Hit and The Marksman Read Online Free Page A

safekeeping. Maybe he got word there was going to be a raid.”
    â€œI don’t think so,” she said.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œI just don’t.” She looked up momentarily. “I know him—you don’t.”
    â€œUh. What was in the safe?”
    â€œYou’d be better off not knowing.”
    I shook my head. “If it’s what you think it is, the mob will react. The kind of reaction will depend on what was inside the safe.”
    She took a suicidal drag on her cigarette and stabbed it out in the ash tray. With smoke trailing from her mouth she said, “Let’s just say there was enough to make it worth their while to kill half the population of this town to get it back.”
    â€œCash?”
    â€œA lot of cash. And files—the kind they couldn’t afford to see in print.”
    â€œHow much cash?”
    â€œI never counted it,” she said, snappish. “It was a hell a lot, millions I suppose, but I don’t know. I’m supposed to be Sal Aiello’s secretary but there are a lot of things I don’t get to see.”
    â€œGo on.”
    â€œLook, Simon, I’m only part of the front. All the big shots try to look like legitimate businessmen, and part of the act is having a pretty secretary who doesn’t look as if she came out of a reform school typing course. Aiello has his finger in quite a few legitimate businesses, enough to keep me busy with correspondence and phone calls and filing. I know it’s all a front and he knows I know it, but it’s the kind of thing you never say out loud. I don’t get to see the books and I’ve never even been in the same room when he had the safe open. The safe isn’t in the office, you know—it’s in the library. But I’ve absorbed enough loose talk to know they keep dynamite in that safe. Aiello isn’t the only one who uses it. Vincent Madonna has things in it. So does Pete DeAngelo and any number of others. It’s like a central clearing station for all of them—it’s an old vault they bought from a California bank that went out of business.”
    â€œHow old?”
    She blinked. “How should I know?”
    â€œIt’s not a silly question. If it’s old enough, it’s easy to crack—and they wouldn’t keep top-secret dynamite in a cracker box.”
    â€œOf course they would,” she snapped. “My God, Simon, sometimes Aiello keeps a hundred thousand dollars in cash lying around the office in unlocked drawers. Nobody has the nerve to rob the Mafia.”
    â€œApparently,” I remarked, “somebody did.” It occurred to me this was the first time I’d ever heard her use the word “Mafia.” I said, “Who else knows about this?”
    â€œI don’t know. Maybe they haven’t discovered it yet. What time is it?”
    â€œNine-thirty.”
    â€œHe didn’t have any appointments for today. But Madonna and DeAngelo drop around when they feel like it. So do a lot of other people; it’s like a clubhouse up there. I know I haven’t got much time—God, Simon, when I saw the mess I knew all of it, right in that split second, I knew I was in terrible trouble. I don’t know what to do.”
    I watched her for a moment, then headed for the bedroom. “Stay put a minute,” I told her, and went to the phone by the bed. I dialed Nancy Lansford, my neighbor down the road, a two-hundred-pound spinster who lived on a small inheritance and spent the winters taking tourists and school children on nature walks in the desert. She owed me a few favors—her house was full of polished rocks I’d given her. She was a relaxing old windbag, tart and practical as only a fanatically conservationist old maid could be.
    She answered breathlessly on the fifth ring; I identified myself.
    â€œOh, Simon, good morning, isn’t it a beautiful day?” She had a reedy, chirping voice.