Serpents in the Cold Read Online Free Page A

chance of Mulrooney winning the Senate seat.”
    “So, all bets are on Foley?”
    “Well,” Charlie paused as a fit of coughing took him, “I wouldn’t bet against him. He’s way too connected in this town. And who else would want the mess Cosgrove left behind.” He took out a soiled handkerchief, and blew into it. “You know, they say he died on the shitter.”
    Cal grinned, pulled a crumpled dollar from his pocket, placed it on the counter, made as if he were tipping back a drink, and pointed to the betting slips stacked against the back of the booth. His hands were shaking. “Any chance you saw Dante this morning?”
    “Nah, haven’t seen that mess in days.” Charlie reached behind the betting slips and, after a moment, pushed a fifth of whiskey into Cal’s hands. “Is he in trouble again?”
    Cal screwed off the top and knocked back a quarter of the bottle, coughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He breathed deeply and felt the shaking in his hands subside.
    “Not with me he’s not.”
    By the time he’d made it to the end of the street, the fifth of whiskey was almost empty. Cal’s mind felt sharp, and the aching in his limbs was gone. He felt his heart beating strong in his chest, and when the biting cold pressed through to his skin, his gun was a pocket of warmth just below his ribs.
      
    THERE WERE ONLY two people at the bar, bowed over their half-empty glasses in a dull, drunken silence. When the door opened, one of them looked up. Before an empty stool at the other end of the U-shaped bar, a lone drink sat untouched. It was a whiskey sour and it had a depressed air to it, as if some poor sap had bought it for the girl he admired, thinking she would walk in at any minute.
    Next to the drink, an ashtray held a cigarette that had burned through. Cal knew that Dante was here. A whiskey sour wasn’t his drink of choice, it was Margo’s.
    Cal lurched forward, called out to the bartender, a tall balding man with a mustache that hung over his lip. “Have you seen him?”
    “I see lots of people, all kinds of people.”
    “Just do me a favor and at least let me know if he has company in there.”
    “Aaaah, O’Brien, I just cleaned the toilets. Not a soul in there.”
    Cal turned and glanced toward the hallway leading to the bathroom.
    “You know we don’t welcome that kind of stuff here.”
    “I’ll check myself.”
    Cal reached in under his coat, felt the reassuring weight of his M1911 in the holster. He passed several empty booths along the wall, soiled red-and-white-checked oilcloth on the tables, glasses of unfinished beer from the night before, past a nickel jukebox with its stained yellow panels, and farther into the hallway toward the bathrooms. The acrid smell of piss gathered in his nostrils. At the door, he heard a heavy grunt followed by a cough thick with phlegm, the squeaking of rubber soles moving on the tiled floor, and then a rip of laughter.
     He pulled out his gun, raised it shoulder level, and kicked the door open. Ski dropped Dante to the floor and raised a hand in a silly gesture, as though it wasn’t his fault Dante’s face was turned inside out. Shaw smiled and sucked his teeth, but before he could speak, Cal made his move. He was a few inches under six feet, had the stocky build of a lightweight, slight bones compressed with muscle, but it was his trip-wire rage that gave him an edge. He charged the big Polish thug, who, stunned by the oncoming blur, tried to raise his hands to protect his face. The grip of Cal’s gun opened up his temple; another quick crack on the nose and the big man stumbled, his knees going to jelly and his hip crashing against the radiator as he fell. His nose sprayed a bloody stream.
    Cal ran a straight left arm into Shaw’s chest, pushed him until his back slammed the wall. He pressed the barrel of the gun against his forehead. The redhead turned to alleviate the pressure, but Cal pushed harder. Shaw’s heavy-lidded eyes