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

slowly.
    “Are you in the habit of searching Allie’s room, Mrs. Chase?”
    “Wouldn’t you be, Mr. Carey?”
    “But you haven’t removed anything.”
    “No.”
    Neal opened the top drawer of Allie’s dresser and ran his hand along the inside top. He felt the edge of the tape and gently pulled it off. He smelled the two joints.
    “Emergency stash,” he said. “Expensive stuff, too.”
    “Money is not Allie’s particular problem in life,” Liz said.
    Didn’t used to be, Mrs. C.
    Searching the contents of the drawer, Neal asked, “Did you used to take away drugs you found here?”
    Liz nodded. “We fought about it.”
    “What about the prescription stuff?”
    “Same thing, once we caught on.”
    Neal finished with the drawers and moved to the closet. Allie had a few clothes. Neal flipped through the dozen or so jackets before he found another strip of medical tape stuck to the inside lapel of a nice little denim job.
    He removed the three joints from the tape and flipped them to Lombardi. “Hawaii Fourth.”
    He didn’t find anything else until he got to the portable Sony TV. He twisted the fine-tune dial off and found the Valium that had been glued to the inside rim.
    “Not to worry,” he said. “They use the same kind of paste you used to make in kindergarten. You can eat a quart of it and you won’t get sick.”
    “I never dreamed …” Liz Chase was shaking her head.
    “You’re not a pro, Mrs. Chase.”
    Neal moved into Allie’s bathroom. The medicine cabinet alone took almost half an hour and yielded nothing very interesting. Likewise, the underside of the bathtub rim. Neal emptied the sink cabinet and crawled underneath. He found Allie’s major stash in a small plastic trash bag taped to the bottom of the sink.
    “Jackpot!” he called out.
    Liz Chase stood in the doorway. “What?”
    Neal sat on the floor, rooting through the bag. “Well, we have your uppers, and your downers, and some grass and hash, and a little coke.”
    “My god.”
    “It’s not all bad news. No needles.”
    Neal handed her the bag and smiled. “May I take a look at Allie’s car, please?”
    “It’s in the garage.”
    It had a lot of company. There were seven cars in the garage. Allie’s was a modest Datsun Z. The others were all sleek little sports jobs that Neal didn’t recognize. That wasn’t too hard, though. Neal didn’t know too many cars that weren’t on the IRT.
    “John was very interested in cars for a while,” Liz explained. “As a matter of fact, so was Allie. It gave then something they could share, I think.”
    “Everybody needs a hobby.”
    Neal started with the glove compartment, just in case there was a note in there nobody had noticed. Maybe a note that read, “I’m in such and such a place and here’s my address and phone number.” He didn’t find it. He found the usual glove compartment crap. A couple of road maps, a service manual, an open package of cherry Life Savers, lipstick, an emergency pack of cigarettes, a comb, a brush, a pint bottle of Johnnie Walker Black.
    He felt around between the seats for “she went that-away” clues and didn’t find any of those, either. He also didn’t find any dope of any kind, which sort of surprised him. It was dark by the time he finished.
    Neal sank back into the bathtub that came along with the guest room. He had filled it with steaming hot water to try to ease the ache in his body and his soul. The first sip of scotch spread a soothing warmth through his insides, and after a few minutes he was able to pick up his paperback copy of The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle and lose himself in the eighteenth century. Which was his life’s goal, anyway.
    He relished the quiet. Chase and Jimmy Cricket had headed back to Washington for one of those crucial votes. The missus was preparing herself for yet another fundraiser for an undoubtedly good cause. What had Dickens called it? “Telescopic Philanthropy”?Although Neal had to admit that