Hard Case Crime: The Max by Jason Starr Ken Bruen Read Free Book Online Page A

he’d met who seemed to climb into the bottle, not only of Jameson but cologne. He sighed, thinking, The Irish. They had not one ounce of restraint.
    He went to get his stash, carefully hidden under the loose tile in the shower. Tipota , Greek for all gone. Not a bean. The bloody hell was this? And a note. A note?
Darling,
    Lest you ever think of running out on me, I’m, shall we say, holding this in trust for you.
    Xxxxxxx
    Love you loads
    Only one time he’d been a little the worse for wear on the old retsina and allowed her to come back to his place and the cunt, she’d cleaned him out.
    He checked his wallet. He had his vital credit cards, his return ticket to Athens, and about 200 Euro.
    Move , the voice in his head urged.
    He did, and fast.

    Angela, waiting for Sebastian to return with the cigs and booze, was on her hands and knees, scrubbing Georgios’ blood, getting a bad case of déjà vu. Yes, somehow it felt like she’d been through this before, but the worst part was this time she’d seen it coming. She was driving along the tunnel, the headlights coming right for her, and the idea that maybe she should, like, slow down or, even better, turn around , hadn’t occurred to her. Falling for a British accent of all things. Couldn’t it at least have been an athletic Brit, a David Beckham type? She knew she was posh enough to get any British guy she wanted, but she wound up with fookin’ Sebastian. Honestly, she’d never met a bigger wuss, as you’d call it in America. He was so fooking polite, she was just dying to take him to a few bars she knew in Ireland, introduce him to a few guys she knew, they’d make a man out of him all right.
    And what about the way he said “lordy” all the time and wore that God-forsaken safari jacket? He looked like an early victim in an Agatha Christie film, the first annoying bastard who gets bumped off. In bed the other night, he’d started reciting some god awful poem, something about a fookin Zionist. Pluck any drunk off the street in Dublin, he could write a better poem than that shite.
    Another thing: Would he open his jaw when he talked? Sometimes she’d have sworn his mouth must be wired shut.
    Sebastian was useless, no doubt about it, but right now she needed him, to get out of this mess. After they’d dumped the Greek’s body off the cliff she’d decided they had to clean up every drop of blood from the villa, then take off pronto . One thing Angela knew how to do was run like hell. They both agreed there was no way they could stick around and explain what had happened. The “he raped me and I killed him in self defense” story wouldn’t go over well with Greek cops — after all, nearly chopping off a guy’s head wasn’t exactly like spraying him with mace. She’d taken it a little too far, yeah, so, what else was new?
    And where was Sebastian already? She needed ouzo, a whole bottle of it, and how long had he been gone, a half hour already?
    The doorbell rang. Finally! What would his excuse be, that he’d soiled his knickers along the way and what a bloody inconvenience it was?
    This was the last time she was dating a Brit.
    But when she opened the door she saw a woman — dark with almost a full mustache and a unibrow.
    “Where is my Georgios?” the woman demanded.
    Angela was tempted to say, Atlantis, but went with, “Haven’t seen him in a few days.” She was very calm, but no surprise there. She was used to this, her experiences in New York and Dublin, lying to the cops, were coming in handy.
    The woman’s eyes were trying to look past Angela, into the house. Jesus, why had she gone and openedthe door without checking first? It was that fecking Sebastian, screwing with her brain.
    But one slip-up — shit, she was still holding the rag, the rag with Georgios’ blood. She managed to hide it behind her back and didn’t think the woman had noticed.
    The woman said, “If you’re fucking my husband, I kill you.”
    Husband? It surprised