Operation Breakthrough by Dan J. Marlowe Read Free Book Online Page A

night there’s enough blokes around so no one walks in an’ out unless he’s got business there.”
    “Even behind a gun?”
    “Don’t talk no guns to me, mon. That’s out.”
    “What kind of a building is it?”
    “Old like most of the government buildings near Bay Street.”
    “No, I mean what kind of construction. Masonry? Steel and concrete?”
    “Let’s see now.” Candy’s brow furrowed as he tried to remember. “Seems to me it’s bricked over now,” he said finally, “but when I was a tyke it was a wood-frame-an'-lath affair and old even then. Why?”
    “If I can’t go in the front, maybe I can go in the back.”
    “Through the back wall, you mean?”
    “Correct.” A shaped charge would take care of the wall. Peel it right off like the top of a box of Crackerjack. If I could place such a charge one cell away from Erikson’s, he and I would be gone before the startled people in the front of the building had time to notice the brick dust settling on their desks.
    “Maybe I should have asked you your reg’lar line of business,” Candy said drily. Then he turned serious. “Listen, Earl. What would I have to do? Be right there with you?”
    “No,” I said. “Just pick up a few things for me ahead of time and furnish transportation for a local run afterward.”
    “I could really use a bit of financin',” Candy said. He rose to his feet. “Why don’t I dress an’ go downtown an’ make sure he’s where I think he is? Then we can haggle when I come back.”
    “Take a close enough look at the streets around the jail so you can draw me a map,” I countered.
    Candy slipped an arm around Chen Yi who had been standing silently near the end of the couch. He patted the Chinese girl’s right hip. “How about it, luv?” he asked. “Am I daft to get mixed up in this?”
    “Not if you aren’t actually present,” she said in her soft voice. “There can’t be many men in this man’s situation who would even think about trying to free a captured partner.”
    “Yeah, but if you’d seen him in action on that cruddy Las Vegas airplane you’d know he cuts more ice than most,” Candy returned. “I’ll get goin'.”
    He left the room, and Chen Yi and I were left together. “What would you like to eat?” she asked. “A steak?”
    “A steak sounds a bit heavy this early. Scrambled eggs? With bacon?”
    “No bacon, but we have sausage.”
    “Fine.”
    I completed dressing when Chen Yi went to the kitchen, then took the opportunity afforded by being alone to retrieve the canvas sack from beneath the couch cushion. I hung it around my neck again, flattened it against my chest, and buttoned my jacket carefully so that it didn’t show.
    I followed Chen Yi into the kitchen which I hadn’t seen before. It was well equipped. She had already plugged in a percolater. “How does a girl like you happen to be running a massage parlor in Nassau?” I asked her.
    “I was born in Taiwan,” she replied, cracking eggs into a blue bowl. “But in 1950 my father, a merchant, had the poor judgment to oppose Chiang Kai-shek’s move there. Our family barely escaped.”
    “And you came here?”
    “Not immediately. We lived in Bombay for a time. Then Istanbul, then Vienna. My father was a restless man. I learned the technique of therapy massage in London.” She smiled at me from the stove. “Although I seldom get a chance to practice the healing art here. Once in a while a ship’s doctor sends me a legitimate customer, usually with arthritis, but the majority of the people I see are expecting something quite different from me.”
    “I can imagine,” I said. “What’s Candy’s background?”
    “He was born here.” She brought my eggs and sausage to the table and poured coffee from the percolater. “He is a poor organizer, a poor businessman. He is usually happy to let me manage most of his affairs.” Again there was the trace of a smile upon her beautiful face. “So long as I am careful not to