The Dame Did It Read Online Free PDF Page B

Porsche out front?” asked
Blackheart.
    Charise recovered some of her breath and she
managed to gasp out a reply. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I used a
little bit of it to support myself until you got out and we could
get married.”
    “Married?” exclaimed Blackheart. “What about
Finn?”
    “What about him?” said Charise. “I was
lonely. I just needed someone to keep me company until I could be
with my true love again.”
    Killingworth rolled her eyes. “I hope you’re
not buying any of this, Big Boy.”
    Blackheart hesitated. “No.”
    “Good,” said Killingsworth, and she put her
finger on the trigger of her Colt. “Now, Finn, I want you to tell
me where the rest of the money is.”
    For a moment his left eye wandered to a
painting of a lion in the jungle veldt which hung crooked on the
wall. “We put it in a safe deposit box. Come back tomorrow and I’ll
get you the key.”
    “You and Charise must think we’re pretty
stupid.” Now, Killingsworth spoke to Blackheart. “Big Boy, put the
tramp on the bed next to Finn and take a look behind the
painting.”
    Blackheart carried Charise over to the bed
and dropped her next to his former best friend, and she tucked her
knees to her chest, gathering the sheet around her as if it were
some protective shield.
    “Please don’t kill me, Joe,” pleaded
Charise. “I know you still love me. We can still be together.”
    Blackheart ignored her supplications and
moved aside the painting, revealing a ragged hole which had been
punched into the wall. He reached into the hole and began to remove
bundle after bundle of cash.
    “That has got to be the laziest job of
stashing money I’ve ever encountered, Finn,” said Killingworth.
“You have got to be one of the poorest excuses for a criminal that
I have ever seen.”
    Blackheart counted the bundles and dropped
each of them into Finn’s gym bag. “We’ve got 420 grand.”
    “Where’s the other 230 thousand?”
Killingsworth emphasized the question by jabbing the snout of the
pistol a little deeper into Finn’s right eye.
    “We… we spent it,” said Finn, and he held
out a key that he retrieved from the bedstand. “Here, take the keys
to the Porsche! That’s where all the money went.”
    Killingsworth snatched away the keys. “You
spent 230 thousand on one Porsche? My, are you a big spender. I
could almost believe you’re that stupid, but I think you’re holding
out on us. Tell us where the rest is and I promise that I won’t
shoot you.”
    Charise’s eyes were wild with fear. “What
about me?”
    “One of you has got to die,” said
Killingsworth. “If you want to be the one to live tell us where the
rest of the money is.”
    Finn and Charise both spoke as quickly as
their tongues would allow, the location of the remaining money
spilling out in frenzied jumbles.
    “Do the honors,” said Killingsworth, and
Blackheart pulled loose the slender dagger that the blonde assassin
had lent him earlier. He approached the bed and used the point to
rip open the foot of the mattress where it had been crudely
stitched together. Here, he found 83 thousand and some odd change
and he announced the amount to Killingsworth as soon as he had
estimated it.
    “I still think they’re holding out on us,”
said Killingsworth, “but we’ve got a car outside watching the
house. I think we’d better be moving on.”
    “Don’t kill me!” begged Charise. “It was
Finn’s idea to spend the money. I wanted to save all of it for you,
Joey baby. You know I love only you.”
    “The story’s changing,” said Killingsworth.
She withdrew the pistol from Finn’s eye socket and plucked up a
pillow from the bed. “Time to tie up loose ends and blow this
joint. Charise talked first, so she gets to live.” Killingsworth
shoved the snout of the .45 into the pillow and pressed it against
Finn’s head and was about to pull the trigger when the pop of a
semi-automatic rifle echoed through the night, immediately