A Bullet for Cinderella Read Online Free

can end up with nothing instead of a third.”
    “Or all of it instead of a third.”
    “Finding it and taking it away from here are two different problems.”
    “I’ll take that chance.”
    He shrugged. “Well, suit yourself. Go and say hello to George. Give him my regards.”
    “And Eloise?”
    “You won’t be able to do that. She took off while we were still behind the wire. Took off with a salesman, they say.”
    “Maybe she took the money with her.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “But she knew Timmy was hiding it, had hidden a big amount. From what he said about her, she wouldn’t leave without it.”
    “She did,” he said, smiling. “Take my word. She left without it.”

•    TWO    •
    T he lumberyard had looked reasonably prosperous. The retail hardware store was not what I expected. From talks with Timmy I had expected a big place with five or six clerks and a stock that ranged from appliances and cocktail trays to deep-well pumps and pipe wrenches.
    It was a narrow, dingy store, poorly lighted. There was an air of dust and defeat about it. It was on a side street off the less prosperous looking end of Delaware Street. A clerk in a soiled shirt came to help me. I said I wanted to see Mr. Warden. The clerk pointed back toward a small office in the rear where through glass I could see a man hunched over a desk.
    He looked up as I walked back to the office. The door was open. I could see the resemblance to Timmy. But Timmy just before and for a short time after we were taken, had a look of bouncing vitality, good spirits. This man looked far older than the six years difference Timmy had told me about. He was a big man, as Timmy had been. The wide, high forehead was the same, and the slightly beaked nose and the strong, square jaw. ButGeorge Warden looked as though he had been sick for a long time. His color was bad. The stubble on the unshaven jaw was gray. His eyes were vague and troubled, and there was a raw smell of whisky in the small office.
    “Something I can do for you?”
    “My name is Tal Howard, Mr. Warden. I was a friend of Timmy’s.”
    “You were a friend of Timmy’s.” He repeated it in an odd way. Apathetic and yet somehow cynical.
    “I was with him when he died.”
    “So was Fitz. Sit down, Mr. Howard. Drink?”
    I said I would have a drink. He pushed by my chair and went out to a sink. I heard him rinsing out a glass. He came back and picked a bottle off the floor in the corner and put a generous drink in each glass.
    “Here’s to Timmy,” he said.
    “To Timmy.”
    “Fitz got out of it. You got out of it. But Timmy didn’t make it.”
    “I almost didn’t make it.”
    “What did he actually die of? Fitz couldn’t say.”
    I shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. We didn’t have medical care. He lost a lot of weight and his resistance was down. He had a bad cold. He ran a fever and his legs got swollen. He began to have trouble breathing. It hurt him to breathe. A lot of them went like that. Nothing specific. Just a lot of things. There wasn’t much you could do.”
    He turned the dirty glass around and around. “He should have come back. He would have known what to do.”
    “About what?”
    “I guess he told you about how we were doing before he left.”
    “He said you had a pretty good business.”
    “This store used to be over on Delaware. We moved about six months ago. Sold the lease. Sold my house too. Still got the yard and this. The rest of it is gone.”
    I felt uncomfortable. “Business is bad, I guess.”
    “It’s pretty good for some people. What business are you in?”
    “I’m not working right now.”
    He smiled at me in a mirthless way. “And I suppose you plan on sticking around awhile.”
    “I’d thought of it.”
    “Did Fitz send for you?”
    “I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t know he was here.”
    “But you talked to him. He phoned me and said you’d probably be in for a little chat. And that you’re an old friend of