Read Online Shakedown by William Campbell Gault - Free Book Online Page B

Department was getting sensitive. If I had to hit a cop, I’d picked about the best time possible.
    I went into the bathroom and filled the basin with hot water and shoved the hand into it. That made it worse. Damn it, was it supposed to be cold water for a thing like this? In the mirror over the sink, my shiny face stared sickly back at me. There was dried blood all over my chin, and the tight skin of the swollen lip looked ready to split with the tension.
    I washed out my mouth with warm water and ran a wet washcloth gingerly over the bloody lip and chin. I opened the window to get some fresh air and saw the pretty, pretty geraniums. To hell with this damn geranium jungle. To hell with this angle-shooting, double-crossing four hundred and fifty square miles of false front. Once I got my hands on the boodle. It would never see me again.
    I stunk. The sweat had been pouring off me and my clothes were heavy with it. I peeled down and climbed into the shower.
    Easy does it, Joe. Temper will get you nowhere with these operators. Your old man was always burning about something and remember what happened to him. I kept telling myself: I’d play it cold and play it smart and play it alone. I still held the big cards.
    I rubbed myself down with one hand, dressed with one hand, and lay on the davenport in the living room and tried to calm down.
    I was nursing a cup of lukewarm coffee when they came back, loaded with packages, happy and noisy.
    Jean saw my lip first and stopped where she stood. “What happened?”
    “I had a visit from a cop.”
    Both of them stared at me without saying a word. I said to Josie, “It was your friend. It was Manny. He wants to put you away.”
    Her big eyes were frightened. “He knows I’m here?”
    “No, but he knows you’re not dead. He thought I might know where you were. Because I wouldn’t tell him, he did this to me.” I lifted my swollen hand. “I tried to hit him back. All I hit was the door jamb.”
    Jean came over to study the blue-brown streak between the knuckles. “Oh—Joe—” She ran her finger-tips lightly over the swollen lip. “Joe—baby—”
    Josie said quietly, “Manuel hates gringos.”
    “It’s you he was after, Josie, not me. With Target dead, you’re all he has left. He means to put you away for a long time.”
    Jean said, “Nobody’s going to bother Josie. Not while you and I can protect her.”
    “That’s right,” I said. “You trust us, don’t you, Josie?”
    She nodded.
    “Well,” Jean said, “to hell with Manny, whoever he is. Baby, I’m going to soak that hand. And Josie, you put on the gray-green dress. I want Joe to see it.”
    Jean went into the kitchen to get some hot water while Josie went into the bathroom to dress. Miss Roland was playing a new role, mistress of the household.
    The dress was of some coarse, linen-like material, giving Josie the look of a sweet young peasant who’d gone to an exclusive girl’s school. My hand was in the basin of hot water and I lay on the couch. Jean sat on the edge of it, holding my good hand.
    She said, “A girl shouldn’t hide her—characterizing features. I’ve tried to buy Josie clothes that will emphasize her special charms. Women have really nothing to sell but themselves.”
    “It should bring her to a higher-priced level,” I agreed.
    Jean looked at me quietly, started to say something and seemed to change her mind. “How’s the lip?”
    “I’ll live, I guess.”
    Josie came out in a green suit with a frilly white blouse, and that passed our inspection, too. And then in a quilted, brightly patterned patchwork skirt and embroidered off-the-shoulder blouse.
    I told Jean, “That’s what you wore when you came here. It looked a lot like that.”
    “Mmm-hmm. It seems like a long time ago.”
    Josie said, “Do you like them all, Joe?”
    “You’re a knockout, Josie,” I said. “You’re a beautiful girl.”
    She flushed and went back to change again.
    Quiet. Then Jean said, “The