The Man With the Iron-On Badge by Lee Goldberg Read Free Book Online

both items to be ready.
    The photos were done first, so I took them with me over to Fat Burger for a quick dinner. I was careful not to dribble anything on the pictures as I looked through them.
    The first thing that struck we was how her eyes blazed, even in a photograph. The moment was frozen but her eyes were alive.
    I felt the irrational fear that she might actually be able to see me and then I found, weirdly, that I wished she could.
    I attributed the feelings to hunger and lack of sleep, because otherwise they didn’t make any sense.
    I studied the pictures, first because I thought she was beautiful, and I was surprised that a cheapo camera like the Kodak disposable managed to capture the darkness of her hard nipples under her blouse. But then I studied the pictures for another reason. Something had changed about her over the two days, and I couldn’t figure out what it was.
    Her clothes were different, of course, and the expressions on her face covered a lot of emotional range, but otherwise I couldn’t tell what had changed. But I knew something had. I could feel it.
    I finished my burger, and went back to Thrifty and bought a magnifying glass before picking up my uniform next door.
    When I got back to my car, I hung my uniform up in the backseat, got inside, and looked at the pictures again, this time with the magnifying glass. I had no idea what I was looking for, but it seemed like the professional thing to do. I figured there must be a reason why the magnifying glass is the universal logo for private eyes.
    I looked her over real good. She may have been the most beautiful woman with the most perfect body I’d ever seen. And then there were those eyes, like the tractor beams Captain Kirk was always using to capture objects in space. Once you were locked in a tractor beam, good luck escaping without a fight.
    I moved the magnifying glass slowly down her slender neck, almost like a caress, to professionally scrutinize the rest of her perfect body.
    And then I noticed it, and I went back quickly over all the pictures to make sure.
    I sat back and smiled at myself in the rearview mirror. I had just accomplished my first piece of true detecting based on instinct, investigation, and deduction.
    In my mind, at that moment, I became a detective.
    I was drying off from my shower and getting ready for bed around seven P.M. when there was a knock at my door. I could tell from the knock it was Carol, so I just yelled for her to come in.
    It’s not that we had a secret knock or anything like that, she just knocks a certain way. Maybe there’s a rhythm to it or something.
    I put on my terrycloth robe and walked into the living room, which means I also walked into the kitchen, den, and library at the same time.
    “How’s it going, Magnum?” Carol smiled. She was still in her Anne Klein suit, the one she bought on sale and was so proud of, so I knew she’d just come from work without even stopping by her apartment first.
    Actually, I didn’t know she did that. I deduced it. I wondered if maybe I’d been a detective longer than I’d thought.
    “You weren’t home last night,” she said. “Did you get lucky?”
    “I was on the case.”
    “Uh-huh,” She went to the fridge and helped herself to a Coke. “What happened to your car?”
    “What do you mean?” I asked quickly. For a minute, I was afraid that somehow she’d found out about the accident.
    “There’s a new car parked in your spot.” She sat down on the couch and put her feet up on the coffee table.
    “It’s just something I rented so I wouldn’t be noticed,” I said, trying to sound casual. “But I am thinking, when this is over, of getting rid of my junker.”
    I added that last part to cover the inevitable purchase of a new ride.
    “What happened to your forehead?” she asked.
    I reached up and felt a little lump on my brow, probably a bruise from the accident.
    “Nothing. It’s just what happens when I think too hard,” I said. I really