Operation Breakthrough by Dan J. Marlowe Read Free Book Online

But Hermione enjoys a change of scenery.”
    “What happens if the muscle type catches her at it?”
    “He leans on her, but it’s never stopped her yet. I’d have to say the pair of them are well matched.” He rubbed his chin. “How long ‘d you say last night you wanted to stay?”
    “Three or four days. Maybe less.” I recalled that Erikson’s man Baker was only going to keep the Andrews Field rendezvous for three mornings. “Surely less.”
    “Seems to me you’d be takin’ your fences faster’n that with the bobbies lookin’ for you.”
    “There’s a problem. My partner was grabbed last night.”
    “He was? Where?”
    “On the roof of a bank building on Shirley Street.”
    Candy cocked an eyebrow in a skeptical expression I was beginning to recognize as nearly habitual with him. “You’re beginnin’ to sound like a real hot potato, Earl. I only get to run my game here on the strength of a couple of contacts an’ a little payoff. I can’t afford trouble.” He moved to the couch and sat down on the other end of it. The papers in the canvas sack crackled slightly under his weight, but he didn’t notice. There was a brooding look on his heavy features as his eyes met mine at the closer range. “You know what I mean?”
    “Why would anyone look for me here?” I asked in a tone of voice intended to sound reasonable. “There’s no possible connection. For the law to suspect, I mean. As for my partner, there’s something I’d like to ask you about — ”
    I broke off as Chen Yi reentered the room. The tall Chinese girl had my washed-and-ironed shirt in her hand. “Thanks again,” I said and stood up and began to slip into the shirt.
    “What about your partner?” Candy wanted to know. I glanced at the Chinese girl, but Candy waved an impatient hand. “She goes with the lease here. Speak up.”
    “I’d like to take him with me.”
    Candy stared. “Take him — ? You mean — ?”
    “It might not be too much of a job, depending upon the detention facilities,” I went on. “And I’d pay the right man well for a little help.”
    “I’m not about to get my black ass fussed up in no jailbreak,” Candy began, then paused. “You’d pay? For what kind’ve help?”
    “It shouldn’t take too much. And I’d expect to pay.”
    “I could sure use a fresh bankroll,” Candy said thoughtfully. “The dice turned real unfriendly since that Las Vegas disaster. Before that I’d been goin’ so good you wouldn’t believe it.” He shrugged. “That’s the way it goes. But this thing you’re talkin’ about — ” He was silent for a moment. “Well, how much of a payoff would go to this right man you mentioned?”
    I tried to make my tone impressive. “You name it.”
    He rubbed his chin again. “What kind of help ’d you say?”
    “I’d need to know a few things first. Where would he be held?”
    “Not at East Street, I wouldn’t think,” Candy responded immediately. “Cartwright Street more likely. It’s kind of an unofficial detention center. Prob’ly not more’n two hundred yards from where you say he was grabbed. Did you score with the bank?”
    I knew that my answer would have a lot to do with the price Candy set for his assistance — if he decided to help — and I had no cash to pay off at once. “I’m going to have to come back and retrieve it later when the heat’s off,” I said.
    The answer appeared to satisfy him. “Was there any rough stuff that would make the police hairy?”
    I thought of Karl Erikson’s thickly thewed body shedding police like pearls from a broken necklace strand. And the wallop I gave the sergeant. “Just a little scuffle on the roof. What kind of a jail is this one you think he’d be in?”
    “A bloody poor one, compared to US types,” Candy said. “Actually, it’s a place people are sometimes held before they appear before a magistrate. I don’t think there’s more’n half a dozen cells behind the bookin’ desk, but even at