No Man's Land by Ford G. M

Author:Ford, G. M. [Ford, G. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, Mystery, Seattle, Hard-Boiled, Suspense
ISBN: 9780060554842
Amazon: 0060554843
Goodreads: 262531
Publisher: Avon
Published: 2005-06-28T07:00:00+00:00

27

Corso held his breath and inched his head around. He’d always been a guy who looked the other way when the doctor gave him a shot, so he sure as hell didn’t want to catch the glint of the blade as it started toward its journey for his heart. As a guy who didn’t figure to die in bed, he’d often imagined his final moment. The second in which he knew it had gone to shit and the jig was all the way up. Penetration seemed to be the constant motif, be it a bullet plunging its way to his heart or an ice pick through the eye; the imagined final nanosecond of his consciousness always began with the tearing of his flesh and always ended with a sudden shudder and a final fade to black.

Black as the hand on his shoulder. Seemed like everybody in this town had a pinky ring. Corso moved his eyes up the arm until he was looking into as hostile a pair of brown orbs as he had ever seen. “You been bothering Mrs. Gravley?” the voice asked.

“What?”

“You been bothering Mrs. Gravley?”

The hand on his shoulder turned Corso to the left. That’s when he saw her. The old woman. The one who’d been sitting at the slot machine. Still holding a blue Maxwell House coffee can G.M. Ford half-full of quarters. “That’s him,” she said, pointing at Corso.

“Guy was all over me like a cheap suit.”

“I stumbled,” Corso said. “I fell into her.”

“He groped me,” the old woman said. “Grabbed my knockers.”

“I fell into her. That was it.”

When the death grip on his shoulder eased. Corso stepped out from under the hand. The guy wore a greasy red sport coat with a badge attached to the front pocket. Casino security. He brought his face close to Corso’s and sniffed a couple of times, then leaned away. “I’ll take it from here Mrs. Gravley,” he said. “You go on back to your machine. I’ll come round and check on you later.”

“Somebody probably got my machine by now.”

“They’s lots of machines, Mrs. Gravley.”

He listened patiently as she launched into a tirade about how the machine was just about to pay off. How she was going to have to start all over again on some accursed new machine, which would surely suck her dry.

They stood amid the clang and clamor of the casino and watched her waddle away.

“Used to be a showgirl in one of the big casinos. Years ago. Way back when,” the guard said. “These days she gets a little bit too much caffeine and all of a sudden every man who passes by is trying to get into her pants.” He shook his big head in amusement. “Probably was a time when it was true.”

“Time flies,” Corso said.

“Ain’t it the truth,” the guy said with a chuckle.

“I was hoping maybe you could do me a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Call the FBI.”

Gone were the shoulder-length brown hair, the Fu Manchu mustache and the perpetual Harley-Davidson scowl. Kehoe

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