Marihuana Read Online Free Page A

light across the sidewalk through its glass front. He tottered past the first time; he would have preferred a doorway or a basement areaway. But then he couldn't go on any further; his breath clogged up entirely, and he had to flounder to a stop against the wall. He turned back and made his way in by a process of rolling his shoulders along the plate-glass front.
     
    There was only one person in it, a stout woman in a sweater, evidently the shopkeeper. She was sitting with elbows propped on the soft-drink counter, reading a newspaper. He had wavered past her toward the back before she had had time to look up. She was the kind of shopkeeper who finishes the paragraph she is reading before waiting on a customer. Then by the time she had he was abreast of the telephone booth in the rear. She took that to be his errand and lowered her head again.
     
    A bulb went on dimly over him as he spread the folding glass panel to muffle his asphyxiated breathing. He clawed at it, hectically twisted it until he had gotten kindly, sheltering darkness around him again. The booth had a little, inadequate seat, little better than a corner-bracket. That supported him for awhile. Then he let himself go floundering down to the floor, back upright against the booth wall, one knee reared before him, the other folded under him.
     
    Reprieve for a little while. But the night was so long, the drug was so strong. Everyone's hand was against him, every face was an enemy's.
     
    "All right, one at a time," the Lieutenant glowered. He didn't like either one of them, after what they'd just finished telling him. He had them typed at a glance. No-good bums. Dressed up, and with jobs, and money in their pockets, but bums just the same.
     
    They were both on the verge of hysteria, faces like chalk at the horrendous consequences unleashed by their own thoughtlessness. Gordon kept whining over and over, uncontrollably, "We didn't mean no harm.... We didn't mean no harm...." He had a black eye from one of the cops.
     
    "Shut up!" thundered the Lieutenant, pounding a fist down on the desk top. "You say that once more, and I'll let you have one across the snoot! Speak up now — where else is he likely to go? Any place you know of? Any close friends he's liable to turn to?"
     
    They both shook their heads dazedly. Evans was still clutching a flimsy bit of woman's scarf. A scarf that had belonged to the girl named Vinnie. "We two were about his best friends," he faltered, "I don't know of anyone else he———"
     
    "His -best- friends! Hagh!" The Lieutenant flipped the lever on a desk transmitter. "Send Spillane in here." Then he backed an arm toward the two cringing objects before him. "Take 'em out!" he rasped.
     
    A lean, springily-knit individual thumped the already open door in passing, came striding in twenty inches to the stride while they were being hustled out.
     
    "Spillane———" said the Lieutenant. Then he dropped his voice confidentially, while the detective hand-heeled the corners of his desk. It rose again toward the end, as he finished giving the instructions, consulted the memoranda he'd taken down. "His name's King Turner. He's twenty-five, medium build, light-brown hair, he's got a peculiarly thin face that you can't miss, cheeks sort of hollowed-in. He's wearing a pepper-and-salt suit, a telescope-crown gray hat, a belted gray topcoat that he may or may not still have with him. His own address is 22 East Fifth, between Lexington and Third. You may be able to head him off there, but I've got my doubts he'll go back there. The point is he's roaming the streets right now, a menace, a living death, to anyone that happens to cross his path. For all practical purposes he's a maniac, he's all hopped-up with marihuana. He broke out of there armed. He's got a Luger packed with six bullets on him at this minute — I'm sending out a general alarm on him, but I'm giving you this special assignment in addition. You've got to catch up with him