Hard-Boiled Immortal (The Immortal Chronicles) by Gene Doucette Read Free Book Online

it helps, I think I might believe you now.”
    At the edge of the bar was a white dishtowel, which with a little work I was able to grab and wave in the air in sight of the armed guys.  “Hey fellas, no guns back here, just me.  I’m gonna stand, all right?”
    No answer.  I stood anyway, and saw two men I didn’t recognize.  Admittedly the lighting was now even worse due to all the dust and gun smoke kicking around the room, but I was pretty good with faces and names at the time, because that was half the job.  These two had on nicer suits than most of the guys who came around the bar, and the guns weren’t the sort of thing that showed up there too often either.
    “W hat can I do for you fellas?” I asked.  They both had their barrels trained on me but neither started shooting, which was nice.  After a five count, the one nearest the door knocked on it, and two more men walked in.  I only knew one of them.
    “Rocky, I’m real sorry about all this.”
    “ Hiya, Vinnie.  Looks like you know some folks with guns.”
    Vinnie looked like he always did, which was to say he didn’t look like much more than a bruiser of the sort you hired to shake down people smaller than him.  He was someone I never really wanted to run into outside of Jimmy’s, figuring if I did it was for a bad reason.  We were still in Jimmy’s, but this encounter certainly qualified.
    The guy next to Vinnie , who I’d never seen before, took a good look around the place.  “What a dump,” he said.  He was a squat little guy, the least physically impressive of the four of them, which made him most likely to be the guy in charge.  He was balding, and had an unpleasant scar on the side of his face.
    “It looked a lot nicer about five minutes ago,” I said.  “Who are you?”
    “I’m nobody you need to know, except if I say so these guys here finish you off.”
    “Do you have a name?”
    He eyeballed Vinnie, who shrugged. 
    “No, ” he said to me, “I don’t have a name.”
    “This is my employer, Rock,” Vin said.  “That’s all you need to know.”
    “Maybe you’re right, Vin, and I don’t need to know his name.  But just maybe he needs to know whose bar he just shot all to hell.”
    This was a dangerous play on my part, but I didn’t have many other options.  My only secret weapon was the succubus with the pistol under the bar, and I didn’t think she could shoot or screw us out of this .  Maybe if there were fewer guys. 
    Vinnie’s employer still looked annoyed about the state of the bar.  “ You aren’t Jimmy?”
    “ No I told you,” Vin said.  “This is Rocky.  I never met no Jimmy.”
    “ Jimmy doesn’t come around all that much, mister, except to collect the register and check on whose bar tab needs some personal attention.  Couple of times a month he runs a poker game out back, but you’re probably not invited seeing as you don’t have a name and I don’t recognize your mug.  His last name’s Ricca.  Maybe that rings a bell or two.”
    It should have rung a whole orchestra of bells.  Ricca was the surname of the family that ran the Chicago Outfit, which was the local syndicate. 
    Vinnie and his boss both went a little paler than they started out.  “You saying this shop is owned by Jimmy Ricca?” the boss asked.
    “That’s what I’m saying.  But I’m sure you fellas di dn’t mean to wreck his place.  You can just call him up and apologize and I’m sure he’d understand.”
    The boss looked deeply displeased.  “I think maybe we’ve got ourselves a big problem,” he said.  “Wouldn’t you say, Vinnie?”
    “Yeah…” Vinnie’s expression made it clear he was pretty sure he was in a heap of trouble.   I was nearly positive Vin knew who owned the bar, and just didn’t think about it until right then.
    “Tell you what,” I said.  “You four walk on out of here right now, I’ll make up something and leave you out of it.”
    “You’d do that for us,