Kim Oh 3: Real Dangerous People (The Kim Oh Thrillers) by K. W. Jeter Read Free Book Online Page B

should do? Just you and me. You come along here by yourself sometime. And we’ll have lunch out on the patio. And just talk. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
     
    Like that was ever going to happen.
     
    “It sure would, Mrs. Falcone. We’ll do that.”
     
    She actually took my arm and walked a few steps with me, toward the living room.
     
    “Believe me,” she said, “ I’m glad you’re here.”
     
    What’d she heard? Maybe she was sharper than she let on.
     
    “I’ve been thinking that my husband’s business needs more of a . . . more of a female touch to it. Don’t you agree?”
     
    I could see the rest of the crew glancing in Falcon’s direction. He didn’t even seem to notice them, as he knocked back the contents of his glass.
     
    * * *
     
    A little while later, I was with Curt, out in front of the mansion. Mrs. Falcon had finally gone back upstairs to take a nap, leaving us to go about our job.
     
    Foley and Elton came around the corner, their shoes crunching on the decorative white-washed gravel.
     
    “How’s it look?”
     
    Elton glanced across the landscaped grounds, then turned back to Curt.
     
    “Pretty good –” He and Foley had been checking out the territory, looking for weak points, places where someone might get in. Someone like the guy who had turned up unexpectedly at the restaurant, where Heinz had gotten killed. “Couldn’t really see any traces of somebody casing the place.”
     
    “Should do something about that ivy.” Foley pointed to the distance behind the mansion. “It’s gotten pretty thick on one of the back garden walls. Stripping it off would be a good idea.”
     
    “Okay.” Curt nodded. “I’ll get the gardeners out, have ’em take care of it. Come on.”
     
    He led us back up the steps to the front door.
     
    Falcon, with Earl hovering nearby, was waiting for us inside.
     
    “So how does it look, gentlemen?” Looking over his half-frame reading glasses, he tossed a folded copy of The Wall Street Journal onto one of the end tables. “Any issues that need to be addressed?”
     
    “There’s a couple,” said Curt. “Nothing major. I’m pretty sure we got a little time before anything else happens. Whoever we’re up against, he’ll need a while to regroup –”
     
    “How long’s a little time?”
     
    Curt shrugged. “Couple days. But we’ll have everything tightened up before then.”
     
    “You’d better.”
     
    Falcon didn’t have to say anything more than that. This might’ve been the first time for me, but the old guys had been in this kind of situation before. Somebody was gunning for their boss. That was the takeaway from all that mess at the restaurant. Just like my old boss McIntyre, Falcon wanted to go legit. People like him always do. For a lot of reasons. If they make it, they not only got less hassle from the feds, but they also tended to live a lot longer. The way Cole had explained it to me once, you saw a lot more retired businessmen sunning on some beach in Florida than you ever saw retired criminal types. That was because people like McIntyre and Falcon were usually in boxes under the turf by then. It was just something that came with the territory. So going legit made a lot of sense, both from the business and personal standpoint – the problem, though, was getting there. Sometimes there were other people who didn’t want you to. It’d been somebody like that who’d set up the hit at the restaurant. They wouldn’t stop just because they had nailed Heinz –
     
    So we had to make sure they didn’t get another chance at our boss.
     
    “I want you two here tonight.” Curt pointed to Foley and Earl. “Spell each other. I want at least one of you awake all the time. Got it?”
     
    Foley nodded. “No problem.”
     
    “Oh, good  –”
     
    We glanced over at the doorway. Mrs. Falcon had reappeared. Sweet as ever, but her nap hadn’t made her any less wobbly.
     
    “I was hoping you would all still be