Deadman by Jon A. Jackson Read Free Book Online Page B

behind this mob thing? They have the mob in Montana? Where is Silver Bow?”
    “It's Butte. Mul, I'm so glad to get hold of you,” Antoni said. “What are you, still a cop? You know anything about this guy?”
    The questions tumbled back and forth. The sheriff had found a body. Some identification checked through the FBI said it was a man named Mario Soper, reputed to be a hit man out of New York, butwith a reference to slain Detroit mob boss Carmine Busoni. Could this be Busoni's killer? And why would he be in Montana? Could Mulheisen come out?
    Mulheisen was astounded. This was the breakthrough, he thought. The murder of Carmine had been on his lap for months. He had so many questions to ask Antoni, but they seemed too many for the telephone. Gone were all thoughts of becoming a disc jockey.
    The dead man, Mario Soper, had been found on property belonging to a man named Joseph Humann, who had moved into the area a few years earlier, presumably from Canada. Humann had been missing for more than a month, along with a young woman named Helen, who had been living with him since earlier in the year.
    “Tell me about the woman,” Mulheisen demanded.
    The local cops had come up with a description. She was about thirty, small and dark, a city woman. She'd appeared with this man Humann about six months before, after Humann had been away for a few weeks, as apparently he was wont to do (some of the locals were of the opinion that he had a job, or a business, in California, and had to return there from time to time). The woman had impressed everyone. Very attractive. A mane of black hair, with a silver streak in it. She might be the man's sister; they were both small and dark.
    Mulheisen was puzzled about Soper. He knew who Soper was, but he had never connected him to Carmine's murder. He had no idea why a notation on Soper's FBI file would mention Carmine. Perhaps Carmine had employed Soper at some time, or the mob employed him to track down Helen, and an informant had passed it on to the FBI. Mulheisen had never heard anything about it. Still, it was interesting. He told Antoni that he would have to check it out with his superiors. It might be worth sending an investigator.
    Mulheisen called Laddy McClain, the chief of Homicide. “We've got a lead on Helen Sedlacek,” he said. “She may have been in Montana, just a few weeks ago. Apparently, one of the mob boystracked her down. But she—or someone—got him first.” This concatenation had occurred to Mulheisen just in the act of relating it to McClain.
    McClain was just as interested. “Maybe you better go out there,” he said.

5
    No-Fat
    H umphrey Di-Ebola was reflecting on how quickly things change. Truly, nothing was permanent in this ephemeral world. The old priest from his father's hometown, not so far from Salerno, had told him this when DiEbola took his father's body home for burial. DiEbola had only been in this little sunny village once before, not long after World War II. In those days Humphrey was Umberto to his family, but no American kid was ever called Umberto by his friends. Among his friends he was called not after the tough guy Bogart, but a character who appeared in the “Joe Palooka” comic strip. This Humphrey was a huge, cheerful blimp of a guy who rode around on a tricycle that carried his house, although one could never see how the character could have squeezed into the house, which resembled a hillbilly outhouse on wheels. This nickname was a very painful thing for young Humphrey, but he learned to take it cheerfully. There was no question that he did in fact much resemble the cartoon Humphrey.
    When Umberto/Humphrey returned to Italy in 1972, to bury his father, the village was no longer a village. It had survived the invasion of the Eighth Army, but not the automobile, television, and prosperity. “Only the Church endures,” the old priest had assuredhim, but Umberto DiEbola thought that another durable institution, La Cosa Nostra, might