Read Online with These Hands (Ss) (2002) by Louis L'amour - Free Book Online Page B

you are told.
    "As the family's lawyer you are in the perfect position to help us. We know Dwight Harley and his wife are in Bermuda. They've left here one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in negotiable securities. If we took them, we'd get maybe thirty thousand dollars from a fence. But you can get their full value.
    "You take these bonds, turn them into cash, and bring it here; I want you to work fast. I may add, that you'll be watched."
    "What assurance do I have," Houston demanded, "that you will release the girls after you get the money?"
    "Because we have no reason to add murder to this. If we get the money, we leave, and the girls remain here."
    "All right." Houston stood up. "Since I have no choice in the matter. I can handle the bonds. But I wish you'd allow me to communicate with Harley."
    "Nothing doing." The reply was sharp. "You can handle this. I'm sure you've done transactions for him before."
    Crouched there by the steps, I stiffened slightly. That voice. I knew it from somewhere.
    What Houston didn't know was that murder was already tied in with this deal, and what I knew was that those thugs would never leave the girls alive when they left.
    Nor, the chances were, would Houston make it either.
    "What's your part in this, Hiesel?" Houston demanded, as he rose from the table.
    The criminal lawyer shrugged. "The same as yours, Houston. These men knew of me. They simply got me to contact you. I don't know the girls. Nor do I know Harley, but I've no desire to see the girls or Harley killed over a few paltry dollars."
    "And some of those paltry dollars," Houston replied sharply, "will no doubt find their way into your pockets."
    He turned and walked to a door to the outside, and Hiesel followed him.
    As they reached the door, I glanced back through the archway into the library where they had talked.
    A man was standing there, and he was looking right at me.
    The gun in his hand was very large, and I knew his face as well as I knew my own.
    It was a round, moonlike face, pink and healthy. There were almost no eyebrows, and the mouth was peculiarly flat. When he smiled, he looked cherubic and pleasant.
    When his mouth closed and his eyes hardened, he looked merciless and brutal.
    He was an underworld character known as Candy Chuck Marvin.
    "So," he said, "we've a guest." And he added, as I got up and walked out into the open, "Long time no see, Morgan."
    "Yeah," I said. "It has been a long time. I haven't seen you since the Redden mob was wiped out. As I remember, you took a powder at just about that time."
    "That's right." He gestured me into the library. The fourth man, the hoodlum in the gray plaid suit, had a gun too. "And where are the boys who wiped out the Redden mob now?"
    It took me a minute to get it. "Where are they? Why, let's see." I scowled, trying to recall. "Salter was killed by a hitand-run driver. Pete Maron hung himself, or something.
    Lew Fischer and Joey Spats got into an argument over a card game and shot it out, both killed. I guess they are all dead."
    "That's right. They are." Candy Chuck smiled at me.
    "Odd coincidence, isn't it? Fortunately, Pete Maron was light. That hook held his weight. I wasn't sure that it would when I first hung the rope over it. Salter was easy.
    It's simple enough to run a man down. And it's not too difficult a matter to fake a 'gun battle.' I pay my debts, Morgan."
    I smiled at him. Candy Chuck Marvin was cunning, without any mercy, and killing meant nothing to him.
    He had been convicted once, when a boy. After that, nobody ever found any witnesses.
    "But this time there's going to be a change," I said.
    "You're turning those girls, loose."
    He laughed. "Am I?" He sat down on the corner of the desk and looked at me. "Morgan, I've found one of those setups I used to dream about. The boys pulled the Madison Tool payroll job, and they were on the lam. They came to me for a place to hole up. Then I got to talking with the little Harley girl on a train. It was