Ron Goulart - John Easy 03 - The Same Lie Twice by Ron Goulart Read Free Book Online Page B

probably. He had a bad heart, you know. Something that got going in his thirties. Maybe they didn’t know about it, maybe they didn’t want to kill him at all.”
    “You can’t think of any special place,” asked Easy, “where he might have hidden the file drawer stuff, or where he might have told the girl to wait for him?”
    “Screw the girl,” said Lana. She gave a raspy sigh, slouching further down into her fat chair. The glass dropped from her thin fingers and she abruptly commenced snoring.
    Cherries and bourbon splashed across the frayed rug. “Leave it for the cleaning woman,” said Easy.
    He left Moseson’s sister asleep, faintly illuminated by the glow of the giant radio. Old dance music filled the room as he let himself out into the night.
    His usually dusty Volkswagen had been washed a bright glistening black by the day of rain. Easy had parked the car at a weedy curb above the ocean. There were still not many houses along here. Hilly fields rose up on his right as he drove away from the cottage.
    Five blocks from the place a big gray car, a knocked-about Cadillac, came up suddenly on his left. The windows of the big car were steamed over, masking whoever was in it.
    The car began nudging Easy’s VW, harder and harder.
    Easy saw a Mercedes coming along the otherwise empty night street from the opposite direction. He honked his horn and waved.
    There was enough room, even with the lumpy Cadillac roaring beside Easy, for the Mercedes to pass. Which it did.
    When the two cars were alone again the heavy one swung hard into Easy. It pushed him right off the slippery street, up across the buckled sidewalk and into a field of high grass.

X
    D OORS SLAMMED IN THE big gray Cadillac. Easy dived out the passenger side of his car, leaving the black door flapping. Head tucked low, he galloped uphill through the high, wet grass. He jabbed his right hand to his shoulder holster and slid out his .38 revolver.
    He heard a grunt and he was tackled from the left. Going down, Easy swung out with his gun hand.
    “No guns, we don’t want guns.” Someone else grabbed his hand, tearing the gun from his grasp. “It makes for noise.”
    Easy rolled and tumbled downhill, kicking at the man who had him gripped around the thighs.
    The other man, the one who didn’t want noise, came hopping after them. He caught hold of Easy’s hair and tugged.
    Easy stopped rolling. He kicked again, then took hold of the ears of the man he was tangled with.
    The man slammed his crewcut head twice into Easy’s groin.
    His companion banged Easy against the side of the head with the barrel of Easy’s revolver.
    The rain kept coming down, making more mud all around them.
    Whacking Easy once more, the man with the gun explained, “We want to talk to you, Easy.”
    Easy got a new grip on the man who was on top of him. He tossed him away from him. Easy shoved with one foot and came up facing the one with his gun.
    “Don’t try any Chinese stuff or I’ll shoot your balls off,” warned the man. He was heavy and dark, about thirty. His hair was unrumpled, curly. He wore a dark suit and a dark turtleneck sweater. He smelled strongly of pine.
    A pickup track was slowing below on the black street. The pine-scented man glanced for an instant toward it. Easy jumped in, chopping his gun from the man’s hand. Snatching the .38 up out of the grass, Easy took off toward his Volkswagen.
    The crewcut man tackled him again before he reached the flapping door. The rain made a snug tin-roof sound on the unreachable car.
    “Jesus, but you’re a hard man to talk to,” said the one with the curly hair. The pickup truck had driven on by and the wet street was silent again.
    Across the road the ocean was slapping at the narrow beach. Easy got up clear of the tackling man again, and took a deep breath. He felt like he was inhaling fog.
    “What we have to say is simple,” began the pine-scented one, “go home.” He had a gun of his own, a snubnose .32, in