Juvenile Delinquent Read Online Free Page A

Brighton was his Aunt Sara. Sara Chesterton looked too young to be anybody’s aunt, and as a matter of fact was still short of thirty, but she was a full-fledged aunt nevertheless. She was the sister of Joe’s dead mother.
    She was also a strikingly pretty woman in a businesslike sort of way. Years back Maggie Brighton, who was something of a matchmaker, had tried to brew a match between Sara and me. But it didn’t take. While the girl always seemed to like me well enough, she showed no indication of swooning in my presence. And she was a bit too briskly self-sufficient for my taste.
    Sara Chesterton was a caseworker for the Division of Public Welfare, and years of dealing with relief clients had given her an impersonal and businesslike manner which carried over to her social contacts. She was a rather small woman, brunette, with attractive gray eyes and a well-rounded but not too plump figure. She dressed well, was reasonably well informed and seemed to have an amiable disposition. Altogether she seemed to possess enough attributes to make her attractive to most men, but she always gave me the uneasy feeling that I was being interviewed whenever we met. Possibly I wasn’t the only man who got that feeling, because insofar as I knew she’d never been engaged to anyone.
    When she saw me, she rose from the bench where she had been waiting, came over and thrust out her hand like a man. “How are you, Manny? Haven’t seen you for ages. What have you been doing?”
    “Hello, Sara,” I said. “Working, sleeping, eating. Drinking a little occasionally.”
    “I’ll bet a little. Married to that Fausta girl yet?”
    She meant Fausta Moreni, blonde proprietress of El Patio night club, with whom I’ve carried on a sporadic and volatile romance for some years.
    “Hardly,” I said. “We’re just friends.”
    “You ought to get married, Manny. You’re past thirty now, aren’t you?”
    I grinned at her. “This is me, your old boy friend Manny Moon, Sara. Not one of your relief clients.”
    When she had the grace to look a little guilty, I said, “I gave up all thoughts of marriage when you tossed me over for a career.”
    “Phooey. Maggie practically threw me at your head, and you never even noticed me.” Then her responsive grin faded. “You been in to see Joe?”
    “Yeah.”
    “How’s he taking it?”
    “Pretty well.”
    “What’ll they do to him, Manny?”
    “Prison, probably, if he’s convicted. He’s a little young for the gas chamber. He claims he didn’t kill that kid.”
    “Oh?” She looked dubious. “I understood he was practically caught in the act.”
    “He thinks he was framed by some teenage club his club has rumbles with. I’m going to poke around down there and see what I can turn up.”
    Again she emitted an inquiring, “Oh?” Then her expression turned reflective. “Want a guide, Manny? That’s my relief district, you know, and I know the area pretty intimately.”
    “I hate to bother you,” I said.
    “Bother? Joe’s my
real
nephew, not just a foster nephew. And I’ll bet you’re doing this poking around on the house. My saturated brother-in-law certainly hasn’t paid you any retainer, has he?”
    The bitterness of her tone surprised me. I knew she hadn’t been very thick with Ed since he took up drinking as a hobby, but I’d never before heard her speak of him with anything but liking tempered by faint impatience. But apparently now her attitude toward him was about the same as his attitude toward himself. She was blaming Joe’s situation on Ed’s drinking.
    I said mildly, “Ed’s a friend of mine and I like Joe. Ed’s done me enough favors in the past.”
    “Name one in the last five years,” she challenged.
    When I merely shrugged, she said, “You haven’t said whether or not you want a guide.”
    “If you can spare the time,” I said. “I may spend a couple of days down there.”
    “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said doubtfully. “I was thinking of