Dead Man by Joe Gores Read Free Book Online

bookkeeping; the 72nd had fought
     in the Gulf War, guarding Iraqi prisoners, so it was a popular outfit in Vegas. Permission was readily given for him to take
     his training without losing his accumulated vacation time.
    Ten days after training was done, while the casino thought Holt was on vacation, a hand-scrawled letter from his brother Jimmy
     in Vero Beach informed the casino that Travis Holt had been killed in a training accident during the 72nd’s summer desert
     exercises. Was any back pay due? Send it to his bereaved brother if there was.
    Holt fortunately had passed his ideas along to the bean-counters, so his death was no real hardship to the casino. A letter
     went to the asshole brother assuring him that no backpay was due, and the casino, shaking its collective head over slimeball relatives, closed the personnel file on Holt.
    Who worried about dead men?
    But even before he had died, Travis Holt had broken his tinted glasses, flushed his colored contacts, shampooed the dye out
     of his hair, shaved his mustache and goatee, and had left Vegas to become Dain. Yes, Dain.
    Because he had realized that the only three men alive who knew a contract had once gone out on Eddie Dain were the same three
     men he wanted to find. If they found him first, that was fine. Just so he had a chance to meet them—and had a chance to see
     if he could play the Terminator for real.

6
    The game started, as the best games always do, with playacting. Dain wanted Doug Sherman to be his go-between, because Sherman
     loved gossip, loved intrigue, ached to be in the know,
au courant.
Loved playing a role himself, loved games, could be bitchy, was excited by power, by domination; being a go-between would
     push all his buttons at once.
    But Dain would have to con him into it, because he could never be told that Dain’s ultimate game was the killing game, not
     just getting back into the detective game. Dain had to make him
want
to be a go-between so he would never think to ask the questions Dain couldn’t answer.
    When Doug Sherman arrived to open the bookstore that June morning, a big quick stranger was waiting for him. Six-one, 210,
     215, burned dark by desert suns, hands thick andknuckly from breaking boards. An Indian face, craggy and strong-boned.
    The stranger said, “Hello, Douglas,” in a voice Sherman almost knew. The voice was deeper than the remembered one, and there
     was no playfulness in it.
    Sherman, elegant as ever, was caught up short. He stared.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Dain,” the man said. Flat voice, flat eyes. Something dead in them, also something intensely alive.
    “Eddie Dain! My God, man…”
    Sherman tried to embrace him, but Dain stepped quickly back out of his arms, callused hand extended to shake instead. It was
     like grasping a rock.
    “It’s… good to see you…” said Sherman lamely.
    Dain nodded but didn’t respond. Sherman kept busy unlocking the door and deactivating the alarms while casting covert sidelong
     glances at Dain. Keeping up a running chatter to cover his embarrassment and his scrutiny.
    “Where have you been? After you checked out of Marin General I couldn’t find any trace…” The door was open. Dain walked through
     it ahead of him, a leather-bound book under one arm. Sherman caught himself stammering inanely, “I… I’m sorry, I… didn’t…”
     He went around behind his desk. “I’ll make coffee…”
    “Coffee would be fine.”
    Sherman busied himself with the Melitta, talking over his shoulder as he measured out fragrant ground beans into the paper
     cone, covertly watching Dain’s reflection off a glass-protected Greek icon of St. Nicholas above the table.
    “What’s the book?”
    “Ever the dealer,” that deeper voice rumbled. Dain almost smiled. Held it up to see.
“The Tibetan Book of the Dead.”
    “The same one that I got you for Marie’s—”
    “The very same,” said Dain without apparent emotion. He lifted a shoulder. Muscles slid