Night and Day (Book 3): Bandit's Moon by Ken White Read Free Book Online

Floresta. A vacant
    apartment across the street, an empty office. But I had a fixed deadline,
    and I couldn’t afford to spend time on a lot of preparation. I’d have to
    stick to what I could do on the fly.
    Foot surveillance of a fixed
    location is okay for an hour or two. After that, you begin to stick out,
    that guy who’s been leaning against a wall across the street all day. With
    the kind of cold we were forecast to have for the next week, foot
    surveillance was inviting only because it would give me the opportunity to
    move around and stay a little warmer. But I would probably need to watch
    the building for a lot more than a couple of hours.
    That meant using my Jeep. With the
    engine turned off, so the vapor from the exhaust system wouldn’t attract
    attention. An car idling for hours is as noticeable as a guy loitering
    across the street for hours. Maybe more so. Gasoline is expensive and
    rationed. Not something you waste.
    Without a running engine, there
    would be no heater. And there are few things worse than sitting in a car
    without heat for eight plus hours when it’s around the freezing point
    outside.
    The trick was to dress for the
    weather. In my case, that meant thermal underwear, two pairs of socks,
    hiking boots, thick jeans, a flannel shirt, a wool turtleneck, and a
    leather bomber jacket with a fleece lining. Topped with a heavy billed cap
    to cut down on heat loss from my head.
    When I was done layering myself up,
    I felt bulky but warm. The only problem was my pistol. I couldn’t wear it
    in my usual place on my right hip with all of the clothing I had
    on.
     With luck, I wouldn’t need
    it. But luck can be elusive when you’re sitting alone in a car for hours in
    the worst part of town. And I sure as hell didn’t want to go digging under
    the jacket, sweater and shirt if luck had an appointment
    elsewhere.
    So I pulled my rarely-used shoulder
    holster from the bedroom closet and slipped it over the sweater. If I saw trouble
    heading my way, I could unzip the jacket and be ready to yank the pistol
    from under my left arm to deal with it.
    My surveillance go-bag was in the
    living room closet. I grabbed it and headed for the door. It’s a duffle bag
    with a dozen energy bars, six pint-sized bottles of water, a small
    transistor radio with fresh batteries and a couple of empty 32-ounce
    plastic mayonnaise jars. The jars were for the water after it had passed
    through my system. When you gotta go, you gotta go, and the whole point of
    surveillance was to keep your eyes on the target all the time.
    I thought about skipping breakfast
    at Hanritty’s. Coffee, eggs and sausage probably wasn’t the right meal
    before hours in a car with no facilities other than the mayonnaise jars.
    But my stomach was growling, and an energy bar wasn’t going to shut it up.
    So I drove up to Expedition Square and parked on Gibson across the street
    from Hanritty’s.
    It’‘s a your typical
    hole-in-the-wall diner. Counter with stools on the right, four booths on
    the left. I know how to cook, but I still take almost all of my meals at
    Hanritty’s. When you work a schedule like mine, cooking is the last thing
    you want to do when you get home.
    Hanritty had my coffee waiting on
    the chipped Formica counter when I came through the door. He laughed when
    he saw me.
    “Gonna catch a flight to Alaska,
    Charlie, or did they just turn off your power at home?” he
    asked.
    “Gotta be out in the cold all day,
    Han,” I said, grabbing the cup and heading to the booth in the back corner.
    My regular table.
    “Well, you look like you should be
    warm enough for it,” he said with another laugh as he headed back to the
    big griddle behind the counter. “What’ll it be today? They say a big bowl
    of oatmeal will keep you warm.”
    Gutbomb. “Let’s go with the bacon,”
    I said. “And white toast, not wheat.” I’d read somewhere that white bread
    had less fiber than wheat, and as much as I like my fiber,