The Red Storm by Grant Bywaters

expanded. “You really think so?”
    â€œNo.”
    She laughed. “I suppose you think my voice is too deep. I get told that a lot. That I sound too much like a man. But what am I suppose to sound like, Betty Boop or something?”
    I laughed. “You couldn’t sound that girlish even if you sucked on a helium balloon.”
    Said Zella, “Oh, hush up and dance with me, you big ugly hyena.”
    I danced with her for a bit, spun her around a few times, and sent her running to the bathroom, where she spent the remainder of the evening bear-hugging the toilet and vomiting.

 
    CHAPTER 8
    A week later I stepped out of my shower to a ringing phone. “The New Orleans Hotel was bombed,” Brawley said. “Pineapples through the windows. Fire crew is hosing it down, but Ranalli and his men were able to escape the blast.”
    â€œGot any suspects?” I asked.
    â€œWe got a good idea who’s behind it. Seems we might be havin’ a gang war on our hands.”
    â€œThat’s good news for you. It’ll give you a solid opportunity to get your name misspelled in the papers again.”
    â€œYou’ve been really pushin’ it, Fletcher,” he said, and slammed the phone down so hard it made my ears ring.
    I stayed in my flat most of the afternoon. Not wanting to leave the phone, I had my lunch, a reuben on rye sandwich and milk, delivered by the boy working at the nearby drugstore. My hunch was that I’d be hearing from Ranalli soon. It took into the evening for my hunch to materialize by the phone jingling.
    â€œYou hear what that hick did to my place?” Ranalli yelled, referring to Valentino.
    â€œWhat’d you expect, wedgin’ yourself up in a room with all them windows? You were just asking for something like that to happen. Maybe it ain’t such a bad idea havin’ the cops keeping you on a leash, if anything for your own protection.”
    â€œI’d be watchin’ that mouth of yours,” he said. “Don’t you forget who you are!”
    â€œYou’ve got bigger things to worry about than my mouth,” I said.
    â€œI ain’t worried. See, that fink thinks he’s got a pair of iron balls by coming here! But it ain’t balls, it’s lack of brains. Any fink dumb enough to do a straight shot at me is going to be put through the grinder.”
    â€œHe’s here?” I said.
    â€œHim and his apes snuck in last night. Must’ve took off when I told him I wasn’t doing the job and not to bother askin’ for a return on his dough.”
    â€œTough break for him.”
    â€œIt don’t matter. Be out front in half an hour. I’m sending Jackson to get you.”
    â€œWhat for?” I asked.
    He hung up the phone, and left me to the task of figuring out what he wanted.
    Thirty minutes later a Cadillac V-16 Imperial Limousine pulled to the curb on St. Ann. Jackson, the chauffeur, stepped out and opened the door.
    Jackson at one time was an amateur wrestler. He was set to go to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, before he took a trip to a bar in Tijuana and tried to outwrestle a mob of bandits that claimed they were once led by Francisco Villa, aka Pancho Villa.
    Ranalli said they pulled Jackson into the back alley and took turns clobbering him across the back with two-by-fours and clubs. Jackson ended up with a broken back and was a close shave from being crippled. He joked that a person’s spinal column has thirty-three vertebrae, and they ended up shattering thirty-one of his.
    â€œHow’s the back?” I asked
    â€œThe back is fine. Some days it’s better than others. But I suppose that’s what I get for being young and dead between the ears.”
    â€œI don’t reckon I ever asked why you decided to pick a fight with them Mexicans,” I said.
    Jackson shrugged. “I figure you get told so much by your trainers and everyone you’re the best, and nobody