Dan Sharp Mysteries 3-Book Bundle by Jeffrey Round

Author:Jeffrey Round
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Published: 2016-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

Eight

Moles

Dan watched as the curly red-headed figure on the ledge lit a joint. He held the smoke in for five, ten, fifteen seconds before exhaling slowly. One foot on the radiator, shoulder against the wall, body in full recline mode. At five-eight, and easily two hundred and forty pounds, he could move like a ninja when he wanted to. Right now he was stationary.

He held out the roach to Dan, who shook his head.

“Look, dude. Don’t even come here if you’re thinking of chatting with the cops.”

He glanced at a window high above where a finger of light pointed into his underground cavern from the Other World.

“How do I know you weren’t followed?” The head tilted skyward. “They could be up there right now planning to raid my place.”

He stood and headed to a console hosting a dozen miniature display screens, tapped in a few quick commands and scrutinized a monitor in the lower right-hand corner. Satisfied with what he saw, he swivelled in his seat and faced Dan.

“All good. Nothing moving out there. You weren’t followed.”

“You know me, Germ. I’m cool.”

Dan was never sure if Germ was just paranoid or if he ran a sideline business that required him to keep watch on whoever or whatever approached his private underground preserve. Better safe than sorry, in either case.

Dan shook his head. “Besides, I never told them I was coming here to see you. As far as they know, I could be visiting my grandmother right now.”

Germ gave him an ironic look. “Yeah, right. Your grandmother who lives in a derelict underground garage.”

Dan smiled. “She probably did once. She was a very cool old lady in her day. Anyway, it’s not like I mentioned your name or anything. They just wanted to know if I could put them in touch with my sources.”

“And you said?” Another quick intake of spliff. No coughing. The guy was hardcore.

“I told them not a chance. I said that if I named you I’d lose you and that you were worth far too much to me to risk losing.”

“Good man,” Germ squeaked out.

Smoke dribbled from the edges of his mouth, hypnotic and swirling. The milky-blue strands gave a decorative embellishment to the graffiti covering the walls. Every inch of floor, walls and ceiling, even the pipes, was covered in a fabulous concoction of colours and shapes and grimacing creatures. It was life as a permanent acid trip, depicted with all the fervour of a manic cartoonist or an obsessive tattoo artist. Van Gogh or Toulouse Lautrec as street artists, David Wojnarowicz at his transgressive heights, Keith Haring at his most radiant, and Jean-Michel Basquiat at his most manic-hallucinogenic. It was the sort of artwork found in unexpected places — subway lines, construction fences, the underside of bridges — like an alternate meaning superimposed on top of everyday reality. As though you could read into things only if you knew the secret code that allowed you to penetrate the city’s inner core. And people say the underground is dead, Dan thought.

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.