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

Angela, but only for a second. These Greeks, they always had wives.
    Angela checked to make sure the woman wasn’t holding a meat cleaver, then said, “I beg your pardon. I mean, I never...”
    Sounding seriously miffed.
    “Yesterday, he tell me he go here to fix sink,” the woman said, “then he don’t come home. I know he like you, blondie. Every day he talk about the sexy girl from Ireland.”
    Squeezing the rag tightly behind her back, Angela said, “First of all, I have a boyfriend, Sebastian, he looks exactly like Lee Child.”
    The woman was lost.
    Angela added, “Secondly, I have no idea where your husband is, but if you want some advice, you should seriously think about divorcing that guy. I’ve heard stories about him.”
    She let it hang there.
    The woman glared, said, “Stories? What stories?”
    Angela exhaled, as if it were killing her to have tosay this, then said, “At the taverna. They’re saying your husband’s with a new woman every night. He cruises the clubs for American girls or some shite. I was appalled, if you want to know the truth. I don’t want to put any ideas in your head, but maybe your husband only told you he was coming to fix my sink. Maybe he was really out picking up a girl at a club. You ever think about that?”
    The woman was thinking about it now.
    Angela continued, “I don’t know if you Greeks do divorce, but you should seriously think about ditching that guy. You’re a beautiful woman, you can do so much better.”
    Actually the woman was as fugly as they come, but the compliment seemed to have an effect, at least momentarily. She stood a little straighter, her chin up, said proudly, “Do you really think so?”
    “I know so,” Angela said, suddenly sounding like a life coach. “Get your hair done, sweetie, buy some new clothes, get a makeover, and start doing things for you . You’ve been doing things for him for way too long.”
    Good thing Angela had watched so much Oprah over the years. Finally that shite was coming in handy.
    But either the woman wasn’t an Oprah fan or she suddenly remembered what she’d come here for, because her dark eyes narrowed again and she said, “If you see Georgios, tell him when he comes home his wife is going to kill him.”
    Tempted to say, Mission accomplished, Angela went with, “I’ll do that.”
    The woman left and the door slammed shut.
    Whew, that was close. Angela watched through the window, making sure the woman was gone, then got back to work, scrubbing the floor. Where the hell was Sebastian, that fuck-up? The useless fool been gone at least an hour. The stores were less than five minutes away by moped, was it possible he had gotten lost?
    When another hour went by and there was still no sign of him it set in that the stuffy Brit had ditched her. It wasn’t exactly unexpected; she knew the wimp wouldn’t be able to stand up to the heat, which was why she’d cleaned him out. The spineless bastard! She hoped he drove off a cliff, was feeding the fish like Georgios.
    She got the room as clean as it was going to get. She didn’t see any blood and even if she’d left some she figured they probably didn’t know their DNA from their drachmas on this backward fucking island. She packed her suitcase and hit the road.
    Walking to the village, she passed the old woman, and of course got the evil eye. Jeez, the woman was creepy, like some kind of witch. It occurred to Angela that she should have waited until night and left when she couldn’t be seen. So, okay, she’d panicked, made one slip-up, what did you expect? She hadn’t had a drink in, what, twelve hours? How was a girl supposed to think straight without a little ouzo flowing through her system?
    She took a cab to the port on the other, flatter side of the island. She didn’t want to have to ride the feckingdonkeys down to the docks, but she also wanted to get as far away from the villa and Giorgios’ wife as possible. See, her thinking wasn’t entirely