Bad Karma by Dave Zeltserman Read Free Book Online

making that landlord pay for what happened. When me and Randall collect our five million dollars, that will be justice.”
    Shannon felt a dull throbbing in the back of his head, partly from his conversation with Eunice and Randall Carver and partly from the stench filling the house. Even though he was breathing in through his mouth, it seemed as if he could taste the sweetly rancid smell in the back of his throat. More perfunctory than anything else since he would’ve bet his last dollar against ever getting a call from either of them, he left Eunice his business card and asked that she call him if she thought of anything that might help. He turned off the tape recorder and was pushing himself out of his chair when he again noticed the new stove and microwave.
    “You’ve made some recent purchases,” he said.
    Eunice didn’t bother to respond.
    “New stove, microwave.” Shannon waved his damaged hand in the direction of the combination living room/dining room. “Plasma TV, sofa, stereo system,” he continued to list.
    “So?”
    “Did you come into some money recently?”
    “Taylor bought me all that. Before he got killed.”
    Shannon’s gaze narrowed as he met Eunice’s small dark eyes.  “How’d a college student get the money to buy stuff like that?”
    She shrugged. “Wasn’t my place to ask him.”
    “Was he working?”
    She stared at him blankly before shrugging again.
    Shannon looked over at Randall and realized he wasn’t going to get a better answer from him. He simply thanked the two of them for their time and left the room. Neither mother nor son bothered to move as he let himself out of the house. Buttercup was waiting for him, though, head thrust forward, eyes intently following him. When he got into his car, he smelled his shirt, then both his arms. Cigarette smoke and the cheese-perspiration smell had saturated his shirt and skin. After opening both front windows of his late model Chevy Corsica for ventilation, he drove fast to get the hell out of there.

Chapter 5

    When Shannon arrived back at his apartment, Susan tried intercepting him for a kiss, but wrinkled her nose when he got within a few feet of her.
    “You don’t smell too good, hon,” she said.
    “I know. I visited Carver’s mom and this is what her house smelled like. I’m going straight into the shower, scrub myself raw—and if that doesn’t work, buy some industrial-sized drums of tomato juice. And I’ll probably have to burn my clothing.”
    He tried to sidestep her, but Susan moved quickly, got on her toes and kissed him hard on the mouth.
    “Must be true love to get anywhere near me smelling the way I do,” Shannon said.
    “You do worse for me,” Susan said. “Every morning you kiss me passionately no matter how bad my morning breath is.”
    “What are you talking about? Your breath always smells like sweet petunias. Especially in the morning.”
    Susan laughed at that. “One of these days I’m going to find out where you got that ‘sweet petunia’ expression from. And besides, I don’t think petunias even have a smell.”
    “Of course they do. A wonderful smell. Exactly like your breath.”
    Shannon gave her shoulder a little squeeze as he made his way by her and into the bathroom. Once in the shower, he put the water on as hot as he could stand it and scrubbed himself until all traces of the rancid cheese-sweat smell were gone.
    When he finished, he dressed quickly, then sent an email to Professor Lester White, introducing himself and asking for information about Taylor Carver. After that he called Chris Jackson. Jackson confirmed what Paul Devens had told him earlier—that he knew nothing about his tenants or any problems they might’ve had, that a management company handled his rental properties for him and that he himself had no involvement with his apartments. He thanked Shannon for his thoroughness in calling him. He also told Shannon that he was counting on him to pull his ass out of the fire