Crooked by Camilla Nelson Read Free Book Online Page A

of spiking Johnny into a prickly belligerence.
    â€˜Well, first up,’ said Chooks, once Johnny had given him the go ahead. ‘I reckon he isn’t working for Reilly anymore.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜I dunno. Just do. I reckon you seen him and you’ll catch what I’m saying.’
    â€˜I guess you better send the bugger up then,’ said Johnny.
    Chooks went out, and Johnny not so casually pulled a gun out of his trousers and put it down on the table. He waited a minute, then picked up the gun and moved to the top of the staircase, gun-arm dangling loose, pointing down into the dark. ‘Hurry up, Tommy. I’m a busy man.’
    There was a subdued commotion on the staircase, and then Tommy blundered out of the gloom. His face was battered and bruised as if from a recent beating, and the light from the naked bulb brought out his injuries in a startling way. His cheeks quivered. He gnawed on his thumb.
    â€˜Aw, hell …’ Johnny was disconcerted. ‘Reilly do that?’
    Tommy hesitated, but after a while his mouth began to work and the words tumbled out.
    â€˜Mate, Reilly’s gone and knocked him.’
    â€˜Who?’
    â€˜O’Connor.’
    â€˜He hasn’t,’ said Johnny.
    â€˜I tell you he’s done it, and I reckon I’m next. He thinks I’m the one who topped off to the coppers the night that the Kellett Club got raided. Mate –’ Tommy pleaded, and held out a crumpled paper. ‘I tell you the bloke’s got no loyalty. He hasn’t got the right.’
    Johnny took hold of the newspaper, and Glory peered at it over his shoulder.
    THE BIG WIPEOUT
    C ITY’S FASTEST HANKIE COVERS UP KILLING
    The best brains of the Sydney CIB have been baffled by ‘The Fastest Handkerchief’ in the West.
    The Handkerchief removed the evidence which might have shown who killed gunman Raymond ‘Ducky’ O’Connor last night.
    When O’Connor – known as Ducky because he waddled when he walked – was shot dead in the Latin Quarter, The Fastest Handkerchief whipped out his hankie and wiped all fingerprints off the murder weapon – plus another pistol that appeared miraculously on the floor.
    By the time two watching detectives pushed their way through the crowd, both guns were shining as smoothly as a sergeant major’s boots.
    There was a beautiful irony about it. Ducky O’Connor had died the way he had lived – with violence, without witnesses.

Police Commissioner Norman Allan slammed down the newspaper and yelled at Reg Tanner as he came down the room. ‘This is not the sort of thing I want to read over the marmalade pot. This is the sort of thing I ought to be told.’
    Allan had been called from his sickbed at an unusual hour. His striped flannel pyjamas peeked at odd points from the collar and cuffs of his uniform, and his protruding potbelly blossomed like cauliflower through a half-buttoned coat. Tanner took this in as he came to a halt in front of the desk, and put on a wonderfully contrived look of angelic contrition. ‘I was going to mention it to you, Norman. Honest. Only with you being sick and all –’
    â€˜There’s nothing to stop you from picking up the telephone. You dial it and it rings. Ever heard of that?’
    Tanner slackly raised his arms from his sides, palms uppermost, in a gesture of hapless apology. ‘This O’Connor character. See, he was a bit of a loser. I reckon most likely he upped and shot himself.’
    â€˜Shot himself?’
    â€˜I dunno how it happened –’
    â€˜Too right you don’t.’
    â€˜Yeah.’
    â€˜You better give me a good reason why I shouldn’t yank you off this,’ said Allan, starting in on a tirade that went on for several minutes. Then he sank back down against the edge of his desk,and his eyes began to wander, anxious and allergic. ‘Hell. Just tell me what happened.’
    Tanner