You Bet Your Life: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Three) Read Online Free PDF

morning. Outside the window it was as dark as the night before. A call to the desk said my watch was right and the sun would be rising in a few minutes. The desk added that we would probably never know when it came because of the cloud cover.
    I brushed my teeth and shaved slowly with a new blade. Then I put on my last clean shirt and tie, and matched my jacket to my pants. I had an important job this morning—the purchase of a coat. I sneezed, blew my nose, and tried to hold back the possibility that I might be catching a cold. In Chicago you could die in days from a common cold. There were lots of other things you could die from in Chicago, but I hadn’t faced them yet.
    In the lobby I asked where the nearest clothing store was, and was told it was a block away. It was nine in the morning, and the temperature couldn’t have topped nine or ten degrees over zero. It reminded me of a line from an old Bert Williams song—“Good Lord, I thought I was prepared, but I wasn’t prepared for that.”
    The clothing store was warm, and I was in no mood to bargain. Their price was right—thirty bucks. I knew a little shopping could cut that in half, but I couldn’t fight off pneumonia without a warm coat, and soon. Mayer owed me a coat. I’d sell it to Gittleson as soon as I got back to Los Angeles. The coat was warm and brown with big buttons. I threw in a hat, gloves, and ear muffs. The whole thing came to a little over forty bucks. I made a note of it in my traveling expense book.
    Before heading back to my room, I stopped in a corner Steinway drug store for a couple of eggs, bacon, and toast. The place was jammed with people fortifying themselves for the day. A good looking woman next to me wore a suit with padded shoulders and a turban. I ordered some cereal and sneezed in her coffee. She had real class, and never acknowledged that I existed. After picking up a bottle of Bromo Quinine Cold Tablets, I headed back for the hotel to call Sergeant Kleinhans.
    Maybe I shouldn’t have bought the ear muffs. Maybe skipping breakfast or the cold tablets would have made the difference. The world is full of maybes and wishes. Some people live on them. I knew I hadn’t been out of that hotel room more than forty minutes.
    When I got back the door was the way I had left it, locked. I let myself in, went to the bathroom, had a handful of cold tablets, and went to find Kleinhans’ number. I found it in my other pants. I was spreading the napkin out to read it when I noticed the closet door was open. I read about compulsions once in the Saturday Evening Post. My compulsions are as reasonable as the next guy’s. Doors have to be closed, drawers have to be closed. Taps have to be turned off, and dishes can’t be left overnight.
    I kicked the closet door closed with my foot as I looked at the napkin, but the door didn’t stay closed. It opened from the weight of the body behind it. He was a big man in a blue suit. He fell forward fast before I could see his face. All I saw was a splash of red across his chest. But identification was no problem. I could tell from the circle of white hair and the prone pyramid shape that Leonardo had made the trip from Miami to a closet in a Chicago hotel. I’d probably never know what caused that circle of white. My first reaction was to open my suitcase. My .38 was there, unfired. I called Kleinhans’ number. He wasn’t in. I left a message for him to call.
    There wasn’t much chance that Nitti, Capone or Guzik were listed in the phone book. A half hour earlier Leonardo could have told me. I went through Leonardo’s pockets. Maybe I’d find something that would tell me what he was doing dead in my hotel room. His wallet had eighty dollars covered with blood and some family pictures—an old woman and three younger boys all of whom looked like Leonardo.
    I called Louis B. Mayer, collect. He wasn’t in. I left a message. I called the hotel in Las Vegas where Chico Marx was working. The switchboard