expanded. âYou really think so?â
âNo.â
She laughed. âI 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?â
I laughed. âYou couldnât sound that girlish even if you sucked on a helium balloon.â
Said Zella, âOh, hush up and dance with me, you big ugly hyena.â
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.
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CHAPTER 8
A week later I stepped out of my shower to a ringing phone. âThe New Orleans Hotel was bombed,â Brawley said. âPineapples through the windows. Fire crew is hosing it down, but Ranalli and his men were able to escape the blast.â
âGot any suspects?â I asked.
âWe got a good idea whoâs behind it. Seems we might be havinâ a gang war on our hands.â
âThatâs good news for you. Itâll give you a solid opportunity to get your name misspelled in the papers again.â
âYouâve been really pushinâ it, Fletcher,â 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 Iâd be hearing from Ranalli soon. It took into the evening for my hunch to materialize by the phone jingling.
âYou hear what that hick did to my place?â Ranalli yelled, referring to Valentino.
âWhatâd you expect, wedginâ yourself up in a room with all them windows? You were just asking for something like that to happen. Maybe it ainât such a bad idea havinâ the cops keeping you on a leash, if anything for your own protection.â
âIâd be watchinâ that mouth of yours,â he said. âDonât you forget who you are!â
âYouâve got bigger things to worry about than my mouth,â I said.
âI ainât worried. See, that fink thinks heâs got a pair of iron balls by coming here! But it ainât balls, itâs lack of brains. Any fink dumb enough to do a straight shot at me is going to be put through the grinder.â
âHeâs here?â I said.
âHim and his apes snuck in last night. Mustâve took off when I told him I wasnât doing the job and not to bother askinâ for a return on his dough.â
âTough break for him.â
âIt donât matter. Be out front in half an hour. Iâm sending Jackson to get you.â
âWhat for?â 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 personâs spinal column has thirty-three vertebrae, and they ended up shattering thirty-one of his.
âHowâs the back?â I asked
âThe back is fine. Some days itâs better than others. But I suppose thatâs what I get for being young and dead between the ears.â
âI donât reckon I ever asked why you decided to pick a fight with them Mexicans,â I said.
Jackson shrugged. âI figure you get told so much by your trainers and everyone youâre the best, and nobody
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