Don't Lose Her by Jonathon King Read Free Book Online Page A

photos on the immaculate desktop, and Armistead did not even give the computer screen a look when he sat down.
    â€œMr. Manchester has given us his instructions. And if you will only sign for this, Mr. Freeman, and please show me some form of ID, we can take care of this as quickly as he has urged.”
    A photo ID: the guy was giving me a hundred thousand dollars in cash on an ID and a signature. I always admired Billy’s contacts. I didn’t want to be him, but I did admire his connections.
    I showed my Florida driver’s license and signed. Mr. Armistead glanced at the ID. I was sure that he had already sized up the courier sitting before him: a tall, lean man whose specific age would be difficult to guess because of his athletic carriage and tanned and healthy complexion from extended periods of outdoor living. He might have been put off by my oxford shirt minus the tie, and my un-ironed khakis. And he may have noticed my scuffed leather boat shoes but probably hadn’t yet detected that I wasn’t wearing any socks.
    It’s a look I’ve cultivated because it makes people think: Cop? Boat captain? Salesman? Tourist? It’s bland enough to cover a lot of bases and keeps me from sticking out. In my business, you don’t want to stick out.
    Giving a hundred grand in cash to a guy who looked like an upscale deckhand or an aging Applebee’s waiter might not have been among Mr. Armistead’s usual banking duties, but again, Billy’s name smoothed all doubts. The man pulled a stuffed, softbound attaché case from under the desk and pushed it toward me as if it might be unlucky to hold on to it too long.
    I didn’t bother opening the case, and the banker’s stone-faced look indicated that he certainly would not encourage it, even in the quasi-privacy of the office.
    â€œThank you, sir,” I said, and he only nodded.
    I walked out of the bank with the attaché and went back to my car, which I’d parked deep in the corner of the lot in a Floridian’s favorite spot—under the shade of an old banyan tree. Shade, even in March, is coveted by those of us who know better than to put anything in the corrosive direct rays of a subtropical sun. You could bake bread on the front seat of a sedan parked on asphalt without shade in a couple of hours.
    After working an eight-hour shift in summer, it’s every office worker’s wonder that the polymer plastic making up radio knobs and door handles and gearshifts isn’t melting and dripping onto the floor mats when they get to their cars.
    I had also backed the Gran Fury into the spot up next to a ficus hedge to give me some cover when I popped the trunk and lay the attaché inside. I opened the case. I don’t care who you are or how rich you’ve become, seeing that much cash in twenty-dollar bills will make you blink your eyes and catch your breath. I took out six thousand three-packs in purple bindings and closed the case. Then I took my keys and reached far into the back of the trunk.
    After Billy had given me the Fury, I had a friend weld a steel drawer up above the space where a spare tire should go. You couldn’t see it if you just opened the trunk and looked in; you needed to know it by feel. I unlocked the drawer, retrieved a bundle wrapped in oilcloth, replaced it with the case full of money, and relocked it.
    I closed the trunk, surveyed the landscape for interested or furtive eyes, and then got into the driver’s side. Once settled behind the wheel, I unwrapped the oilcloth to expose the sig sauer P226 Navy handgun I’d been given by Rob Maine, a Florida gun expert who’d become another new friend. He’d been aghast that I was still harboring my old 9-mm police-issue handgun. He knew I was living out on the edge of the Everglades, and said the moisture was going to turn the old 9 mm into a hunk of rust despite my regular care of the weapon.
    â€œUse the SIG,” he said.