Everybody Kills Somebody Sometime by Robert J. Randisi Read Free Book Online

propelled me forward awkwardly until I lost my balance and tumbled to the floor. I tried to catch my breath as the door slammed, and then the lamp clicked on.
    In the dim light by the sofa I saw two men staring down at me. The blow had come not from a fist but from a blackjack one of them was holding. I had the feeling that he had not missed one of my kidneys by accident.
    “Get his wallet,” one of them said, as I still struggled to catch my breath. A shot to the middle of the back takes all the air out of your lungs and mine were screaming for a refill.
    “What for?”
    “I wanna see if he’s the guy.”
    “He come walkin’ in, didn’t he?”
    “The door wasn’t locked.”
    “But he had a key in his hand,” one of them said. “I heard it jingle.”
    “Get his fuckin’ wallet, will ya?”
    The guy without the blackjack reached down and lifted my wallet from my jacket. I couldn’t have stopped him if I wanted to, but at least my breath was starting to come back. My eyes were tearing, though, so I couldn’t see their faces clearly. The shadows thrown by the lamp didn’t help matters any. Their faces were shrouded in it rather than illuminated.

    “What’s his name?” Blackjack asked.
    “I’m lookin’,” Wallet said. “Says on his driver’s license ’Eddie Gianelli’?” He looked at his partner. “That the guy?”
    “That’s the guy.”
    My wallet came flying at me and landed on my chest.
    “Whataya wanna do now?” the second man asked.
    “Hold ’im down,” Blackjack said. “I’m gonna hurt ’im.”
    “Hey,” I finally managed to say, “what the hell—”
    “Shut up,” the second man said, and emphasized that this was an order and not a request with a kick to my ribs.
    “We’re only supposed to scare ’im, you know,” he said to his partner.
    “Yeah, well,” Blackjack said, “hurtin’ him will scare ’im, I guarantee ya. Just hold ’im.”
    The second guy got down behind me, then slid his arms inside my elbows and pulled my arms back, pinning them there with the aid of his knee, which he planted in my back right where the blackjack had hit me. It hurt so much I began to flail around, kicking my legs, until the man with the blackjack leaned down and rapped me on one knee with it. That made me forget the pain in my back as I howled.
    “Hello?”
    It was a woman’s voice calling from the front door, which none of the three of us had heard open.
    “We gotta go!” Blackjack hissed.
    “Why?” the other man asked, almost in my ear. “It’s just a broad.”
    “We got orders about him,” the first man said, “not some broad. Let ’im go.”
    I felt my arms being released and I tried to shout a warning to whoever was at the door, but suddenly something hit me on the head and me and my tortured lungs went down a black hole …

Twelve
    H ANDS WERE ON ME, shaking me.
    “Eddie?”
    The voice became insistent. It must not have been the first time she called my name.
    “Come on, Eddie! Are you all right?”
    The voice and the hands became more insistent.
    “No,” I said.
    “Thank God.”
    I opened my eyes and looked up into the worried face of Dori Ellis, a showgirl who worked at the Sahara and, for the past few months, had been occasionally joining me in my bed.
    “What happened?” she demanded. “Who were those guys?”
    I peered up at her and realized I was seeing her with only one eye. There was something wet and sticky in my left one. I wiped at it with my hand, but that only made it worse.
    “Oh, Jesus, you’re bleeding,” she said. “Are you all right?”
    “Did they—did they hurt you?” I asked.
    “No,” she said, “they just pushed me aside and ran out of here. I guess I scared ’em.”
    “Help me up, Dori.”
    She got her arm under my shoulder and helped me to my feet. My
knee screamed at me, my ribs ached, so did my back, and the wet, sticky stuff—my blood, I assumed—kept running down my face.
    “Where to?” she asked.
    “The