Chump Change by G. M. Ford Read Free Book Online

Bar and Grill on the way home. The meter maids in that part of town ride Segways and eat their young, so I grudgingly stuffed my debit card into the parking meter thing and waited about twenty minutes for the piece-of-shit machine to spit out a parking permit. Anything in the private sector that worked that frigging badly would be gone in an instant.
    Two Bells owner Jeff Lee cleaned glasses and sympathized with my grousing while I wolfed down a couple of his excellent cheeseburgers and swilled a beer or two. By the time I pulled into my own driveway, it was damn near dark, and I was beginning to yawn.
    I live in about half the downstairs of the house. The maid service cleans upstairs once a month or so, but I seldom ascend to such lofty domains. Whereas my old man was a public figure, and thus required a lot of entertaining space, everybody with whom I’m close would fit into his former office, with plenty of room to spare.
    Since I came into the family pile, I’ve outsourced a bunch of the things I used to do for myself. I occasionally feel a bit guilty about it, but make it a point not to dwell on the subject. I don’t clean up after myself or tend to the landscaping anymore. Those Magnificent Maids show up on Tuesdays at the crack of dawn and go through the place like weevils. Kenji Yamada and his sons put in an appearance every ten days or so to spruce up the lawns and landscaping. What can I say? I don’t have to . . . so I don’t.
    I still cook for myself upon occasion and always do my own laundry. I admit it: The laundry fetish is more or less symbolic. Something inside me needs to personally perform at least one of the thankless tasks of day-to-day existence, as a means of proving, beyond doubt, that I’m not the spoiled rich kid some people think.
    I was moving my second load from the washer to the dryer when the doorbell rang. Just after nine P.M . A tad late in the day for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, andI sure as hell wasn’t expecting company. Even curiouser, I’d closed and locked the gate behind myself when I got home from The Two Bells a couple of hours ago, so whoever was at my door wanted something bad enough to scale the wall and hoof it all the way up the driveway to the house.
    On my way to the front hall, I snagged my revolver from my desk drawer, checked the load, and stuffed it into the back of my pants. By the time a working private eye gets to be my age, he’s dealt with a thousand or so divorces and custody battles and has made himself an enemy or three. Some people just don’t get over it. “Better safe than sorry” is my motto.
    In my father’s time, there was a peephole way up high, just to the right of the door. He could stand on a little step inside the closet and see who was darkening his front porch. As I recall, the aperture made everybody look a bit like Gilbert Gottfried. When I renovated the downstairs of the house last year, I had the crew install something a bit more contemporary . . . a twelve-camera video surveillance system. Runs off motion sensors. If a mouse farts in the backyard, it’s recorded for posterity.
    I pulled open the hall closet, touched the button for camera number two, and watched as the screen blinked to life. It was a young man. Under thirty, curly black hair and what would have been a nice clean profile, if it wasn’t for the enormous purple knot decorating the left side of his head. Took a second, but eventually my brain bulb snapped on. The kiddie cop. The one I’d punched in the head the other night.
    I left the security system on, and pulled open the big front door.
    “I’m . . . ah . . . Keith Taylor. I was—” he stammered.
    I cut him off. “I know who you are. The question is what the hell do you want?” Before he could answer, the rest of it spilled out of me. “ Cause if you’re looking for some kind of absolution, I suggest you try the Catholic church up the street.”
    He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.