Changes (The Randall Lee Mysteries #1) by Charles Colyott

Author:Charles Colyott [Colyott, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Golden Lotus Books
Published: 2012-02-05T23:00:00+00:00

51

Tracy’s parents seemed like decent people.

Lifetime members of the art museum, devoted teachers, involved parents, committed Catholics…

And then there was me: the lecherous old scumbag out to deflower their beautiful, virginal angel. Reality was looking out for Mr. and Mrs. Sandoval that night – Neither Chucky nor I shattered their illusions.

Though my brain repressed the memory of most of that conversation, I retained bits about my practice, how I’d helped Tracy, and my strange collaboration with the local police. Sensing an opportunity to exit, however inelegant, I said, "Hey, speaking of that - I don’t know if Tracy told you or not, but I’m actually here tonight because the sponsor of the event is a high level gangster that might have had his son’s fiancé killed. So I’m going to go see what’s up with that. You guys have a great night; it was really nice to meet you both."

All three Sandovals looked at me like I’d just pulled down my pants and chased them around the room, but I wasn’t about to miss another chance at Jimmy Lau. The big boss was schmoozing with some yuppies near the painting of the hexagram Sung – Conflict, while his guards stood around being inconspicuously menacing. I wondered for a minute how to approach him, but the whole scene – a murderer enjoying his drink and conversing about culture and business while a young girl and her unborn child lay rotting in a box somewhere – enraged me so much that I stopped thinking and just acted.

Thinking too much had never done me much good anyway, honestly.

I strolled right up like I owned the damned place and made it within ten feet of the man before the biggest and most muscular Chinese man I’d ever seen stepped in front of me and slapped his meaty palm on my chest. "This portion of the gallery is off limits at the moment, sir. Feel free to come back in ten to fifteen minutes. Sorry for the inconvenience."

A polite thug. Must be a new model.

"Tell you what, Bolo, take your hand off me before I snap it off and shove it up your ass. Sound good? I need a word with your boss."

The flat palm on my chest curled slowly into a fist, crumpling my shirt with it. He pulled me in close. It’s hard to feel manly when your feet are an inch off the ground, but I held my own.

"Mr. Lau is not interested in talking with you at the moment, sir. Please take your business elsewhere."

The other guards were staring, I noticed. So were the yuppies and Lau.

Cool, an audience.

"I apologize," I said, "but I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t hurt the other guys too bad. I know there’s not a lot of desk jobs in the Triads, and I’d hate to think I ruined their careers as professional muscle…"

Lau grinned and excused himself from his upwardly mobile company to come closer.

"Samson," he said, "let him go. It’s alright."

I looked

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.