When Old Men Die by Bill Crider Read Free Book Online Page A

fried okra.   I topped it off with two whole wheat rolls.   I didn't get any butter for the rolls.   Just call me a health-food freak.
    When I'd eaten, I paid with one of the fifties Dino had given me and got change.   Then I decided to go back to Dino's.   He could easily have found out by now who owned The Island Retreat, even if it was a Sunday.   He'd resent my interrupting the playoff game, but that was his tough luck.   He should be thankful that I'd decided not to beat him up.
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    D ino wasn't watching the game.   He was talking on his portable telephone when he came to the door, and the TV set wasn't even on.
    "Son of bitch," he said as he opened the door for me.   He didn't say it to me.   He was talking to whoever was on the phone.   "Are they sure it's him?"
    He listened for a few seconds.   I couldn't make out what the voice on the other end of the line was saying, but I could tell that Dino didn't like it.   His knuckles were white, and if the phone hadn't been made of sturdy plastic he might have crushed it.
    "God damn," he said.   And then he said it again.   "God damn."   He listened some more.   "All right.   All right.   Thanks for calling.   Yeah.   Right.   I'll keep it quiet."
    He looked right at me when he said the last part, and I knew he wasn't going to keep anything quiet.   He was going to tell me as soon as he hung up the phone, or turned it off, or whatever it is that you do to portable phones.
    This one you turned off, which is what he did after saying "Yeah" and "Right" a few more times.   Then he set the phone on the coffee table and looked at me.
    "You want some Big Red?"
    "Not now.   What was that all about?"
    Dino sat on the couch.   So did I.
    "You remember Braddy Macklin?" he asked.
    Nobody who ever met Braddy was likely to forget him.   He was about five-ten and as close as you can come to a hundred and eighty pounds of solid muscle.   He could make a fist that looked like it could punch through a concrete wall, and it probably could.   Of course that was more than thirty years ago, when I was just a kid.
    "I remember Braddy ," I said.   "What about him."
    "Somebody killed him."
    "You mean he died?"
    Braddy Macklin would have to be somewhere in his seventies now.   He'd been the bodyguard for the uncles in the wide-open days, and the toughest-looking man I'd ever seen.
    "I mean somebody killed him.   That was a guy I know on the cops.   They found his body about an hour ago."
    "I didn't even know he was still around.   Did you ever see him?"
    Dino looked a little sorry, whether for himself or Macklin I didn't know.
    "No.   I never see anybody much.   You know that.   I talked to him on the phone once in a while.   Not often."
    "And somebody killed him."
    I still couldn't believe it.   Who'd kill a man that age?   Leave him alone and he'll be dead soon enough.
    "Yeah."   Dino looked at the floor and shook his head.   He couldn't believe it either.   "Somebody killed him.   And that's not all."
    "What else?"
    "They found him in The Island Retreat."
    "What the hell was he doing there?"
    Dino folded his arms and leaned back on the couch.   "That's what the cops would like to know."

Nine
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    D ino had been busy.   While I was talking to Jody and eating a high-fat special, he'd been calling a few people he knew.   The interesting thing was that he hadn't been able to find out who owned The Island Retreat.
    "Some corporation," he said.   "That's all the realtor knows.   And he wasn't happy that I called him during the pre-game."
    "OK.   We can worry about that later.   What about Braddy Macklin?"
    "The cops got one of those anonymous calls this morning.   Some guy tells them that there's a dead man in The Island Retreat.   They go down there to check it out and find Braddy .   Jesus, Tru, that old guy used to ride us around on his