“You know, the longer you hold out, the more likely somebody solves this thing without you and then you get nothing for sure,” Anderson said.
Lucas tried to laugh, but it hurt, so he stopped and then told them, “I don’t think I have to worry about that.”
“Think about it, Lucas. This here might be your best chance to get yourself out of this mess.”
“You heard the terms. Come back when you meet them.”
“Your loss, Lucas.”
“Next time, let me know you’re coming so I can call my lawyer.”
“You mean Harry Lee’s lawyer,” Anderson corrected him. “You know he’s just here to make sure you don’t talk about your boss when you’re trying to make a deal.”
“Lucky for me, I know enough I don’t need to say shit about Harry to walk away from this shit.”
“You’d better hope so. I don’t think prison will be easy for a guy like you,” Cranston told him.
“What do you mean ‘a guy like me’?”
“A guy who was getting his ass kicked by a girl the last time he was breathing free air,” Anderson said.
“Yeah, well, I bet she’d kick your fat ass too.”
“Maybe, but I’m not the one going to prison.”
Lucas didn’t have a good reply to that so instead, he said, “I think I want my lawyer.”
“Suit yourself,” Anderson told him. “We’ll be seeing you, Lucas.”
Lucas watched the detectives leave and went back to trying to find something on television. He was flipping through the channels when the door opened again.
He looked over and said, “I didn’t expect to see you back so soon. You forget something?”
“Yeah,” the man said as he held up the hand holding a sharpened metal spoon, “I forgot to stab your sorry ass to death.”
Lucas tried to reach the call button but he was too slow. The sharp spoon was jammed through his neck before he could pick up the call button. His jugular vein was severed and blood began to spray. It wasn’t long before a spoon did what bullets couldn’t.
Chapter 1
“Mind if I sit?”
Margot scanned the mostly empty Layla’s West barroom and then looked Harry Lee over. As agreed, it appeared he had come alone. He was dressed in his usual dark suit, white shirt, and dark tie. He could have a gun under his coat, but there were no telltale bulges. In his hands were two drinks including a whiskey on ice.
Margot was sitting with her back against the wall with her short-barreled S&W sitting on her lap. Her boyfriend, homicide detective Rick Radcliff, was sitting at the bar, watching the proceedings in the mirror.
Margot motioned to the empty chair across from her and Harry sat down.
“I bought Mr. Radcliff a drink as well,” Harry told her, sliding the glass of whiskey across the table.
“Thanks,” Margot said as she took a sip.
“Did I get it right?”
“Yeah, you did. How did you know what I like to drink?”
“I know a lot of things about you, Margot.”
She let that go and asked, “What can I do for you, Harry?”
“I thought you stopped meeting clients here when you started working for Shaw.”
“You’re not a client.”
“Not yet, anyway.”
“You want to hire me?”
“I do.”
“No thanks.”
“You haven’t even heard the job.”
“I don’t need to.”
“You’ve worked for misunderstood businessmen before, Margot. I’m feeling a little insulted.”
“You’re right, Harry, there was a time when I couldn’t afford to be so picky, but that’s not really the case right now.”
“I assume you heard about poor Lucas?”
“I did.”
“Poor kid survives getting shot by the cops and then gets stabbed to death in lockup. What a shame.”
“Worked out pretty well for you though, didn’t it?”
“How so?”
“He ran his mouth, a lot. He would have got around to talking about you eventually.”
Harry couldn’t disagree with that entirely, so he said, “I want to know who killed Lucas.”
“That’s what you want to hire me for?”
“Yes.”
“Investigating homicides isn’t really my job.”
“Nonsense, it’s what you're best at. Photographing cheating husbands leaving the scene of their ‘crime’ is beneath you.”
“Spoken like a cheating husband.”
“Someone has to do it.”
“Has to do what? Cheat?”
“No, look into Lucas’s murder. Ask your boyfriend, he’ll tell you they’ve already assumed I ordered it.”
“So, this is as much about protecting you as it is justice for Lucas.”
“I’m not going to pretend to be that altruistic. I’m protecting my own interests here. I wouldn’t be the only one protecting my self-interest. He did finger you for planting evidence and he did point out the bloody dress fit you better than him.”
“Is that when he was talking about my boobs?”
“Yes, and he was right. You have much better boobs than he did.”
Margot decided not to dignify that with a response.
“With the exception of the young man sitting at the bar, I know the police, especially the homicide ones, don’t think highly of you, Margot. They’ll be coming to see you soon enough. Work for me, Margot, and you can serve your own self-interest while getting paid for it.”
Before Margot could answer, two men in cheap suits came through the door. Margot recognized one of them, Anderson, from her days as a cop. Even before her career went awry they never liked each other. They’d come up in the academy together and he never got over the time she shot down a drunken advance. His partner was an old school guy named Cranston who people were saying was two years past when he should have retired when Margot was still on the force. Harry recognized them too. They were part of an organized crime taskforce and Harry was a frequent target of their investigations.
