Read 1966 - You Have Yourself a Deal for Free Online Page A

grabbed her, holding her against him. He looked wildly down the long dark boulevard. In the far distance he could see two men coming briskly towards them.
    “Get her into the building!” Jo-Jo snapped. “Quick!”
    Sadu realised it was the only thing to do. He picked up the unconscious girl and ran with her across the sidewalk and into the darkness of the building. He stumbled over the debris scattered on the ground as he reached the inner lobby. Jo-Jo joined him.
    “Put her down.”
    Sadu lowered the girl on a pile of cement sacks.
    “You’re mad!” he gasped as soon as he could get his breath. “She’ll recognise me! What the hell do you think you are doing?”
    Jo-Jo knelt beside the girl. He knocked off her white cap, then seizing her by her hair, he began brutally to shake her head. The girl moaned softly, then her eyes opened. Jo-Jo’s dirty hand closed over her mouth, his fingers cruelly pinching her cheeks.
    “Make a sound and I will kill you,” he whispered viciously. “Now, listen to me. Can you hear me?”
    Her eyes round with terror, she looked up at him, squirming away from his smell of dirt.
    He released his grip over her mouth.
    “Where is this woman? Quick! Where is she?”
    The girl gulped, tried to squirm further away and Jo-Jo, with a curse, slapped her face.
    “Where is she?”
    “Don’t touch me! She . . . she’s on the fifth floor: room 112,” the nurse told him, her voice shaking with terror.
    “Room 112. Fifth floor. Right?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then why didn’t you say so before, you stupid fool?” Jo-Jo said. There was a rapid movement and a flash of steel. The nurse heaved up and then dropped back with a long, whistling sigh.
    Jo-Jo stood up.
    Sadu had seen the movement and had heard the sigh which sent a chill crawling up his spine. It was too dark to see clearly what had happened, but the sound of the sigh had struck terror into him.
    “What have you done?” He grabbed hold of Jo-Jo. “What the hell have you done?”
    Jo-Jo jerked away. He leaned forward and wiped the blade of his knife on the nurse’s cloak.
    “Come on!” he said impatiently. “We now know where she is. Come on! We’re wasting time!”
    With a shaking hand, Sadu took out his cigarette lighter and flicked on the flame. He leaned forward and stared down at the nurse’s dead face. He had only one brief horrifying glimpse before Jo-Jo blew the flame out.
    “Come on,” Jo-Jo snarled. “They won’t find her until tomorrow and then it doesn’t matter.”
    “You’ve killed her!” Sadu gasped.
    “What else did you expect me to do with her? She would have put the finger on you and the flicks would have picked you up and then we would all have been down the drain. Come on . . . we’re wasting time!”
    He walked cautiously out of the building, then headed for the hospital.
     
    * * *
     
    “Come in, Girland,” Dorey said as Girland appeared in the doorway of his office. “How have you been keeping?”
    Girland moved into the big room and closed the door. With a mocking grin, he said, “Why should you care? You must be in one hell of a mess to call on me.” He crossed the room and dropped into one of the lounging chairs. “So they finally put your name up in gold. My! My! Washington must be short of talent these days.”
    “You are an insolent sonofabitch,” Dorey said with a thin smile, “but I have to admit you have certain crude talents. These I am prepared to hire.” He leaned back in his executive chair and studied Girland. “I have been following your career if you can call it a career. You haven’t been doing so well recently, have you? A street photographer is getting pretty near bottom, isn’t it?”
    Girland helped himself to a cigarette from the silver box on Dorey’s desk.
    “Oh, I don’t know. It’s a matter of standards. Guys like you want money, power and ulcers. I take it as it comes. I would rather photograph a pretty woman than have an ulcer.”
    Dorey