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

“You’re sayin’ I shun’t hit him no more?”
    Officer Madsen, his eyes rolled back in his head, coughed, groaned, mewled like a kitten.
    â€œThat’s what I’m saying.”
    â€œOkay then, maybe he’s had enough.” Jimmy grinned some more. We faced each other across twenty feet of dirty brown concrete. Jimmy made no move to go. A truck rumbled by on Cesco, making an empty rattling sound, hauling postholes.
    I started forward. Jimmy grabbed the cop’s limp wrist and bent it back. The cop didn’t seem to notice. Jimmy increased the pressure. The cop blinked, shuddered and sat up straight. I stopped, ten feet away.
    â€œDon’t do it Jimmy. You snap the wrist he could die of shock.”
    I should have said the opposite maybe. Snap his wrist, I dare you. I should have known Jimmy Streets wasn’t going to obey a direct order from Hal Schroeder.
    Officer Madsen convulsed once in the desk chair when Jimmy did what I told him not to. Madsen’s eyes went wide open as eyes can go. He died that way.

Chapter Thirteen
    Jimmy was in big trouble. The Schooler had arrived with Kelly the bouncer and another goon I recognized from somewhere. He was fat and bald and big as a house. The Schooler called him Manny though mostly The Schooler didn’t speak. He let his silence and his twin monsters do the talking for him. Jimmy was sweating bullets, standing over the dead cop’s body, making excuses.
    â€œI just gave him a goin’ over, I din’t mean to croak him.”
    I didn’t volunteer the information about the wrist snap. I had superior knowledge on Jimmy Streets for the moment. And I intended to keep that shiv in my sock till the time was right.
    â€œYou dug this hole,” said The Schooler to Jimmy. “You fill it in.”
    Kelly and Manny lumbered closer, Manny rotating his neck and shoulders as if about to climb into the ring. Shit a brick. He was Manny the Mauler, famed wrestler of yesteryear! Jimmy was in
big
trouble.
    â€œAny ideas Jimmy?” said The Schooler calmly, menacingly.
    â€œI’ll take care of it,” said Jimmy. “Dump the body in the lake.”
    â€œThe lake’s frozen.”
    â€œI got other places,” said Jimmy, backing away as Kelly and Manny closed in, two flanks of a pincer movement.
    â€œMadsen was a copper Jimmy, who worked for
us.
We need to dispose of more than the body.” The Schooler’s voice slid down to a whisper. “Any ideas?”
    Jimmy didn’t answer the question. The approaching six hundred pounds of beef distracted him maybe. If Kelly andManny twisted Jimmy into a pretzel and dropped him in the river the way would be cleared for the final heist.
    But Kelly and Manny wouldn’t. This was theater, complete with a sweaty old wrestler who took two breaths for every step. They were going to toss Jimmy back and forth like a beach ball for a few minutes then go out for steaks. The performance was for my benefit, I suppose. Or for Pencil Mustache and the group of young felons in training clustered by the open door.
    Jimmy wasn’t in on the joke. When the twin monsters had him backed up against the far wall he reached for his nickel-plated.
    â€œHold on gentlemen,” I said. “I have an idea!”
    Jimmy turned to look. Kelly ripped the nickel-plated from his grip as Manny pinned Jimmy to the wall with a big paw.
    â€œOkay, the papers are screaming for a crackdown on racketeers and the cops are primed to take action. I see a way we can make chicken salad out of chicken shit.”
    Manny the Mauler thought this a very funny comment. He laughed himself into a coughing fit, his every spasm compressing Jimmy against the back wall.
    â€œMadsen was playing three sides against the middle, the PD versus the Fulton Road Mob versus the Bloody Corners Gang. When you do that, and you get yourself bumped off, there are any number of crummy reasons why. We need to get