Love's Lovely Counterfeit Read Online Free PDF

did, and a Lake City police guard is the same as no guard at all. You hear me?"
    "All right, I'll call him."
    "I'll ring you tomorrow. With maybe more dirt."
    "I'll see you soon, Ben."
    "That's right. Soon."

Chapter 3
    Lefty sat down with Ben next morning as he was having breakfast in the Savoy Grill. A toothpick indicated he himself had already eaten, and he began without preliminaries: "Well, it's war."
    "Blitz or site?"
    "Blitz, I'd say. Sol and Delany."
    "What's Delany done?"
    "You heard what happened last night?"
    "I'm reading about it."
    "If it was just tipping that girl, O.K. It wasn't friendly, but after them sharpshooters you seen with Jansen, Solly knew what to expect. But about an hour before the Castleton bulls got there, a Delany guy shows up, a guy that takes care of his horses, over at the Jardine stables. And he takes Arch Rossi out. He takes him out of the Globe and over to the Columbus. Sol, he don't like that. If the kid has to die, he could die just as good in Castleton, couldn't he? In a hospital, with good doctors taking care of him? Dumping him in the Columbus, right in Solly's own hotel, Solly takes that personal."
    "So?"
    "He's taking steps."
    "Where is Delany?"
    "He's in Chicago, but he'll come back."
    "If coaxed?"
    "On proper inducements, he'll come."
    "Where's Rossi?"
    "I don't exactly know."
    Lefty stared vacantly at the hat stand across the room, laid the toothpick in an ashtray. "So it'll be an O.K. war, if that's getting us anywheres, and Solly, of course, he'll be nice and happy. Just the same, it's not Delany."
    "Then who is it?"
    "I figured it might be you."
    As Lefty turned his cold, vacant stare full on Ben's face, Ben lit a cigarette. He let the match burn for a moment, and from the interested way he looked at it, one might wonder if he was testing, to know if his hand was trembling. When there was not the slightest flicker, he blew the match out, and asked languidly: "You tell Sol that?"
    "Yeah."
    "What'd he say?"
    "He didn't believe it."
    "But you, my old pal, you believe it, don't you?"
    "Listen, Ben, I'm your pal, but this ain't the candy business. In this racket you can't take chances, and if you're crossing us, the pal stuff is out. Couple of things look pretty funny to me. If there was a couple of sharpshooters with Jansen the other night, both pals of Delany, why didn't you know it? Seemed a little off the groove that Solly had to find that out. And why would Delany start something? He's sitting pretty. On the bookies he gets his cut and it's not hay. He's got a nice daily double and he don't even have to stay here and watch it. Why would he bust it up?"
    "And that leaves me, hey?"
    "It could."
    "Nuts."
    "Oh, yeah?"
    "Lefty, you're playing it safe, you got to do that. You got to
    feed me a lead and watch my face, just like I'd do for you, just like all pals got to do to each other in this swell business we're in. But you don't really think it's me. If you did you'd just rub me out and that would be that. Even if you halfway thought it was me, you'd have fed me a phoney just now, on where you're keeping Arch Rossi, and then if I ran to her with it you'd have me. When you didn't do at least that much I know you're not really bearing down."
    "O.K., Ben. But it's somebody, and I'm worried."
    "I'm a little worried myself."
    "Then we're both worried."
    "Pals?"
    "Two beers, and they're on you."
    Around nine, when Ben went back to his hotel, the day clerk said a lady had called, twice. He went to his room and dialed June, getting no answer. In five minutes his house phone rang, and when June spoke he gave her the number of his outside phone. Only when she had called him on this did he let her go ahead. "Something's happened, Ben."
    "O.K., give."
    "It's the boy that took Rossi out of the Globe."
    "And what about him?"
    "He showed up at Jansen's about an hour ago, and Jansen called me. I wouldn't let them come to my apartment, but I met them outside, and—I don't know what to do with him.