The Long Wait Read Online Free Page A

that it was a pity he didn’t get to finish his story.
    Tomorrow I’d go down for a shave and ask him to finish it for me personally. He was going to be one barber who’d never go peddling his lip to the police again.
    But it was still tonight and I had things to do. The hackie who brought me was still outside and I told him to take me to the railroad station. From where we were we had to go straight up the main drag of town so I had a chance to see what it looked like during business hours.
    It looked pretty good. It looked like everything the newspapers, radio and magazine articles said it would look like. Maybe you’ve heard of the place. A long time ago it started out as a pretty nice town. A smelter turned ore into copper bars over under the mountains and everybody was happy. They were rough-and-tumble boys who built their houses and minded their own business.
    That’s the way it would have stayed if Prohibition didn’t come and go like it did. Lyncastle took the switch in stride, but the three big cities on each side of it voted an option and kept themselves dry, so anybody who wanted a drink simply crossed the river into Lyncastle and got themselves a package. It wasn’t long after that you could get anything else you wanted too. Lyncastle became what is known as a wide-open town. Little Reno. Ten feet off the sidewalk you had crap tables, slots, faro layouts, roulette ... hell, everything. Nobody bothered to work in the smelter any more. The gambling rooms were paying high for bouncers, croupiers, dealers, shills and whatnot.
    I wondered what they’d pay a killer to knock off a D. A. who didn’t like what they were doing.
    The hackie was holding the door open for me. “Here y’are, buster. Buck and a half.”
    â€œTake two. They’re little.” I slammed the door shut and stepped up on the platform.
    The station was practically deserted. A young colored boy was curled up in a handcart, his head nestling on a pillow of mail sacks, and inside a woman with a baby m her arms was dozing off on a bench. Across the platform a bus, dark and dead looking, was hiding in the end port. Over there was where the bruiser hung out and I looked for something moving in the shadows.
    I waited a long time, but nothing moved. Evidently he only checked incoming schedules. I crossed the platform and stood in the doorway, looked around quickly and stepped inside.
    The old boy was just closing his ticket window when he saw me. His voice was lost in the slamming of the grillwork and the rattle of the shade being drawn over it. A door opened in the side of the booth and he was waving me inside furiously. He was so worked up he hopped around like a toad making sure the door was locked tight before he pulled a couple of benches together.
    â€œDamn, Johnny,” he said with his head wagging from side to side, “you sure beat all. Sit down, sit down.”
    I sat down.
    â€œAnybody see you come up here?”
    â€œNope. Didn’t matter if they did, Pop.”
    I got the puzzled squint again while he fingered his mustache. “I heard talk an’ I read the papers. How come you’re here and what’s the bandage on your head for? They do that to you?”
    â€œYeah, they did it,” I told him easily.
    â€œDamn it all, finish itl”
    â€œNot much to finish. Guy named Lindsey wanted to talk to me. We talked. It got a little bit rough and we finished talking in the hospital. Nobody got around to saying much. Lindsey seems to think we’ll be having another talk soon.”
    â€œNever took you to be a fool, Johnny. Took you to be a lot of things, but never a fool.”
    â€œWhat else did you take me for?”
    I put it to him too fast and he shifted uncomfortably. “I’m ... sorry, son. Didn’t mean to bring that up again.” Then his face pinched together. “Maybe I was wrong.”
    You can cover a situation nicely by sticking a butt