Mourn The Living Read Online Free

said, and Mr. Franco sat back down, two bullets from Nolan’s .38 in his chest.
    The first man through the door caught a bullet in the stomach, the next one through got his in the head. The odds were good that Nolan had gotten the girl’s killer because the two men he had shot were Sam’s personal bodyguards and had taken care of most of Sam’s unpleasant chores.
    Nolan waited for everyone to die, watching the doorway to see if anyone else wanted to join the party. When no one did, Nolan turned to the wall-safe opposite Sam’s desk. His mouth etched a faint line of a smile as he twisted the dial to the proper combination: a few weeks before he’d been in the office for a conference and had watched carefully as Sam opened the safe. As Nolan had been storing away the combination for possible future use, Sam had boasted its being too complicated for anyone but a Franco to master.
    Nolan emptied the safe’s contents into a briefcase and walked out into the outer office, where Sam’s secretary was crouching in the corner, waiting for death. Hauling her up by the arm, Nolan used her as a shield to get safely out of the building and into a cab, the .38 in her back making her a willing if not eager accomplice.
    The police noted that the incident marked Chicago’s fourth, fifth and sixth gangland slayings of the month, and promptly added them onto the city’s impressive list. The Boys kept Nolan’s name out of it (the secretary Nolan had used as an escort ended up describing him as short, fat, balding and Puerto Rican) because of the pains Nolan could cause them if he ever chose to reveal his knowledge of their organization’s inner workings to the authorities. The Boys’ benevolence, however, ended there.
    Charlie and Lou, shocked to see bloodshed come so close to their personal lives, placed the quarter million on Nolan’s head before Sam’s body had even cooled.
    Nolan had taken his twenty-thousand dollar bankroll, compliments of Sam’s wall-safe, and headed for a friend’s place, where he holed up two weeks, waiting for the heat to lift off Chicago. The friend who hid him out was named Sid Tisor.
    Nolan looked out the bus window and watched the sun go down. He closed his eyes and waited for Peoria.
     
     
    3
     
     
    TISOR WAS WAITING for Nolan at the bus station, asleep behind the wheel of his Pontiac, a blue year-old Tempest. Nolan peeped in at him. Tisor was a small man, completely bald, with unwrinkled pink skin and a kind face. His appearance hardly suited his role of ex-gangster. Nolan opened the car door, tossed his suitcases in the back, hung up his clothes-bags and slid in next to Tisor. He placed his .38 to Tisor’s temple and nudged him awake.
    “Nolan . . . what the hell . . .” Though the .38 barrel was cold against Tisor’s skin, he began to sweat.
    “Sid, we been friends a long time. Maybe too long. I’m worth a quarter million dead and you’re still on good terms with the Boys. If you’re part of a set-up to get rid of me, tell me now and you got your life and no hard feelings. If I find out later you’re fingering me, I think you know what you’ll get.”
    Tisor swallowed hard. He’d never heard Nolan give a speech like that before—he’d never heard more than a clipped sentence or two from Nolan at a time. Never in the ten years he’d known the man.
    Tisor said, “I’m with you, Nolan. I don’t have any love for Lou or Charlie or any of the bastards.”
    Nolan’s mouth formed a tight thin line, which was as close to smiling as he got. “Okay, Sid,” he said, and put the gun away.
    Tisor turned the key in the ignition—it took a couple tries as the weather had turned bitter cold a few days before—and got the Tempest moving. He wasn’t mad at Nolan for the stunt with the .38; he’d almost expected it.
    Nolan said, “I haven’t had much sleep, Sid. Take me to a motel, nothing fancy, but I want the sheets clean.”
    Tisor said, “You’re welcome at my place. I got two