Too Sweet to Die by Ron Goulart, Llc Ebook Architects Read Free Book Online Page B

down. “There used to be rumors floating around that Nordlin had taken in quite a bit of extra dough during his years in office. Money from kickbacks, bribes, slush, and other under the counter political activities. All in cash, the kind of money you don’t tell the IRS about. A good part of it was supposed to be hidden away somewhere.”
    “What would that have to do with Jill?”
    Cruz said, “Maybe she took a few days off to go dig up some of daddy’s dough.”
    Easy scratched at his shaggy head. “I don’t think so, Joe,” he said. “If she did, where would she go. Carmel?”
    “Maybe.” Cruz gave a shrug. “I think the old senator also had a hideaway up north, someplace in Sonoma County. I don’t know where.”
    “Can you find out?”
    “Is it important?”
    Easy grinned. “One never knows.”
    Getting back behind his desk, Cruz made another note. “Think about that, John. Dean Constance makes almost a million off pornos. Old Nordlin made ten times that by being on the take. Does that tell you something?”
    “Maybe we ought to make a dirty movie about graft.” Easy took one last look out the window. The barber was still playing the guitar. “I’ll talk to you again tonight sometime.”
    “Do you know how to get over to Ross?” Cruz shook hands with Easy, led him to the door.
    “Ross I can find,” said Easy.

CHAPTER 10
    E ASY DROVE THROUGH THIN white fog until he reached the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge. Then there was all at once no more of it. Bright afternoon sun illuminated the low rolling hills of Marin County which lay ahead of him.
    Five little Japanese girls were walking along the pedestrian passway of the bridge, all with tiny arms held out at their sides like tightrope walkers. A fat young soldier was pressed against an orange railing, his camera aimed back at the fog-hidden San Francisco marina. A slender blonde girl was standing near the soldier, her hands tight in the pockets of her coat. She had a sad reflective look, as though she might be filing the bridge away under future suicide possibilities.
    A Grey Line Tour bus was stopped on the observation plateau on the Marin side of the bridge, unloading overweight tourists. Easy drove on.
    After a few minutes of unsettled countryside the highway took him through the fringes of towns. Roadside signs offered seafood, quick cash, boats, flying lessons, hamburgers, and lumber.
    As Easy turned off the highway and onto the boulevard leading inland to the town of Ross he reached down to snap on the car radio. He punched a station button at random.
    A disc jockey whose voice hadn’t quite changed yet was saying, “… and I believe it was, you know, possibly, recorded once or so earlier, you know, in a version aimed at a, you know, mainly black audience.”
    A highly amplified rock blues commenced. Another young voice, trying for a black sound, began singing. “Sometimes I think, mama, you too sweet to die. I say, sometimes I think you too sweet to die. An’ another time I think you ought to be buried alive.”
    “Ambivalence,” remarked Easy and turned off the radio.
    Eventually there were trees on both sides of him, pines, oaks, and evergreens. He located the street where Dean Constance lived, turned right. The narrow road climbed up into hills. Everybody up here had acres. Enormous houses rose far beyond the road, some guarded by high stone walls, others by trees. A silver-haired wolfhound came bounding out of a wide drive to chase Easy’s car, silent and un-barking, for a quarter of a mile.
    An unhappy gardener was picking bright yellow apples from a tree on the broad front acres of the estate next to Dean Constance’s. The rounded man wasn’t looking at his tree branches but over the low brick wall which partially masked Constance’s ten acres from him.
    There were cars and motorcycles and one semi-gutted yellow school bus scattered along the winding drive approaching Constance’s low cream-colored mansion. Easy parked his