Free The Judas Goat by Robert B. Parker

bureau. There was already blood all over my chin and dripping on my shirt. I took a clean handkerchief from the drawer and blotted up enough of the blood to see that the cut was minor, little more than a razor nick, maybe an inch long. I folded the handkerchief over and held it against the cut. “Sloppy frisk,” I said. “My own fault, Suck.” He sat still in the chair, his face tight and pale with pain. “When you tell me what I want to know I’ll get a doctor. What’s your name?”
    “Up your bleeding ass.”
    “I could do the other arm the same.” He was silent. “Or the same one again.”
    “I am not going to say nothing,” he said, his voice strained and shallow as he held against the pain. “No matter what you do. No bloody red sucking Yankee thug is going to make me say anything I don’t want.” I took my Identikit sketches out and looked at them. He could have been one of them. I couldn’t be sure. Dixon would have to ID him. I put the sketches away, took out the card that Downes had given me, went over to the phone and called him. “I guess I got another one, Inspector. Fat little guy with blond hair and a Colt .22 target pistol.”
    “Are you at your hotel?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “I’ll come over there, then.”
    “Yes, sir, and he needs a doctor. I had to bend his arm some.”
    “I’ll call the hotel and have their man sent up.” The doctor arrived about five minutes before Downes did. It was Kensy, same doctor who’d been in to treat me. Today he had on a three-piece gray worsted suit with the waist nipped in and a lot of shoulder padding and a black silk shirt with long collar rolled out over the lapels. “Well, sir,” he said as he came in, “how’s your arse?” And put his head back and laughed. “What do you wear in surgery,” I said, “a hot pink surgical mask?”
    “My dear man, I don’t do surgery. I’d better have a look at that chin though.”
    “Nope, just look at this guy’s arm,” I said. He knelt beside the chair and looked at the kid’s arm. 
    “Dislocated,” he said. “Have to go to a hospital to have it set.” He looked at me. “You do this?” 
    I nodded. 
    “You’re quite a lethal chap, aren’t you?” he said. 
    “My entire body is a dangerous weapon,” I said. 
    “Mm, I would think so,” he said. “I’ll put a kind of splint on that, my man,” he said to the kid, “and give you something for the pain. And then we’d best bundle you off to the hospital and have an orthopedic man deal with it. I gather you have to wait on the authorities, however.” The kid didn’t speak. 
    “Yeah, he has to do that,” I said. 
    Kensy took an inflatable splint from his bag and very gently put it onto the kid’s damaged arm. Then he blew it up. He filled a hypodermic needle and gave him a shot. “You should feel better,” he said, “in just a minute.” Kensy was putting the needle back in the bag when Downes came in. He looked at the kid with his arm in the temporary cast that looked like a transparent balloon. 
    “Another half a car, Spenser?”
    “Maybe. I think so, but it’s hard to be sure.” There was a uniformed cop and a young woman in civilian clothes with Downes. “Tell me about this one,” Downes said. The young woman sat down and took out a notebook. The uniformed bobby stood by the door. 
    Kensy had his bag closed and headed for the door. “That’s only a temporary cast,” he said to Downes. “Best get him prompt orthopedic attention.”
    “We’ll get him to the hospital straight away,” Downes said. “Fifteen minutes, no more.”
    “Good,” Kensy said. “Try to avoid hurting anyone for a day or two, would you, Spenser. I’m going on holiday tonight, and I won’t be back until Monday.”
    “Have a nice time,” I said. He left. “Can you hold him for Dixon to look at?” I said. “I imagine we can. What charges are you suggesting?”
    “Oh, what, possession of a stolen weapon, possession of an unlicensed