Dark Sky (The Misadventures of Max Bowman Book 1) by Joel Canfield Read Free Book Online Page B

It almost made me miss my dad’s comb-over. Me, I still had most of my hair, and it was still the same brown color as it was when I was a kid. The difference was it no longer matched up with the wrinkles in my face. It was starting to look like a wig or a dye job, proving that you got punished even for the things that went right.
    “How the hell did you find out where I lived?” Howard asked.
    “Do you have any idea what I do for a living?” I asked.
    He frowned and ushered me in. I saw Janet’s bathrobed back beating a hasty retreat into the kitchen. I knew she was still friends with my ex and I knew she wanted nothing to do with me.
    “Do you know what time it is?” Howard asked with a whine as he plopped down on the sofa.
    I pointed to my nice new silver watch and nodded. “Give me five minutes and a drink and I’ll be out of your hair.”
    “I don’t stock Jack.”
    “How about the closest thing?”
    He disappeared again as my phone vibrated. My regular phone, not the Mr. Barry Filer phone, which, thankfully, had stayed silent ever since he gave it to me. I took my phone out, saw the caller ID and answered the phone.
    “How’s your boy?”
    “How did you know?” Angela Davidson asked with some surprise.
    “He has your nose.”
    She sighed.
    “You didn’t have to scare him like that.”
    “Don’t worry, the tire wrench wasn’t loaded.”
    She wasn’t laughing at my jokes. Instead, she went on to tell me, with too many words and at too fast a speed, that it was her idea, she had just sent the kid to scare me off. I told her she shouldn’t have put him in that situation if he didn’t know how to pull it off, she could have gotten the boy killed if I was actually dangerous. She seemed to accept the fact that I wasn’t dangerous a little too readily for my taste.
    “Look,” she said in almost a whisper as Howard returned with a glass of something, “Just take the money, give my father a good story about how you couldn’t find anything, or better yet, say you found out my brother really is dead so he’ll forget this whole mess.”
    “You’re repeating yourself. And unless you know something I don’t, I’m assuming that’s exactly what will happen. Which makes me wonder, if there’s nothing else to this, why would you send your son out to slash my tires?”
    “I told you, I don’t want my father to be embarrassed.”
    “Is that your only kid?”
    “Jeremy. Yes. He’s a good kid. Just turned eighteen.”
    Howard rattled the ice in my drink, indicating extreme impatience. I took it from him. Probably Jim Beam or some shit like that.
    “Well, I should go. I’m with someone and they think this is rude.”
    “Who are you with?” she asked sharply.
    “It’s not another woman, so don’t be jealous.”
    Sometimes I think I haven’t done my job if the person isn’t still talking when I hang up the phone. She was still talking, but I was done with Davidsons for the night.
    I put away my phone, sipped the drink and sat down in a chair. Howard sat back down on the sofa and asked who had been on the phone.
    “The General’s daughter.”
    He paused a little too long. I wanted a tell and I might have gotten one.
    “The General? What General?”
    “So you don’t know the particulars of my assignment?”
    “Was I the one who gave it to you?”
    “No, that was Mr. Barry Filer.”
    “Who the fuck is that?”
    “I was hoping you’d know. Maybe this rings a bell - his eyes gravitate to different magnetic poles.”
    “Cross-eyed?”
    “More at cross purposes. Anyway, I googled this guy’s name and came up with nothing, except an accountant in Iowa and an insurance agent in Washington state.”
    “I have no clue who you’re talking about.”
    “Then here’s to the clueless.”
    I raised my glass to the toast position and then took a big long sip of whatever whiskey I had been supplied with, while Howard stared at me with a dismal expression.
    “You’re pathetic. You come storming