Collection 1983 - The Hills Of Homicide (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Read Free Book Online Page A

Castro has leaves the money to him. Why should he give us a split?”
    “He’s leery of Caronna. Also,” I said, grinning, “I’ve got my own angle, but I’ll need help. I know how Castro killed the old man.”
    “How?” Ries said shrewdly.
    I chuckled. In the last few minutes I’d been lying faster than I ever had in my life, but this I really knew. “Don’t ask me how. You guys play ball with me, and I’ll play ball with you.”
    “No,” Nick said. “We got orders to bump you, and that’s what we do.”
    “Wait, Nick.” Toni waved a hand at him. “I’ve got an idea. Suppose we take this lug back to town. We can cache him in the basement at the café, and nobody’ll know. Then we can study this thing over a little. After all, why should Blacky get all the gravy?”
    “How do we know this guy is leveling with us?” Nick said. “He gives us a fast line of chatter, an’—”
    “Wait!” Toni turned to me. “If you know Castro, and if you’re working that close to him, you know about the will. Tell us.”
    Cold sweat broke out all over me. Here it was, and if I gave the wrong answer they’d never listen to me again. Hell. I wouldn’t have time to talk! I’d be too dead.
    Still, I had an idea, if no more. “Hell,” I said carelessly, “I don’t know what anybody else knows, but I know that Johnny Leader wrote that will, and I know that Castro stashed it away when he killed Bitner.”
    “That’s what Caronna figured,” Toni said. “This guy is right!”
    They didn’t see me gulp and swallow. It was lucky I had seen that sign over the small concession on the midway, a sign that said, JOHNNY LEADER, WORLD’S GREATEST PENMAN. And I remembered the comments Caronna had made to Toni about Leader. When I’d glimpsed that sign, it had all come back to me.
    At last they let me put my hands down, and we started back to the cars. I wasn’t out of the woods by a long way, but I had a prayer now. “Toni,” Nick said, “you come with me in this mug’s car. Peppy can drive ours. We’ll head for Ranagat.”
    It couldn’t have worked out better unless Ries had let Toni and me drive in alone. Nick had Toni get behind the wheel and he put me in alongside of her, then he got in behind. That guy wouldn’t trust his grandmother. Still, it couldn’t have been much better. My .45 was tucked into the crack behind the seat cushion right where I sat.
    As we drove, I tried to figure my next play. One thing I knew, I wasn’t taking any chance on being tied up in that basement, even if it meant a shoot-out in the streets of Ranagat. Then I heard something that cinched it.
    “Blacky’s figurin’ on an out,” Nick said to Toni. “He don’t know about this frame they’re springin’ on him. He’s all set to bump the babe and make it look like suicide, with a note for her to leave behind, confessin’ she killed Bitner.”
    A match struck behind me as Nick lit a cigarette. “He’s got the babe, too. We put the snatch on her tonight after he found them tracks she left.”
    “Tracks?” I tried to keep my voice casual. My right hand had worked behind me as I half turned away from Toni toward Nick, and I had the gun in my hand, under the skirt of my coat.
    “Yeah,” Nick chuckled. “She got into his place through the garage window an’ stepped in some grease on a tool bench. She left tracks.”
    Toni glared sidewise at me. “Weren’t you kind of sweet on her?”
    “Me?” I shrugged, and glanced at her with a lot of promissory notes in my eyes. “I like a smart dame!”
    She took it big. I’m no Clark Gable or anything, but alongside of Caronna I’d look like Galahad beside a gorilla.
    THE FIGHT
    W E ROLLED INTO the streets of Ranagat at about daybreak, and then I saw the sight that thrilled me more than any I could have seen unless it was Karen herself. It was Jerry Loftus. He was standing in the door of his office, and he saw us roll into town. This was a sheriff’s office car, and he would