Dirty Harry 12 - The Dealer of Death by Dane Hartman Read Free Book Online Page A

gradually inching his way toward the exit. In one respect, fate had continued to be good to him. Sheila had left the door partially open, probably so she could hear her daughter should she awaken again. Little did she realize, the nightmare was not in her daughter’s head, but right here, in her own bedroom.
    He looked back once he reached the door, but there was no indication that he’d disturbed either Harry or Sheila. They slept on as peacefully as the dead.
    One night, he thought, resting his eyes on Sheila’s unconscious form, he was going to take Harry’s place in her bed.
    Notwithstanding his tiredness, Gallant was far too exhilarated to sleep. Having achieved so much success in such a short period of time, he felt it was only appropriate to celebrate. On Lombard he found a little place that was still open and serving although it was apparent from the doleful look on the bartender’s face that it wouldn’t remain open very much longer. Gallant sped up his celebration and drank fast.
    By the time he had set loose enough Cuervo Gold in his system to intoxicate a regiment, he realized that he could not wait until the following day to institute his plan. No, there was no sense in delaying. It was a little short of three-thirty in the morning. He wanted it so that when the hour of seven struck, and Harry was ready to rise and face the day, it would already be too late.
    Six years gives one a lot of time. Gallant was remembered by his fellow cellmates as something of a student although as a high school dropout, his scholarly habits were a recent acquisition. Be that as it may, Gallant spent as many hours as he was permitted in the prison library. What particularly compelled his interest were old newspapers, especially the local ones. That way he could keep track of Harry. He could also keep track of Harry’s enemies.
    Now he intended to do what Harry never could, whether because of the constraints of the law or reasons of simple humanity. He was going to kill off all of his enemies—one by one.

C H A P T E R

F i v e
    E dward J. T. Gallagher was getting on in years, and needed little sleep. Four o’clock in the morning would often find him seated in his study, reading obscure interpretations of the law or revising decisions he would soon hand down in his court.
    Gallagher was a senior judge on the appeals court and in the twenty-one years he’d served on the bench, he had always managed to provoke controversy. Denounced as a liberal do-gooder, a friend of the criminal, the judge had weathered a great many storms in his time. He had even survived several attempts on the part of outraged legislators to have him impeached and removed. His critics accused him of setting low bail for murderers and rapists, of letting hardened criminals off either with light sentences or else setting them free on probation. There were many who thought him senile and this opinion had been commonly held even when the judge was two decades younger.
    Gallagher and his wife of thirty years lived in a modest frame two-story house a few blocks up from Hyde Pier. The study was on the first floor, the bedroom on the second.
    The judge was too absorbed in his work to take notice of the sound of the backdoor lock clicking open. It was possible that even if his concentration had not been so pronounced, he wouldn’t have heard for he was partially deaf. This handicap, when it became known to his detractors, was taken as further indication of his incompetence. The reason, it was said, he handed down such light sentences was because he never really heard the testimony.
    Not until Gallant was standing right in back of him, no more than a dozen feet away, at the doorway to the study, did Gallagher sense something was not quite right, and turned around.
    He lowered his glasses, because they were meant for reading, not for seeing anything farther away than the page, and stared at the intruder.
    “Who the hell are you, sir?” he demanded, showing not