Peeper by Loren D. Estleman Read Free Book Online Page B

to.”
    â€œI changed my mind. Get up.”
    â€œIf I do you’ll just knock me down again.”
    â€œThat’s the idea. Scamming the Church, Jesus. What’d you do, take pictures?”
    â€œJust half a roll. They got all the money in the world, why shouldn’t I get some of it?”
    â€œAsk the hooker.”
    â€œAll I want you to do is hold the film for me. It could be what keeps me alive.”
    â€œThat’s not an argument in its favor.”
    â€œCome on, Neal. I always said you had a heart as big as your ass.”
    â€œI’ve been working out, remember? They’re neither of them as big as they used to be. But I’ll hold the film.”
    Ralph grinned. “Hey, I knew you would.”
    â€œJust cut me in for half.”
    â€œHalf of what?”
    â€œHalf of whatever the bishop pays you for the film. If I think you’re cheating me I’ll drop a dime on you, tell him you squirreled away extra negatives to squeeze him with later.”
    â€œHe’d have that bastard Carpenter chop me down for spite!”
    â€œGood a reason as any. Half’s the price; take it or leave it.”
    â€œCome on, Neal. That ain’t your style.”
    â€œIt is today.”
    â€œYou ain’t the only friend I got.”
    â€œYou don’t even have me. If you had anyone else to go to, you wouldn’t be here bleeding all over your shirt.”
    â€œHalf. Don’t nobody in this town know any other fractions?” He dug the container out of his pocket and held it up. Neal took it.
    â€œCan I get up now?”
    â€œSure.”
    Ralph got up. Neal hit him with his other fist. Ralph fell back against a wall, knocking loose a framed bar graph depicting the probable life spans of men and women based on environment, ratio of height to weight, and number of vices. Ralph stood at the low end. He put a hand to his nose and looked at the blood. “What the hell was that for?”
    â€œOld times’ sake. When you going to check in?”
    He found his handkerchief and dabbed at his nose. “Around eight. I’ll call from my place. They got the fire out before it reached my floor.”
    â€œThat was lucky. Gin flames are the hardest to put out.”
    Ralph left, tipping his head back with the handkerchief wadded under his nostrils. He drove across town with one hand on the wheel and the other at his nose. His lip had begun to swell.
    Outside the city limits, his route took him around and between steep hills with houses set into them like precious stones on green felt. The rain had let up and the sun had come out, making the smooth lawns sparkle. Bishop Steelcase’s street was a winding cul-de-sac lined with ranch houses, colonials, and large rambling English Tudors, at the end of which stood a big house built of gray stone with a slate roof and coach lamps flanking the front door. Blood-red firebushes grew to the sills of the ground-floor windows.
    His nose had stopped bleeding. Waiting for someone to answer the bell, he scrubbed the last traces from his nostrils and folded the handkerchief into a pocket.
    â€œPoteet.”
    Standing in the open doorway, Carpenter looked even more like a martyr than he had that morning in Lyla Dane’s apartment. He had on the same black coat buttoned to the neck and the light behind him haloed his stubbled head.
    Ralph shrank back. “I didn’t think you’d be here.”
    â€œHis Excellency is expecting you.”
    â€œPeople know where I am.”
    â€œI’m glad for you.” He stepped aside.
    Ralph entered a foyer hung with medieval tapestries and followed Carpenter down a hallway paneled in worm-eaten oak that looked as old as the Crusades. At the end Carpenter knocked on a cherrywood door. A voice invited them inside.
    The bishop was a tall old man, nearly as thin as Carpenter, with white hair brushed back in creamy waves and a face dark as hickory and falling away to