Al Capone's Ghost

Chapter One

Al Capone did not die in Chicago. He died in a villa in Florida. But Eddie Madison did not know this. How could he? He wasn't an historian, a gangster, an academic or a know-all. He was a writer of really bad comic crime novels. Not exactly Agatha Christie but not Mickey Spillane either. For him crime was funny. It was peopled by comic tough guys, lunatics and losers.

This did not bode well for his future.

But right now he was standing outside Al's villa. The place was old but iy didn't look like a house that was haunted. There was no gothic, no dark towers that loomed threateningly overhead. No one heard an organ playing dramatic music. There were no mysterious dark corners. No one, no matter how visionary, had ever imagined that a dead soul lurked here.

Even so it didn't look the same as it did in 1946 when Al had died. Then it was lived in. Smoke curled innocently from the chimney. The grounds were surrounded by a white picket fence to give an illusion of respectability. In this house he was no longer a gangster. He said hi to the neighbours. He gave the local kids a buck to clean his car. If the cops were getting on his case in Chicago he took his holidays here.

Now, though, time had done its worst. A broken cobweb hung over the letter box. The chimney had an empty Blackbirds nest in it. There were whole strips of paint missing and the windows were caked solid with dust. But even if Eddie could have seen through them he would not have seen the history of the house.

No one knew it. No one except the realtor who sold him the house. And she was not talking. It had been on the market for so long she had been rendered financially speechless.

Naturally if he had given the house an historical scratch Eddie might have seen the occasional suspicious looking visitor. Once in a while he might have noticed an inquisitive police patrol car go by. In the garage he may have found a Buick Coupe or a Ford Sedan.

But right now he was standing