Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 01 by The Loud Adios Read Free Book Online Page A

war, with rationing and all, and the border’s huddled masses seeking freedom, there was big money in law enforcement these days. Fortunes. Like toward the end of Prohibition when Hickey could’ve got rich as a cop in L.A. Yet while Boyle pulled in a few hundred, right beside him Hickey stood worrying about the fate of a dumb kid gone AWOL. They might forgive the boy, with the reasons he had, but you didn’t count on anything from the military, except orders, skewed logic, death that didn’t need to be. Just lately, in Tucson, since too many soldiers and flyers had gone catting around, families in Mextown had raised a fuss and the brass had put Mextown off limits. Then some private, drunk on the night of his eighteenth birthday, got pinched with a naked muchacha in her papa’s delivery wagon. Papa owned a grocery. He screamed to the sheriff, who brought the MPs, who blabbed to some general, who ramrodded a court martial. The boy got his. Like a traitor. As if a person meant nothing except as a symbol, a lesson. The fools hung him.
    Then Hickey wondered why he should stew about Clifford. He’d hardly known the kid until yesterday, and he wasn’t worth any more than the thousands falling every day in Russia, or the people who dropped from malaria, pneumonia, or hunger in the Tijuana riverbed. He wasn’t trying to save them, so why this Rose slut? She might be happy down there. And maybe she had killed a man. Her angel looks could sure be a lie.
    One reason he worried about her was that she made him think of Elizabeth. She looked the same age, the same kind of innocent. He could’ve gone down Market Street or Revolución and found dozens of child-whores he could try and save. But then, nobody’d asked him to help those girls. Clifford had.
    Maybe something in this business would stir his blues. Change his luck. Something had to break. So he started making plans.
    Later he walked over to Lefty and said he needed a driver and the Jeep after their duty that night. He told about the girl and offered twenty dollars, but Lefty called him nuts, turned the post over to Hickey, and walked south toward Coco’s Licores.
    At 11:00, Hickey went to the office shack, phoned Leo, raised the old man out of sleep and snapped him awake by saying there was a little girl in danger.
    Leo groaned, “A charity case. Tell me I’m wrong.”
    “Naw, there’s money in it. Say a hundred for you. And think about this. The lousy banditos snatch this little girl. Imagine what they’re doing to her, then if you can go back to sleep, go ahead. If you can’t sleep, get down here pretty soon.”
    “Night, night, Tom.”
    The kid lay on the couch with arms wrapped around himself, snoring softly as a purr. As Hickey walked out, he wondered if Clifford knew how to shoot or just how to wave a gun around. You couldn’t be sure, the way they rushed them through boot camp and sped them off to war.
    He went back to his post and stood figuring, laying off the mescal. Boyle got into a fight with two rowdy civilians. A big kid jumped on his back and rode him around. Hickey had to rap the boy with his club, though he would’ve rather conked Boyle.
    The graveyard MPs arrived late, and not far behind them, Weiss’ Packard rolled in. Carrying a thermos, a cigarette hanging from his lip, Leo got out and faced Hickey nose to nose. “I rue the day we met,” he growled, then yawned and hacked a cough.
    They walked to the office shack and Hickey told his partner about Clifford and the girl, and his plan. The old man lit a smoke, flopped into a chair. “Hearken to this, Tom. I’ll go on down and take a look. If it’s a sure thing, maybe we’ll do it. Otherwise, I’m out.”
    Hickey nodded. He tapped the kid, shook him and kept shaking harder. When Clifford finally roused and sat up, Leo handed him the thermos. They passed it around, while Hickey strapped on the shoulder holster and automatic under a pilot’s jacket he borrowed off the shelf. Then he fitted