Stairway to the Bottom - a Mick Murphy Key West Mystery by Michael Haskins Read Free Book Online Page B

fuckin’ much,” he said with a little disgust in his voice. “The marshals and FBI, they’ve got to everyone. Including the local cops. Rumor is that FBI didn’t want Whitey caught because more than one agent was involved, some of ‘em way up the ladder now. Now he’s caught and if he goes to trial and talks…” He let his words end.
    “So, why all these years later do they want you dead?”
    “Whitey is old,” he muttered. “Capturing him was good for the FBI’s fuckin’ image. I’m the only witness they’ve got willing to testify. The only one alive that knows the who and the what…where the fuckin’ bodies are buried.”
    “Nothing personal, Dick, but you’re a confessed killer with a dozen or so victims, why would a jury believe you?”
    “The FBI has used fuckin’ Flemmi in cases and the juries believed him.” He grinned. “I’m an altar boy next to the Rifleman,” he said referring to Flemmi’s nickname.

Chapter 12
    I wouldn’t have used altar boy to describe Dick Walsh after our six-hour talk, but who was I to judge him, especially against someone as notorious as Flemmi. We were on our second pot of coffee and Bob stood in the hatchway. Walsh stopped taking notice of Bob about an hour into his diatribe.
    “So, bring us up to speed on yesterday, tell me what happened at the house.” I drained the last of the cold coffee from my mug and stubbed out the cigar. “Who was she?” I stood to stretch my legs.
    “This is where things really get fuckin’ strange,” he said. “I don’t know who she was.”
    I wondered what a man who could murder a friend from the back seat of a car as they talked, or while a victim begged for his life, on his knees, thought was strange. I remembered how my mother assured me it took all kinds to make the world go around. I doubted she was talking about Bulger and his type, but maybe she was because my family had lived in South Boston for a time—Southie the locals called it.
    “Well, strange I need to hear about.” I gave Bob a shake of my head and we waited for an explanation. I had a headache and the reasons for it sat in front of me.
    “She asked about me at the shop,” Walsh said and sat back, still unable to get comfortable after six hours. “My crew told me a broad showed up askin’ questions. That was my first warning.” He sat forward and put his elbows on the small table. “Bitch shows up at the house last night…” He hesitated, thinking. “Eleven, I guess it was, the news was on the TV. I opened the door and the broad has a fuckin’ gun in my gut before I can say hello.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what happened. “A broad gets the drop on me. My first thought was, how the fuck did this happen?
    “She has me sit on the couch and called me some foreign fuck’s name that means nothin’ to me. I tell her, ‘You got the wrong guy, lady.’ Bitch speaks to me in a language, I don’t know, maybe German, hell, maybe Greek. I don’t understand a word, but she keeps on. Finally,” he pushed back from the table, “she begins to talk English. She wants to know who I am. I tell her the story the marshals gave me. She don’t fuckin’ buy it. I figure, somehow, she’s from Whitey or one of the old Southie goons, maybe the fuckin’ goombas settling old scores. If I tell her who I really am, I know she shoots. I stick to my story. She don’t ask nothin’ ‘bout Southie, but a lot of stuff about fuckin’ cities I ain’t never been to.”
    “What cities?” I sat back down and asked when he stopped to take a breath.
    “London, Paris, Moscow…them I knew, but she had a few more that didn’t mean fuck-all to me.” He sighed. “You know, I’m in the middle of the couch and just out of reach are the fuckin’ guns I’ve hidden for this kind of situation.”
    “Did she ever explain why she was there?”
    “Mick, you ain’t stupid,” he said with a sour laugh. “The bitch has a gun aimed at me with a