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Neddie Laround

Where should he go tonight?

CHAPTER 58

IT WAS AFTER 9:00 pm when Neddie took the stairs down from Ward Six to the basement-level tunnel, which was the corridor tothe kitchen and the laundry It also ran between the Loony Bin and Saint Vartan’s Medical Center

Neddie wore a black hoodie under a hip-length denim jacket His weapon of choice was in his pocket, and his s of his jeans

Dodging the few orderlies and round tunnel at that hour, Neddie stuck to the shadows, then exited through the medical waste room under Saint Vartan’s and walked a block and a half overland to Jones Street

Jones had once been a hive of speakeasies with escape hatches into underground hidey rooms, and Neddie knew the whole subterranean network better than anyone

There, in front of the Wainscot, was one of Neddie’s best portals He sat on the curb and had to wait only athe stor inside He san his descent down theto the dark

Once he reached the botto the old speakeasy connector to the manhole at Sixth and Stevenson Neddie was not only swift, he was nimble He made the short hand-over-hand climb, listened for a break in traffic, then shouldered open the heavy lid capping the entrance to the tunnel

Aboveground again, Neddie walked in darkness,well-traveled streets into narrow alleys, passing strollers and dog walkers in ones and twos in Sue Bierman Park He kept his hood up, his hands in his pockets, his eyes down, finally taking a pathway at the end of Drumm to the Embarcadero

Neddie found the E the bay, exhilarating There was so much traffic here, both car and pedestrian, that no one noticed him

Several o he had e Woman But before he’d been able to see and really feel the thrill of her death, soinable had overshadowed his oeet success

He’d been cheated

Tonight he would take back what had been so rudely stolen froed to Neddie Lambo

CHAPTER 59