The Last Cop Out Read Online Free PDF

asking, so I lay down the ground rules or go home. Take it or leave it.”
    “State your conditions,” the district attorney said.
    Gill nodded, looked at each one in turn, his face an angular mask of hard competence. “An official position, access to all police files and materials, guaranteed cooperation of any department I choose and no interference from any political faction.”
    “Are you sure you don’t want a salary,” Lederer asked insolently.
    “Being public-spirited, a dollar a year will do.”
    “You expect to take a year to find out who’s behind these murders?”
    “Mr. Lederer,” Burke said, “those weren’t murders.”
    “Oh?”
    “They were killings.”
    “What’s the difference?”
    Burke’s lips pulled tight across his teeth. “If you don’t know, telling you won’t make you understand at all. Now, you got one minute to give me a yes or no.”
    Actually, they had no choice.
    Over coffee at the diner in the next block Bill Long threw Gill a begrudging laugh and shook his head. “Pal, you didn’t say it, but you sure made them do it.”
    “Do what?”
    “Piss up a stick,” he said.

3
     

     
    The pair in the anteroom made him the minute he pushed the door open and the big guy tried reaching for his throat while he scrambled for his rod and had his nose smashed wide and flat in a crimson splash so fast he never knew what happened. The other wasn’t so lucky because his gun was showing and Gill Burke broke his arm before almost splitting him open with a single, terrible kick up between the legs. The only sound was their twisted bodies thumping to the floor and the heavy breathing of the beautiful brunette behind the desk. It was all too quick for her to absorb, or to remember to scream and she watched wide-eyed while he picked the guns off the floor and let them dangle with one finger through the trigger guards.
    He said, “The man inside?”
    The brunette nodded, her breath held so deeply in her chest that her breasts almost burst through the sheer fabric of her dress.
    “Push the button,” he told her.
    There was so much weight in his tone that she couldn’t help herself. One finger found the button, held it down, and while the automatic lock was clicking he went through the door and shut it behind him.
    The Frenchman looked up from the papers on his desk, almost frowned, then relaxed with a smile. “Hello Mr. Burke.” His eyes went down to the guns in Gill’s hands. “Are you planning to shoot me again?”
    Gill dropped the guns on his desk, pulled a chair over with the toe of his shoe and sat down. “Not today, Frank. Later maybe.”
    Frank Verdun fingered the guns, turning them around so they both pointed at Gill. “My boys aren’t very good, are they?”
    “Not hardly.”
    He slipped the clips of the two automatics, checked the loads, making sure there was a cartridge in each chamber and put them down again in the same position. “They’ll have to get a refresher course, I guess.”
    “Teach them better manners. They’ll live longer.”
    Verdun’s face took on an amused expression. “You have a lot of nerve, Mr. Burke. I thought you were smarter, but you sure have nerve. Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”
    “Curiosity, Frank. I heard you were having a lot of trouble.”
    “Nothing we can’t take care of.”
    “You haven’t been doing so good this far.”
    “A group like ours always has a few minor problems. It’s to be expected.”
    “Horseshit. You’ve lost your key men right here and now it’s spreading out.”
    “That shouldn’t make any difference to you. By the way, how did you feel being busted to a private citizen ... and marked lousy at that?”
    “Part of the game, Frank. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, so call it a minor annoyance.”
    “Now it’s my turn to say horseshit.”
    The two of them smiled at each other like a pair of male cats about to cut loose over territorial rights. The claws and teeth were sharp and