Read Lady, Go Die! for Free Online Page B

beatings I gave him, he knows what to expect now.”
    “Yeah, but do you?”
    “Pat, I’m just in Sidon to take the rest cure, remember? Anyway, thanks for the info. If something develops, I’ll ring you.”
    “Always glad to help you out. It’s the least I can do, all the times you come through for me. But the truth is, Mike... I ought to forget I even know you, after the Williams case * .”
    “Pat, I took this trip to forget about all that, remember?”
    “I remember. Do you?”
    “Pat...”
    “You run into a crooked cop you tangled with before, and stumble into a missing persons case, which incidentally hasn’t come over the teletype as such yet. And you tell a very amusing story about shooting up the Sidon police station.”
    “I didn’t shoot it up. I just—”
    “Shot a gun out of the deputy chief’s hand. What’s your horse in this race, Mike? You got no murdered friend to avenge this time.”
    “Back off, Pat.”
    “Okay, I will. And I will help you like I always do. Whatever background info you need, buddy, you got it. You just have to convince me of one thing.”
    “What’s that?”
    “That you aren’t down at Sidon trying to get yourself killed.”
    “Pat,” I said. “I don’t have that big a conscience.”
    After I hung up, the operator came on wanting another quarter to cover the call, and I fed it to her.
    I returned to Velda’s booth and she looked up and asked, “Now what?”
    “That was Pat. He couldn’t give me any help except to provide a little something on Sharron Wesley.”
    “A little something good?”
    I shook my head. “She was nabbed on a few minor violations. Dekkert must have picked this podunk as a last resort or else he’s working for something or somebody bigger than the so-called police department.”
    “Why last resort?”
    “He’s been in a few nasty jams since he was run out of Manhattan. Want another drink?”
    “No thanks, Mike.”
    “Maybe some lunch?”
    “I’m still stuffed from breakfast. There’s a theater down the street with a Saturday matinee double feature.” She scooted out of the booth. “What do you say?”
    For the next two and a half hours we sat through a western we’d already seen and a Bowery Boys comedy I wished we never had. I wasn’t really paying any attention to the screen, just sitting there going over everything I’d learned so far, again and again. Finally I fell asleep and Velda punched me in the ribs when it was time to leave.
    As we exited, Velda said, “You looked surprised when I woke you.”
    “Yeah. I was wondering what Huntz Hall was doing in a Randolph Scott picture.”
    We headed across the street to a dingy diner, boxcar-style; but the kitchen behind the counter looked clean and the cutlery didn’t have food caked in the tines of the forks like a lot of such joints. The proprietor was a big jovial Polack who sported a handlebar mustache and a pair of black eyebrows that met in the middle without thinning out in the slightest.
    He wiped the counter clean enough for eating, then said, “What’ll it be, folks?”
    “I’ll have the veal cutlet,” Velda said. “Home fries and corn.”
    I asked, “Got a steak?”
    He shook his head and black snakes danced on his scalp. “Naw. Rationing is over, my friend, but there are still shortages.”
    “I know. Just asking.”
    “Oh, I could have plenty of meat if I wanted to buy black market, but I won’t do it. I lost a son on Iwo and I’ll be damnedif I will do business with them sons of...” He hesitated. “...excuse me, miss... dirty bums who made all that filthy dough while our kids were dying over there.”
    “Gimme the cutlet then.”
    “Okay. You don’t like my speech?”
    “Your speech was swell. But it’s not what I came in for. Veal cutlet.”
    He looked at me carefully, trying to decide whether we were friends or not. “You in the war, mister?”
    “He sure was,” Velda piped up.
    I growled, “Velda...”
    “With the infantry in the