topple. Butler brushed me away and warmed up again.
    “Don’t do it!” Kilgore pleaded. Toby laughed at his opponent’s plight.
    Butler took the shot. The stick hit the white ball; it shot forward, clipping the 8-ball as it went. The black ball wobbled laterally, ambling in the direction of the side pocket. It reached the lip of the hole, teetered, righted itself—
    “ See? ” the old curmudgeon crowed. “ You gotta know how to apply English! ”
    —and plopped into the pocket.
    Kilgore knocked the flat of his palm against his forehead while Dutchy Hovis cackled with delight.
    “I don’t believe that cat!” Kilgore repeated, over and over again.
    Toby, who was twice as shy as O. J., murmured under his breath that Butler’s play was the stupidest pool decision he’d ever seen in his life.
    “That’s because he’s sloshed,” Dutchy Hovis said, leaning over Toby’s shoulder. “Normally, the Old Man’s pretty sharp.”
    “Try telling that to Al,” I said.
    Curiously, Butler didn’t seem particularly abashed about the outcome of his pool tactics. He even agreed to pay the whole bet himself.
    “You better,” Al grumbled. “You expect me to pay for that piece of stuff?” Our Grand Sheik was understandably perturbed, and his language was a bit more blunt than I’m bothering to report.
    The forfeit was to buy the others a round at the bar. Al asked for a beer, but Dutchy, opportunist that he was, ordered a Glenfiddich Scotch, the most expensive sold at The Lambs. I helped Butler over to the bar since he was still shaky on his legs. Toby started racking