The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection Read Online Free Page A

away. Only to return as soon as his back was turned, to sidle up beside the head villain.
    ‘Are you Stinger?’ I whispered out of the side of my mouth, head turned away from him. He must have seen the same videos because he answered inthe same way.
    ‘Yeah. So who wants to know?’
    ‘Me. I just got into this joint. I got a message for you from the outside.’
    ‘So tell.’
    ‘Not where these dummies can hear. We gotta be alone.’
    He gave me a most suspicious look from under his beetling brows. But I had succeeded in capturing his curiosity. He muttered something to his followers then strolled away. They remained behind but flashedmurderous looks at me when I strolled in the same direction. He went across the yard towards a bench – the two men already there fleeing as he approached. I sat down next to him and he looked me up and down with disdain.
    ‘Say what you gotta say, kid – and it better be good.’
    ‘This is for you,’ I said, sliding a twenty-buck coin along the bench towards him. ‘The message is from me and from noone else. I need some help and am willing to pay for it. Here is a down payment. There is plenty more where this came from.’
    He sniffed disdainfully – but his thick fingers scraped up the coin and slipped it into his pocket. ‘I ain’t in the charity business, kid. The only geezer I help is myself. Now shove off –’
    ‘Listen to what I have to say first. What I need is someone to break out of prisonwith me. One week from today. Are you interested?’
    I had caught his attention this time. He turned and looked me square in the eye, cold and assured. ‘I don’t like jokes,’ he said – and his hand grabbed my wrist and twisted. It hurt. I could have broken the grip easily, but I did not. If this little bit of bullying was important to him, then bully away.
    ‘It’s no joke. Eight days from now I’llbe on the outside. You can be there too if you want to be. It’s your decision.’
    He glared at me some more – then let go of my wrist. I rubbed at it and waited for his response. I could see him chewing over my words, trying to make up his mind. ‘Do you know why I’m inside?’ he finally asked.
    ‘I heard rumours.’
    ‘If the rumour was that I killed a geezer then the rumour was right. It was an accident.He had a soft head. It broke when I knocked him down. They was going to pass it off as a farm accident but another geezer lost a bundle to me on the match. He was going to pay me next day but he went to the police instead because that was a lot cheaper. Now they are going to take me to a League hospital and do my head. The shrinker here says I won’t want to fight again after that. I won’t likethat.’
    The big fists opened and closed when he talked and I had the sudden understanding that fighting was his life, the one thing that he could do well. Something that other men admired and praised him for. If that ability were taken away – why they might just as well take away his life at the same time. I felt a sudden spurt of sympathy but did not let the feeling show.
    ‘You can get me outof here?’ The question was a serious one.
    ‘I can.’
    ‘Then I’m your man. You want something out of me, I know that, no one does nothing for nothing in this world. I’ll do what you want, kid. They’ll get me in the end. There is no place to hide anywhere when they are really looking for you. But I’m going to get mine. I’m going to get the geezer what put me inhere. Get him proper. One last fight.Kill him the way he killed me.’
    I could not help shivering at his words because it was obvious that he meant them. That was painfully clear. ‘I’ll get you out,’ I said. But to this I added the unspoken promise that I would see to it that he got nowhere near the object of his revenge. I was not going to start my new criminal career as an accomplice to murder.
    Stinger took me under his protectivewing at once. He shook my hand, crushing my fingers with that deadly