Wild Town Read Online Free Page A

do.”
    “Yes?”
    “I said so. This is a rough town and it’s a big place, and it gets a lot of people that ain’t exactly panty waists. A good tough house dick—and I know you ain’t no coward, whatever else you been—can save trouble for me.”
    “Well,” Bugs hesitated troubledly. “It sounds all right. And Ford, by God, it has to be! If I got into just one more jam—”
    “Sure,” Ford cut in soothingly, “you just can’t do it. A fella in your spot has to do everything he can to keep out of trouble, because he ain’t got too many chances left.”
    “And you think I can handle the job, a guy that—that acts like I do? I don’t mean I don’t act all right, get me?” Bugs added hastily. “I give just as good as I get. But I won’t take any guff from anyone—and I don’t give a hoot in hell who they are either. And I won’t go around with a big possum grin on my face—”
    “Yeah, sure, I understand,” Ford nodded. “You ain’t going to do no getting along with no one. It’s up to them to get along with you.”
    “That’s not what I said! What I said was that—” Bugs scowled, then his face twisted into a sheepish grin. “I guess it did sound that way,” he said mildly. “I guess that’s probably the way it is.”
    “Or been,” Ford corrected. “You live like a man should for a while, get yourself some reason for livin’, and you’ll feel a lot different. Well”—he got up from the desk—“guess we’re all set, huh? Let me run up and get my hat and coat, and we’ll be on our way.”
    He left. Bugs got up and paced nervously around the room. As attractive as this set-up seemed, in some ways, he was worried about it. Suspicious of Ford. Ford’s clownish mannerisms were too exaggerated, no more than a mask for a coldly calculating and super-sharp mind. He wouldn’t go to these lengths simply to place an efficient house detective in the Hanlon Hotel.
    Still—Bugs thought—how could he be so sure? He didn’t think like an ordinary man anymore; he’d reached the point where he was suspicious of everyone. Ford was on the take, of course, but you found graft just about everywhere. And aside from that, and his treatment of the girl, Amy…
    Bugs frowned, remembering. Firmly, he removed her from his calculations about Ford. Maybe she was asking for that kind of treatment. But she wasn’t, she couldn’t be! At any rate, she was none of his business.
    Bugs paused in front of the old fieldstone fireplace, studying the several pictures which stood propped on the mantel. There was one of a young boy—Ford, obviously—standing beside a collie dog. There was one of a spade-bearded, bespectacled man, and another of an exotic-looking, proud-eyed brunette in a high-necked shirtwaist. There was—the remaining picture had toppled over. Bugs picked it up, and stared into the face of the girl, Amy.
    Her lips were parted slightly. Her eyes looked straight into his; smiling, dancing with happy expectancy. Pleased with herself and him, and delighted that life had brought two such nice people together.
    And from right behind him, Ford coughed.
    Bugs jumped. He dropped the picture back to the mantel. “Hope you don’t mind,” he mumbled. “I was just, uh—”
    “Aw, now, sure not,” Ford drawled. “You don’t see a dawg like that very often. He was the first and last dawg I ever had. Just seemed like I couldn’t never find another one to measure up to him after he passed on.”
    “I see. Uh—those are your parents?”
    “Yep. Fine-looking woman, ain’t she? Traced her ancestry clear back to the Con-kee-stadors. Let’s see, now”—Ford waggled his cigar thoughtfully. “I guess it was right after that dawg picture was taken that she run off with a cattle buyer.”
    Bugs didn’t know what to say to that. Nor to the deputy’s next statement that his mother was one helluva smart woman. “Didn’t try to do what she wasn’t made to.” But he felt that Ford had said a great