Broken Force by John A. Bray

Author:John A. Bray [Bray, John A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Dante stashed his belongings in his room and walked along the avenue to the small eatery where he found a phone booth. After ordering a hamburger and coffee, he went to the booth to call the office while the counter-man fried the patty. Clara answered on the first ring with her customary terse, “Office.”

“It’s me,” he began, “got something to report.”

“Where are you? I’ll come there. There’s a tech here to cover the office. Reno’s out.”

Dante gave her the address of his rooming house, wolfed down his sandwich and walked back to the rented room. An hour later Clara knocked at his door dressed in a green sweater and matching skirt that showed off her figure and enhanced the color of her eyes. He realised that when he had the confrontation with her and Reno at their office how attractive she looked dressed in a sweater and skirt had escaped his attention. Now in this setting, alone with her in a small room with only a bed and sparse furniture, a sudden wave of attraction almost overcame him. Their eyes locked. Dante sensed a stirring had also coursed through her for a moment.

“What’s going on?” she demanded, using her authoritative manner.

Dante smiled to himself, trying not to react to her asserting her superior position as a detective running him as an informant. He sat down on the edge of the bed. The smile he couldn’t repress found its way to the surface,

“What’s funny?” Clara tried to sound imperious. “A short while ago, when I last saw you, you were having a temper tantrum,” she scolded.

“Don’t be mean-spirited,” he answered, “I don’t think you quite understand how stressed I feel.”

Dante reached out, took her hand and pulled her gently toward him, trying to change the mood between them. “I’ve got to admit, Clara, you’ve gotten to me.”

She maintained her façade of aloofness. “No nonsense, Dante. We’ve got business to discuss.”

He took a deep breath, “What I feel about you isn’t nonsense.” Releasing her hand, he continued with his narrative. “But I’ll bring you up to date about what happened a few hours ago.” He reprised for her the narrow escape he had with the drive-by shooting.

“Were the police called?”

“I don’t think so. At least I tried to discourage the landlord from calling. He came out a few moments after he heard the shots but the car had driven away. I didn’t get a plate number, I was too busy ducking, crouching on the top step when the first shot buzzed past me after I opened the front door. They must have had me staked out.”

“We’ve got to find out if uniform came to the scene and took a crime report about this,” Clara said. “There is a way. All the precincts call in crime reports involving a shooting to the central reporting system, especially in cases of injury or property damage. If they have reported it, we can find out quickly. If not, we’ll have caught a break. We don’t need questions asked by the local detective squad, especially not to ask to talk to you.

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