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

We’re on twelfth. Ten blocks almost straight.”
    “Thanks,” I said.
    “Your funeral, California,” he grinned.
    Tashlin came back on the line.
    “Got it,” he said anxious to please. “Kid named Canetta, Carl ‘Bitter’ Canetta. Small time record in Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Jacksonville. Said some guy tried to hype his suitcase. Ran off with it. A woman with a kid backed him up. You want her name?”
    “No thanks,” I said, smiling at Kleinhans. “You have an address for our friend, someplace I can reach him?”
    “Canetta?”
    “Right.”
    “Fourteen ten Ainslie in Chicago, but that’s old. Said he was living at the Y in Indianapolis, but hadn’t checked in yet.”
    “Thanks,” I said. I hung up.
    “Got what you want?” said Kleinhans.
    “Not as much as I wanted,” I said, looking at the address on the piece of blotter.
    “Better stay away from your room for a few hours. I don’t think they’ll need to lock it up. There won’t be any prints worth looking for. The homicide and coroner’s crew give up easy on these, shove them under—grab the first guy handy or give it up. The papers don’t even care much anymore.”
    “You can do something for me,” I said.
    “My goal in life,” he answered.
    “See if you have a recent address for a small timer named Carl Canetta.”
    “I’ll check,” he said, yawning.
    I told him that was comforting, blew my nose, promised to call, and stepped out of the office. I wondered if that new medicine Leonardo had told me they were using on Capone was any good for a cold. I stopped in the toilet, stole a roll of paper for my nose, chewed my last Bromo tablet, and went out on State Street looking for a cab to take me to Frank Nitti.

3
     
    The cab driver’s name was Raymond Narducy, according to the name plate and picture. He was a little guy with glasses and a wooly blue scarf over most of his face. The heater in the cab wasn’t working.
    We headed south on the red bricks at State Street past dark-windowed bars and sprawling auto parts shops crushing two-story frame houses between them. In the window of one of the houses I spotted a little kid with her face pressed into, and distorted by, a cold glass pane.
    “That’s Colisimo’s,” Narducy said through his scarf. I looked. There was a sign saying Colisimo’s. Without Narducy’s warning I would have missed it. It was a three-floor brick building, nothing special.
    “Big Jim Colisimo used to be the boss around here,” Narducy said. “Johnny Torrio gunned him and took over. Then he gave it all to Big Al. Big Al died in Alcatraz.”
    “That a fact?” I said. “Why you telling me? I look like a historian?”
    “Naw,” said Narducy, making a left turn on Twenty-second Street. “You look like a cop. Wanna know how I knew you were a cop?”
    “Yeah.”
    “One,” he said, holding up a holey glove and extending a finger, “you came out of the police station. Now you could have been a criminal, but with that new coat and hat, if you were a criminal, you’d have a car. If you were a lawyer you’d have a car. If you were a bail bondsman, I’d know you. You look too tough to be a victim. You want more?”
    “Sure,” I said. He had pulled to a stop on the curb across from the place I was looking for, the New Michigan Hotel.
    “Two,” said Narducy, holding up a second finger, “you aren’t a local cop. A local cop would have a car, too. Wouldn’t take a cab. You’re on an expense account of some kind. I saw you write something down in that little notebook. Three, you’re from someplace warm—California. You’re wearing a lightweight summer pants. Couldn’t be Florida because you don’t sound it. I know accents. For instance, you can always tell Canadians. They say aboot for about. I study human nature. Shit, I got nothing else to do except freeze and read detective stories. So,” he said, holding up his whole hand, “I put all this together about you and with a few guesses, and the