1981 - Hand Me a Fig Leaf by James Hadley Chase Read Free Book Online Page B

Colonel Parnell who thought Jackson was the tops? So I kept my mouth shut."
    It looked now as if the citizens of Searle had been right about Mitch Jackson and Colonel Parnell had been wrong.
    "Any idea how Jackson got hold of the drugs?"
    "No, and I didn't want to know and I don't want to know now."
    "He must have been picking up a lot of money."
    "I told you: at least a thousand bucks a week. The kids were really hooked. Some of them had wealthy parents who sent them money. Others stole anything they could lay hands on in Saigon when they were pulled out of the line for a week's rest."
    "What did he do with money like that? He couldn't have spent it."
    Hank shrugged.
    "I wouldn't know. Jackson wasn't the only pusher. There were a lot of them: he was the only one in our outfit, but there were pushers in every outfit. Maybe the pushers pooled the take and got it back home."
    I thought that was likely.
    "Does the name Syd Watkins mean anything to you?" Hank thought, then shook his head.
    "No. he wasn't in our outfit."
    At this moment, Mrs. Smith appeared in the doorway.
    "You want to eat, Hank? The chicken will fall to bits if you don't."
    Taking the hint, I got to my feet.
    "Well, thanks, Hank." I shook his hand. "If there's anything else I think of, can I see you again?"
    He nodded.
    "So long as it's strictly off the record."
    As I left, I gave Mrs. Smith' a friendly smile, but her expression was wooden. From her angle, I wouldn't be welcomed again.
    I went down the path and to my car. Even in the darkness, I could feel hundreds of eyes watching As I got into my car, a big, coloured man, wearing a dark, open-neck shirt and dark cotton trousers, slouched out of the shadows. He had a pair of shoulders on him that All might have envied. He rested two enormous black hands on the window-sill of my car and leaned forward. I could smell gin on his breath.
    "We don't like white men in this district," he said in a soft threatening voice. "Piss off, white man, and don't come back."
    I started the engine and shifted to "Drive"
    "Piss off yourself," I said, looking up at him, "and screw you, black boy." I trod down hard on the gas pedal and shot the car away. In the driving-mirror, I saw him move into the middle of the street, his fists clenched. He looked like a savage gorilla.
    Well, I had learned something. I had learned Mitch Jackson wasn't a white-headed hero. I learned he was the lowest scum on earth. A sonofabitch who sells drugs to kids was just that. I had a lot to think about, but it occurred to me, as I headed back to Paradise City, that I was allowing myself to be side-tracked.
    My job was to find Fred Jackson's grandson, yet I had a distinct hunch that Jackson's murder and Mitch Jackson's drug-pushing were somehow hooked up with the kid's disappearance. It was just a hunch, but I had confidence in my hunches: they had often paid off when I was working for my father.
    It was now too late to drive to Searle, so I headed back to my two-room apartment.
    I parked the car in the underground garage and took the elevator to my apartment on the sixth floor.
    My mind was busy as I unlocked my door and this accounted for my not paying attention to the fact I had trouble in turning the lock. At any other time, when I wasn't thinking so hard, I would have been alerted.
    As I moved into my small, comfortably furnished living-room and turned on the light I smelt them before I saw them. The stink of unwashed bodies hung in the room bringing me to instant alert.
    They came out of my bedroom like two black shadows, evil-looking flick-knives in their black hands.
    My neighbour below turned on his TV set and a voice began to boom out the news.
     
     

chapter three
     
    T he sight of these two black men really had me scared. They moved apart at my bedroom door: one moving to the right, the other to the left.
    The one on the right was tall, emaciated with sugar-spun hair. He wore a filthy goatskin waistcoat hanging open, showing his