Read Online Solomon's Vineyard by Jonathan Latimer - Free Book Online Page A

all about. She slid off the table
and came over to me. “Why won't they let Pug in?” she whispered. “Gus
is afraid he isn't housebroken,” I said, going through the door.
    She started to follow me. Waterman caught her arm. “Don't go, dear.
Stay with papa.”
    She looked as though she'd like to bite him, but she stayed. I went
to the front room with the rugs and the heads of animals. Two men were
kneeling under windows with the glass shot out. One of them was the
bartender. Another man was lying on the floor by the fireplace. I
walked over to him. He'd been shot through the shoulder. His coat was
off and somebody had tied a towel over the wound.
    One of the men by the window said: “You'd better duck, mister.”
    I bent down. “Where are they?”
    “Back of the cars, I guess,” the bartender said. “I can't see 'em.”,
    “How many?”
    “About ten.”
    The other man took a snap shot at something. I fell flat on the
floor. There was a jerky series of shots outside and the rest of the
glass went out of the windows.
    “Holy Christ!” the bartender said.
    They gave us a burst with a machine-gun. Then a voice called: “Gus.
Gus Papas.”
    Papas crawled into the room. He crawled with a pistol in his hand,
banging it on the floor each time he put the hand down. I moved so I
would be behind him if it went off. “Gus Papas,” the voice outside
called.
    “What you want?”
    “Either we come in, or we blast you.”
    “Go ahead,” Gus said. “Blow 'im up.”
    “Look, Gus,” said another voice. “We just want to take a look around.
We won't hurt you. Or your joint.”
    “Why you shoot my windows out?”
    “Because you shot at us.”
    “Sure I shoot. Why you try to break my door down?”
    “Let's let 'em have it,” said another voice. “You can't reason with a
Greek.”
    “Come on, Gus. Use your head.”
    “You go “way,” Gus said.
    There was a shot out in back. The machine-gun let go in front,
bringing down an elk's head over the fireplace. It damned near scared
me to death. I had my revolver out before I realized what had happened.
There was a lot of shooting out in back. The parley had just been a
fake to give Pug's men time to close in on the place. There was another
burst in front. The man with the bartender by the windows yelped with
pain and dropped his rifle. A splinter of wood had torn a gash in his
cheek. He started to run across the, room towards Papas's office, but a
bullet brought him down. He thrashed around on the floor, bleeding from
his cheek. I started to crawl across the room. I wanted to get to the
office. I saw Ginger and Waterman standing by the door, and the other
behind them.
    “Go back,” I shouted.
    Waterman pushed Ginger back and started for the windows on hands and
knees. He went past me. “This isn't your fight,” I said.
    There was shooting on all sides of the house. The bartender was
firing out his window. I could hear another tommy-gun in back.
Gunpowder smoke began to fill the room. Waterman kept on crawling.
“Don't be a damn fool,” I called after him.
    Papas had gone I don't know where. Ginger and the others were
standing well back in his office. Waterman reached the windows and
picked up the rifle the wounded man had dropped. He stood up and began
to fire at the parked cars. A man came up right in front of him. He had
been hiding under the window. He poked a pistol at Waterman and let him
have the load. It was as though somebody had opened up Waterman's
stomach with an axe. He bent over and hit his head on the floor. Winnie
screamed. I braced myself against the floor with my left elbow and
brought the revolver to bear on the man and squeezed the trigger. There
was the explosion and the whunk of lead hitting bone. Part of
the man's face tore away and he slid out of sight. Waterman lay on the
floor, bent like a pretzel. There was heavy shooting out in back. I
crawled to the door of Papas's office. The two men were