A Cool Breeze on the Underground by Don Winslow Read Free Book Online Page A

the report. No mention of previous times. Swell.
    “Four, maybe five times,” said Lombardi, doing his job.
    “Overseas?”
    “No, no,” Lombardi said quickly. “Twice to New York. Fort Lauderdale once. L.A.”
    “One time to her grandparents in Raleigh,” Liz said. “That was when we were in Washington.”
    “Is Allie close to her grandparents?”
    “Allie is not close to anybody, Mr. Carey,” said Mrs. Chase.
    The sun was calling it a day. Neal watched the ocean turning a slate gray.
    “So then you called the cops and the FBI and the state patrol and the National Guard?”
    “I called her school,” Lombardi said as Chase turned a deep red, “and asked to speak to her—”
    “Slick.”
    “And they said she hadn’t come back from her weekend home.”
    “So then you called the cops and the FBI and the state patrol and the National Guard.”
    This was called “baiting the client” and was the kind of thing that got you canned. Or it could get the client jazzed up enough to drop his guard and tell you something juicy. Or it could do both.
    “Or did you call the Gallup poll?”
    Set the hook and yank the line. Chase came out of his chair like a trout out of a stream.
    “Listen, you little bastard—”
    Why is everyone calling me a little bastard today?
    “Darling—”
    “It’s all our fault, right? All the parents’ fault! We gave that kid everything! Now I’m supposed to destroy my future for her? She doesn’t want to be here, fine!”
    “Yeah, it’s okay with me, too, Senator, but now you want her back in the picture.”
    “You don’t work for me anymore!”
    Neal stood up. “I don’t work for you, period. I work for the bank. They tell me to go after your kid, I go after your kid. They tell me to forget it, I forget it.”
    Lombardi got up. Then Liz got up. “Find my daughter.”
    It wasn’t a plea, it was a command. It was the kind of command that comes from a beautiful woman, the kind of command that comes from a mother. It was the kind of command that comes from a wife who doesn’t need Hubby’s okay. Neal heard it all three ways.
    Good old Marie-Christine brought in coffee and they started again.
    No, Allie had not used the AmEx card since buying the air ticket. Yes, she had trust funds from both sets of grandparents but no way of touching the funds without her parents’ signatures. She had her own bank account as well, but she hadn’t drawn anything from that, either. So she was on her own financially, which was very bad news. It meant that she could either beg, steal, or sell herself. Begging wasn’t very lucrative, and you usually had to buy your begging spot from the local thug. Stealing takes considerable skill. Selling yourself doesn’t.
    And little Allie would need a lot of money, because drugs aren’t cheap and the people who sell them are.
    “If it was strictly up to me,” Neal said, “I’d advise you to clean out Allie’s closets, make yourself a nice album, and get on with the business of mourning. Because the girl you knew probably doesn’t exist anymore.”
    Because sometimes it’s just too late, folks. The streets take the child you know and turn that child into someone you don’t even recognize. Neal flashed on the Halperin kid, on that goofy look he had on his face all the time, even after …
    “May I see Allie’s room now, please?” he asked.
    Liz and lombardi took him there.
    It looked like a hotel room: elegant, sleek, comfortable but nobody lived there. No pictures, souvenirs, no posters of rock stars on the wall.
    Walk-in closet, private bath, of course. Bay window, view of the ocean. “This is going to take a while,” Neal said.
    “If we’re not in the way …” Liz answered.
    Neal gestured to the bed. Liz and Lombardi sat down and put their hands in their laps.
    Neal searched the room. It was a relief to be doing something practical, something quiet, something he was good at. He went through the drawers and the closets carefully,