CHAPTER SEVENTEEN“The skunk’s never coming back,” d**k McCue said bitterly. His face was hurting again. He wanted to lie down again in his comfortable room at Goudeket’s Green Acres, horror and fatigue far behind.
Mrs. Goudeket didn’t even hear. She had taken her place on the one good chair, near the door, and she was waiting for the moment when Artie Chesbro, the thief of cars, should walk back inside. That, thought Mickey Groff, would be a moment to watch. Chesbro had been asking for it for a long time. It would be a pleasure to see the old lady taking him apart.
He thought wrong.
The old lady sighed and said, “How long now? A day and a half I been away from Goudeket’s Green Acres, and all the time I been worried sick. You know something? Now I’m not worried.”
Mickey Groff said, “Tha
