Crime Always Pays Read Free

my hand, I'd do it again.'
              'But only Frank.'
              'No one else ever gave me enough reason.'
              Terry got up from behind the desk and went to the drinks cabinet, poured a brace of brandies. 'Remind me,' he said, carrying them across to the couch, 'never to give you a reason.'
              Madge took his balloon glass away, poured its contents into her own. 'Remind yourself,' she said. ' Slainté .'
     
     
     
     
     
    Rossi
     
    'Y'think maybe the cops have their own hospital?' Sleeps said. 'Their own ER at least, it makes sense. No one wants to be flat-backed beside some perp they've just whacked. That's bad juju.'
              'It was Madge,' Rossi said, 'who blew Frank's knee out.'
              'While he was handcuffed to the cop.'
              Rossi used one of the cop's handcuff keys to scratch up under the turban, the bandage drying out stiff and purple-black over where his ear used to be, the wound already itchy. 'I never heard of no cops' hospital,' he said.
              'So then we're looking at her coming here. With you, y'know, under arrest. She read you up, right?'
              Rossi flinched as the metal teeth snagged on the catgut stitches. 'She started to,' he said, easing the key out from under the turban. 'Then she stopped when I fired down on her. So I dunno if that qualifies as properly habeas corpused and shit.' He shrugged. 'What d'you want, we sit outside the cop shop 'til she shows up there?'
              Sleeps had another squint out over the parking lot, seventeen rows all the way to the ER bay. 'We should be gone, Rossi.'
              'You're the one wants to go back inside,' Rossi pointed out, 'do soft time.'
              'That was then. Except now there's cops involved, cops and guns.'
              'And on the other side,' Rossi said, doggie-paddling his hands on an invisible see-saw, 'there's two hundred grand and the ear.'
              'The ear's gone, man. Forget about the ear.'
              'Forget about it? The bitch chewed my  ear  off.' Rossi shook his head, wincing even as he did it. 'Don't doubt it, I'm ripping the hound open, digging it out.'
              'And then what – you sew it back on? After it's been a couple a days in her gut? It'll be eaten away with acids.'
              'You heard the doc. It's not just hearing, your balance gets screwed too. I'm looping the fuckin loop over here.'
              'That'll be the goofballs. The vet said two every eight hours, not eight every two minutes. And what he said was, you start messing with the bandage and the inner ear gets infected, you'll --'
              'Hold up.' Rossi pointed across the car park to where an ambulance had pulled in at the ER doors, was now discharging its cargo. The cop still cuffed to Frank, bent double at the waist until the medics extended the stretcher to its full height. 'The seagull,' he said, 'has landed.'
     
     
     
     
     
    Doyle
     
    'It doesn't look good, Steph.' Ted paced as far as the window, twitched the blind, glanced out into the parking lot, then came back across the office and slipped in behind his desk, pointed at his left ear. 'How's the hearing coming on?'
              'What?'
              'I said, How's your – oh.'
              'Sorry.'
              'This is serious, Steph.'
              'I know. Go on.'
    'Want a smoke? A coffee or anything?'
              'I'm fine, Ted. Really.'
              'Okay.' Ted scratched his stubble glancing down at the prelim report laid out in front of him. Doyle wishing she had her gun, could toss it on Ted's desk. Be Clint, be gone. 'So you're saying here,' he said, 'you didn't see who shot Frank.'
              'I closed my eyes after I got shot at,' Doyle said. 'Forgot to open them again.'
              'And this tinnitus you got