One for My Baby (Phoenix Noir Book 4) by Barry Graham Read Free Book Online Page A

which he’d planned to play if she’d shown up tonight. When he’d finished, there was some applause, and then a man in his sixties, more expensively dressed than the others in the bar, came and shoved some money in the tip jar.
    “Thanks,” Mark said.
    “You’re welcome,” Casci said. “Do you know any murder ballads?”
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    B efore Mark left with Casci and his larger, younger employee, who introduced himself as Fitzgerald and asked if Mark knew any Irish songs, he quietly asked Tony to forget who he saw him leave with.  He didn’t tell Tony about the photo they’d shown him of Linda. He did tell him that the cops were part of it, and that there was nothing Tony could do to help him, and a lot that he could do to hurt himself if he didn’t develop amnesia.
    “Fuck, Mark, I’m sorry,” Tony said.
    Mark told Tony his address. “Will you remember that? If I don’t contact you, will you make sure my cat’s okay? His name’s Pangur Ban.”
    Tony nodded, and repeated the address, then wrote it on a napkin.
    “Thanks for helping me out,” Mark said. “You’re a friend.”
    When Mark had left with the men, Tony stood looking at the keyboard he had played. He looked at the stool Mark had sat on while playing. He went to the restroom, bent over the toilet and retched, but nothing came up.

EIGHT
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    T he floor was concrete. The room was cool, so the walls were probably thick, but that didn’t matter because the place wasn’t close to anywhere there might be people who would hear anything.  Mark wasn’t even sure which direction they’d driven in—he knew it was to the West, but didn’t know if they’d gone North or South. Phoenix  is on a grid, so you always have some idea of where you are, but fear had shut down the part of his brain that could process such information. As they got out of the car, he realized they were on the edge of some kind of industrial district.
    The room had no furniture aside from some metal chairs. When Casci and Fitzgerald brought Mark in, Linda was sitting on one chair, and Rankin on another. Linda was exactly as she’d been in the photo they’d shown Mark, handcuffed to the chair, looking a decade older than she was. She looked at Mark, but her face didn’t change and she said nothing.
    “How was the show?” Rankin said.
    “The boy can sing and play the piano for sure,” Casci said. “So now it’s the after-party.”
    “These chairs are damn uncomfortable,” Rankin said.
    “Sorry about that. I usually stand when I’m here. This place really isn’t a lounge. And stainless steel chairs are the best, because you can just wipe the blood right off of them.”
    Rankin looked admiringly at Mark’s suit and Fedora. “It’ll be a shame to get blood on those threads.”
    “He won’t need them,” Casci said.
    “I used my only pair of cuffs on her. Do you want me to take them off her and use them on him?”
    “No need. Since his music and dress sense is so old school, we’re gonna do this in his kind of style. Show him, Fitz.”
    Fitzgerald reached inside his jacket and pulled a 12-inch beaver-tail sap. He swung it at Mark, and, even though Mark saw it coming and tried to dodge, it landed on his shoulder and he went to the floor, shrieking in pain, clutching his shoulder and curling into a ball.
    Fitzgerald and Casci grinned at each other. Rankin looked grim. Linda didn’t seem to register what was happening.
    “See?” Casci said. “A little tap with a traditional tool and you don’t need to worry about handcuffs. The cops in the old days knew that.”
    “This sap belonged to my gramps,” Fitzgerald said. “He was a cop.”
    Casci looked at Linda. “Got anything to say to him, since you missed your chance with Joel?”
    Linda said nothing, seemed to be looking at something very far away.
    “She’s a real femme fatale, this one,” Casci told Mark. “You’ll be the second one who’s died for her this week.