Copp For Hire, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) by Don Pendleton Read Free Book Online Page A

what-the-hell.
           So I go to talk to George the bartender for a bit of insight. He gives me a "could-be" ID of Juanita's pest as a reserve cop but the situation is a bit too tense at this point to question George in fine detail. He has given me further reason to wonder about Ed Jones, though, and while I am off trying to learn more about Jones I learn also that Jones' partner and mentor apparently has some private police arrangement with the management at the New Frontier, which joint appears to be at the eye of this storm. Tanner and Jones have apparently responded privately to a trouble call brought on by my visit to that establishment; while there, then, George the bartender becomes the third fatality in this rapidly developing case—I'm still cop enough to fall into such bullshit jargon—which began so innocuously several hours earlier. Then a girl who I'd seen earlier as the bewitching and bare- ass Belinda on the stage at New Frontier enters my vehicle—cops have "vehicles," never "cars"—and urgently requests that I get her the hell out and gone from there. Ed Jones has apparently "found" in her car the gun that killed George the bartender.
           Now I am already in violation of my license. I have failed to report a capital crime; I have withheld information concerning another one; I have destroyed private property and improperly intimidated citizens during the course of an investigation.
           So I figure what the hell and take it a step farther; I directly interfere with a murder investigation by spiriting away the prime suspect of the moment.
           Which is about where I was at, in the spa with Linda before the gunplay began. In the case, that is where I was at. In my head, I was nowhere in the case. Linda had fingered Ed Jones as definitely the guy who had been bugging Juanita Valdez. That did not necessarily mean that Jones had anything to do with the death of Juanita, or any of the other stuff. I had no ID whatever linking Jones to the death car. But at that moment when gunfire shattered the window of my bedroom, none of that was at the surface of my mind.
           I'd had only one thing on my mind at the time, and that was why I felt such a jerk.
           I had damn near got the girl killed ... over my hankering for a piece of tail.
           And, yeah, that rankled; it really burned, deep down. So I guess that feeling had a lot to do with the way I reacted to the incident.
           Linda was still sputtering and gasping in the spa when I came back from the yard and hauled her out of there. I toweled her down and commanded her to get dressed while I did the same for myself. This time I installed the hardware in a shoulder holster; I am licensed to carry, of course, and I would have been an idiot to do otherwise, even without the license. I was finally starting to think, and the thoughts were not pleasant.
           So we were out of there within five minutes of the attack. I wanted to drop the lady into a safe stash and then I wanted to invade this case in at least a semi-intelligent fashion.
           I have a scanner in the car. I turned it on and punched up the local police channels just to keep an ear on my world, then told my passenger, who had uttered not a word since the shooting, "I need a live client. Tell me I'm hired."
           She stirred beside me; muttered, "Hired for what?"
           "Hired to keep you alive. It's a technicality.   Don't worry about the fee. I'll make it a dollar a day. Just tell me I'm hired."
           She asked in a muffled voice, "Why would anyone want to kill me?"
           "Funny, I was about to ask you the same question."
           She shook her head. "I figured they were after you."
           "Maybe," I said, "and maybe not. And maybe both of us. Do you own a gun?"
           She made a face. "Absolutely not. And don't even suggest to me that I should carry one."