Deadly Rich by Edward Stewart Read Free Book Online Page A

guards.
    “Vince,” she said, “this is Harry Danks.”
    Cardozo looked at him: a young man with a stomach that more than filled his gray security officer’s uniform, he had a heavy square-jawed face, blond hair that badly needed barbering, bloodshot blue eyes.
    Danks held out a thick-wristed hand with blunt, rough-skinned fingers. “Pleased to meet you.”
    “Tell me about your prowler,” Cardozo said. “Where’d you find him?”
    Danks shrugged, giving Cardozo a look that was hopeful and shy at the same time. Cardozo recognized that look— Your life is happening , and mine’s not. The look made Cardozo a celebrity and the guard an autograph hunter.
    “Exactly where you’re standing,” Danks said.
    “How was he dressed?”
    “Gym clothes—gray sweatshirt, gray sweatpants. Red sweatband around his head. Red jogging pouch. White sneakers.”
    “What was he doing back here?”
    “They usually come in to relieve themselves. Sometimes they’ve lifted something, want to get out fast without going through a detector. They don’t realize there’s a detector at the street door.”
    “Any idea how he got into the stairwell?”
    “Could have been from any of the floors.”
    “How about from the street?”
    “No way. The door’s locked and there’s a guard.”
    “What was in the bag?”
    “Damp clothes.”
    “Do you mean a complete change of clothes?”
    “I didn’t take an inventory. None of it was our stuff. There was a sweatshirt.”
    “Damp with what?”
    Harry Danks shrugged. “Sweat, what else.”
    “Could you describe this man physically?”
    “He was in his twenties—your height—dark hair—could have been Spanish. And maybe a weight lifter.”
    “What makes you say that?”
    “When I put my hand on him, it wasn’t real—he was so hard.” The guard slapped a hand above his hip. “Everyone’s got a little extra something they’d like to lose right here, but not Mr. Boom Box. I remember wondering, Is this guy bionic or what? But what comes to me is, he’s wearing a weight-lifter’s belt. Sometimes you see delivery men and moving men wearing them. Protects your back when you’re lifting anything heavy. Which got me to thinking about his gloves. They didn’t have fingers. Not gloves with the fingers cut off, but gloves that never had fingers to begin with.”
    “Weight-lifter’s gloves?” Cardozo said.
    The guard nodded. “And under the gloves, he was wearing throw-away surgical gloves. His fingers squeaked.”
    “Tell me, Harry, did you find a weapon on this guy?
    “When I frisked him, he had something under his sock—a kind of splint on his shin, it felt like.”
    “Could this splint have been a holster for a knife?”
    “I don’t see why not.”
    “Didn’t you check?”
    “There wasn’t time.” Danks pointed to a fresh-looking three-inch black-lipped scar in the wall. “He swung the boom box at me. That was meant for my head.”
    The plaster had split down to the concrete underneath. “He must have pretty well wrecked the box.”
    “Piece of solid-state garbage. After I got him down to the street he threw it at me.” Danks’s forefinger tapped a small bandage on his temple.
    “Where’s the boom box now?”
    “Probably the same place where it landed. I can’t imagine anyone would want it after that bashing.”
    Cardozo followed Harry Danks down to street level.
    Danks nodded to the guard on duty and pushed the heavy steel door open. Cardozo had not been aware that the stairwell was especially cool, but by comparison, what whooshed in from the street was a heat front from a furnace.
    Above the pavement and asphalt, light rays rippled and bent like the image on a poorly tuned TV. Pedestrians and traffic moved slowly through the burning glare. Car horns blasted dissonant fanfares.
    Danks stood on the sidewalk, stirring a foot with a sort of brutish daintiness through a foot-deep drift of litter.
    Cardozo scanned a ten-foot radius of sidewalk. He saw newsprint,