The Samaritan by Mason Cross Read Free Book Online Page B

follow.”
    I shook my head. “They mean they want me to find him and bring him to a storage unit where they can have somebody beat him up. Or worse.”
    Coop shrugged. “It’s a good offer . . .”
    “I don’t work for bad guys, Coop.”
    “Bullshit,” he said immediately.
    “Okay,” I agreed. “But I don’t help bad guys do bad things. It’s a rule.”
    “You got a lot of rules, Blake. Anyone ever tell you, you might be OCD?”
    “Yeah. But only you.”
    He smiled as though he’d half expected me to turn this one down. He slid the document wallet back into the briefcase.
    “Nothing else?” I asked.
    “Nothing that would meet your stringent criteria, anyway.”
    “I probably don’t want to know.”
    Coop didn’t respond to that. He turned away from me and signaled the waitress, who strolled over and took his order. Iced tea.
    “So what now?” he asked once she’d gone. “Some downtime, catch some Florida rays? You could use some sun, you know.”
    “I don’t like to stick around too long after a job,” I said. “But downtime sounds good. I’ll stay tonight. Tomorrow I’ll probably rent a car, head back home the slow way.”
    “And where’s home?”
    “Better you don’t know.”
    Coop smiled again and turned his head to look out the window at the harbor and the calm expanse of the Atlantic. Another soul song kicked in on the diner’s playlist: Sam Cooke’s “Bring It on Home to Me.” That song always reminds me of Carol, and I thought about our half-joking, inexpert waltz to that song, in a hotel room as the rain poured down outside. The night before the last time I ever saw her.
    After a long moment, Coop spoke again. “It’s funny, Blake, isn’t it? How easy it is for two personable guys like you and me to maintain the illusion.”
    “What illusion’s that?”
    “The illusion that we actually know each other.”
    “I don’t agree,” I said after a second.
    “You don’t?”
    I shook my head. “We don’t know anything about each other. That’s not the same thing. Where I live, where I came from . . . does any of that really matter? We know everything we need to know.”
    Coop looked back at me, a thoughtful, serious expression on his face. Eventually, he nodded in agreement. “I guess so.” He looked back out at the sun and the sand and the Atlantic. “It’s colder than here, though, right?”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “Home. Wherever you’re from is colder than here.”
    I smiled and changed the subject. We talked for another twenty minutes and another coffee for me and another ice tea for Coop, but the conversation never became as contemplative or as strangely personal as that again. We talked about Florida, about music, about the election next year. About everything but ourselves.
    After Coop had gone, no doubt to call somebody else about the off-white job in New York, I stayed awhile, watching the customers as the diner began to fill up for lunchtime. When I’d had enough of people, I turned back to the water and thought about the different places I’d called home. I thought about Carol.
    I thought a little about Winterlong, too. About how I’d come from somewhere colder.
     
8
     
LOS ANGELES
     
    Walter Dutton’s Mulholland Drive mansion was perhaps only a couple of miles or so from the makeshift grave across country, but more than half an hour by road. Maybe it was due to the fresh air, more likely it was just having something to focus on, but Allen’s headache had cleared, meaning this trip was more pleasant. At least, as pleasant as a trip to interview a man whose daughter was probably dead could ever be.
    Allen had seen homes like Dutton’s before, but only on television. Like many of the palatial residences that lined the route, it sat a respectable distance back from the road, behind eight-foot-high stucco walls. She wondered if it really was Brando’s old house. She’d caught the last half of The Godfather on TCM a couple of nights ago, but in truth