Read Online A Pure Double Cross by John Knoerle - Free Book Online Page A

now?” said Mrs. B, meaty arms akimbo. “Then how do you explain yourself?”
    This wasn’t a question I got asked every day. I entertained several creative responses that withered and died under Mrs. Brennan’s baleful eye.
    â€œI can’t explain myself just yet, Mrs. Brennan.”
    â€œThen you’ll pack your grip. I’ve got GIs come in here every day, war heroes, looking for a place to hang their hats.”
    Ahh,
war heroes.
I marched up the steps. Mrs. B was about to get an earful. She didn’t flinch as I approached, just lowered her head to butt me down the steps if I got out of line. I stopped and took a breath.
    â€œMrs. Brennan, there’s a reason all these heroic GIs are swarming the burg right now as opposed to, say, blasting their way through fortified pillboxes outside Karlsruhe.” I tapped my chest. “Agents of the OSS risked their necks behind enemy lines to commit acts of sabotage and target bombing runs thatcleared many of those fortifications and paved the way for our heroic GIs to march to victory and free beer at St. John’s Canteen. And if you…”
    â€œYou were a spy?”
    â€œYes ma’am.”
    She closed one baleful eye and examined me with the other. “That I can believe.”
    I walked up Winslow to St. Malachi’s. Kids in parkas were chasing each other around the schoolyard. Three boys stood atop a mountain of plowed snow, shouting ferocious defiance, playing King of the Hill, preparing to defend the summit to the death against a dozen eager lads arrayed below. Why not? They were eight, nine or ten. For all of their conscious life the world had been at war.
    I hoofed it west to Fulton Road and rode the rattler south to mob headquarters. I had a precise plan in mind, make myself indispensable and demand the ouster of Jimmy Streets. How to do that I would figure out when the time came.
    I gave the conductor two dimes and jumped off at Clark. I walked a block south to Cesco and a half block west to H&R Manufacturing. I rang the bell at the front door. No answer. I knocked, hard. I saw an eyeball behind the peephole.
    I mugged, I waved, I did jumping jacks. No response. I put the barrel of my 9 millimeter Walther to the peephole and the door swung open to reveal Pencil Mustache with a .22 pistol.
    â€œGo shoot a squirrel,” I said and pushed past. I worked my way through the cobwebbed lathes and drill presses on the shop floor, Pencil Mustache bobbing behind me like a toy balloon. I heard a guttural groan from somewhere. I followed it to a closed door.
    â€œI wouldn’t go in there I was you,” said Pencil Mustache. “Jimmy’s hacked off, The Schooler ragged him out bad.”
    â€œSo I heard.” Another groan from inside. “Who’s he taking it out on?”
    â€œA cop,” said Pencil Mustache.
    â€œA
cop
?”
    â€œDave Madsen. He’s on our pad. Jimmy caught him double timing with the Bloody Corners Gang.”
    I opened the door on a big storeroom with bins of scrap metal and spools of welding cable stacked along one wall. The cop wasn’t hard to spot. He was the one in the blue uniform tied to the chair. Jimmy was the beaknose slopehead standing over him.
    Officer Madsen was in bad shape, head lolling, bloody mucus all down his front. Jimmy was wearing sap gloves, pouches of lead filings above the knuckles. He took a break from his exertions and looked over with his good eye.
    â€œGet lost asshole.”
    â€œI was lost,” I said. “I was lost but now I’m found.”
    Jimmy responded by slugging the cop in the midsection. He was a real champ when it came to guys who couldn’t fight back. The cop coughed blood.
    â€œJimmy you’re gonna kill the guy.”
    â€œWhat’s it to ya?”
    â€œIt’s a payday to me. Asshole. You kill a cop and you-know-who will definitely pull the plug on any future plans.”
    Jimmy grinned.