The Long Wait Read Online Free

back of my head. ”What about the bandage?”
    â€œFour stitches in your scalp. Come back in a week and I’ll take ’em out for you.”
    â€œYou’re giving me a long time to live,” I said.
    The doctor grinned at me.
    I got dressed and went downstairs to the window where they took a twenty and gave me back five. My legs were wobbly and my head throbbed, but a good sniff of the night air put me back together a little.
    It was pitch black and the stars were under cover. A worried guy sweating out a maternity call was pacing back and forth the ramp outside the door. He looked up hopefully when I opened it, saw me and went back to pacing. I walked down the ramp, turned onto the sidewalk and headed for the lights that marked the center of town.
    Behind me the glowing tip of a cigarette traced an arc through the air, splattered out in the grass that bordered the gutter and a pair of heavy feet began to match my stride.
    The vigil had begun. Lindsey was behind me all the way.
    Metaphorically speaking, that is. The guy wasn’t Lindsey, but he was all cop. I was beginning to think that they didn’t have any little cops in this town. The one behind me was a barrel on legs weaving from side to side. He was such a good cop that it took me nearly two blocks to shake him.
    When I got to town I stopped at a drugstore and climbed into the phone booth. I dialed the hotel and asked for Jack. When I had him I said. “This is McBride. You remember that barber who worked on me today?”
    â€œSure. Name’s Looth. We call him Looth Tooth. Why?”
    â€œJust curious. Thanks.”
    â€œDon’t mention it. By the way, where you calling from, Mr. McBride?”
    â€œA phone booth.”
    â€œOh?” He sounded surprised.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œYou see the papers tonight?”
    â€œHell no. I just got out of the hospital. I had my head examined.”
    â€œWell, you oughta see ’em.”
    He hung up before I could ask any more questions. I picked up a paper at the front of the store and I saw what he meant. It was quite an item. In fact, the whole front page was scrambled because the story that was supposed to go in had been yanked at the last minute. All that was left was a one-column squib squeezed in by an irate compositor who had to work overtime. The heading was: Police Hold Murder Suspect.Under it the item read, “Held in the five-year-old slaying of former District Attorney Robert Minnow was John McBride, tentatively identified by police as a former resident of Lyncastle who fled following the shooting of the District Attorney during the sensational gambling probe of his era. McBride was released after questioning and Captain Lindsey of the Lyncastle Police refused to comment. Since the grand jury returned a murder-guilt verdict against the original McBride, this was the first suspect held in the affair.”
    And that, dear children, is all. Nobody knew from nothing. I was a story that didn’t happen ... yet. Somebody had done a lot of pretty string-pulling in the police lab. I grinned until my mouth ached, remembered what I came after and went back to the phone directory and rummaged through it until I found what I wanted.
    Looth Tooth was listed, but he wasn’t home. Somebody told me the name of a bar where I could find him. I paid a hackie a buck to take me there and when I walked in Looth Tooth had himself an audience of eager listeners and he was telling them in details that never happened how he practically caught McBride all by himself.
    He was doing great until I got into the crowd. I stood there and looked at him until something got stuck in his throat and he couldn’t breathe. He believed everything I told him with my eyes, then Looth Tooth was something with pale blue lips and eyes that rolled up in his head, dropping to the floor in a dead faint.
    I had one beer and left just as they were carrying Looth Tooth out the door. Everybody agreed