The Empress File by John Sandford Read Free Book Online Page A

never came out right. There's a way of making quick, beautiful clouds with watercolor. You lay down a wash of cobalt blue on a good white paper like a 240-pound cold-pressed D'Arches. While the wash is still wet, you bleed in some gray where the shadowed portions of the cloud will be. Then you crumple a paper towel and lightly press it into the wash. When you pick it up, you leave behind a perfect feathery summer cloud...
    But in my sleep it wasn't working. I'd pick up the paper towel and find a face. I don't know whose face. A man's. Dead, I think. I struggled with it for a while, then felt myself being pulled up to consciousness. My eyes popped open, and I was awake and sweating.
    Something was wrong. The apartment building is old and creaks and groans with temperature changes; those noises were all solidly filed in my subconscious. Something else was going on. I listened, trying to keep my breathing unchanged, and heard nothing but a deep and continuing silence. I turned my head a fraction of an inch to the left, toward the clock. Four in the morning. I'd been in bed an hour.
    At the foot of the bed, and off to the right, I could barely make out the lighter rectangle of the open door. As I watched it, a dark shape seemed to slip through. For a second I thought it was my imagination. Then a narrow-beam flashlight sliced through the dark and crossed the bed before it cut out again.
    I was trapped under the sheet and a light blanket. If I did a roll, I might make it off the edge of the bed between the bed and the wall, but from there I didn't know where the next move would be.
    "Hey, Kidd..." The voice was soft, amused, and distinctly feminine.
    I sat up, furious, the adrenaline still pumping. "Goddamn it, LuEllen, you scared the shit out of me."
    "Aw, poor baby."
    I punched the bed light. LuEllen was grinning at me from the foot of the bed. "What the hell are you doing here?" I asked.
    "Well," she said, with a barely audible sniff, "I thought I'd probably find you in bed with that Charade person-"
    "Chaminade-"
    "Whatever." She made a gesture to indicate that the name was of no importance. "I wouldn't want to disturb you in the midst of a rut, so I tried to be a little discreet."
    "Jesus Christ, you almost stopped my fuckin' heart," I growled. "How'd you get in?"
    "Professional secret. You got nice locks, by the way." She dropped the miniature steel flashlight into the pocket of her maroon jacket. LuEllen doesn't wear black, because it's noticeable. If you get pinned by a cop's spotlight, a deep red comes off better. And in shadow, where she does her best work, a maroon or burgundy is no more visible than black. "Weenie said you wanted something. Business."
    "Yeah. I've got one, but I don't know how much money there'll be." I yawned, dropped my feet on the floor, and rubbed my hair around. "It's mostly a favor for Bobby. Maybe we can work something out on the money."
    "Interesting?" She sat on the end of the bed.
    "Could be. It's sort of like running a revolution. He wants us to help some people take over a town."
    She crossed her legs and stroked a small white scar that dimpled her chin. "I'm so fucking bored I'll take anything."
    "How's the coke?" I asked.
    "I'm cutting down," she said defensively.
    "Right." The skepticism showed in my voice.
    "I am. I'm down to less than a gram." She yawned and took a long, deliberate stretch, just to show me that she was staying in shape. "So it's Chemise and who else?" she asked.
    "Chaminade took a hike. I don't feel like being teased about it."
    "Oops. Sorry," she said cheerfully. "But she was bound to go. You are an impossible motherfucker to live with."
    Chapter 4
    LuEllen spent the night on the sofa. When I wandered through the living room the next morning, she was still asleep. She was wearing one of my old T-shirts for a top and a pair of pink underpants. She had twisted her blanket into a coil and wrapped her arms and legs around it, like a kid climbing a rope. I stepped over to