Big Money (Austin Carr Mystery) by Jack Getze Read Free Book Online Page B

good, working fine. Jerry and the rest of Bluefish’s boys will be lining up to watch this tape, Ann Marie’s breasts so special to look at.
    Max wipes the sweat off his forehead and stands up to catch his breath. Bluefish says Ann Marie doesn’t know about the camera. But with Ann Marie playing with her breasts inside the bra like this, kneading herself, she has to be putting on a show for Max.
    He touches the zipper of his pants.
     
     

 
    THIRTEEN
     
    I extend my tongue full length, French-kissing my third martini. The now-empty conical glass winks back at me, another subtle indicator of full-boat overindulgence. Could this warning blinker—a lighthouse perched above the jagged coastline of reality—suggest my ineligibility for a fourth see-through?
    My only hesitation to leaving the bar involves a strawberry blond. She’s sitting on a nearby stool, upstairs at the Martha, and the lady seems to like my smile. Grinning back at me in a very particular way. I have the feeling if I stay right here drinking, Ms. Strawberry may wander over here and rub me up. She’s got “I do what I want” written across her forehead.
    Logic, Shor e’s business and my children's college education luckily snag hold of my gin rotted brain. Checking the bartender’s watch, I see Brooklyn Tony has been up in Ann Marie Talbot’s room more than an hour. If he’s trying to bribe that woman from the American Association of Securities Dealers, he could put Shore out of business, maybe install my pink ass in a white-collar prison. The U.S. District Attorney here is running for Congress. He loves to make an example of corporate criminals.
    I throw down cash and slide off my stool. I must be nuts letting Tony go up to Talbot’s room, let him represent Shore Securities with the AASD. What was I thinking? At the very least I should have held out as long as physically possible, let the contusions and concussions speak later of my attempt to prevent Tony’s madness.
    Besides Carmela, who walked in ten minutes ago, the bar’s packed with lingering sunset gazers and silver-haired seniors ordering early-bird specials from the bar menu. Through the crowd, the strawberry blond and I find each other again.
    Too bad, I have to go. I only get a glimpse on my way out, but Ms. Strawberry’s wearing a scooped-neck black dress that frames her bosom and drapes her hips like liquid chocolate. A diamond earring twinkles at me, but not as brightly as the lady’s smile. If Johnny Depp as that movie pirate had a blond sister...
    I wave and disappear into the elevator lobby.
    Figures. Probably the love of my life back there and I’m ditching the bar and a chance to meet her because everything I have, everything my children need, could be sliding down the big financial drain as I speak. Or think. Or whatever the hell it is I’m doing.
    Goddamn, I might as well have gone for the martini quatro . The third one buried me anyway.
    The elevator doors rattle open before I push the button, and Tony’s dark-haired wife, Gina the Luscious, rushes out, almost crashing into me. What the hell’s she doing here? Her way-past shoulder length black hair dangles loose and uncombed. Her cashmere sweater sports a torn seam across the right shoulder. And Gina Farascio’s gorgeous face is drawn tight, her mascara smeared by tears.
    The instant I catch her shoulders, preventing our collision, the lights go off and the Martha’s fire alarm fills the hall with high pitched electronic screaming and blinking red light. The piercing, throbbing whine stabs at my ears, the ugly noise somehow louder in the near dark.
    Gina’s eyes go wide and wild , the intense red beacon flashing directly above us from high in the elevator lobby’s corner, the bloody light adds a frightening visual quality to the fire alarm screaming. If I’ve got my bearings right, the crimson bursts signal a location for the stairway. My heart is drumming.
    It figures t hat lives are at stake. I have five or