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

didn’t give a goddamn who he was. 
    Fortunately, Lucy took the information like it was nothing.  She smiled and laughed like he’d just made the best joke she’d heard all year, and dammit if he didn’t smile a little.
    “You’re funny!” she exclaimed.  She stepped out from under my arm and leaned forward  The boss had his hands on the bar, so she took one of them and started rubbing his wrist.  I couldn’t see the front of her from the angle I was at, but I knew exactly how much cleavage she was showing off when she did this.
    “I’m serious, honey ,” he said, patting her hands.  “Sorry it’s gotta be this way.”
    “ Ah, you!  I tell ya what,” she said, shooting him a comically perplexed expression that was adorable and not at all appropriate when contrasted with the news of her imminent demise.  She reached behind the bar and revealed the half-empty bottle of whiskey we’d been draining all night.  “As it turns out the only bottle your boys didn’t shoot is the best one in the house.  How ‘bout you and Vinnie here join us for a shot and then we can talk about what to do about this little mess of ours.  We got a little time, right Rock?”
    “Yeah, plenty ,” I said, although what made anybody think I was an expert on this I couldn’t say. 
    “ There see?  C’mon, you fellas have been all worried about this little secret of yours the whole night I bet you could use a stiff one.”
    *   *   *
    A stiff one was exactly what they needed, and the drug in the alcohol was exactly what we needed.  Ten minutes later Vinnie and his boss—whose name we quickly learned, was Echols—were feeling a lot better about everything in their lives.  At Lucy’s suggestion Echols ordered the two guys with the big guns to stand outside, which made relaxed the situation considerably.  They would undoubtedly remain standing out there until her g-men backup arrived, and that was maybe bad news for the feds, but it wasn’t my problem.  My problem was either Vinnie and Echols, or Lucy.  I couldn’t be sure.
    “Seems to me, you guys have a bigger concern than Jimmy Ricca,” Lucy was saying, as she fed them their third or fourth shot apiece. 
    By this time the drug had settled in nicely and I was beginning to understand why she was so surprised when I didn’t react to it.  These hardened criminals had already confessed to selling the contents of the napkins, not knowing until later it was going to end up in the hands of the Germans.  Once they learned this they did everything they could to erase any connection between them and the sale, which meant following the overly inquisitive Lucy and shooting up what they were afraid was a barroom full of federal agents.  They felt awful about this, and agreed they had not acted particularly rationally, and now were panicking about the whole thing. 
    They were also ready to do whatever she said.
    “What do you mean, sweetie?” Echols asked.
    “You were wrong about the place being full of feds,” she said.  “But there was at least one.”  She put her credentials on the table.  “Ain’t that a kick in the head?”
    Vinnie and Echols looked at it, thought about it for a while, and then started laughing.  “Yeah,” Vin said.  “Yeah, that’s a problem, huh?”
    “Now we really have to kill both of you!” Echols said.
    Lucy laughed.  “No, no, no, you’re thinking about it all wrong .  I don’t care about you boys, all I want is who you sold the napkins to.  The Outfit don’t have to be the wiser for it either way.”
    “But look what we did to this place!”
    “I tell you what,” Lucy said, a glimmer in her eye and a sidewise glance at me.  “Word on the street is, Rocky here was into some stuff on the side.”
    Vinnie looked at me, wide-eyed.  “ Was he?”
    “I didn’t think so, no,” I said.   “I’m pretty sure I didn’t have anything going on.”
    She threw me a wink.  “Sure you did, Rock.  You were in