Pardon My Body Read Online Free PDF

Or maybe he’d beat it without even settling his room rent. Mike would like that. Well, if he wasn’t there the room would stand a going-over. I put the pass-key in the lock and pushed the door inwards. Nobody sprang out with a Luger—or a knife. I walked on in. The place was dim because the thin curtains were drawn against the single small window. I felt for the light switch and pressed it.
    The room came into focus. It contained a cheap wardrobe of the kind they quit making about the end of World War I, a washstand with a colored-pattern china bowl and water jug, and a double bed with iron posts and brass knobs. Circa 1913. The carpet probably had a woven design when it was bought, but now you’d never know.
    I stood quite still looking down at the bed. It contained Mr. Ash Blond. The blanket was pulled up to the level of his boyish chin, and his tousled head was slightly to one side. I tip-toed across the room—I still don’t know why—and pulled the covers down a little. He had gone to bed in his shirt and underpants andlooked at peace with the world in which he had caused so much trouble.
    He should be at peace now, I reflected. Because the hilt of a long Task Force dagger was sticking out of his chest and he was plainly as dead as a man can well be in such circumstances.
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    When I was a very young reporter in the not-so-big city where I was raised, some tough coppers let me see the body of a shot-up gangster on the slab at the morgue attached to the third precinct station. I couldn’t eat supper when I got home that night and my mother, who didn’t know the reason, put me to bed with some brandy and warm water. Since then I’ve seen around a dozen dead men—and women—and I’ve never gotten used to it. Maybe I should have become a rewrite man—he can tackle anything that comes without a thought because he never has to see it. If you’re on desk work, violent death is something that comes to you over the teletype or on a sheet of reporter’s copy-paper. You don’t carry the memory of it around for the next two weeks. Mother—I could drink a double brandy right now. Without the warm water.
    But it would have to wait. I stood still by the bedside and let my eyes go over every detail of theroom. The too-smart suit I had noticed at the Golden Peacock was on a collapsible hanger on the door. The black custom-built shoes were alongside the bed, next to a pigskin suitcase with its lid open. Inside were a change of linen, a Luger pistol in a shoulder holster and a soft billfold crammed with money. I bent down and spread it out. Two thousand dollars—four C-notes and the rest in fifties. It was hard counting because I had my gloves on—and it seemed a good idea to keep them on for a little while. There was nothing else in the case.
    The suit pockets had been emptied—keys, watch and loose change had been laid atop the washstand. There wasn’t a clue to Ash Blond’s identity. If he had a Social Security card he didn’t carry it around. Or, if he did, the murderer had it now.
    Above all, there was no long-bladed Task Force dagger anywhere in sight—except for the one buried in Mr. Ash Blond’s chest.
    There was a small firegrate in a corner of the room. It contained two cigarette stubs, some crushed pages of the previous afternoon’s newspaper and a few charred bits of notepaper. I went down on my knees and gingerly sorted them out. It looked as if Ash Blond had burned them before he went to bed. Or perhaps one of the cigarette stubs had done it accidentally. Better look, anyway. There were only a few bits and they were nearly all charred beyond recognition. But not quite. That was why I knew they had been notepaper. They had been written on with a ball-point. Only two pieces bore anything legible. I could just make out the words “…is 2469 South Franklyn Avenue, Fa…” The next half-inch of the paper was