Free Kill Me Tomorrow by Richard S. Prather Page A

little more—at the time of the nuptials—than an errand boy in one of the minor Cosa Nostra Families, but within ten years a man to be reckoned with, as “underboss” or subcapo , second-in-command to a capo , a man with the power of life and death—or, more accurately, the power of death.
    I dropped the papers into my lap.
    I leaned back, relaxed. There it was. I checked the dates again. Giuseppe, now, would be forty-six years old. Giuseppe—Joe. Joe Civano.
    So the guy blown all over the landscape last Sunday morning in Tucson, Crazy Joe Civano, was—had been—Pete “The Letch” Lecci’s grandson.

CHAPTER SIX
    I rolled to a stop near 2430 East Claridge Street at nine P . M . Lights were on inside the house. I’d made good time—but I had nonetheless reentered the city with as much care as if I’d been a Greek clambering from the Trojan Horse into Troy.
    Peaceful Sunrise Villas, huh? Where the Golden Days of the Golden Years Begin? Lucky Ryan alone would have been enough. But add Pete Lecci and his so-recently-dead grandson … Well, I wasn’t even going to call on old gray-headed Widow Blessing without my Colt .38 fully loaded and inches from my hand, and every sense on the alert, and a mind steeled against slyness, chicanery, double-talk and deception.
    Charged up with those thoughts I climbed out of the car and, after looking all around, strode to the front door and rang the widow’s bell. A gal—obviously not the Widow Blessing—opened the door. Whoever she was, it looked as if her bell was still ringing.
    She stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, but she wasn’t just standing there, she was moving. It would be even more pointedly descriptive to say she was moving . I hadn’t seen anything quite like it before. And I’ve seen lots of things.
    She gazed at me with a small smile on her face, and her right shoulder resting against the door jamb, and her bare arms folded beneath astonishingly protuberant jugs, and all of that was quiescent; but her hips and even in small measure her thighs and knees were engaged in tracing strange and wonderful patterns in the air—and if I hadn’t known this sort of thing didn’t happen, even to me, at least not on such short acquaintance, I would have presumed she was doing provocative grinds, and friendly little bumps, and assorted ingenious combinations of the two.
    â€œHow do you do?” I said finally. “I’m looking for the Widow Blessing.”
    â€œI’m Mrs. Blessing,” she said.
    â€œNo, I mean the old gray-haired babe … You’re Mrs. Blessing? Mrs.—”
    â€œMrs. Mary Blessing. Who are you?”
    â€œI’m Shell Scott. But let that go for a minute. You’re —”
    â€œI don’t think I know you, do I?”
    â€œNo … The reason I’m here, I’d like to talk to you about Mr. Gilberto Reyes.”
    â€œOh. That Reyes thing.” She paused. She paused all over. I hadn’t realized it would disappoint me. “Would you like to come inside, Mr.—was it Scott?”
    â€œYes, it was. Sure, I would.”
    She stepped back from the door, and with more light falling on her face and form I could get an even better look at her. The Widow—no, that was no good any more; Mrs. Blessing, or Mary Blessing, or Mary—did not fall into the normal fifty-or-over category of most Sunrise Villas residents. On the other hand, it was highly unlikely that Mary would ever see thirty again. She might even have to look way behind her even to get a peek at it. But it is not true that all good-looking tomatoes are ineligible to vote. This one wasn’t exactly a spring chicken, but more of a summer hen. For whom the roosters would battle, with beak and claw, all over the barnyard.
    As I walked into the room I heard the throb of soft music. Wild music. Strange music. I wasn’t even sure it was music.