Free Deadly Diamonds by John Dobbyn Page B

orange.
    â€œWho’s that?”
    â€œTell you what. I’ll give you the first bet of the day. I’ll bet a ten spot at ten-to-one odds that you know exactly who I’m talking about.”
    He went on polishing glasses. “And if I did?”
    â€œUh-huh. Then we’re on first base. Let’s try for second. I’ll make it easy. You don’t have to say anything to me. I just need to get a message to him. Don’t say no until I give you the message.”
    He just kept smiling.
    â€œIf you can get word to Packy that Michael Knight, the partner of Lex Devlin, has what he wants and is ready to deal, I’ll pretend I lost the bet.”
    I took out the hundred dollar bill I carry in the back of my cash roll for just such an occasion. I put it on the bar and kept my hand on top of it. His eyes were on it, and then on me.
    â€œAnd if I should know such a person and he got your message, where could he reach you?”
    â€œI’ll make that easy too. You see that booth down there in the back? Right there. The office’ll be open.”
    I picked up the beer and took my hand off the hundred dollar bill. As I walked to the back booth, I checked back. The bill was gone from the bar.
    By twelve thirty, I’d nursed two and a half pints of Sam Adams fine lager. At twelve thirty-one, the bartender left a now-thriving business at the bar to walk to the booth. He set another Sam in front of meon a coaster that was upside down. I lifted the frosty glass before the moisture ran the writing on the coaster. The message was terse: “Pi Alley off School Street. Four o’clock. Alone.”
    Terrific. I had what I wanted. A date with Satan and who knows how many of his fallen angels with just me alone to deal for the life of the man I loved like a father. I had baited the hook with the promise that I “have what he wants,” when I could more easily have guessed Rumplestiltskin’s name than whatever the hell it was he wanted. Not too promising, longevity-wise, but I could think of not one single alternative.
    I’d walked the narrow Pi Alley with my father as a kid more times than I could count. It was the location of most of the printers’ shops back in Ben Franklin’s day. It was called “Pi Alley” because the printers would throw the used pieces of type said to be “pied” out the window into the alley. It held good memories, but I was dead sure this was not going to be one of them. Today that narrow, darkened path between tall buildings felt like a cattle chute to the slaughterhouse.
    At four o’clock, the sun was behind the buildings, and a brooding darkness was settling in. From the first step I took off of School Street, I had to will my legs to take every step. If this Packy didn’t show, I was desperate for ideas. If he did, I had absolutely nothing but my life to trade. With those comforting notions, I moved one lead foot after the other into the totally vacant, soundless, dark alley.
    I had crossed half of the two-hundred-foot stretch with my heart dropping closer to the pit of my stomach with every step, when I saw two silhouettes at the far end. They looked like Abbot and Costello, one short and fat, the other tall and slim, but not a trace of humor. They were moving in my direction.
    We were fifteen feet from each other, when I caught the faint glint of light reflected off the barrel of a gun. The thin one gave the order.
    â€œRight there, Knight. Hands behind your head.”
    I froze and obeyed. My eyes scoured the scene for an escape hatch. There was absolutely none. The fat one spoke.
    â€œSo you got what I want, do you? Let’s have it.”
    â€œI don’t know what—”
    I got that far before a hand came from behind. It locked my forehead in a grip like a vise. I could feel the steel edge of a blade at my throat. My body went rigid when the cutting edge started to draw liquid. I couldn’t have taken a