Free Desperate Acts by Don Gutteridge Page A

leered.
    “Whaddya mean?”
    “I smooth-talked her again this evening when
Budge was busy. Then when she was least expecting it, I asked her
how her sweetheart was doing and whether or not he knew about the
bun in her oven.”
    Nestor dropped the jug onto the table, and
Duggan deftly stopped it from tipping over. “Holy Jesus – ”
    “And it worked, cousin. Oh, how it worked.
She went all red, which you’d expect, then she went white as a
ghost and looked over at Budge behind the bar. It was as clear as
day. I’d struck the mother-lode!”
    “But if you go breathin’ a word of this,
Budge’ll sack me an’ come gunnin’ fer you! He’s a gorilla when he’s
riled up!”
    “Quit your worrying and have another drink.
You don’t get it, do you? Now that we’ve dug up this dirt on Budge,
even if he’s smart enough to figure out who we are, it’s him that’s got to be afraid of us. Your job was never safer than
it is now.”
    “So you’re not gonna tell on him?”
    Duggan did not directly answer the question.
He wiped the mouth of the jug on his sleeve, took a sip of Swampy
Sam’s bootleg whiskey, and placed the jug back in front of Nestor.
“You’re a snitch for the police, aren’t you? You know the value of
information – to the penny. You might say that I’m learning the
game from my cousin, eh?”
    Nestor couldn’t quite follow the logic of
this remark, but he was so relieved that Duggan was not about to do
anything rash in the way of petty revenge that he relaxed visibly
and took another gulp of hooch.
    “In The Blue Ox yesterday some fella told me
you were the best snitch in Cobb’s stable,” Duggan said after they
had consumed several more draughts. “And that’s not the first time
I’ve heard it!”
    Nestor grinned, exposing his gums and a
single, blackened tooth. “You bet I am. That Itchy Quick goes
around braggin’ about how great he is, but that kinda
boastin’ can get a fella’s legs broken. I still got both knees
workin’ ‘cause I know when to talk and when to shut up.”
    Duggan made as if to drink, paused, and said
quietly, “You happen to see Cobb in The Cock and Bull tonight?”
    Nestor blinked several times, a sure sign
that he was preparing to lie. “No, I didn’t.”
    “Hadn’t got anything new to tell him, eh?”
Duggan said in what he took to be a light, teasing tone.
    Nestor bridled. “I always got somethin’ to
tell him. But there’s things I know I don’t tell to nobody. I know
right from wrong.”
    Duggan grinned. He was recalling a similar
scene as far back as September, when he had coaxed Nestor into a
state of near-inebriation and taunted him in the very same way . .
.
    “So, cousin, you’re forever bragging about
the dozens of secrets you’ve dug up on your own, but you don’t ever
say why I ought to believe you,” he had said then, pretending to
take a great swig of liquor, as he had done this evening.
    Nestor, never overly astute even when sober,
had taken the bait. “Think I just make things up, don’t ya?”
    Duggan had become instantly conciliatory.
“I’m your cousin , Nestor – the guy who’s goin’ to share his
legacy with you and haul you out of this shack and get you what you
deserve.” Duggan’s words appeared to be somewhat slurred by the
whiskey, but no liquor could dull the man’s cunning.
    “That’s true,” Nestor sniffed. “You’re the
only livin’ relalive I’ve got in the whole wide world.”
    “So, if you’ve got onto something juicy, you
oughta be able to tell your sole, living blood relation,
right?”
    Nestor had smirked, a look he had few
occasions to exercise. “Itchy Quick told me this in his cups
yesterday. He was up at that Oakwood place burnin’ some stumps fer
that fat English lordy-dah – this was back in the summer – an’ he
seen the Lady What’s-her-name in the flower bed with her legs
spread an’ one of our local gents pumpin’ away between ‘em.”
    “Nice an’ juicy,” Duggan had