Death Comes Calling by John Glasby

Author:John Glasby [Glasby, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2019-05-01T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Half an hour later I was back in downtown L.A. I’d put through a call to the County Hospital to ask about Minello. All I was told was that he’d had the operations to remove the lead from his body and was now as well as could be expected. Considering how close he’d come to being killed, I guessed that the Grim Reaper was still close by, waiting in the wings for him.

Things had got real messy over the past few days and I had decided that I would take O’Leary’s advice and, unless any further orders came from Manzelli, concentrate on trying to find Marcia Edwards’ grandson.

The fact that no call had come from the kidnappers both puzzled and worried me. If any of the Mobs had him stashed away some place, they might be getting jittery now. The longer they kept him alive in their hands, the more chance there could be that someone might stumble upon him, or he might take it into his head to make a break for it. Sometimes, unlike most adults, kids don’t take the time or trouble to think things through.

I was now in a part of town that tourists and visitors to L.A. never see. The street seemed to begin nowhere and end in exactly the same place. There were rows of dingy buildings on each side. Few were occupied. The only tenants were lonely down-and-outs and rats.

Hardly any of the windows were intact, looking at the world outside through empty eyes that saw nothing. Halfway along the street was a vacant lot that was now the repository of abandoned automobiles. All had been stripped of any re-usable parts leaving only twisted, rusted shells. In the center was a couple of rusted Cadillacs, one resting on the back of the other like a couple of copulating antedeluvian monsters.

All in all, it made a depressing scene. There was an air of total abandonment about it that was made even deeper by the silence that hung over everything. It had seen better days but those times were now lost in the far distant past. Sometime, the city might decide to bulldoze the lot and put a few bars and casinos on what was left.

Yet in spite of its appearance, I knew it could make an excellent place for a small boy to be hidden.

I got out of the Merc, stretched my legs, and walked towards one of the nearer buildings. Despite the silence, I was glad of the reassuring weight of the .38 close to my left arm.

A splintered wooden door hung slantwise on one hinge. It fell inwards as I pushed it. Dust spiralled into the unmoving air clogging my throat and nostrils. Peeling wallpaper hung on the walls like ghostly hands reaching into the room. There was nothing untoward on the ground floor and somehow I made my way up the stairs without any of them collapsing under my weight. I wasn’t sure they would remain intact on my way back down.

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