The Wicked Go to Hell Read Online Free PDF

straightened his back and managed to get hold of his attacker’s wrists.
    He was unusually strong. Frank released his grip. When he had been forced back, Hal growled:
    “Listen, Frank. A man’s entitled to spin himself whatever yarn he likes, isn’t he? Anyway, you started it…”
    “What do you mean?”
    “That farmer’s wife with her flabby breasts and her storm lantern and the guy jumping into the middle of an inferno! You read that in James Hadley Chase!”
    Frank looked down. Hal let go of his wrists and his arms dropped loosely down the sides of his body, where they hung like two broken branches.
    “You wanted to wrong-foot me, didn’t you, you bastard,” barked Hal. “Don’t you think I got your number the first time I set eyes on you? Your face gives you away—it says whatyou are trying to hide. It’s got stoolie written all over it! It’s as obvious as if it was up there in lights!”
    “Are you going to shut your mouth?” bawled Frank.
    He was jumping up and down with rage. His whole body was shaking. His teeth chattered with fury.
    “I said shut your trap!”
    “Stoolie!” yelped Hal. “Stoolie!”
    He flung the insult as though it were a complaint. It was almost a cry of anguish. He put his whole being into it… His whole life…
    “Stoolie!”
    The word rose through the silence of the sleeping prison. As it travelled it woke the others from their dreams. Protesting voices from every side blended into a chorus:
    “What’s going on?”
    “It’s those new men kicking up a rumpus!”
    “Move them to another cell!”
    “Knock it off, will you!”
    The sound of footsteps… The screws were coming, and they were not in the best of moods…
    Frank had got Hal by the throat again.
    “You’re the stoolie! It’s you!”
    “That’s right,” grunted Hal gasping for breath. “I got my face smashed in so I could come and listen to you tell boring stories. Your plan’s a bit obvious, you know. Spreading lies so you can get to the truth…”
    Frank let him go. He’d suddenly had an idea. He said:
    “Show me your hands!”
    “But…”
    “Come on, show me your hands!”
    Hal held out his hands in the glow of the night light. Frank spat on them.
    “Call those truck driver’s hands?” he said calmly. “Who do you think you’re kidding? You were still having manicures the day before yesterday!”
    “And what about you, a travelling rep for an oil company!… Tell me, Monsieur Shell: where exactly were you prospecting?”
    “Pas-de-Calais,” said Frank with a scowl.
    “Right! So what’s the name of the guy who’s got the contract in Saint-Omer? Well?”
    Frank gave a shrug.
    “Just drop it,” he murmured.
    “That’s more like it!” gloated Hal. “You see, it’s you!… You’re just a low-down cop!”
    “Say that again!”
    “A lower-than-a-rat’s-tail cop!”
    They laid into each other once more, rolling around, grappling on the floor. They were still at it when the warders separated them using boots and cudgels.
    When the Bull showed up, in his slippers, all that remained for him to do was administer the final touches with his stick to the pair, who were now incapable of reacting in any way.
    “Take these two lowlifes down to solitary,” he ordered. “Each man in a cell of his own! And put them both on bread and water! And don’t forget to go gentle on them: they’re delicate little things!”
    But they did not wear kid gloves, and the two prisoners were bundled roughly down to the floors below.
    As they passed, their fellow prisoners, whose sleep they had disrupted, hurled abuse at them.
    Before he left, the Bull swatted the mute with his stick.
    The man with no voice cowered on his bed and began to weep for a world full of sorrows.
    When he said that there were rats in the solitary cells, the Bull had not overstated the facts. The arrival of a new prisoner in the windowless basement dungeons was always manna from heaven for the rodents, because with him came