The Broken Fixer by Ralph Dennis

Author:Ralph Dennis [Dennis, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brash Books
Published: 2019-07-12T12:34:33+00:00

Jim Sims came to the door of room 21 and looked out at Vince with red, bleary eyes. He was dressed in jockey shorts and a wrinkled shirt he’d probably picked up on the way to the door. “What you want?”

“To talk to you. I’m Vince Gorman. I’m from David Wardlaw.”

“Oh.” He took a deep breath and struggled to focus his eyes. “From Mr. Wardlaw, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“Could you? …” Sims turned and looked past the living room toward the bedroom. “Could you go somewhere and have a cup of coffee and come back in fifteen minutes? I need to get … cleaned up.”

“Sure.” Vince backed away and Sims closed the door.

Vince went down to his car and drove it into a parking space near the stairs that led down from the second-floor landing. Five minutes passed, and then the door to room 21 opened and a blonde with a beehive hairdo came out and walked down the stairs toward him. Vince waited until she was a step or two away, just about to pass. He rolled down the window and said, “Hey, honey.”

She stopped and then came over and looked into the car. “I don’t know you, do I?”

Up close he could smell her morning breath. It was a combination of whiskey and God-knows-what-else she’d put in it the night before Sims hadn’t even given her time to borrow his mouthwash before he threw her out.

“You’re supposed to,” he said. “I was invited to the party last night. At the last minute I couldn’t make it.”

Her face registered the bruised and swollen jaw. “You got hurt, huh?”

He nodded. “And seeing you I’m sorry as hell.”

“That’s nice.”

“I’d like a rematch sometime,” he said.

“It could be arranged.”

He leaned away from her and punched open the glove compartment. He got out a pad and handed it to her, along with a pen from his shirt pocket. “Name, address and phone number.”

She hesitated. “You sure you were invited?”

“Sure. I was just up to see Jim Sims. He got shy about you, so I’m giving him a few minutes before I go up to talk the business we were supposed to talk last night.”

That convinced her. She wrote for a few moments on the pad and handed the pad and pen to him. Angela Marshall, room 5, and a phone number.

“You live here in the motel?”

“Sure. And the number there is the switchboard.”

“I might come by and visit you in a while,” he said.

“Don’t I ever get any sleep?” But it wasn’t really a protest.

“With Sims and Johnson around last night you got some sleep.”

“An hour or two,” she said. She frowned. “You look like you’ve been in a fight.”

“My cat scratched me,” Vince said.

She laughed. “We haven’t talked about money. I’m expensive.”

“I figured that.”

“We’re talking about five-oh,” she said.

“Reasonable at any price.”

“Give me time for a bath.”

“I’ve always thought water was sexy. How about you?”

She winked and walked away. He turned and watched her through the rear window as she crossed the U-shaped parking area.

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