Read Online Hard Cash by Max Allan Collins - Free Book Online Page A

clothes.
    “Oh, the beards are in the other box, with the large suit,” she said. “The caps are in there too.”
    “Caps?”
    “Caps. You better try yours on.” She opened the other suit box and got out a floppy red cap with white ball on the end. “The beards are adjustable, around the ears, but the caps could be trouble . . . there, see? You got too much hair for a small. I’ll go back and get a medium.”
    She did, and insisted that Jon try that one on too, and he did, and she tweaked his cheek and said, “Gonna bring me anything for Christmas, Santa?”
    He grinned, trying to keep the red from crawling up his neck. “We’ll see,” he said.
    “I wonder what the heck Nolan wants with Santa Claus suits,” she said, shaking her head. “Somehow he don’t seem the Santa type. Unless he’s gonna empty stockings instead of fill ’em.”
    Jon nodded his agreement and watched her put the cap back in the box and tie some string around it.
    “Don’t forget to tell Nolan I said hi,” she said. “And maybe I’ll see you when you bring the suits back after Christmas, huh, honey?”
    It took him almost an hour to get back to Iowa City. The overcast day had everybody cautious and using their headlights, and he got caught behind some old ladies going forty-five. So did a lot of other cars; the traffic was heavy, and passing was difficult—no, impossible—and he followed the old girls to the Interstate, after which he was back to Iowa City in short order. He parked the Chevy II behind the antique shop and went in the side door, which was unlocked.
    That wasn’t right; surely he’d locked the door when he left. Yes, he remembered locking it.
    Too early for Nolan to back from Indianapolis. Wasn’t it?
    He shut the door. Softly. Silently.
    Listened.
    Heard nothing.
    Quietly he moved behind the long, saloon-style counter behind which his uncle had sat day after day puffing his foul-smelling cigars. He set his packages on the counter. In a drawer, below the cash register, was one of his uncle’s .32 automatics. Jon got it out Softly. Silently.
    He explored the downstairs. Nothing in the main room, with its antiques and showcases and counter and all. Nothing in his own room, except half the comic books in the world.
    But what about the other back room? The one that had included Planner’s workshop area, as well as where many very valuable antiques were crated away for future sale, and where the big old safe was. . . .
    The safe’s door was open.
    Otherwise, the room was as empty as the rest of the downstairs.
    But someone had been in here, opened the safe and, of course, found nothing in it. There hadn’t been anything of value kept in the safe since Nolan and Jon’s money had been stolen from it months before, the time Planner himself was killed defending that money. Killed in this very room. Jon had, in fact, scrubbed his uncle’s blood from the floorboards of this room. . . .
    He felt a chill, and for a moment was very scared, and then it passed. Whoever it was had been here and gone. He walked out into the other room and put the gun back in its drawer.
    He was halfway up the stairs, his arms full of the packages with the hunting jackets and Santa Claus suits, when he heard the noise.
    Talking.
    Someone was talking up there on the second floor. And it sure as hell wasn’t Nolan.
    And the talking was coming this way. Toward the stairs. They were going to come down the stairs!
    He couldn’t be soft or silent about it now. He had no choice but to clomp down the stairs and head toward that drawer with the gun in it, but they were closer to him than he had imagined, on his damn heels before he was even out of the stairwell. And the packages were flying and he was face down on the floor, one of the men on his back and the other standing in front of him. Jon couldn’t see anything of whoever it was except shoes. Black shoes and white socks. The shoes were old-fashioned, lacing halfway up the ankle. Clodhoppers,