Slow Burn by G. M. Ford Read Free Book Online Page B

fall partially over one
eye, lending, he probably imagined, a certain boyish charm to his otherwise
dissolute appearance.
    He was on the
phone.
    "I'll tell
you what, then, Myron. You just tell them to run what they been paid for. We're
paid up through Wednesday. They don't wanna renew the ad, then fuck 'em. Be too
damn late by that time anyway. Heh, heh, heh. By the time those damn fools get
their shit together, we'll have his big brisket broiled." He pushed the
off button and snapped the cell phone shut. He saw me and scowled. "Rickey
Ray . . ." he began.
    Tolliver
stepped out from behind me. "Name's Leo Waterman, Jack. He's the guy from
convention security."
    A grin split
his face. "Well, hell's bells, why didn't you say so, Rickey Ray." He
started across the room toward me. "Get Mr. Waterman here a drink,
boy," he said.
    Tolliver headed
for the bar. I caught his eye. "Mineral water," I said.
"Something like that." He winked his injured eye.
    Jack Del Fuego
threw an arm around my shoulder and began hustling me toward the center of the
room. "Yer not a teetotaler, now, are ya, Waterman?" .
    "Nope,"
I said. "Just getting older and got a long day in front of me, is all. I
start drinking this time of day, I'll have to grab a nap."
    He clapped me
on the back. "Glad to hear it," he said. "Can't trust a
teetotaler. They're damn near as bad as them vegetarians and animal rights
assholes. Enough to puke a buzzard, if ya ask me."
    When I seemed
to agree, he gave me the canned spiel, in the third person, referring to
himself as "ol' Jack." How ol' Jack started out with a little joint
in Allstin, Texas, and built it into a thirty-three-store chain. How ol'
Jackeroo had been betrayed from within. How the world would soon tire of what
he called Abby's "Styrofoam steaks." How his betrayers had grossly
underestimated the ol' Jackalope's legendary resiliency and would now face the
wrath of the Jackster.
    Rickey Ray
produced a lemon-lime water over ice and handed it to me. Jack waited until I
had swallowed half of it and then leaned close.
    "You been
over to see the Meyerson midget yet?" he asked.
    "No, sir,
I haven't," I said.
    "Don't be
listenin' to her bullshit, now, boy. That little shit got more stories than the
naked city. She starts runnin' me down, tellin' stories, all that, you just ask
her about the bone."
    "The
bone?"
    "The pork
chop bone her husband, Lutz, choked to death on." "What about
it?"
    "She had
it gold-plated. Used it for a key chain."
    I held his gaze.
"Come on. Really?"
    "Used to
give out little bronze replicas to her employees, you know, like for promotions
and employee of the month and that stuff."
    "Sounds
like one of those stories to me," I said.
    He took the arm
that wasn't around my shoulder and held it up.
    "As God is
my witness," he said. "I will, of course, allow you to draw your own
conclusions as to how that big old bone got stuck that far down that man's
skinny little throat."
    "Of
course," I said.
    "She
starts runnin' me down on my parentin' skills, sniv-elin' about how I didn't do
right by my stepkids and all that other crap of hers, you just ask her about
that daughter of hers that she don't talk to no more. Nice girl, name of Penny.
Married some kind of tradesman. The Meyerson hag dropped her like a hot potato.
Couldn't stand to have no blue-collar trash in the family. No, sir. You ask her
about that."
    I swore to
wedge it in at the first conversational break.
    "Now, I
don't know what you know about my present situation . . ." he said.
"I got me some real security problems." He shot a quick glance at
Rickey Ray. "Not the personal kind, ya know. Ol' Rickey Ray here's more'n
capable of watchin' out for my big ass. Three-time Ultimate Fighting Challenge
champeen. Nobody else ever won it twice. Got him every kinda belt in every
goddamn gook martial arts discipline known to man. The problem I got is—"
    Before he could
continue, the lock in the hall door snapped and a tall blond woman bustled
through