Goodbye, She Lied by Russ Hall

Author:Russ Hall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Texas Hill Country, woman sleuth, retired school teacher
Publisher: Russ Hall
Published: 2014-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

A small town like this, Mook figured, has in the course of time sent its share of otherwise sane people to the booby hatch. If the monotony of going by the exact same strip-mall stores didn’t drive you bonkers, then the traffic lights that sometimes seemed to work in synchronized rhythm and most other times didn’t, along vehicles either going too fast or too slow, would sooner or later make you look for the fire ax and run amuck.

It had just begun to get dark, and the town’s lights flickered on, most white or yellow, and cheap in general—nothing like the glitter and false reality Vegas had to offer. All afternoon he had sat in the motel room watching old reruns of “Andy Griffith” and “I Love Lucy” to the sound of Fred Redbear, who without pause sharpened his knife. Mook was strung tight as fishnet stockings on a street-corner hooker in a bad part of the south side of Chicago.

He changed lanes in an abrupt swerve to avoid a pickup truck that lunged into traffic from a side street, and such was the funk he was in that he didn’t even yell at this particular redneck doofus. Redbear sat in the passenger seat in the glazed-over state he slipped into just before there might be a chance for knife work, which Mook hoped wasn’t going to be the case. All he wanted to do was get next to the Kilgore widow and rattle a bit of information or money from her. If she wasn’t home, getting her bank account numbers would do. Two Chins would know how to empty those.

Mook knew what still bugged him most—that it was his time and his dime. That’s no way to get ahead. Back in his cell-sitting days he had pictured a flurry of profitable activity with as little risk as possible, the kind that would allow him in time to head for Bora Bora and sit on the shore with a tall cold one while he watched the waves climb onto the shore in regular rhythm. He didn’t see Redbear in that scenario, though there was a Polynesian woman on the lounge next to him who wore little and drank a rum-spiked beverage from a coconut.

When he turned the corner onto the street where the Kilgore widow lived he saw the same federal car still sitting there. Damn. He pulled into a drive, backed out and headed the other way in a controlled smolder. They didn’t have six weeks to take care of this. Two Chins probably sat up there in grand style, while down here they burned time and expenses. Well, might as well put the time to good use.

He cruised the edges of the town, the back industrial streets and the repair garages and body shops, rows of storage sheds, and empty lots that would soon become more of the same. He didn’t tell Redbear what he looked for. The man had his knife out again and worked at the edge with his stone.

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.