The Neon Jungle Read Online Free PDF Page B

voice, “There are two kinds of people. The hell with all your theories. Just two kinds, Preacher. The straight and the crooked. The straight ones don’t go bad. The bad ones can pretend to go straight. They can fool you. But they don’t ever kid me. Ever.”
    And Paul had asked gently, “I suppose you think they’re born crooked?”
    “I know they are. And I can spot ’em on the street. I can smell ’em. All the way from the punks to the big dealers.”
    “What do you want to talk to me about?” Paul asked gently now, forgetting his own anger, remembering how astonishingly sensitive and helpful Rowell had been after Betty’s death.
    “I want to talk about that Varaki outfit.”
    “Here? Or do you want to come in? I was on my way down to the corner to get cigarettes.”
    “Hop in. I’ll drive you down.”
    Paul walked around the car and got in. Rowell parked on the corner and he went in and came back with cigarettes and got in beside him. Rowell drove back to the house and turned off the motor and turned in the seat, one arm along the seat back.
    “We can talk here. O.K., Preach.”
    “Go ahead.”
    “I don’t like the setup. You shilled Pop Varaki into taking on that punk who makes deliveries for him. Lockter.”
    “Vern Lockter is a good kid. He had some trouble. He hasn’t been in trouble for two years. He doesn’t have to report to me any more. Pop says he’s a good worker.”
    “When he isn’t working he dresses pretty sharp, Preach.”
    “So what? He lives there, eats there. So he saves his money and spends it on clothes.”
    “He wears his sharp clothes to bowling alleys, the fights, the beer joints. He knows all the local sharpies.”
    “But he hadn’t been in trouble for over two years.”
    “O.K., O.K. We’ll drop him for a minute. I understand you’re wishing off another punk on Pop Varaki.”
    “That’s right. I went to bat. Gus needs a new kid around. There are more orders to deliver. Vern Lockter can’t do the odd jobs around the place. There’s just Gus and Stussen and Walter Varaki and Vern. So this kid is coming down from the industrial school. His name is Jimmy Dover.”
    “I know his name. I know the record. He lived with an aunt. He and two of his pals lifted a heap and busted into a gas station. They got caught and one of his friends made a break and got shot through the head and this Dover was carrying a switch-blade knife when they brought him in. Juvenile Court put him in the school. He did two years. He’s eighteen. While he was up there, the aunt disappeared. They couldn’t trace her. What kind of a hold you got over Gus, anyway?”
    “He’s a good man, that’s all. And Jimmy is O.K. I talked it over with him a month ago. I drove Gus up and we both talked to him. Old Gus likes to help straighten a kid out.”
    “O.K. Lockter and Dover. That makes two of them. And the redhead makes three.”
    “What do you mean?” Paul asked sharply.
    “Just what I say. I can smell ’em. So I checked back on her. San Francisco police. Twice they rapped her on a D and D. Henry must have inherited it from his old man. He must have had reformer blood, like you got, Preach.”
    “I suppose you went over and let her know about it?” Paul said softly.
    “It keeps them in line if they know you know the score. Sure I did. She couldn’t look me in the eye. Pop sent her into the house and raised hell with me.”
    “You’ve got a hell of a lot of tact. Don’t you understand she’s Gus’s daughter-in-law?”
    “I’m doing Gus a favor, for God’s sake. I still haven’t got to what’s on my mind. You got the Fletcher girl, Dover, and Lockter. You got ’em all living in that barn of a place with Stussen and the Varaki family. The three of them are going to get their heads together and figure some way of making a dime. Maybe they’ll take it off the Varaki family. I wish they would. It would cure Gus of being noble. Maybe they’ll try it some other way. When they do,