Stringer and the Deadly Flood Read Online Free PDF Page B

chicken squawk to land a good six feet back. Another gang member made a hesitant move toward Stringer from his right, and Stringer slashed his shirt and some belly fat before he too crawfished back through a picket fence, bleating, “Hijo de puerca! You cut me!”
    Stringer snapped, “My mistake. I was out to kill you.” He dragged the now sobbing Anglo girl straight at the gang’s leader. The big one had his own knife out by now, but there was something about Stringer’s direct approach, wielding a blade he obviously knew how to use, that induced him to yell, “Vamanos, muchachos! El gringo es loco en la cabeza!”
    And so, having dismissed him as a deranged foreigner, the gang evaporated, perhaps to reconsider, and Stringer ran with the girl all the way to the entrance of his hotel on the far side of the encouraging street lamps. He looked back in time to see just a shift of movement in the darkness they’d just left. So he hauled her inside the dimly lit vestibule, explaining, “We may not be out of the woods yet. We’d best fort up a spell before I run you home. Where might that be, Miss... ah?”
    She gasped, “I’m Zelda Gordon and you’d be... ?”
    â€œStuart MacKail and I’d have never saved you if I’d known you hailed from an enemy clan,” he replied with a reassuring chuckle, but she didn’t seem to get it. One no doubt had to be exposed to good old Uncle Don MacKail to have a grasp of the clan feuds in the old country, he decided.
    â€œNever mind,” he assured her. “Us Scotch-Americans have to stick together in any case. What on earth were you doing in Little Mexico just now and where do you want to wind up tonight?”
    â€œI was on my way to the railroad depot,” she answered. “I’m bound for my home in San Diego after visiting my sister and her new baby in Glendale. A nice Mexican girl I asked for directions told me that street back there was a shortcut.”
    He grimaced and replied, “She sure must have liked you. All right, I see the picture now. Your best bet is a hack ride back to your sister’s place, once we’re sure the coast is clear. You’ll have just missed the night train to San Diego. I know because I missed it on purpose. It would have put me in San Diego late at night, with another train to change to around noon tomorrow. I figured as long as I had to lay over I might as well check in here. Had a few bases here in L.A. to cover and I don’t know anyone in San Diego... then.”
    She said, “Oh dear, I don’t want to go all the way back to Glendale and have my sister weep farewell at me all over again. You say you have a room here and that we’d both be on our way south aboard the same morning train?”
    He nodded. “I did. Do you want me to see if we could book you a room? It’s not a bad old hotel. Mayhaps a mite shabby. But it smells clean and the last time I stayed here I failed to spy any bugs.”
    She looked undecided and rummaged through the purse he’d saved for her. “I suppose that would be most practical,” she murmured. “But I only came up here for a short visit that kept me longer than I’d planned. How much do they charge here for a small room with no trimmings?”
    â€œI’m not sure,” Stringer answered. “I booked one with a bath for a dollar a night. Why don’t we talk to the room clerk inside?”
    She nodded dubiously, and he led her into the murky lobby. They’d turned down the lights and, except for one old man dozing under a rubber plant in a corner, the place seemed empty. Stringer led Zelda over to the deserted front desk and rang the bell on the mock-marble top. Nobody answered even after several rings. Behind him, Zelda suddenly gasped and said, “Oh, lordy, I think those Mexicans have followed us!”
    He turned to follow her gaze. There seemed to be no signs of