The Mugger Read Online Free PDF Page A

girls who do six miles before breakfast. She was closer now, still with that bounce in her step as if she were on a pogo stick. She was grinning, too, grinning like a big baboon picking lice; maybe she was coming home from bingo or maybe a poker session; maybe she’d just made a big killing, and maybe this big bouncing baby’s bag was just crammed full of juicy bills.
    He reached out.
    His arm circled her neck, and he pulled her to him before she could scream, yanking her into the blackened mouth of the alley. He swung her around then, releasing her neck, catching her sweater up in one big hand, holding it bunched in his fist, slamming her against the brick wall of the building.
    “Quiet,” he said. His voice was very low. He looked at her face. She had hard green eyes, and the eyes were narrow now, watching him. She had a thick nose and leathery skin.
    “What do you want from me?” she asked. Her voice was gruff.
    “Your purse,” he answered. “Quick.”
    “Why are you wearing sunglasses?”
    “Give me your purse!”
    He reached for it, and she swung it away from him. His hand tightened on the sweater. He pulled her off the wall for an instant and then slammed her back against the bricks again. “The purse!”
    “No!”
    He bunched his left fist and hurled it at her mouth. The woman’s head rocked back. She shook it, dazed.
    “Listen,” he said, “listen to me. I don’t want to hurt you, you hear? That was just a warning. Now, give me the purse, and don’t make a peep after I’m gone, you hear? Not a peep!”
    The woman slowly wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. She looked at the blood in the darkness, and then she hissed, “Don’t touch me again, you punk!”
    He brought back his fist. She kicked him suddenly, and he bent over in pain. She struck out at his face, her fleshy fists bunching, hitting him over and over again.
    “You stupid…” he started, and then he caught her hands and shoved her back against the wall. He hit her twice, feeling his bunched knuckles smashing into her stupid, ugly face. She fell back against the wall, moaned, and then collapsed to the concrete at his feet.
    He stood over her, breathing heavily. He looked over his shoulder, staring off down the street, lifting the sunglasses for a better view. There was no one in sight. Hastily, he bent down and retrieved the purse from where it had fallen.
    The woman did not move.
    He looked at her again, wondering. Dammit, why had she been so stupid? He hadn’t wanted this to happen. He bent down again, and he put his head on her bosom. She was breathing. He rose, satisfied, and a small smile flitted across his face.
    He stood over her, and he bowed, the hand with the purse crossing his waist gallantly, and he said, “Clifford thanks you, madam.”
    And then he ran into the night.

The bulls of the 87th Squad, no matter what else they agreed upon, generally disagreed upon the comparative worth of the various stool pigeons they employed from time to time. For as the old maid remarked upon kissing the cow, “It’s all a matter of taste,” and one cop’s pigeon might very well be another cop’s poison.
    It was generally conceded that Danny Gimp was the most trustworthy of the lot, but even Danny’s staunchest supporters realized that some of their colleagues got better results from some of the other birds. That all of them relied heavily upon information garnered from underworld contacts was an undisputed fact; it was simply a question of whom you preferred to use.
    Hal Willis favored a man named Fats Donner.
    In fact, with Donner’s solicited and recompensed aid, he had cracked many a tough nut straight down the middle. And there was no question but what Clifford, the mugger with the courtly bow, was beginning to be a tough nut.
    There was only one drawback to using Donner, and that was his penchant for Turkish baths. Willis was a thin man. He did not enjoy losing three or four pounds whenever he asked Donner a